European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and John Redwood

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

[John Redwood]

Absolutely not. Scottish voters’ views matter very much. They have a privileged constitutional position, which we are all happy with, such that in many areas Scotland makes her own decisions through her own Parliament. However, when it comes to a Union matter, I thought we all agreed that where we had a Union-wide referendum, the Union made the decision and the Union’s Parliament needs to implement the wishes expressed in the referendum. That is why Members from every party in the House of Commons, apart from her party and a few Liberal Democrats, decided, against their own judgments in many cases, that we needed to get on with it, send the article 50 letter and give this Bill a good passage. We are bound by the wishes of the British people as expressed in the referendum.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does my right hon. Friend detect, as I do, a tendency in SNP Members, which reaches its pinnacle in the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), not to accept the results of any referendum held in this country? They reject the alternative vote referendum result, they will not accept and respect the Scottish referendum result, and now they are trying to countermand the European referendum result. I really think it is high time that they accepted the decisions made in referendums in this country.

[John Redwood]

That is extremely good advice. I find myself in a rather different position from the hon. and learned Lady. She finds herself in a position where every time there is a referendum in Scotland or the UK, she is on the losing side, whereas I have found that I am usually on the winning side. I seem to be much more in tune with the people. I agreed with the people’s judgment on grammar schools when we had a referendum on that, I agreed with their view on the voting system, I agreed with the Scottish people’s judgment on staying in the Union, and I very much agree with the United Kingdom electors’ judgment that we should leave the European Union. The people are often much more sensible than their Parliament wishes them to be, and it is great when Parliament then has to listen to the people and get on with doing the job.

The main point that I wish to make is in response to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who tried to tackle the scholarship-level question that underlies our debates on this group of amendments—whether we can transfer all EU law into good British law, or, in practice, end up having to accept some European law because of the complexities involved. In my brief exchange with him by way of intervention, I pointed out that the rights of the British people have their best defence in the common sense and voting strength of the British people, that that will be reflected in their elected Parliament, and that if their elected Parliament gets out of line with the will of the United Kingdom voters, then the voters will, at the first opportunity, change the composition of the Parliament until it reflects the wishes of the United Kingdom voters on the matter of rights.

My right hon. and learned Friend countered by saying that taking my view would mean that we only ever had common law and Parliament would never need to legislate. That is a silly caricature of the true position. We all know, I think, that it is very difficult to define eternal, immortal rights. Some rights last for longer and are more important than others, but people find it very difficult to define that. Looking back over past statements of rights over the centuries, one sees that some of them now grate or are clearly very much against our view of what a right should be, whereas others may last for rather longer. Quite a lot of statements of rights have a big component related to what is topical or socially acceptable at the time. We are largely pleased that what is socially acceptable evolves, so there are many bad practices of the past that we have come to see were bad practices, and that has been reflected in new legislation. We always need to legislate to reflect changing perceptions about what is a right and which rights we should give most cognisance to.

Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and John Redwood

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

We can have a system of authorised economic operators, developing the existing system, and it will be quite easy to speed the lorries through, and if we still have to impose tariffs because there is no agreement, we will be able to do that electronically, without there being a lorry jam.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the other side talk about queues at the port because they actually hope that Brexit will be a disaster for this country? They want to stop Brexit and they want the worst for this country. They should put Britain first.

[John Redwood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is always doom and gloom. It is always about what can go wrong.

Finance Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and John Redwood

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

My hon. Friend anticipates my next point. We live in a global world. The richer people are, the more footloose they can be, and the better the tax and legal advice they can get. Most of them want to obey the law in the country they choose to live in and the countries they choose to operate in—they usually operate in several countries not just one, which creates genuine definitional problems about where they are truly resident and where is their main centre—and they will compare all the time, on good advice, the different regimes available. It is quite obvious that in the EU there is a lot of jealousy of London and the wider UK’s success in attracting talent and investment from around the world. As my hon. Friend says, regimes are being created in to tempt people away by giving them a better deal in other European countries.

I was about to draw the attention of the House to hugely important debates about to be undertaken in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the United States of America. New York and other great centres are already very attractive magnets for rich people and large-scale investors. They are suggesting that they might take their top rate of tax down from 39.6% to 35%, simplify their income tax brackets from seven to just three, and take their corporation tax rate down from a very high headline 35% to an effective rather lower rate of 20% or even lower, because they are very serious about becoming tax competitive again. They will be a lure, just as surely as some European countries on the continent are trying to be more of a lure.

The Opposition would be well advised to understand how global the world is, how dynamic it is, and how, to maximise tax revenue, there is a need to set ways of taxing and rates of taxation that enable people to stay and pay.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the greatest threat to tax havens is not the blustering of the Labour party, but countries such as the United States of America reducing their tax rates so much that it does not become in any way effective to be using these kinds of places for any function and business?

