The Economy

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me early in this debate and for selecting the Liberal Democrat amendment in my name and those of my hon. Friends.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) on delivering a flawless maiden speech, and I thank the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) for delivering such a gracious speech, particularly given that he has not had much practice over the last nine years when it comes to delivering a speech from the Back Benches.

I want to speak briefly about a couple of matters that are mentioned in our amendment. First, I want to try to clarify the reason for the Conservative party’s opposition to the Human Rights Act. I think that it boils down to just two issues: foreign prisoners and prisoner voting. Members will know that the Home Secretary famously tried to kick-start her own leadership bandwagon with a Tory conference speech in which she promised to deport an illegal migrant whose removal was said to have been blocked by the courts on the basis of article 8 of the European convention on human rights, which concerns the right to a family life. She said:

“We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act...about the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because, and I am not making this up, he had a pet cat.”

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

She was making it up.

[Tom Brake]

Hold on. “But”, we are told,

“a spokesman for the Judicial Office at the Royal Courts of Justice, which issues statements on behalf of senior judges, said the pet had ‘had nothing to do with’ the judgement allowing the man to stay.”

So, unfortunately, it was just that: a story about the Human Rights Act—a story which just happened not to be true. If there are other aspects of the Act that the Government want to get rid of, such as the right to life or the right to privacy, I think we are entitled to know that, but at present there is no real clarity about the nature of their concerns.

I am sorry that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) is no longer in the Chamber. I do not agree with him that it makes no difference how much a party spends on its campaign, particularly if there are ways of spending that get around the constituency spending limits, but I do agree with what he said about the European convention:

“I personally think it is unthinkable to leave the European convention on human rights…It is the way we uphold the values we strive for which are the rule of law, individual liberty, justice for all, regardless of gender. The convention is the bedrock of that.”

I also agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) that the European Court of Human Rights is,

“on a daily basis, producing decisions of great importance in improving human rights in Europe which are inevitably ignored here because they tend to concern countries in eastern Europe”.

I agree with those respected Conservative politicians that scrapping the Human Rights Act and leaving the convention would be a disaster for the United Kingdom’s credibility. It would send countries such as Belarus and Russia the message that it is possible to take or leave, or pick and choose, human rights as if they were favourite dishes on a Chinese restaurant menu.

Let me now say something about the snoopers charter, which clearly has business implications. Start-up businesses would be required to collect and store data in a way that would not be in their interests. As we know, David Anderson has been examining the current surveillance and intercept laws. He handed a report to the Prime Minister on 6 May. I wonder whether the Government had time to take it into account when they presented their proposals for an investigatory powers Bill. We need to see what is in that Bill, and we also need an explanation of why the United Kingdom Government are proceeding with proposals that the Americans have just rejected. The Americans have no mandatory communications data retention requirement for communication service providers, and I think we need to know why this country has such a requirement. Do the Government believe that the Americans are putting the lives of their civilians at risk?

I fear that the new report by Sir Nigel Sheinwald may well not be released, but I urge the Government to make a copy available to the public, even if it has to be redacted. It is quite possible that the report will show that there is no need for a snoopers charter, and that an international treaty could be used instead, allowing countries to agree to release data if required to do so by the security services.

Finally, let me touch briefly on the issue of the right to buy. During the general election campaign, there was clear agreement that we needed to build more homes, but I am afraid that the Government’s proposals are very unlikely to achieve that. When asked about the right to buy, the Mayor of London said that it was

“obviously one of the issues…that it would be potentially extremely costly to this body”,

meaning the Greater London Assembly. He added:

“We would have to make up the difference. Housing associations are private bodies, as we all know. It would involve massive subsidies.”

However, in a tweet—I think that he was tweeting as the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip rather than as Mayor—he said that the right to buy was a very good policy, and that the Conservatives’ proposals were

“a good way of ensuring it is funded.”

We need some clarity, but I suppose that those with two jobs often have to contradict themselves, and that is obviously what the Mayor has had to do.

