Tax Avoidance (HSBC)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. That confusion was followed by the weekend’s confusion whereby countries that do not have a public central register—as opposed to other territories that do not have a public central register—are on a blacklist. Clearly the Labour party desires to say something about tax, but it is a pity that the bar is not set a little higher for it to say something sensible about tax.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The thing about the Prime Minister’s appointment of Stephen Green as trade Minister is that unfortunately the Prime Minister has got form on appointments—we have only to think of Andy Coulson. Somebody comes along from a company that has been up to no good, and the Prime Minister does not ask the important questions; he does not carry out due diligence but just goes, “Oh, you’re rich, you’re powerful. Come on in, no questions asked.” Does the Minister feel any element of shame that instead of tackling tax evasion and tax avoidance, this Government have effectively promoted it by putting it in the Government?

[Mr Gauke]

I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that that is pretty desperate. He says we have not dealt with tax avoidance and tax evasion. Look at the record. Look at the way the yield has increased. Look at the rules that have been changed. Look at HMRC’s additional powers. Look at the culture change we are seeing in this country, in terms of tax evasion and tax avoidance. I just regret that 10 years ago there was such a lax attitude to these things. The Government of the time have to accept some responsibility for that.

Autumn Statement

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

As my hon. Friend knows—this is the problem of previous Governments having handed over various powers and rights of this country to Brussels—we are constrained by the VAT threshold that we can levy in this country. I think that it is already the highest in Europe, so we are restricted in what we can do. That is why we are seeking to help small businesses in her west country constituency both through the measures on business rates, and through investment in infrastructure, such as the A303, the Dawlish rail line and the Kingskerswell bypass. As I saw a few weeks ago, the bypass is proceeding very well in her constituency.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Instead of wasting his time in Northamptonshire with a dead-beat candidate, may I suggest that the Chancellor comes to the Rhondda, particularly to visit the Conservative club in Tylorstown? I say the Conservative club, but it has closed and, ironically enough, is now a food bank. If he came to that food bank, he would learn from those who run it that the vast majority of people that they are helping with 2.5 tonnes of food every year are in work. That is because of the sanctions regime, low hours, zero-hours contracts and, most importantly, the bedroom tax. Why does he not deal with any of those facts?

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As I have said before, a number of industries have bad apples and make mistakes, but we must recognise that the freedom of the press is a cornerstone of our democracy.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

But it was not just one bad apple, was it? It was not one rogue reporter, it was systematic abuse of people who were the victims of crime themselves or had lost family members in Afghanistan. I hope the Secretary of State will understand that those victims of crimes and unethical conduct are deeply troubled by the creation of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, because it has been cobbled together by two Conservative Members of the House of Lords and is still a case of the press marking their own homework.

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the industry and the Government agree, as I believe do all parties in this House, that self-regulation is the way forward. That was at the heart of the Leveson principles. As I said, the royal charter has been granted and the press have responded by setting up a self-regulator, and it is now for them to decide how they wish to take that further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Willott]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s support for this important project. This type of bullying is completely unacceptable. It must be addressed and we must learn the best way to do that. NatCen Social Research, to whom the contract has been awarded, has already started looking at the evidence for the most effective measures to tackle such bullying. It will report in the summer and we will use its report to develop and pilot interventions in schools. The learning from those pilots will be consolidated into a single package of guidance on what works, so that we can share that experience widely across all schools. That will help to ensure that the outcomes of the project live beyond the funding that is available and that they are embedded in future support for schools.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

What message does it send to those tackling homophobic bullying in this country that this country has a garrison in Brunei, which has just introduced the death penalty—stoning—for homosexuals?

[Jenny Willott]

That is clearly a worrying issue, which I am happy to raise with my colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence, as appropriate.

Wales Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I will not go over many of the issues that my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) raised, but he is absolutely right and I shall vote against clause 2 stand part because I believe that the restriction is right. The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) has been trying to intervene repeatedly to say that people have a choice—they could vote for an individual on the constituency basis but then have some other choice on the list. That is not quite the case. The names are listed in order and the voter might like candidate No. 3 on the list, but they do not have the choice to vote for that person—they vote for a political party, and it is the political party that selects the people at the top of the list. Usually that is either to boost its vote in an area or to get a person in by the back door who has already failed. That is the simple fact of the process before the current restriction came in; it is a back-door one.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May I suggest to my hon. Friend that it is not so much a back door as a cat flap? You can not only go in through the cat flap but you can withdraw without the need for a by-election if you are on the list rather than being a constituency MP.

[Jonathan Evans]

It is your system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

That is a good discussion to have and it will flow from part II of the Silk commission, which we will debate in the Chamber. It is a worthwhile debate to have in the present situation, where Parliament still has sovereign powers and still in essence passes to the Assembly the ability to do certain things, bearing in mind the commitment from our Front Bench in principle that we look favourably upon the idea of reversing the current position, where it is only the delegated powers that the Assembly can legislate on. That debate is not for today, but the time will come.

