Income Tax (Charge)

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab) [V]]

As we know, the context of the Budget yesterday was a debilitating global pandemic. It was also the last Budget before the UK hosts the COP26 climate conference. It was therefore arguably the most critical Budget since the second world war. I say “critical” because my friends, my family and my community matter to me, and having a viable future for them and myself matters to me. I saw so many of them struggling before the pandemic because of this Government, and now even more are struggling because of this Government.

What the people of this country needed from the Chancellor’s Budget yesterday was so much more than simply a reaction to the crisis at hand. What the people of this country needed was a strategy that would support all people and businesses struggling amid the pandemic, tackle the rising epidemic of inequality and debt, initiate a massive programme of decarbonisation, invest in local authorities and public services—the backbone of the successful part of the pandemic response—and rebuild our town and city centres as the vibrant hubs of sustainable communities and community activity. By those measures, the Chancellor’s Budget has failed on every single metric.

What I have seen in the pandemic is the best of the British people and the worst of this Conservative Government. In my constituency of Norwich South, I have seen care and compassion in the face of adversity, and I have seen the power of collective action in public services such as our NHS and schools, which stepped up to carry this country through extreme circumstances. In this Conservative Government, I have seen corruption and cronyism as well as indifference to growing inequality and climate change. That is ingrained in the detail of this Budget, which is going to punish the public and our public services, instead of taking the transformative action needed to support the livelihoods of all people and businesses, not just today but for generations to come.

What we needed from the Budget was a massive green economic stimulus on the scale of that in the United States, if not larger. We did not get it. Instead, we got the decision to freeze fossil fuel duty. What we needed was investment in the very public services that have seen us through this pandemic, such as our NHS, which is delivering a world-leading vaccine roll-out, and our schools, which have set up virtual learning under extreme pressure and with their resources cut to the bone. We did not get it. Instead, the Chancellor buried a £30 billion cut to the health and social care budget while local authorities such as Norwich face a collective £10 billion black hole that will mean yet more cuts to vital jobs and services. What we needed was a remedy to the crisis in our privatised and failing social care system. We did not get it. Instead, we got platitudes about needing a cross-party consensus.

The Conservatives have had 10 years to sort this out. We got nothing on our broken social security system, and nothing on statutory sick pay so low that it has helped to fuel this pandemic. A nothing Budget from a nothing Government with nothing of worth to say about the future of this country. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) said in his Budget response:

“That is not levelling up; it is giving up.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2021; Vol. 690, c. 265.]

The Chancellor said he would do “whatever it takes”, so why did he do nothing for those in rent arrears and nothing to deal with the inequality and the 4 million children living in poverty? He paid only lip service to tackling mass youth unemployment. He told the people of this country he was being honest with them, so why did he choose to hide billions of pounds of cuts to our frontline NHS services?

We came into this pandemic with an economy akin to a dilapidated house built on collapsing foundations. Ten years of Conservative austerity have delivered the UK’s worst decade for improvements in living standards in 200 years, and now our house has been hit by an earthquake and turned to rubble with 130,000 dead because the Government failed to invest in resilient foundations. So why on earth does the Chancellor now want to rebuild the same rubbish house on the same shaky foundations? If he wanted to protect the livelihoods of people and businesses in this country and in my city of Norwich, he could and should have made different choices yesterday. It is far better to invest in new design with stronger foundations.

The Chancellor must listen to the public consensus forming on the back of the pandemic, provide support for a universal basic income and universal services and prioritise our health and wellbeing over GDP, with direct intervention to make society fairer. He could have taken the public’s lead yesterday. He could have forgiven the debts of people in rent arrears and students burdened by high interest rates. We got none of that yesterday. Now 130,000 people are dead and the UK has the highest per capita death rate from covid-19 in the world.

This Budget will entrench inequality and it failed to tackle the climate crisis. It will be the job of those of us on this side of the House to remind the public in the years to come that these were the choices of this Government and this Chancellor.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am very keen to ensure that we get everybody in, so after the next speaker I will reduce the time limit to four minutes.

Pension Funds: Financial and Ethical Investments

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome this important debate, secured by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey). It follows the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into green finance, which he clearly read because his recommendations seem to mirror our own. It is good to see Committee members who served on that inquiry in the Chamber.

The physical impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, will pose increasing economic risks for a range of businesses and investments, from food and farming to infrastructure, homebuilding and insurance. In the UK alone, climate change is projected to increase the risk that business assets and operations are damaged and disrupted by flooding, degrade some of our most productive agricultural land, to reduce water supplies, to increase the frequency and intensity of heatwaves, and to stress transportation, energy and water infrastructure. There are a great many risks for investors to consider.

