Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

As the hon. and learned Lady will know, when the Scottish Government decided to restructure their police and fire services, they went into that decision with their eyes wide open—they knew what the VAT consequences would be—so it is down to the SNP to ask those questions of itself.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

T6. When is the Treasury likely to give the sign-off to phase 2b of HS2, which you will know, Mr Speaker, runs through Cheshire?

[Andrew Jones]

I will take the matter up with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and get back to my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I think the last thing small businesses need is any help from the Labour party. From what I have seen of Labour’s plans, that would be the final straw for most of them.

As we have said, we recognise that some small businesses are facing very substantial percentage increases, even where the actual amounts might not be very large, and that that can be difficult for businesses to absorb. We have committed to coming forward with a proposal that will address those who are hardest hit by that phenomenon.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

In Stow-on-the-Wold in my constituency, the actual business rates payable by Tesco, which is five minutes’ walk from the centre, is £220 per square metre, whereas a delicatessen in the centre of the town will pay £500 per square metre. Does not my right hon. Friend think that the system of rating valuation needs to be re-examined?

[Mr Hammond]

The rating system is what it is; it reflects the rental value of properties. I readily acknowledge that in an economy that is changing shape rapidly, where the digital economy plays a much larger role and where some of the biggest businesses are not based on bricks and mortar, there are some very significant challenges for us, which we need to look at. In the short and medium term, business rates play a vital role in providing revenue to the Exchequer—and from 2020, of course, they will be used wholly to support local authorities.

Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Member who represents North West Cambridgeshire—I am very grateful to him for helping me.

The truth, however, is that we did look at the option of our staying in, and so did the original report. The IOA, or independent options appraisal, costed and evaluated both a rolling programme and two different versions of staying in the building. That is all part of the original report provided, so it is simply wrong to say that we did not look at the idea of staying in. We looked at it very seriously, but we came to the conclusion— all of us, from different political parties of different persuasions—that it was simply unfeasible, unworkable and impracticable for us to stay in.

Some people have also asked me, “If the work is so urgent, why don’t we get on with it now?” The truth is that we are getting on with work now: the cast-iron roofs are being restored; three years of work is about to start on the Elizabeth Tower, or Big Ben, which will cost £29 million; and last year we spent £49 million on repairs alone. The point is, however, that the mechanical and electrical elements constitute one very large, single project that needs to be well prepared for—we cannot just start tomorrow.

Furthermore, the Palace authorities do not have the requisite capacity or skills. I am not doing them down; they themselves would argue that they do not have the capacity or the skills in-house to manage such an enormous infrastructure project. We need to put a sponsor body in place, with Members of both Houses sitting on it, and some others, to commission a delivery authority with the expertise and technical know-how to do things properly, much as with the Olympics.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Timing is important in this whole thing. If we are to meet the 2023 target start date, we need to set up the delivery authority pretty soon. It will require a statute of this House to do it, so the authorities need to get on with the matter.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we should have started some considerable time ago.

About 10 years ago, when I was Deputy Leader of the House for five minutes, we were already arguing that we needed to get this work on the road. The Committee was asked to delay publishing its report until the local government elections were done, until the referendum was done, until we had a new Prime Minister, and so on, and still there has been no debate. We have to get a move on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am grateful to have caught your eye, Mr Flello. As one of the few chartered surveyors in the House and as a member of the Finance Committee for more than 10 years, I have been heavily involved with this matter from well before the inception of the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster, and all the way through to date. The Palace of Westminster is an iconic symbol of this nation. It is absolutely symbolic of everything the UK stands for. In many ways, the strength of our democracy is upheld by the strength of our Parliament encased in these buildings. As politicians, we have an absolute duty to the people of this country and to future parliamentarians to maintain it properly and get this whole thing right.

Much has been said in the debate, so I will be brief. Over the course of our history, including following the damage caused by the burning of Parliament in 1834 and 14 separate bombings during the blitz in 1940, only piecemeal repairs have been carried out. It is surprising to say the least, considering Great Britain’s prowess for engineering thoroughness, maintenance and ability, that no comprehensive record has been kept of what work has or has not been done on the building.

