Christopher Chope
Main Page: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)Department Debates - View all Christopher Chope's debates with the HM Treasury
(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Mark Field
If the right hon. Lady will forgive me, I would like to make some progress because others want to get in.
The provisions in clause 8 on the high-income child benefit change to income tax will doubtless be the subject of extensive controversy. In spite of the misgivings I have expressed since the scheme was proposed in October 2010—in particular, that it seems to act as a penalty on aspiration and families in which one parent stays at home to rear children—I accept the overriding need to reduce the vast fiscal deficit. However, the tapering of the change to income tax for those earning between £50,000 and £60,000 a year will result in marginal tax rates of 65% for families with three or more children. Conservatives such as me believe in promoting incentives, but it is difficult to reconcile the proposition that those earning more than £150,000 are deemed to require a highest marginal rate of 45%—a proposition that, I hasten to add, I fully support—with the proposal that earners with several children at the level affected by clause 8 must apparently settle for paying marginal rates of up to 20 percentage points higher. I fear that the controversy in middle Britain about these child benefit changes will continue to resonate strongly in the months ahead.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I think that my hon. Friend and I share similar views on this. Does he accept that if, for example, we were to take all people earning more than £60,000, regardless of whether they have children, and charge them £1,000 a year, the yield would be £2 billion in 2013-14—far more than the yield from this complicated tax targeted at those with children rather than those without them?
Mark Field
I worry that too much of this tinkering will be counter-productive in any event and that the tapering of the child benefit system will be hugely expensive. Many people do not know whether they will earn between £50,000 and £60,000. They might work on a consultancy basis or spend a few months a year unemployed or travelling. Trying to unravel all that will be incredibly difficult.
I wish to make a few provisional passing comments on clauses 211 to 213 and 224 relating to the Chancellor’s decision to impose a 15% stamp duty land tax on acquisitions of £2 million and residential properties by non-natural persons—in other words, companies. Although I support the essence of the proposal, it might have the unintended consequence of stalling development, particularly in central London. I appreciate that high-end property developers might not necessarily be seen as deserving of particular Government acknowledgement, but there is no doubt that the property development industry in and around central London generates significant tax revenues and creates jobs. Not only are the profits taxable here but significant amounts of irrecoverable VAT are often incurred on redevelopment projects. Developers will generate SDLT revenue by buying and reselling redeveloped properties.
In the Budget press release, it was noted that the 15% SDLT charge would not apply to developers because they tended to use companies for limited liability rather than tax avoidance reasons, but when the draft legislation was published, the relief for developers was limited to bona fide developers who had been carrying on a residential property development business for at least two years. The two-year requirement may seem eminently sensible as a means of ensuring that short-life development companies are not established by individuals who ultimately wish simply to use the property in question. Nevertheless, I fear that the qualifying period will discriminate against new property development businesses, which cannot show the requisite track record. Indeed, all new entrants into the market are likely to be priced out because their acquisition costs have suddenly become 8% higher than those of their competitors. We therefore risk creating an uneven market—indeed, a market against newcomers.
The 15% charge is also likely to be an issue for experienced developers. The scarcity of bank finance for development properties at the moment means that much of the finance for high-end residential property development is coming from equity investors, who are bridging the significant funding gap that now exists. The requirements of equity investors will often mean that stand-alone special purpose vehicles are established for individual projects, so once again, the statutory test will not be met. If HMRC wants to consider an alternative policing arrangement and seeks to avoid creating a dual market, it might consider imposing a second charge—either another 7% or the balance of the 15%—if the property is used before being sold on by a developer with SDLT. Alternatively, there could be a time-based charge, so that if the property has not been sold after, say, three years, the second charge comes into play.
It is perhaps understandable that this afternoon I have dwelt on some of my concerns about the Bill. Nevertheless, I appreciate the acutely troubled state of the public finances. The Chief Secretary was absolutely right when he said that it was important that we should not pass on the costs of this generation’s excessive consumption to our children and grandchildren. I therefore reiterate my support for the deficit reduction plan that the coalition set out almost two years ago. I trust that the Bill will progress swiftly and smoothly to the statute book.
Mr Howarth
The hon. Gentleman makes a useful point. I said that the system would be complex to administer, and complex things cost more, so the hon. Gentleman is right to say that. I had not intended to cover the point, but he is also right to express concerns, as did my Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), about the effect of these changes on charities. I happily endorse the sentiment behind the hon. Gentleman’s comments..
