Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [Lords]

Debate between David Anderson and Helen Goodman

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

There is an old saying that in politics timing is everything, but as we keep on being blessed by the Budget that keeps giving, even that old adage is being tested. We have spoken tonight about the retail review and the red tape review, and the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) told us about his private Member’s Bill, which was brought forward before the last summer recess. All of a sudden, at the last minute, there has been a great rush to move things forward. Why the rush? We have known about the Olympics since 6 July 2005, and were planning for it long before then. Lots of public money and time have been spent, and people have been working together in lots of private business partnerships. This should have been planned properly.

The truth is that at no point before 21 March this year did anyone seriously suggest that workers needed to work extra hours on a Sunday. In case anyone needs reminding, 21 March was day one of the Chancellor’s year zero. The Chancellor—the man with two names—decided that it must be so. This is his answer to the double-dip recession, the plan A for growth: we will work our way out of the mess that he has got us into. What is his idea? “Let’s make shop workers work longer hours on a Sunday.” What a farce.

One of the saddest things about this farce is that decent Front-Benchers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have been sidelined. We have seen the sad spectacle of the Member whom we used to know as the sage of Twickenham reduced to being the stooge of Westminster, the stooge of George Osborne.

This whole thing has been compounded by the abuse of fast-track emergency legislation. Why? Are we at war? No, although I must say I thought we were going to talk about the war when the Secretary of State mentioned Germany. I am quite happy to have a discussion with the trade unions about Sunday opening hours if the Secretary of State is happy to have a word with the trade unions about whether we should have German-style rights at work. They would be very interested in having that debate. Are we going to be hit by a natural disaster? I do not think so. Does the nation face a constitutional crisis? Well, yes, we do, but no one would think so if they had been in the Chamber earlier when the Prime Minister brushed aside the calamity that is his handling of the Murdoch saga.

The truth is that the Bill is a fig leaf for the failure of the coalition’s excuse for an economic strategy. It is an abuse of the House and of the nation that emergency-style legislation is being used in this way. The Secretary of State says that it applies to only eight Sundays. I remind him that that is a whole summer to young kids. That is the time when those kids will be looking forward to spending the best quality time of the year with their parents, and that is going to be stolen from the children of this country.

But there is another issue about timing and another example that needs to be raised in the debate. What could be a more fitting time to talk about some of the hardest working and lowest paid people in our country than the day after The Sunday Times rich list was published— 1,000 people who between them own £414 billion? Think about it. If they a spent £1 million a day on average for the next year, they would still be left with £48 million before they evaded tax and before they claimed any interest. A nice little earner for them which has seen them have an average 4.7% increase in their bank balances, while ordinary men and women face pay freezes, pension contribution rises and the dole queue.

I do not suppose that many of those who work at Asda, Morrison’s or Sainsbury’s will be writing out the cheque this week to send their son to Charterhouse, where it costs £30,530 a year, so that they can emulate our wonderful Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Clearly, that was money well spent by his parents. No, this is just another example of the arrogance of the people who rule this country, and their genuine ignorance of the lives of ordinary men and women. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) suggested asking some of those on the Government Front Bench and their colleagues to go and work on one of those Sundays. Let me make a suggestion. Why do they not do it on the second Sunday in August? Instead of going out shooting grouse, let the people from my constituency shoot the grouse while they go and serve in the stores.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a great speech and I agree with everything he says about social justice, but on the issue of culture, media and sport, does he not think it is pathetic if those on the Government Benches think that when people come from all over the world to this country, all they want to do is go shopping and not see the marvellous buildings, paintings, landscape and all the other things that this country has to offer?

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between David Anderson and Helen Goodman

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

I do not accept the hon. Lady’s analysis. Unnecessary complexity is one of the problems. A positive aspect of the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) is the improvement in transparency, stability and predictability that would ensue from them. Those things would simply not ensue from the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s proposals.

[Mr Anderson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the differences between what is happening now and what happened in 1997 is that, in 1997, the Labour party went to the country to ask for a mandate to put in place a windfall tax on the energy companies, and that the people of this country voted for that?

[Helen Goodman]

That is a powerful point. What happened then contrasts with the total lack of consultation by this Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. This opens a huge hole in front of the Minister’s revenue forecast. There is total uncertainty. Every company will be able to turn up and renegotiate its own tax regime, which is ludicrous. How far will this be taken? Will it be a general principle established in the tax code for the purposes of all corporation tax, or personal tax? I hope that the Minister has a very good explanation for what is going on.

