Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I would happily work with the hon. Gentleman and the Welsh Government. I have always found him and the Welsh Government to be congenial colleagues in regard to the roll-out of superfast broadband.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

We know that the Secretary of State wants to leave the European Union, but his Minister appears already to have left the United Kingdom to inhabit some fantasy “Broadbandia” in which everything is, in his words, an “unadulterated success”. For the rest of us in the 21st century United Kingdom, however, the reality is different. One in five broadband users still has less than half the speed that Ofcom classes as acceptable, and 70% of smartphone users in rural areas have zero access to 4G. Rather than living in “Broadbandia”, the rest of us are living in “Broadbadia“. Will the Minister stop fantasising and acknowledge the view of the Countryside Alliance:

“This rural broadband betrayal is devastating”?

[Mr Vaizey]

I know that the hon. Lady will want to join me in commemorating this important day, which is the 33rd anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s landslide election victory in 1983. In that year, there was no broadband and the Minister you see before you was sitting his O-levels. The Secretary of State, however, was on the great lady’s battle bus.

The hon. Lady might quote the Countryside Alliance, but the gardener Robin Lane Fox wrote an article in the Financial Times, which I know she reads, in which he talked about a move to the rural arcadia brought about by our broadband roll-out programme. He said that, like Falstaff, he was looking forward to dying babbling of green fields because he could live in the countryside with a superfast connection. Let us remind ourselves that Labour had a pathetic megabit policy, and that is still its policy. Let us also remind ourselves that we are two years ahead of where Labour would have been, and let us talk up the success of this programme instead of constantly talking down great broadband Britain.

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The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, representing the House of Commons Commission, was asked—

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

1. What assessment the Commission has made of the effect on hon. Members and visitors of the level of diversity represented in artwork displayed in the Palace of Westminster.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington)]

No formal assessment has been made. However, the strategic priorities for developing the parliamentary arts collection are reviewed by the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art at the start of each Parliament. The Committee makes targeted acquisitions that reflect the interests of the House, and makes changes to the presentation of works of art to promote engagement by the visiting public. The Committee has already decided to give further consideration in the current Parliament to the representation of the collection of parliamentarians of black, Asian or minority ethnic origin.

[Chi Onwurah]

In the six years that I have had the privilege of serving in this House, I have often felt that the dead white men in tights who people the walls of this Palace follow me around, sometimes into the Chamber itself. As the answer to my parliamentary question showed, there are only two representations of BAME people in the whole of this Palace. In a few weeks, children from English Martyrs Primary School in Newcastle will make the journey to visit Parliament. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that they should be overawed and impressed by the Palace, but feel that they are part of its present as well as its future?

[Tom Brake]

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady’s point. She will, I hope, be pleased to hear that on 5 July the Advisory Committee will discuss this very subject. I hope the Committee will be able to provide her with a clear action plan that will help to address her concerns.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

The hon. Gentleman refers only to income tax. If he had looked at last weekend’s analysis of the overall cuts and what has happened with regard to tax and benefits, he would have seen that it is actually the poorest decile who are paying the most. The two groups hit hardest are young women with children and older women with caring responsibilities. Some 81% of the cuts are falling on women. This is a discriminatory Budget.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

We are pleased that the Chancellor has found that the PIP cuts are a cut too far, even for this ideological Government. Does the shadow Chancellor agree that characterising all benefits claimants as workshy, stay-in-bed, lazy scroungers, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has done on many occasions, contributes to an atmosphere in which it is acceptable to enrich the better off at the cost of the poorest among us?

[John McDonnell]

That language has been used by the Conservative party. Let me return to the Budget. The hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly), who has now left us, asked me to return to the Budget, so let me press on.

Even worse, there is still no certainty about further welfare cuts. We were told yesterday by the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—this was repeated today—that there were to be no further cuts to welfare in this Parliament. Within minutes, the Treasury were briefing to correct the Secretary of State, as that then became “no planned cuts”. There is complete confusion—chaos on chaos. Nobody believes or has any confidence in the mealy-mouthed assurances that are being given today.