I mentioned the maximum pension credit, which is being cut by £1.98 a week for single pensioners and £3.36 a week for couples. The threshold at which people qualify for pension credit has increased by 8.4% to £111.80 for single pensioners and £178.35 for couples. That means that 27,500 pensioners in Knowsley could be affected by these changes. One important characteristic of the previous Government—I do not think it is open to dispute—is that the lot of pensioners steadily increased during the period in which they were in office. What we seem to be confronted with here is the potential for pensioners to get poorer and poorer, as happened under previous Conservative Governments. That is a real concern in my constituency. These changes, taken in conjunction with other changes to the benefit system, will mean real hardship in my constituency, which is one of the poorest in the country.
Let me say a few words about minimum unit pricing for alcoholic beverages. I shall quote a constituent who wrote to me. I shall not name them, as I do not have permission to do so. My constituent wrote:
“The reality is that minimum pricing will affect those less well-off and have little impact on those with a poor relationship with alcohol. It will enrich retailers without creating jobs, reduce investment and damage producers leading to the loss of jobs. The treasury will recover less duty and tax from the sector as a whole.”
I will give my view in a few minutes, but I think that when people write to Members of Parliament expressing such concerns, it is important for us to raise and address the issues.
I have also received some briefing from a company in my constituency, Halewood International. It employs 500 people in the north-west of England, most of whom are in my constituency. It produces some products of which Members may have heard—one is Crabbie’s Ginger Beer, which is a very popular drink; another is Red Square Vodka—and, as well as producing some important brands, it distributes brands for a large number of other companies.
Halewood has made a number of points, to which I hope Ministers will consider responding. First, it says:
“Alcohol consumption has declined since 2004 and more people are drinking responsibly.”
I think that there is evidence to support that assertion. Secondly, it says:
“There is no evidence that minimum pricing will reduce alcohol misuse. It will affect all consumers and punish the majority who drink responsibly.”
That is clearly true: it will affect everyone. The company adds:
“It will hit people on the lowest incomes hardest.”
That, too, is clearly true.
Thirdly, Halewood says:
“Minimum unit pricing is likely to be illegal under European Law. It is inconsistent with the operation of the free market for the state to intervene on price.”
The company is not alone in that view. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury has said:
“the Scottish Government have recently introduced a Bill that seeks to bring in a 45p per unit minimum price… we believe that it could be incompatible with article 34 of the treaty of the functioning of the European Union… That is the position.”—[Official Report, 14 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 341WH.]
So it is not just companies with an interest in the matter that believe that minimum pricing is likely to be problematic in terms of European law. In December last year, the Government thought the same.
Fourthly, Halewood says:
“The UK alcohol industry already pays some of the highest rates of alcohol tax in Europe. The Budget delivered a 5% increase in duty.”
Finally, it says:
“The drinks industry is committed to helping to tackle alcohol misuse. It is delivering a range of initiatives to encourage responsible drinking, such as through the Public Health Responsibility Deal.”
That is the case being put by the industry, and by some of my constituents. Personally, I have an open mind on the introduction of minimum unit pricing. I recognise that problematic drinking exists throughout the country—not just in urban areas, but in every constituency—and that there is a growing problem of young people drinking too much, too often, and ending up with serious health problems as a result. If I could be convinced that these measures would address that adequately, I could be persuaded to support them, but I do need to be convinced.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth). So far, this has been a low-key debate, but I suspect that when the people directly affected by the Bill receive their tax demands, they will write to us in large numbers.
I will concentrate my remarks on clause 8 and schedule 1, which relate to the higher rate child benefit charge. I raised this issue in an Adjournment debate. I am grateful to the Exchequer Secretary, whom I am pleased to see in his place, as the Government have given some ground and have responded to some of the concerns expressed in that debate and more widely, but I remain concerned that we will find ourselves with a lot of aggrieved constituents who will not be persuaded that the proposals in the Bill are fair and equitable.