The explanatory notes, which Ministers seek to use to justify the reversal, say in paragraph 12 that the concern expressed by many people

“has been refuted in studies by the Electoral Commission and others which have demonstrated that the prohibition”

that is currently in place—the ban—

“has a disproportionate impact on smaller parties who have a smaller pool of potential candidates to draw upon.”

I am genuinely bemused by that. In my own constituency, which is a strong Labour constituency, not only are there Tory voters, but there are Tory elected representatives, a Plaid Cymru representative, and others. I cannot believe that they do not have a sufficient number of alternative candidates to put on a regional list.

All we are talking about is a handful—four candidates—appearing on a regional rather than first-past-the-post list. If they do not have the numbers, that is a real signal of a lack of confidence in the capacity of what have today been termed “minority parties” in the regions. I simply do not believe it—there are people who will and should come forward. Equally, we would have to do the same in the regions. There is an onus on the party to bring people forward in the valleys, the vale, west Wales and elsewhere. The argument that each region would not have four candidates who can be put on the list just does not hold water.

[Chris Bryant]

Does not this give the lie to the accusation that the Labour party gains a partisan advantage from the present law? Given that everybody else has mentioned the Rhondda, I will too. Leanne Wood originally said that she would stand for the constituency seat, but if the law is changed she will probably stand on both lists, and I think that undermines Plaid Cymru. If the law is changed, it will hurt Plaid Cymru in the end. It will mean that she will get fewer votes in the Rhondda than she would have got in the first place. More importantly, it undermines, and makes people more cynical about, the whole concept of the Assembly itself.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I entirely agree. We all make personal calculations in our political lives: we decide where we should stand, where we have connections and where we should cast our lot and go for it. However, the proposed system—this is the exact situation in the Rhondda—amounts to, “Well, I’m really going to go for this, but if all else fails there’s something I can fall back on.” My gut instinct is that that is not right and it does not feel right to many voters either.

The Bevan Foundation has been criticised, but it is a left-of-centre think tank—that is what it does. It is scandalous to say that it is simply an arm of the Labour party. If Members look at the work it has done on welfare issues, unemployment and economic incapacity in the valleys, they will see that some of it has been critical of the Labour party as well. When my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) was looking for someone to do a report, my guess is that the Institute of Economic Affairs and others were not available or did not have the knowledge of Wales to do it.

The majority of people canvassed were very concerned. I will not repeat the quotes, but people from across all parts of south and west Wales said that they could not understand how people who had clearly been defeated could then pop up. Of course, that was reiterated by the Government’s own impact assessment, to which I am sure the Secretary of Sate will refer when he explains why he is jettisoning its findings.

After the first set of Assembly elections, it is not just the Labour party that underwent a damascene conversion, as it has been called, but the Tories and Lib Dems. Lord Crickhowell, who has already been mentioned, is categorically opposed to dual candidacy and said back in 2005:

“The present arrangements are really pretty indefensible”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 June 2005; Vol. 672, c. 1216.]

The current Chief Secretary to the Treasury made exactly the same point. It was not just us or members of the public who were saying it at the time; other politicians also said, “We made a genuine mistake.”

As I said at the beginning, we can have discussions about closed and open lists in terms of proportionality and whether there is a different way of doing it, but I say adamantly to the Secretary of State that to reverse the system again, for whatever reason, is not the way to go. It does not work and it has been proven that it does not hold the confidence of people on the ground in Wales. Let us have the wider debate on the way forward, but simply to chop and change, particularly against the recommendations of the Electoral Commission, is no way to make Acts of Parliament.

Charter for Budget Responsibility

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

It is absolutely fair. That is what the cap is about—building a welfare system that is fair to those who need it and fair to those who pay for it.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

rose—

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Osborne]

I will take an intervention from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant).

[Chris Bryant]

Will the Chancellor confirm that, since his initial spending review, he has had to spend £13 billion more on welfare than he predicted? He has had to put it up by £1 billion this year and another £1 billion next year, so if the cap he envisages had been in place during this Parliament, he would have had to come to the House and apologise on four occasions?

[Mr Osborne]

For a start, welfare spending is £3.7 billion lower than I set out in my first Budget. It is also £10 billion less than the Labour party proposed. Labour Members cannot have it both ways. They keep claiming that we are cutting the welfare system and then complain that the cost is too high. That is one thing that we will explore in the debate—what exactly is the Labour policy.

National Minimum Wage

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I will just deal with the politics of this matter before I take interventions.

The hon. Member for Leeds West made a great deal of the fact that, as she put it, the Conservatives opposed the national minimum wage and many Liberal Democrats opposed it. She speaks with all the self-confidence of somebody who was not here at the time.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

You were and you didn’t vote.