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[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to such an important debate and to follow so many speeches from my hon. and right hon. Friends. Although I might not have agreed with what the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) said, I commend her focus on jobs and the importance of delivering a high-wage, job-based economy for our country. By contrast, the Chancellor opened with the mix of bluff and bravado, arrogance and malice that has become his trademark, but even so, I was absolutely astonished to hear him refer to social justice. This is a Budget with unfairness at its heart and misery in its veins. The Chancellor’s record of failure—failure to achieve any of his own debt targets, failure to deliver decent wages—

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree with me and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which reported yesterday that since the Chancellor has been in place, the gap between rich and poor has narrowed because most people have got into jobs? That is the way to bring about social justice.

[Chi Onwurah]

I would thank the hon. Lady for that contribution, but it flies in the face of the lived experience of my constituents, who are in low-wage jobs, cannot make ends meet and find themselves attacked by this Chancellor’s Budget. The Chancellor has failed to deliver for working people. His failure to raise productivity has been trumped in the past few days, in media terms at least, by his failure to deliver a Budget that lasts 48 hours.

The 1,443 PIP claimants in Newcastle will, like me, be pleased at least that that cut proved an ideological attack too far, but it is undoubtedly the case that by demonising and attacking all benefits claimants, the Chancellor hoped to create an atmosphere in which it was acceptable to enrich the better-off on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable among us. It will be some compensation for them that members of the Government are now attacking and reviling each other almost to the same extent they have attacked and undermined benefits claimants.

I do not want to focus on the 48 hours following the Budget as experienced by the Chancellor. Instead, I want to give three examples of events that I attended in those 48 hours that highlighted the huge gap at the centre of the Budget, which was a failure to address our future economy and the future of the next generation, as he put it. On Thursday I visited the Big Bang fair organised by EngineeringUK with engineering professional bodies and businesses from across the country, where 70,000 young people discovered or rediscovered the excitement offered by a career in science, technology, engineering and maths. Those are the jobs of the future, the ones I want for my constituents, high-paid—not minimum wage, minimum skill—jobs.

But where were such jobs mentioned in the Budget? Where was the investment in the future to help create those jobs? There were, it is true, tax breaks for those hiring out their assets in the digital economy, but there was nothing for manufacturing or technology. There was no investment in digital infrastructure. There was no more detail on apprenticeships, which we need to ensure that we have the skills of the future. This was a Budget that left behind the technology that we need for our future.

That evening I visited the Creative Newcastle Get Digital summit, celebrating one of the fastest-growing sectors in the north-east, only hundreds of yards from where Stephenson’s Rocket was built. That was the real northern powerhouse, powering our economy into the future. But the Budget offered a few hundred million pounds for investment in north-east transport, against the tens of billions of investment in transport in London. This Budget did not offer any investment in digital infrastructure, and we stand to lose the millions of investment from the European Union, thanks to the referendum and the chaos on the Government Benches over that.

Finally, on Friday morning I visited St Paul’s primary school, where 10 and 11-year-olds were taking on the Pioneer challenge with employers and other schools across the region to promote STEM and entrepreneurship. Those children are the future basis for our economy in the north-east. They are proud Geordies, yet what the Budget did for them was to force the academisation of their school, taking it out of the local authority and the community that it seeks to support and atomising it—in effect, privatising it and taking away responsibility from the local parents and putting it on a desk in Whitehall, which is also where the northern powerhouse is found.

This Budget offered nothing for the future of our young people, for the north-east economy or for our country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned consistently on these issues since 2010. The justice reforms are an exemplary element of the long-term economic plan, combining savings with social reform and delivering economic dividends from improved employability to sites for 3,000 new homes. It is because of the strength of the economy, thanks to the long-term plan, that we can invest £1 billion to build nine modern prisons and close the old ones.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Last night I launched the all-party group on adult education in recognition of the fact that at a time when we are all living longer, having many different jobs and even careers, and whole industries are being allowed to die, our long-term economic security depends on investing in adult education. The Chancellor was persuaded not to slash the further education budget. Will he now acknowledge that investing in further education is vital for the future?

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, particularly when it comes to innovation. The Global Innovation Index ranked the United Kingdom second in the world in 2013. We have been ranked first for the reach, impact and well-roundedness of our research and first for our research productivity, which is 3.87 times the world average.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

10. What plans he has to provide local authorities within the northern powerhouse with additional funding and powers to raise funds to support those authorities in carrying out newly devolved responsibilities.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Hands)]

By the end of this Parliament, local authorities will be able to retain 100% of local taxes to spend on local services, and areas with city-wide elected mayors will be given even greater flexibilities in relation to business rates. Each devolution deal will be bespoke, but the deal agreed last Friday with the North East combined authority includes a new £30 million-a-year funding allocation which will bring together funds to deliver a 15-year programme of transformational investment in the region.

