Oral Answers to Questions
Geraint Davies Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in both things that he says. The Financial Secretary’s announcement represented very important further progress, but if we look back over the past five years, we see that the relentlessness of our pursuit of measures to crack down on avoidance, be it the general anti-abuse rule in the tax system, the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes regime, the monitoring regime that we are putting in place or the measures to increase prosecutions for tax evasion, has made it clear that there is absolutely no tolerance for aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion in this country.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Chief Secretary will know that 10% of UK wealth is held in offshore bank accounts, which is a much higher proportion than in the United States, so why is he not focusing on that tax avoidance and evasion, at a time when 65% of people on jobseeker’s allowance in Swansea have been sanctioned and are living on a pittance? It is a disgrace.
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman clearly was not listening to my first answer, because we have put in place something unprecedented: working with our colleagues in other countries, the common reporting standard will mean that more than 90 countries will be automatically exchanging information on offshore accounts, so that HMRC has the information it needs to find and pursue offshore tax evaders successfully. We need to make further progress on how we deal with organisations that encourage, promote or facilitate tax evasion. I have said I want to see further work done on that, and I am sure we will be hearing more about it soon.
Oral Answers to Questions
Geraint Davies Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Danny Alexander
My hon. Friend is right. It is a fact that the United Kingdom has created more jobs than all the other countries in the European Union put together. That shows the success we have had in delivering economic growth by working through the balanced careful plan that we put in place at the start of this Parliament. She could also have mentioned the fact that female employment, at 73%, is at its highest-ever level.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
A couple with two children who are both working—the woman in part-time work on £10,000 and the man on £25,000—will have lost £9,417 in withdrawn tax credits in the autumn statement. The Chief Secretary talks about putting up the threshold, but he gets much more back from the poorest. When will he pursue a progressive policy that makes work pay for the poorest?
Danny Alexander
I beg to differ with the hon. Gentleman. The policy of increasing the income tax threshold to £10,600, which was put on the table by my party the Liberal Democrats back in 2010, is putting £825 back into the pockets of 26 million working people on low and middle incomes. Improving work incentives and earnings for people in work is something he should celebrate and everyone in the House should welcome.
Income Tax
Geraint Davies Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Chris Leslie
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head—as if our constituents are not still bearing a burden. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he could not countenance reducing that 50p rate until people were no longer bearing that economic burden. Are we in that position? Absolutely not. What does he do? He chooses to give that tax cut to the very wealthiest in society. Has there ever been a fallacy greater than the Chancellor’s hollow claim that “we’re all in this together”?
How strange that before the last election, as my hon. Friend says, the Chancellor said, “No, no, no, we certainly wouldn’t tackle that 50p rate,” but after the election, amazingly, he decides to do what Conservatives always do. That was at a time when Oxfam reports that 20 million meals were given out in food banks last year, up by more than 50% on the previous year. Its chief executive is right to say that the fact that they are needed in 21st century Britain is a stain on our national conscience. We cannot and we must not allow these warped and perverse priorities to go unchallenged.
There is an alternative and a different set of choices. When Government borrowing is 10% higher in the past six months compared with the same period last year and the deficit is rising, the Treasury cannot afford to dole out tax breaks to those at the top of the pile. Borrowing so far this year has been £58 billion, compared with just over £52 billion for the first six months of last year. The revenue from the 50p rate of tax remains essential when that deficit is pressing so heavily on vital public services and bearing down on the shoulders of lower and middle income households in our constituencies.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
As my hon. Friend will know, income tax receipts were projected to rise by 7% this year but have, in fact, gone up by only 0.1%, so there is a pressing need for extra income. He will also know—perhaps he will comment on this—that the marginal rate of tax for national insurance and income tax is 62% for people on incomes between £100,000 and £120,000, so how can the Government argue that behavioural changes resulting from a 50p rate will suddenly drive everyone away? It is obviously a load of bunkum designed to protect their rich friends.
Mr Gauke
The way to address that is by improving our productivity, by attracting additional business investment, and by ensuring that we are a good climate for businesses to invest in. That is how we get growth. It is through enterprise, not through punitive taxation that fails to deliver public finances to the Exchequer.
Geraint Davies
Will the Minister confirm that the amount of business loans from banks, including RBS, to businesses, is 30% down compared with 2008, and down 40% for small business, yet the loans for mortgages, for houses that already exist, are at 2008 levels? All the money is going into existing houses instead of into productivity and business. Why does he not do something about it?
Mr Gauke
The hon. Gentleman should also be aware that business investment is increasing. The last few quarters have been very positive on that front, and we are moving in the right direction, despite having to deal with the mess that we inherited. The truth is that in the place where a credible Opposition economic policy should be, we have an empty gesture that will do nothing for economic growth, nothing for job creation, nothing for the public finances, and nothing to help reduce taxes for working people.
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend makes a good point. He also made a good point when he intervened on the Prime Minister earlier today. I am delighted that he has again had the opportunity to talk about what the Government are doing and the benefits that are being spread across this country.
The move to 45p, based on the central estimate of the taxable income elasticity, only cost £100 million a year, which is a small price to pay to regain some of the international competitiveness that we lost as a result of the previous Government’s decisions. The additional rate not only harmed our economy and contributed little to the Exchequer, but had significant impacts on our international competitiveness. It placed us in the unenviable position of having the highest statutory rate of income tax in the G20, which is precisely what we do not want when we need investment, jobs and long-term economic growth. By creating a competitive tax environment, this Government’s actions to reduce the additional rate have unambiguously been in the UK’s best interest. A return to the 50p rate would be to ignore the long-term interest of this country.
