European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Report stage: First Day: House of Commons
Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

These issues are very much to do with legal clarity. They are to do with ensuring that the body of our law can operate smoothly and with stability, and that the courts can properly interpret the way in which various rights will apply in the circumstances that our individual constituents may encounter.

You were not in the Chair during the Committee stage, Mr Speaker, but you may recall that we had some discussion about aspects of the charter of fundamental rights. Amendment 4, and amendment 7 tabled by members of the Scottish National party, makes the important point that, as we heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), this is not a simple “copy and paste” piece of legislation. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn): it seems very peculiar that the charter has been explicitly excluded from the carrying forward of rights. Ministers say, “Do not worry: all those matters are already covered”, or “Common law can deal with them adequately”, but I do not think that such verbal assurances are good enough, and evidence given to the Exiting the European Union Committee bears that out.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)]

I read what the report said about the issue of the charter of fundamental rights, and I must say that I thought it very inconclusive. I do not think that the Committee took a strong position on either side of the debate.

[Mr Leslie]

The Select Committee consists of Members in all parts of the House. Far be it from me to interfere with the way in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central manages—heaven knows how—to steer through a report compiled by a Committee that is not only august but enormous. Evidence was submitted, however, and I do not think that it can be swept away.

Let me remind the Committee what we are talking about when we refer to the Charter of Fundamental Rights. We are talking about rights that relate to

“dignity, the right to life, to freedom from torture, slavery, the death penalty, eugenic practices and human cloning”.

We are talking about

“freedoms, the right to liberty, personal integrity, privacy, protection of personal data”—

which will be a massive issue when it arises later in our proceedings—

“marriage, thought, religion, expression, assembly, education, work, property and asylum”.

We are talking about

“equality, the right to equality before the law, prohibition of all discrimination including on the basis of disability, age and sexual orientation, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity, the rights of children and the elderly”.

Again, some of those rights are not necessarily enshrined in primary legislation, but have accrued because of our membership of the European Union over several decades. We are talking about

“solidarity, the right to fair working conditions, protection against unjustified dismissal, and access to health care, social and housing assistance…citizens’ rights, the rights of citizens such as the right to vote in elections and to move freely, the right to good administration, to access documents and to petition Parliament”.

We are also talking about justiciable rights:

“the right to an effective remedy, a fair trial, to the presumption of innocence, the principle of legality, non-retrospectivity and double jeopardy.”

We can all point to parts of existing UK law where many of those rights may be covered adequately, but other rights—particularly those relating to children and families and to social policy—are connected very much with EU law.

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[Mr Leslie]

I am worried. The right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) was saying to her hon. Friends, “Be careful because our constituents do care about rights.” She said in particular that younger people care about rights. They really do matter. They may not matter to them in their daily lives today, but they may matter to them or their family or relatives or the environment tomorrow. Those are all things our constituents care about.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman has been incredibly generous in taking interventions throughout his speech. When this matter was debated at the previous stage, we had a long discussion on the charter of fundamental rights and it was clear that it divides into three sections. One section is already covered by the Human Rights Act, another section will be meaningless when we leave Europe—it includes rights such as the right to petition the European Parliament—and there is a middle section where there are rights that we should look at carefully. The right way to deal with that is through a constitutional Bill in due course to reset our own rights settlement in this country for all citizens, not just for European law.

[Mr Leslie]

If that were the right way, the Government would have introduced a Bill to provide such certainty, instead of saying, “Mañana. Maybe at some point in the future we will try to close this loophole.” We have the Trade Bill now, as well as the Nuclear Safeguards Bill and a customs Bill. We are supposed to have an immigration Bill at some point, although I suspect that the Government are having a few difficulties figuring out how to bring it forward. These Bills are supposed to be the fundamental underpinnings of the copy-and-paste process that the Government are pursuing. They are supposed to be taking aspects of European Union rules and regulations and ensuring that they will still be here after March 2019, but no Bill relating to the charter of fundamental rights has been brought forward.

[Mr Leslie]

Personally, I believe that Parliament does and should value the provisions of the charter of fundamental human rights. I trust our legal system to be able to reconcile textual difficulties between different Acts. I would rather operate on the precautionary principle and have those rights covered within our law than see the protections that are offered to our constituents expunged at this point, only to unwittingly discover later that the rights we used to have under the charter are no longer provided for because the Government of the day did not want to transpose them.

While talking about rights, but in a completely different context, I want to talk about new clause 7, which has been tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). It relates to animal sentience and the welfare of animals—not human rights but animal rights. If there is one issue that can be guaranteed to fill all our inboxes, it is the protection of animal rights. Our constituents really do care about this issue. The Government have already got into a tremendous pickle over this, and it would have been funny if it were not so tragic to see the Secretary of State for the Environment scrabbling around trying to pretend that, all of a sudden, the Government really cared about these matters.

Brexit will affect this area quite considerably. On the International Trade Committee, we heard evidence from various animal rights organisations and others involved in the agricultural trade sector, including the National Farmers Union and those involved with what are known as the sanitary and phytosanitary regulations relating to the import and export of animal products. There is a reason that the Americans dip their chickens in chlorine, Mr Speaker. I do not know whether you have had chlorinated chicken recently. I am not that fussy myself, but perhaps we will be invited to a tasting session at the new American embassy at some point. The reason they dip their chickens in chlorine is that the welfare standards that cover their abattoirs and the way in which their animals are looked after before slaughter are far worse than ours. Before the animals reach the consumer, they need to be cleaned up in a way that is not necessary here in the UK because we have higher welfare standards, not least by virtue of our membership of the European Union. Across all the European Union, we take a precautionary principle when it comes to this kind of regulation. We do not have to dip our chickens in chlorine, because they are already subject to certain health and safety standards.

Animal welfare issues matter in relation to trade as well. I find it perplexing when Conservative Members say that our salvation will be a trade deal with President Trump and the United States. We all know that the primary goal of the United States will be to have a treaty in respect of agriculture. If we do such a deal, the Americans will want to sell us animal products that have been produced under lower welfare and regulatory standards. That will be the deal they will seek. However, if the Secretary of State for the Environment says that we are going to have exactly the same regulatory standards as we have now, he will effectively be telling the Americans that there can be no trade deal. That would be the outcome—[Interruption.] It would certainly be a very big sticking point.