[Chi Onwurah]

The north-east is keen, indeed determined, to slip Whitehall’s leash, but some fear that hard-pressed civil servants will seek to devolve cuts while retaining control of spending. To avoid that, will the Chancellor commit himself to complete transparency in respect of the budgets of the devolved functions, and to publishing the full funding figures for the years before and after the spending review?

[Greg Hands]

Of course we will publish information, but I remind the hon. Lady that the deal that was signed last Friday commits us to £30 million a year of additional funding. If she does not think that that is a good deal, perhaps she should listen to Simon Henig, the chairman of the new North East combined authority. He is a member of her own party, but it seems that she does not want to listen to what has been said by a member of her own party. He said:

“The agreement being signed today will bring significant economic benefits and opportunities for businesses and residents.”

The hon. Lady should be welcoming that.

Productivity

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his amazing election result. It was a fantastic achievement. Indeed, I think that he unseated one of my predecessors as Chief Secretary.

Of course we are still committed to delivering the A358. I believe that the Labour party produced only two proposals for reducing the deficit during the election campaign, both of which were highly misguided, including the proposal for cuts in the A358 programme.

It is, in many ways, a vindication of what we have achieved since 2010 that we are debating the issue of productivity today. Over the last five years—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Nottingham East says that he has been raising the issue. I have gone through all the speeches—well, not all of then, because I could not find them all, but most of them—that he made when he was leading the “Gordon Brown for leader” campaign in 2007. I have also gone through the speeches that he made when he was backing Ed Balls in 2010. I must say that I found scant reference to the word “productivity”.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

No. I am going to finish now.

As I was saying, it is, in so many ways, a vindication of our record of the last five years that we are debating the issue of productivity. Many of us will remember our debates—led by the hon. Member for Nottingham East—on mass unemployment, the cost of living crisis, and “too far, too fast”. In all those respects, the hon. Gentleman’s approach turned out to be absolutely wrong. We now have financial stability, unemployment is down to historic lows, and living standards this year are predicted to grow at their fastest rate since 2001. All that is thanks to the tough decisions that we have made.

We now have a great opportunity to step things up a gear, and to solve a challenge that has been a drag on the United Kingdom’s economy for decades. The wind is blowing in the right direction. We have a falling deficit, a growing economy, an historic mandate, and a firm resolve to tackle this issue, along with the right team to do it. That is how we deliver for the people of the United Kingdom, and that is what this Government will do.

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[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I would like to welcome you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to your position. I also welcome two new Members—the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Harry Harpham). I was moved by their contributions and I am sure that the House will benefit from both their careers.

Low productivity is not in the interests of the UK, of employees or of business. One reason why the Chancellor missed every single one of his 2010 economic targets was that tax revenues did not meet Treasury forecasts. The jobs created by the last Government were low-paid, low-skilled, insecure jobs for commoditised labour. Although the toll of such insecurity on individuals is hard, the toll on the economy is also harsh. Less money is raised in tax, which means that we need more cuts.

To improve productivity, we need to do one of two things: improve the outputs from people or from technology. During my 20 years in industry, including an MBA at Manchester Business School, successful managers often cited to me the bestseller and classic “In Search of Excellence”, which sets out two fundamental principles that mark a great company. The first is valuing employees as partners and as

“the primary source of productivity gains”.

The second is shared values of respect, quality and responsibility.

The Labour party is absolutely right to champion skills and encourage businesses to value and invest in their employees. What value does a zero-hour contract place on a worker? The Government consider labour to be a commodity, and commodities are not productive. We need to give people the skills and tools as well as a sense of agency and involvement to increase their productivity. As Mariana Mazzucato, a leading innovation economist, says, productivity does not come from paying workers less or attacking their rights.

That brings me to the second factor in productivity, which is technology. An article in the Harvard Business Review yesterday drew on analysis from the London Centre for Economic Policy Research to demonstrate that robots contribute 0.36% to total annual productivity growth rates whereas IT contributes 0.6%. Remember, our productivity growth rate is 0.4%, so we would welcome that increased contribution. As leading US technologists, economists and investors argued in the MIT Technology Review this month, the technology revolution

“is delivering an unprecedented set of tools for bolstering growth and productivity, creating wealth, and improving the world.”

