Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

No, Mr Speaker. The total tax take from that sector is £80 billion over five years, which is more than the entire cost of funding the police force. The shadow Chancellor can play politics, but we will be responsible because we want lower bills, more investment in transition and more money for public services, such as the police.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

T3. The Financial Conduct Authority is currently advertising for a personal assistant to its chief executive, to work alongside another PA, a chief of staff, a head of office, three private secretaries and a PA to the chief of staff. Given the largesse in their own affairs, what is my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary doing to hold financial service regulators to account?

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrew Griffith)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why the Financial Services and Markets Bill rightly improves the accountability of regulators to Parliament. It is about not just the cost of regulation, but the speed and efficiency of it. I read with concern work from TheCityUK suggesting that 90% of industry respondents thought that the speed of authorisations was either “somewhat” or “extremely” detrimental.

Non-domestic Energy Support

Greg Smith Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. I would have to know the exact details, but, yes, I am more than happy to meet him. He will be aware that the care home could benefit from EBRS, which will become the eligible discount scheme after March, but I stress that there are 900,000 in England, Scotland and Wales without a direct relationship with an energy supplier, such as care home and park home residents. This month they will be able to apply online for £400 of non-repayable help with their fuel bills.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I very much welcome the package of support announced this afternoon and the enormity of the total support package, but may I push my hon. Friend a little on what is energy intensive? Padbury Meats, a butcher in my constituency, wrote to me over the weekend. It is a healthy business with a huge gross income per annum, it employs six staff and has no borrowings. Thanks to careful decisions, it managed to buy a freehold and therefore pays no rent, but it has seen a fourfold increase in its energy bills since the invasion of Ukraine and is not making a profit. The owner is personally subsidising the business through their own savings, which is not sustainable. Instead of looking at specific energy-intensive industries, will he look at the proportionality of energy bills to total revenue to determine which businesses, such as butchers who have huge fridges and walk-in freezers, need support?

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The first part of my answer may disappoint him, but I want to be clear. The additional support, particularly for manufacturing, is not just about energy intensity but trade intensity. There are two measures that determine if sectors are entitled to support: whether they are above the 80th percentile for energy intensity and the 60th percentile for trade intensity. So, it may be that the sector does not fit in that category. But that is why—I appreciate the support is less generous, but it is still significant—alongside the additional support for the intensive users, there will still be a universal scheme offering a discount from April this year to March next year.

Autumn Statement

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I have had wonderful holidays in the hon. Member’s constituency and can attest to the high levels of wind and water there. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the country. The windfall tax rate on electricity generators is calculated to ensure that we tax only genuine windfall profits. It is reasonable to do that. Overall, these taxes will raise about £54 billion, and this year and next year we will spend more than £100 billion to support people with their energy bills. It will only kick in at £75 a unit, which is a generously high level.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend when he talks about the inflationary pressures coming from the aftershocks of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. We see that at the fuel pumps and, more significantly, our haulage and logistics sector sees it with the enormous level of taxation on diesel in particular driving inflation to get food and goods on to our shelves. As he prepares for the March Budget, will he look at the inflationary impact of fuel duty on top of the high cost of diesel and see whether we can reduce it?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I assure my hon. Friend that I will absolutely do that. We have a little time, and I know that fuel duty is an important issue to him and many other colleagues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Victoria Atkins)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The Government received about £143 billion in the last financial year from value added tax, which helps to pay for the services that we all care about, such as the national health service, so strict restrictions have been placed on the goods that can be exempted from VAT. I understand her concerns, however, and I would be happy to meet her to discuss what other forms of support we can provide. For example, we can commend Tesco, which has taken the decision not to charge VAT on its products.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

The noble Lord Berkeley in the other place has estimated that scrapping HS2 would save the British taxpayer £147 billion—more pessimistic estimates have the saving at £100 billion. With a day of difficult decisions coming up on Thursday, surely scrapping HS2 is an easy one?

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is consistent on this point. We are always keen to hear savings suggestions from colleagues, but to be clear, HS2 is a long-term investment that will bring our biggest cities closer together and boost productivity. It currently supports 29,000 jobs and will create 2,000 apprenticeships. Through better connecting the country, it will open up new employment and leisure opportunities for millions of people.

