Finance (No. 2) Bill

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman is wilfully misinterpreting what the welfare cap is about. If he had listened to my speech summing up the debate on the welfare cap last week, he would have discovered that the cap was a means of ensuring transparency and accountability to the House in relation to increases in welfare expenditure. In the past, welfare increases were smuggled through the forecasts without proper transparency and scrutiny. The reforms will ensure that, when expenditure is forecast to breach the cap, the Minister responsible will have to come to the House and explain why the breach is happening and what he or she intends to do about it. That could include introducing measures to reduce expenditure; it could also include an increase in the cap, if that is regarded desirable. Given that the hon. Gentleman’s party seems to believe that, under independence, it would be possible for taxes to fall and for expenditure to rise without the chickens coming home to roost, it is not surprising that it should oppose measures to increase accountability to this House on expenditure. The result of the vote last week showed, however, that the House as a whole welcomes the opportunity to hold the Government to greater account for expenditure increases in that area.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has set out some of the policies in the Budget, but he has not yet mentioned the school funding reform that was introduced before the Budget by the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) and which will be implemented by the Finance Bill. Does the Chief Secretary to the Treasury agree that those changes, brought about as a result of the F40 fairer funding campaign, will have a seismic effect in many counties up and down the country?

[Danny Alexander]

The measures that my right hon. Friend the Schools Minister has introduced are not actually in the Finance Bill, and I hope that their impact will not be seismic in the literal sense, but I agree with my hon. Friend that they will make a serious difference to schools in his area and in other historically underfunded areas of England that have been campaigning for a long time for a fairer level of funding in their schools. I am glad to hear that my hon. Friend welcomes those measures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Alexander]

I certainly do bear that in mind. No party in this House—certainly not mine—is proposing any change to, for example, the tax-free lump sum arrangements, which is an important part of how the policy that my hon. Friend describes is delivered. Some people would equally well say that it would be unfair for someone to receive tax relief at 40% on the way in, but only pay tax at 20% on the way out. There are a whole range of issues that require a wider debate. In this Parliament, the coalition Government have set out some reforms for pensions tax relief. We have no intention of going further than the reforms that we have already made and I think that the annual and lifetime limits are the right ways to address this.

[Guy Opperman]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way a second time. He has not touched on the regions yet, so I wanted to ask him whether he is aware that the Budget was welcomed by the North East chamber of commerce at a time when job numbers are improving, apprenticeships have almost doubled and the rise in the personal allowance, which is going through this week, will see a further 14,000 people taken out of income tax.

[Danny Alexander]

I had not intended to mention the regions, but I am glad that my hon. Friend has given me the opportunity to do so. His point is absolutely right: the action we have taken and the economic plan the coalition has seen through, through thick and thin—the tax reductions for individuals, motorists and so on, the measures to support investment in important sectors, such as energy and offshore renewables, and the support for exporters—are creating jobs and prosperity up and down the country including, I am delighted to hear, in his area.

I was outlining the immediate changes to pensions flexibility that we are legislating for in the Bill. Taken together, the reforms that I listed mean that more than 400,000 people will be able to access their pension more flexibly in 2014-15. We are making these changes because this Government believe that those who have worked hard and saved sensibly are in the best position to decide for themselves how to provide for their own retirement.

In conclusion, as I am conscious that many Members wish to speak in the debate, the Finance Bill is ambitious, fair, liberal and deals with the biggest issues facing the finances of British people. It takes further steps to deliver long-term sustainable economic growth and to complete the biggest liberalisation of our pension system in nearly a century. It takes the first £10,000 of people’s earnings out of tax altogether and, as such, is a Bill that echoes my objective, and that of my party, of building a stronger economy in a fairer society in which every person has the best chance to get on in life. I commend the Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

Trying to get inside the heads of the Liberal Democrats could take quite a long time. The Chief Secretary is enjoying being at close quarters with the Conservative party a little bit too much. The Conservatives have captured him—it is called capture bonding. Sometimes he even starts to view the abuse or the lack of it as rewarding. That is not coalition; that is Stockholm syndrome.

[Guy Opperman]

May I return to the issue of the regions? Does the hon. Gentleman agree or disagree with the interpretation of the north-east chamber of commerce and the Trinity Mirror-owned Newcastle Journal, which welcomed the broad thrust of the Budget’s job-creating policies, its help for small and medium-sized firms and apprenticeships, reform of air passenger duty and general relief for energy-intensive industries?