Let me return to the underlying worry that has been exposed in tonight’s debate—that the Government simply have not taken account of the importance of energy security. Everyone knows that the energy market is under a number of different pressures. On the one hand, we must have a market that is environmentally sensitive and reduces our carbon footprint; on the other hand, we must have prices that are affordable for people in this country and that tackle fuel poverty. We must also have security of supply in a world that is particularly uncertain at this time. Wars are taking place in north Africa and there is conflict in the middle east, and it is at this moment that the Government have chosen to impose taxes that are so insensitive that they put the North sea oil and gas regime at risk.

[Mr Anderson]

I want to speak in support of amendment 10, but first I want to say something about the speech of the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce). I am pleased that he has returned to the Chamber, because I was very interested in what he had to say. Most of those who have spoken in the debate on these amendments have done so on the basis of a degree of experience, which was not the case in earlier debates.

I wonder whether the case made by the right hon. Gentleman was made to the Government before the Budget. It appears from what was said by him and by the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) that the industry has been saying to the Government for some time, “If you are going to do this, please talk to us and please make sure that we get it right.” The industry does not want to end up with the circumstances described by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), in which anyone could do whatever they want whenever they want.

If that information was shared with the Chancellor before he made his statement on 23 March, it would seem from what was said by the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) about why he had ignored the voices of experienced people such as the right hon. Member for Gordon and those in the industry that the only thing that matches the Chancellor’s arrogance is his ignorance. Clearly he has decided to say, “I know better. I will impose this on the industry and on this country.”

This is not just about places such as Aberdeen and the north-west, because a huge amount of work is going on across the whole of Tyneside and the north-east of England. Some of the most advanced technical work anywhere in this country is being done there in very small factory units by very skilled men and women who are doing a great job. Shipyards have reinvented themselves after the closure programme of the 1980s and are building exploratory rigs and doing work that is vital to maintaining the skills base and developing the new work that we want to do. That will be development for not only the oil industry, but the offshore wind industry.

[Mr Anderson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. These people are rightly still among the most well-paid people in this country—why on earth should they not be, given the work they are involved in and the risks they take in their daily lives?

I worked underneath the North sea bed as a coal miner, so I have some experience of working in the energy industry. I am not the person to feel sorry for multinational oil companies, but if the Government take crass decisions that will have a massive impact on not only the industry, but the people who are dependent on it right across the board, we should surely question that. I have no problem with saying to the oil companies that we want them to play their part in trying to help us to get this country back on an even keel. Clearly, when companies such as Shell and BP are making huge profits, that discussion should take place, but it should happen before decisions as serious as this are imposed on people.

Some 450,000 people work in the industry. Our subsea industry is at the cutting edge and leading the world. People talk about what happened in the gulf of Mexico only a year ago, but the probability is that that will never happen in the North sea because of the experience we have gained over many decades of working up there. We lead the world and we should be proud of that, but this taxation surprise has made the industry question whether it should carry on being there, and clearly the oil industry can go to lots of other places in the world.

[Helen Goodman]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the expertise, research undertaken and skills gained on the UK continental shelf in the North sea enable British-based companies to explore successfully in the gulf of Mexico and the south China sea, and that from that exploration we also gain in income and investment from dividends overseas?

[Mr Anderson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. There is no doubt that as we move further forward and the exploration starts to take place west of the Shetland Islands, presenting new challenges, our people working in these industries will again lead the way. But that may not happen if companies are frightened away by a tax regime that is going to punish them. It will particularly punish them when it is a rabbit pulled out of a hat at the end of a Chancellor’s Budget, when it has not been discussed with the industry and when the industry has not been able to prepare, consider what it is doing and talk things through in a sensible and adult way in a genuine partnership to make these things work. As has been pointed out a number of times, Centrica has said this week that it is considering not reopening its gas fields off our north-west coast. That is a hugely important area of development and if Centrica decides not to reopen the fields they will just become sterile, like so many other of our energy reserves in this country over the past 30 years as a direct result of Government failures and inaction. It is clear that the Government have not thought this measure through, and the plea by the right hon. Member for Gordon is absolutely the right one, because they should think it through.

What will happen to the tax revenue in the meantime? That point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). Clearly, the decision made on 23 March was that a certain amount of money would be raised by this attack on the North sea. If that money is not raised, either because of the discussions that go on or because the decision has changed, what will the Chancellor come back with? How will he fill the hole that will be left, at least temporarily, if we do not go ahead with the measure?