Public Service Pensions Bill

Debate between Chris Leslie and Alison Seabeck

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

That is a very pertinent question. We heard from the Minister that 12 million people were affected by the various public service and civil service pension schemes. We heard that even Lord Hutton, in his detailed inquiry, was not aware of the 350 or so affected individuals, because it was a new scheme that started in 2007, and only some MOD firefighters and police will come into the age bracket. Given the complexity of pensions, it is not surprising that some issues were not spotted; apparently even some employee representatives and others were not aware of the anomaly at the time.

These things happen. Mistakes can be made, but it is really important that when a mistake is pointed out, people assess whether they are big enough to accept that it needs to be corrected and justice is done, or whether their pride is such—whether or not this applies to the civil service—that they try to retrofit their arguments to justify a clearly unjustifiable anomaly. That is what the question boils down to.

The only reason I can see for different treatment for those groups is that one set happens to be employed by the Ministry of Defence and the other is in the public service at large. It is such an evident anomaly that the House of Lords, when made aware of the lacuna, correctly sought to repair the fault in the Bill, but incredibly we heard from the Economic Secretary—I am delighted that he has been joined by the Chief Secretary; perhaps he can be lent on by more enlightened colleagues—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) says he will have a go, but he does not have much time as the question will be put shortly. [Interruption.] Anyway, Ministers are not particularly interested in listening to the debate, so it might be useful if the hon. Gentleman could text the Economic Secretary to suggest that he pays attention.

In essence, the Economic Secretary said that the Government were too proud to admit that they had got it wrong. They are still defending the indefensible, but the arguments for admitting the error are overwhelming.

[Alison Seabeck]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that if the Government do not accept some of the changes, some people—albeit a small number—who cannot carry out normal duties will be unable to do the job for which they are being paid? Therefore fewer people will be able to fight fires or to respond in the most physical of circumstances. How does my hon. Friend see the future for those employees?

[Chris Leslie]

Quite a few of those employees already retire before the normal retirement age because of issues of physicality—the sheer effort involved in undertaking such physical tasks. It is entirely unreasonable and unfair that there is such a discrepancy between public service workers who carry out the same job. They are all called on to put their lives on the line. The burden of justifying the anomaly now rests with the Government, but other than some rather unconvincing arguments, which the Minister barely touched on, they have failed to discharge their burden and to illustrate why MOD firefighters and police are so different. The Minister took interventions from many colleagues and on a number of occasions he said, “Oh well, I’ll come to it in my speech,” but amazingly he never did.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Chris Leslie and Alison Seabeck

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

It is absolutely incumbent on Ministers, but this is a Government who just cannot think things through properly. They have set off down the road with a particular design. We have been asking questions for weeks and weeks. My hon. Friends will remember that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury astonished the House when he still could not rule out that the scheme would be used for supporting second home purchase, and there might be a number of reasons for that. For example, if the scheme is supporting remortgages, and a household decides to remortgage, how can the Government have a covenant on how any equity withdrawn from that remortgage process will be used by that home purchaser? That is presumably the obstacle that Ministers are banging their heads against now, and they probably have to look at various covenants and all sorts of legal arrangements for those participating in the schemes.

There are other anomalies in the process. Perhaps the Minister would elaborate on this point: can foreign buyers be subsidised by the UK taxpayer for the purchase of second homes—not just other EU residents, but non-EU residents as well? What is the exclusion in the scheme? Will he clarify that?

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I declare an interest in the interests of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), as usual. Does my hon. Friend have concerns that although ostensibly the scheme may say that there can be no foreign investment, there will be means and mechanisms for foreign investors to set up companies in the UK in order to cover their tracks? Does he have any confidence that the Government are looking at whether there are potential loopholes?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

We hoped that the Liberal Democrats’ plan relating to property values of £2 million was a well-worked-through basis on which we could build and develop a policy. We even tabled a suggestion that the OBR should have some options for how this mansion tax would work in detail. There are bound to be issues on the margins that need to be resolved, and I accept we should definitely be talking about those, but the principle could be established. The Bill has 50 or 60 clauses relating to what are known as enveloped dwellings. The Government do not dare call it a mansion tax because Conservatives do not like it, but they have introduced a scheme to enforce a certain number of stamp duty requirements where an annual charge can be placed on properties worth more than £2 million, but only if they are owned by a company in a corporate tax wrapper. It is therefore entirely feasible and plausible to consider whether that scheme could be extended into a mansion tax proper, and the Government have well-worked-through plans on the books, on which they have been consulting, which could be the basis for a mansion tax. This is not something that has not been thought through by the Government.

The Opposition believe that any revenues from this need to be given back to lower and middle-income households through a 10p starting rate of tax. When the economy is flatlining and tax rates are rising in so many other ways, particularly VAT, we must do more to help those 25 million basic rate taxpayers. It is incredibly important that we do that, and we will be giving this Liberal Democrat, and any others who happen to be in the building, the opportunity to express their views on it when we finish this debate. I commend new clauses 1 and 5 to the Committee.

[Alison Seabeck]

In speaking to new clause 1, I wish to pursue issues that have been touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) and other Opposition Members and to highlight my concern that the Help to Buy scheme might well become a second home subsidy, rather than a scheme, as was intended, to help many first and second-time buyers on to the housing ladder.