[Chris Leslie]

We should be cutting business rates for small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very surprised that the Government are focusing their help predominantly on the 2% of the largest multinationals—the big firms—and not doing, in my view, sufficient for that 98% of British business, the small and medium-sized enterprises. They will be the backbone of a recovery and we have to do much more to support them.

It is a shame that in the Bill the Government are choosing to go to that 20% rate in April 2015. We could instead use that resource and focus it on the multiplicity of small firms. They should be getting a cut in business rates. We calculate that it would deliver an average tax cut of at least £400 for 1.5 million properties through the business rates system, benefiting small and medium-sized enterprises, which after all are the backbone of the economy. They provide the dynamism to get the growth going, which we so desperately need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

That is a very interesting explanation. There is a shift in policy, which is to let certain banks off the hook when it comes to the bank levy. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is right and that is a strategy. I have given the Minister an opportunity to explain what exactly the Government’s plan is, but he will not put it on the record. We will have to explore that in more depth in Committee.

While we are on the financial services sector, let us look at what the Government are doing in clause 107, which relates to stamp duty reserve tax. My hon. Friends might begin to wonder what that is all about, especially when we say that it is known as the schedule 19 charge, which refers to the 1999 Finance Bill. Many people think, “Oh well, we’ll see what comes of these taxes.” But the schedule 19 charge, set out in clause 107 of this Bill, seeks—this is the priority of these Conservative and crypto-Conservative Members—to give a tax cut of £145 million to the investment management industry by abolishing stamp duty reserve tax. At the same time, my hon. Friends’ constituents are having to cope with the bedroom tax, extra council tax charges and the VAT increase. Despite the hardships they are facing, the priority of the Chief Secretary and the Exchequer Secretary is to give away £145 million by abolishing stamp duty reserve tax. I know that they have been lobbied heavily on that.

We will oppose that change, because we think that the Government should be using that resource to help scrap the bedroom tax, if indeed it is raising any money—I have my doubts about that. The National Housing Federation states that it might well be costing more than the Government planned. We certainly should not be giving away that money, especially at a time when the investment management industry, which holds £5.4 trillion in collective funds, increased its holdings by about 7% in 2013. I do not think that £145 million is an unreasonable sum to ask from a sector that has been doing very well in recent years. We should be making sure that we pursue a fair policy and so will oppose that clause.

We then come to the Bill’s tax avoidance measures. We know that the Government have a bad record on that—[Interruption.] Well, they do. The oh-so-successful Exchequer Secretary, who cannot even manage to get the amounts of money he promised from the banks, cannot manage to get from the Swiss the £5 billion he promises through the Swiss tax deal. The Chief Secretary stood up a moment ago and said that he would get only £1.7 billion. We had a deal with the Liechtenstein Government, which we projected would bring in £2 billion; in fact, it has brought in £2.5 billion. When we have tax deals with tax havens, they work. However, when the Exchequer Secretary gets his fingers on these things, it is amazing how it all goes wrong—it is his reverse Midas touch.

The Government have fallen into bad habits in pencilling into the Red Book projections of revenues from the avoidance measures that involve what the OBR calls particularly uncertain assumptions. The Government are, of course, quick to spend the projected money; Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies calls such moves the Chancellor’s manoeuvres, always relying on revenues that are by nature uncertain. It is important that we scrutinise whether the supposed tax avoidance deals will deliver what the Government say.

Rather than the measures in the Bill, we need action to deliver starter jobs, guaranteed for the long-term unemployed. The number of young people out of work for a year or more has doubled and we need compulsory starter jobs for those who have suffered unemployment, which is a scourge not just on society but on their career prospects. We need action on child care. Free child care should be extended from 15 to 25 hours, paid for through a proper collection of the bank levy.

We need a help to build scheme to counter-balance the Help to Buy scheme. There is a serious risk—as the Chief Secretary knows, even the Governor of the Bank of England has concerns about these things—of a lop-sided recovery unless we match the boosting of demand with the boosting of supply. A help to build scheme particularly focused on ensuring that small and medium-sized construction companies can do better is one way to make a big difference.