The Growth Plan

Greg Smith Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

When a recession and economic downturns have hit in the past, the people most adversely affected are the most vulnerable in society. That means we have a duty to grow the economy and make sure that we turbo-charge growth. That is how we will help all our constituents.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the return to the low-tax free market principles that we on the Conservative Benches know will lead to growth and prosperity for everybody in our country. We know the role played by the self-employed and entrepreneurs in growing the economy and getting us back to prosperity after the mess that the Labour party made of the economy when it was last in government, so I was delighted to see the reforms to IR35 in my right hon. Friend’s statement. There are 12,000 registered self-employed people in my constituency; will he confirm that the reforms will come quickly to give the self-employed of today, the entrepreneurs of tomorrow and the businesses that might contract their services the confidence to get on and grow?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Absolutely—100%.

Economy Update

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

The Energy Secretary is engaged in a conversation with the industry, the Competition and Markets Authority and others about ensuring that our energy market works fairly for consumers. I know that he will treat those matters as a priority.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Is not a huge risk of increasing tax on businesses that they will seek to pass that increased overhead back to consumers? Although the energy price cap will protect people on mains gas and stop that happening to them, a huge proportion of households and businesses in my constituency rely on domestic heating oil and liquefied petroleum gas. What mechanism will my right hon. Friend put in place to ensure that businesses with a higher tax burden do not seek to pass that cost back to those consumers?

[Rishi Sunak]

In general, the evidence from previous iterations shows that that does not happen, mainly because those commodities are traded at international prices, so the domestic tax regime does not change the price that is being passed on, but I am happy to take my hon. Friend’s point away.

Covid-19: Government Support for Business

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s points. I have constant contact with the Chancellor, and I will make sure he is very aware of the range and strength of opinion in the House today.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s commitment to the meetings this afternoon, but a common theme has developed on both sides of the House of reports, including in my constituency, of pubs losing 50% to 60% of their bookings. Like the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), I have a local coach operator that reported losing £40,000-worth of bookings yesterday alone. While advisers press the panic button way beyond what this House voted for a couple of days ago, can my hon. Friend give me an absolute assurance that there will be a decision by Ministers after his meetings this afternoon that will give businesses the clarity they need on the support they will get in this effective lockdown?

[John Glen]

What we will do is listen carefully and act appropriately. Just yesterday, we secured this covid additional relief fund to support the supply chain and city centre economies, but I fully recognise that we are in a very difficult and rapidly changing set of circumstances, and it is important that Ministers act and make decisions on the basis of that data and the evidence that is presented to this House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)]

What recent estimate his Department has made of the number of furloughed employees moving back into work.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

What recent estimate his Department has made of the number of furloughed employees moving back into work.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)]

Between the end of January and the end of April, 1.5 million people left the furlough scheme. The most recent business survey from the Office for National Statistics estimates that the number of employees furloughed continued to decline after that point, to approximately 2 million at the end of May, which is the lowest level reported by the survey since June last year. At the same time, the number of payrolled employees has increased for six consecutive months. I believe that the coronavirus job retention scheme is striking the right balance between supporting the economy as it opens up, continuing to provide support and protect incomes, and ensuring that incentives are in place to get people back to work as demand returns.

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The furlough scheme has supported more than 11.5 million jobs since the start of the pandemic, and she is right to say that at that point, forecasts suggested that unemployment would peak at around 12%. Those forecasts now show unemployment peaking at half that level, which means 2 million fewer people losing their jobs than previously feared. Our unemployment today is lower than that in Italy, France, Spain, Canada, the United States and Australia, and it shows that our plan for jobs is working.

[Greg Smith]

The figures my right hon. Friend gave in his earlier answers are encouraging, but some employers in my constituency with employees still on furlough tell me that they are desperate to get those employees back to work, but the uncertainty over when restrictions will finally be lifted is holding them back. For example, in the events supply chain, the unwillingness of customers to pay deposits is holding those firms back. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the way to get the economy moving and get those employees back to work is for restrictions to be lifted by 19 July?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is right, and my hope and expectation is that we lift those restrictions on 19 July. By that point, we will have done what we set out to do, which is to get extra jabs in more people’s arms to provide us with that extra level of protection. My hon. Friend is right: the only sustainable way to protect those jobs is to reopen the economy so that people can return to work and provide for their families, and move on to bright new opportunities.

Vaccine Passports

Greg Smith Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.