As a Government, our tax policy has focused on three broad areas: it has ensured that people play by the rules and pay the taxes they owe; that the highest earners make a fair contribution without damaging this country’s competitiveness; and that we lower taxes for hard-working people. I am proud that we have taken concrete action on all three fronts in every single Budget while delivering the fastest economic growth in the G7. This Government’s policies have repeatedly increased the tax contribution of the wealthy, creating a fairer tax system in which those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden. We increased the rates of capital gains tax to 18% and 28%, ending the situation in which a director could pay a lower rate of tax than their secretary. We have introduced a stamp duty rise that will raise around £200 million a year from those who buy properties worth more than £2 million, and we have been particularly harsh on evasion and aggressive tax avoidance. For example, at Budget 2011, we introduced the disguised remuneration legislation, which raises £3 billion and protects almost £3 billion over the next five years, mainly from higher and additional rate taxpayers—a policy, by the way, that Labour voted against.
The loopholes that were closed at various Budgets mean that we have around three quarters of a billion pounds more coming into the Exchequer. Our policies do not stop there. We have also imposed a 15% rate of stamp duty land tax on residential properties bought through companies; introduced a cap on certain unlimited reliefs to limit their excessive use to reduce taxable incomes; and introduced the general anti-abuse rule. We are also requiring that tax is paid up front, preventing the richest from gaining unfair cash flow advantage by delaying tax payments. As we recognise that tax systems no longer operate on just a national level, we have signed information-sharing agreements with many countries to tackle overseas tax evasion, ensuring that no one can get away with evading payment of the tax they owe.
Geraint Davies
I thank the Minister for his generosity in giving way. After mentioning all these improvements he has made to tax efficiency and collection, he said that the Labour party calculated that there would be a behavioural shift of £4 billion but a tax take of £2.5 billion. If we apply that ratio to the £3 billion static figure, we would be getting £1.15 billion, and not £100 million. How does he explain that discrepancy?
Mr Gauke
I can go through it slowly if it is helpful. There are two points there. That was the analysis of the previous Government in 2009, and, as I said earlier, that understated the behavioural impact. It is also the case that the impact of the behavioural changes is greater between 45p and 50p than it is between 40p and 45p, so there is no discrepancy there. I am interested in the fact that the hon. Gentleman has reduced by a little the claims of his Front-Bench team that the measure would raise £3 billion. At least he acknowledges that the static cost cannot be entirely relied on, which is a degree of progress for which we should be grateful.
Mr Gauke
I have given way to the hon. Gentleman on a number of occasions, and I know that many Members wish to speak in this debate.
I have set out the measures we have taken on avoidance and evasion. At the same time, though, we have used the tax system to help hard-working people on lower middle incomes to keep more of the income they earn through personal allowances. The tax-free allowance has increased from £6,475 in 2010 to £10,500 in April 2015—a tax saving of £805 for a typical basic-rate taxpayer. These changes will have given tax breaks to over 25 million individuals and will have taken 3.2 million low-income individuals out of income tax altogether by the end of this Parliament. A future Conservative Government will go further, increasing the personal allowance to £12,500 and the higher-rate tax threshold to £50,000.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a great joy to follow the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen). He told me that he is capable of generating energy out of potato peelings, and he certainly illustrated that today. I am also pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who made a point about the inequality imposed by the Government’s economic policies. Given the inequality between men and women’s earnings, if women earned the same as men—they do not—I understand that they would basically be working for free from today onwards. That is the level of inequality we face.
It is all very well talking about raising tax thresholds. Everybody likes that, I guess, but as has been pointed out, it is not a panacea, certainly not for people who are moving in and out of work on zero-hours contracts—the 1.1 million people moving in and out of benefits—and having to go to food banks and so on, or those who cannot get jobs regularly. While many people welcome raising tax thresholds, it is costing us £11 billion a year. I mention that because it has been suggested that the measure under discussion today, the 50p tax rate—the static value of which is supposed to be £3 billion—is somehow insignificant and incidental, but it is still a significant figure, given the money the Government are giving away in raising tax thresholds.
Today the Prime Minister said again that he will be giving away £7 billion—there will basically be cuts in public services to pay for more tax giveaways. We are moving now to a situation where the Tories are saying, “Public services bad; tax cutting good” and many communities are feeling the pinch as a result, which is unfortunate.
During Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that it would be “immoral” to rack up debt and leave it to our children as an inheritance, yet I put it to the Minister that the Government are doing precisely that. Their economic strategy is generating a low-income, low-wage economy, at the same time as pushing up the tax thresholds, which people have welcomed. The net outcome is that income tax receipts are going down. Instead of going up by 7%, they have risen by 0.1%, and the tax and national insurance increase that was supposed to continue to rise is £13 billion short this year.
The deficit reduction that the Chancellor planned for the autumn statement will be £11 billion down. Why? Because he predicted that wages would rise by 2.5% and they have risen by 0.5%. And why is that? As I mentioned, it is about insufficient investment from banks in productivity, and cuts to benefits for students or fees for sixth formers. In addition, the infrastructure that generates productivity and higher wages is being undermined, so the tax take is getting worse. Under Labour, 55% of the economy was debt; it is now about 75%. Borrowing under this Government over the past four years has been more than in 13 years of a Labour Government. It is a complete catastrophe.
Geraint Davies
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. He was banging on about the 1970s, but let us remember more recent history and the fact that in the 10 years to 2008, the economy grew under Labour by 40% before we met the banking disaster. Two years on, thanks to the fiscal intervention of Brown and Obama, it was growing again by 2010. We have been flatlining since then because of the economic incompetence of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues.
Andrew Bridgen
Perhaps I can drag the hon. Gentleman back to today’s motion and Labour’s wish to bring back the 50p tax rate. What does he say about the comments of Lord Myners, a Labour peer, who said of the shadow Chancellor:
“The economic logic behind his thinking would not get him a pass at GCSE economics…he takes us back to old Labour and the politics of envy”?
That was in The Daily Telegraph on 25 January 2014.
Geraint Davies
As the hon. Gentleman knows, being from south Wales I normally support miners, but I would say that he is very much an intellectual minor. [Interruption.] Yes he is. Yes—we all know where Lord Myners came from, God help us.
Focusing on the 50p tax rate, I have already made the case that income tax receipts are not going up owing to Government mismanagement—a low-wage economy with low skills and low productivity, and raising tax thresholds, which does not add up. It may be desirable to raise tax thresholds, but it does not add up and it is incompetent. Labour is talking about people making a marginal contribution at the 50p level.
