Tax Avoidance (HSBC)

Debate between George Osborne and Nia Griffith

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Gentleman asks a good question. There are two approaches. The first involves introducing into our domestic law things like the general anti-abuse rule, which is more of a catch-all and tries to anticipate changes by accountancy firms and others who devise aggressive avoidance schemes. The second approach, which is not to be underestimated, involves the major international agreement on the automatic exchange of people’s tax information between jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the United Kingdom. That agreement has happened only because the Prime Minister put it at the top of the G8 agenda; no previous leader of the G8 had done so. That is why we will have the automatic exchange of information, which will be a revolution in tax transparency.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

What explanation can the Chancellor give in response to comments by the former tax inspector Richard Brooks that the Treasury and HMRC

“knew that there was a mass of evidence of tax evasion at the heart of HSBC”

in 2011, but that the Government

“simply washed their hands of it”?

[Mr Osborne]

As I have explained, HMRC received in April 2010 the disc that had all the information on individual bank accounts. It then set about investigating all those individuals and bringing those prosecutions. We have known—[Interruption.] The shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury says that we have known this for five years. We have known for five years that there was egregious tax evasion 10 years ago under the Labour Government. We have put the resources into pursuing that, collecting the money and passing the international agreements to ensure that it never happens again in our country.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Nia Griffith

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Chancellor is quick to blame the eurozone. However, the UK now languishes as 22nd out of the 28 EU countries in terms of export growth. What specific measures will he take to improve it?

[Mr Osborne]

As I said in my statement, we face a major challenge when it comes to increasing our exports. As the Office for Budget Responsibility made clear, it has been a challenge for the British economy for the past 20 years. If anything, however, the decline in our exports has slowed down slightly in recent years, compared to what was happening under the last Government. Today I have committed myself to a £45 million fund, which will be available both to UK Trade & Investment and to the Foreign Office, to increase our trade links with the new emerging economies of the world, and to support first-time exporters in particular. Lord Livingston is doing a great job as Trade Minister, and I want to back him.

EU Budget (Surcharge)

Debate between George Osborne and Nia Griffith

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

As I say, I understand the frustration that many people feel about the way their money—hard-earned taxpayers’ money—is spent in Europe. That is why we are seeking a reform of Britain’s relationship with Europe and a reform of the way Europe works for all its citizens, and why we are seeking to put that to the British people in a referendum. With reference to my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), it is good to see the shadow Chancellor here, breaking off from the Balls family pastime of undermining the Leader of the Opposition.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Chancellor read out to us the Prime Minister’s response to the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley) about the rebate, but can he explain why, in all that feigned anger, the Prime Minister did not explain about the rebate? Was it because the Chancellor had not shared that knowledge with the Prime Minister, or was it because the pair of them were in it together, ready to pull out a white rabbit last Friday?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Nia Griffith

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The Labour Government left us the highest budget deficit in the peacetime history of this country. The numbers to which my hon. Friend refers assume that there are no savings in welfare. I have made it clear that I think we should consider savings in welfare. Of course, other parties, such as the Labour party, have put forward proposals to increase tax.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Given the great success of the Labour Welsh Government’s Jobs Growth Wales scheme, which is on target to help 16,000 young people into sustainable jobs, mostly in the private sector, will the Chancellor now commit to a similar UK-wide scheme funded by a repeat of Labour’s tax on bankers bonuses?

[Mr Osborne]

This week, the help to work scheme came into force, which is helping long-term unemployed people, providing them with more support and ensuring that those who need to sign on daily do so, and that those who need work experience and who need to be in work can take community jobs. We are reforming welfare, and that is part of the approach that we are taking to create jobs in this country by ensuring that work always pays.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Nia Griffith

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I specifically mentioned in my statement the work that my hon. Friend has done on behalf of his constituents in Carlisle to support important local large employers such as Pirelli. Thanks to his campaign, we are now able to abolish the jobs tax for people under the age of 21, which will help young people in Carlisle to obtain jobs, but we are also helping those who want to go to college. I congratulate my hon. Friend on standing up for his constituents.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Chancellor claims that the marriage tax allowance will help some of the poorest members of society, but poorer families who must rely on universal credit will be perversely affected by the rules on the earnings of a second person in the household. Will he look again at the way in which the clawback tapers will work, so that that does not become a disincentive to work?