In housing, as in so many other areas of policy, the Government have been found badly wanting. I remember the chutzpah the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) displayed on entering government, saying repeatedly that he would outperform the previous Labour Government when it came to house building and getting first-time buyers into the market. As Housing Minister, he failed rather magnificently. He seemed to ignore the fact that Labour built 210,000 new homes before the market crashed. We started to see an increase in the number of homes being built in the run-up to the 2010 general election as a direct result of measures taken by the Labour Government. Indeed, some of the homes that this Government have taken credit for building in 2011 are in fact the hangover from Labour’s new-build programme. We are now seeing a slump in house building.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

That is the other crucial part. We are often criticised by the Government, who ask, “Where are your policies? What are you proposing to do about the economic situation?” but here is a pretty good suggestion for them. Let us learn from their mistake of scrapping the new deal and the future jobs fund, which my hon. Friends will remember, and do something to help to get young people in particular back to work. There is a separate issue with the long-term unemployed. We have talked separately about changes to the highest rate of pension relief, which could help to fund something for the long-term unemployed, but we could use the bank bonus tax to help to get young people back into work. It is essential that we get people back into the habit of working and paying taxes, and if they turn down those job opportunities, they should forfeit benefits as a result. The proposal has to be part of a tough policy, to ensure that we always focus on work as the best antidote to an inflated welfare budget, but to get our economy moving again too.

[Alison Seabeck]

Picking up on the point made from the Government Benches about some of our measures taking money out of the economy, is my hon. Friend concerned that the local economy in Plymouth, for example, is losing £16 million because of the Government’s benefit changes? Does he not see some contradiction in that?

[Chris Leslie]

The study commissioned by the Financial Times which showed the massive impact of the extreme austerity being pursued by the Government will bring home to many communities where some of the poorest people live the fact that that money and those resources are being taken out of their local economies.

Communities and Local Government (CSR)

Debate between Chris Leslie and Alison Seabeck

Thursday 13th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I shall be extremely brief, Mr Robertson, not least because I gather that a Division in the House is expected shortly. I respect the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) in many ways for his contribution, but he may need to look again at his “glass half full” strategy. I suspect that if he has been drinking anything, it will have been the poison in that glass, which has, perhaps, tainted his bloodstream and given him a false sense that local government can skip off into the sunset and cope with a mere wrinkle in its financial settlements. I am afraid that the veneer of normality affecting local government as a result of the spending review he describes masks an enormous near-Armageddon scenario facing local public services, particularly in my constituency in Nottingham.

It is especially cruel that this finance policy should be cloaked in the guise of localism. As a localist, I find it difficult to see anything being devolved other than the axe slashing at public services. I would almost prefer it if the Secretary of State and the Chancellor of the Exchequer were simply to admit straight and up front that they are shifting the burden of public expenditure reductions to local authorities because that way they can get away with the harshness of the impact on public services more effectively. That the Government pretend that this is within the paradigm of localism shocks me.

First, I want to comment, from the Nottingham perspective, on the brutally regressive nature of the settlement for my constituents. It is appalling that the debasing of area-based grant and the abolition of the neighbourhood renewal fund will see a cut of more than £55 million affecting my city. If we roll in any number of other changes, such as the £4 million cut in the concessionary fares grant, the reduction, even with some of the social care uplift, is about 16.5% in one financial year. That is the loss of a phenomenal amount of money for that community.

Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab): Is it not the case that one budget that has been particularly badly hit in Nottinghamshire is Supporting People?

[Chris Leslie]

Indeed, which brings me to my second point—more quickly than perhaps I wanted, but it will help the debate. In Nottingham, the Supporting People budget in particular is falling from £22.3 million to £12.4 million. In correspondence the Minister said, “Well, you can’t really tell what’s happening to Supporting People because we’ve rolled it into a formula grant as part of our localism strategy”. However, we can discern in the formula grant from the fifth block— “Grants Rolled in Using Tailored Distribution”—that the amount of money is falling, and it is the fifth largest reduction in England. Nottingham has some of the highest levels of vulnerability, homelessness, teenage pregnancies, alcoholism—any number of problems that the Supporting People budget should be going towards—so it is incomprehensible that the formula should be skewed in a way that hits our city with the fifth greatest reduction.

Thirdly, we should look more generally at the specific grants. I have to challenge the Minister to justify, if he can, the table of statistics that has come from his Department, which the Library has confirmed. It shows that when it comes to the allocation of specific grants, the most deprived local authorities—the most deprived decile, which is the top 10% of deprivation—will see a minus 12% settlement, but the wealthiest 10% of local authorities will see a growth in their specific grants of 24%. By any measure, a dispassionate observer would say that that is a regressive settlement. Hearing this spinology is a real kick in the teeth for vulnerable communities—trying to pretend that this is a progressive settlement, that everything is rosy in the garden and they should just go for a few more efficiencies or shared services. I am afraid that this is far beyond the good work that many local authorities, of all political parties, have been doing to improve local government and make it more efficient. In the past 10 years, local authorities have been the sector of public services that has driven the most efficiencies—far beyond those delivered by central Government. There is no recognition of that in the settlement—quite the opposite. They have been slapped in the face by the Secretary of State and it will be very surprising if some local authorities do not have severe difficulties setting their budgets.

There are other issues about the fire service in Nottinghamshire having to cut 36 fire engines to 30. There are big issues of safety and other questions within the Department for Communities and Local Government budget, but I have made the simple points that I wanted to make. This is a regressive settlement. It is the harshest in history, and I hope the Minister will at least admit that, rather than trying to cloak the arrangement in the localism on which we should all be trying to agree.