Geraint Davies
I will not just now. We have heard the hon. Gentleman muttering for a while, but I shall take an intervention in a moment.
Let us consider behavioural changes. The rate of tax went from 40p to 50p to 45p. The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire, being a business man, knows that if someone running a business who wants to minimise their tax liability faces that quick succession, they will move their finances. Instead of bearing down on the 50p rate, they will pay much more tax in the 40p year, and then the following year they will move their expenses from the previous year into that year at the 50p rate, so they do not pay that as tax, and then to the 45p rate. It is therefore no surprise that companies, like his own probably, made behavioural changes in a rational way to limit the amount of higher rate tax. But it does not follow that if the rate is kept forever at 50p rather than going up and down, they can play games and not pay that tax. Of course, there would be behavioural changes, and the Labour party’s assumption is not that instead of raising £3 billion, £100 million would be raised—that is one thirtieth, which is frankly ridiculous and preposterous; it is more likely to be well over a third. We appreciate that there may be some behavioural changes, but we are talking about taking billions of pounds from the richest people at a time when the Minister, who is sitting there pointing, is basically arguing that we should save £400 million—against, say, a £1 billion take from the richest—by taking money out of the mouths of some of the poorest children through the bedroom tax.
Mr Browne
On the higher rates of personal taxation, I would like to quote Tony Blair from 2001 when he was Prime Minister. He rejected higher tax rates for the rich in a “Newsnight” interview, saying:
“It is not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money.”
This is the only Labour leader who has won a working majority in the past 48 years. Why has Labour decided to abandon his wise approach and adopt an avaricious socialist approach instead, which has proved to be both a political and economic failure?
Geraint Davies
I do not want to say anything rude about David Beckham. Tony Blair was obviously a very successful Prime Minister, and as I have already pointed out, he increased the size of the British economy by 40%. If we were not sitting here after four years of the Tories borrowing more than Labour did in 13 years and with the debt going up and up, we would not have to think of measures to raise more money. It is because of the economic incompetence and failure of this Government that we need to raise more tax at this point.
I have pointed out that there are people who already pay marginal tax rates of 62p—national insurance plus income tax. They are doing that and they are not suddenly leaving the country. This is a sustainable tax that can be borne at this point in the economic calendar, and we need to do it to protect the very poorest. As I have already pointed out, we are ripping £400 million—incidentally, the area most affected by the bedroom tax is Wales, where 42% of council households face it—away from people who have virtually no money. It is simply unfair that those judgments are made.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has said on a couple of occasions that under Labour the economy grew by 40%. He is absolutely right: it did grow by 40% under Labour in the years leading up to the 2008 crisis. However, that came from a massive asset bubble that was fuelled by a colossal rise in household debt. One of the greatest crimes of the Labour Government in the lead-up to the financial catastrophe was that it allowed household debt to increase by £1 trillion. It went from £450 billion to £1.45 trillion, an increase of household leverage from 100% to 175%. That debt is still with millions and millions of people.
Geraint Davies
I am very grateful indeed for that intervention. The reality is that less than a third of the deficit inherited in 2010 was due to the Government. The Government were spending more than they were earning to gear us out of recession, which was the right thing to do to stop a world depression. We had growth at that time, but thanks to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), suddenly announcing in May 2010 that he was going to sack 500,000 people, everyone stopped spending money in the public sector and demand flatlined. We have had no growth so we do not have the tax receipts.
On debt, what is happening now, as I mentioned earlier, is that banks are lending 30% less to businesses to invest in productivity, entrepreneurship and growth, and they are giving the same amount as they did in 2008 to household debt to buy houses. That is not to build new houses, but to inflate houses in the south-east. There are no new houses, and it is ratcheting up the debt the hon. Gentleman rightly refers to. That is being inspired by the Government’s right-to-buy schemes and so on. That is completely irresponsible, so I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making the point about how irresponsible and poor the Government’s financial strategy is.
On infrastructure, a disproportionate sum is being spent in London and the south-east, when it should be spread across the country. Finally, if we want to get away from a low wage, low tax receipt economy, we need to invest in productivity. We need to think again about our strategy for tuition fees versus Germany and elsewhere. Ultimately—I am coming to a conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker—we find ourselves in a situation where the poor are getting so poor that eventually they turn to parties like UKIP and worse. They start to blame immigration and all the rest of it, and we have social fracturing that will only continue unless we bring about a more equal, robust, fairer and stronger economy. This measure is a step towards that.
Finance Bill
Geraint Davies Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making a very eloquent and provocative speech. Does he agree with me that it is intrinsically wrong for someone to sell their rights, just as it would be intrinsically wrong of me to sell myself into slavery? Is this not going down that absurd and immoral path?
Chris Evans
I do not know how much my hon. Friend thinks he would get if he sold himself into slavery—[Interruption.]
Wales Bill
Geraint Davies Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Harper
I take that point. I would oppose new clause 5 whoever drafted it, because the whole concept of changing the name to achieve a political outcome is not something that I support. We can have a debate about independence and whether the Welsh Assembly should turn into a Parliament of an independent Wales, but we should have it openly. We should not use changing the name as a surreptitious way of moving along the debate and hope that nobody notices. The hon. Gentleman has cunningly designed the new clause so that it does not say anywhere what the National Assembly should be called, but, as I have said, it is given away in the title as a little hint about where he wants to go. It is whatever the parliamentary equivalent of a Freudian slip is, which gives it away.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
I think there may be some confusion here, because of course this Parliament enabled the Scottish Parliament to be so called, and there is no appetite for us to say to the Scottish Parliament that it can call itself what it likes—even the Scottish kingdom. Plaid Cymru is saying that the Welsh Assembly should be able to call itself what it likes, and there is, I understand, a strong case to call the National Assembly the National Parliament of Wales, but there is confusion here about what we are talking about. Scotland has no power to decide the name for itself.