For instance, climate change may result in liability risks when those who suffer losses as a result of climate change take legal action to recover damages from those who can be found responsible. For example, the city of New York is currently seeking to recover costs from BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell as a result of flooding. Transition risks could also be faced by companies in high-carbon sectors that fail to diversify and adapt to policies introduced in response to the Paris climate change agreement. Firms that do not make a timely transition and remain over-invested in climate-changing activities could face costly regulatory action, suffer reputational damage, or see their assets become stranded as carbon prices rise. Our inquiry found several examples of stranded assets, such as oil refineries or fracking infrastructure. A Bank of England paper published in 2016 warned that

“a sudden, unexpected tightening of carbon emission policies could lead to a disorderly re-pricing of carbon-intensive assets”.

These are real challenges for pension providers and pension investors.

Our Committee heard about a range of worrying practices in the pension industry, including the fiduciary duty of pension scheme trustees often being misinterpreted as a duty to maximise short-term returns; remuneration for investment consultants and fund managers encouraging a pursuit of short-term returns rather than long-term value creation; and a tendency to under-invest in physical assets, technology innovation and employees’ skills in preference for nearer-term gains from financial mergers, acquisitions or restructuring. In the context of our climate change risk, we want none of those things.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

It is really good to hear hon. Members talk about climate change and greenhouse gases, but there are in fact nine planetary boundaries, of which greenhouse gases are one. I wonder whether people understand that it is entirely possible that we save the planet from climate change yet kill ourselves through eight of the other planetary boundaries, two of which we are in the red for. Is it not the case that financial markets, pension schemes and so on actually need to see their remit as wider than just greenhouse gases, also covering a range of other areas, including biodiversity and carbon?

[Alex Sobel]

Absolutely. A range of factors, including air quality and the insect population and pollinators, should be taken into account. It is not just about fossil fuels, but as the debate mainly concerns fossil fuels and climate change, I will concentrate on those. I recently led a debate on insect populations. It is good that we are looking at all of that in the round.

There are structural incentives in the UK for maximising short-term returns over long-term investments, which are much more climate-sensitive. The Government should clarify that pension schemes and company directors have a fiduciary duty to protect long-term value and should consider environmental risks in the light of that. Some pension companies are taking that up, and investors are also looking for better, fossil-free pension options. A 2017 YouGov poll for Good Money Week found that more than half of 18 to 34-years-olds—the pensioners of tomorrow—would like fossil-free investments offered as standard.

We need to make progress, and the Government need to bring in stricter rules. The Committee found that the current rules are that trustees or governance committees legally must have good reason to think that scheme members would share their concerns, and that decisions should not involve a risk of detriment to the fund. However, the European Commission’s action plan on sustainable finance proposes that institutional investors and investment managers should consult their beneficiaries on their sustainability preferences and reflect those in their investment decision making, regardless of whether they are financially material. The European Commission plan states that

“institutional investors and asset managers do not sufficiently disclose to their clients if and how they consider these sustainability factors in their decision-making. End-investors may, therefore, not receive the full information they need, should they want to take into account sustainability-related issues in their investment decisions.”

I call on the Government to adopt the action plan in full; the Minister intervened earlier to say that the Government have only partially adopted it.

Pension savers should be given the greatest opportunity to engage with decisions about where their money is invested. As I said, younger generations want fully fossil-free pension options. Divesting from fossil fuels makes sense not just in terms of ethics and the climate, but as a sound long-term financial strategy. As soon as I joined the parliamentary pension scheme, I also became a supporter of Divest Parliament. According to the latest annual report, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) said, the fund includes stakes in BP at £7.33 million, Shell at £6.6 million, Rio Tinto at £3.67 million and Total at £2.93 million. Our own funds are being invested in those companies. It is time our own trustees heard our voices in this debate and in this place, divested our pension funds and reinvested in renewables and clean tech for our future and for the planet.

Universal Credit

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

Actually, if the hon. Gentleman looks at what this Government introduced in the Budget, he will see that it was a package of support worth £1.5 billion for the country. What we are doing is supporting people as best we possibly can. Additionally, these regulations fund temporary accommodation through housing benefit, which has been widely called for and unanimously welcomed by local authorities.

These regulations follow on from a host of other changes that we have already implemented, including making our telephone lines Freephone numbers, extending the maximum repayment period for advances from six months to a year, increasing the maximum advance that claimants can receive to up to 100%, changing the guidance to ensure that, when private sector housing claimants come on to universal credit, we know whether their rent was previously paid directly to the landlord and can ensure that that continues.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

Meaner even than the master in Oliver Twist’s workhouse, the Secretary of State seeks not just to stop the second helping, but to stop any meal at all. I ask her to come to Norfolk. If these changes go through, 12,500 children will be denied a hot midday meal. How does that square the circle in relation to making work pay? Please, can she tell us —anything?

