Chris Leslie
Main Page: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)Department Debates - View all Chris Leslie's debates with the HM Treasury
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Chope
Well, 1% is 1%. I am sorry that the hon. Lady seems to be rather unsympathetic to the plight of people who are trying to get motor insurance. Lots of young people need a car to get to work. They find the cost of motoring increasing all the time and they find the cost of insurance also increasing, yet the proposal before us is to increase that cost further—not massively further, but to increase it nevertheless.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
As I hope to be able to say in my contribution later, I agree with the hon. Gentleman on this point. I am astonished to hear the comments coming from the Liberal Democrats that they do not care about the costs of motor insurance, which, especially to young people, can be £1,000 or more. Will the hon. Gentleman also note the perverse consequences for those who go uninsured? Yes, they might get six points put on their licence if they are caught, but the fine is often just £300 or £400, so they would almost be better off to take the risk and be fined rather than pay the cost of the insurance. That has to change.
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. What he said is no great revelation for young people when they go out and party or communicate with each other via modern means of communication. They know that the risks of getting caught are not that great, and that if they are caught, the consequence will be penalty points on their licence and a fine. They will often be able to pay off the fine over an extended period.
Young people now face very substantial insurance premiums and those from the most deprived areas are often those with the highest premiums. One factor that is taken into account is the postcode. If the chance of someone’s car being stolen is high because of where they live or because they do not have garage, the premium will be higher than for someone who perhaps lives in a rural, perhaps law-abiding community. That is an additional problem that these young people face when it comes to motor insurance.
Chris Leslie
My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly important point. Many pensioners in my constituency will be oblivious to the impact that this stealthy tax rise from the Government will have on them, especially as they are diligent in keeping up with their contents insurance, buildings insurance and motor insurance. In many ways, the Government are grinding the burden of taxation on their shoulders. My amendment on advertising the increase in IPT was not selected. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the cost of the Treasury’s imposition should be more prominently displayed on policy documents so that at least pensioners are aware of what the Government are doing?
Mr Byrne
My hon. Friend raises an extremely significant point. I am sorry that his amendment was not selected. The insurance industry will almost certainly pass on the increased taxes directly to consumers. That has been the history of increases in this kind of tax. So there is a strong case for advertising the increase more widely. I am sure that all of us as politicians will do our level best to make the news known in our constituencies.
Mr Bone
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but I know that I will get into trouble if I respond to it in detail. I suggest that he turns up in the Chamber when my private Member’s Bill is considered on 4 February 2011, so that we can have that debate.
My hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary has an historic opportunity today to stand up and make a name for himself and this Government by encouraging people to take out insurance.
Chris Leslie
I am glad that we have had the opportunity to debate these important tax changes. I have the greatest respect for all my constituents and the British public generally, but when we talk about financial matters such as pensions, savings and insurance, there is a tendency in the British culture for the fog to descend and for people to say, “Well, these things are very complicated and I don’t quite understand them.” A lot of people therefore get trapped by their own inertia in certain policies, bank accounts or pensions, and they do not necessarily shop around to get the best deal. I am afraid that insurance products are in the group of services to which our constituents sometimes do not pay attention. I urge members of the public to examine their policy documents and payments closely because insurance can represent a significant cost, although it is a merit good and something that we should encourage people to take out.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
Some areas of the country, including part of my constituency, face significant flood risk. Does my hon. Friend agree that such a tax increase on insurance will mean that people who are already paying significant amounts to protect their homes and lives will face an even greater cost? If those people do not continue to insure themselves, however, it will wreak havoc on lives throughout the country.
Chris Leslie
My hon. Friend is entirely correct. It is important that we ensure that all our liabilities are properly covered, so that the cost of our individual failings or mishaps does not fall on the general taxpayer. Responsible individuals have to insure themselves.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend says that people do not shop around. Does he agree that any process of shopping around is not helped by the way in which insurance companies sign people up to policies on standing orders with small print that allows that policy to be renewed without consulting the customer? Even if the customer wishes to change their policy because of a large increase in their premiums, they can discover that the small print means that they have to let the policy run because they are required to give notice.