That does not mean dumping people in low wage, low skill and insecure zero-hour jobs.

When I asked the Prime Minister last week about productivity, his answer simply showed how little the Government understand about what drives productivity. He talked about planning and entrepreneurship, but for entrepreneurship to work we need a competitive environment that new companies can enter and compete in and we need high skills in the workforce. We will never achieve high rates of productivity unless we understand that people as well as technology are the key drivers.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Friday 20th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend was a distinguished Minister in my Department. Right from the very beginning, all this was envisaged under the Localism Act 2011. Rather than trying to move all local government at the same speed, we will of course devolve this power to those councils that are capable of managing larger budgets and delivering a deal. I envisage that within the next five years most local authorities will use such a system. For those that do not, the Prime Minister made it clear in a speech a couple of weeks ago that it will be our intention to get the retention up to 66%. I shall be disappointed if we cannot exceed that, but for most local authorities self-sufficiency and being able to raise their own finance locally and to spend Government money sensibly, and so on, is the future. I have great hopes for what is happening in Greater Manchester, and it shows that people of good will right across the political spectrum can work together.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State clarify whether all new business rates will be retained, or whether it will be all incremental business rates in addition to those currently predicted?

[Mr Pickles]

It is very straightforward; it is the same scheme that has existed since the retention scheme was introduced. It is the growth in the business rates. If a council goes out of its way to bring in new investment, it is only right that it should not be penalised for doing so, as it would have been under Labour. It should reap the benefits. I know that Opposition Members have difficulty with the idea that people should be rewarded for creating wealth and working for the common good, but that is how it is going to be. The Government are helping to expand local economies, and we also want to expand powers for local areas. As I have said, we have already devolved significant powers to the Greater Manchester combined authority.

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[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall). I hope that he has many more contributions to make.

Yesterday we were treated to the spectacle of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury delivering an alternative Budget less than 24 hours after the actual Budget, and then promoting it with a yellow Budget box outside the Treasury. Given that in the next Parliament there are likely to be more MPs from the north-east than Liberal Democrats from the entire country, perhaps I should ask your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, to present a north-east Budget, and then I could parade up and down Whitehall with a black and white Budget box in the colours of the Northumbrian tartan, and of Newcastle United. My hon. Friends from Sunderland and Middlesbrough might object, so it is just as well that I am not seriously considering such a stunt. The Labour party is a one-nation Opposition and will be a one-nation Government for everybody, not just for the few. A Labour Government will recognise how essential it is that all our regions prosper.

The north-east has many economic successes to shout about. We are the only region outside London that has a positive trade balance. Our export surplus is now £2.5 billion a year. One in three cars made in the UK comes out of Nissan in Sunderland, making the north-east the country’s No. 1 car producing region. The Tees valley is home to the UK’s largest integrated chemicals complex, which is the second largest in the European Union. Over 1,400 companies operate in the sector, exporting more than £12 billion of goods a year. More than 70% of the oil and gas platforms operating in the North sea were built in the north-east. We have world-class businesses and world-class institutions, such as our universities. Newcastle university’s achievements in mitochondrial DNA were debated only recently in this Chamber. Of course, we have fantastic people, not to mention our outstanding countryside and culture, and what is perhaps beyond price—a collective identity.

I grew up in Newcastle in the 1960s and ’70s. It was a city and a region that valued engineering and was proud of making and building things. We still lead the way in exports, and we are increasingly becoming a centre for hi-tech and digital businesses. There are few better places to live, work or innovate. However, I am not under any illusion as to the scale of the challenges we face. Unfortunately, we heard little this week in the Budget about how we might face those challenges. As the headline in our excellent local newspaper, The Journal, put it: “What about the North East, George?” The region has suffered a disproportionate level of cuts, and, as a result, has seen its economy shrink by 10% in recent years. The north-east has the highest rate of unemployment in the UK.

It is therefore not surprising that few of my constituents will recognise the unbridled good news that the Chancellor was trying to spin this week. Under this Government, everyday working people in my constituency and across the region are feeling the pain of the longest cost of living crisis in a century. They are £1,800 per year less well-off. Too many people are trapped in low-wage, insecure jobs where they work hard but do not see the benefits of that work. Inequality is continuing to rise. It is not good for the north-east or the country as a whole to have a deep and growing divide. A one-nation economy needs an innovative and dynamic north-east.

