Scotland Bill
Geraint Davies Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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David Mundell
Indeed. I hope these measures will allow the debate to move from process to action and policy, and that we can finally hear from the Scottish Government how they intend to deploy the significant powers that are provided in the Bill and in the Scotland Act 2012.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) said that the deficiency of the Bill is that it does not allow Scotland to raise all the money it spends. I am confused. I thought the SNP did not want full fiscal and financial autonomy because that would get rid of the Barnett formula. Is the Secretary of State any the wiser?
David Mundell
I think the hon. Gentleman, like me, looks forward to amendments to the Bill being tabled, setting out the SNP position on full fiscal autonomy. I have heard that issue raised on numerous occasions but I am still not absolutely clear what it means in the SNP’s terms. The Institute for Fiscal Studies identifies a black hole of between £7 billion and £10 billion in Scotland’s finances.
David Mundell
There are existing dispute reconciliation mechanisms in the Joint Ministerial Committee. There have inevitably been a number of disputes between the Government of the United Kingdom and the devolved Administrations, and most of them have been able to be resolved through that process.
To respond to the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), I will turn to the provisions of the Bill. It is a wide-ranging Bill that will bring about a transfer of responsibility to Holyrood that will touch just about every aspect of Scottish life, affect every pay packet in Scotland and have the potential to deliver real and tangible benefits to the people of Scotland.
I turn first to the provisions on taxation. Central to the Bill is the devolution of income tax. Although the definition of income tax will remain reserved, the Scottish Parliament will have full control over rates and bands. That builds on the tax devolution set out in the Scotland Act 2012, which provided for significant powers over income tax that will come into effect next April.
One notable change to the Bill, compared with the draft clauses published in January, is the confirmation that the Scottish Parliament will be able to set a zero rate of income tax on earnings if it so chooses. That effectively gives it the opportunity to reduce the individual’s tax burden significantly if it can afford to do so and makes appropriate spending cuts or tax rises elsewhere. Of course, the reverse is true—if the Scottish Government want to spend more, they will be able to do so by taxing more, and they will be accountable to the Scottish taxpayer for it.
Alongside the devolution of income tax sits the assignment of half of Scotland’s VAT revenues. Members will recall that it is against EU law to have differential VAT rates within a member state, so the devolution of VAT would not be legal.
David Mundell
No, I have already taken an intervention from the hon. Gentleman.
Instead of the devolution of VAT, the Smith commission recommended that half the VAT revenues raised in Scotland should be assigned to the Scottish Parliament, thereby further linking Holyrood’s funding to the performance of the Scottish economy. The more the Scottish economy grows, the greater the revenue from VAT that Holyrood will be able to keep. That is an incentive to achieve growth.
Ian Murray
I am grateful for that intervention. The Scottish referendum debate demonstrated that when there is a proper constitutional debate, under a framework for proper constitutional debate, the results are there for all to see. The overall position of the constitutional convention that we were proposing in our manifesto would have been the way to take some of these issues forward. Colleagues across England would be significantly upset to see that the devolution structure across the UK is progressing quickly while they are being hamstrung with what is being offered to them. The Government really do need to get a grip of this whole constitutional settlement across the UK, so that England does not seem as though it is losing out.
Geraint Davies
On that point, does my hon. Friend think it bizarre that this Government are giving Scotland the right to increase and decrease its income tax, while legislating so that England and Wales cannot increase income tax? Is that not a bit strange?
Ian Murray
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, because one key question for the Treasury Minister wrapping up today’s debate will be: if the Government legislate for not increasing VAT, national insurance or income tax, what are they going to increase to cover the £23 billion of promises they made during the general election? I suppose the direct answer to my hon. Friend’s question is to say that that is the way devolution works and it is up to the different legislators to decide what they wish to do. This Bill allows Scotland a settlement where the responsibility and the accountability goes straight to the heart of politics in Scotland.
I was saying that as this Bill makes its passage through the House, Labour will ensure that legislation promises are fully met both in substance and in spirit. The original purpose of devolution was to keep the social solidarity that comes from being part of something bigger while recognising the uniqueness of Scotland’s role in the United Kingdom. But we in the Labour party want to go further. We have been calling for more powers for some time and included most of them in our manifesto, so this is not a knee-jerk response to the general election result as some would say, but a continuation of the devolution commitment.
Mr Jenkin
I hope that the House noted that the right hon. Gentleman has retreated from full fiscal autonomy to full fiscal responsibility. People do not like politicians playing with words, which is exactly what he is doing. The fact is that he does not want full fiscal autonomy because he knows that it would result in dramatic cuts to public spending in Scotland.
On the question of taxation, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South ought to reflect on the fact that one of the problems identified by his hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) is that Scotland would be setting tax rates and having effects that English voters do not have for their own tax rates, which is exactly the same argument that we made against the Scotland Bill in 1997-98. He might reflect on how we have got into that situation. [Interruption.] Oh yes, because the Scotland Act 1998 allowed the Scots a 3% variation in income tax. They never used it, but it set up the very anomaly that the hon. Member for Swansea West complained about.
Smith Commission
Geraint Davies Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mr Carmichael
The question is how the Scottish Government choose to use any flexibility they have. If they choose to cut air passenger duty, they will obviously have to cut some public service provision or raise some other tax. The hon. Gentleman should not assume that flexibility only goes one way.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
In Wales, we are required to have a referendum before we have income tax devolution of a much more modest nature. The devolution of income tax in Scotland will have profound implications for migration. In particular, if the Scots lower the top rate of tax, richer people will naturally move to Scotland. If unemployment goes up in Scotland, they will raise tax at the lower rate and reduce public services, because they do not have compensatory borrowing powers. Given that, should there not be a referendum of not just the 8% of people who live in Scotland, but of the rest of the UK? We should not be driven by the 4% of people who voted for independence; the profound implications for migration, taxation and all the rest of it should be decided by the whole of the United Kingdom.
Mr Carmichael
That is not how we have done these things in the years since the late 1970s, when such decisions were first mooted. The hon. Gentleman has outlined all sorts of scenarios, many of which are possible, and some of which we may even see. That is what we mean when we say that the United Kingdom changed for ever on 18 September. The duty is on all of us in the political parties and the body politic to come up to the mark and to meet that change. As far as referendums are concerned, I am afraid that I have had enough to be going on with.
Oral Answers to Questions
Geraint Davies Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend speaks not only for the whole House but for the whole country in being completely baffled—and, frankly, angry—at the decision made by FIFA. If teams want to put the poppy on their shirts, as many teams do in our football league, they should be able to do so at national level, whether it is the English team or the Welsh team. This is an appalling decision, and I hope that FIFA will reconsider it.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Q11. As poverty is rising, the Prime Minister is removing the requirement for people to register to vote in Britain, thereby removing millions of people’s right to vote. Is he not taking their money with one hand and taking their votes with another? Is it not a grotesque distortion of democracy to force austerity measures on the most vulnerable while removing their voting power?
The Prime Minister
The point that I would make to the hon. Gentleman is that we are introducing individual voter registration, which is a Labour policy, so he should be welcoming it. I can understand why he does not necessarily support the idea of making all constituencies the same size, because his constituency has only 62,000 people in it, whereas his right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) represents 91,000 people. I think that it is a basic act of fairness to have seats the same size. It was a demand of the Chartists in the 1840s, and I think that it is time we introduced it.