Chris Leslie
That particularly pernicious practice merits much closer scrutiny. I do not know whether it is allowed to happen because of a legal loophole. People face dangers when they sign up to unending direct debits, especially if they have been attracted to an insurance policy because of a discounted initial arrangement but then discover that the payments have been ramped up. By the time they realise, from their bank statement or whatever, that the cost is so much more, it is too late to exit from the policy. I hope that any practices that tie customers in to such policies unnecessarily can be stopped.
Insurance premium tax was, of course, a Conservative initiative, introduced back in 1993, I think. We are all concerned about the deficit and revenues, so reluctantly we all have to accept the tax as part and parcel of our general revenue stream, but it is worth pausing to reflect on the impact of the charge on the behaviour of customers who want to take out insurance. Of course, there are different effects for different types of insurance. The amendments highlight both ends of the scale.
I am not sure that I share the sympathy for amendment 18 on private health insurance, because the general public already effectively pay for health cover through the tax that they pay towards the NHS; that is far and away the best health insurance that all of us could want. If we are all part of that, and pool our resources effectively, we ensure a better quality of health care for ourselves. I hear the points made by Government Members, who say that private health insurance removes the burden from the NHS, but if we are all part of the system together, and make sure that we all take part in it, we have a better collective service.
Thomas Docherty
Does my hon. Friend agree that people who have health insurance get fast-tracked, and receive a large benefit, in that they can jump waiting lists?
Chris Leslie
Thankfully, Labour has shifted the terms of reference for this debate, and not just in this country, where the Liberals and the Conservatives—the Conservatives in particular, to be fair to the Liberals—have now accepted that the NHS is one of the jewels in the crown of our welfare system. It is respected worldwide, and there is no longer any attempt, or at least no overt attempt, by the Conservative party to unwind the change that has been made, although having listened to Government Back Benchers, there may be some straws in the wind. I agree more with the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on amendment 19 on motor insurance.
Mr Redwood
Was the absence of support for amendments 18 and 19 from the Labour Front Benchers a sign that Labour will not vote for those two amendments?
Chris Leslie
I have absolutely no idea. As a humble Back Bencher, I simply make my comments and observations. Clearly, I will happily take a lead from our Front Benchers; they are immensely sensible individuals, and will make their arguments. But I have my own observations to make about the changes.
One of those observations is that there is a level of compulsion that distinguishes motor insurance. In a way, private health insurance is an entirely discretionary commodity, so I suppose one could argue that paying tax on it is a matter of choice, but that is not the case for drivers and for motor insurance. As the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) said, in the case of third-party car insurance we are talking about adding a tax on top of a charge that is effectively a requirement in law. That raises the hackles. It makes me feel aggrieved that there is a bit of opportunism on the part of the Treasury. It is a parasitical choice effectively to cream off more money from something that the general public have no choice but to get.
I suppose that those on the Treasury Bench might say that members of the public could give up driving and stop purchasing cars. Perhaps that would be good for the environment more widely, but in the real world, people have to get around, have to get to the shops and to school, and have to commute. It is part and parcel of ordinary life. I am very worried—genuinely worried—that ratcheting up insurance premium tax on motor insurance will create a disincentive for people to comply with the law, take out insurance, and ensure that the cost is covered if any accidents occur or harm is caused to other members of society and the wider public.
Chris Leslie
Absolutely. A lot of people, when they apply for insurance, will be asked what amount they wish to have—I am trying to recall the phrase—as the amount that one ends up paying before one can claim.
Chris Leslie
I thank my hon. Friend for his assistance. On home insurance, the excess is typically £100 or £200. Those hon. Members who are IT-literate, and who use the interweb to purchase their insurance, will realise that on many sites there is a little bar that one can shift across the page to increase the excess to £400, £500 or more. It effectively means that people will rarely, if ever, claim against that insurance, and it thereby removes not only much of the cost of the initial premium, but the chances that they will ever use that product. Again, that will leave people under-insured, with poor cover, and with a poor product for what could be a great expense if they are broken into or have problems with internal flooding or other damage to their property.