[Guy Opperman]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the north-east, the Help to Buy scheme is absolutely transforming the housing market? In Humbles Wood in Prudhoe, a housing development in my area, 90% of new purchases have been through Help to Buy. That must be good news that the hon. Gentleman wants to welcome.

[Chris Leslie]

We do not oppose the Help to Buy scheme unless it is not accompanied by a help to build scheme. The supply of housing is key. Housing policy must revolve around affordability. We now have the lowest level of house building since the 1920s; the Government cannot just turn a blind eye to that problem. Affordability has to be at the heart of our approach. It is all very well helping people on to ever-higher mortgages chasing ever higher prices, but unless something is done to supply new buildings, we will not deal with the problem of affordability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Growth up, unemployment down, inflation down and, certainly in my region and constituency, a very positive response to the Budget. The North East chamber of commerce held an event, to which I went with the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) 10 days ago, to assess and review the Budget. The response was overwhelmingly positive. I accept that it is only a chamber of commerce, as some Members have said—the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) was rather disparaging about the North East chamber of commerce—but it has 3,000 members, all of whom are SMEs and businesses in the north-east. They said:

“The NECC is pleased to see recognition of some of its key priorities in the Budget and that these figures demonstrate that increased business confidence, as reflected by the NECC quarterly economic survey, is manifesting into real growth and jobs.”

I welcome the fact that the jobs situation is improving in the north-east. [Interruption.] As always, it is good to hear the hon. Member for North Durham chuntering from a sedentary position. His speech was one of those where the glass was either half full or half empty. From HS2, Adonis and the job situation, the glass was evidently definitely half empty, but the figures—these are not my figures, I hasten to add, but the House of Commons unemployment by constituency JSA figures—indicate that in North Durham the number of JSA claimants is down 21.8%. The 18 to 24 claimants are down 22.4%, the 50 and over claimants are down 14.8% and the claims of 12 months duration are down 13.3%.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is looking at claims rather than unemployment, which is the important thing. That is the point my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) made. He should talk to people who are not on the claimant count and people who are being sanctioned by the Government. The idea that claimant count is a reflection of economic activity in North Durham is complete nonsense.

[Guy Opperman]

Let us try to be nuanced about this. We all accept that there are isolated examples of genuine distress and difficulties of the kind that the hon. Gentleman describes. No one disputes that; such circumstances exist in all our constituencies. However, as the hon. Gentleman knows, I spend more of my time in Newcastle than in Hexham—

[Mr Jones]

I am sure that they are pleased in Hexham.

[Guy Opperman]

The claimant counts in Newcastle are down as well, as are the claimant counts in virtually every constituency in the north-east. Suggesting that individual examples take care of all 21% is fatuous.

[Mr Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Guy Opperman]

Not at this stage. I want to make some progress. I had the great pleasure of listening to the hon. Gentleman for 42 minutes—

[Mr Jones]

Good!

[Guy Opperman]

And, sadly, I shall not be burdening him with 42 minutes myself.

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Mr David Evennett)]

Hear, hear.

[Guy Opperman]

It is great to be applauded by one’s Whip.

Let us look at the bottom line. Corporation tax is down from 28% to 21%, and employment allowance will reduce employers’ national insurance bills by up to £2,000. Anyone who visits any high street in any town or village in the country will find that that is a massively popular policy, and anyone who wanders into the premises of any small and medium-sized enterprise will find that everyone there is talking about it. Larger businesses will benefit particularly from the doubling of the annual investment allowance, and nearly every business will pay no tax up front when it invests in the future. That is fantastic.

The north-east is the only region in the country with a positive balance of payments. We export more than we import. I welcome the fact that manufacturing is being turned around and being supported by this Government, after struggling under the last Government. The number of apprenticeships is doubling in our area, and the number of traineeships is also increasing. I cannot stress strongly enough the difference that traineeships are making in the brave new world in which we are living.

I visited a company called Release Potential, which is in Stocksfield, in my constituency, and which is giving young people the opportunity of becoming trainees. Once they have done that, they have a much better chance of securing apprenticeships and jobs. We should be supporting that, and, as always, encouraging employers to take on apprentices and trainees. I should make a declaration at this point: I am the first Member of Parliament to hire, train, retain and, now, employ an MP’s apprentice. She is not an apprentice MP; she is an office manager, although some people often say that she would do a better job as an MP. The honest truth is that if I can do that when running a small business with a relatively low budget and very few staff—as all MPs do—I see no reason why other SMEs cannot do the same.