[Charlie Elphicke]

In Dover and Ramsgate in east Kent, we have to put up with the evil and wicked trade of live animal exports, and we have to do that because of European law. We now see an opportunity to stop that evil trade, for the sake of our communities and for animal welfare, by leaving the European Union and taking back control. Does the hon. Gentleman not welcome that?

[Mr Leslie]

There are ways of mending, improving and reforming animal safety standards within the European Union. We should be making the case to do that. We do not want to throw away the benefits that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents enjoy, such as being free from traffic jams—not all the time but on many occasions. If Dover has to institute all the necessary sanitary and phytosanitary checking and inspections, with all the warehousing arrangements and other obstacles and regulations that will be needed at the border because we have left the European Union, his constituents will be mightily annoyed by the bureaucracy that they will encounter.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

Yes, the right hon. Lady makes a good argument about how we are transposing certain bits of European legislation into UK law but not necessarily the protections to go alongside them. That is the point we need an explanation on. Why not bring those with us?

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)]

I have been listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s argument on transposing the charter of fundamental rights into British law. Is it his case that it should be transposed as a cut and paste or that it should be adapted? Article 39 talks about the right to stand for the European Parliament, article 44 talks about the right to petition the European Parliament and article 45 talks about freedom of movement, all of which would presumably no longer be relevant after we leave the EU.

[Mr Leslie]

I have been in Parliament since 1997, on and off, and I find that amendments can often be rebutted for a number of reasons but when people say there is a technical deficiency that tends to be the last refuge of the Minister. There may well be arguments that say that we need to cut and paste the charter of fundamental rights or the Francovich provisions, but to do so having regard to changes in the language to take account of new circumstances. Everybody can recognise the need for consequential or supplemental amendments to the legislation sometimes, but let us not kid ourselves: we are talking about some far bigger principles here. I hope the hon. Gentleman would not diminish the importance of the charter of fundamental rights and those myriad legal rights and protections we have that are so essential for the specific and general reasons I have given in this debate.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I do accept that, and it is good that we have had discussions through the usual channels, treating the Finance Bill this year more in what is known as the “wash-up” procedure rather than our normal less-constrained procedures. Nevertheless, I think we should pause and dwell on the fact that in a fixed-term Parliament the date of the final Budget may have consequences downstream for the legislation that is spat out at the other end. Perhaps we should consider allowing a little more time between the final Budget and the end of the Parliament—obviously a Labour Government will be in power for the next five years, so this may be quoted back at me in five years’ time—so that we have a more considered approach.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Is it a Labour party manifesto commitment to have an early Budget in the last year of a Labour Government in a fixed-term Parliament scenario?

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman must wait for our manifesto in which we shall reveal all those details.

Future Government Spending

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I shall give way in a moment. What has been less well known is the devastatingly corrosive effect of stagnant wages, falling tax receipts and rising welfare costs on the health of our public finances. The social security bill is £25 billion more than planned at the outset of the Parliament. Tax credit costs have risen to subsidise the low-wage economy. Incidentally, my hon. Friends know from looking at the statistics last week that, in just one year, the number of zero-hours contracts in our society has grown by 20%.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Leslie]

I shall give way in a moment. The number of working people receiving housing benefit has gone up by two thirds since the last general election, tax receipts have been £68 billion lower than expected and national insurance contributions have been £27 billion lower than expected. That impact on the state and health of the public finances has been a direct result of the stagnant wages and suppressed living standards in our society.

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[Chris Leslie]

I will give way in a moment.

I am afraid that Conservative Members are not driven by rationality when it comes to a strategy for dealing with the public finances. They are driven by dogma. [Interruption.] Oh, yes. They are on an ideological crusade to shrink public services as a percentage of national income. Their plan, when they stand up to talk about these things, is not about eliminating the deficit at all; it is beyond that. The guiding principle of the Conservative party is a desire for public services actively to decline year after year after year.

That is why so many Conservative Members have joined that fabled Conservative group, the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs. The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) is not in the Chamber, but he has famously called for massive reductions in public spending. The Economic Secretary, who will wind up the debate, is also a member of the Free Enterprise Group, as is her colleague the Exchequer Secretary and the hon. Members for Macclesfield (David Rutley), for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and for Dover (Charlie Elphicke). I am sure there are others, although perhaps of a lower ranking order within the Free Enterprise Group structure. [Interruption.] Well, I am not a member of the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs and, with members like that, I am quite glad I am not.

That organisation reveals the true face of the Conservative agenda. It believes very much in shrinking the state and it is driven by that fundamental belief. It is highly dogmatic and has used the financial crisis as a pretext for reducing the level of public investment.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman is a member of the Free Enterprise Group. Does he stand by its manifesto?

[Charlie Elphicke]

Let us talk about Labour’s spending commitments. The shadow Minister has been going up and down the country making £20 billion-worth of unfunded spending commitments. Would they be paid for by more borrowing or more taxes?

[Chris Leslie]

That was a good try, but the hon. Gentleman knows very well that we do not have unfunded spending commitments. Our manifesto will be fully costed and fully funded. He does not need to take my word for it: we would be more than happy to let the OBR audit all of the proposals in our manifesto and to undertake to validate that they are, indeed, fully costed. I wonder if any Government Members would like to support the idea that all the political parties should have their manifestos fully costed by the OBR. Can I see a show of hands?

NHS (Government Spending)

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a number of issues there. He has plenty to puzzle over, and he will always be a puzzled individual. The bigger question is where is the Secretary of State for Health when we are talking about these particular issues? [Hon. Members: “There!”] There he is. He is so anonymous he just did not make any impact on me whatever. I am delighted that he has walked in. He is quite unforgettable, isn’t he?