In some parts of the country, particularly where there is a flood risk, far too many people are still uninsured, and the pressure that they put on the taxpayer more generally to pick up the tab will be great. In some ways, the measure is a false economy by the Treasury: it discourages people from taking out insurance, yet they will undoubtedly be under pressure to pick up the tab in flood-risk areas.
There is a rumour going around that the Treasury might also impose an extra tax on those who live in flood-risk areas in order to cover the extra costs to the taxpayer of flood-prevention work—yet another example of a crude and unfair measure. I am sure that the Minister will be happy to tell the House that that is not the case and to put our minds at rest, because it would be a shame if such a measure were to come forward.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?
The First Deputy Chairman
Order. Just before that happens, can we please restrict ourselves to the Bill and the amendments to it?
The First Deputy Chairman
Order. That is much wider than what we are discussing today.
Chris Leslie
Those who require insurance, on which the amendments would seek a report from the Treasury in order to reveal the impact not just on the Exchequer, but on individuals, will also be concerned about their contents insurance and buildings insurance, which are often where the cost of picking up reparations after flooding occur. It would be wrong of me not to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work before he entered Parliament.
Geraint Davies
On that specific point about the incidence of such insurance deals, the reality is that, as climate change progresses, the people who are caught by such costs will often be the poorest, who are closer to high flood-risk areas because of bad planning and the like. Does my hon. Friend agree that the impact of the measure will be increasingly regressive?
Chris Leslie
Absolutely. My right hon. Friend the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury made that point very forcefully earlier. The regressive impact of insurance premium tax is not widely understood, but, when our poorest constituents take out insurance, they are hit disproportionately hard, and unfortunately many of them will decide to go without that insurance altogether.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point about a 1% rise being regressive, but, on his earlier point about it putting people off buying insurance, the average household insurance policy is £400 and a 1% increase will add £4 to the total cost. If someone who seriously wishes to insure their home is prepared to pay £400, is he really suggesting that an extra £4 will produce the result to which he referred, namely that many people will no longer purchase insurance?
Chris Leslie
The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point, and he is right that at that level the disincentive might well be marginal. However, my point is that there is a slippery slope, and, with 1% here and 1% there, before we know it we have 2% or more—3%, or even 4%. My right hon. Friend the shadow Chief Secretary asked about the potential risk of aligning our insurance premium tax arrangements with those of the wider European Union, and, if they are at 22% in Italy or wherever, there is a risk of a serious disincentive.
So, I regard this debate as a stitch in time to put down a marker and say to the Government, “Don’t chance it too far. This may well feel like a small amount of money. but £10 on a motor insurance policy of £1,000 is quite an additional burden and not to be sniffed at.” If the Government continued to ratchet up the costs in that way, that would be regrettable. Some of the amendments before us are very sensible, and, in asking for a report from the Treasury, I also urge it to consider in that document the merits of a requirement on insurers to advertise more prominently the yield from insurance premium tax and the rate of tax that customers pay, because it is exceptionally important that our constituents understand why they are asked to pay so much.
When I consulted the Association of British Insurers about that, its representatives said that they would welcome more information on policy documentation and be more than happy to work with the Treasury on those matters. If the amendment is carried, and there are good arguments for doing so, I hope that the Minister will consider that point seriously.
The impact on travel insurance will be even greater, given the costs for many people who travel abroad on, perhaps, their holidays. If those people are my constituents, they will often do so for one week a year, if that. However, all travellers are encouraged to take out travel insurance for such trips, and the rate is currently 17.5%, but it will go up by 2.5 percentage points to 20%, which is a significant amount of money, so, if we discourage our constituents from taking out insurance on their holidays or travel, there will again be consequences.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the measure will also have an effect on the wider economy? For example, Newcastle airport in the north-east is a huge economic driver, and East Midlands airport, near my hon. Friend’s constituency, is a huge employer. The measure could have an impact on the business of those two airports—and many others.