What else is there to welcome in this outstanding Budget? [Laughter.] Labour Members laugh from a sedentary position, as they always do, but Newcastle airport has sought a change in the air passenger duty rules for ages. When I went to see the Chancellor, he listened to my representations and to those of Members from Manchester and Bristol, and I am grateful to him for that. The changes in APD rates, including the abolition of the two highest rates, will be fantastically helpful, and—again—will be welcomed by the chambers of commerce, not just in my constituency but throughout the country. Anyone who travels on an international route to try to promote trade overseas will welcome it.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for air ambulances, I should declare an interest in the subject. I also made use of one or two air ambulances when I was a very bad jockey and required their assistance. For many years, since the presentation of a petition signed by 155,000 people—and the Hexham Courant’s small but very weighty petition—we have been trying to get rid of VAT on the fuel used by air ambulances. In the north-east, the Great North air ambulance service led the campaign, and is a massive beneficiary of it. The cut announced in the Budget will save air ambulances a huge amount. It will allow more missions to be flown, and there is no doubt that lives will be saved. There is immense support for the measure in all the air ambulance services in the country,

The Chancellor said in his Budget statement:

“I will continue to direct the use of the LIBOR fines to our military charities and our emergency service charities”,

but added that he would also

“extend that support to our search and rescue…and provide £10 million of support to our scouts, guides, cadets and St John Ambulance.”

His intention was best expressed by this simple expression:

“1…want the fines paid by those who have demonstrated the worst values to support those who demonstrate the best of British values.” —[Official Report, 19 March 2014; Vol. 577, c. 786.]

That is absolutely outstanding, and offers support to all the individual charitable and voluntary organisations that are the bedrock of our communities.

There were also announcements on school funding. Anyone who, like me, has taken part in the F40 fair funding campaign will greatly welcome the announcement from the Minister for Schools, and the support from the Treasury. F40 budgets will be increased, be it in Northumberland, Durham or in other rural areas. The consultation going forward is an outstanding and important contribution. If we can change the way our schools are funded, they will have a genuine possibility of surviving.

I could talk about fuel duty, which, as we all know, the previous Government raised remorselessly—well over a dozen times. I am pleased to say that the Chancellor, with great difficulty and in very difficult times, has managed to cancel the fuel duty escalator that the previous Government sought to include in future Budgets.

I have some outstanding breweries in my constituency, such as the Hadrian Border Brewery, Allendale and Matfen. I can assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that when you holiday in God’s own county of Northumberland, you will want to visit the various beer festivals that will take place there this summer, where the further reduction in beer duty will be welcomed. That reduction supports not just the person who wants a pint of bitter, but the brewers, because it allows them to invest and to create jobs. It provides genuine support for businesses that struggled desperately under the previous Government, and they are extremely grateful.

On housing—unlike the hon. Member for North Durham, I am having to condense my 42-minute speech into approximately 10 minutes—those who visit Humbles Wood, in Prudhoe, in my constituency, which is a new-build housing estate, will find that 85% to 90% of all purchases there are made with Help to Buy. It has utterly transformed the ability of a relatively low-paid local community in one of the smallest towns in my constituency to access housing. It is a massive help, and not just there. To answer the point made earlier by the hon. Gentleman, when I spoke to the various estate agents in West road, Newcastle, they too reported the massive difference that Help to Buy has made in what is—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Guy Opperman]

One last time, just to give the hon. Gentleman an extra minute or so.

[Mr Jones]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman spends so much time in Newcastle, rather than Hexham, which I agree is a beautiful constituency. The figures for average house prices in the north-east show that they are still worth £5,000 less than they were in 2008.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

Surely the hon. Gentleman must acknowledge that it was because of all the difficulties created by the crash engineered by his beloved former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), and it was not possible to get bank and mortgage finance. Help to Buy has massively changed that.

I turn briefly to pensions. While I was canvassing last weekend, a gentleman on the doorstep said:

“It’s my money. I saved it. Why do I have to give it away in tax and charges for low returns?”