[Vince Cable]

I did not particularly wish to raise this, but I am being asked personally to explain why I did not vote. It had a lot to do with the fact that my late wife was terminally ill at the time and I was in the Royal Marsden hospital. That is why my voting record at the time was poor on that and other issues.

As it happens, my party supported the national minimum wage; nobody opposed it. I became the party’s spokesman shortly after the vote and I made it absolutely clear throughout that Parliament that we supported the principle of the national minimum wage. There was never any question about that.

Perfectly legitimate issues were raised about why there was no regional variation. There is a proper debate to be had about whether there should be a regional or a national minimum wage. As it happens, I endorsed the principle of the national minimum wage. However, there is a perfectly respectable argument for regional variation. As I understand it, the Labour party now promotes the living wage, at the heart of which is the idea that there should be regional differentials, with people in London being paid more and people in the west country or the north of England being paid relatively less. There is an argument for that. Why criticise people who have put forward that idea in good faith?

As for the Conservatives, although I do not always speak in their defence, I think that they should get credit for accepting that there is a good system that works and for deciding to support it. That is creditable. Although I and my party have supported the national minimum wage, there is a perfectly respectable intellectual and moral argument for not having a minimum wage. Countries that do not have a minimum wage include Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Austria. Those countries are all in the social democratic tradition, but have felt that it is too problematic. Germany, which has had either social democratic or national unity Governments for most of the post-war period, has adopted a national minimum wage only in the last few weeks. In those countries, where there are civilised values and a sense of solidarity, the costs and benefits of the minimum wage have been debated properly. Why should we criticise people in this country who wanted to have such a debate, but who have now come to a consensus that it is a good system and that we should make it work?

Investing in Britain’s Future

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful for the welcome and I will certainly pass on the point about the A47 to the Secretary of State for Transport.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Even the Chief Secretary must admit that the Government completely and utterly bungled the west coast rail franchise. The way that they are now implementing the roll-out of superfast broadband is exactly the same bungle. It is working out as a bung to BT. Is it any coincidence that the chief executive of BT is to become a Trade Minister, so it will get yet further bungs?

[Danny Alexander]

What a pathetic comment. There was a proper competition for all the contracts in every county in England, as well as in Scotland and Wales. The hon. Gentleman should welcome the fact that the Government are making a serious financial contribution—the first Government ever to do so—in the roll-out of superfast broadband across the country.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

One can tell when this Government have something to hide: the Chancellor runs for cover and a junior Minister is sent out to make a statement and deny absolutely everything—rather unconvincingly, if I may say so. Does the Economic Secretary not understand that my constituents are still spitting with fury about the fact that they are paying the price for the mistakes made by bankers? If the dash for cash, which he has been touting around the Committee Rooms and the City of London for the past few weeks, goes ahead, yet again, bankers will make more money, brokers will make more money, and the taxpayer will lose out.

[Sajid Javid]

If I remember correctly, the hon. Gentleman was a member of the previous Government, not just a Government Back Bencher, so he was involved in decision making and presumably supported the action that the then Government took on banking regulation. I wonder whether he held those views back in 2007, just before the collapse of the British banking system, when the then Chancellor said in his Mansion House speech:

“I congratulate you Lord Mayor and the City of London on these remarkable achievements, an era that history will record as the beginning of a new golden age for the City of London.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Fiscal policy is not the only thing providing a difficulty for young people. Welfare policies mean that they have to stay at home and cannot move to places where there might be jobs. The policy on youth services, which are being dramatically cut throughout the country, means that young people are not getting the skills that might make it possible for them to get into work. Is not the truth of the matter that the only people in this country who are doing anything to get young people into jobs are those in the Labour-run Welsh Assembly?

[Danny Alexander]

I cannot agree with anything the hon. Gentleman says. The truth is that this Government are creating more opportunities for young people to take steps towards work than any previous Government. Let me give an example from the Department of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. One million apprenticeship starts—a 50% increase on the previous Government—are creating valuable opportunities for young people to gain experience in the workplace and employment afterwards. The hon. Gentleman should welcome and support those efforts, not condemn them.

Cyprus

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

Yes, but discussions and negotiations are taking place between Cyprus and the eurozone—and, indeed, in the Cypriot Parliament—on whether the proposals that were agreed over the weekend will be enacted. We have some way to go before we get to that stage and I will, of course, update the House if and when we get to that final stage.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am amazed that the Minister is not more scandalised that thousands of ordinary Cypriots, in this country and in Cyprus, are going to lose money. Money will be filched from them when, frankly, the people who caused the problems—the Government of and the bankers in Cyprus—will not lose anything. Leaving that aside, how much British Government money from the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will be lost in Cypriot banks?

[Greg Clark]

I am scandalised that the situation in Cyprus was allowed to happen in this way. It should not have happened in terms of the supervision of the banking system or the country’s fiscal performance. We will not be able to make an assessment of our guarantee to the armed services until we see the final shape of the negotiations, but when we do I will make sure that the House knows about it.