Chris Leslie
There will be consequences if, because of the extra cost of a family holiday, our constituents are disincentivised from going abroad or travelling. The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s imposition of a holiday tax is something that I hope many travel pages in the Sunday newspapers and supplements will focus on, perhaps by modelling the costs for a typical family. About £400 million of travel insurance business is carried out in this country each year, and that accounts for a significant part of not only the insurance industry, but the economy more generally.
Mr Bone
I am being won over by the hon. Gentleman’s speech. He argues very strongly against tax rises, and he has won me over on that. Indeed, I should be happy to vote against those increases, but, given the problem with the deficit, can he suggest some other public expenditure savings to make up for them?
Chris Leslie
That is a reasonable point, but I should not want to stray beyond the terms of the amendment, suffice it to say that the hon. Gentleman asks a reasonable question, because if we agree to the amendments we might be forgoing revenue to the Exchequer. My view, which he may have heard before but I am happy to share with him, is that the banks should not gain £400 million cash-back from the corporation tax reduction that they will enjoy.
Chris Leslie
Mr Evans, I felt an obligation to help the hon. Gentleman and hoped that, with that short interjection, you would indulge me.
To return to my general point, insurance is not only a public good, but a necessity for many of our constituents. Our constituents also often make the choice to take out insurance. Although I would not say that all insurance policies are good value for money and although we want to see more competition, I feel uncomfortable about the constant ratcheting up of the costs to our constituents of compulsory insurance, particularly motor insurance.
Geraint Davies
My hon. Friend mentioned the issue of compulsion and rates. Does he agree that there is a case to be made for keeping the “holiday tax”, as he put it, lower, and paying for that by making it compulsory? One could argue that it is irresponsible for people to go on holiday without insurance and end up with all sorts of problems.
Chris Leslie
I hear what my hon. Friend says, but I am reluctant to extend compulsion in that regard. We should certainly encourage people to take out travel insurance and inform them of what might befall them should they not do so—they could be stranded abroad or find themselves without adequate medical or health cover, for example. I do not know whether hon. Members always remember to fill in their E111 forms when they travel to other countries in the European Union, but our constituents often do not. They can find themselves in significant jeopardy. In those circumstances, travel insurance is very useful.
Many people are employed in the insurance industry, and if there are disincentives against our constituents’ taking out decent, high-quality policies there will be an impact on the insurance sector and the financial services sector more widely. The financial services sector, including insurance, is one of the great industries of our country. It has been subject to a lot of criticism, and we can talk about that on another occasion, but it is important that we should not take steps that harm the products that we consume in this country and sell worldwide.
I conclude by reiterating to the Treasury the importance of assessing the impact of the insurance premium tax increase on our constituents and the Revenue. We do not know from the Red Book how the £455 million annual yield precisely breaks down between pensioners, young people and beyond. My right hon. Friend the shadow Chief Secretary says that the impact on pensioners will be significant and I take his word for that. That issue is a great worry. These are serious matters and I hope that the Treasury and other hon. Members will hear some of the points shared across both sides of the Chamber today.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
We have had a wide-ranging debate on clause 4 and the amendments tabled to it; I am sure, Mr Evans, that you want to hear its conclusion. I was grateful to hear the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who highlighted the freedom given to Government Back Benchers in Committee debates. I hope that my remarks will persuade my hon. Friends not to make full use of that latitude. We shall see.
The amendments are concerned with the general impact of the rise in the standard rate of insurance premium tax, particularly in respect of its impact on personal health insurance and the motor industry. I will come to those issues in detail in due course. Before I do so, I propose to set before the Committee the reasons behind the course that we have chosen.
