George Osborne
Main Page: George Osborne (Conservative - Tatton)Department Debates - View all George Osborne's debates with the HM Treasury
(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
1. What steps he is taking to tackle tax avoidance.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
This coalition Government have dramatically increased the pressure against those who avoid and evade taxes. As a result of our efforts, tax revenues from our compliance and enforcement are £3 billion higher than when we came to office. We have tackled disguised remuneration, we are dealing with stamp duty enveloping and we are introducing a general anti-abuse rule. None of those things, of course, happened over the previous 13 years.
Caroline Dinenage
My constituents do not mind paying taxes, so long as everyone pays their fair share. Given that the tax gap widened under the previous Government, will the Chancellor confirm that this Government are committed to tackling all forms of aggressive tax avoidance as well as tax evasion?
Mr Osborne
We are committed to doing that. My hon. Friend is right that the tax gap—the amount of money that should be collected but is not collected—rose from £35 billion to £39 billion under the previous Government. As I have said, our compliance and enforcement efforts have already increased the amount raised by £3 billion, and later this week we will confirm that we have raised £500 million more in extra tax from high net worth individuals as a result of our efforts through Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. We are taking action, but need it to be supported, yet the Labour party recently voted against the changes to disguised remuneration, which were an attempt to clamp down on a particularly egregious form of tax avoidance.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
One group of people who could not avoid paying tax are the disabled Remploy staff who were recently made redundant. They were put on an emergency code, with the result that their holiday and notice pay was taxed at almost 50%. HMRC has promised refunds, but will the Chancellor go back to his Department and ensure that the payments are made as a matter of urgency and within the current tax year?
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
Many Members of this House have told me of their deep concern about the development of retrospective tax measures, and the Treasury Committee shares those concerns. Does the Chancellor agree that the best way to prevent loss of revenue from avoidance schemes is to work much harder to create a simpler tax system in the beginning?
Mr Osborne
Yes, I agree that that is of course the best approach, but in the tax code of a western democracy there will inevitably be opportunities for abuse and avoidance, which we need to deal with. When it comes to retrospection, I say to my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Treasury Committee, that I think the House of Commons should sanction retrospective taxation only when it is very clear that the explicit wishes of Parliament have been abused and avoided. For example, in the case of a particular UK bank that his Committee and I have corresponded about, we acted retrospectively because there was a clear breach of what Parliament had expressed, and I am very pleased to note that the bank’s new chief executive has today said that the bank will be scaling down its tax structuring activities.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
A year ago the Chief Secretary to the Treasury made a speech in which he said he would employ 2,000 more tax inspectors, but in March this year it transpired that there were almost 1,300 fewer people in compliance than there had been when the Government came to power. Can the Chancellor tell us when we will see any of those 2,000 new inspectors, or are we to take it that that was simply a conference flourish speech and that there is no real determination to clamp down on tax avoidance as the Chancellor has said?
Mr Osborne
The number of specialist tax people at HMRC dealing with compliance is going up over this Parliament. We are also committing an extra £900 million to the organisation specifically for that activity. As I have just explained to the House, we are collecting £3 billion more in tax as a result of compliance over this Parliament and, as we will confirm later this week, we are collecting £500 million more from high net worth individuals because of the high net worth unit and its better than expected performance over the past two years.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Following the Government’s very good initiatives so far on dealing with tax avoidance, will the Chancellor look at those private sector companies that are monopoly providers of public sector services, which have billion-pound turnovers, pay no corporation tax and often channel their money through offshore accounts in places such as the Caribbean and the Channel Islands?
Mr Osborne
I repeat the general observation that we are making every effort, through legislation and enforcement activity, to reduce tax avoidance and to stop tax evasion. If my right hon. Friend has specific examples that he wants to bring to my attention, he should please do so, and if necessary we will investigate.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
2. What recent steps he has taken to support nationally important infrastructure projects.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
3. What assessment he has made of the effect that investment in infrastructure will have on the economy.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
A competitive market economy such as Britain needs modern infrastructure if it is to succeed, yet in areas such as roads, energy and broadband, the last decade saw us fall behind the rest of Europe. This Government are righting those wrongs by overseeing a £250 billion investment in infrastructure—double the amount in the previous Parliament, even in these straitened times. Our new legislation will guarantee billions more in investment from the private sector. This will bring the new roads, the superfast broadband to our cities, and the new rail connections such as the northern hub. We are also cutting through the delays in Whitehall and in the planning system to make sure that we deliver faster than Labour did.