Time does not allow me to touch on other matters, such as the Liberal Democrats’ free childcare and tax threshold. I should love to have an opportunity to discuss them on another occasion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer). One of the few things I like about this new Parliament is the sight of more women on all the Benches around us.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) reminded us, the Queen promised last Wednesday that the Government would adopt a one-nation approach, yet in practice this Government’s approach to the economy has divided our nation. What brings a nation together? A sense of fair play, underpinned, in my view, by universal human rights, and a sense that everyone can depend on good public services when they need them. We can be united by confidence in a fair tax system and spending that is efficient, where our money is not wasted. When I was a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I was constantly struck by how many voters watched our hearings, praising my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) for her determined defence of the taxpayer’s pound. Their enthusiasm showed that when we in Parliament stop the Government wasting citizens’ hard-earned money, they are not in the least turned off by politics.

But politicians must be scrupulously honest about what we do. The plan to make it illegal to increase taxes looks like a rhetorical device. What is the penalty going to be? Will the Chancellor go to jail if, for example, he increases VAT on books to equalise the treatment of electronic reading material and printed books? The trumpeted plans to exempt the lowest paid from any form of income tax are an example of a policy that divides rather than unites. It has been dressed up as help to the low paid, but every study shows that the majority of the benefit goes to families in the top half of earners, whose tax bill as a share of their income will fall further than that of the poorer half of the community.

My objection to this policy is that it divides society, separating us into givers and takers—those who pay into the system and those who take out—breeding a culture of blame and suspicion. Of course, we all pay tax. We all pay VAT when we buy things, but the greatest proportion of tax, and often the most resented, is income tax. It is fairer than other taxes, all of which take up more of the household budgets of the poorest people than of those who are wealthier. Paying tax, as we too often fail to remind citizens, is a symptom of social solidarity. It is our subscription to civilised society where we can all enjoy public parks, send our children to schools where they have an equal chance to learn, and have a health service we can rely on when we are ill. One of the defining characteristics of Britain is a strong sense of fair play, but if no one explains the unfair consequences of plans to change tax thresholds, the one-nation label that the Government claim will camouflage this unfairness.

I represent a successful town. It attracts inward investment to the United Kingdom. It is an immigrant town. Slough residents are aspirational, work hard and generate wealth. It is the third most productive town in the United Kingdom, contributing approximately £8 billion to the national economy—double the UK average. However, that growth generates losers as well as winners. In our local housing market, rising prices push up GDP figures while the rest of the economy drags, and as a result home owners see their assets grow while everyone else spends unsustainable proportions of their income on rent or on struggling to buy.

The plans to sell off housing association properties at a discount—properties that are already occupied by secure tenants—is a gross example of taking assets available to the many people who have housing need, destroying the legacy of philanthropists and mutual aid societies who created those housing associations, and giving those assets to a few sitting tenants who can raise a mortgage. That is the Conservative way—to take from the many and give to the few.

GDP does not tell us how the benefits of growth are distributed—who wins within the population and who loses. Some people get no financial benefit at all. It is estimated that unpaid childcare contributes nearly three quarters of GDP. Carers of ill and disabled relatives save more than the entire spend of the national health service. Yet UK workers who are employed and paid now receive only half of GDP, whereas in 1976 the figure was two thirds. That rate of decline is unmatched by any developed economy or any other industrialised economy. The employees’ share of the economic pie is now the lowest ever recorded and it will keep decreasing because of this Government’s plans to cut in-work benefits. Other countries, most notably Scandinavian countries, have worker representatives on company boards so that meaningful discussions about sharing corporate wealth can take place. Sharing wealth equitably should be part of corporate social responsibility, and those eschewing it should not be given taxpayer-funded contracts.

I urge the Government to match their one-nation rhetoric with action. If they do, we could have an economy where hard work is well rewarded, whether it is work by a mum bringing up babies or a banker borrowing and lending. If everyone is confident that their aspiration will be rewarded, they will do as my constituents do: invest in their skills, work hard and grow our whole nation’s economy.