Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Nia Griffith

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

It regularly seems to be my lot to follow the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field). Perhaps that is appropriate in some respects, as he represents a constituency at the other end of the spectrum from mine. He made a typically thoughtful speech, although he set out a couple of priorities that I would not share, and that he would not expect me to share—namely, supporting the banking industry, for example through the tax system.

However, one thing that I take issue with is the hon. Gentleman’s assertion about the rights of people in employment in this country compared with those elsewhere. When I speak to employers, as I am sure we all do in our constituencies, one of the questions I often ask is: “To what extent do employment laws have on impact on you? Do you feel they put you at a disadvantage?” Sometimes they will say, “Yes, they do,” but at the margin, if at all. If I ask employers to list their hierarchy of concerns, they put employment rights very low down, while concerns about our macro-economic direction and the way the economy is being run are very much at the top.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that what employers dislike is duplication of the various forms they have to fill in? The vast majority of employers are supportive of clear employment law, which helps both employees and employers.

[Mr Howarth]

My hon. Friend is precisely right. I worked in industry on the shop floor prior to the introduction of health and safety legislation. On another occasion—this is not the appropriate time—I might, if I get the opportunity, describe the conditions in which people worked in a lot of factories in those times. Often they were almost Dickensian.

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[Nia Griffith]

If the hon. Gentleman had been listening earlier, he would have heard me explain that those people have already lost that money through the VAT increase. That is a stealth tax and a regressive tax, which always affects the least well-off the most. Many of the people who will get a little more in their pay packet because they will pay a little less tax when the personal allowance goes up will find that because of other taxes that have been implemented, they have lost that money already. Sadly, those people will not do so well.

The personal allowance helps people nearly all the way up the income scale, particularly those in two-income families. Frankly, although it is an expensive measure, it is not a well targeted one. As I mentioned, I would have liked to keep the tax credits system, which helped those who really needed it and took account of people’s different circumstances because it was based on the household income.

There is nothing to incentivise people to put their money back into the local economy and nothing to encourage people to unlock their savings and help the economy. We had the car scrappage scheme, so that people who were planning to buy a car that would last them for the next 10 or 12 years would bring the purchase forward by a year or two to take part in the scheme. We did the same thing with the replacement of boilers. Those schemes were introduced specifically to get the economy going. What have this Government done? They have thrown out of the window the one such scheme that they did have, which was the solar panels scheme, under which people were unlocking £10,000, £15,000 or £20,000 of their savings and spending it immediately in the local economy. Even if the panels were not made locally, all the fitting work to install the solar panels was done by skilled plumbers and craftsmen, so the money went directly into the local economy.

The Government completely messed that scheme up and destroyed the industry’s confidence by incompetently changing the rules before the consultation was finished. They did not scale the scheme down in a sensible way, as the industry had asked. People in the industry accepted that the tariff would change over time, but they could not stomach being treated like idiots. The Government just said, “We’re going to change all this,” even though people had invested a lot of money. Some people had spent £3,000 on a course learning how to convert from being an ordinary central heating plumber to a solar panel installer. Some firms had expanded for the purpose, and firms in my constituency are laying people off because of the ridiculous changes.

What other scheme do the Government have in mind to get people to unlock their savings for an excellent investment that is environmentally friendly and provides local jobs? We have not seen such a scheme in the Budget. We have made some suggestions, but it seems that the Chancellor has ignored them. For example, we suggested a cut in VAT on repairs and improvements to houses. With the construction industry on its knees, that would have enabled plumbers, carpenters, electricians, plasterers and so on to find extra work, and people would have been encouraged to take on home improvements. What did the Chancellor do? The exact reverse. He slapped additional VAT on alterations to listed buildings.

[Mr George Howarth]

I fully support my hon. Friend’s point about a cut in VAT on home repairs. Does she accept that because of the high level of VAT, many repairs are now being undertaken in the black economy? If we could bring VAT down to a level that people could afford, that might have a positive effect on revenue.

[Nia Griffith]

That is extremely worrying, because there is not much point in having VAT on anything if it is not collected. Groups in my constituency that want to do up listed buildings, such the Cwrt farm project, with which I have been involved, and the Llanelli Railway Goods Shed Trust, which I chair, care for all manner of buildings in the town. The fact that they will have to pay much more VAT means that they will spend the same amount of money—the amount that they have raised, or that individuals have available to give them—but have less work done. Less of that money will be spent on wages for local people, so less money will be circulating in the local economy. Rather than finding ways of stimulating the amount of work being done, the Government seem to be trying to close everything down and provide fewer and fewer opportunities for anybody to make money.

Practically everywhere I have gone in Llanelli over the past four weeks, I have met people struck by the fact that pensioners are being punished and millionaires are getting away with a tax break. That has incensed everybody from all walks of life.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Nia Griffith

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Mann]

rose—

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Howarth]

I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). Then I really do want to finish this speech.

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[Nia Griffith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene. Does he not agree that the key point about public inquiries is that rule by consent is the basis of democracy? If people, because of the abolition of public inquiries, feel that they have no voice—if they feel that they have no chance to make their opinions heard, whether or not their opinion is the one that is found in favour of—that will do absolutely nothing to get rid of the cynicism about democracy and nothing to help people to take part. That will bring the coalition Government into absolute disrepute.

[Mr Howarth]

My hon. Friend put that argument very well indeed and I would struggle to find the words to match what she has just said.

Let me conclude. I genuinely believe that what is proposed by taking away public inquiries as part of the process is that the relationship between constituent, Member of Parliament and constituency, which is already fractured, will split completely. I think we will end up in a situation where constituencies are simply ships of convenience. I hope that that day never comes and that the Government will at some point wake up and realise that this is not the right way to do things.