Reducing the deficit and ensuring economic recovery are the most urgent issues facing the UK and they are the Government’s top priority. In the words of the shadow Business Secretary, it is no good wishing the deficit away; it is only by acting quickly to tackle the deficit and restore confidence in the public finances that we will achieve economic growth. That has meant that we have had to take many tough decisions to ensure that everybody makes a fair contribution. Part of that contribution will come from increases to the standard and higher rates of IPT.
Clause 4 legislates for that by increasing the standard rate of IPT from 5% to 6% and the higher rate of IPT from 17.5% to 20%, both with effect from 4 January 2011. IPT is, of course, a tax on insurers, not on their customers; 80% of all the insurance sold in the UK is exempt from IPT. All long-term insurance, such as life insurance and pensions, is exempt from IPT. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) mentioned Conservative party policy on long-term insurance. If he is a little patient, I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Health will say more on the subject. I just underline the point that IPT is not levied on long-term insurance.
Mr Gauke
As a Government—I am sure that this is a principle that my hon. Friend would support—we believe in giving people choice, and that is what we will do. We have set out our policies in that context, and I am merely underlining this Government’s commitment to the national health service.
The combined effect of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch would be to slow down fiscal consolidation. Through the Budget and this particular measure, the Government are trying to get our deficit under control, and slowing it down would not be an appropriate step.
Chris Leslie
Specifically in terms of the contribution to fiscal consolidation, how much of the yield from the increase in IPT will come from the motorist via car insurance?
Mr Gauke
If I may, I will provide a little more information breaking down the numbers in a moment or so, and we shall see whether that is specific enough for the hon. Gentleman.
Exempting motor insurance from the IPT rise would reduce revenue by £160 million a year, and exempting medical insurance would reduce it by a further £40 million. Taken together, those figures total £200 million—nearly £1 billion over the lifetime of the Parliament. That would leave us with quite a shortfall, and a couple of options. First, we could raise £1 billion from elsewhere. We have to be open about the fact that the purpose of the IPT rise is to raise revenue, and if we were to look to raise the outstanding £1 billion through IPT, that would mean increasing very considerably the rate of tax on the remaining classes of insurance. For reasons that I will set out, we do not think that that is the right way to go. The second option is to leave ourselves with £1 billion outstanding, which would leave us further away from plugging the deficit, with all the risks that that entails. We are certain that that is not the right way to go.
It has always been a principle of IPT that the tax applies to a relatively broad base of general insurance, with few exceptions. That broad base allows us to keep the standard rate of the tax low by international standards. Even at the new rate of 6%, the UK’s standard rate of IPT is far lower than in, say, Germany, where it is 18% for property and 19% for motor insurance, or France, where it is 9% for property and 18% for motor insurance. Narrowing the base of the tax through specific exemptions of the type that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch suggests would put that low rate at risk.
To respond to the perfectly fair question of the shadow Chief Secretary, the fact that we have announced the increase should not be taken as a signal that we intend to harmonise tax levels with those elsewhere. To quote what the shadow Chancellor used to say, we always keep taxes under review and it would be daft to rule things out, but this increase should not be taken as a signal of an ongoing programme of further increases.
We do not take any pleasure in introducing this tax rise, even though the reasons for it are clear. However, by keeping a broad base of tax within general insurance, we are able to raise revenue so as to cut the deficit, while keeping the increases at a level that will not have any significant impact on the number of people buying insurance.
Ms Eagle
My hon. Friend responds to my mention of instant gratification, but obviously it is in all our interests as a society to recognise that there is merit in assisting people to save for their retirement, so that they can avoid being reliant on benefits in their old age. As a result of the welcome increases in longevity, which have been a feature of our success as a society since the war, the average period of retirement is becoming longer and longer. Indeed, history recalls that when old-age pensions were first created 100 years ago, the life expectancy of those due to access them was a mere one year after they had been lucky enough to qualify. Clearly, by the time pension saving and old-age pensions became more widespread after the second world war, the time had gone up considerably to seven or eight years. It is now 20-odd years for men and—gratifyingly for females—even longer for women.
