Oral Answers to Questions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that it is an important message, which this whole House should send out, that apprenticeships really matter, that going to university is not the only way to succeed, and that people can earn and learn at the same time on our great apprenticeship courses. I believe my right hon. Friend the Chancellor visited Caunton Engineering in my hon. Friend’s constituency to promote apprenticeships, and of course I wish his apprenticeships fair every success.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The Chancellor mentioned that this plan for jobs is the long-term plan for restarting the economy. Do the Government accept that perhaps they need to do more immediately than simply having a long-term plan for jobs, in order to help people with the cost of living crisis?

[Mr Clarke]

We absolutely do accept that, which is why we brought forward a £22 billion package of support this year, with help ranging from reducing the burden of tax to providing support on things such as energy bills. That is absolutely in recognition of a very challenging economic landscape for people to be operating in, owing to the impact of the global pressures we are facing on inflation. We are clear that we have a plan for jobs and a plan for growth, and that we will get through the current crisis and deliver a much better future for the people of this country on the other side of what have been a remarkable couple of years and a very difficult one for the whole developed world.

Cost of Living Increases

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

Those with the broadest shoulders should pay the most, but I just say to everyone in the country watching this who is worried about their bills that we have two Governments who could do something about this, but they are defending the profits of the oil and gas companies rather than trying to help them with their bills. We could achieve so much more if all put our shoulders to the wheel and helped with this energy crisis.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. Does he share my curiosity about whether the SNP’s problem is that it spent so much time saying that Cambo should not be developed and attacking the oil industry that it finds itself in a quandary and, as always, its main priority is what is the best argument for independence rather than what is best for the people of Scotland?

[Ian Murray]

If the SNP has an argument for not taxing the oil and gas companies, it can have the floor to tell us. I am happy to take an intervention. I am also happy to take an intervention that clarifies what their motion means. Does the line that says “a windfall tax” include the oil and gas companies? Not one SNP Member, including the BEIS spokesperson, will intervene and tell me that that is what it intends. That tells us all we need to know. The SNP is sitting on the fence, hoping that the Government get the wrong idea, and putting out the press release to say that the Government are attacking it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I think all parties in this House are very concerned about the cost of living for all our constituents.

First, may I tackle the situation of very high energy prices? I commend our Government on the amount we have put into green energy, offshore wind energy and solar farms. We have many solar farms in my constituency. In fact, my constituents often say there are too many, but they contribute hugely to energy.

[Christine Jardine]

On that point, subsidies for renewable energy have been cut. Today, we are having to go to Saudi Arabia for oil and gas because the Government did not invest in renewable energy in this country sufficiently quickly. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is now time for the Government to step up to the plate and start doing a better job in that area?

[Neil Parish]

What happened with renewable energy, especially solar and wind, is that the price came down and we achieved a great deal of solar and wind energy without having to pump as much public money into it. That is very much a good thing and I commend the Government for what they are doing. The last Labour Government did nothing on nuclear power. The major nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, with two very big reactors, will produce 8% of our national need. That is the sort of thing that will solve our energy crisis and, in the long run, bring prices down. I also want tidal power at Swansea Bay and Bridgewater Bay to be reconsidered. I believe we are missing a trick there. We can produce very good energy from the second-highest rising tide in the world, so let us get going.

We have to recognise that at the moment energy prices are governed by oil and gas. What I would say to Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, as they wax lyrical about having a windfall tax on oil companies, is that we need our oil companies, including those off Scotland, to produce more oil and gas. Who is making the murderous intervention in Ukraine? It is the Putin regime. What does the Putin regime rely on? It relies on the money from energy from both oil and gas. Therefore, it is time for us to produce as much oil and gas as we can. I very much support renewables and the environment, but we have to wake up to the fact that we need to pump oil and gas out of the ground. Putting a windfall tax on those companies would reduce their ability to invest. I urge the Chancellor to look at taxing those companies more if they do not invest, and less if they do. Let us get that going.