I know that the region is up for this challenge. In the decade between 1998 and 2008, with the support of the regional development agency, One North East, the region added 67,000 new jobs, many of these in the private sector, and saw growth of 10%. The new combined authority and the local enterprise partnership, working with their partners across the region, can play a crucial part in building a more innovative economy. Since the regional development agency was abolished by this Government, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) said earlier, the north-east, unlike London and the devolved nations, has had no collective voice to shout about its strengths and focus on its weaknesses. That is why I was pleased when the combined authority proposals came to fruition last year. However, the authority and local councils need real powers if they are to be able to make a difference.

This week the combined authority told us what some of those powers might be. They include a north-east investment fund made up of a range of current short-term funds combined into one and allocated by the authority as part of a long-term investment plan. We need more regional involvement in how European Union funding is invested. It is a scandal that this Government have allowed much needed EU funding to be lost. We also need the devolution of skills funding, the Work programme, and tourism and culture powers. We heard nothing about that in the Budget, and we heard very little about the future of our regional infrastructure. The combined authority has called for investment in transport networks and the creation of a new body to work on integrated transport delivery across the region for passengers and for freight.

The Chancellor seems to have managed to recognise the existence of the north in as much as he often talks of a northern powerhouse. It does not seem to spread as far as the north-east, but I guess it is a step forward that he can at least say the word “northern” on a regular basis. A real northern powerhouse that included the north-east would have had many of the powers announced in the Budget, or at least a movement in the right direction.

The Government talk about a northern powerhouse at the same time as imposing crippling council funding cuts. Councils are currently being forced to make almost impossible cuts, to a point at which some are questioning whether they can do anything other than deliver the services that they are obliged to deliver by law. Furthermore, the cuts imposed on the northern metropolitan councils have been much greater per head than those imposed on councils in other parts of the country which are, in many instances, represented by Tory Members.

My hon. Friends and I believe that, rather than being simply local delivery vehicles, councils and local and regional structures should have real power: power to bring about the positive changes that our constituents deserve, and power to bring about those changes in areas where they know the need exists. That is why we have said that we will pass an English devolution Act to reverse a century of centralisation. The Act will secure devolution to the people of England’s cities and county regions and transfer £30 billion of funding over five years, thus giving local communities more power to address local priorities and grow their local economies.

We will put economic power into the hands of those who know what their areas need, rather than leaving it in Whitehall. We will give city and county regions more power over their public transport networks, so they can set the right bus routes and operate fairer fares, as well as integrating their transport services to help working people and businesses to succeed in their areas. Unlike the present Government, we will support bus quality contracts.

Central to the future of the north-east is a fair funding system. Analysis by Oxford Economics found that the knock-on effect of the unfair distribution of cuts meant a further £1 billion loss of private sector investment in the region, a loss that we can ill afford. A Labour Government will end the bias against our poorest areas by ensuring that the funds that we have are distributed more fairly, and in a way that will allow councils to plan for the long term.

During the industrial revolution, the north-east powered the economy. When the Labour Government who will come to office in May are prioritising investment in the green industrial revolution and devolving powers to our councils and communities, the north-east will once again be able to power the nation’s economic success.

Tax Avoidance

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I shall deal with the substantive thrust of that intervention when I come to the general anti-abuse rule later.

In the context of what has been happening on the Government’s watch in revelations to tax avoidance, we have now had the shocking revelations about HSBC. We now learn that the Government were handed information about malpractice at HSBC, and that one of their first acts was to make the then boss of the bank, Stephen Green, a lord and then a trade Minister. Richard Brooks, a former HMRC tax inspector and BBC reporter, has said that the Treasury and HMRC

“knew that there was a mass of evidence of tax evasion at the heart of HSBC”

in 2011, but that they

“simply washed their hands of it”—

a damning indictment, if ever there was one.