The NHS has experienced problems not just in accident and emergency departments, as has been said, but across a series of services: missed cancer treatment targets for three successive quarters—15,000 people having to wait longer than the recommended 62 days to start their cancer treatment in the past year. It has not always been like this.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

The Government inherited a situation in which 98% of patients were seen in accident and emergency departments within four hours. While one in four patients is now waiting a week to see their GP, when Labour left office the vast majority were seen within 48 hours. In January, we know that 14 NHS trusts declared major incident status. [Interruption.] The urgent question today did not really provide the opportunity to clarify the exact words in the NHS England document, so I want to take this opportunity to do so on behalf of my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State.

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

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[Chris Leslie]

I am glad that my hon. Friend mentions the situation with GP numbers, which is another factor in the NHS infrastructure being under such pressure.

Let us look at what has been happening with GP numbers, which are not keeping up with demand in the rising population. In 2009, there were 62 GPs for every 100,000 people; that has now fallen to 59 and a half GPs per 100,000 people. We have also seen cuts to GP training. It is no wonder that the Government ditched the 48-hour guarantee for people to be able to see a GP.

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he can explain why the Government dropped the pledge that patients, including his constituents in Dover, should be able to see their GP within 48 hours.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Can the hon. Gentleman explain why he, rather than the shadow Health Secretary, is leading this debate? Is it because the shadow Health Secretary is reported to be clinging to his job, without any guarantees from the Leader of the Opposition?

[Chris Leslie]

There you have it, Madam Deputy Speaker. Government Members are not concerned in any way about the state of the NHS or about GPs, but only about asking questions about procedure and process. I am here today because the shadow Treasury team, like every shadow departmental team on the Labour Front Bench, is committed to supporting our NHS and to making sure that we get the investment that is needed.

Why is the situation so fragile? The Government scrapped NHS Direct and fragmented it into 46 separate, cut-price 111 contracts, which does not ensure that 60% of calls are dealt with by medical staff. That figure is now down to 20%. It is no wonder patients are so quickly being driven back to—[Interruption.]

The Economy

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I have only just started my remarks. I shall come on to employment, the levels of under-employment in our economy and the changing nature of the employment market because that is crucial. It links in particular to the health of our public finances and I want to touch on some of those issues, but I wanted to make sure that the House was aware of the Chancellor’s promises made in the autumn statement of 29 November 2010, just so everybody can see the context in which we have to appraise the Chancellor’s performance.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman in a moment, but it is not just on the deficit that we have seen difficulties, as there is a second aspect of the Chancellor’s promises back in 2010. He promised that by this financial year, he would

“get debt falling as a percentage of GDP”—[Official Report, 29 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 532.]

Yet it turns out that he has failed on that, as well. In fact, he is now saying that debt is not going to start falling as a percentage of GDP until some time in the middle of the next Parliament. It is really important to pin down the Chancellor’s promises and the failure to deliver on them.

[Chris Leslie]

If my hon. Friend does not mind, I said I would give way to the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) first.

[Charlie Elphicke]

This morning, 30.8 million people went to work—a record in our country’s history. That is no mean feat after Labour’s crash. With the storm clouds gathering again in the eurozone, why would we ever want to go back to where we were four and a half short years ago?

[Chris Leslie]

When it comes to the nature of our recovery, the fact is that most people are not feeling the great benefit that the hon. Gentleman espouses. The vast majority of people—confirmed in opinion polls just last week—are reporting that, as far they are concerned, life is getting harder and their living standards are falling, not rising.

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[Chris Leslie]

This may even be the worst situation since the 1870s. Perhaps we should ask the House of Commons Library to go back in history, and tell us how bad things were in the 19th century.

I have set out our priorities for the autumn statement. However, we do not just need a strong economy to ensure that everyone gets a piece of the action; we need a strong and sustained economy to deliver strong and sustained public finances, which is why the autumn statement also needs a plan to balance the nation’s books in a fair way.

When will Ministers realise that the health of our economy shapes the health of our public finances? During the first seven months of this year, borrowing has been £3.7 billion higher than it was during the same period last year. Why? The Office for Budget Responsibility itself says that stagnant wages and all those low-paid jobs are keeping tax revenues down. The Chancellor has to realise that a low-wage, low-productivity economy will not deliver the goods. The OBR is predicting that growth will slow down next year, and yesterday the OECD cut its growth forecast for this year and next year.

The deficit has not been tackled effectively, and not just because of falling revenues. The Government like to sound tough on welfare inflation, but they do nothing to tackle the underlying causes of it. The Department for Work and Pensions has overspent by £25 billion since 2010. Let me give the House a few examples of where it has gone awry. It has spent £5 billion more than it planned to spend on tax credits during the current Parliament, because of the failure to tackle rising levels of low pay and insecurity. The number of working people—working people!—who are claiming housing benefit has risen by 50% since 2010 and is set to double by 2018, which will cost nearly £13 billion.

Whether the underlying issue is low pay, rising rents or the 700,000 young people who are in long-term unemployment, the Government have produced no serious, structural response. For them, tackling the deficit means little more than lopping off a fixed percentage from every departmental expenditure limit in each 12-month cycle. We need an economy that delivers higher-quality jobs, decent living standards, and robust and sustained growth, as well as tough decisions on spending and tax.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer caved in too easily to the lobbying of his friends who pushed him for that £3 billion a year tax cut for the top 1% who are earning over £150,000 a year. They must have been pestering him—“Give us that tax cut!”—and he did not have the will power just to say no. Instead, he piled higher VAT and cuts in tax credits on to millions of working people, because he did not mind that so much. I am afraid that a fairer plan for reducing the deficit must mean reversing the huge tax giveaway for millionaires—

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

Which I know the hon. Gentleman, in his heart, recognises is deeply unpopular with his constituents. Or am I wrong?

[Charlie Elphicke]

Let me point out not only that a record number of people went to work this morning, but that both long-term unemployment and worklessness rose under the Labour Government. Thanks to this Government’s welfare reforms and long-term economic plan, long-term unemployment has fallen by 99,000, and worklessness has fallen dramatically. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the Government’s long-term economic plan and welfare reforms have worked extremely well?