I will briefly outline what is wrong in layman’s terms. When any system or service has failed in the past, there has been simply a “make do and mend” response—a pipe added here or a wire added there. The high pressure steam heating system is encased in asbestos insulation, which has remained well beyond its designed lifespan and original capacity. It could burst and produce asbestos fibre at any minute. The main sewage pump needs replacing, as does the electricity supply, which is liable to major failure. It is unacceptable that Parliament could be plunged into darkness at any minute during great occasions, such as the Queen’s Speech during the state opening of Parliament. There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that this work needs to be done.

The timing of the restoration and renewal works is crucial. As a chartered surveyor, my view is that the entire building must be cleared so that all of the asbestos can be removed in one go, and as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, so that all of the services—water, electricity, sewage, internet and so on—can be renewed and separated in one concerted action. Doing that piecemeal or by partial decant is completely impractical.

Other concerns have been raised, first that Parliament will never return. Frankly, after an expenditure of £3.5 billion, that would be a national scandal. The second concern is what will happen to MPs who are here for only one term. The delivery authority will have to ensure that the Chamber is open for at least part of any Parliament. The third concern is the legislative status of the temporary Chamber in Richmond House. For goodness’ sake, surely we can design something that is worthy of this Parliament? If that cannot be done in Richmond House, let us put it in the Foreign Office or the Treasury. That problem can surely be overcome.

I will address the fourth concern for a minute or two. A lot of concerns have been raised, including by me, about the cost and delivery of this enormous project. I have done a little bit of research, and the nearest comparable project I could find was the demolition of Chelsea barracks, which cost £3 billion. That was a third smaller than this place, which covers 73,000 square metres. It is therefore likely that the cost of this project will be well in excess of £3 billion. That cost is well substantiated by Deloitte in its report.

The report is excellent on financial grounds, but the problem is that the report has not scoped the work properly, so I do not know how it can be completely costed. That is why a shadow delivery authority needs to properly scope the work, consult parliamentarians on what is needed in this place and come up with realistic costings. However, Deloitte makes the important point that, for every year of delay, we add £60 million to £85 million to the cost of the project.

The only option is a full decant and a continuous, unbroken period of restoration and renewal. It is our responsibility to get on with this work, so that future generations and parliamentarians do not make the same mistakes as previous generations. Indeed, we are in grave danger of making the same mistakes ourselves if we go for a partial or continuous repair option—options 1 and 2 in the report.

The public support the project. We need to appoint a shadow delivery authority as soon as possible to scope the work, consult parliamentarians on what facilities they want in place—as the hon. Member for Rhondda said, the disabled access is appalling and it is a scandal that we have such poor facilities for our guests—produce proper costings and report back to Parliament. The work must then be enshrined in statute, so that a statutory delivery authority can begin to get on with the work as early as possible in the next Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

It is available, but other tours can be organised.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I have listened carefully to the Minister’s speech. With great candour and great respect, I say to him that I think he is making excuses on the Government’s behalf. We need to have this debate and to establish a shadow authority as soon as possible, so that the work can be scoped and costed accurately, and we know how to move forward.

[Michael Ellis]

My hon. Friend knows that time is always a precious commodity in this House. Business managers are always under time pressure, now more than ever, but the matter is being given very careful consideration.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am delighted to have caught your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to welcome my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s Budget and some of the excellent things it contains. I want to pick out important two statistics. First, as of today, we have a record number of people in employment. Contrary to what is often said, 62.66% of that has come from the high-skilled sector, so we are creating high-skilled jobs in this country. Secondly, I welcome the fact that in this tax year we will again become the highest-growth country of all the world’s major economies. That is a significant achievement by my right hon. Friend.

Having spent many hours on the Select Committee on the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill over the past year, I have become something of a convert to the Chancellor’s way of thinking about the merit of transport infrastructure projects that are good value for money. I welcome to the Front Bench the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), who is in charge of the HS2 project and who will no doubt pilot the Bill through the House in an excellent manner next week.