Many of the arguments relevant to the debate have already been eloquently made, not least by my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Mr Baker), for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) and for Bolton West (Chris Green). I shall begin with the concept of international versus domestic. I am far less concerned with vaccine passports focused on opening up borders. It is not unusual to need a host of jabs to travel to certain places, and I have happily proven my vaccination status on, for example, yellow fever when visiting Tanzania. That is right and fair, but domestic covid certificates, whether used by public services or private businesses, would be intrusive, pointless and wrong. I fear they would be tantamount to moving vaccination on to a more mandatory footing.

The World Health Organisation released a statement only a couple of months ago, saying that it was opposed for the time being to the introduction of vaccine passports. That said, there does appear to be a global push towards these restrictions on individual liberty. In my opinion, the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), was right when he stated that vaccine certificates would be “discriminatory”.

I want to be clear that, when my turn comes, I will be having my jab, and I encourage everybody to have their covid vaccination when offered it. However, the vaccine passport concept would have a disproportionate impact on groups in our society where vaccine hesitancy is at its highest. We cannot allow a position where significant numbers of Britons are turned away from jobs and services on the basis of their vaccination status.

Moreover, as other hon. Members have said, some people cannot be vaccinated. There are groups that are medically advised to avoid vaccination, from pregnant women, as the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) mentioned, to people with other health conditions, such as a young woman in my constituency who wrote to me, who suffers from epilepsy but is otherwise healthy. She is desperate to return to her university and continue her education. Should she not also be allowed to take part in our society?

The implication for young people at large would indeed be immense. At present, most young people have not been offered a vaccine. Vaccine certificates would result in young people facing more stringent social restrictions than others, all through no fault of their own.

Importantly, a vaccine certificate scheme may also be counterproductive, with research showing that compelling people to take vaccines does not necessarily result in the higher uptake that we all want to see. Individuals are best placed to make their own choices. I am incredibly proud of the progress the United Kingdom has made in vaccinating the population, but that should be used to set people free, not to restrict their freedoms further.

I close with this view: I fear that, should vaccine certificates become commonplace, they would inevitably expand and endure beyond the immediate challenges of this pandemic. I do not believe that should be allowed to happen.

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

Mr Paisley has had to temporarily leave our proceedings because he is on the call list in the main Chamber. I call Mr Alistair Carmichael.

Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

What fiscal steps his Department is taking to support businesses affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

What fiscal steps his Department is taking to support businesses affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

What fiscal steps his Department is taking to support businesses affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we must get support to businesses as quickly as possible. I am pleased to confirm to her that guidance will be published, hopefully by the end of this week, for local authorities, and that the restart grants, which are designed to take the place of our grant scheme that runs out at the end of April, will be distributed to local authorities in the first full week—the week commencing 5 April. I hope that is a reassurance to her and her businesses, and that local authorities can get the cash to them at this vital time.

[Greg Smith]

The scale of support for businesses has been truly outstanding, but may I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the coach industry? Pre-pandemic, it already found itself heavily indebted because of requirements that the state put on it, such as the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 and Euro 6 requirements, so will he look again at how the coach industry can be supported, given the level of debt it is already in?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for shining a spotlight on this important industry; he is right to do so. I know that he will be talking to the Department for Transport about regulations for the industry, but I can tell him that we will be providing local authorities with discretionary funding of around £425 million to sit alongside the restart grants. That money, at the discretion of local areas, can be used to support businesses such as coach businesses in their areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

This Government are committed to record amounts of investment in infrastructure, both road and rail, as we heard from my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary earlier. The Budget announced upgrades for several stations in and around the midlands after representations that we heard from the fantastic Mayor, Andy Street, about the needs of his area. We remain committed to publishing the integrated rail plan in due course.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has rightly been open with the House and the public about the scale of the challenge to the public finances, but on a point of detail, further to the assumptions in the Red Book, does his Department plan to undertake dynamic scoring of the changes to corporation akin to the previous detailed CGE—computable general equilibrium —modelling since 2010, and will this be published in full?

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

What a fantastically niche question from my hon. Friend, and how delighted I am to be able to answer it. He will know that scoring is a matter for the OBR. As the Budget policy costings in the Budget 2021 document set out, the costing for corporation tax has been adjusted to reflect behavioural responses to an increase in the rate of corporation tax. It is important to be clear that dynamic scoring can include a number of potential behavioural responses, such as adjustments to reflect the impact on the incentive to incorporate, on profit shifting, and on investment. If he is so minded, he can find further detail on page 196 of the OBR’s “Economic and fiscal outlook”.