[Chris Leslie]

How disappointed the hon. Gentleman’s constituents must be to hear his comments, which contained no reflection or recognition of any of the problems that they face, including their cost of living difficulties. No, as far as the hon. Gentleman is concerned, everything is fine and wonderful: it is all working totally as it should be. I must tell him that he will have to face his electorate in a few months’ time, and that he will face their anger and concern about his failure to deal with the living standards that they have been experiencing.

Income Tax

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman nods and says, “Quite right” from a sedentary position, but of course he is not seeking re-election and so he is brave enough to say that. I wonder whether his Liberal Democrat colleagues would also say that about the cut from 50p to 45p. I will give way if Liberal Members want to defend the way they voted on that.

The hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) raised the issue of the personal allowance, and I expect the Minister will do the same. But the public out there are not going to be fooled by Government Members saying, “Just look over here at this particular change”, because they know very well by now that Tories and Liberals give a little with one hand but take away far more with the other. On the tax burden, there is a sense of people being worse off year after year, and they know the truth.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

If Labour went down the route of a 10p tax band in place of the £12,500 personal allowance that Government Members want to see, surely that would leave people on £11,000 worse off.

[Chris Leslie]

No, we believe that instead of having the married couples break, which does not actually help many married couples, it would be far fairer to introduce that 10p starting rate of tax, because it would help many, many more people. The hon. Gentleman has hit upon yet another example—perhaps this is one for an Opposition day debate on a different occasion—where the Government constantly choose the route of unfairness, limiting the help to those who need support and assistance. Labour believes that everybody should have a share in growth and prosperity, which is precisely the opposite of the trickle-down economics that we have had so far from the parties in the Government.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I love it when Liberal Democrats start talking about VAT. Of course, the hon. Gentleman promised to oppose the VAT bombshell, and my hon. Friends will remember the picture. I do not know whether he was driving the van that went round Parliament square at the time; perhaps the Chief Secretary was in the driving seat. Yet the hon. Gentleman has the temerity to ask what our position is on VAT. I cannot promise to get rid of the VAT increase that they have put in place, contrary to the manifesto on which he stood—yet another Liberal Democrat broken promise. When Labour makes promises in our manifesto at the next general election, we will make sure that they are fully funded and that the sums add up. If we do make promises, everybody will be clear where the money will come from—[Laughter.] Government Members do not like that idea, because it is so foreign to them. They are so used to making promises that they do not recognise the concept of trying to be honest and straight with the electorate.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Leslie]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment, but I ask him to bear it in mind that it is important to be open with his constituents about the full picture of what has been happening with tax and benefit changes. He needs to answer a question prompted by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies, which has calculated the impact of all the tax and benefit changes since 2010 on his constituents. Its conclusion is that the typical household is £900 worse off after those tax rises and cuts to benefits and tax credits. Does he disagree with the analysis of the independent IFS?

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[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman says that his pledges will be fully funded come the manifesto, but does he not accept that the fact that the Opposition have so far spent the bankers bonus tax more than 10 times does not give this House or the people of this country much confidence that they will be able to add up when we get to manifesto time?

[Chris Leslie]

I shall have to send some details to the hon. Gentleman, because he is obviously not fully aware of the situation. I would never accuse him of misleading the House, as that would be unparliamentary, but perhaps he is unintentionally giving an impression that is not correct. We have said that we would repeat the bank bonus tax, which was very successful in 2009 and raised a significant amount of money, and spend it on starter jobs for the long-term unemployed. He should know about long-term youth unemployment because in Dover it has rocketed since he was elected.

[Chris Leslie]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for addressing that point. Yes, such transparency would help a great deal. Let us elevate the level of public debate and allow an independent assessment of those policy costings. The public can then decide for themselves and make a judgment about the relative merits of the various policies in the manifestos of the major political parties. I know that in his heart the Chief Secretary to the Treasury agrees. I know that he realises that the Chancellor is standing in the way because the Chancellor wants to run the general election campaign by means of smears and falsehoods, giving a false impression of the policies of the other political parties. We must grow up and raise the standard of debate. Let the OBR be the judge of these things. Ministers can talk among themselves and perhaps negotiate concessions so that when we come to the Committee stage of the Bill, we may be able to reach cross-party agreement on that point.

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

I forgot to give way to the hon. Gentleman. Long-term youth unemployment has gone up in Dover by 125% since he has been its Member of Parliament.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Long-term youth unemployment did go up in my constituency by 300%, and in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency by 400%—in the previous Parliament. Will he welcome the fact that long-term youth unemployment in my constituency has fallen by 22% in the past year and in his constituency by 15%?

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[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

No, nothing is forthcoming. Perhaps the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) can help us on that.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman referred to the article in The Daily Telegraph but did not explain it fully to the House. It shows that the Chancellor is keen to see foreign banks paying a fair share of the levy. It is not about letting off the major clearers; it is about ensuring that all banks in the UK pay a fair share. Surely that is right.

[Chris Leslie]

That is a very interesting explanation. There is a shift in policy, which is to let certain banks off the hook when it comes to the bank levy. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is right and that is a strategy. I have given the Minister an opportunity to explain what exactly the Government’s plan is, but he will not put it on the record. We will have to explore that in more depth in Committee.

While we are on the financial services sector, let us look at what the Government are doing in clause 107, which relates to stamp duty reserve tax. My hon. Friends might begin to wonder what that is all about, especially when we say that it is known as the schedule 19 charge, which refers to the 1999 Finance Bill. Many people think, “Oh well, we’ll see what comes of these taxes.” But the schedule 19 charge, set out in clause 107 of this Bill, seeks—this is the priority of these Conservative and crypto-Conservative Members—to give a tax cut of £145 million to the investment management industry by abolishing stamp duty reserve tax. At the same time, my hon. Friends’ constituents are having to cope with the bedroom tax, extra council tax charges and the VAT increase. Despite the hardships they are facing, the priority of the Chief Secretary and the Exchequer Secretary is to give away £145 million by abolishing stamp duty reserve tax. I know that they have been lobbied heavily on that.

