Graham Stuart
Main Page: Graham Stuart (Conservative - Beverley and Holderness)
Mr Jones
Well it will be. The mistake that the Government are making in the spin they are clearly putting out is in saying that this will affect only the “undeserving poor”—the workshy and feckless. As my right hon. Friend rightly points out, many people in receipt of council tax benefit are in low-paid work. In sectors where jobs are growing, the increases are mainly in part-time, low-paid and low-skilled jobs, so more people might come into this bracket.
This measure will affect people, and not only in terms of their council tax benefit; we need to add on the ludicrous nonsense in the housing benefit changes, which will result in individuals in my constituency who have an extra bedroom suddenly finding themselves up to £10 to £15 a week worse off. The Government’s measures will have a cumulative effect on the poorest communities and, I have to say, some of the hardest-working individuals in this country. We might add to that this Government’s VAT increases, which the Liberal Democrats and the Deputy Prime Minister were clear in opposing before the election only then to implement and turn a blind eye to, saying, “It does not really matter because we have a commitment to reducing income tax.” The cumulative effect of these measures will be to take a vast amount of money out of the poorest communities in the country. The opportunity to gain full-time employment is very limited in some areas, because of short-time working, which means lower wages, and the growth in the number of part-time workers.
The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) has at least admitted that this is exactly what the Government are doing. I have a cutting here from the Daily Mail of 11 June 2010 headlined, “Tory minister under fire for gaffe as he tells MPs: ‘Those in most need will bear the burden of cuts’”. The article states:
“Unveiling a 1.2 billion package of cuts to councils, Local Government minister Bob Neill suggested the poorest areas would suffer the most.
Asked why northern cities were losing…more than southern areas, Mr Neill said: ‘Those in greatest need ultimately bear the burden of paying off the debt.’”
That comes from exactly the same Government who were happy to slash the income tax rate from 50p to 45p, giving huge tax breaks to some of the wealthiest in the country. The Minister should come to North Durham to speak to some of my constituents in low-paid work who are earning less than what some of these individuals are going to get in tax breaks in a year. That clearly shows that the Government do not have a clue about the effect on the poorest in our society. The idea that we are all in this together is complete nonsense.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that for nearly the entirety of the period for which his party was in office the higher rate of tax was lower than it is today. As for the hypocrisy we are hearing from the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues who put this country in a position where public expenditure must necessarily be brought under control, his party always leaves office with unemployment higher that when it entered it and it is under his party that the money has all gone. This Government are having to deal with that, and he should show some shame for his part in the situation.
Mr Jones
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is old enough to remember records—I think he is—but if he does he will remember that trying to play a broken record is very difficult. The rhetoric from the election, when the Government blamed everything, including the world recession, on the Labour party, has now become a broken record. We are now into another recession in this country that was of this Government’s making. It is interesting that the Chancellor of the Exchequer now argues that the British economy is not doing well because of the eurozone. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, when the banking crisis hit, it was all Labour’s fault; now it is all Europe’s fault. The only people who are not accepting any responsibility are this coalition Government.
Was our borrowing in 2008 and 2009 the right thing to do? Yes, it was. It was the right thing to do to ensure a growing and stable economy. We do not have that now; we have a recession that has been made in Downing street by this coalition Government. The idea that the fair way of dealing with that is to reduce the top rate of income tax so that it will, through Reaganomics, trickle down to boost the economy is complete nonsense. We have also heard complete nonsense this afternoon that the way to get growth is to slash employment rights. The Government are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think that that will not have an effect on local people.
I was in local government for about 11 years, and I know that if a Government tinker with the system only to get it wrong they pay for it dearly. I remember the Conservative Government getting the poll tax wrong. Even when it was quite evident that it was going to be complete chaos, they would not change their mind. We are trying to rush through a system that will affect some of the poorest people and the poorest councils, adding to the injustice of the skewed way in which the Government have rewarded their friends on councils in the south. We are setting local government an absolutely horrendous task. The idea that the system can somehow be changed tomorrow at the flick of a switch is complete nonsense and I hate to think of the sleepless nights these provisions will give local treasurers. The practicalities will have an effect on councils’ individual income while they try to work out the system.