Mr Harper
That is a good point. There are two separate arguments, one about what we should call the different institutions and another about which body is the right body to pass the legislation to enact those changes. I think that the Government’s approach in clause 4, which recognises the reality of what we call the Welsh Government and reflects that in primary legislation passed by this Parliament, is the right one, rather than the approach followed by those who have signed up to new clause 5. That is why I will oppose the new clause, but I am glad that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr is not going to press it to a vote. I hope that the Committee will support clause 4.
Geraint Davies
The Minister has made the case that, if the Welsh economy expands relative to the English economy, the new regime—the Welsh Exchequer, as it were—would gain. However, the corollary of that, of course, is that if the English economy grows faster than the Welsh economy as a result of the current Government generating growth through a London housing bubble, Wales will lose out. Why is the Minister putting only one half of the argument when this could in fact be a hidden trap?
Mr Gauke
One of the attributes of devolving an element of income tax is that it will ensure that the Welsh Government have the incentives to grow the economy as strongly as possible. I am rather surprised that the hon. Gentleman has so little faith in the Welsh Government that he does not want to encourage this opportunity and that he does not have the confidence that, by pursuing the right policies, the Welsh economy can grow significantly. I would have thought that that is what he wanted.
Geraint Davies
The Minister knows that investment and economic development in Wales would deliver jobs and that that would reduce social security costs and increase income tax. There is no proposition for social security to be devolved, so a lot of the benefits will be in England. What is more, with this new manifestation of the policy—this half-cocked version—there is a real danger that, if a London-centric recovery occurs, Wales will lose out.
The Temporary Chair (Mr Christopher Chope)
Order. Only one person can speak at a time.
Mr Gauke
That is a matter for the Welsh Government. They might want to pursue tax policies, but I repeat that policies on education, skills, housing and planning all contribute towards economic growth. The situation at the moment is that the Welsh Government control many of the key levers to generate economic growth, but do not currently benefit from any resulting economic performance through the impact on its budget. This devolution of tax will address that situation. Equally, to go back to the point made by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), it means that if bad policies are pursued and they damage growth, that will have a consequence for the Welsh economy. I am sure that he is not suggesting that the Welsh Government will pursue growth-damaging policies.
Geraint Davies
Does the Minister accept that although some powers to effect economic performance are in Wales, the mass of powers are in this place in terms of the Exchequer, our relationship with the Bank of England and macro-economic policies across the United Kingdom? With the budget that it has, Wales alone cannot determine its economic future. To say so is simply misleading, and he should withdraw it. It is a disgrace.
Mr Gauke
The hon. Gentleman may say that the mass of powers are here, but we are talking about a relative test involving Wales versus the rest of the United Kingdom. United Kingdom policies apply across the United Kingdom; the specific policy of the Welsh Government may result in changes in growth in the economy and the impact of that on the budget.
Oral Answers to Questions
Geraint Davies Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
We have provided more than 1 million apprenticeships, and in the most recent Budget we provided more support for apprentices by extending grants to small and medium-sized companies to help them take on apprentices. We also introduced and expanded degree-level and post-degree-level apprenticeships. Apprenticeship schemes are one of this Government’s great successes, and we are going to build on it.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Chancellor accept that the growth he is talking about is fuelled by mortgages pushing up house prices and consumer debt? Lending from banks is now at the 2008 level for mortgages but down 30% to businesses, which is why productivity and real wages are down. When will he deliver sustainable growth rather than a bubble before an election?
Mr Osborne
The hon. Gentleman obviously has not looked at today’s GDP numbers, because they show that the sector that has grown most strongly is manufacturing.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Geraint Davies Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). She concentrated on banking, but my contribution will be somewhat more mundane, because I regret to say that far too many of my constituents have probably never even seen the inside of a bank, let alone know about the workings of a bank.
We again heard today about a drop in unemployment figures. That really has to be welcomed, but I remind the House, as I have done over a period of time, that some parts of the country are not seeing the recovery that others are experiencing. I listened intently to the Chancellor’s fantasy figures and tried to picture in my mind his portrayal of this rapidly improving economic situation across the country. I tried desperately to engage with that, and probably to be as imaginative as the Chancellor himself in entering his world, but I can tell him that far too many individuals and their families, many of them hard-working indeed, have simply not been given a chance to enter that imaginary world.
There can be no doubt—I would be the first to admit it—that thankfully, after some three years, there is a return to growth. However, the Chancellor needs to recognise that in my local authority area an increasing number of people are claiming jobseeker’s allowance. This month, yet again, we saw a further rise in unemployment on the back of last month’s rise. The figure now stands at 2,740—an increase of a further 0.1%. In May 2010, 75 young people were claiming jobseeker’s allowance for more than 12 months; that figure has almost doubled to 145. In February, youth unemployment rose to 740—an increase of 0.3% on the previous of month to 6.7%, which is 1% above the Scottish average and 1.5% above the UK average. In May 2010, the number of adults claiming jobseeker’s allowance for more than 12 months stood at 460; last month, the figure rose to over 800.
That is a tragedy for each and every one of those people. If they took time today to listen to the Budget statement, it will only have confirmed what they have probably suspected for a very long time—that the Chancellor has lost touch with those at the bottom end and does not understand the battle and the sheer struggle that still goes on for many people right across the country.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend might be interested to know that in Swansea, 65% of people on JSA have been sanctioned. These are people on less than £72 a week. It is not that the Chancellor has lost touch with them; he is crushing them under his boot.
Mr Brown
My hon. Friend is right. If I have time, I want to mention an experience I had with a young couple who came to my surgery last Friday.
Earlier today, I met a representative of the Prison Officers Association from my area who was down in London taking part in a rally that had been timed to coincide with the Chancellor’s Budget speech. He explained to me that morale in the prison service is at an all-time low because of increases in serious violent attacks on prison staff, a five-year pay freeze and continuing demand for front-line staffing cuts, and an increase in pension contributions that is driving down the take-home pay of hard-working public servants. I suspect that it is not a job that many of us would relish doing. That driving down of take-home pay is coupled with working in an environment that is physical and, all too often, dangerous. These public servants are now being asked to work up to the age of 68. It is little wonder that they are angry and have taken to the streets today.