I want energy costs to come down. The increase in the cost of energy, both gas and oil, for my constituents has been huge. I have a meat wholesaler in Axminster whose energy bills have gone up from £90,000 to over £300,000, so it is not just individuals who are affected, but businesses. That means the cost of food goes up. It all has a knock-on effect on the cost of living for all our constituents. Many of my rural constituents have to buy heating oil. One constituent has been given a price of 186p per litre. However much the price of crude oil has gone up, there is no justification for such prices. We need to look not only at the tax on fuel, but at what individual companies are doing and whether they can justify such huge increases in the price of fuel. The Chancellor could also look at VAT on heating fuel: it is only 5%, but if the price doubles from £1 to £2 per litre, that will mean 10p in VAT, so getting some of that back would help at least.

I turn to fuel duty. Petrol hit a new high of 163p on Monday, with diesel at a record 173p. The RAC says that filling a family car’s 55-litre tank with petrol now costs more than £90 for the first time. Fuel duty is set at 58p per litre for petrol and diesel; VAT is 20%, which means 35p per litre of diesel and 33p per litre of petrol. The Chancellor will therefore have some leeway in his statement. There is no doubt that fuel and diesel costs hit everybody in this country, but they hit the rural population hardest, because the distances we travel to go to work or carry food around are all much greater. I very much support what the Chancellor and other Conservative Chancellors have done to keep duty down, but these are extraordinary times. None of us thought that we would see fuel rising to nearly £2 per litre.

Let me move on briefly to issues with the costs of farming and the costs to farmers. Some farmers have reported paying as much as 120p per litre for red diesel, compared with 73p a fortnight ago. I do not think that that 65% rise is justified, so please can we look at it very carefully? White diesel—derv—has risen by only 15% in the same timeframe. At 47p per litre, duty is lower for red than white diesel, while VAT is lower at 5%, so surely there is a case to be made that some suppliers are profiteering.

Nitrate fertiliser is now more than £1,000 a tonne, compared with £647 in January this year and £245 in January 2021, and the cost of urea, phosphate and potash is going up, so I hope that the Chancellor can see ways of helping food production. One of the issues in the terrible situation in Ukraine is that it is very much the breadbasket of the world, especially for the export of wheat. Wheat prices in this country are now at some £300 a tonne. To poultry and pig farmers, feed is an enormous cost, so those price rises will add to the cost of living and we will need to take them very seriously in the forthcoming Budget.

I commend the Government for their work to help those who are struggling to pay their bills. The cost of living crisis—and it is a cost of living crisis—is the one thing that hon. Members on both sides of the House know we need to face up to, and I believe that the Government are facing up to it. I look forward to the Minister’s winding-up speech.

National Insurance Contributions Increase

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman. A buy now, pay later scheme for energy prices, based on the premise that prices are going to fall, does not bear any relation to the facts. That is why I say, when the facts change, so should the Government’s policies. They should not just carry on steering the boat in the wrong direction, towards the storm.

It is fair to say that the Prime Minister’s word has recently been deeply discredited, but let me remind the Chamber what he previously said about tax:

“Read my lips: we will not be raising taxes on income, or VAT, or national insurance.”

This is not just another of the long list of broken vows from a leader who has a fleeting relationship with truth and accuracy. This manifesto breach now belongs to the entire Conservative Government and especially the Chancellor, who seems not to want to take responsibility for his own tax rises. Let us not forget that last March, a year into the pandemic, the Chancellor said,

“We’re not going to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance, or VAT.”

This is not just the wrong thing to do; it is a broken promise. It is a clear and flagrant breach of the Conservative party’s own manifesto. They promised the public that they would not do this, and now they are going back on their word.