If this country is to compete in the 21st century, it needs a 21st-century system of transport. Through HS2 and other transport infrastructure projects, such as Crossrail 2, which the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) mentioned, and the trans-Pennine rail tunnel, we are easing the burden on our congested roads and building some serious national expertise in areas such as tunnelling. That has enabled us to undertake some projects that we would not have been able to do just a year or two ago. As we have seen with the Thames tideway project in London, we have been able to bring the cost of such major projects down considerably. Competitiveness is the key to a successful economy. We are constantly competing in the global marketplace, whether we like it or not, and the economic decisions that the Chancellor has taken today reflect that reality.

I welcome some of the announcements to simplify our tax system, although we could go further. I particular welcome the measures to abolish class 2 national insurance contributions. However, as income tax and national insurance revenues are slightly larger than the sum required to pay the entire benefits bill, national insurance is still a big burden, particularly for the low-paid. I welcome my right hon. Friend’s measures today to accelerate taking the low-paid out of the tax system, moving the threshold from £11,000 to £11,500 and then to our goal of £12,000.

I come to a slightly discordant note, so I hope my colleagues on the Front Bench will bear with me on it. The VAT system that the Government have inherited is overly complicated. We zero-rate flapjacks but not cereal bars. We zero-rate paper books but not e-books. It was considered a productive use of somebody’s energy to write into the Government’s VAT guidelines—this is true, as hon. Members will see if they go online—that VAT must be applied to gingerbread men covered in chocolate at the standard rate unless

“this amounts to no more than a couple of dots for eyes”.

As some Members in the Chamber will be old enough to recall, the standard rate when VAT was introduced, following the old purchase tax rules, was 8%. It was then increased to 25% for certain items under Denis Healey, and today we find it at 20%. I say to my Front-Bench colleagues that the whole VAT situation needs a thorough review. The problem is that we are governed by the rules of the EU, believe it or not, and the VAT sixth directive, which makes this very difficult. We need to have a conversation with those in Europe if the British people vote to remain in the EU, which I hope they will not.

I sincerely welcome measures in the Budget to make us more competitive, particularly the fact that the Chancellor is going to accelerate the reduction of corporation tax so that it will be reduced to 17% by 2020. That is a really useful measure. Interestingly, chart 1.11 in the Red Book shows that America’s corporation tax is 40%, so it is amazing that its businesses are as competitive as they are. However, it is clear that our corporation tax is not moving quickly enough to keep up with the rapidly changing global nature of modern corporations, and that is leading to perverse outcomes that generate public concern, such as Google’s recent announcement that it was paying only £130 million in back tax. I hope that the newly announced diverted profits tax will improve the situation. As has been said, a number of other measures in the Budget are there to improve the tax generated by some of our big corporations, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is right that those measures will generate £9 billion by the end of this Parliament.

We need to invest more to support small and medium-sized enterprises and encourage them to start exporting. The balance of payments figures in the Red Book are worrying. We could rethink how the Government support companies that want to export for the first time, especially given that we are reducing corporation tax. Bearing in mind that it probably costs a minimum of £50,000 for a company to consider exporting to a new market, we could give companies a complete break on corporation tax for any activity that relates to exporting for the first time. We need to rethink the role of UK Trade & Investment, as our approach is clearly not working. We are not getting enough small and medium-sized companies exporting, so we need to rethink its role under the new chief executive. In some years UKTI’s budget has increased whereas in other years it has reduced, and we need to give it a stable environment in which to operate.

I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement on broadband. The Government plan to invest so that superfast broadband covers 90% of the UK by early 2016 and 95% by December 2017. The trouble is that those are national averages, and rural constituencies such as mine have a disproportionate number of homes and businesses that are not getting a realistic broadband speed to deal with both their business and their leisure in the 21st century.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

We face a challenge on the universal service obligation, which has been committed to but which is currently weakly defined, and those of us who have constituents in very rural parts of England will struggle to see that commitment met. We need to continue to push the Chancellor and the Treasury to understand that a commitment will be required to make sure that every household in the UK has superfast broadband.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend has an even more rural constituency than I do, but we both have very rural constituencies, and she is spot on in what she says. We need to make sure that every house and every business gets a reasonable broadband speed as quickly as possible. I was coming on to say that we need to provide support for bespoke solutions, and I am sure that applies in her constituency, as it does in mine, where the Gigaclear contract, which was the first such contract in the country, will enable another 6,495 homes to have a reasonable broadband speed by 2017.

