Budget Resolutions

Debate between George Kerevan and Chris Philp

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Grammar schools can and should be an engine for social mobility. The Government’s White Paper and the Education Secretary’s proposals include new measures to ensure that grammar schools take on a higher proportion of pupils on free school meals. There is a very successful case study: the King Edward VI grammar schools in Birmingham. They have taken a number of steps, including offering outreach to local primary schools in deprived areas, free tuition for their tests, and bursaries to fund school uniforms and travel. Together, they have increased the grammar schools’ free school meal intake from 3%, which is a very low figure, to about 22%. This shows that the Education Secretary’s proposals work in practice, and I strongly welcome them.

[George Kerevan]

In the interests of joined-up thinking, may I ask what proportion of qualifications the new grammar schools will give over to T-levels?

[Chris Philp]

It is up to individual schools to set their own individual curriculums, and to offer their pupils and parents a choice. That is what localism means. Of course grammar schools, by their nature, tend to be more academic in flavour—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Well, that is what a grammar school is—that should hardly be a surprise to Opposition Members. Other kinds of school have a more technical specialisation. Diversity of provision, choice for parents and variety in our system are signs of success, which Conservative Members celebrate.

Let me turn to other measures in the Budget, starting with business rates. Like several hon. Members, I was concerned about the effect of the business rates revaluation on smaller businesses. The town of Purley in my constituency was particularly affected by some quite significant upward revaluations. In that context, it is welcome that the Budget announced £435 million of discretionary relief to help small businesses in towns such as Purley. I would suggest, particularly to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, that it might be worth reconsidering the profiling of that £435 million over time. The lion’s share of that money comes in the first two years: £180 million in 2017-18; and £85 million in 2018-19. That is welcome, but the transitional relief—the upward caps on rates increases—for small businesses is 5% in 2017-18, and 7.5% in 2018-19, so most small businesses will not feel too much of an effect in the next two years. It is really in three, four and five years’ time that increases will be most powerfully felt. Would the Chief Secretary consider changing the profile of that money so that, instead of being front-loaded in the next one or two years, it can be back-loaded into years 3 and 4, when the effects of the business rate increases will be felt most heavily? The total amount of money would remain the same—£435 million—but the profile would be shifted over time better to match the effect of the business rates increases.

I offer a second thought on transitional relief for the future, which again relates to the upward and downward caps. Bills have been sent out for 2017-18. There is an upward cap of 5% for small businesses, so no small business will face an increase of more than 5%, and there is a downward cap for large businesses of 4.1%, so no large business gets a decrease greater than 4.1%. I accept that that is now fixed.

Looking into the future, however, and particularly to 2019-20 and 2020-21, I wonder whether the autumn statement might consider fine tuning those upward and downward caps so that the largest businesses, such as the big four supermarkets, have a lower or even a zero further downward cap, so that they get no further decreases beyond next year’s decrease. That could fund a more generous upward cap for the smallest businesses, meaning that the upward cap of 10% to 15% in 2019-20 and 2020-21 could be reduced. This approach would be fiscally neutral. It would not affect arrangements for the coming financial year, which I accept are fully set in stone, but it would help small businesses in three or four years’ time, including businesses in Purley. I have noticed that the cumulative upward cap for such small businesses over the five-year period accumulates to 64.2%, which represents quite a high cap. If we could find a way of softening the blow, it would be very welcome indeed.

The Chancellor’s Budget statement also touched on pollution, particularly due to diesel cars. My constituency, like all London constituencies, is profoundly affected by this problem. The Chancellor mentioned that a plan would be delivered over the summer, in response to the European Union court case, and that fiscal measures would be introduced in the autumn Budget.

I have significant reservations about Sadiq Khan’s proposed diesel scrappage scheme, which would cost £515 million over two years in London. The cost of such a scheme nationally would be £3.5 billion a year over two years, which would be unaffordable and would, in fact, simply cause one set of diesel cars to be replaced by another. I do not support the diesel scrappage scheme proposed by the Mayor of London, but one fiscal measure that the Government might consider, bearing in mind that diesel cars now burn 10 million tonnes of fuel a year—a three times increase over the last 10 years —is introducing a significantly increased registration tax for new diesel cars. I am talking about cars, not vans and lorries, because I accept that including them would have an impact on business. That approach would help to deter people from buying new diesel cars, which now make up about half of all new car purchases in this country. Such a measure would have no retrospective effect on people who have already bought a diesel car, but it would encourage people to switch away from diesel cars, which would do a great deal to help to ease pollution problems in cities such as London in the months and years ahead.