The Chancellor is not here to defend his new tax on jobs—I do not know why—but it is becoming increasingly clear that rather than help people now when they really need it, the Chancellor is telling his colleagues and briefing newspapers that he will make people wait until an election, when he wants to make a new set of promises to win people’s votes. People need help now and the Government should act now, not play games with people’s living standards. Voters are smarter and savvier than the Chancellor assumes. They have already seen through his buy now, pay later loan scheme, meant to help with energy bills. It is not too late for the Government to look again at Labour’s proposal for a one-off windfall tax on oil and gas producers in order to cut household energy bills by up to £600 this year. The case for our proposal gets stronger by the day, and the Chancellor should adopt it, but instead of easing the cost of living crisis, the Conservatives are the cost of living crisis.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making a very powerful speech and some excellent points with which I agree. Does she agree that the Government are gambling with taxpayers’ money, rather than investing it? They are gambling that the price will go down, when we all know it will go up, and they are not looking to those people who have made a massive profit over the past two years, both from the energy crisis and in the pandemic, to try to relieve the burden on those who have been hardest hit.

[Rachel Reeves]

Politics is about choices; the hon. Lady makes an important point. This Government are making the choice to increase taxes on ordinary working people and those who employ them, while on the Opposition Benches, we say that those who have benefited from the high energy prices should pay a bit more in tax to relieve the pressure on ordinary working people. We have a Conservative Minister who goes on the TV and radio and says that energy companies and the North sea oil and gas companies are struggling right now. Tell that to my constituents, the hon. Lady’s constituents and all our constituents who are struggling to pay the bills, while the profits keep coming in for the big oil and gas producers.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)]

The world has been appalled by Russia’s unprovoked, unjustified and illegal invasion of Ukraine. Every one of us has been shocked by the scenes of sheer horror that have unfolded over recent days and moved by the bravery of ordinary men and women defending their country against a merciless enemy. As the Prime Minister wrote at the weekend, the Ukrainians’ valour has helped to unite the international community.

We cannot let down that brave nation in its hour of need, which is why we are calling on the world to join forces and maximise our economic pressure on Putin’s regime. That means going further than the unprecedented sanctions that are already in place, including by working with our allies to further isolate Russia from the international financial system and by expelling more Russian banks from the SWIFT network. The cost of inaction against Putin’s war machine would be too great to contemplate; we have seen the price of appeasement before.

We must brace ourselves, however, for the fact that a robust united global opposition to Russia’s unprovoked aggression will have costs of its own. I am acutely aware that the conflict has economic repercussions that largely stem from a higher global energy price that, over time, may spill over into other commodities including wheat. Those repercussions are being felt across the world, including here at home.

That is why, this financial year and next, we will provide over £20 billion to help the public with the cost of living. That includes over £9 billion of direct support with higher energy costs for about 28 million households, with £200 for every household in Great Britain through the energy bill support scheme and a further £150 for every household in council tax bands A to D in England. In total, that means that about 80% of households will receive £350 of support. That builds on our further support for heating bills including increasing the warm home discount, the winter fuel payment and the cold weather payment, which together provided £2.5 billion to households last winter. The £500 million household support fund has been helping the most vulnerable with the cost of essentials over the past months.

More broadly, we are taking further steps to support people’s finances. We have cut the universal credit taper rate by 8p from 63p to 55p and we have increased the work allowance by £500 a year, which will ensure that nearly 2 million people keep more of what they earn and will put an extra £1,000 a year into their pockets.

[Christine Jardine]

Does the Minister appreciate that, for Opposition Members and our constituents, and possibly for many of his constituents, that now seems too little, too late and inappropriate for the situation in which the country finds itself?

[Mr Clarke]

I do not demur; we are faced with a serious challenge on the cost of living. The Government entirely accept that and are working to address it, but we must address it in a smart and financially sustainable way. A £20 billion package is a major commitment to support families across the UK. Of course, we continue to keep all our options under review to ensure that we can act in a way that is commensurate with the severity of the situation.

From next month, we will increase the national living wage by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour for those aged 23 and over, which will benefit more than 2 million workers across the UK by £1,000 a year. We have also frozen fuel duty for the 12th year in a row. That is on top of the help that we are already providing to those on low incomes with their housing costs and council tax bills.

Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill [Lords]

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

To be frank, we have no idea in any detail how this will operate. We have no idea how it will be transparent and open to debate. I have tabled my amendment because what I fear most is that this will be determined by Treasury direction. Treasury directions never come before this House. They are not like delegated legislation: they are made by Government themselves with no form of accountability. So the Government will be able to determine this economic test and effectively tear up the cost control mechanism that unions were promised would last 25 years. Whether benefits will go ahead and contribution levels will be determined by an OBR assessment of whether the economy can withstand the cost of that without any Member of this House having the ability to debate it, vote on it or determine it. That is why I believe Treasury directions are unsuitable for something so significant that will affect whether so many of our constituents will live in poverty in their retirement. For that reason, I believe the Minister needs to look again at how we can go forward to restore trust and confidence in the administration of public service pensions in the future, based upon some of the promises given a number of years ago to us as Members.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

This is an important Bill, but Liberal Democrats believe there are still several serious concerns that need addressing. More support is needed for individuals in making decisions; perhaps a helpline would be useful. There are implications for women—the pensions gap. There is also the potential negative impact on diversity in the judiciary, which is currently dominated by a generation of older white men.

I will focus on Liberal Democrat new clauses 4, 5 and 6, but first let me say that the Liberal Democrats will not be supporting new clause 1, tabled by the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). That is nothing to do with BDS; it is because the wider implications and unintended consequences could be significant in cases such as Xinjiang, where we believe a genocide is taking place. That is not Government policy, so what would the Government direction be in that case? Our concern is the wider implications and unintended consequences.

New clause 4 would require the Government to review the impact of the Bill on fairness. It calls a review of fairness and just treatment, particularly with regard to members of current schemes. It is important to ensure that members of current schemes are not caught in the pensions trap. Women are more likely than men to have taken time off work for caring responsibilities. Under some of the new schemes, which are based on age, they will have to work longer. The issue of gender in pensions is not new, and this would not be the first time the House made a misstep.

The gender pension gap is the percentage difference in pension income between female and male pensioners. The latest research showed that it had increased to 37.9%; we must be aware of that. The deficit will continue, so the amendment seeks to highlight the importance of this issue and the need for urgent measures to address it.

New clause 5 is about access to information and would require the Government to publish guidance to members of affected pension schemes and allow for provision of a helpline or online services to offer further assistance in important decisions for people’s futures. It is important that we think of the Bill in terms of individuals—the people whom it will affect—and their futures, what guidance and support will be provided to each person, how that will be resourced and how the Government will signpost that. That is key. We have seen with pensions for women born in the 1950s that when decisions and timings were not signposted, that had a massive impact on them when they found that their pension age had changed. We must not do that again—and we still have not rectified the first mistake. The Government have already accepted that people with complex tax issues can have financial advice. The same should be the case for millions of public sector workers who will have to make such choices, so the Government should put a helpline in place for that.

New clause 6, would require the Government to publish an annual update on progress in recruiting new members to the judiciary and on increasing diversity. It is important that our senior judges in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court reflect the society in which we live if they are to be respected. They must be seen as part of the current era, to reflect society’s trends and understand those trends, but there is perhaps a perception that they do not, and we are all concerned about that.

Although the proportion of judges who are women continues to increase gradually, women remain under-represented in judicial roles. That is particularly the case in the courts, where 32% of all judges and 26% of those in more senior roles are women, compared with 47% of all judges in tribunals. I am sure we would all like to see those figures addressed. The situation with black, Asian and minority ethnic judges is worse, with the figures being 4% for High Court judges and above compared with 8% of all court judges and 12% of tribunal judges. Surely that is far from acceptable. The new clause would ensure that the Government published an annual update on progress in this important area.