Jason McCartney
I welcome all that investment in infrastructure, particularly the investment in electrification of the trans-Pennine rail route and the full funding of the northern hub rail project. Will my right hon. Friend continue to invest in infrastructure so that we can recover from the shocking situation we inherited whereby for every 10 jobs created in London and the south-east under the previous Government, only one was created in the regions?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend points to the stark truth that, as he says, for every 10 jobs created in the private sector in the south of England only one was created in the north of England. In a region as important as the west midlands, for example, private sector employment fell during Labour’s period in office, and that was before the crash. We are investing in the infrastructure. The trans-Pennine electrification is incredibly important. The stretch between Liverpool and Manchester is already under way, and of course it then crosses the Pennines. We are also fully committing to the northern hub—something that was not done under the previous Government.
Mr Stewart Jackson
I support the Government’s national infrastructure plan. I particularly welcome specific projects such as the dualling of the A11 and the potential new A14 toll road in Cambridgeshire near my constituency. Is not the lesson of such discrete local transport infrastructure projects that they deliver a much more profound impact on jobs and growth than grandiose projects such as High Speed 2, the business case for which is fatally flawed?
Mr Osborne
I agreed with my hon. Friend until his last sentence. He is right to say that it is not just the big projects announced from this Dispatch Box that count; the local projects in Peterborough and elsewhere will also unlock jobs, development and investment. Of course, we cannot make all those announcements here in the House of Commons. However, we have provided local authorities with the funds to make those transport changes and improvements. We call it the Growing Places fund, and it is worth about £500 million. In the city deals that we are striking with different cities, we are improving road and rail connections to create jobs and get the private sector growing, which is what we all want to see.
Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)
The huge contraction in our construction sector is one of the reasons we are in a double-dip recession. We have seen two reshuffles—one in the UK Government and one in the Scottish Government. In Scotland, the new Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities will be building not the case for schools, hospitals and railways but the case for independence, and we have a UK Chancellor who thinks that a credible economic policy is just about rolling up his sleeves. When we will see a change in direction from this Government to make sure that we are creating investment and jobs right across the UK?
Mr Osborne
In this case, I agreed with the first half of the question. I do not think that the Scottish Government are focused on the priorities of the Scottish people, and I made that case when I spoke to CBI Scotland in Glasgow last week. However, I disagree with his attempt to compare the record of the Labour Government with that of this coalition Government. We are spending more on capital investment than the previous Labour Government planned to spend in this period, as they set out just before the general election. We are spending more on capital investment in the essential infrastructure of this country than they did. We are also taking tough decisions on welfare and the like in order to get the deficit down and get money spent where it can create jobs.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Chancellor consider extra investment in the ports of Neath, Port Talbot and Swansea in order that they become recognised by the European Commission as core ports and therefore trigger TEN-T—trans-European transport network—investment in an area where it is much needed?
Mr Osborne
I am keen to see further investment in our ports. I am happy to engage in a specific conversation with the hon. Gentleman about his proposal and, if necessary, speak to the Welsh Government about it.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does the Chancellor agree that the projects that have the most beneficial impact on the economy are those that are fully self-financing in the private sector because they are popular?
Mr Osborne
I agree that we want to see private sector investment, and tens of billions of pounds of private sector investment is coming into the United Kingdom. Indeed, today the Chinese company Huawei has announced a $2 billion investment in the UK. I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. We want to create the low-tax, competitive conditions for the UK economy in which the private sector can grow, but I think he would recognise that there is a role for public money in providing large-scale transport infrastructure, for example, which these companies need to succeed.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
In a speech yesterday, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury declared that
“infrastructure is at the centre of our strategy to kick-start our economy.”
With that in mind, will the Chancellor tell the House whether the value of orders for infrastructure investment made by the private sector rose or fell between 2010 and 2011?
Mr Osborne
For a start, we have just announced £40 billion of additional guarantees for private sector infrastructure. If the hon. Lady wants the figures, £113 billion was invested over the period from 2005 to 2010, and £250 billion of investment for both the private and public sectors has been announced in this Parliament.
Rachel Reeves
As the Chancellor will know, there is a difference between announcing something and actually delivering it. The answer to my question is that those orders fell by a fifth, from £7.3 billion in 2010 to £5.9 billion in 2011—a result of the collapse in business confidence that the Chancellor’s disastrous decision to cut too far and too fast has resulted in.