I see that I am rapidly approaching the time limit, so let me conclude—[Interruption.] I am glad I have said something that is popular among Opposition Members. I welcome the Budget, which continues the Government’s record of job creation and growth. I congratulate the Education Secretary and the Chief Secretary again on protecting and growing education funding, and on committing to fund more excellent schools in our country.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between George Kerevan and Chris Philp

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

Let me begin by associating the SNP with the words of the Chancellor and the shadow Chancellor in expressing sympathy for the people of Belgium—Flemish, Walloon, and recent immigrants—at this tragic hour.

I must give the Chancellor his due. He gave us a bravura performance: in my view, a more assured and more interesting performance than we were given last week. However, I am always worried when he goes into his expansive, emotional mode. What is he hiding? We know what he hid last week, which was the fact that he would have to come back and tear up his Budget and create a new one, but what did he hide this week? He hid what he always hides and never addresses: the crucial issue of productivity. Without productivity growth, there can be no tax growth, no jobs growth and no wage growth. The truth is that, under this Chancellor, productivity has risen at an annual average of 0.1%. Since the top of the boom in 2007, the cumulative increase in UK productivity has been less than 1%. That is the Chancellor’s failure.

I have great respect for the Chancellor, but he is not a Chancellor who ever had a real job. He is not a Chancellor who ever worked in the private sector. He is not a Chancellor who ever had to lie awake at night—as I have, and as, I am sure, have many other Members on both sides of the House—and worry about how to pay the next wage bill. This Chancellor is an intellectual Chancellor: that is his problem.

[Chris Philp]

I have spent the last 15 years setting up and running businesses. As someone who has done that, I am glad that it is this Chancellor who is sitting in that seat, because he is the man who has created jobs and helped businesses like mine! [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just say, for the benefit of the House, that moderation and good humour are the precepts of “Erskine May”. Members on both sides of the House can learn from the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who has just given a textbook example of a robust speech made with good humour. Many Opposition Members can do the same, and new Members could learn from them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I would like to start with fiscal responsibility, as the Chief Secretary is on the Front Bench. Fiscal responsibility is very important —for the sake of our children, if nothing else. I have two-year-old twins, and there is nothing noble, moral or ethical about consistently spending more than we can afford and sending the bill to the next generation. Moreover, as the Chancellor eloquently put it earlier, without fiscal responsibility we cannot deliver the services that are so important.

Clearly, a good start has been made on fixing the deficit left behind in 2010; about half of it has been eliminated. Labour Members are right to point out that there is still more work to do, but it does not seem entirely appropriate for them to give angry lectures on the topic, when they have opposed every measure proposed by the Government over the last five years to reduce the deficit. In fact, had we followed their advice during the last Parliament, our national debt would be £900 billion higher than it is today.

During his thoughtful speech, my colleague on the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan), suggested that high spending during the late 1940s and 1950s demonstrated that we could in fact spend money to grow. I am afraid that I dispute that analysis, because that spending spree ended in 1976, when we had to go cap-in-hand to the IMF. Even Denis Healey, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, said:

“You can’t spend your way out of a recession”—

a lesson we would do well to remember.

[George Kerevan]

My point was to go not into the 1970s, but into the very specific period of the 1950s, when national debt as a share of GDP was significantly higher—twice as high—in many years than it is now. That did not lead to a burden on the generation that was young then—my generation—which is in fact extremely well-off as a result of that spending. I was trying to look at whether borrowing per se disbenefits future generations, and it does not—it depends on how we spend the money.

[Chris Philp]

I must respectfully disagree with the conclusions of my Treasury Committee colleague. If we look at economic performance in the 1960s and 1970s, we see that the enormous debt overhang, with the state spending too much money, was a drag on the economy and culminated in the 1976 bail-out. That was the natural conclusion of the overspending that started in the 1950s and continued through the post-war consensus period, which ended only in 1979.

The second main criticism levelled at the Budget by Opposition Members is on the issue of fairness. I am afraid I disagree with the comments made over the weekend by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith). This is a fair Budget, but let me produce some evidence to substantiate that.

Over the last five years, spending on disability benefits has increased by £3 billion, and it is forecast to increase further. That strikes me as fundamentally fair. We are spending more than we ever have on the NHS and on education—particularly on pupils from low-income backgrounds, via the pupil premium. Moreover, we are introducing the highest-ever national minimum wage—the national living wage—which takes effect in about a week’s time. We have taken millions of people out of income tax entirely, which disproportionately benefits people on low incomes. We have frozen petrol duty once again, which also disproportionately benefits people on low incomes, because things such as petrol duty are inherently regressive.