This is an important Bill and it is important that we address the issues in it. However, we must do that properly and ensure that there are not unintended consequences.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to new clause 1. The year was 1985. After a campaign lasting decades, 123 councils answered the call for solidarity with the South African anti-apartheid movement and adopted policies opposing that injustice, including 39 councils that had divested from companies operating in South Africa and Namibia. While the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was calling the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela terrorists and Young Conservatives were proudly wearing badges calling for him to be hanged, local authorities were on the right side of history, standing up to the horror of apartheid. Of course, the Conservative Government could not tolerate that, so, a few years later, to weaken the anti-apartheid movement, they brought in laws making it illegal for local councils to boycott South African and Namibian goods. Looking back, it is crystal clear who was on the right side of history and who was on the wrong side.

The new clause, in the name of the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), would ban local councils from taking such a stand. Had it been in place back in 1985, because the Conservative Government supported apartheid South Africa—let us not forget that—local councils, no matter the strength of local feeling or the righteousness of the cause, would have been prevented from divesting pension funds from apartheid South Africa. They would have been compelled to be complicit in injustice.

Government Members may argue that that is history and things are different now. I contest that the facts say otherwise. The House knows that British-made weapons and diplomatic support are integral to the Saudi war in Yemen. Even as that war has claimed the lives of more than a quarter of a million people, pushed more than 20 million into absolute destitution and resulted in grave violations of international law, British complicity has continued. The new clause could deny councils the right to divest from arms companies whose bombs rain down on the people of Yemen. Similarly, if a local authority wanted to align its pension fund with international law and divest from companies operating in illegally occupied Palestinian lands, the new clause risks denying it that right, too.

Economic Update

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s support. He rightly champions those people who are just about managing and who work incredibly hard to build a better life for themselves and their families. They should know that this Government are on their side. I thank him very much for his support and we will continue to champion those people.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The Chancellor’s plans play Russian roulette with taxpayers’ money, gambling that prices will go down, rather than providing a real solution to help families to avoid skyrocketing bills. It is just delaying the pain while he increases taxes by £600 a year for the average household. Why will he not listen to the Liberal Democrats’ suggestion of a package that would help families to reduce their bills by £1,000 a year? Surely it is time to admit that he has got it wrong. It is time to scrap the Conservative tax hikes.

[Rishi Sunak]

We have not heard from the hon. Lady’s party any plan to provide the funding that the NHS needs. We all know that the NHS is grappling with the recovery from covid. There is an unprecedented scale of backlogs to work through and the social care system needs urgent reform. The only way to grapple with those challenges is to provide the NHS and social care with a sustainable source of funding. That is what we are doing, it is the responsible and right approach, it is the progressive approach, it will benefit people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as England, and in the long run it will be the right thing for this country.

Tackling Fraud and Preventing Government Waste

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden). I thank the Labour Front Bench for calling this debate, in which we have heard so many powerful arguments. The debate follows the powerful statement made by Lord Agnew on his resignation, where he drew attention to the “lamentable” litany of mistakes, errors and inexplicable decisions by this Government.

I will not take up the House’s time by going into detail again, but we have heard today about the problems at Companies House, about the approximately £5 billion that we understand will just be written off and about the procurement mistakes that mean billions of pounds have been wasted on equipment that was of no use to anybody at a time when the emergency services in this country were crying out for proper personal protective equipment.

I speak not just on behalf of my party but, perhaps more importantly, on behalf of my constituents, who would recognise the shadow Chancellor’s description of the situation as a disgrace and an affront. Yes, it is a disgrace, and it is an affront to all my constituents and the 3 million people across the country who were told time and again by this Government that support would not be available to them during the pandemic from the job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme because it would be too difficult to administer due to the risk of fraud. We know now that, at the same time, companies were defrauding taxpayers.

It is an affront to them, and it is also an affront to my many constituents who are hounded on a weekly basis by the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs because of errors made not by them but by those two Departments. It is also an affront to all those who have been pursued for loan charges. They are taxpayers who followed the rules and then, in many cases, faced bankruptcy because of a retrospective change in the law.