That shows that there are issues about longevity in society and about how to adapt our pensions arrangements to recognise that we live in what is often referred to as “an ageing society”. I believe that it is a great triumph of our organisation of society. Although it presents us with some difficult issues of policy and affordability, it should not be seen or ever portrayed as a problem; nor should the fact that these days many more pensioners reach retirement age and live longer be seen as representing some kind of burden on our society. After all, we all aspire—as I am sure you do, Mr Hoyle—to reaching retirement age and enjoying an extremely happy, long and hopefully prosperous retirement. That is what we are dealing with when we tackle the issue of pension tax relief.
I was pointing out that pension tax relief is more generous than the relief in many other areas of saving. That is because there are great benefits in encouraging people to save for their own pension, despite the fact that they are putting money away to which they often cannot gain access for many years; and also because it is more effectively and efficiently done if it can be done collectively. That is why Government incentives, in the form of tax reliefs, have always featured in the system.
This form of tax relief is often referred to as EET. This is not a stuttering, Steven Spielberg sci-fi film; it stands for exempt, exempt, taxed. That means that as savings are put away from income, they are exempt from tax. Any investment growth that comes from investment in those funds is also exempt from tax—that is the second E. The T, of course, is the thing that many people worry about—the fact that as these savings are taken as an income stream when retirement happens, taxation applies again at that stage.
I doubt whether any Member on either side of the House would quibble with the very generous tax incentives put in place over many years by Governments of all hues, colours and sorts—whether they be coalitions or otherwise—to privilege such tax savings. However, as that has developed, certain features have brought about unforeseen consequences and have not proved to be in the best interests of fairness or equity.
To establish the size of the issue and to put into perspective the amounts of money that we are dealing with under this clause, let me reveal—although I am sure that many Members will already know—that the gross annual cost of pension tax relief for the financial year 2008-09 was £28.4 billion, which at a full 2% of gross domestic product is a not insubstantial amount. Net of the tax on pension income—the T part of EET—and also of the national insurance contribution relief for employers, which are also granted by the Treasury, the figure was £18.9 billion. Therefore, the net cost of that tax relief for pension savings is close to £19 billion. Again, that is not an insubstantial amount of money or revenue forgone by the Treasury.
Another feature of the net figure is how it has been growing in the past few years, having doubled since 1998-99. From being reasonably stable, it has gone up very quickly in a relatively short space of time when we think about life spans and the development of pensions policy in this area. That change has been accompanied by a change in the distribution of the beneficiaries of the tax relief, so there was a very strong case for taking action to put it on a more sustainable and fairer footing, and that is what we were doing with the tax law that clause 5 seeks to repeal by order.
It is a feature of the system, which I am not sure could be avoided without putting huge restrictions on it, that tax relief for pension savings is granted at a marginal rate. By definition, that means that it is more valuable for higher rate taxpayers than for basic rate taxpayers. Analysis has shown that the relief was increasingly benefiting those on the very highest incomes rather than just those on higher rates. So, paradoxically, over time, the very reasonable and logical policy of granting tax exemptions on savings for pensions meant that the incentive to save for a pension was being provided, at a cost to all taxpayers, to those who needed it the least because they were the most well-off. That is the definition of “regressive” in terms of how tax relief might hit. The fact that the system was becoming even more distorted, benefiting those in the very top income brackets, was illustrated by a distributional analysis of the benefits, which revealed that higher rate taxpayers received 65% of the relief but constituted only 19% of pensions savers.
The real distortions were at the very, very top, as those on the very highest incomes were benefiting even more disproportionately. Analysis shows that about 2% of savers currently receive a quarter—25%—of all the tax relief available. I hope that the Minister will agree that that is unjustifiable. It means that if a person is privileged enough to be in the top 2% of earners by income, they are entitled to an average of £20,000 of tax relief per year per person on their pension savings, whereas the average relief available for those who are on the basic rate of tax is just £1,000.
