Taxation Freedom Day Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Philip Hollobone

Friday 25th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

I am most grateful for that intervention. I think that the answer is yes. One would have to access the Tax Buster website to find out how to do so. I think that the app is available for all kinds of cellphone technology. I know that my hon. Friend has the very latest gadget.

When an individual puts into the app a few details about their purchase, it tells them how much they had to earn before they paid taxes to have enough money to buy the product. For example, 20 cigarettes that cost £6.49 would have cost £1.24 without indirect taxes. Paying the £6.49—I am looking at my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who I believe might occasionally buy the odd cigarette—requires earnings of £11.35 before income and corporate taxes.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I would like to put it on the record that I share wholeheartedly my hon. Friend’s concern that cigarettes are over-taxed. That is a clear case for reform, which I hope Treasury Ministers will take on board.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am most grateful for that helpful intervention.

My next point will be of interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow. Filling the car with £60-worth of petrol would cost only £23.86 without indirect taxes. Paying that £60 requires £104.84 in earnings before income and corporate taxes. For higher rate taxpayers, the equivalent figure is £122.91.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

It does rather put it into perspective, does it not? I shall not be led too far astray, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I cannot resist adding to the strength of my hon. Friend’s point. Our bill to the EU for the last five years of the previous Government was £19 billion, but in the lifetime of the coalition Government to 2015 it is set to be £41 billion. It will more than double.

[Charlie Elphicke]

May I suggest one saving that could be made to help fund the cost of these regulations? The excellent TaxPayers Alliance recently published a document showing that we could save £113 million by getting rid of all the full-time paid union officials, which would also enable people to work more effectively.

[Mr Hollobone]

That is right. That so-called facility time is of huge concern to taxpayers up and down the land. [Interruption.] I know that this point exercises some Labour Members, and I can understand their concern —they have their views—but the Bill is a transparency exercise, so those, like Labour Members, who believe in facility time and recognise its value will have no problem recognising that that facility time, which costs hundreds of millions of pounds, will shift taxation freedom day. They can argue the benefits of facility time to the British taxpayer. I happen to disagree with facility time because I do not think that public money should be spent on such things, but I recognise that there are views on the other side. My Bill does not state whether such spending is good or bad; it simply tries to demonstrate its effect on the public purse. That is why I hope that Members on both sides of the House will support the Bill on Second Reading.

My Bill is a small Bill—it does not even run to two pages—it is concise and it proposes the establishment of a simple and straightforward mechanism to let British taxpayers know how much of their money goes each year to Her Majesty’s Government through all the different burdens of taxation. It is not just about income tax or national insurance contributions; it tries to add up the total burden of taxation on every man, woman and child in the country. There is a need for transparency, because a particularly enthused member of the public who was trying to work out the burden of taxation might, for example, go to the Finance Bill, which is typically more than 500 pages long, with hundreds of different clauses, or one of the Budget reports, with its supporting documentation, which also run to hundreds of pages, containing huge amounts of detail. However, a taxation freedom day—a calendar point each year that simply illustrated the burden of taxation—would be a lot more readily understood.

Importantly, a taxation freedom day would also help to expose the increasing burden of stealth taxes on our economy. It is all very well concentrating on the headline rates of income tax, the thresholds at which they kick in or national insurance contributions, but as we have seen over the last decade, one of the big increases has been in stealth taxes, particularly council tax, in the hope that the British public would not spot that. However, by having an effect on taxation freedom day, the burden of stealth taxation on our economy could also be exposed.

In closing, I would like to stress that my Bill is politically neutral. It is an attempt to make our country’s taxation system more transparent, in a way that, crucially, every individual in the land would readily and easily understand. I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Minister has been persuaded by the power of my arguments and that she will confirm that the Government will support the Bill, because there is enough time in the current Session for it to complete its passage.