How is it that the Government are able to support the pursuit of those people? How is it that there is no support for them, while we stand here knowing that those who have taken money from the taxpayer fraudulently, at a time of national crisis, are not going to be pursued? I cannot believe there are any Conservative Members who think it any more acceptable than we do that their constituents can be treated in this way, and that criminal action—because it is criminal action when money has been stolen from our constituents, from honest, hard-working taxpayers—is simply going to be accepted, and these people will allowed to get away with it. I think that that is an affront to all of us.

Cost of Living Increases

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate and to follow the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald).

It is important that we have heard contributions from the hon. Members for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), for Bury North (James Daly), for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) and for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), because they emphasised that this is an issue that affects households not just in Scotland but in every single corner of the United Kingdom. I suggest to the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) that there are people in the home counties who are suffering just as much as households across the rest of the UK. They will suffer as a result of the Government’s hike in national insurance, and they are suffering from the record inflation rate and the stealth tax introduced as a result of the Government not increasing the tax threshold. All those things are affecting households who are also facing a massive increase in energy prices, which for a lot of them will mean a choice between heating their home and feeding their family this winter.

It is important that the Scottish National party take into account that this is an issue on which we all agree. The Labour party agrees; the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) made many of the same arguments that we have heard from the SNP Benches, and that people will hear from the Liberal Democrats. We want to see a doubling of the warm homes discount and the winter fuel allowance. We want to see a new 10-year home insulation scheme, support for energy-intensive businesses and a windfall tax on those who have benefited.

However, every single time SNP Members come to this House, they make it about independence and breaking up the United Kingdom, rather than sticking to the issue, which we all agree is important and which we all agree that our constituents across the United Kingdom face—yes, they face the same issue in Edinburgh South as they do in North Norfolk. That is something we have in common. It is a common problem and it will need all our attention and efforts in the United Kingdom to address it.

We have seen our cost of living degenerate over the course of the pandemic. Now we see it under more stress, and we have a Government whose attention—let us all be honest—is not entirely where it should be, but on their own internal problems, such as partygates and internal rows. Those should have no place here at a time when we face such a serious problem. I appeal to the Government to put all that aside, to fix it and to sort it; the Prime Minister should consider his position, and they should get on with dealing with the issue we all face.

To the Scottish National party I would say: we support you in fighting the cost of living crisis we all face, but we could fight it together. We could beat it together. We could help our constituents together, if we stopped having narrow identity arguments that simply divide us and make it more difficult for everybody.

Downing Street Garden Event

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

There is absolutely no indication of anything along those lines, so the hon. Lady is mischaracterising the position and jumping the gun. It is best not to make political points but, rather, to wait for Sue Gray’s investigation.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

We have heard today some reminders of what so many people in this country were going through in May 2020. One of the things that helped to keep us all together was the belief that we were all in it together and that the Government understood and supported what we were going through. Will the Paymaster General tell us whether the Prime Minister appreciates that my constituents and, I am sure, constituents elsewhere in the country now feel let down, betrayed and treated with contempt by this Prime Minister and his Government? Will he tell us when the Prime Minister will show some respect for the House and come here and answer the questions we all have for him?

[Michael Ellis]

The Prime Minister will come to the House tomorrow for Prime Minister’s questions and the Leader of the Opposition, or his deputy, will have the opportunity to ask questions then. The hon. Lady asks whether we are all in it together; yes, we are all in this together. The Prime Minister knows—as Prime Minister, he sees the documents, the scientists and the medical professionals and he meets the families and visits around the country. He is in a better position than most to know the impact of this pandemic and he fully recognises it, not only because of his personal experience but because of what he has seen and witnessed on his visits, in his meetings and by everything else he has done as Prime Minister since this covid pandemic began. He does recognise that, he is on the side of the people of this country, and he is working to achieve the best results for the people of this country.

Household Energy Bills: VAT

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is an honour to speak in today’s debate, even though it is a very frustrating one. I cannot get my head around the fact that Government Members seem more offended by the Labour party trying to take control of the Order Paper than the cost-of-living crisis facing this country. That is not coming down the line; it is here and it is now. We have inflation at its record highest level in the last 10 years, a stealth tax that the Government introduced by freezing the tax threshold and a hike in national insurance, all of which are making a bad situation worse. Let us not start reheating pointless Brexit arguments; let us try to deal with the issue.