Is it not the truth that next week’s Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill is necessary only in order to create the impression of activity and to distract from this Government’s complete and utter failure to deliver the infrastructure investment that they have been promising and that the country is crying out for?
Mr Osborne
There is a difference between announcement and delivery: Labour announced no more boom and bust, and delivered the biggest boom and the biggest bust. We know all about the record of the last Labour Government. One of the quite extraordinary things is that, despite spending and borrowing all that money, they did not actually invest in the modern infrastructure that the private sector needs to create sustainable jobs. That is the lesson that the hon. Lady should learn from their last period in office.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
We are told by the Government that we urgently need more airport capacity, so could the Chancellor explain why his only policy on the issue is to commit the Government to doing nothing at all for three years, until after the next election? Surely he appreciates that voters need to know where the Government stand before they vote.
Mr Osborne
As my hon. Friend knows better than pretty much anyone else in this House, we made a very firm commitment that we would not proceed with a third runway in this Parliament, but Howard Davies is now looking at all the options for airport capacity in the south-east. This issue has evaded Governments of all political colours for the past 30 years, and it is time that we tried to achieve some cross-party consensus, because I am absolutely clear—[Interruption.] If the Labour party was so good at building airports, where are they? Where are these additional airports that it built? The truth is that the south-east of England needs additional airport capacity. The question is where we place it and I think that Howard Davies is the right man to advise us all.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
4. What recent estimate he has made of the effect on pensioners of plans to end age-related tax allowances.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
9. What plans he has to maintain low market interest rates.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
My hon. Friend is right: low interest rates are secured by credible, economic and fiscal policy, and delivered by the independent Bank of England. Sir Mervyn King has been an outstanding Governor of the Bank, and has helped set monetary policy to support our economy through one of its most challenging periods in modern history. He is serving his second and final term as Governor, and will retire on 30 June 2013.
I can tell the House today that I have decided that the appointment of his successor will be conducted through fair and open competition. For the first time in history, the post will be advertised and the advertisement will appear in the press later this week. As with Mervyn King, we are seeking a Governor of intelligence, independence and integrity, and we intend to announce the successful candidate by the end of the year.
Steve Brine
I thank the Chancellor for that response, and I welcome his announcement.
Those looking for a home in my Winchester constituency want to know that their Conservative council is building new council homes for the first time in 25 years. Those looking to buy in the private sector want to know that they can get on the housing ladder and get a mortgage, with some certainty that they can repay the money over the years to come. Will the Chancellor reassure my constituents that, unlike the Labour party, he understands that even a small rise in interest rates will have a punishing effect on family budgets?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Low interest rates are crucial to the recovery, and a loss of confidence in the UK’s ability to pay its way in the world will lead to an increase in market interest rates, an increase in mortgage costs for millions of families, and, of course, an increase in borrowing costs for businesses. It would be a disaster, and that is why the Government do not take the path advocated by the Labour party. We also want to ensure that low interest rates are felt by families, which is why the funding for lending scheme announced jointly with the Bank of England is already leading to banks offering cheaper mortgages. The combination of our Firstbuy and NewBuy schemes is also helping families to buy their first home.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Many people do not have access to those kinds of interest rates, and are depending on high street, rip-off schemes such as Wonga and so on. What is the Chancellor doing to protect ordinary families who cannot get loans and who need to depend on rip-off merchants?
Mr Osborne
We have toughened up the regulation of consumer credit, and next year there will be a tough new consumer agency, the financial conduct authority, which we are creating in order to deal with the bad advice that is sometimes provided to families. Indeed, Martin Wheatley, its chief executive, gave an interesting speech about that last week, and about the impact of sales commissions and the like on the provision of bad advice and bad products to families. We are taking action to do that, but as I said, the worst possible thing for all those families, and everyone else in the country, would be a sharp rise in interest rates, which a loss of confidence in the Government’s fiscal policies would bring about.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
10. What estimate he has made of the effect of the level of VAT on the retail sector in the last 12 months.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The core purpose of the Treasury is to ensure the stability of the economy, promote business and employment, reform banking and manage the public finances so that Britain starts to live within her means. I can also tell the House today that the autumn statement will be on Wednesday 5 December.
Karen Lumley
Does the Chancellor think a general strike would be helpful to the UK economy?
Mr Osborne
No, I do not. I think it would cost jobs in the British economy and hit prosperity. I hope that all Members of this House, whether they are sponsored by trade unions or not, would condemn all calls on the trade unions to take up a general strike.