We will oppose that change, because we think that the Government should be using that resource to help scrap the bedroom tax, if indeed it is raising any money—I have my doubts about that. The National Housing Federation states that it might well be costing more than the Government planned. We certainly should not be giving away that money, especially at a time when the investment management industry, which holds £5.4 trillion in collective funds, increased its holdings by about 7% in 2013. I do not think that £145 million is an unreasonable sum to ask from a sector that has been doing very well in recent years. We should be making sure that we pursue a fair policy and so will oppose that clause.

We then come to the Bill’s tax avoidance measures. We know that the Government have a bad record on that—[Interruption.] Well, they do. The oh-so-successful Exchequer Secretary, who cannot even manage to get the amounts of money he promised from the banks, cannot manage to get from the Swiss the £5 billion he promises through the Swiss tax deal. The Chief Secretary stood up a moment ago and said that he would get only £1.7 billion. We had a deal with the Liechtenstein Government, which we projected would bring in £2 billion; in fact, it has brought in £2.5 billion. When we have tax deals with tax havens, they work. However, when the Exchequer Secretary gets his fingers on these things, it is amazing how it all goes wrong—it is his reverse Midas touch.

The Government have fallen into bad habits in pencilling into the Red Book projections of revenues from the avoidance measures that involve what the OBR calls particularly uncertain assumptions. The Government are, of course, quick to spend the projected money; Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies calls such moves the Chancellor’s manoeuvres, always relying on revenues that are by nature uncertain. It is important that we scrutinise whether the supposed tax avoidance deals will deliver what the Government say.

Rather than the measures in the Bill, we need action to deliver starter jobs, guaranteed for the long-term unemployed. The number of young people out of work for a year or more has doubled and we need compulsory starter jobs for those who have suffered unemployment, which is a scourge not just on society but on their career prospects. We need action on child care. Free child care should be extended from 15 to 25 hours, paid for through a proper collection of the bank levy.

We need a help to build scheme to counter-balance the Help to Buy scheme. There is a serious risk—as the Chief Secretary knows, even the Governor of the Bank of England has concerns about these things—of a lop-sided recovery unless we match the boosting of demand with the boosting of supply. A help to build scheme particularly focused on ensuring that small and medium-sized construction companies can do better is one way to make a big difference.

Cost of Living

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

That is a good point, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I will be brief in talking about the hon. Member for Spelthorne and the Free Enterprise Group. The Free Enterprise Group published plans to slap a 15% increase on essentials such as food and children’s clothes through VAT and to triple the tax on heating bills. A number of hon. Members who are in the Chamber today are members of the Free Enterprise Group. They might be shuffling away from the hon. Member for Spelthorne now.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Leslie]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman wants to account for that plan. Does he agree with charging VAT at 15% on food and children’s clothes and increasing the tax on heating bills—yes or no?

[Charlie Elphicke]

What was the size of the deficit at the time of the general election in 2010? Was it £150 billion-plus—yes or no?

[Chris Leslie]

There is no answer to my question from the hon. Gentleman. I have given him the figures for the national debt.

The extremism and rightwards shift in the Conservative party are visible for all to see. As we can tell from the tactics that they are using, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and all the Conservative Back Benchers are scraping the barnacles off the 1992 election strategy. They have a barely disguised plan to fight the next election in the gutter. Their tactics are visible for all to see.

The Prime Minister once spoke fondly of environmentalism while hugging the huskies. Perhaps I should ask this on a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, but is it using unparliamentary language to quote No. 10 when it allegedly said that it wanted to cut out all of the “green crap”? I know that that is appalling language, but it is a quotation from No. 10 Downing street. The Government are certainly cutting some things out: 578 Sure Start children’s centres have been cut, 76 NHS walk-in centres have been cut, 48 accident and emergency departments have been shut, 200 ambulance stations have been axed and 6,000 nurses have gone from the NHS, but 707 food banks have opened. Perhaps Government Members regard that as a success.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I can tell the Minister that in this financial year it would be necessary for us to repeat that bank bonus tax. We will set out our tax and spending proposals when we write the manifesto for the general election. Heaven knows what kind of mess we will have to untangle after a further two years. It would be invidious to make decisions at this point in the cycle when the Minister will not tell us what is in the spending review in just two months’ time. We will make an assessment in two years’ time. I can certainly tell him that, from our point of view—this is a serious policy distinction—a bank bonus tax would be necessary now, particularly to help fund a compulsory jobs guarantee for young people. That is a necessity, given the unemployment figures we saw earlier today.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Can the hon. Gentleman tell the Committee exactly how much extra he wants his proposal to raise?

[Chris Leslie]

We feel that £2 billion could be raised this year from a repetition of the bank bonus tax. That would be an important contribution from those who are doing particularly well. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman moves in those circles and whether he has seen, as though nothing much has changed in the world, how high bonuses continue to be. Yes, changes from the European Union and elsewhere are being forced on to the bonus culture, but bonuses are still excessively generous to the very lucky few. There are a number of reasons why the bank bonus tax would be good not just for the taxpayer, but in changing the culture in the sector itself. The tax raised £3.5 billion when it was last tried in 2009.

[Chris Leslie]

I was anticipating that question from the Minister. This is the Minister who has tweaked and changed the rate, I think, five or six times in various Finance Bills, all to fit the £2.5 billion figure that he has totally failed to address. We need to go back to the drawing board on the bank levy and find a way of calculating it so that it properly yields the sums that we envisage. Of course, the bank levy has to be thought through, so that we get that resource in. It is totally unacceptable to have lost nearly £2 billion for the taxpayer in the past two financial years. Just think what that £2 billion could have achieved in that period. This is not small money. There is the classic chancellorial phrase, “A billion here, a billion there and very soon it starts to add up to real money”, but this is significant resource. It is to the great shame of Ministers that they have allowed that money to slip away from them.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; he is being generous with his time. I just want to understand one thing. If, say, he raised £2 billion in the way he proposes, what would he say to the person who finds it harder to get finance for the borrowing that they need, because of the regulatory requirements on banks and because he had taken a whole load of money out of the banking system, reducing the ability of the banks to lend money?