There is no question but that annuities have been a source of criticism for a very long time.

The reality is that the public do not believe that Labour has any credibility when it comes to maintaining the welfare cap, which I debated last weekend with the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), who is not in his place. They simply do not believe Labour on welfare, which wants to keep spending in any way it can, regardless of the ability to pay the bills.

Much has been said about poverty and the low paid. Last Friday, I was pleased and proud to hold the first living wage summit, with the Living Wage Foundation, in Newcastle. It was attended by a large number of local businesses, including the Rowntree Foundation, Traidcraft, KPMG, Northern Doctors and Mike Joslin, all of whom came together as accredited living wage employers. There are only 20 such employers in the north-east, whereas there are approximately 600 around the rest of the country. The representative of the Northern TUC was there, as were representatives of individual businesses and of the North East chamber of commerce. Anyone who came to the event last Friday would have been satisfied that we were taking real action, and that companies that are voluntarily committing to paying the living wage are supporting their employees. Many people at that event told me that this was a Budget we should be proud of. They said that it was a Budget for growth, for jobs and for the north-east. It is a Budget that will be widely welcomed across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Mearns]

I could not agree more.

Again, on employment, we have to wonder whether the Prime Minister and Chancellor are on the same planet as we inhabit in the north-east of England. Whereas unemployment figures for the UK are hovering around the 7% mark, unemployment in the north-east has only just dipped below 10%. That is the claimant count figure; it is not the count of people who are economically inactive, which is a much greater figure for a region such as the north-east of England. I baulk at the complacency from Government Members in the face of that, because it is having a dramatic impact on people’s lives.

[Guy Opperman]

I accept that there is a difference between the two types of job measurement, but let me give the hon. Gentleman the figures for Gateshead: the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants is down by 21%, the total change over 12 months in the number of claimants aged 50 and over is a reduction of 13.5%; and the 12-month change in the number of claimants aged 18 to 24 is a decrease of 26.8%.

[Ian Mearns]

Those figures are interesting. It has to be said that economies such as the north-east of England look at the JSA figures and see that they have removed from them people sanctioned because of their benefits. The last estimate I saw was that almost 1 million people on JSA were in receipt of a sanction in the last counting period. In addition, some 600,000 people, on a conservative estimate, are now employed on zero-hours contracts. Our regional economy suffers from not only unemployment, but significant amounts of under-employment.

Despite the Government pledge to ensure that it is always worth working, it will be those in work who will most feel the squeeze of this Government’s policies. Average weekly earnings and gross disposable income in the north-east are the lowest of any English region. According to the latest Real Life Reform report, which has been conducted by the Northern Housing Consortium, the average spend on fuel among the study subjects has risen by 8.5% since only December and by more than 30% just since last September, and is now at an average of £32.62 per household per week in that study, which is of people on very low and modest incomes.

The Chancellor has made much of his personal allowance increase, but the Government continue to ignore the negative impact of their 24 tax rises between 2010 and 2015. I am not a natural bedfellow of the TaxPayers Alliance, but it believes that there have been 254 tax rises, particularly the hike in VAT in January 2011 from 17.5% to 20%. Even the Prime Minister accepts that VAT rises impact on the poorest, and he always knew that they would. On 5 January 2011, he said:

“If you look at the effect”—

of VAT—

“as compared with people’s income then, yes, it is regressive.”

In Exeter in 2009, the right hon. Gentleman, as the then leader of the Opposition, said of VAT:

“You could try, as you say, to put it on VAT, sales tax, but again if you look at the effect of sales tax, it's very regressive, it hits the poorest the hardest. It does, I absolutely promise you.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

We have had an interesting debate today, which has made stark the difference between the Opposition’s priorities and those of Government Members. The Finance Bill is thick and heavy, but it is pretty light on content that is relevant to the working person on a modest income.

My hon. Friends have made some powerful and persuasive speeches highlighting precisely that point. My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) spoke with passion about how her region was suffering as a result of the Government’s polices, and drew attention to the imbalance in the recovery that they have delivered. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) spoke in particular about business rates and the success of the jobs growth programme being run by the Welsh Labour Government, whom this Government like to bash at any opportunity, but who are having some real success on jobs in Wales.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) made a particularly powerful point. She reminded the House that the Chancellor said that this is a Budget for makers, doers and savers, but she said that it has nothing in it for those who are making do.