[John Redwood]

That is correct. Tax havens have helped to drive down tax rates in other centres. We only have to look across to Ireland to see how attractive it can be if a mainstream country decides to take its corporation tax rate down to very low levels. Ireland attracts a lot of company-based investment. Each country has to decide where it wishes to be on that spectrum. A high enough rate is required to collect serious money, but a low enough rate is needed to not deter some of the best prospects for coming, staying and paying taxes. In the light of what America is about to do and what some of the smaller European countries are doing, this country is in danger of becoming uncompetitive on taxation.

Exiting the EU and Workers’ Rights

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and John Redwood

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

That is by no means proven. As my right hon. Friend says, Wokingham borough had a modest majority in favour of remain, but Wokingham borough comprises parts of four different constituencies. My own constituency contains bits of Wokingham borough as well as parts of West Berkshire. According to my canvass returns, I think it was roughly 50:50 in my constituency. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Anyway, it does not really matter—[Interruption.] My right hon. Friend must listen, because I think she actually agrees with me on this, although she will not admit it.

Members from both sides of the House trooped solemnly through the Lobby to put through the European Union Referendum Act 2015, and it was crystal clear from what Ministers and others were saying at the time that we were passing the decision to the British people. We were not asking their advice. We were not giving them a rather grand and expensive opinion poll. Ministers said, “You, the British people, will make this decision.” And just to ram it home, a leaflet was sent to every household in the country—at the taxpayers’ expense, which some of us were a bit worried about—repeating that message. A solemn promise was made by the Government. The Opposition were involved with this, because they did not object and they helped to vote through the money for that promise to be sent to every household. That promise was crystal clear. I feel, and I think my right hon. Friend agrees with me, that we are now under a duty to expedite the decision of the British people.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I backed remain, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), but a majority of the people of Dover voted to leave. Is it not incumbent on all of us to listen to our electors and to act on the instructions that we have been given?

[John Redwood]

I think it is incumbent on this Parliament to accept the verdict of the referendum that we gave to the British people and to understand that we are all under a duty now. Democracy is on trial. What would the public think if their Parliament gave them a decision to make and then tried to stop that decision being implemented? That would put us in an impossible position, and anyone who followed that course would have a very miserable time when they next faced the electors.

Once the referendum is over, we have a duty to represent all our constituents. I have to represent the remain constituents of Wokingham just as much as the leave constituents. I cannot possibly vote on both sides of the issue, but I can ensure that the legitimate concerns of my remain voters are taken into account. I can assure the House that I will be very active in lobbying Ministers when remain voters identify real problems. The main problem that they are identifying at the moment is the uncertainty. They want us to speed up, and the more Members think that delay is a good idea, the more the uncertainty will build and the more damage could conceivably be done. We all have a duty now to speak for all our constituents, but we can only have one vote. Surely MPs must now vote for the settled will of the British people, having offered them that referendum.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

I am very much on the hon. Gentleman’s side on that issue but, as he knows, that will not be possible given the delays that are now being built in as a result of various issues and processes.

This House must now rise to the challenge of ensuring workers’ rights and removing the senior powers of the European Union in the way that the British people voted for. Of course, we want to take back control of the money and, once we have, the Government will have considerably more to spend on their priorities. The Vote Leave campaign recommended health as a priority, but it will be for the Government of the day, as Vote Leave always made clear, to decide exactly how to spend the money.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way again. On workers’ rights, did he hear the shadow Minister talking about the importance of making it easier to strike and his intention and desire to roll back trade union legislation? Does he share my concern that that would not help workers’ rights but simply reduce the number of workers?

[John Redwood]

I think that goes beyond the issue of European workers’ rights. All I want to say today on workers’ rights is that we must guarantee all of them as promised. I am strongly in support of the Minister.

In conclusion, we have a brave public who decided, despite the odds and the advice, that they wished to leave the European Union. They were not only brave but right. They are fed up with a Parliament that cannot do their bidding, that cannot even choose the taxes to impose on them, that cannot spend the money that all the taxes raise, and that cannot choose laws for them or amend them in the way that they wish. The issue today and in the weeks ahead is whether the MPs in this House can rise to the challenge. Can MPs at least follow the public and realise that they want a sovereign Parliament to represent a sovereign people? Where are the peace-loving Pyms and Hampdens of the modern era? Where are the champions of our liberties? Where are those who say, “Yes, we will support that great repeal Bill. Yes, we will give those powers back to this Parliament. Yes, we will make it easier to achieve Brexit, not more difficult”? That is what the public want and the Opposition should join us, welcome that view and get on with it.