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
May I take this opportunity to welcome the Financial Secretary and the Economic Secretary to their new posts? I wish them good luck in their new positions. May I also congratulate the Chancellor on somehow managing to keep his job in the reshuffle? Clearly, performance-related management has not yet made it to the Cabinet.
Since our last Treasury questions, the Office for National Statistics has published new figures for Government borrowing. We did not get clarity earlier, so let me ask the Chancellor this. What is the total figure for borrowing for the first four months of this financial year? How does that compare with the same period last year, and how does he explain what has happened?
Mr Osborne
It is good to welcome the Member for “Unite West” back from the TUC conference. As the Chief Secretary explained to the House, borrowing in the short term has been higher this year than in the first four months of last year, but he pointed to particular one-off factors, such as the shutdown of the Elgin oilfield. That is why the increase in borrowing comes from weaker corporation tax receipts. I am glad to report to the House that VAT, national insurance and income tax receipts have broadly held up, despite the weaker economic conditions here and around the world. However, the right hon. Gentleman will have to wait until 5 December to get the next economic forecast from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility—because we make these forecasts independently these days.
Ed Balls
I have to say, we are losing patience with the Chancellor’s schoolboy bluster. It is one thing to be heckled by a few trade union delegates at a conference this morning; it is another thing to be booed by 80,000 people—the whole of the Olympic stadium—when he only turned up to give out a medal.
Let me tell the Chancellor the answer. He is right that borrowing has gone up by a quarter compared with last year, but the reason is that our economy is in double-dip recession, tax revenues are down and spending on unemployment is going up. That is why borrowing is going up, on the watch of a Chancellor who said that he would secure the recovery and get borrowing down. So let me ask the Chancellor this. The International Monetary Fund, the British Chambers of Commerce, the TUC, the engineering employers and even Boris Johnson are now calling for action to kick-start the recovery. Is it not time the Chancellor did something the public might cheer: admit he has got it wrong, change course and finally get a plan for jobs and growth?
Mr Osborne
The right hon. Gentleman talks about unemployment; 900,000 private sector jobs have been created in this economy over the past two years, and we are rebalancing the economy away from the dependence on debt and the unaffordable public sector that he presided over when he was in the Treasury. [Interruption.] He says that borrowing has gone up, but we have cut the deficit by 25%. He has also said that Labour needs a credible deficit reduction plan. He has had all summer to think of one. Where is it?
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
T3. Building our energy infrastructure is a key element of the national infrastructure plan. Preparations by EDF are already under way at Hinkley, and I hope that they will soon start at Sizewell in my constituency. Will my hon. Friend assure me that the Treasury will strain every sinew to ensure that EDF can make a positive investment decision later this year and build the power stations that that lot on the Labour Benches did not build?
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
T5. Why is Britain in a double-dip recession when France and Germany are not?
Mr George Osborne
In case the right hon. Gentleman had not noticed, the eurozone is in recession. He talks about France and Germany, but the International Monetary Fund—[Hon. Members: “Answer!”] I am about to give him the answer. The IMF’s latest forecasts for growth next year show the UK growing at almost twice the speed of France, and the same with Germany. If the question is, “Why isn’t the British economy more like Germany’s?”, I will give him the answer. It is because we did not invest in skills over the past decade. We did not build our export links with China and India and the growing parts of the economy. We put all our bets on the City of London when the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) was the City Minister and it all went spectacularly wrong. We are now clearing up the mess.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
T4. Small businesses in my constituency regularly raise with me the issue of the administration and service levels at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Those problems constantly add to the administrative burden of small businesses. What more can the Government do to make HMRC more efficient, in order to unburden our small businesses and let them get on with the day job?
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
T8. Big increases in the funding of vital rail infrastructure projects in the north-west of England, such as the Todmorden curve, the northern hub and High Speed 2, are hugely welcome and will provide jobs and opportunities that would not have been available under the previous Government. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, without his decisive action on the public finances, such high levels of spending on infrastructure would simply not have been possible?
Mr George Osborne
My hon. Friend is right. It is precisely because we have taken difficult decisions—for example, to cut £18 billion from the welfare budget—that we are able to invest in rail and road improvements that will help to create jobs in Lancashire and across the north-west. The northern hub is a project that has been talked about for many years, but it is under this coalition Government that it is being delivered.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
May I specifically ask the Chancellor whether, notwithstanding the recent reshuffle, the Government are still committed to achieving 0.7% GNI for overseas aid? If so, when can we expect the Bill?