The consequences are clear. More than 1,100 individuals were identified as allegedly guilty of tax avoidance or evasion, but we are led to believe that in only one case was there sufficient evidence to prosecute. In November 2012, a senior HMRC official told The Times that the Government had adopted “a selective prosecution policy” towards cases related to HSBC. Later that month, HMRC told the Public Accounts Committee that another dozen criminal prosecutions were to follow. However, there have been none since. It seems that HMRC adopted a deliberate strategy to minimise the number of prosecutions, rather than pursue them, which explains why just £135 million has been recouped, which contrasts unfavourably with France, for example, which has prosecuted more cases and raised more money on the basis of fewer account files being handed over.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making some excellent points. Has she contrasted this Government’s aggressive sanctioning and demonisation of benefit claimants with their lax approach to those who avoid tax, and does she think it might be because they know far more tax avoiders than benefits claimants?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. We should pursue with equal vigour all those who game the rules in our country, whether it be benefit fraud or tax avoidance and evasion.

There remain serious questions for the Government to answer. I hope we hear some answers from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to these pressing questions. Did he ever speak to Lord Green about tax avoidance and evasion at HSBC? If not, why not? I am happy to give way to him, if he wants to clarify those matters now, but it does not seem as though he is willing to take up that offer. I hope he will see fit to answer some of those questions in his speech. The Prime Minister was asked about conversations with Lord Green four times during Prime Minister’s questions today, but he failed to answer each time.

It has been difficult to keep up with the conflicting reports about who knew what and when, but today the Government have claimed they knew that HSBC customers were in the frame for tax avoidance and evasion but not about any possible culpability by the bank itself. It is ridiculous to suggest that, despite having files showing that 1,100 customers of a bank possibly avoided or evaded tax, Ministers did not consider the possibility that perhaps the bank itself had a hand in it and did not bother to ask any questions of a ministerial colleague they knew was head of the bank over the period in question.

The Government were given the data in May 2010; Lord Green took office in January 2011; and the Swiss tax deal was signed in August 2011. In fact, the Minister and David Hartnett, the senior tax official, started negotiating the Swiss tax deal straight after the data on HSBC were received from the French authorities, so at a time when the Government knew, or should have known, that serious wrongdoing had been going on.

I think we need some answers from the Minister about whether he ever discussed the Swiss tax deal with Lord Green, who was, after all, a colleague who had run an organisation with a Swiss banking arm. We need the Minister to explain the conversations he had—or the conversations that, on reflection, he now feels he should have had—with colleagues in government, and to clarify whether he has any regrets.

We also need to hear explicitly from Lord Green—our motion calls for this—with a full and frank statement about what he knew and what discussions he had with those in government about his knowledge of what was going on in the Swiss arm of HSBC. I also think it is about time we heard from the Chancellor. He has been quiet since Sunday, when all this started to come to light, so we need to hear from him as the head of the Treasury what he knew.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right that small businesses are absolutely central to our country’s economic growth and job creation in the future. We have cut small companies corporation tax in this Parliament. From April, we will have a single corporation tax, as it is consolidated around 20%, which removes a lot of the bureaucracy. On top of that, we have taken the smallest businesses out of business rates, and the employment allowance has helped with the national insurance bills of small businesses. Of course I will bear in mind anything else we can do to help small businesses. We have got some measures in the pipeline, but there is clearly more to do.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

T6. This Government are demonising those on benefits, while doing little about tax evasion and avoidance, which, as we have heard, have risen significantly on their watch. Today sees the launch of the Tax Dodging Bill campaign, as 85% of British adults say that tax avoidance by large companies is morally wrong, even when it is legal. Why will the Chancellor not impose penalties for breaches of the general anti-avoidance rule, as we have called for?

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

First, it was this Government who got the base erosion and profit shifting process running with the OECD, looking to deal with the international rules. It was this Government who announced at the autumn statement that we are bringing in a diverted profits tax to deal with some of the contrived and artificial behaviours that people are worried about. It was also this Government who introduced the general anti-abuse rule and it is this Government who are consulting on bringing in penalties for it. I have to say, it is not a bad record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to highlight the importance of these changes. As a local Member of Parliament, he has a particularly important role to play in promoting them, as he has done for the businesses already taking them up. I encourage him to continue to do that and to talk to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about whether there is more we can do to get that message across.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

T5. Last week, the Chancellor said: “What I reject is the totally hyperbolic BBC coverage on spending cuts. I had all that…four years ago and has the world fallen in? No”.At my surgeries, I meet mothers dependent on food banks to feed their families, fathers desperate at lost Sure Start services, and disabled pensioners choosing between heating and eating. They tell me that their world has fallen in. Does the Chief Secretary agree with the Chancellor that they are being “hyperbolic”?