For example, a single parent earning £60,000 a year will lose all their child benefit, whereas next door there may be two people each earning £40,000 and they will retain their child benefit. Constituents say to me—perhaps this happens to you, too, Madam Deputy Speaker—that they resent the fact that the house next door is almost identical to theirs and yet is in a different band for community charge or, as it is now called—[Interruption.] It is not the poll tax; it is the council tax. If they resent a difference of £100 or £200 in their council tax compared with that of their next-door neighbour, how resentful will they be when they find that they are losing child benefit, which could run into thousands of pounds per annum, as a result of being a single-income family earning more than £60,000, whereas the people next door, who are earning a lot more, are retaining their child benefit? Obviously, such people would not have the same costs associated with earning their income as a single parent family, who would normally have to rely on child care to enable them to make their income high enough to pay the full amount—more than £60,000. So I do not see how this new system will ever be fair or be seen to be fair by the people who will be affected by it.
Today the Government are launching their consultation paper on plain packaging for tobacco products. Some wags are saying that that is promoted by the Treasury, because it will give the Treasury more room on the back of the fag packet to write down its latest policy announcements. I do not know whether or not that is correct, but the proposals in clause 8 and schedule 1 smack of policies conceived if not on the back of a fag packet, certainly on the back of an envelope. We know now that the proposal to take child benefit away from higher-rate tax payers was made at the Conservative party conference in 2010, at very short notice. It was then decided by the Chancellor that it would not be possible to take child benefit away from those with children aged between 16 and 18.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Does my hon. Friend agree that, in principle, it is right that we should not tax people highly then to give them back universal benefits? Does he agree that we want to get away from a system where everyone gets benefits and then has to pay more tax just to get them?
Mr Chope
I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a lot to be said for simplification and stopping the churning effect. The late Lord Joseph was a great campaigner on these issues, and other Conservatives in the past have campaigned to simplify the tax system, which is the avowed intent of this Government. I also think it right to recognise in the tax system that when people have equivalent incomes, those with children have higher costs than those without children. If we are to recognise families in the tax system, one way is to have what used to be a child allowance, which is now incorporated into the child benefit.
If parents have higher costs, why should they start to pay tax at the same level of income as somebody who is not a parent and does not have those higher costs? That is where I disagree with the Government on this policy, which I do not think is fair or consistent. When it has been justified by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Exchequer Secretary, they have argued that it is wrong that people who earn £20,000 or £30,000 a year pay for the child benefit of people like my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). The answer to that is that neither my hon. Friend nor other people are being subsidised in that way by other taxpayers, because, as the Exchequer Secretary confirmed in a written answer to me just before the recess, somebody would have to have 10 children and be on the threshold of higher-rate tax before they started to receive more child benefit than they were paying out in tax. The Government deploy a specious argument when they say that someone on £20,000 or £30,000 a year is paying for my hon. Friend’s child benefit.
Mark Field
I think my hon. Friend and I agree that one of the most important tasks for any Government is to get the huge deficit down. One of the single biggest costs is the cost of welfare, which this year, for the very first time, will go through an aggregate £200 billion mark. Does he not accept that reconsidering the universality of certain benefits would be a sensible way to get the deficit down? Although I do not disagree with elements of what he has said about the workings of clause 8, consideration of removing universality from relatively well-off people, not just for this benefit but for others, would be a desirable way forward.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a good point. As I said at a press conference organised by the Child Poverty Action Group, there is a strong intellectual case for saying that we should revisit universal benefits. What is happening here, however, is that one particular universal benefit—child benefit—is under attack whereas others are not. Will we say next that if somebody with wealthy parents presents themselves at a hospital, their parents should have to pay a charge? Are we going to start saying that free dental treatment for children should not be available to the children of better-off families? Are we going to remove a whole load of other universal benefits? If we are thinking of going down that route, we should have a big public discussion and a public debate. We should put all the universal benefits into the melting pot and decide whether we think there would be a big benefit if the number of universal benefits were reduced or eliminated and whether, as a result, the overall levels of tax could be reduced.
Mark Field
I know that my hon. Friend is a very brave man and I recall that Christchurch is the constituency with the largest number of pensioners. Does he think that the universal benefits of the television licence allowance and the winter fuel allowance should not necessarily go to the wealthiest of his pensioner constituents?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to hide behind the manifesto commitments made by the Conservative party and the Prime Minister. I was going to refer later to some of the background, but, prompted by that intervention, I will perhaps say the following. When the Prime Minister was Leader of the Opposition, he said:
“I want the next Government to be the most family friendly Government we’ve ever had in this country”.