[Mr Osborne]

The whole purpose of universal credit is to remove the disincentives to work that exist in our current welfare system, driven both by the complexity of all the different benefits and by the couple penalty for whose removal my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has campaigned for many years. He is removing it—or, at any rate, heading in the direction of removing it—through universal credit, but there may be more than we can do, and I shall be happy to look into that.

Spending Review

Debate between George Osborne and Nia Griffith

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Confidence to invest long term in industry has been severely damaged by the Government’s creation of uncertainty over the EU, their failure to set 2030 decarbonisation targets, and their failure to control excessively high energy prices. The steel industry faces a crisis in demand. How many of the Chancellor’s mythical lists of infrastructure projects will actually begin this year?

[Mr Osborne]

As I said, we are spending more as a percentage of national income on infrastructure in this decade than in the previous decade. What I would say to the hon. Lady about energy-intensive industries such as steel is that there is support, which the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is going to extend as a result of the statement to help them to cope with their high energy costs.

Eurozone

Debate between George Osborne and Nia Griffith

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I think it is a reflection of the fact that people around the world believe that we have “a credible plan”—those were the words used by the Governor of the Bank of England last week—to repay our debts. Let us remember that we have the largest budget deficit of any forecast for the G20. That is the situation we inherited and we are trying to bring that deficit down. Other countries with much lower deficits have got into trouble because they have not had credible plans, presented by a united Government and implemented with a good majority in their Parliament. We have those things and we are going to keep them.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Many small businesses and manufacturers across the country are still very worried. They have seen growth stall under the Chancellor’s policies and now they see the crisis in the eurozone. Can he explain, simply and clearly, how his policies are going to help stimulate growth and help these companies have the growth that they need, particularly given that many of them are going to lose a lot of business when public procurement contracts come to an end?

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Lady says that public procurement projects are going to come to an end. The British Government are going to be spending £3 trillion over the next four years, so let us make sure that that money is well spent and that good British businesses, small and large, are able to avail themselves of the procurement that will take place under a £3 trillion Government budget. But of course I do not underestimate the difficulty of the situation the world faces at the moment and the situation that Britain faces because of its exposure to the world and to the problems that it itself created in recent years. I understand that, but the whole world is experiencing slow growth at the moment. We have actually grown more this calendar year than the United States and we are currently forecast to grow more next year than France and Germany. That is just a reflection of the fact that our problems are being experienced by other countries but our solutions have kept us out of the financial danger zone, which the shadow Chancellor asked me about earlier. They have meant that our credit default swap rates, our interest rates and market interest rates, our credit rating and so on have been protected at a time when many other European countries have experienced real market volatility.

Global Economy

Debate between George Osborne and Nia Griffith

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

First, while not all the recent economic data have been encouraging, the services index for the United Kingdom in the last couple of weeks was the strongest in Europe, which gives us some cause for optimism in that sector. I agree that we want to maintain our competitiveness, and that we want to export more to Europe. I think Europe’s agenda should be much more about completing the single market and implementing measures such as the services directive, which has merely sat on the “Too Difficult to Handle” shelf for far too long. That is the agenda that we need to get the European Union focused on.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Last week I visited the Dividers Modernfold factory in my constituency. In common with many other construction products companies throughout the country, it is very worried about the prospects for immediate economic growth, particularly in the light of public procurement cuts. What precisely is the Chancellor going to do in the very near future to stimulate demand and growth, so we can create and safeguard jobs in the private sector? We do not want to be fobbed off with the sorts of answers he has just given to my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) and the Chancellor’s party colleague, the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley).

[Mr Osborne]

In the spending review, we set higher capital budgets than those set out by my predecessor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the last Labour Government. Therefore, capital spending budgets are higher than they would have been under the plan the hon. Lady stood on in the last election.

On getting the construction sector moving, that is precisely why we are tackling issues, such as the planning delays, that have been so difficult, and why we made a number of tax changes in the Budget to help the construction sector. The construction index was also positive in the last couple of weeks. I just say to the hon. Lady that when we are running the highest budget deficit in the G20, it is not possible to abandon our fiscal consolidation plans and to seek someone out there in the world to borrow more money from. That would lead to markedly higher interest rates—we need only look at the interest rates in Spain and Italy at present—and we know that higher interest rates do particular damage to the construction sector.