The Liberal Democrats believe that cutting VAT is a blunt instrument, so in principle, we would prefer to see targeted measures, doubling the warm home discount and the winter allowance. That is what we need, but we will support the Labour party today because it wants address the issues that people in our constituencies care about: how they will heat their homes, feed their children and keep themselves warm if they are elderly. That is what they care about, not debates that happened two years ago or, for that matter, Scottish independence. They care about how they pay their bills now, so we will support the motion.

Will the Government please stop speaking to us all as though we are not aware of what is going on in the country? Perhaps they are not aware—perhaps they are detached from it—but we Liberal Democrat Members are very aware of the problems that our constituents face due to the cost of living, inflation and energy prices going up, and the economic impact of the pandemic on our local businesses and independent traders, who provide vital income not just to our local communities, but to the people who work for them.

Two years ago, the Chancellor promised us that he would do whatever it took to fix the economy. It is a crying shame that he and the rest of the Government are apparently not prepared to do whatever it takes to help the people of this country through an economic crisis and a cost-of-living crisis that is hitting them hard.

Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill [Lords]

Christine Jardine Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and it was very interesting to hear his views on that aspect of the Bill and the judiciary. It is one of the reasons why— as other Members have mentioned—I do not think that the Liberal Democrats will oppose the Bill, although we may, at a later stage, table a number of amendments, which I will return to later.

As has been mentioned, there have been a considerable number of amendments to the Bill, which is intended, as the Government said, to ensure that we have equal treatment for all members in each of the main public service pension schemes. It would remove unlawful discrimination and bring in the remedy to age discrimination, as identified in the McCloud judgment, enable the Treasury to establish new public service pension schemes, increase the mandatory retirement age for judges, as the hon. Member mentioned, and provide for regulation-making powers. I believe that all of us in this place would support those aims, but the Liberal Democrats have several concerns, some of which the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) mentioned. Many of the concerns were raised in the other place in relation to the amount of detail that is left to regulation and direction and what support will be available to members in making important decisions about their future pension planning.

In considering the Bill, we should reflect on lessons that we have learned, or should have learned, from previous, well-intentioned but ultimately problematic pension reforms, when issues of discrimination and unfairness emerged. I am thinking of the unintended consequences, a lack of information and poor communication, the implications of which have characterised the changes to the state pension age for women, particularly those born in the early 1950s. Ministers could do worse than to listen to some of the 6,000 so-called WASPI women in my Edinburgh West constituency talking about the hardship that the mismanagement or miscommunication of complicated pension changes can cause.

Our experts fear that up to 3 million pension holders will be affected by these important changes. Although consultation responses were supportive of the deferred choice method in the Bill, they warned that the complexity of implementing it may have been underestimated, and that was one of the concerns the Liberal Democrats mentioned in the other place. We believe that not enough support is being offered to members of schemes faced with complex decisions that could involve heavy losses. In the other place, we tabled an amendment to require the Secretary of State to issue guidance to help members understand the choice in front of them, and that could include something like a helpline.

We are also concerned about fairness and the disproportionate effect that some of the provisions in the Bill may have on women, and we tabled an amendment in the House of Lords on women and the gender pensions gap. The Government do not seem to have any real policy on how to rectify the problem, and women will potentially be adversely affected by the Bill, given the time they will have taken out of work for childcare and so on.

One last concern, which we may return to, is that raising the mandatory judicial retirement age from 70 to 75 could have a negative impact on the diversity of the judiciary, which at the moment is dominated by older, white men. To return to the statement by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, the judiciary—its diversity, its fairness and its reflection of the country—is as important in many ways to our democracy as this place is.

That is all we would want to add at this stage, but we will return to these issues, perhaps on Report, and certainly with some amendments.