[Chris Leslie]

Why should a constraint on the bonus pool have a constraint on the lending capacity of banks? The hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting—this is the classic Conservative attitude to banking—that the one inviolate part of a bank’s balance sheet is remuneration, or “compensation” as they sometimes like to call it: “Do what you like to the banks, but for goodness’ sake don’t affect that bonus pool and don’t change that compensation pool.” Well, I am sorry, but we take a totally different point of view. In fact, if there is one area of bank finance that needs a culture change, and which proves that stronger capital adequacy is not anathema to bank lending, it is management remuneration. It is too bloated and needs to change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

Well, that is still more than we normally get in one intervention. You are very generous in the Chair, Mr Amess. I do not think there was any evidence of the bonus tax being passed on to customers before, because regulation can ensure constraints on how the remuneration pool works. The Bank of England itself, through the Financial Policy Committee, is now sending the strong message that banks should stop prioritising that bonus pool and level of compensation. The world has changed, and the banks have to recognise that their behaviour also has to change.

We want specifically to target the highest-paid individuals in the banks, not the clerks or ordinary staff. The tax would be aimed at large, discretionary bonuses above £25,000, which continue to be paid out even in the state-owned banking sector. RBS and NatWest paid out bonuses worth £607 million in 2012, despite making a £5 billion loss. Of course, it was the Prime Minister who promised to ensure that any state-owned bank did not pay out a bonus of more than £2,000.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Leslie]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman remembers that promise from his great leader.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman is right: we all want to see pay restraint on the part of banks and the banking system. However, that is a separate argument from the issue of imposing taxation. If he took £2 billion out of the banking system at this time, it would mean less finance or pricier finance, which would be bad for the economy and bad for the recovery.

[Chris Leslie]

We are repeating the intervention and the response I gave earlier. I just disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not think it is an inalienable right of bankers to continue to receive multi-million pound bonuses. The world has changed, as even many Government Members recognise. Defending the indefensible will not do him any good.

Connecting Europe Facility

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

There is much agreement on the need to reform the common agricultural policy. More should have been done in the past, but more needs to be done now. I want to hear the Government’s strategy on that. I want to hear how they are going to win some concessions and what they are doing to change the negotiation stance. They are certainly doing nothing about refocusing growth priorities or reforming the common agricultural policy.

We have to re-order the connecting Europe facility so that we can phase capital infrastructure components and enhance employment and growth. While the 26 other countries are busy negotiating their new economic treaty without the UK taking part, they will realise that the EU budget is highly relevant to their economic predicament, particularly in the eurozone. I would therefore like to ask the Minister an important question: how will he ensure that he keeps track of all those discussions on the sidelines—all those deals being done in meetings that he will not be party to—so that the UK voice is part of the process?

We are discussing an important series of proposals, which touch on broadband, transport and energy policy. A year ago, the Government unveiled their broadband strategy. It is becoming clear that the vast majority of local authorities are not likely to meet the Government’s universal broadband target by 2015, which has already slipped by a couple of years compared with the target that we set when in government. We tabled some freedom of information requests before the Christmas break and discovered that 70% of local councils said that they had

“not made any plans, provisions or budgeted to take advantage of the Government’s funding allocation for broadband provision,”

and that 74% had had no assessment made of the likelihood that the roll-out of superfast broadband in their areas would be completed by 2015. The Minister therefore needs to explain why a quarter of local authorities say that they have not even been contacted by BDUK—Broadband Delivery UK—about the need to secure funding; indeed, only a quarter have made plans to finance universal broadband roll-out. Even the Countryside Alliance and the Federation of Small Businesses agree that the Government are not doing enough to support Britain’s digital future.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

It was the previous Labour Government’s policy to have a telephone tax. Does the shadow Minister still believe that the telephone tax is the right way forward? Yes or no?

[Chris Leslie]

I really do not think that anybody was proposing a telephone tax in the sense that the hon. Gentleman characterises it. We have to find ways to fund improvements in broadband communication, but my question to him and the Government is this: what exactly is their target for broadband roll-out? They have still not said. The EU is talking about some 30 megabits per second and 50% at 100 megabits per second by 2020, which is quite an ambitious target, and we had our targets for 2012. Perhaps the Minister can consult his colleagues on that.

Equitable Life (Payments) Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

I give way to my good friend from Dover.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I know him to be a generous Member of the House. With his customary generosity, will he acknowledge that the amount is nevertheless three times that which the previous Government said they would have given as compensation?

[Chris Leslie]

We will not know that, because Chadwick’s report was published after the general election. We had a series of steps that would have then been taken, but history went in a different direction because the spending review and the Budget were undertaken by a different party, not by our party in government. I am not saying that there are magic solutions to this issue. These are complex matters and there are technical reasons for both the methodologies that are being used in the compensation and the timings and the discussions around them. It is important to bear in mind the wider needs of the public purse. We have consistently said that and now the Government have come round to that point of view. I understand why they did.

Finance (No.2) Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

(Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 2 would force the Treasury to come clean on its plans to withdraw child benefit from families with higher-rate taxpayers from January 2013, which will take £2.5 billion a year from those families from 2014-15 onwards.

Ever since the Chancellor announced the policy of means-testing child benefit a month ago at the Conservative party conference, the policy has gradually unravelled. The Treasury has struggled to spell out exactly how it will implement the idea—especially as there has rightly been separate and independent taxation of individuals since 1990, when it was recognised that there were major problems with taxing women as though their income were effectively part of their husbands’ property. Those days may seem long ago now—it is 20 years since Lady Thatcher left Downing street, and 20 years since Britain joined the exchange rate mechanism—but the Government have adopted a déjà-vu approach to policy making which looks set to reopen that history.

We have grown used to the principle of independent taxation over the past two decades, and many now take it for granted, but we ought to pause and reflect on why it is so important. The Government’s proposed changes to child benefit imply a requirement for mothers to disclose their receipt of child benefit to their partners, and a requirement for partners or husbands to be taxed on the income of their spouses. That represents a potential breach of the principle of separate and individual taxation which, as the new clause says, was introduced in the Finance Act 1988, and which applied from 1990 onwards.

