Finance Bill

Debate between Graham Stuart and Nesil Caliskan

Report stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nesil Caliskan]

I want to thank the Members who have spoken so far. I have great enthusiasm for the Finance Bill, and I thank the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) for his contributions, alongside the Minister at the time, over the several days I sat through the Bill’s Committee stage. I speak in favour of the Finance Bill as a member of the Committee. I recognise that it is part of the Government’s mission to turn the page on what was a period of decline for the country.

There are several aspects of the Bill that I would like to focus on. To begin with, I see the Government’s proposals on non-dom status as a crucial part of our agenda to ensure that we are delivering a fair approach to taxation in this country. Closing the non-dom loophole, alongside extending the levy on oil and gas companies and ending the VAT exemption for private schools through this Bill, will raise the necessary income to deliver what the Government are trying to do: achieve a balanced budget that will stabilise and then grow the economy.

[Graham Stuart]

If it turns out that the energy profits levy, lugged up to even higher levels, leads to a lower tax take than there would have been if it were at a lower level, would the hon. Lady think that that was a mistake and urge her colleagues to change course?

[Nesil Caliskan]

Ministers have provided an assurance of their assessment, and they do not believe that will be the case. The Government are taking a rounded approach to energy that, alongside our commitments to GB Energy and to a transfer to more renewable energy, will allow there to be a more mission-led approach. I take the right hon. Member’s point, but the Government have provided assurances that there will be constant monitoring and that if changes are required they will deliver them.

Finance Bill

Debate between Graham Stuart and Nesil Caliskan

2nd reading
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. Let us travel back in time to those halcyon days for the Labour party: so confidently predicting victory in the election, so far ahead in the opinion polls and so clear on the prospectus they laid before the British people. It had a fully funded, fully costed programme. When the now Chancellor was challenged about whether she had a full insight into the public finances, she assured the interviewer, if I recall correctly, that absolutely she did. Therefore, people could rely on the cast-iron promise, which all Labour Members stood on, that Labour would not raise national insurance, would not raise income tax, would protect farmers and would not cut pensioners’ benefits. That was the promise.

But it is better than that. It is not just that Labour was not going to bring in all those taxes, but that it was going to make growth their No. 1 mission for a mission-led Government. Those who feared a return to a sort of socialist job-destroying and enterprise-wrecking past could be reassured that this was a moderate party that had put the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) well behind it, no matter how many Labour Members had said he was a great friend and would make a great Prime Minister. They had changed their mind. There was a moderate promise.

It was not only members of the public who were led to believe in the Labour mission and what it could bring for the country. Imagine Labour Members, the people who were selected as candidates for the Labour party, who came in not to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party but to this Labour party of enterprise, protecting workers and encouraging a low-tax system, but doing so in a way that none the less would prioritise the healthcare system, special educational needs children and the like. That was the promise and it did not just beguile many people in the country—although not that many, as only 34% of people actually did vote Labour, but none the less enough. Imagine what it was like—I say this to Opposition Members—to come to this place and be a part of that fantastic crew of hundreds and hundreds of Labour MPs to deliver that manifesto. And where are we now at the historic Second Reading of the Finance Bill of the central policy measures of this new Government. Where are they?

[Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Graham Stuart]

They have been humiliated in the Budget debate, as one after another repeated their rote words. It was the most intellectually empty Budget debate I have ever taken part in. I listened to Labour Member after Labour Member trot out their “14 years of chaos” and their “£22 billion black hole”.

[Nesil Caliskan]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jim Dickson]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Graham Stuart]

It would be entirely wrong of me, given how few Labour Members there are in the Chamber prepared to defend the Budget, if I did not now give way to one of them.

[Nesil Caliskan]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for finally giving way. I wonder if he might use the opportunity to reflect on the economic record of the previous Government, which saw the highest interest rates and inflation through the roof that affected people’s pockets and their ability to get on in life. Will he also reflect on the fact that his party lost the election and perhaps show some humility?

[Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I am happy to do so, although it is worth pointing out that we are supposed to reflect today on the actual proposals put forward by the Government of which she is now a member.

But the hon. Lady is right to highlight the Conservative’s economic record. I have a criticism of those of us on the Conservative Benches: I do not think we do enough to talk about it. From 2010 to 2024, which economy in Europe grew the most? Was it Germany or the UK? Oh, it was the UK! Was it France or the UK? Oh, it was the UK! Which country in Europe created 4 million more jobs? For which Government did the horrible scar of youth unemployment, which was a permanent feature even in the good years prior to the crash—for those interested in the history of employment—stay horribly high, with its long-term scarring impact on young people? It was the Labour Government.

All that was turned around. People were paying tax at £6,500 when Labour left power. That was lifted to £12,500. They may be decrying and disowning their part in the coalition Government, but the Liberal Democrats should have some pride in what we were able to do together. We inherited an economic basket case. We brought discipline back. But while we were fixing the foundations, we did not lose sight of the fact that we knew where the wealth comes from. It comes from the private sector, not the public sector—from those small shops, those restaurants, all those other businesses on which the country relies for its wealth. This Budget has gone down and damaged each and every one of them, one by one. It has looked around for targets—the “broad shoulders” for the socialist envy to vent itself on—and who better than landowners?

So the Budget focuses on people. I am not an expert on every area of the economic life of this country, but let us suppose that I looked across the entire economy and tried to find people in private enterprise using their own assets. Where would people have millions of pounds in assets and be prepared to receive a 1% return on them? Who would keep that up, year after year, simply in order to feed the nation as part of a pact—a compact—between them and the Government, indeed the whole country? Who would be prepared to do that, and to feed us, while asking so little in return? Attacking farmers, of all groups in society, is one of the most retrograde and regrettable of attacks.