The way in which the relief is granted, its connection to the income tax system—the fact that it is at the marginal rate—and the introduction of the 50p rate for income tax mean that if action were not taken, this massively and already grossly regressive relief would become even more distorted. That is why my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor, in the pre-Budget report 2009 and the Budget 2009, decided that action had to be taken to deal with the relief, which had become unsustainable and extremely unfair. It was therefore necessary to have a policy response at the medium and low-earning end of the income scale as well as a policy for the very high end. It is the policy for the very high end that is being repealed in clause 5, but I want to spend a tiny amount of time dealing with the policy at the low and medium end.
The decision to create the national employment savings trust was an essential part of the rebalancing of pension tax reliefs to ensure that they could effectively stretch further down the income distribution. Members will recall that the creation of what is now known as NEST was the outcome of a great deal of work across party lines from 2004 to design a system of pension savings that would deal with the obvious market failure in the private sector of the ability to allow low and medium earners to save in a worthwhile way in a low-cost savings vehicle.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend raises a good point. Clearly the net beneficiaries will not be in the north-east of England, Northern Ireland or Scotland. They will be those in the south-east of England. The disposable income of those individuals will be a lot greater than that of a lot of our constituents, who will be hit by the VAT increase.
We have seen that give-away, but there is something else in the Budget that I find absolutely amazing. We heard the other night that under the corporation tax proposals, the banks will be given a cash-back of £400 million. The same individuals will no doubt benefit from the proposals that we are currently discussing. We have been hearing the mantras in the past few weeks that there is no alternative and that Labour left the economy in the mess.
Mr Jones
Let us not forget that one. However, the proposal in clause 5 will leave a big black hole in the deficit reduction strategy. The Economic Secretary hinted, “Well, we might not do it, or we might do something different.” I am sorry, but if we are to have a thought-out plan to reduce the deficit, that is not the way to approach the matter. What we need is firm figures that do not make the poorest in society pay, which the proposal clearly will. She needs to explain to the House why neither she nor the Liberal Democrats went into the election saying that they would make this change. A lot of pensioners will find it very difficult to stomach.
Geraint Davies
The Economic Secretary knows that the distributional impact of the proposals is, as I have said, to spread the £3.6 billion burden from the top 2% to 10%. It is as simple as that. She knows that that is the case, and there is no way that she can wriggle out of that political and economic fact. Before the election, there was a promise that million pound estates would avoid inheritance tax—the top 5,000 households. At the last moment, the Chancellor stepped back and said, “Oh no, at such difficult times, we won’t give billions of pounds to the top few thousand households. Don’t worry. Vote Tory.” However, their secret plan was to have a word behind the scenes with their rich mates, telling them, “Don’t worry, we’ll reverse the Labour party’s old plan to make sure that the top 2% pay most.”
Chris Leslie
My hon. Friend is making several important points. The clause appears to reinstate an enormous tax relief capability for the wealthiest, yet the Economic Secretary guffaws at questions from Labour Members about taking it away. Surely the Treasury should clarify the position.
Geraint Davies
My hon. Friend is right. Only yesterday, he lucidly pointed out that, when we went into the election campaign, the Conservatives were saying, “We won’t help the rich with inheritance tax, and we’ll get those bankers with the bankers levy”, but that the levy of £400 million will be nullified by the corporation tax give-away to the bankers. On top of that, we hear not only that the bankers will not pay a levy because they get corporation tax back, but because of this proposal they will have the £3.6 billion in pension contributions. That is an absolute disgrace.
The Government argue that the measure is both fair and effective. I have already argued that it is clearly not fair and will not labour the point any longer, but is it effective? That the previous scheme was complex has been acknowledged, but the new system is also complex. There is enormous uncertainty within the industry, which is asking how pensions can be accrued in defined benefit schemes, how they will be valued under the proposals, and what will be the impact of the proposal on the provision of such schemes and what will be the impact on basic rate taxpayers. There are also compliance and delivery questions, and all sorts of other questions, and the measure must be delivered within a very tight time frame. We are therefore playing fast and loose with our economy and public finances, and with the confidence of the international community, in order that the Tories can bail out their rich friends. That is quite outrageous.