The Resolution Foundation’s report “Low Pay Britain 2013” shows that 4.8 million workers—20% of all employees—earn below the living wage, which is a massive leap from the 3.4 million in 2009 at the height of the recession. The growth of poverty has an uneven impact on particular sections of the population, and the tragedy is that young workers have been hit particularly hard: one in three 16 to 30-year-olds—2.4 million—are on low pay and are low skilled. These young people deserve better than this. Decent adults they are and will be, but they need greater chances in life. Living standards are down for far too many people, and as colleagues have said, that has been compounded by the 24 tax rises, households £1,600 a year worse off, and a reduction in tax credits.
On the positive side, I applaud the decision to reduce bingo duty to 10%. I am sure that the industry will be very much relieved at that. Like hon. Members on both sides of the House, I have visited my local bingo club, but there were fewer customers than I had ever seen before. The simple reason behind that is that people’s incomes have reduced so significantly that they simply do not have the wherewithal to spend time at the bingo hall in the way that they did for many years.
I also applaud the steps being taken to support pensioners through the relief measures in respect of savings, but again I have to say that many pensioners have no savings at all, and struggle to get by from week to week or month to month. These may be pensioner couples where one of them has been a carer for a son, daughter or elderly parent. They have struggled to get through their working life and they are now struggling in their old age.
I suspect that many energy-intensive industries will be delighted to hear of the extension of the existing compensation scheme. I have one in my constituency that has been pursuing me for answers to various questions that it had. Perhaps now that the Budget is over, I will be able to get those answers without any pre-Budget leak.
I am critical of the youth unemployment levels in my local authority area, and with some justification, but I welcome today’s announcement on apprenticeships, providing that genuine opportunities will be there for young people. I came across a young woman on a Government employment scheme working 32 hours in a retail business. When the scheme ended, the company said that she could remain with them, but that did not mean 32 hours’ work, but eight hours spread over a Saturday and Sunday. She is now out looking for a second job, and—who can tell?—perhaps a third job. It is a throwback to where we were in the early and mid-’90s.
I welcome the decision not to increase fuel duty, but as I have said on many occasions in the House, under the previous Government we saw nine years and 11 potential increases that were either suspended or not introduced at all.
The decision on the personal tax allowance will be welcome, but—here I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris)—many people are not even in the tax bracket, so they will see no benefit from the increase from £10,000 to £10,500.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
I would like to say that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), but I do not recognise the biased and party political points that she made. Her speech was loaded against the positive news, which should be welcomed, about measures to help people in her constituency and others who need the Government’s help and support. I hate to think of the contributions that she and many other Opposition Members would have made if we had not been able to look forward optimistically to the sustainable growth that the Government have helped craft through their difficult decisions over recent years.
As we look optimistically at that growth, it is hard to believe the predictions that the Opposition have presented to us over recent years. We all remember the “too far, too fast” line, and then there was “flatlining”. We then had predictions about a double dip and even a triple dip; then they predicted that there would be a million jobs lost. That shows the Opposition’s lack of credibility, following their previous prediction about having ended boom and bust. They simply have no economic credibility, so their criticisms of an important building block in delivering sustainable economic recovery and growth show them for what they really are.
Of course the growth is welcome, but I am also extremely impressed by the nature of the recovery. Deficit reduction is important in itself—after all, it is the fundamental building block in creating confidence. The deficit has already been reduced by a third, and the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that it will have been reduced by half by later this year. Of course, that in itself will not deliver sustainable economic growth, so we need to examine the data that are available beneath the deficit reduction figures.
The growth that we are experiencing is quite remarkable, and, again, it undermines the arguments that Opposition Members have made in recent years, and particularly today. The UK is now the fastest growing major economy in the world, and the fastest growing of the OECD nations. Even more than that, all sectors of the economy grew last year. We have to go back to 2007 to find the last time that happened, which demonstrates the balance of the economic recovery we are experiencing, be it in services, construction or manufacturing. Those are important sectors that demonstrate how growth in the economy is serving all parts and sectors of the UK, including those who are employed and those who seek employment. We are all sharing in the success.
All those who spoke from the Opposition Benches mentioned inequality and tried to highlight the differences between those who have and those who have not. However, they missed a really important line from data provided by the OBR and the Office for National Statistics, which is that we now have the least inequality in the United Kingdom for 28 years. That completely exposes all the anecdotal and selective evidence that has been presented. We have the lowest rate of inequality for 28 years, which is something Labour Members should be glad about.
If we examine the data further, we realise that the unemployment figures presented today were remarkable. Unemployment stands at 7.2% across the United Kingdom. It is unheard of for the rate of unemployment in Wales to be lower than the national average. In all my life I cannot remember unemployment in Wales being lower than across the rest of the United Kingdom, yet it now stands at 6.7%, so the gap between unemployment in Wales—my nation—and the rest of the United Kingdom is not just 0.1% as it was last month. I am absolutely delighted, and I hope that Labour Members from the Principality will join me in welcoming that success. It demonstrates that growth is serving every nation of the United Kingdom, and every sector in our country.
If we look at growth figures from the north-west, Wales or anywhere over the past two years, we see that all regions and nations of the United Kingdom have experienced levels of growth. Again, that shows that growth is not dependent on the dominance of London and the south-east, as was the case during the 13 years of the Labour Government.
Geraint Davies
As has been said, Wales has the highest level of poverty in the UK, with more in-work poverty than out-of-work poverty, and it is the most affected by the horrendous bedroom tax. The Tories are putting the boot into Wales, which is why we will kick the hon. Gentleman and the Government out next time.
Alun Cairns
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making such an important point about poverty in Wales, because it needs to be recognised. However, even in the darkest, most difficult days, when coal mines and steel plants were being closed and things were extremely difficult for those communities, Wales was not the poorest part of the United Kingdom. After 13 years of Labour control, Wales is sadly the poorest part of the United Kingdom, but it is now experiencing higher and faster growth than most other parts of the UK. That goes to show that the UK Government are playing their full part in our turning the corner and getting out of the cul-de-sac that the Labour party left us in. That was what Labour left us.