The Chancellor had a free shot about the EU, so I feel that I, as a humble Back Bencher, am entitled to have one, too. While I am talking about competitiveness, I must briefly mention our EU membership, as the issue has been receiving a small amount of attention lately. As a nation, we face a choice between remaining part of an institution that is fundamentally anti-competitive and is collapsing under the weight of its own bureaucracy, and seizing our own destiny and becoming a great trading nation once again, being fleet of foot, free of excessively burdensome regulation and able to make our own deals around the world.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said, we will have an additional £10 billion net to spend if we leave. We will be part of a free and fair immigration system that allows us—this country, this Parliament—to attract and retain the best and brightest from countries such as India and China, without having to put in place arbitrary caps and restrictions simply to counteract the number of people coming from Europe, over which we currently have no control. Britain should be a place of equal opportunity for anyone who wants to come here with something to contribute, not simply a place for anyone who happens to reside in the EU. The recent EU deal with Turkey threatens to exacerbate the situation.

We live in uncertain times, as the OBR’s growth forecasts clearly show. The Chancellor has said that there are storm clouds gathering, both at home and abroad. The Government are right to push ahead with reducing the deficit. There are naysayers who tell us that a national deficit at 4% of GDP is sustainable, but I say to them that a national debt at 82% of GDP certainly is not. We inherited from the previous Government a rate that was higher than it had been at any time since the 1960s, so I welcome the measures taken in this Budget to reduce it to 74% of GDP by the end of this Parliament. Our debt interest payments alone are equal to the annual budget of the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office combined. Just imagine how much extra we would have to spend, or we could save on taxes, if we did not have to pay that debt. The high level of debt leaves us extremely vulnerable to global shocks that could put up interest rates. Serious efforts to tackle the deficit, so that we can start to bring down our debt, must be accompanied by a sustained effort to continue to reduce regulation, to simplify our outdated tax system, to reduce public expenditure, to get the best possible value for money, and to give us infrastructure fit for the 21st century and for one of the world’s best performing economies, if not the best performing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

Yes, and I doubt whether he even sees the irony. I watched that session of the Select Committee. What I recall is that he could not even tell us what his salary was—it was so large, and it was made up of so many different kinds of dividends and so on, that he had no idea what his salary was.

There are 62 individuals who now have the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people in the world. Those same 62 people have seen their wealth increase by $542 billion since 2010, while the poorest 3.5 billion people have seen their wealth fall by $l trillion over the same period. Those in the poorest 10% of the world’s population have seen their income rise by just $3 a year over five years, whereas 62 of the world’s richest people have seen their income rise by $500 billion over the same period.

As is always the case when we are talking about who is rich or poor, it is women who are at the bottom. Some 53 of the world’s richest people are men, and the countries with the largest inequalities have seen the gender gap widen in terms of not only income, but health, education, labour market participation and representation.

The current system of tax havens, with what has become an industry of tax avoidance across the globe, damages our economy in this country and economies across the world, and it needs to be addressed and closed down. It is absolutely clear that trickle-down economics does not work, except for the richest 1%, in which case it works beautifully for them and their mega-rich pals.

The Government’s view that low taxes for the richest individuals and for companies are somehow good for the rest of us is just plain wrong. If the Googles of this world, and the Vodafones, Starbucks, Amazons and the rest, paid their taxes properly, like the millions of hard-working people who understand that paying taxes is the cost of living in a civilised society, we could wipe out the deficit in the UK, and the poorest across the world could begin to see improvements in their grindingly poor lives.

Channel 4 revealed this year that Barclays, which had signed up to the banking code on taxation and therefore promised not to engage in tax avoidance, actually employed a range of tax avoidance schemes to dodge an estimated half a billion pounds in tax in the UK alone last year. That is the worst kind of hypocrisy.