On 5 March 2010, he told a public meeting in Bolton that he would not change child benefit. On 6 October 2009, six months or so earlier, the then shadow Chancellor, now the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the Conservative party conference:
“We will preserve child benefit”.
I certainly went into the general election thinking that we would preserve child benefit as part of the universal benefit system in the same way as we would preserve the universal benefits that are applicable to so many of my constituents, as my hon. Friend points out.
My belief was reinforced on 22 June 2010, when the Chancellor said in his Budget speech in this House that
“we have decided to freeze child benefit for the next three years. This is a tough decision, but I believe that it strikes the right balance between keeping intact this popular universal benefit, while ensuring that everyone across the income scale makes a contribution to helping our country reduce its debts.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 173.]
At that stage, everybody thought that that was the end of it. We would retain child benefit, but freeze it for three years, The yield to the Exchequer of freezing child benefit in 2013-14 is no less than £1 billion. Looking back, I think that that was also the point at which the Chancellor should have said that he was going to freeze the age-related allowances. If that had been presented in the same context, with those in receipt of child benefit having their benefit frozen at the same time as those in receipt of age-related allowances had theirs frozen, I do not think that there would have been a row about it as there has been this time.
That is the background, so how were we able to end up with the Government effectively launching an attack on hard-working families with children? The Government have got themselves into a mess because they have not complied with their own policy of properly discussing the issues in advance of introducing measures. An interesting document, “Tax policy making: a new approach”, was produced immediately after the election. It was issued by the Treasury in June 2010 and in the preface, my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary said:
“I want a new approach to tax policy making; a more considered approach. Consultation on”
tax
“design and scrutiny of draft legislative proposals should be the cornerstones of this approach.”
Mr Ward
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that his call for a wider debate is necessary because universal benefits are often not universally claimed? That adds another complication to the issues that he raises. I know of two schools in areas of equal deprivation. The percentage of free school meals at one is 25% whereas at the other it is 53%, yet the levels of deprivation are equal in both areas. The issue is very complicated.
Mr Chope
It is complicated, particularly as free school meals are obviously not a universal benefit. Child benefit has a 96% or 97% take-up rate, and the Government’s proposals in the Finance Bill are designed to reduce that take-up rate. A number of people might opt out of receiving child benefit, so it will no longer be a universal benefit. As the hon. Gentleman says, if we want a debate about universal benefits, let us have one, but let us do so in the context of a Green Paper, some draft legislative proposals and so on.
In December 2010, in response to the consultation on the issue of a new approach to tax policy making, my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary said:
“This new approach is vital to the Government’s aim of restoring the UK tax system’s reputation for predictability, stability and simplicity.”
There it is: simplicity. We are now talking about employing, on my estimate, between 500 and 1,000 extra staff in order to claw back child benefit to the extent of £1.5 billion from 1.2 million households. How complicated and complex is that? One has only to look at the detailed figures produced by the Treasury in connection with the Budget and to read the report of the Institute for Fiscal Studies to realise that it is incredibly complicated. That is why my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) said in the media not long ago that when he was a Treasury Minister, he was asked to consider this issue on a number of occasions by Treasury officials and he always reached the conclusion that one could do something with child benefit but not in a way that was fair and equitable. The Government have come up with a proposal that is not fair and equitable.
We know that the Government are relying on getting £1.5 billion in income from the measure and I realise that it is very difficult at this stage, when the Budget and the sums have been done, to move amendments that are in order to try to show how an equivalent sum could be raised in an alternative way. If the money was not all being raised from the people being targeted at the moment and there was a proposal to increase the contributions of some other people, such an amendment would be calling for an increase in tax and so could not be tabled by a humble Back Bencher under the Standing Orders of the House. Notwithstanding that, however, I hope to refer briefly to another way in which an equivalent amount of money could be raised by the Exchequer, which would be much fairer and simpler and which might find favour with a surprisingly large number of people if put out to consultation.
Let me conclude my comments on the lack of advance consultation on the child benefit measures. I think that some draft clauses should have been published and discussed. The Government had been thinking about the measures since October 2010 and, contrary to what they had said they would do, they did not produce any draft clauses for consultation, so we are effectively left to scrutinise a Bill that was published during the recess. We have had two weekends to look at it and this Thursday we will have to decide on all the amendments on child benefit in what will probably be, at most, a three-hour debate, under the timetable motion that the Government seek to impose on the House.