Finance Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and John Redwood

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I do not intend to detain the House for an unduly lengthy period of time, because I know that everyone wants to get to bed before midnight. I want to set out why country-by-country reporting is so very important, and why the whole culture of tax avoidance by big business and multinationals is something that we cannot condone or tolerate.

People ask what is wrong with an organisation such as Apple organising its tax affairs to its best possible advantage. After all, is that not the principle of taxation—that there is no equity in taxation and that only the literal taxation rules should apply? However, my concern is that the conduct of Apple is unacceptable for three key reasons. If a big business organises its tax affairs so that it basically pays no tax whatsoever, then it is inevitably warping the free market, because it is getting an unfair tax advantage, or a tax advantage that gives it a competitive advantage over other enterprises that are paying tax on their profit. For me, that is a really serious issue.

The other issue with Apple in Ireland is that to have a special deal for one business that does not apply to everyone else is counter to the fundamental principle of the rule of law, which is that everyone should be treated the same—be they a cleaner at Apple or Apple itself. What is offensive is if a cleaner in the office is paying more in tax than the massive, profitable enterprise whose offices they are cleaning.

Let me continue with the case of Apple. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) made a powerful point. If it has created all this intellectual property, he asked what was wrong with its not being caught in the UK tax net. My answer is that that intellectual property was in fact created in Silicon Valley, but is the organisation paying tax in Silicon Valley? Is it paying tax in America? No, it is not. It has set up a clever structure. Early in its evolution as a business—some 10 or 20 years ago—it sold its outside American intellectual property rights for $1, or some other small sum, to a Bermuda company, which would then have a conduit through Ireland to invest across the rest of Europe.

The company then checks the box for US tax purposes in respect of everything below Bermuda so that, from the Internal Revenue Service’s point of view, it looks as though the Bermuda company is the trading company, and because it is a trading company and the only enterprise that there is for US tax purposes, it is not caught by subpart F of the controlled foreign companies regulations, meaning that no tax can be deemed to have to be repatriated to the United States. As a result, the Bermuda enterprise becomes a cash box for reinvestment across the European theatre. Therein lies the unfair competitive advantage.

[John Redwood]

I remind my hon. Friend that I did not mention the word “Apple” and I expressed no view on Apple’s tax affairs, one way or the other. I asked a question about how we as legislators globally can produce a system that is fair and sensible so that people know what companies should be paying. I have not studied Apple’s tax affairs in details so I would not presume to lecture either for or against what that company does.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I stand corrected by my right hon. Friend. It is not a question of Apple; it is a question of general US outbound tax planning. That is why country-by-country reporting matters.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and John Redwood

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

It was a rant.

[Mr Redwood]

The Leader of the Opposition’s rant, as my hon. Friend says, had just one basic message: the wrong belief that the Conservatives want tax cuts for the rich and misery for everybody else. What we want is tax cuts for everyone, and what this and the previous Budget offer is tax cuts for everyone.

Let me explain how we have different types of tax cut for people at different levels of income. We take those on the lowest incomes out of tax altogether, so they get a genuine tax cut: they go from paying something to paying no income tax at all. The House is, I think, united on the wisdom of that. At the top end, we cut the rate, and what happens is that the rich and successful people actually pay more tax, not less. That seems to me to be magic, because then everybody is happy—or they should be. Only the very jealous should be miserable, because what we then have is the rich staying here, investing here, creating jobs here, creating more money here and paying more tax because the rate is lower. What is not to like about that proposition?

What is odd is that the Labour party in office, until the last couple of days, knew that and kept the top rate of tax below the level that we inherited and below the level we have now fixed. It is a bit rich that Labour is now complaining that we are light on the rich, given that our tax rates are collecting a lot more tax from the rich and are higher than the rates that Labour imposed. Indeed, we could collect even more tax from the rich if we brought the rates down a bit more, which I hope, come a Conservative Government, we might be able to do. Surely what we want is to maximise the revenue from such people, not to make a political point and drive them abroad, so that we have a society with less money, fewer jobs and less creativity.

I am pleased that the Chancellor made some moves on energy. We need a much bigger and stronger industrial recovery than we have generated so far. The first thing we need to do to have such a recovery is to ignore the advice of the Green MP, and to go for cheap energy. America is going for cheap energy, and it is re-industrialising very quickly. America is now super-competitive against companies in the European Union. A leading chemical major in Germany has recently said that it will put more of its investment abroad, outside the EU altogether, because, in the light of the energy crisis, the gas feed stock is uncompetitive. We need to find that gas and to get it out as quickly as possible. We need to match the United States’ shale revolution if we wish to save our high-energy-using industries and to re-industrialise and give some hope to the northern cities in particular, with their long tradition of industrial activity, because they need much cheaper energy.