The Government say that the matter will not be done and dusted immediately, but that the measures give them various regulatory powers to withdraw Labour’s well thought out proposals and to leave a void. Specifically, it is said that there will be a discussion document in the summer of 2010, meaning that there will be a big discussion among the stakeholders on how the Government are going to recover the £3.6 billion that they would have made from the top 2%. The Government say, “We’d better not take that £3.6 billion because we’d be taking it from our friends, but we don’t know how we’re going to recover it, so we’ll have a stakeholder discussion in the summer,” which will presumably take place in the Maldives or somewhere similar.
Chris Leslie
Again, the Labour party was trying to close the loopholes for the very richest and to reduce some of the tax give-away for the millionaires. The Minister is asking the House to trust her while she shuffles the rules—that is what clause 5 effectively means—but does my hon. Friend think that the Government, given their track record, can be trusted on this matter?
Justine Greening
A whole range of analyses and impact statements will come out with the legislation. I suspect that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) behind me is saying, any work that is done would give an answer that Opposition Members would not like, because it would show that we are no longer going to give basic rate tax relief to people who can afford to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds into a pension pot every year.
Let me address some of the issues that have been raised. I have set out the time frame within which we want to progress towards a better alternative to the current system. We all agree that, for pensions tax relief to remain affordable, we have to limit high levels of tax-privileged pensions saving, but we think that there is a better way of doing it than the one set out by the previous Government. We believe it is important to reduce the annual allowance to prevent people from saving £255,000 a year tax free.
The hon. Member for Wallasey mentioned instances of people suddenly being able to pay a large amount into a pension fund on a one-off basis. She was right to raise that matter, and we shall be looking at options for protecting basic rate taxpayers and supporting any hard cases caused by such one-off spikes in pension accruals. She also asked about the lifetime allowance being changed. We have not ruled that out, but it is obviously a key mechanism that sits alongside the annual allowance. We shall therefore have to look at it in the context of where we end up going with the annual allowance limit. I should say that all this is subject to being able to work with key stakeholders to get something that we believe we can rely on. That is why the provisions will give us the power to repeal that measure, if we can find a better way.
I particularly want to respond to the argument from Labour Members that our proposals would somehow give a tax break to the most well-off people in the country. Let us have a look at some of the figures involved. Of course, the minute I say that, I lose the relevant bit of paper. Ah, here it is. Under the terms of the Finance Act 2010, someone who is contributing £283,000 to their pension fund on an annual basis would have had a tax charge, net of pension relief, of £85,000. Someone making the same contribution to their pension pot under a potential annual allowance level of £35,000 would have a tax charge, net of relief, of £124,000. The reason for that is that they would get 20% tax relief on the income that they would otherwise have paid a much higher rate of tax on. That is why they would pay just under £40,000 a year more under our proposed scheme than they would have done under the previous Government’s arrangements.
I wonder whether those Labour MPs who are so concerned about the impact of tax policy on the better-off people in this country will go through the Lobby today and vote for a measure that means that people who can afford to pay £283,000 a year into their pension pot will pay £40,000 less tax than they would previously have done. I do not know what Labour Members think “good” looks like in relation to taxing better-off people, but I guess I will find out when we have a Division on this amendment shortly.
Chris Leslie
The hon. Lady is talking to us as though we were schoolchildren, but she will not publish her proposals. Will she now agree to place in the Library a copy of the table that she has in front of her straight away, or this evening, so that we can all share in this secret plan?
Justine Greening
I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman was so intelligent that he could do the maths himself. The calculation is pretty straightforward. It is a bit like doing a tax calculation where someone has an allowance and then a rate, and they apply it to the excess of the allowance that they are paying in extra.
Justine Greening
I have no recollection of that, but I will not take up more of the time of the Committee. The last figures that I set out probably spoke louder—
Chris Leslie
On a point of order, Mr Amess. Is it in order for the Minister to withhold information to which she has clearly referred in the debate from the rest of the Members engaging in the discussion?