When the bank’s tax avoidance practices were reported on by Channel 4, Barclays responded that it had

“voluntarily disclosed to HMRC in a spirit of…transparency that it had repurchased some of its debt in a tax efficient manner.”

Will the Chancellor’s announcements today change that? Without transparency in the system, I doubt it. Presumably, Barclays made that declaration fully understanding that its actions would result in fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer teachers and cuts for the poorest and most vulnerable in this country.

Boots the chemist, which earns every penny of its income in the UK, moved its headquarters from Nottingham to Zurich to avoid paying any tax in this country. Quite frankly, that should be illegal. I doubt very much whether, without transparency in the system, anything the Chancellor said today will change that, bring the Boots headquarters back to this country or make Boots pay its tax here.

Companies that are household names in the UK now routinely use a technique called transfer pricing, trading goods and services internally—within a network of the same multinational company’s subsidiaries, each of which is in a different jurisdiction—to avoid paying tax. Without transparency and routine, mandatory reporting, that will not change, even after what we have seen in today’s Budget.

When companies are caught out and their practices are highlighted, as happened recently with Facebook, they simply reach a sweetheart deal with HMRC, paying a tiny, tiny proportion of the tax they owe, while announcing to the world what good citizens they are because they now pay their tax.

Yesterday, Oxfam published a report called “Ending the Era of Tax Havens: Why the UK government must lead the way”, which pointed out that tax havens are at the heart of the inequality crisis, enabling corporations and wealthy individuals to dodge paying their share of tax. Oxfam analysed 200 of the world’s biggest companies and found that nine out of 10 have a presence in at least one tax haven, with corporate investment in those tax havens in 2014 almost four times bigger than it was 10 years ago. Tax avoidance in our largest companies has become routine and obscene, and it is growing.

Tax havens are estimated to cost poor countries at least $170 billion in lost tax revenues every year. They fuel the inequality crisis, leaving poor countries without the funds they need and effectively wiping out the benefits of any international development funding those countries receive. If we are to address that, the Government must require multinational companies to make country-by-country reports publicly available for each country in which they operate. The Government must also support efforts at European and international level to achieve that standard globally. That has not happened in today’s Budget.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I have great sympathy, as I mentioned in my speech, with the point about the avoidance of corporation tax by large corporations. Does the hon. Lady not agree that the real damage is in poor countries, where these corporations get away with paying no corporation tax whatever, while we are, at the same time, giving these countries foreign aid? We need to tackle this issue internationally, through the OECD, the G7 and the G20, which is exactly what the Chancellor has been trying to do.

[Pat Glass]

I agreed with everything the hon. Gentleman said until he said that this is “exactly what the Chancellor has been trying to do”, because unless there is mandatory reporting, and it is transparent, it will not make any difference.

The Government need to ensure that the mechanisms for public country-by-country reporting benefit developing countries as well as the UK. We did not see that in today’s Budget. The Government must require the UK Crown dependencies and overseas territories to set clear timetables for public registries of beneficial ownership. After all, the Prime Minister promised this three years ago at the UK’s G7 summit in Lough Erne and has failed to deliver it, and again it is not in today’s Budget.

We cannot call ourselves decent people and cannot claim to be a decent country if we stand by and allow the inequalities that exist between the rich and the poor to grow. The British people understand the unfairness of the current situation, and they want it to change. They understand that despite opportunities such as today’s Budget to address some of this, the Chancellor has chosen not to do so. This country, and this world, is not short of wealth, and it makes no economic, political or moral sense to allow the current obscene situation to continue. It is wrong that 62 people have more wealth than the poorest 3.5 billion people on this planet, wrong that companies operating in the UK routinely avoid paying the tax they owe, and wrong that the Government and the Chancellor seem content to allow this to continue.

Equitable Life

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Lloyd]

That is a very important point. The whole system—from the perspectives of finance, prudence and proper rule of contract law—fell apart under Equitable Life. It completely collapsed. When something like that happens in a country like the United Kingdom, the duty of the Government, irrespective of some of the broader issues, is to provide proper compensation, because otherwise the whole fabric becomes extremely vulnerable.