We need to do more for savers, and I am delighted by an elaborate and interesting set of measures from the Chancellor on saving. Savers have had a miserable time after the collapse. Rightly, successive Governments and Governors of the Bank of England have kept interest rates on the floor, as they had to do, to try to stimulate activity and to prevent a worse collapse than we experienced in 2008, at the height of the crisis. That has been very bad news for savers. The tax changes will help savers, and the pensioner bond offer, if the rates are around the level we are now looking at, makes sense and would be a bit more attractive and something for pensioner savers to look forward to. I also welcome more flexibility for pensioners generally. Annuities are not good news at the moment, and if people can put that off or have a better choice, that may well be an excellent answer.

This Budget needs to be good for savers, for industry and for exports, and we are going in the right direction. It will help to promote a bit more growth, and only if we get a lot of growth will we get out of this debt bind.

Water Industry

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and John Redwood

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for more reservoirs. Reservoirs are not only important for water storage; they are important places for the angling community. Many hon. Members here are passionate anglers who enjoy fishing, and reservoirs provide an opportunity for that pursuit.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am glad that my hon. Friend is going to talk about the need for competition to provide better quality and low prices, but why does he think that there is a natural monopoly? Surely anyone, under a suitably liberated regime, could build a reservoir or drill a borehole and provide water to the customer through a piped system.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point. The planning system obviously means that such things take time. It is certainly important to have more of a national planning framework, which has been discussed by some and is worth considering. The view of water professionals is that competition is important but, in terms of customer service, it does not necessarily reduce costs because the infrastructure represents about 90% of the cost base.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and John Redwood

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

It is important first to understand what the Government strategy is, because there have been a number of misleading interpretations of it. Some have said that the reason the economy did not grow last year and is still growing very slowly is that there have been massive public spending cuts that have reduced national output. There is a helpful table on page 53 of the Office for Budget Responsibility report which shows that growth was indeed only 0.2% in real terms last year. However, it shows that the Government sector made a positive contribution of 0.6%, which is far more than overall growth, and that growth was reduced by disappointment in private sector housing investment, changes in stocks in private sector companies, reflecting an absence of confidence, and a poor performance on trade. A similar position is reported in forecasts for the current year, in which it is assumed that the Government sector will still make a positive real contribution to a rather low rate of growth, while it is hoped that the private sector will not have as disappointing a performance this year as it did last year.

The strategy was never about massive cuts in public spending overall; it was about modest growth in public spending. The idea was to get the deficit down through some very large tax rises. Unfortunately, as the latest documents reveal, the 50p and the other income tax changes were especially damaging to revenue. A loss of more than £7 billion has been recorded by those on the Front Bench. The overall figures imply that it was probably even more than that. In the most recent year, tax revenues from income tax overall are down on the previous year, not up. The strategy has not miscarried because it cut too much or because the Government overspent compared with what was planned—they have done a rather better job this year of controlling spending. Rather, the strategy miscarried because the big increase in tax revenue that had been forecast did not come through. That was partly because tax rates were set that did not work, such as the high rate of income tax. Also, the capital gains tax rate is too high, so we will get less in capital gains tax receipts this year than in the previous year. The reason is also partly that growth in the economy was very disappointing.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to have capital gains tax rates that are lower and more competitive, particularly for business assets?

[Mr Redwood]

I entirely agree. There would be much more activity if people could free some of those assets by taking profits and moving them on to people who could use them better and build on land, for example. I hope my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will think about that in due course, because it would make him revenue and help to grow the economy.

Nor has there been any lacking in flexibility by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in applying his strategy. He has been flexible over the deficit; indeed, we see in the latest figures that he plans to borrow £48 billion more in 2013-14, £60 billion more in 2014-15 and £67 billion more in the following year than in the original plans. He has reflected the fact that the economy has not performed well in the way that the independent forecasters assumed and the fact that tax revenues had a big wobble because of wrong rates and low growth, and he is allowing the state to borrow more to try to pick up the slack. I therefore welcome the fact that in this Budget he is concentrating on things that he can do to promote growth in the areas that subtracted from our growth in the most recent year.

The Chancellor is right to look at ways of trying to promote more housing activity. Many of us represent constituents who would love the opportunity to buy their first flat or house. They have been priced out of the market by the boom and now they are kept out of the market by an inadequate supply of mortgage finance and tough conditions. We need to be careful, because we do not want to fuel another housing bubble, but we also need to recognise that the banking system is not delivering finance for many of our constituents at the moment, and there are people who could borrow prudently and sensibly to buy their first home. I do not want to live in a society where people have to be in their late 30s before they can own their first home. I think we need to do better than that.