We talk about balance across the economy, but more needs to be done to strike that balance in every way, and the Budget has taken a significant step in that direction. There has been significant support for manufacturing, including a £7 billion package that provides elements for capping the carbon price support scheme. One benefit of that £7 billion will be the £50,000 cut in energy prices or costs for a mid-size manufacturing plant. There are hundreds of those in Wales, including several in my constituency, and as a result of the Budget they will get a £50,000 cut in energy costs.
Diana Johnson
I do not think the Minister was listening to what I said: 5 million workers earn much less than the personal allowance, so they are not affected by the increase. The analysis that has been done shows that the better off benefit far more from that increase. It is not a way of targeting the poorest in our society.
We are seeing the shocking growth of charity dependency in 21st-century Britain, which, as many hon. Members have said, is the seventh-richest nation. That is Dickensian in a digital age. It is tragic for the life chances of millions of people that after the coalition inherited an economy that had returned to growth in 2010, we have had three years of flatlining. Places such as Hull and the north have suffered the most from, for example, the savage cuts to council funding, despite the coalition Government’s rhetoric about rebalancing the economy.
Geraint Davies
Does my hon. Friend agree that the raising of the tax allowance, which will cost £1.4 billion to begin with and rise to £1.8 billion, compared with the bedroom tax, which will save about £500 million, shows us everything we need to know about the Government’s priorities? They are giving three times as much to people who have got some money, and the very poorest are being crushed.
Diana Johnson
My hon. Friend makes that point well. There have been 24 tax changes under the Government, and average families will be £1,600 worse off at the end of the Parliament. The recovery is too much based on the south, financial services, private consumer debt and an unsustainable property bubble. More women are now in work than ever before but many of them are in part-time work, on zero-hour contracts or on short-term contracts.
The poorest people in the most deprived areas have been hit hardest by the coalition Government. We have a bedroom tax, but we have no mansion tax. We have bank bonuses for some, but we have food banks for many. The new £1 coin neatly sums up Lib Dem involvement in the coalition. It is not the 12 sides that we need to worry about; it is the two faces. This is another Bullingdon Budget from a coalition of two parties representing one privileged class and creating two nations.
Gordon Birtwistle
I thank my hon. Friend for that remark. When it comes to the north-west, I can only speak about my constituency of Burnley, which is a prosperous manufacturing town. We have invested heavily in manufacturing over the years, and I am pleased to say that we are not one of the problems in the north-west.
I am delighted to hear about the continuation of the triple lock on pensions, which is great for pensioners. I have to declare an interest as I am a pensioner and I understand how it all works. I welcome the end to the hideous 75p rise that was awarded to pensioners under the previous Government.
I am also delighted that we still have the excellent pupil premium, as I have a number of junior schools in my constituency. One school alone receives more than £100,000 a year to help children from really poor backgrounds.
My main interests are manufacturing and apprenticeships. The Chancellor’s decision two Budgets ago to introduce capital allowances was something that I had argued for and that he had agreed were a great idea, but as the scheme had run for two years, I fully expected him to cancel it in this Budget. However, he did not cancel it; he doubled it to half a million pounds a year. An Opposition Member said that she could not understand the reason for capital allowances. She asked what they could do for manufacturing. Obviously, she has never been involved in manufacturing, and probably has never been in business. She is probably one of the few Members who do not understand what is going on.
I also want to comment on the amazing rise in apprenticeships. In my role as apprenticeships ambassador, I have been able to visit apprentices in different industries across the country. I have seen apprentices build Typhoon fighter jets at BAE Systems in Preston, missile systems in Bolton and Airbus aircraft wings in Chester. I have also seen the other side of manufacturing. Only yesterday, I went to see apprentices at Starbucks in the Westfield shopping centre in White City and they showed me how to make a proper latte with a fancy topping. I met some amazing young people.
I have also met apprentices at Next—one would not expect that such industries would have apprentices. The young apprentices at Next were absolutely amazing and a credit to the young people of this country. I did not realise that Next ran such an excellent apprenticeship scheme, which rivals the one run by Rolls-Royce. Next is committed to its young people, and it sees apprentices as its assets for the future. It is fantastic to see the massive rise in apprenticeships. Apprentices are the future—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) wants to intervene, I am happy to give way.
Geraint Davies
I am amazed that the hon. Gentleman compares the apprenticeships at Next with those at Rolls-Royce. What a disgraceful thing to say about one of our foremost companies. Picking socks is not the same as fixing engines.
Gordon Birtwistle
If the hon. Gentleman had listened rather than talked to his friends, he would have realised that I was talking about the apprenticeship scheme, and not the apprentices themselves. Next treats apprentices properly, and they go through a proper three-year training programme, as do the Rolls-Royce apprentices. It is a different industry, but those young people are as keen as the apprentices at Rolls-Royce to have a proper career—rather than the career that the Labour party offered them when they were in government—and one of which they can be proud.
The hon. Gentleman might not think that is a good idea, and perhaps in his constituency he would like young people to go on Government training schemes that deliver nothing. These schemes are delivered by proper companies for young people.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who seems to have been spellbound by the Wizard of Osborne’s Wonga economics.
I say that because since the arrival of this Government, debt as a share of GDP has risen from 55% to 75%, and it will rise to 80% when they leave office next year. [Interruption.] Contrary to the mutterings by Government Front Benchers, the reality is that the previous Government did a very good job in increasing GDP by 40% in the 10 years to 2008 and, when they faced an international crisis, by engaging in fiscal stimulus—with President Obama—to avoid a deep depression and give us a shallow recession, so that by 2010 we had the modest growth that was then destroyed by the current Chancellor. He announced 500,000 job cuts in the public sector, which basically stopped consumption and flatlined the economy, which is why the debt has grown and why this Government have borrowed more in three and a half years than the previous Government did in 13 years.