I find it bewildering that none of the senior managers of the old Equitable Life—and none of the people who were in charge of the marketing side or the investment side—went to jail. If I, as a Member of Parliament, find that bewildering, I can imagine the profound frustration that so many of our constituents must feel, given that they were doing the right thing. This was a company that was regulated, regulated within an inch of its life—that was the whole point of the sector—yet, through no fault of their own, it collapsed, and, a few years later, the parliamentary ombudsman said that there had been a systemic failure of regulation. All those senior managers and executives, whom we all knew, must have been aware of what was happening.

I greatly appreciated what was said earlier by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). When she bought an Equitable Life pension which she kept for a few years, all the marketing suggested that the company was rock solid and the purchase almost a steal. She was told “You really must invest in this.” Those people must have known what was happening, and I fail to understand why they were not penalised.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is putting his case very articulately. When Mr Ralph Williams, along with a large group of my constituents, came to see me about this whole matter, one of the points that they made most strongly was that they were nearly all elderly. According to a parliamentary answer that I received on 10 February, only £990 million of the £1.5 billion total has been paid out. The Government are profiting from people who are dying at this very moment. Is it not only fair for everyone, including the annuitants, to be paid whatever the Government have agreed, in full, now?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful intervention, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response to it. People are dying: there are no two ways about it, because of the age profile.

Another constituent of mine, David Stevens—a distinguished teacher for many years in Eastbourne, a former mayor and, as it happens, a Conservative councillor, who is also a very decent chap—lost out hugely in the Equitable Life debacle. He lost just under 80% of the worth of the pension in which he had invested for all those years.

This issue is about real people. That is why we are here, and why the all-party parliamentary group receives so much cross-party support. It is not just that we all know many constituents who are suffering and have experienced a profound loss despite having done the right thing, and despite being led to believe that the industry was heavily regulated. As I stressed at the beginning of my speech, I have believed—as others do—that this is a point of honour ever since I was elected in 2010, which is why I joined the all-party parliamentary group.

In a civilised country like the United Kingdom, people are often rightly encouraged to save and be prudent so that they are less of a burden on the general taxpayer. Hundreds of thousands of people did that on the basis of an absolute assurance that this was a properly regulated industry, and then lost out through no fault of their own. I have always believed that senior figures in the Treasury must have known that Equitable Life was wobbly, but many people have received 80% less than they should have received, and that is unacceptable.

I was delighted to speak today. I hope that both the Government and the Opposition will provide some succour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend makes an entirely fair point. This should all have been sorted out before the Government came on to the scene. The question of who was to blame and why ultimately requires almost a Crichel Down sort of approach—we must all accept responsibility for what happens under regulators who were not politicians. We must accept that it was done and must now resolve it. Had it been resolved sooner, there might have been more money around to deal with the issue. However, given where we are now and that the economy is improving, we can certainly do justice to people through a sensible series of staged payments, starting with those who are in the greatest need and who are most vulnerable. It is reasonable to ensure in the course of the Parliament that proper justice is done.

Let me give a sense of the impact on individuals. I have one constituent who makes the point that having invested sensibly his income has effectively been cut by some £20,000 a year. To a pensioner, that is an awful lot of money and they have had to downsize from their long-established family home. Another constituent has an acknowledged loss of £61,000 and is some £47,000 adrift with the payments out. That is not fair for somebody who has worked hard and is now in no position to supplement their income for the future.

Another very elderly gentleman had to wait some 18 months—because, frankly, of ineptitude and lost correspondence—to even receive acknowledgement of his entitlement. He should not have to come to his Member of Parliament to escalate these matters. That is something that any sensible and well-run compensation scheme should deal with as a matter of course. I am sure we all hope eventually to overcome the difficulties for our constituents, but they should not be happening in the first place.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am sorry to reiterate the point I made in an earlier intervention, but one member of the group of people who came to see me was elderly and, if he dies, his widow will get only 50% of the 22% he is entitled to, which is already pretty measly. Is it not incumbent on the Government to make payments now, in full, so that at least people can have that small amount of money to pass on to their dependants?

[Robert Neill]

On that basis, it is particularly important that we deal with the pre-1992 people, who are generally the oldest, but it is also important to have a proper, staged programme in place to deal with everyone.