The 1988 Act introduced a radical change in the system of taxing husbands and wives: independent taxation. Until then, husbands and wives were viewed as one person for tax purposes, and the Revenue, of course, saw only the husband. The spouse’s income and gains were added together, and the couple were treated as if the total income were that of the husband. He was responsible for completing the annual tax return and for paying all tax due, including that on his wife’s income and gains. However, with the introduction of independent taxation, spouses were treated as separate individuals for tax purposes and for the first time married women enjoyed privacy in, and responsibility for, their own tax affairs. In addition, some married couples were paying more tax because they were married than they would have if they had been cohabiting. That drew much criticism at the time.

It is instructive to look back at the speeches advocating the virtues of independent taxation, especially by the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who has since been ennobled as Lord Lamont. In the 1988 Budget debate he called this reform

“a radical proposal for independent taxation…It will give married women the independence and privacy in tax matters that they have been denied for so long…Under the new system, a married woman will be treated as a taxpayer in her own right with a full personal allowance to set against her income, and her own basic rate band. She will have responsibility for her own tax matters and will be able to enjoy complete privacy if she wishes…It is an important principle that there should be independence and privacy in taxation matters.”—[Official Report, 16 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 1193-94.]

Clearly the Prime Minister should heed the words of his former boss in these matters. I gather that Lord Lamont is still occasionally called upon to give advice to his former special adviser. Perhaps their diaries clashed on the day of the fateful decision on child benefit, but there is still time for the Prime Minister to make that call to Lord Lamont, and to see the error of his ways and rein in his doctrinaire Chancellor on this issue, especially as the Prime Minister promised before the general election to protect child benefit. Winding the clock back 20 years and reversing decades of progress in equality in taxation and in the responsibilities of individuals for their own income risks creating a set of major perversities in the tax system that could have significant ramifications. That is why the Opposition are opposed to the changes in child benefit.

Let us consider the administrative shambles that would be created if the Government were to get their way. The Wall Street Journal has reported insiders in the civil service talking of “panic stations” at the Treasury with growing acceptance that the policy is virtually “unenforceable” and “likely to be ditched”. If a mother is under no legal obligation to tell the father that she is in receipt of child benefit—unless we do see the end of independent taxation, of course—how can this tax on families work? Currently, the father’s tax status is irrelevant to the mother’s entitlement to child benefit. Can the Minister tell the House how this clawback arrangement will work, especially if parents are divorced or divorcing or separated or separating, or if the mother simply declines to report the tax status of the father of her children to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs officials?

Can the Minister also tell us whether the rumour that the Treasury is considering a new database to match mothers with their partners is true, and would that not make the Child Support Agency seem a bit like a pocket calculator by comparison? Will the Minister spell out the mechanisms the Treasury envisages in respect of this policy, and the enforcement mechanisms it is planning to put in place to take these sums off families earning approximately £45,000 or above? Will the Treasury be relying on a self-certification approach by the partner not in receipt of child benefit? Will the Minister take this opportunity to state for the record that the Government will continue with the important principle that mothers should be the primary recipient of child benefit payments?

The poor design of this policy could easily undermine revenue plans too. Clawing back the cost of the benefit from higher rate taxpayers through the tax system would be “intrusive” and involve lots of form filling. That is the opinion of one of the Chancellor’s own advisers on tax policy, John Whiting, whom the Chancellor recently appointed as the tax director of the Office of Tax Simplification. Mr Whiting suggests that the policy would be an administrative burden that would merely “make a dent” in the estimated £2.5 billion of savings the Treasury claims the change would bring. We are not alone in questioning the logic of this ill-thought-through proposal, therefore. We know from the reporting on this policy that the Chancellor rode roughshod over his Cabinet colleagues when it was announced at the Conservative party conference. Clearly many in the Cabinet were oblivious to those plans when the Chancellor sprung them on them, but it is now clear that he also rode roughshod over those in the civil service. They were insufficiently included in the plans for this policy and had he consulted them properly, they would have pointed out the chaos that it would create.

These are serious matters affecting millions of families across the UK, not only millionaires such as the Chancellor’s family or the Prime Minister’s family, but those on relatively modest incomes. They include police officers, college tutors, health service workers, senior teachers, pharmacists, paramedics, train drivers and air traffic controllers. Many are caught up in this category, the arbitrary design of which will create great unfairness with punitively high marginal rates of taxation.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman seems to want to convince the House that £45,000 a year is not very much money, but he should tell that to my constituents, whose average annual earnings are less than £20,000; that is what the average job pays in Dover and that is the norm in many parts of this country outside London. My constituents look askance at the fact that people on £45,000, a sum of earnings that they aspire to and dream of having, receive benefits. They tell me on the doorstep that they think that that is wrong, in principle, and that this measure is the right one to take.

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman is doing his job, supporting a policy that was not the one espoused in his party’s manifesto. It certainly was not the policy that the Prime Minister advocated before the election when he promised to protect universal child benefit—he now says that it should be taken away from these “rich” individuals, but I do not agree. I do not believe that this class of middle-income families is necessarily finding life easy on this particular range of salaries. We have to speak up for that squeezed middle in society and that is absolutely what the Opposition intend to do. Where a policy could see a £1 pay rise for these families result in the loss of £2,000 in child benefit, depending on the number of children involved, it involves a punitively high rate of marginal taxation that surely even Members on the Government Benches would agree is flawed.

At last week’s Treasury Committee sitting, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Mike Brewer, described these cliff-edge issues as “economically perverse” and “distorting”. He also said that it “seems unfair” that two families in different circumstances but perhaps separated by very small sums should be “treated so differently”. His colleague, Carl Emmerson, added:

“The income tax system, by being individually based, is basically neutral about whether individuals”

should be taxed separately or together and that that is an “advantage” in the tax system.