The Chancellor says that there is now growth, with a new recovery, but if we analyse that growth, we can see that lending by banks in the form of mortgages and consumer debt is at the same level as in 2008, while lending to business is down by 30%. That is why productivity has fallen—down 5% in Britain, compared with an 8% rise in America—and why this is not sustainable growth rooted in the real economy, but just a bubble in the housing market that will burst once interest rates go up, as they will when unemployment goes below 7%. After the next election, the bubble will blow up in people’s faces, as happened with sub-prime debt, because people do not have the income to pay the higher mortgage costs that will follow a rise in interest rates.
Government Members say that everything is rosy and that incomes are going up, but the people who are worst off are those on jobseeker’s allowance who are desperately looking for jobs. As I mentioned in an intervention, in Swansea 65% of people who are on JSA have been sanctioned. They have less than £72 a week to live on, but they are having money taken away for not turning up to Work programme appointments that they were only notified of the day after the appointment should have happened. That is a dreadful situation.
I met somebody last week who has chronic disabilities. He has a major heart condition. Although he is 28 years old, he was judged to have the physique of somebody of 98 by his consultant. He went to Atos and got zero points. He is now in a state of malnutrition, along with his other problems. He is unfit to work.
We all welcome the increase in the tax allowance. That will cost about £1.8 billion. There was choice about that this year.
There has been some talk of inequality being at a 25-year low. However, the changes in benefits will increase inequality. The poorest spend a greater proportion of their money on indirect taxes—some 30% for the poorest fifth compared with 14% for the richest fifth—but the Tories have decided to give money away through direct taxes, because that helps people who are better off. That is only what we would expect.
The major initiatives on exports, such as credits for exports and support for UKTI, are to be welcomed, but let us not forget that the trade deficit has grown by 15% from £100 billion to £115 billion since 2010. We welcome the increase in building, but let us not forget that the target is lower than the increase required by population growth alone. Companies such as Taylor Wimpey and Barratt are saying that they will build a maximum of only 15,000 homes a year each. All the money is being funnelled by the banking system into mortgages, which is lifting the price of existing houses, rather than into building new houses, so Help to Buy is obviously a political ploy that will blow up in our faces.
There have been cuts in infrastructure over the past two years, and they are beginning to pick up. High Speed 2 will not arrive until 2030. The Prime Minister said that he would electrify the railways in the valleys, but now he is saying that the Welsh Government should do it. The Government have given borrowing powers to the Welsh Government and so have said they have to pay for it. That was a clever bit of footwork. There was a 49% cut in road building between 2010 and 2012, and there are no new motorways or highways.
I welcome the cuts in energy prices for companies such as Tata, which is local to me. However, much of the problem was created by the Chancellor’s carbon pricing in previous Budgets.
Obviously bingo is great. If people go down the pub and buy 200 pints of beer, they will now get one pint free. That is great as well.
Overall, this is a political Budget that is focused on the better-off and the south-east, and that cuts the public services that people rely on. It could have been better for businesses and for people. We want a one nation economy, not two nations in Britain being pulled apart. We want fairness and strength, but we will not get them with this lousy Budget.
Oral Answers to Questions
Geraint Davies Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Danny Alexander
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The shale gas industry has the potential to bring jobs and growth to communities across the country. In addition, the industry will give £100,000 to communities in which fracking is taking place, as well as 1% of all production revenues. However, we will of course listen to any suggestions from my hon. Friend about how that regime could be improved.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Chief Secretary to the Treasury accept that, since the financial crash, productivity in the UK has fallen 5% but has gone up 8% in the United States, and that lending to business is down 13% and lending to mortgages is at 2008 levels? What is he doing about this? It is too little, too late.
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman is right in his description of the fall in productivity in this country. That is related to the fact that this country was hit the hardest of almost any country in the world by the financial crisis, precisely because of the unpreparedness of his party. On the whole, however, the fact that a significant number of jobs have been created in our economy in recent years, even at the cost of falling productivity, represents a preferable balance from a welfare point of view.
National Infrastructure Plan
Geraint Davies Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Danny Alexander
That is a good question, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman raise it at Culture, Media and Sport questions.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Chief Secretary knows that 80% of the money in the infrastructure plan is being spent in London and the south-east to shore up the Tory vote, but is that also why the company behind the Atlantic array has ditched its plans for offshore energy off Swansea? If not, what is the explanation?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman will have to talk to the project developer about that. I completely refute his allegation with regard to where the infrastructure projects are taking place. One of the most important projects in the plan is High Speed 2, which will benefit the whole country, including, potentially, north Wales with regard to rail access. We have also made announcements about the M4 and borrowing powers for the Welsh Government. The largest single project where there is progress today is the Wylfa nuclear power station, which the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) welcomed, and I should hope the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) would, too.
Cost of Living
Geraint Davies Excerpts(10 years, 12 months ago)
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Chris Leslie
I have not even said a word in response to the point of order. I will do so if the hon. Gentleman will allow me. It just goes to show that the Conservatives will do everything they can to distract attention from the cost of living crisis that is facing this country. As Corporal Jones might have put it, “They don’t like it up ’em!”
The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng)—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. You also want to speak, Mr Davies. You are constantly on your feet. I want to hear Mr Leslie. I also want to hear what the Government have to say. I will not hear either of them with the amount of time we have taken so far.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)
When the Opposition first tabled this motion, the title referred to the Government’s “economic failure”. The word “failure” has been mysteriously removed and replaced with “policy”. Perhaps the Opposition originally asked the Rev. Paul Flowers, who was their economic adviser, to help draft the motion. Now that they have been forced to sack him, they have had to amend the deluded original title of the motion. Even before the debate started, the Opposition have had to back down.
The Government recognise that many people up and down the country are facing living standards challenges. Each and every week I speak to many hard-working people in my constituency who are still suffering from Labour’s recession, and whose businesses or employers were hit hard in 2008 and 2009 and are still feeling the impact. Of course we all want the situation to improve.