Mr Osborne
The short answer is yes, we are. It is not about legislation; it is about delivering the money. [Interruption.] Labour Members say “Ah”, but we can legislate as much as we like; the question is whether we are prepared to take the difficult decisions to deliver the money. [Interruption.] They say they do not trust us, but this is the Government who will deliver the 0.7% aid commitment that all parties signed up to.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
T9. As the TUC meets in sunny Brighton, what message does my right hon. Friend think an irresponsible strike will send to the millions of hard-working people who are worried about our economic recovery?
Mr Osborne
I think it sends a terrible message to my hon. Friend’s constituents in Brighton and across the country. The last thing this country needs at the moment is a series of strikes. We have struck a good deal for the public sector on public sector pensions that will ensure that people continue to enjoy some of the best pensions in Britain, while at the same time reducing the cost to the taxpayer by 50% over the long term. We are also instituting public sector pay restraint so we do not have to make even more difficult decisions about job losses. That is because we are dealing with a very difficult economic situation with a very large deficit. I would hope that the trade unions would understand that rather than try to take their members out on strike.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
Will the Chancellor tell us how money can be taken out of the banks and put into small and medium-sized businesses right across the United Kingdom? Without it, we are certainly not going to kick-start the economy.
Mr Osborne
This is, of course, the key challenge in these difficult financial conditions, which have endured for five years or so. I know that there is a particular challenge in Northern Ireland, where the collapse of the banking system in southern Ireland has had a real impact. The funding for lending scheme, launched last month, is an £80 billion Treasury/Bank of England scheme to reduce bank funding costs so that banks are able to lend to businesses and households. A number of banks, such as Barclays and Lloyds, have already launched products that will bring those lower interest rates to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
The fact that the deficit has come down by a quarter enables the British Government to borrow at roughly the equivalent rate of the United States Government—a rate lower than every EU member state apart from Germany. Does the Chief Secretary agree that this enables the Government to contemplate infrastructure investment and to use the strength of our balance sheet to facilitate and guarantee private sector infrastructure investment?
Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Government are to invest £17 billion in phase 1 of HS2, which will transport someone from London to Birmingham 20 minutes quicker, yet there are students in my constituency today who cannot accept their place in Bedford college because of the lack of a local transport network, and constituents who cannot accept offers of work because they cannot get to the train stations via a bus network. Would it not be a better use of that investment to put it into regional transport networks so that people can get to work and to college?
Mr George Osborne
I think we can do both; we can invest in local and regional transport networks. If my hon. Friend has specific schemes in Bedfordshire that she wants to bring to my attention or that of the Department for Transport, we will look at them very carefully, but that does not preclude us as country from taking the big infrastructure decisions—as we did with the M25 and as our predecessors did with the railways centuries ago—to invest in a railway system for the future. High-speed rail will connect the north to the south of England.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Today, the Public Accounts Committee exposed very poor management of the Government’s regional growth fund. Can the Chancellor tell us how many extra jobs will be created by the national infrastructure plan which was announced last autumn?
Mr Osborne
I can write to the hon. Gentleman providing a specific jobs total for this year, but I can tell him now that the national infrastructure plan is already seeing the development of the trans-Pennine electrification, which we discussed earlier, the creation of 700 jobs in the north-east as we spend £600 million on new inter-city trains, and the huge Crossrail development across London, which, as I have seen, is employing many hundreds if not thousands of people. The plan is not just a plan for this year; it is also a plan for the future, and it shows that making difficult decisions about things such as welfare enables us to spend on things that will help the private sector to create jobs.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I congratulate the Financial Secretary on his new post. Would he be willing—when the dust settles, and in the wake of the LIBOR scandal—to look again with fresh eyes at the possibilities of full bank account portability, which could be a game-changer for British banking, and try to get our economy going again once and for all?
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
Legislation for Government borrowing guarantees to help to fund infrastructure is due to be presented to the House next week. The Chancellor is right to try to use the power of government in this way, so why has it taken two and a half years, and nine months of double-dip recession, for him to decide to do it?
Mr Osborne
Let me say this as politely as I can to the shadow Chancellor and former Treasury Minister. Not once in the 13 years during which Labour was in office did it propose guaranteeing large-scale infrastructure projects, but that is precisely what we are doing. We are breaching decades of Treasury orthodoxy to support the private sector, investing for our country’s future, and I hope that that commands all-party support—in the politest possible way.