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has rightly asked,

“why should a family on £45,000 where one person stays at home lose their child benefit—£1,000, 2,000, £3,000 a year—but a family on £80,000 where both partners… are working should keep their child benefit?”—[Official Report, 13 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 322-23.]

Even the Treasury has, begrudgingly, had to publish some statistics showing that this policy would create all sorts of anomalies and odd behaviour. It published a figure in the Budget suggesting that it expected to lose £270 million each year in revenue from people tax planning as they navigated this madness.

A family with three children on £33,000 a year after tax is to lose £2,500 from 2013—that is the equivalent of a 6p in the pound hike in their income tax. Middle-class families are being hit, and it is particularly pernicious of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to focus on children in this way as a means of raising money—they are clubbing families over the head with a higher tax burden while, of course, letting the banks off the hook. At the very least the Treasury should accept the new clause and agree to publish an independent review of the consequences for independent taxation if its plans for child benefit taxation of higher rate paying family members are to proceed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. We have to be prudent in how we address these questions, and I hope to come to some of the matters he raises as we explore corporation tax and so on. If he bears with me, I will—hopefully—elaborate.

UBS analysts said that they expected Lloyds and HSBC to benefit by 2012 because of the cut in corporation tax bills, which in their case was larger than the hit they expected to be sustained through the banking levy. It seems, therefore, that the banking levy is playing quite a small part, perhaps a walk-on character—

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

A walk-on character with very few lines—unlike the hon. Gentleman, to whom I give way.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I would like to put a couple of points to the hon. Gentleman. First, taking the case of Lloyds and RBS, are there not likely to be substantial carry-forward losses in those banks, which will not be paying corporation tax for many years to come, let alone by 2012? Secondly, were they then to face a higher rate of tax, which I believe he is proposing, would the cost on those banks not result in the devaluation of their shares, which are now owned by the public? Surely, it would go round in a circle.

[Chris Leslie]

I will come to deferred tax in a moment, because the corporation tax questions require much greater scrutiny. That is one reason we tabled the new clause. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in the Lobby, should we divide on this issue—unless the Treasury concede it—and that he agrees that we should have a review of the level of tax the banks are paying. If they are paying too much, which I doubt, I will be happy to look at the evidence and the facts. However, there is opacity about these questions, and given the hit falling on the shoulders of families and children in this country, it is incumbent on us to ask whether the banks will be paying their fair share. That is all we are asking this evening.

We think that the Government’s banking levy has been a limp effort so far. Given some of the corporation tax changes, there is a bit of a cashback arrangement for some of the banks. I would like to touch on three areas of corporation tax that I think require more serious and rigorous review. The first is that cashback boost for the banks resulting from the reduction in corporation tax rates announced in the Budget. The Exchequer Secretary confirmed in a written answer that over the lifetime of the spending review the Treasury expects that the cut in corporation tax main rate from 28% to 27%, and eventually down to 24%, will return £1 billion to the banks—specifically to the banks:

“£0.1 billion in 2011-12, £0.2 billion in 2012-13, £0.3 billion in 2013-14 and £0.4 billion in 2014-15.”—[Official Report, 1 July 2010; Vol. 512, c. 610W.]

Finance Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Chris Leslie

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

I point out to the hon. Lady that the number of affordable houses built in 1995-96 was 74,530, whereas the average for the previous Government’s entire tenure was just 40,000 affordable homes built each year. Why was that? Last year’s figure was 20,000 below what was achieved under the outgoing Conservative Government. As I said, we built 74,000-odd a year, whereas last year the previous Government built 55,000, so I do not think that they have any record to stand on when it comes to affordable housing, except that of a roll of shame. Their record is an absolute disgrace.

What we need is for the UK to grow faster, because the best cure for deprivation is a job. Too many jobs were taken away by the previous Government’s galactic economic incompetence, and we need to have change, so I want to make the case for that. Will the UK grow faster with a larger public sector? Will the UK grow faster with even higher taxes, as were planned by the previous Government? Will the UK grow faster with ever more debt, or would that result only in ever-higher interest rates, a weaker currency, an increased country risk and our country’s credit rating at risk? I think that the right decisions have been taken, because the UK will grow faster with a lower jobs tax.

[Chris Leslie]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman recalls what the so-called “independent” Office for Budget Responsibility said about the downgrading of growth forecasts as a direct result of these Budget measures. What was the OBR’s finding? Did it say that growth would increase or decrease as a result of the measures in the Budget?

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the OBR itself said that that was misleading. He will also know that the OBR ruled that the figures set out in the March Budget were a total work of fiction and a disgrace, and it downgraded them. The true downgrade was that of GDP growth by 0.5% to 1% by the OBR when it put right the fiction that had been produced previously, and the misleading about the economics of our nation. The hon. Gentleman does not have a leg to stand on.

This country will grow faster with a lower jobs tax, with lower borrowing and with a low rate of corporation tax, as set out in clause 1. The key point that I want to make is that the fall should be faster, because I want to see a corporation tax rate of just 19% in this nation by the end of this Parliament; that would give us a real revolution. I would like us to have a participation exemption, as exists in the Netherlands, Ireland and other places, to make our nation a European headquarters company of the European time zone. I think that capital gains tax is necessary, but business assets should be taxed lower. That was one of the few things that the former Prime Minister got absolutely right, and it is a great shame that we do not have a differential level, or a higher entrepreneur’s relief. Ideally, that would be extended, because we need to encourage more jobs and growth, and an expansion of the private sector.

I particularly welcome the new business national insurance relief, which is extraordinarily important. Obviously, as a representative of Dover, I would say that ideally it should be extended across the nation, especially in deprived areas of the south-east that have benefited from social structural European funds—not just Dover but other parts of east Kent and the south-east. We need to clear away the deprivation and the benefits culture that has grown up in recent years so that we can unlock the potential, the hope and the chances in each and every citizen of our nation. If we get them off benefits and back into work and break the cycle of poverty, we bring hope and unlock that potential. That to me is the most important thing—to give everyone in this country a real crack at opportunity in life. In this Budget and this Finance Bill, difficult and bold decisions have been taken, but they are the right decisions, and I support the Bill.