When I was a lawyer, I accepted, as I think anyone would, that it was not possible to deliver for a client everything in their legitimate claim, because money might not be available or there might be delays. A settlement would be reached and a sensible discount accepted as a resolution, but I do not think that anybody would regard 22% as being a fair settlement of a claim. The Minister is an honourable woman and she must tell us today that she recognises that we are obliged, as a matter of honour, to give the people affected a sum much closer to that of their undisputed loss. As has been said, the quantum is not in dispute—it is a proven fact. We now need to say that, because of the improvement in the economy, we can do better than we were originally able to, for whatever reason. That is the honourable and legitimate thing to do, and it would also restore faith in an important element of our financial sector.

I agree with the hon. Member for Coventry North West and I hope there is enough that we can all agree on. The wording of the motion itself gives the Government the flexibility, provided there is good will—I am sure there is—to achieve its aims in a fair way for the people who have lost out through no fault of their own.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

If the hon. Gentleman looks through the OBR’s analysis, he will see its explanation for growth being lower than it had anticipated, which has an impact on the fiscal numbers. It is more than explained by the disappointing performance of our export markets and the fact that we have not been able to export as much as the OBR had anticipated. The question is: how do we respond to that? Do we try to put in place a competitive tax system that makes businesses and industries want to locate and invest in the UK? We have heard nothing from Labour on that front, whereas this Government’s record is very strong.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

In passing, may I say how hypocritical it is of Opposition Members to say what they have been saying about debt levels? Had they not left us with the debt level we inherited, we would not have this problem.

Despite what my hon. Friend might be hearing from the banks, my constituents tell me that they are lending only when they can get copper-bottomed, personal guarantees and that the lending they are getting is becoming ever more expensive. Will he look into the cost of export credit finance, which is a great hindrance to small and medium-sized businesses exporting?

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to do what we can to ensure access to finance for those strong, viable small businesses that want to expand. That is why we have taken measures such as the funding for lending scheme and why we want to ensure that we have a business-friendly environment. I am grateful for his observations on export guarantees. He will be aware of some of the measures that the Government have taken over the past two or three years to try and support those exporting businesses. I note his comments and calls for us to go further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman and I have debated that point on a number of occasions. The important thing is to ensure that HMRC has the right expertise and skills, and the right people doing the job. In truth, there has been a significant reduction in HMRC staff over recent years, the vast majority of which occurred under the previous Government. We are increasing the numbers working in the enforcement and compliance area, but a lot of the answer is about ensuring that HMRC can work in the most effective way. I was struck by the increase in the number of tax professionals being trained by HMRC. We do want to invest in skills within HMRC. This is not simply a numbers game but, as it happens, the number of people working for HMRC in enforcement and compliance is going up, not down.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

While I strongly support the move in the Budget to reduce corporation tax, it is no good encouraging companies to come to this country if they then avoid paying corporation tax. Is it not important that big multinational companies pay corporation tax on the profits that they make in this country? Equally, is not my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister absolutely right to ensure that, through the G8, we have international agreements so that multinational companies cannot go around the world, especially to third world countries, and make profits without paying the relevant corporation tax?

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We want an international tax system that ensures that economic activity is taxed where it occurs. That involves working internationally, and he is right to highlight the Prime Minister’s ambitions while we have the presidency of the G8, which will feed through to the G20 and the work that the OECD is already doing, which we support. It is right to have an international tax system that reflects the reality of how multinational businesses work.