My hon. Friend also reminded us of the tragedy of zero-hours contracts. She gave a powerful example of a constituent who was sanctioned under DWP rules for leaving a job that gave him zero hours of work. It was a tragedy for the individual concerned, but it also shows how iniquitous the rules are in practice.

[Guy Opperman]

Is there anything the hon. Lady welcomes in the Budget, whether the raising of the income tax threshold, the extension of apprenticeships, the support for the high street or the work done to support manufacturing? Does she not welcome any of those things amidst this sea of opposition?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I very much welcome the Government’s U-turn on investment allowances, which we warned were a mistake in 2010. It is really good that the Chancellor has finally decided at the tail end of this Parliament to put right that bad decision.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) reminded the House of two anniversaries: 15 years ago today the national minimum wage came into effect; and a year ago today the Government introduced the bedroom tax. That is a clear example of the big differences in the values and priorities of those on the Opposition and on the Government side. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) spoke for some time, although not at his usual length, about the things that are missing from the Bill. He focused on the detail of the pension changes, which we will scrutinise, especially in relation to social care costs, which he was right to highlight.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) spoke of how some savers will benefit as a result of the Government’s measures, but for many people saving is a luxury that is far out of reach. My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) reminded the House of the imbalance of the recovery and how the north-east continues to suffer. He also made a point that no one made today in relation to the local government cuts, which are only just starting to bite and will further embed the regional imbalance in our country.

People are looking to this Government to take action to help them in the here and now. I am talking about the people who elected us to make decisions on their behalf. Those people are, on average, £1,600 a year worse off since this Government came to power. They will be worse off in 2015 than they were in 2010. Even if we take into account the combined effect of tax and benefit changes, they will still be £900 a year worse off. For those Government Members who are not sure what that really means, I will explain that £1,600 is about half the cost of the uniform required for membership of the Bullingdon club. For residents of inner-city Birmingham, which I represent, it is about three months’ rent.

Those people are working harder and harder for less and less, and they are looking for help in the here and now to make sure that at the end of the working week or month they have earned enough money to pay the rent, put food on the table and clothe their family. But this Finance Bill contains no such help. The fact that people are worse off and have to spend more on everyday essentials seems not to exist, according to the Bill. It is as if all Government Front Benchers have been caught in some kind of existential trance: if they cannot see or feel the cost of living crisis, it cannot exist; even if it exists, it cannot be communicated to others; and even if it can be communicated, it simply cannot be understood.

The people who are £1,600 a year a worse off need help in the here and now. This Bill could have done that; it does not. This Government could have done that; they did not. Where was the action to help working parents and families? We know that nursery costs have gone up by 30% since 2010. A parent working full time on the living wage with one child in nursery care will not see a penny of income until the beginning of the third week of the month. That is truly shocking. What do the Government offer? They offer help after the next general election, but nothing in this Bill. Why did they not take the opportunity in part 2 of the Bill to raise more money from the bank levy to fund an expansion of free child care for working parents of three and four-year olds from the current 15 hours to 25 hours? That would be real help. We will scrutinise the detail of the relevant clauses in Committee.

In opening, my hon. Friend the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury referred to an article from The Daily Telegraph, which is not often helpful to the Opposition. However, it has recently reported concerns that the Government’s planned changes to the bank levy might amount to a tax cut for the banks. The Government are not shouting that from the rooftops, but there are suggestions that some banks will pay £300 million less. We will need to see the detail and to press the Minister on that point in Committee.

It is a real embarrassment for the Exchequer Secretary that his projections on how much the bank levy would raise were so far off. Earlier, he ducked the opportunity to explain that; I would happily give way to him now if he were willing to explain, but he does not want to. No matter—we will return to the matter at length when we are locked together in a Committee room debating these issues.

On Government changes that might end up helping the banks pay less, I should also mention the small matter of the schedule 19 charge. In fairly impenetrable and hidden-away language, the Government seem to have given a £145 million tax cut for investment managers, whose industry is, frankly, doing rather well at the moment. It could have been asked to forgo that tax cut, given that the poorest and most vulnerable in our society continue to suffer. That shows the Government’s priorities.