[Danny Alexander]

I am sure the hon. Lady explained to those constituents that the severe economic problems this country is experiencing and recovering from were caused on her party’s watch when it was in office. Although I share the view that these are difficult issues, I hope she would also highlight the fact that her constituency has seen 5,200 jobs created in the past 12 months.

Energy-intensive Industries

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I welcome this debate on energy-intensive industries, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales), as well as the Backbench Business Committee, for securing it.

I also thank you, Mr Speaker, for your flexibility in enabling me to contribute. Unfortunately, constituency engagements mean that I might not be able to stay for the winding-up speeches. I apologise to the Minister and to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for that. I will read Hansard with increased interest.

I am keen to contribute to this debate because energy-intensive industries are such an important part of our economy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North said in his excellent opening remarks. They employ about 200,000 people directly in the UK and support 800,000 jobs throughout their supply chain. They are an important part of the real economy, particularly, I might say, outside the south-east. My constituency is home to several energy-intensive businesses, such as Michell Bearings, which has been in Newcastle since 1920. There are many more throughout the north-east.

If we can look back that far, 160 years ago the north-east—one of the most innovative regions in the world—was leading the UK into the first, carbon-based industrial revolution. Sir Charles Parsons established his engineering works in Newcastle and he invented the multi-stage steam turbine, which was the iPhone of its day and helped to power Britain into a new era. Mosley street in my constituency was the first street in the world to be lit with electric light—something to which we have become all too accustomed.

Newcastle university, also in my constituency, was founded on local strengths such as marine, electrical, civil and chemical engineering, as well as agriculture and medicine, and they remain key strengths of the city and the university today: global reach and local roots. Today, the region remains a global base for manufacturing innovation. It is the only English region with a positive balance of trade. As well as the industries and companies that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North spoke of, we have fantastic facilities such as the National Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth and the Centre for Process Innovation on Teesside, which were both set up with the help of One NorthEast—regrettably abolished by this Government. In Newcastle, we have recently opened the Institute for Sustainability.

Energy-intensive industries and carbon reduction are crucial to the north-east economy. There is not, and should not be, any contradiction between the two. The transition to a low-carbon economy is a huge opportunity for the UK, with the potential to be a major source of jobs and growth. However, that transition is being put at risk as a direct result of this Government’s failure to develop a long-term, sustainable energy policy. They have failed to get behind green businesses. The UK is falling behind with investment in green growth, meaning that jobs and industry that should be coming to this country are now going overseas. I have spoken to the senior management at companies that would prefer not to be named who have said that the lack of a clear long-term energy strategy is putting off investment that could create jobs tomorrow, next month and next year. That is clearly detrimental to our economy overall.

The lack of an overall energy strategy and an integrated strategy for supporting energy-intensive industries is putting jobs and investment at risk. Conflicting signals from this Government about support for green energy versus terminology such as “green crap”—I think that was it—has seen the UK’s attractiveness to renewables investors slide down international tables. If we want to support the real economy and to build a long-term, sustainable economic environment, businesses need to know what they can expect from Government. They need long-term regulatory and policy certainty, and they are not getting that from this Government.

As my hon. Friend said, the carbon price floor was intended to create a floor underneath the EU emissions trading scheme, but since the collapse of the ETS price, energy-intensive British firms have been faced with far higher energy bills than European competitors. We need to know how Government are going to support these vital industries over the next five, 10 and 20 years, because that is the kind of life cycle they have for building plant and investing in countries. We need a long-term energy policy that supports and drives green growth and creates jobs in a low-carbon economy—a policy that gives investors the certainty and confidence they need to invest by committing to decarbonising the power sector by 2030. Yet as a direct result of this Government’s mixed messages, we are falling behind.

I have always considered myself a champion of new technologies in this House and elsewhere. When energy-intensive industry representatives first spoke to me of their concerns about some of the Government’s energy policy, I asked them what they were doing to improve their energy efficiency. Were they, for example, asking the Government and policy makers to subsidise obsolete industrial processes? Following further investigation, I was made to understand that many of the processes related to reducing energy consumption and improving energy efficiency are reaching the limits of the laws of physics. I am sure we are not all as familiar as we perhaps should be with the periodic table and the chemistry education we received, but I think we can all understand that a certain amount of energy is needed to change the state of molecules and to change gas to liquid. We have made so much progress in the efficiency of many such processes that it is not possible to go further. Given that so many of the processes are essential to our manufacturing base and a balanced economy, it is unarguable that they need to be supported during this transition.