Geraint Davies
On failure, does the hon. Gentleman accept that the movement of debt to GDP from 55% when he came into office, to 75% now and 85% by 2015, is a sign of failure both in increasing debt to a higher level than we borrowed throughout our term, and through not getting any growth?
Sajid Javid
I accept that the sharpest move in debt to GDP that this country has seen in recent times was under 13 years of Labour rule when national debt more than doubled. We will take no lectures from the Labour party about growing public debt. Allow me to remind the House, especially Labour Members, why people are facing such challenges.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Today at Prime Minister’s Question Time, I accused the Prime Minister, in essence, of knowingly moving the economy forward in a way that means that real wages continually fall and house prices go up. He knows as well as all of us that we are moving towards the rocks of rising interest rates and a sub-prime debt crisis. He is a man looking to the future, walking backwards.
There is a question over whether the Prime Minister is doing that completely unwittingly—is he sleepwalking towards disaster or knowingly walking towards it? I put it to the House that he is knowingly doing so. He is inflating the housing market when he knows that people cannot afford higher interest rates. He is willing to take those risks in the knowledge that, if and when the Labour party takes office, there will be a sub-prime debt disaster, and he will be able to say, “It is old Labour messing things up.” He is willing to pay that price, because he believes that the feel-good factor from inflated house prices in London and the south-east—his core area—where he is investing 80% of Britain’s new infrastructure to buoy his vote, will be enough, alongside the media spin, to get him back into power. I put it to the House that it will not be enough, and that we should be alerting the British public to it and to what we should do about it.
The Minister loosely referred to the funding for lending scheme used by our banks, but he would not take an intervention from me. The scheme provides easy lending, underpinned by the Bank of England. Lending to households for mortgages is now at the 2008 level, but lending to business is 32% lower than it was in 2008. What does that mean? It means that British money is not investing in productivity and growth for jobs, which means that wages are not growing and will not be strong enough to sustain the cost of higher house prices when interest rates go up.
Interest rates will go up. Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, has clearly said that, when unemployment goes down to 7%, interest rates can be let free. That is great, is it not? Obviously, unemployment going down must be good—I can see Government Members nodding their heads—but, if overall production has not grown, average productivity will have gone down. Since 2010, productivity, in the main, has been flatlining and there is no growth in the economy. There is growth in the number of people in work because we are sharing the production around, which is why real wages are falling. We do not have the investment in training and in research and development. On investment as a proportion of GDP, we are 159th in the world. On R and D investment, we are at the bottom of the developed world. We are a basket case and it is no surprise that our triple A rating was taken away.
We hear the same old Tory story that we always hear: “Labour messed it up and we have made the recovery.” The reality is that GDP grew by 40% between 1997 and 2008. We then had the international financial disaster. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) and President Obama stepped in with a fiscal stimulus to get us back to growth by 2010. Hey presto, the Tories arrived and announced that half a million people were going to be sacked, and people in the public sector stopped spending because they did not know when they were going to be sacked. So the Tories deflated consumer demand and growth has been flatlining ever since.
What has happened to our debt-to-GDP ratio? It has gone up from 55% to 75%, and will go up to 85% by 2015, because GDP has been flatlining. Debt to GDP has gone up, because debt has gone up as well. This Government have borrowed more in three and a half years than the Labour Government borrowed in 13 years. The clowns spin the story again and again in this Chamber and in the media, and the marketing campaign is working well. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor are knowingly sending us down the track towards more sub-prime debt. They hope the propaganda war will be won if Labour gets in and it blows up in its face.
This Government, and any future Labour Government, should, through the Bank of England, change the funding for lending scheme so that it focuses on business investment, not mortgage investment. Prior to the onset of the funding for lending scheme in July 2012, the mortgage market had already recovered, so we do not need the money that is going in. The scheme means that if you, Madam Deputy Speaker, were a bank, for every pound you lent to SMEs, you would have another £10 to lend elsewhere. At the moment that is going to mortgages, not SMEs. That will be changed to a ratio of 5:1. If that were to be rebalanced, the Bank of England and the Government could finance business loans—existing loans, as well as future loans—and give more money to SMEs. The financial markets are already servicing the rest of it. In addition, we have the Help to Buy scheme. All the money is therefore being channelled into a fixed stock of houses and prices will go through the roof. Would it not be better to invest in business and construction? That would increase the number of houses, reduce prices and create work.
We want a rational and sustainable economic strategy. Instead, we have a political trick that is sending us towards the abyss and the Government do not seem to care. They say that everything is recovering, but the essence of the debate is that everybody out there looks in their pockets and in their cupboards and knows that they are worse off. That will continue unless something is done to invest in business, productivity and growth.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
If the Help to Buy scheme is such an unattractive prospect, why are the Labour Administration in Cardiff adopting it?
Geraint Davies
I am not quite with the hon. Gentleman. I do not know if my analysis is lost on Conservative Members who are just repeating things without understanding the economic debate, but I am saying that we should work with Mark Carney to rebalance the funding for lending scheme in favour of business, instead of supporting the mortgage market which is already on track. That would take some of the heat out of the housing market, and help to build more houses, grow productivity, increase wages and create sustainable growth. That has nothing to do with what is happening in Cardiff.
A few references have been made to Wales, and I might as well respond to them, now that we have heard another Tory intervention. The reality is that 80% of all infrastructure investment in the UK goes to London and the south-east. Wales is one of the poorest areas of the United Kingdom; a quarter of the people live in poverty, the majority of them in work. The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) will know, because he is a member of the Welsh Affairs Committee, that what is being put in place in Wales, the future jobs fund and so on, works much more effectively than the UK Government’s Work programme. Wales is doing its best in difficult times, but the Government will not even reduce the tolls on the Severn bridge to provide further stimulus, because they do not care. All they care about is sustaining their own backyard. We have this weakened economy when there are enormous opportunities to make us strong. It is a disgrace.
I will continue to make those points about the Government, because it is becoming ever clearer that they are knowingly heading towards a sub-prime debt crisis. They should be ashamed.