Clauses 203 to 212 introduce the UK’s first general anti-abuse rule—GAAR—which will provide a significant new deterrent to abusive avoidance schemes and strengthen HMRC’s means of tackling them. On top of that, we are taking action to close a further 15 tax avoidance loopholes, which will increase tax revenues by almost £1 billion up to 2017-18, as well as protect future revenues. The Chancellor gave a clear warning in the 2012 Budget that the Government would take action on aggressive stamp duty avoidance. The Bill follows up on that warning by legislating against those who continue to avoid tax on property transactions. All these measures will stop people exploiting legislation to gain tax advantages that were never intended, and they will also encourage fairness.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

It is a credit to those who delivered the Olympic games that they came in under budget. The Olympic underspend is money which, if we spent it, would add straight to the deficit. It is not a pot of money sitting in some Government bank account. That would be a difficult decision to take and would have to be balanced alongside other decisions, but I make a broader point: we are trying to sort out the economic problems that this Government inherited. The problems that the hon. Gentleman talks about are problems caused by the deepest recession and the biggest financial crisis of the 21st century, and perhaps one day a Labour MP will get up and apologise for it.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

T6. As somebody who has had a long interest in exempting some of the poorest people in this country from tax—incidentally, an idea I held long before the Liberals pinched it from me—I congratulate my right hon. Friend on almost achieving this target in his autumn statement. When economic circumstances allow, could he be even bolder?

[Mr Osborne]

I am proud to be part of a coalition Government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats who have delivered that policy and are delivering it. A very substantial increase next year will mean that individuals are £229 better off in real terms as a result just of the increase in April, so that is to be welcomed. As for when we get to £10,000, I have just announced the Budget date and we will have to wait for that Budget for tax decisions, but even if the £10,000 allowance were to increase with our current CPI forecasts from the OBR, it would hit £10,000 in 2015.

Financial Services Bill

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for that highly appropriate intervention. When the history of Great Britain is written, it will show that that part of the east coast of Scotland has had a great influence on economics throughout. The example from Dundee is a good one.

All hon. Members look back at global financial trading and markets and wonder how we got to the situation we found ourselves in. When the shadow banking market and complex derivatives and products were created, people became much more interested in them than in the real economy and the fundamentals of our economy. They saw the financial system as a servant to the rest of the economy rather than the other way around. I hope that view is shared broadly on both sides of the House. The Minister is nodding, but I am not entirely sure he agrees with that specific point. I will live in hope and imagine he does.

When the Minister is consulting on whether to broaden the Bill’s reach from the indices that I have mentioned to commodities, will he consider the impact of escalating food and oil prices not only on his constituents and mine, but on those who live closest to the extreme poverty line in the poorest countries? Will he consider the price of maize and wheat in very poor countries, where there is no social support system and no welfare state security net of the sort we have in this country? Will this country take a leading role in properly understanding what is happening in that market?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

To use the increase in food commodity prices as an argument for increased control over derivatives trading is a little far-fetched. Surely increased prices have much more to do with the increased world population and the weather than they have to do with commodities trading.

[Alison McGovern]

As I have said, this morning I listened to a presentation from the UN Secretary-General’s special representative on global food security. We discussed the matters that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but there was strong interest in whether the trading of commodity derivatives has played a role or had an impact in increased prices. The hon. Gentleman may suggest that its effect is negligible, and I would be happy to see any evidence he can forward to me. As I try to understand the phenomenon, I am happy to look at numbers and think about the evidence. I am an empiricist if nothing else; we should always consider the evidence. One of the problems to date, however, has been the availability of information, and making it clear and evident for all to see. I have tried to make the point that people looking at the world economy could not, for specific reasons, necessarily see the problems relating to sub-prime mortgages. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East has suggested, we should try to get ahead of the problem and ensure that there are no longer problems that we simply do not see.

Finance Bill

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments —[Interruption.] If the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne) would like to make an intervention, I will happily take it.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we are seeing a repeat of what happened in the ’30s, and we have none of the policies necessary to get us out of this situation.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bill Esterson]

No, I am not going to take any more interventions; the hon. Gentleman can sit down.

We should be seeing the investment from the bank bonus tax and a temporary cut in VAT. The Bill—[Interruption.]

Eurozone Crisis

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I can think of far better ways to spend the money the previous Government wasted on preparing for the euro.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend assure the House that before the IMF gives any money to bail out the eurozone, sufficient stringent financial conditions are put in place to ensure that there is a realistic prospect of that money being repaid?

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Stringent conditions are linked to the packages offered to Greece, Ireland and Portugal, to ensure that the money is used well and wisely, and that the structural reforms that are needed to generate growth in those countries are implemented.