Big Society

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Philip Hollobone

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

It is in no way, shape or form cover for cuts. It is a vision that the Prime Minister set out well before the crisis that engulfed the public finances and made necessary the tough decisions that the Government are taking. I do not want to focus on the deficit and the current difficulties in reining in the size of the state, because the big society is about much more than that, and it is more important than that. It is about giving people and communities a sense of responsibility.

I shall take the example of Dover, my constituency, which I advance as a case study of the difference that can be made. Before the election, the previous Government were planning to sell off the port of Dover. That proposal was in the operational efficiency report, the so-called car boot sale. There was to be an allegedly voluntary privatisation, but it was pretty clear that there was a desire for the port to be sold. My constituents understood that it would almost certainly go to a buyer overseas, and there was a sense of frustration about that.

That sense of frustration in relation to the port has existed for many years, because the directors have always been appointed by Whitehall and have had very little to do with the local community in their direction or in community engagement. That connection with the community has not been in place. The port is not simply an economic and transportation facility, it is also a social facility, as anyone with a port in their constituency will know. The interconnection between a town and the port in it is deep, and there is a symbiosis between the two. That is very much the case in Dover. With a whole load of directors having been appointed in Whitehall, hundreds of miles away, the people of Dover have been unable to effect positive engagement.

If the port were sold off overseas, we would simply be swapping one remote interest for another, and the community would not be engaged with it. Part of the difficulty in that situation would be that the community would think that the port’s management did nothing for the town and did not engage positively with it. Sadly, the port has gone to war with the ferry companies, which are the key port users for both berthing charges and general relations. There has been a breakdown of the relationship in the heartland of Dover’s local economy. The town and the community are not happy, and the key businesses are not happy. The port is on the block, threatened with being sold off overseas.

What can the community do? Under the traditional model, the solution would be about either the big state or big business. We say that it is time to try something new and different—giving the community a chance to take charge of its future and its destiny. We have been asking why, instead of the port being sold off overseas, the community cannot buy it as a community mutual and run it in partnership with those who use the port, the ferry companies that effectively account for all the port’s money. Many people will ask, “How can you possibly do that? How can these stupid yokels know what they are doing? Either you need big Government running it or big foreign business doing it, but you cannot possibly expect a community to have the intelligence or wherewithal to run an important facility like that.”

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I am following my hon. Friend’s speech with great interest, and he is making a powerful case.

Charities lead the way in the big society, and one of the parts of the charitable sector that does best is air ambulance services. My hon. Friend might be interested to know that I have had a letter from Andy Williamson, the chief executive of the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire air ambulance, who states:

“I do hope that the Government will adhere to its ‘Big Society’ agenda and not waver under the current media frenzy seeking the continued protection of a ‘Big State’…we do not seek or desire Government funding; instead we have a solid belief that people will care for and support an organisation like ours that provides real, tangible and visible benefits for all.”

Do not the air ambulances show the way forward?

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Air ambulances play an important role in many communities up and down the country. Such voluntary action to take responsibility and raise money makes such a difference.

That is exactly what the community is up to in the case of the port of Dover. What is the response of the community? It is getting together with the ferry companies to make a bid to buy the port. We are asking the Government to allow us the opportunity to make that bid. The proposal is led not by people who do not know what they are doing, but by people who are extremely experienced. The president of the Dover People’s Port community trust is Sir Patrick Sheehy, who used to run British American Tobacco, the massive cigarettes and tobacco combine, and another director is Algy Cluff, who opened up the North sea to oil exploration. The chairman, Neil Wiggins, who is in the Members Gallery, has expertise in buying, selling and managing ports all around the world.

That is the key point. There is so much talent and knowledge in our communities, which have the wherewithal and ability to take on serious responsibilities. That is why we have been able to go to the City, raise £200 million to buy the port, and put together a business plan that includes investment in the national interest of £100 million over the next five years, plus £50 million for the regeneration of the port. Anyone who knows Dover will see why it needs the big society and why it can be a landmark for the big society.