If we consult the Treasury’s distributional analysis, we see that the lowest 20% of earners pay just 6% of tax; we would expect that to be 20% if everything was even. They will pay the same in 2019-20 as they paid in 2010, while the top quintile will pay 52%—up from 49% five years ago. The highest earners will therefore pay proportionately more in five years’ time than they did five years ago. This analysis excludes the effect of the national minimum wage; if that is included, the skew will go even further. I believe that this Budget is a fair Budget. It protects spending on the most vulnerable, and those with the broadest shoulders are bearing the burden.

Let me turn briefly to business. Before coming here, I spent 15 years setting up and running entrepreneurial businesses. There is a reason why our economy has created 2.4 million jobs in the past five years, and why youth unemployment in my constituency is down by an incredible 62%—it is not an accident. It is because corporation tax has been cut, which has encouraged businesses to invest in creating jobs. I am delighted that the Chancellor is continuing this very successful long-term economic plan—[Interruption.] I see it commands widespread support—with further cuts in corporation tax and capital gains tax to encourage investment. My Treasury Committee colleague suggested that lower corporation tax encouraged share buy-backs, which is a bad thing. I would respectfully suggest that share buy-backs cycle money back into the investor community, who can then reinvest in other opportunities.

I welcome the Government’s action on international tax evasion through the BEPS initiative, although they could forerun that with further moves on transparency and disclosure unilaterally in the UK, as has been suggested. There is a consultation document on giving the Financial Policy Committee further powers to direct buy-to-let mortgage lending, which appears to be very high. I urge the Government to look seriously at those proposals and enact them at the earliest opportunity.

I support this Budget. It is good for business and good for our country—and most of all, it is fair.

Finance Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between George Kerevan and Chris Philp

Thursday 17th September 2015 Public Bill Committees

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

We will not challenge the main substance of clause 7, but it has unintended consequences that reflect on later clauses that we will try to amend; I want to bring those up, and will ask the Minister to reflect on them and perhaps discuss them with the Chancellor.

The clause pre-announces the cut to the main rate five years in advance. Ordinarily, I would think that was quite a good thing to do, because it maximises revenue streams and still gets us the maximum impact of the incentive. That worked very well in Sweden, so we should congratulate the Minister on that principle. The first problem that emerges is that significant evidence shows that large amounts of corporate surpluses are staying in the bank or are being used for share buy-backs. There has been no great evidence over the past few years to show that cuts to corporation tax are leading directly to reinvestment in manufacturing plant and productive infrastructure. In fact, corporate balances have been going up significantly in the UK and, for the same reason, the United States.

My practical worry is that if we continue, over these five years, to cut corporation tax, that may incentivise profit-making in business, but the profits will not be reinvested into raising productivity in the British economy. That link has to be looked at. The issue could be dealt with by adding extra incentives for investment, so that the corporate surpluses are recycled. One of my criticisms of the Bill overall is that those incentives do not exist. I ask the Minister to look at that.

[Chris Philp]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we put in place the incentives that he describes, we would add complication to an already very complicated tax code? On his point about reinvestment, if corporate profits are dividended back to shareholders, it is likely that those shareholders will reinvest them elsewhere. If the profits are deposited in banks, my basic Maynard Keynes reading suggests that the banks will lend the money to other people. The money will find its way back into the economy, but via different routes.

[George Kerevan]

Both are fair points, but the recycling is largely going into property. Every crane that we count around this building is the result of that. We have offset productive investment into an overheated property market, which is hardly what we want to do to raise productivity.

On the hon. Gentleman’s first point about how we craft incentives so that they do not become over-complicated and lead to further tax loopholes, that is an historical problem. This is a question of the here and now. I am sure that the Chancellor and the Government can come up with some good ideas on that.

I raised the issue with the Treasury Committee and the Monetary Policy Committee yesterday, because I am concerned that the Government are adding to the burden by attempting to run a permanent budget surplus—to generate surpluses that do not go into the productive economy. The representatives of the Monetary Policy Committee committed themselves to an answer that they may rue and that the Government should go away and think about. The committee was pressed on the point that if the Government run a permanent budget surplus, it must have an impact on the rest of the national income accounts. If we run a budget surplus, we are saving; we are taxing people to save. Where do the savings go? The best that the committee could do was say that there would be a further rundown of corporate balance sheets—in other words, money would flow out of the corporate sector—and that money might start flowing abroad, so we would end up investing abroad.

[Chris Philp]

We have a £1.5 trillion national debt, and I would respectfully suggest that surpluses would begin, in a very small way, to pay it down.