[Ms McVey]

Unfortunately—I think that I was taught this as a child—when someone has totally lost the argument, they make up the facts, and that is what we are hearing from the Opposition. Although we have brought in all the requests that they wanted to support more people into work—I have just read out the list—they just scaremonger and make things up as they go along. I hope that it is clear to the whole House that these regulations will bring in real and tangible benefits for claimants and that, as promised, we are making the changes necessary to continue to deliver universal credit safely and securely, with all the necessary support that claimants need.

I want to be clear about another thing, too, because Members have stood up during past universal credit debates to recount stories of cases where their constituents have reported difficulties with universal credit. Where that has happened, we have immediately sought to address the concerns, because it is vital to us all that we get this right, so that we can deliver the most modern, forward-thinking, flexible benefit in the world, and that is what this Government are seeking to deliver. This benefit will be at the cutting edge of support throughout the world—that is what this Government are delivering.

Pension Equality for Women

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

This is a fantastic debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for the hard and tireless work he has done on this issue.

Many of us in this House, on both sides of the Chamber, do not see pensions as a burden but as an expression of collective solidarity among generations. We are proud of pensions—they are part of the glue of a civilised society and we will always defend them. That is why we defend and speak up for the WASPI women.

Like so many others in the Chamber today, I am here to represent many constituents who are among the millions of women—it sounds as though half of them are up in the Gallery today—who have suffered as a result of Government policy on pensions. The basic facts of this whole issue are now well-known. Many of the cases that Members will raise today will tell fundamentally the same story, but it is important that those stories be told. That is because the injustice of this consists not only in its quality—the sheer, brazen wrongness of it—but in its scale, with 3.8 million women being robbed of that which they were promised.

This is a huge scandal that must be faced up to by the Government as soon as possible. I have case studies of my own to tell—stories of constituents. Perhaps one of the most chilling and telling aspects is that I have been asked by my local 1950s women’s groups to anonymise them so as to not reveal their identities, because some of these women have been reduced to utter poverty and embarrassment. That is shocking. Women who have, in one way or another, spent their whole lives either working or caring for others—women in their 60s whose entire life plans were based on the knowledge that they would be receiving pensions in a given year—have been tossed casually on to the benefits system, with all its attendant humiliations. Some of my constituents have been forced to go out and get cleaning jobs on the minimum wage. Almost as bad as the financial robbery is the humiliation and insult. One woman is now forced to sell her home because she is unable to qualify for benefits—to sell the only asset she had acquired in a lifetime of work and service.

I have mentioned the quality of this injustice and its quantity—the numbers of those affected. However, there is another element that makes this scandal a terrible stain on all of us in this place—the perpetrator of the injustice. It has been carried out not by some faceless corporate financial mega-business domiciled in Panama, or by some fly-by-night wheeler-dealer, but by Her Majesty’s Government. I am chair of the APPG on fair business banking and finance. We have found in our work alarming evidence of malpractice and fraud in our financial sector that is truly disgraceful. We have also found that trust and faith in our financial sector are now shockingly low. But why should we be surprised by what is happening in the private sector if the Government themselves—the same Government who are supposed to regulate and keep the system fair—are so ready to casually rip off millions of women?

Trust, as we know, is hard won and easily lost. Yet without it, the entire basis of consent under which democratic government operates is lost. If we allow this injustice to persist, we will be doing our whole country a great disservice. I call on the Government to bring forward a fair and reasonable plan to solve this without delay.

Social Mobility Index

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Chloe Smith]

Funnily enough, I had anticipated that line of argument. I think that most of it accrues to the Minister to answer, but I will say this. We need to understand child poverty across a number of indicators. That is the argument that I am putting in my contribution. I will go on to make a few more points about what adult prospects consist of. Of course the hon Lady is right to say that money matters, but it is not the only thing that matters, and that is what we should be aware of as we plough our way through this kind of analysis.

Let me recap what is in the second part of the report. It is about people’s prospects of converting good educational attainment into good adulthood outcomes, so it looks at the weekly pay of employees, housing affordability, the proportion of managerial and professional jobs, the proportion of jobs that pay an hourly rate less than the living wage and the proportion of families with children who own their own home.

In my constituency, unemployment and youth unemployment are now lower than the national average, which I welcome, but so are earnings. The gross median wage in Norwich North for full-time work in 2015 was £440—a whole £90 below the UK average of £530. In addition—this is why I welcomed the intervention from the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron)—Norwich North has started up new businesses at about half the rate of the UK. I share her passion to see that number rise.

In the report, the Norwich City Council area is in the bottom 20 for adult social mobility. Locally, we might generally understand that some of the brightest young people leave the area to study because other parts of the country seem to be more exciting and have more opportunities, but there are now so many exciting industries and avenues in Norwich that I could talk all day about why bright people do not need to leave. However, that is not the point. This debate is about the people whose prospects are not so obvious, who began life with less.