The energy costs of energy-intensive industries can be more than three quarters of their addressable costs, and they are often already operating in highly competitive markets. There is also already a considerable incentive for them to innovate and become more energy efficient.

The industries need support from Government and a clear, long-term direction of travel. They need action in a number of areas, including fixing the broken energy market, as Labour has promised to do; exploring new sources of green energy, such as clean coal; and specific and long-term support so that they can continue to compete internationally.

In government, the Labour party was more courageous in this area than many others. The Climate Change Act 2008 made us the first country in the world to introduce a legally binding framework to tackle climate change.

[David T. C. Davies]

I am listening with interest to the hon. Lady, but does she not agree that the Climate Change Act is actually one of the reasons why we got ourselves into this awful situation in the first place? We are taxing industries in order to try to solve a problem that I am not even sure exists.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but his final comment gave away his position. He said that we are taxing a problem he is not even sure exists, but the consensus on the need to address climate change is global and we certainly owe it to our children and our children’s children—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is chuntering, but I am afraid I cannot follow him. The Climate Change Act is not responsible for climate change; it is a response to climate change and one that is necessary for the long-term sustainability of our economy and the global economy.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Are not the industries under discussion also totally behind the drive towards a green economy, because that in itself creates opportunities for new products, innovation and economic growth?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for putting very clearly—I should have done so myself—the position of many in the energy-intensive industries, who see the need for a long-term future for their significant investments and wish to see a more competitive transition towards it.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I have been listening very carefully to the hon. Lady. To say that members of the energy-intensive industries want us to go further and faster than other countries with the green stuff is a bit of a leap. Although no one disputes that we must decarbonise, the issue we need to address—the hon. Lady has not yet done so—is the extent to which we need to do that more quickly and more unilaterally than others. That is a fair question.

[Chi Onwurah]

I think that the hon. Gentleman has misinterpreted the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith). She said not that the energy-intensive industries seek to go further and faster, but that they recognise the need to transition to a green economy if they are themselves to have a long-term economic future in this country and globally. I certainly support that position.

[David Mowat]

I will not intervene on the hon. Lady again, but as she said that I had misinterpreted the point, I want to come back on that. The issue is that we in this country are doing things unilaterally that other parts of the EU are not doing—it is not an EU issue—and that is a problem for many of the people, including my constituents and perhaps those of the hon. Lady, who derive their income and prosperity from the 900,000 jobs in energy-intensive industries. The valid point for us to debate is the extent to which we should be out of step with other countries, including in other parts of Europe.

[Chi Onwurah]

It was of course the hon. Gentleman’s Government who introduced the carbon floor tax, but I very much agree that it is legitimate for us to discuss such subjects, which is why I was so keen to take part in this debate. The way in which the UK leads in moving to a sustainable economic future is itself an opportunity for jobs and innovation, but it should also protect our energy-intensive industries.

I shall soon bring my remarks to a close, but I wanted to say that the previous Labour Government established the Sustainable Development Commission, the Committee on Climate Change, and the Warm Front scheme to tackle fuel poverty, and they invested in low-carbon industries. The economy was growing, but the air quality in our towns and cities nevertheless improved. Our CO₂ emissions fell by 10.8 million tonnes in our final year in government, when our greenhouse gas emissions were 66 million tonnes lower than in 1997. We helped 5 million households to get better insulation and keep warm, which reduced emissions and saved consumers money at the same time.

The next Labour Government will carry on that work. We recognise that a secure, clean energy mix is vital to powering our economy, meeting our climate change obligations and protecting customers from bill rises driven by events overseas. A long-term strategy should look at and support innovative new techniques, such as carbon capture and storage and underground coal gasification. Five-Quarter, a company spun out from Newcastle university, is leading the world in looking at the development of underground coal gasification as a clean way to deliver electrical power.

My key point is that aggressive action to tackle climate change is not incompatible with a strong manufacturing base. With the right strategies and support in place, the north-east can be the vanguard for a UK that competes globally in manufacturing and labour-intensive industries, while also setting an example in tackling climate change.