I urge my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, when he considers next year’s Budget, to revisit his proposals for having a better system with a lot more consultation. With such a consultation, I do not think we would be in our present difficulties with the VAT on static caravans, the removal of the pensioner age-related allowance, the capping of tax relief on charity donations and so on. The Chancellor and his Treasury team must be pretty concerned about the adverse publicity that has followed the Budget, but all those difficulties could have been avoided if the team had been a bit more trusting of their fellow parliamentarians and had shared information on these measures before the final decisions were made.
The consequence of the proposals on child benefit is that 1.2 million of the 7.9 million families receiving child benefit will lose out. Some 70% of those families will lose the full amount whereas others in the band between £50,000 and £60,000 will lose some if not all of their child benefit. Why do the Government want taxpayers with children to make a greater contribution towards deficit reduction than those on equivalent earnings without children? I have asked that question a number of times in the House but I have never had a satisfactory answer.
I want to put forward an alternative proposal in this public forum. There are about 2 million people earning more than £60,000 a year in this country. I have here some figures from a response to a parliamentary question that was asked on 27 February 2012, column 63W, which gave the number of taxpayers in 2010-11 in detailed income bands. The figures suggest that there were about 1.85 million taxpayers with incomes of more than £60,000 in 2011. The Library note that I have says that the information in HMRC table 2.5 and on the rate at which people’s incomes are increasing suggests that there will be around 2 million taxpayers with incomes over £60,000 in 2011-12. Those are the people I thought the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had in mind when they said that those on higher incomes should make a larger contribution to deficit reduction.
All those people—the best part of 2 million taxpayers—could each be charged £1,000. That would generate £2 billion and at a stroke we would be free of interfering with the universal child benefit and would be free of being accused of picking on people with children rather than people without children. It would remove at a stroke the need to employ all the extra civil servants needed to administer a system that will be very complex, particularly in relation to those earning between £50,000 and £60,000 a year. It would also remove the administrative burden of having to introduce into the tax system definitions of couples living together—that is already a nightmare in the benefit system, so why introduce it into the tax system? I do not think the measures have been thought through, but rather than being negative about them, I am saying to my hon. Friend the Minister that I hope the Government will reconsider this issue between now and Report and perhaps consult on the possibility of asking, “Why don’t all those people earning over £60,000 a year make a contribution of £1,000 and thereby collectively generate £2 billion in income for the Treasury in the next financial year?” Incidentally, that would also remove the need to interfere with age-related allowances because the yield would be slightly larger.
I do not have any personal interest in this issue now because my two children are past the age at which they enabled their parents to qualify for child benefit, but if we were to bring this down to Members of the House, I ask why a colleague of mine with one, two, three or four children on a parliamentary salary should be forced to forfeit child benefit or have a child benefit charge, which may run to several thousand pounds a year, placed upon them while I, who no longer have the responsibility of having children in school, do not make a contribution. It just does not seem fair to me. There is a fairer way to do this.
When I originally raised my idea with the Chancellor of the Exchequer he said, “Who wants to start increasing the higher rate of tax?” but we do not need to do that because, fortunately, the Treasury has come forward with a form of introducing an arbitrary extra charge—a fixed sum, which is effectively a tax—that comes into play as soon as somebody’s income passes a particular threshold, which would be £60,000 in this case. That would enable us to avoid a situation in which 670,000 households with a family income of more than £60,000 will retain some or all of their child benefit while single-parent households on £60,000 will lose everything. I do not have the figures to hand but there are tens of thousands of single-parent households.
Given the additional disincentives that will result from the introduction of the measure, I hope that Treasury Ministers will think again about the wisdom of what they plan to do. There could be perverse consequences as people try to avoid the charges. There could be all sorts of hard luck stories. A person earning £60,000 or £70,000 might take pity on a widow with several children and go to live in her house. They would then find that they had to pay the charge, because they were earning more than £60,000 and living with someone who was in receipt of child benefit. Is that really the sort of message the Government want to send? I do not think it is. We want to keep the tax system simple. We want to promote the importance of families with children and recognise their extra responsibilities, not penalise them in the tax system.