Let me pick out one other thing that is noted in the report as an ingredient for a social mobility hotspot, which is about practicalities, not abstract concepts. Norwich does not yet have good enough transport links. The report rightly notes that public transport links and links to the motorway network provide advantages for those from disadvantaged backgrounds in less isolated areas, through access to job opportunities and the attractiveness to education professionals of working in schools in the local area.

Before the debate, I asked a few constituents about their experience. One young man said that he was not surprised by the report because “that is the nature of living in such an area—fewer people, fewer opportunities, fewer jobs. It’s not something that can be changed easily.” It is obvious, then, that transport and the access to more people that it brings can help to create more opportunities. Norwich has only just been connected to the rest of the country by a fully dualled road, thanks to many campaigners’ efforts and this Government getting it done. I lead the campaign for better rail links for our city, which we estimate will bring thousands of jobs.

I want to add a personal view at this point. I went into politics because I was that 16-year-old growing up in Norfolk, frustrated by the lack of opportunities and keen to do my bit to make it better. I had loving and supportive parents and encouraging teachers, but little access to people or places. It could be said that I did not even know what I did not know. As a teenager, I laughed a lot at Harry Enfield—perhaps you did too, Mr Percy. Do you remember that sketch in which women were told to know their limits? Of course, it was funny because it had once been true; it was cutting because it had once been true, but I do not want it ever to be true that a child in Norwich today should see limits.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

Picking up on Harry Enfield, which I think is an appropriate in-point—

[Chloe Smith]

Let me guess which one you are going to pick.

[Clive Lewis]

Well, obviously the catchphrase of one of his key characters was “Loadsamoney!” I think that was the expression. I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) raise the issue of income, and I heard the hon. Lady’s answer, which was that many factors go towards child attainment and social mobility. We all understand that, but one of the key ones for many Labour Members is child poverty. The hon. Lady and I both know that in our city of Norwich—

[Andrew Percy (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Clive Lewis]

A quarter of—

[Andrew Percy (in the Chair)]

No. Excuse me. This intervention is too long. The hon. Gentleman will sit down. I call Chloe Smith.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Percy, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) on securing this debate. I thought she spoke extremely well, particularly about the importance of the early years.

There were some great contributions to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) spoke very well about the situation in London. The quote that he used about life chances being decided by postcode rather than potential is an important one.

The hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) spoke very well about her constituency. I am pleased to hear a Conservative Back-Bench contribution today, because the previous two times that I have been a shadow Minister responding to child poverty debates there has not been a Tory Back Bencher to make a contribution. I am pleased that she felt able to come along and do that today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) spoke very well about the influence and importance of good schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) spoke with great authority in his role as the chair of the all-party group on social mobility.

Prior to coming to this House, I was involved for many years—well over 10—in Oxford admissions and examining work that could be done to address the problem of how we could attract applicants from a wider range of backgrounds. I was very proud to play a part in the Oxbridge ambassador for Wales project, which was run by my predecessor as the MP for Torfaen, Paul Murphy, who is now Lord Murphy of Torfaen in the other place. The project aimed to increase the diversity of Oxbridge applicants.

I was very sorry to see the Prime Minister’s attack in recent weeks on diversity at Oxford and Cambridge. Although I absolutely agree that there has to be greater diversity, the first thing that concerned me about the Prime Minister’s comments was the lack of acknowledgment of work that has already been done. Let me just give an example. In the period from 2005 to 2010, the number of applications to Russell Group universities rose far more quickly from students on free school meals than from students who were not. That is evidence of social mobility during those years.

The second thing that worried me was that the Prime Minister sought to avoid blame for the consequences of his own policies and to push it away somewhere else. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston spoke, for example, about the abolition of nursing bursaries. However, there is a deeper point here. Let us remember that for all the talk of worklessness, 1.5 million children who are in poverty are in working households. That is what the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission says.

If we accept income as a measure of child poverty, which all Labour Members do, some issues must be extremely worrying, such as low pay, zero-hours contracts and the cuts to the universal credit work allowance that will be happening from this spring onwards, all of which affect people in work.

That brings me on to the central issue of how we measure child poverty, because measuring it is absolutely key. Let me just quote the Minister for Employment herself on 26 January 2016, and I look forward hearing her words endorsed by the Minister who is here today:

“Income is a significant part of this issue, but there are many other causes as well.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2016; Vol. 605, c. 72WH.]

If income is a significant part of this issue, why are the Government refusing to measure it? What possible rational explanation is there for them not doing so?

[Clive Lewis]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will happily and quickly give way.

[Clive Lewis]

One of the issues that the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) did not mention is that a quarter of all the children in Norwich are from low-income families. She neglected to mention that.