Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

Like my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), it is with a heavy heart that I will be voting in favour of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), who spoke so eloquently earlier. I say that because, to keep Sunday special, I will be voting against my Government—a decision that no loyal Government Member wants to take, and certainly not too regularly. It also means that I will be voting against my good friend and fellow sportsman, the Minister. He has spent some time speaking to me and other colleagues, trying to persuade us, but I think he was given a very sticky wicket. He will not mind my saying that he perhaps batted more like Geoffrey Boycott than Ian Botham. He did his very best.

The reasons why I will be supporting the amendment, and why other Members should consider supporting it, are based on three core issues: my Conservative principles and the traditions of our country; the impact on staff in all shops; and particularly the impact on small independent shops, their owners and their staff. These places are well used and well liked in the city of Lincoln, but if Sunday is no longer special, we will lose them.

There is something uniquely British—perhaps even Anglo-Saxon and, dare I say it, Christian and traditional—about the way we mark Sunday in this great country of ours. It is the one special day we have every week, and to lose that means losing something special about Britain. A week where every day is the same will mean a drab and very grey Britain.

As a Conservative who believes in our country’s traditions and culture, undermining that special day is not something I can support. I personally would go even further and look at protecting other days in the year, such as Boxing day, Good Friday and Easter Monday, perhaps by imposing current Sunday opening hours on those days. Sunday already provides enough opportunities for large-scale shopping—if someone is up early enough, they have a full six hours. Those who want to shop online will do so, whether or not larger shops are open for longer on Sundays. For those who do not want to spend all day shopping in large malls or superstores on Sunday, there are plenty of convenience and independent shops to go to, and I am fearful about the impact of this measure on those shops, which are the lifeblood of many communities across our country.

I want to live in a country with a rich mixture of shops, not an endless sea of large, faceless superstores. I fear that extending the hours of larger shops on a Sunday will diminish choice, impact on the livelihood of those owning and working in smaller shops, and ultimately damage businesses on our high streets. I am also concerned about the impact on the families of shop workers. As well as Sunday being a special day for those who do not have to work, we must ensure that it remains a special day for those who do work. If we extend shopping hours, there will be no respite for those people, and throughout the week all they will have is snatched time with their families—they will be on a conveyor belt of work that never ends. Everyone needs quality family time, or just time away from work. As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) said, we should all work to live, not live to work.

I understand that big businesses want to sweat their assets. Closed large stores in Bluewater, Meadowhall or anywhere around the country earn no money from shoppers, and hence no profit for their owners. In the middle of the UK, I am sure that Bicester shopping village would want to open for 24 hours, 365 days a year, but what would be the effect on the staff working there? Sunday as it is currently is a Great British compromise that works for everyone. Retailers can trade, customers can shop, shop workers can spend quality time with their family, and we can still have that one special day of the week.

I do not want to live in a country where every day is the same, and where our traditions and uniqueness are lost. Upholding the traditional British way of life is important to me and my constituents, and that is why I will vote for the amendment. I hope that, after today’s reasoned debate, some of my Conservative and traditional colleagues will examine their consciences and support the amendment tabled by my sound and illustrious hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

The Minister’s proposals for pilots are what we call in Welsh a “cath mewn cwd”—a cat in a sack—and if we open that sack, we will get our noses scratched, as far as I can see. With Wales, the Government are bypassing our National Assembly, fostering a relationship directly with our local authorities. They are bypassing our Government in Cardiff and acting on the basis of that peculiar entity, “England and Wales”. Local authorities in England and Wales are to be treated as if they exist in the same country, national devolution is ignored and, as the infamous entry in the first “Encyclopaedia Britannica” put it, “For Wales—see England”.

I have two brief points. First, there is a precedent in terms of the council tax benefits that were devolved to local authorities in England, but to the National Assembly in Wales. Secondly, this particular matter is devolved in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and I would say that Wales should be treated no differently.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

Retail is in my blood. Growing up, my mother owned a shop, and at 16 I started work on the shop floor, working my way up to management. I spent nearly 20 years across the food, fashion, electrical and furniture retail sectors, working in the sort of stores on which the Bill will impact. I am passionate about our high street, which is why I chair the all-party group for high streets and town centres.

Our high streets are struggling, and the influence of the internet has had such a major impact that they are becoming a haven of pound shops and charity shops. We must do all that we can to support our high streets. Things are tough enough for retailers at the moment, and we must consider ways to increase footfall, not to limit growth opportunities. In 1994, at the age of 20, I remember signing a new contract to opt in to working Sundays. I was happy to do that because I wanted the hours—I wanted to save up for my future—and I am shocked that more than 20 years later we are still having this debate.

I am a firm believer that size should not matter and that there should be a level playing field for all retailers. It is discriminatory against retailers of more than 3,000 square feet if they cannot open for the same hours as those that are under that square footage. I remember being a manager of a store that was limited to six-hour trading, when the dilemma was that other stores on the high street were open for longer. Customers were confused about why our neighbouring stores could be open when we could not be. How do retailers get around this? Even 20 years ago, we would open for the same amount of time as other retailers, but with some time for browsing only. We were still employing staff for those hours, so the changes would not, as some critics say they would, impact on Sunday trading and on making Sunday special. Customers were frustrated, as they wanted choice. We still needed to employ staff for longer than six hours to replenish the stock.

In my retail management career, we had no trouble finding staff to work the Sunday shifts. Working on a Sunday was popular with students, those who wanted their first job, parents who found it easier to get babysitters for their children over the weekend and older people. If anything, I found it was the 20-something party-goers who wanted Saturday night on the razzle who were not so keen on working on a Sunday.

In my experience, opposing the changes on the grounds that they would not be fair to workers is a rather lame argument. As experience demonstrates, there are always some groups who are more than happy to work these shifts. We must allow for that flexibility. Some say that we need to keep Sunday special, and I respect that, but do they not shop on the internet on a Sunday? Do they not visit their local leisure centre on a Sunday? Goods are delivered on a Sunday, we eat out in restaurants on a Sunday and call centres are open on a Sunday. People in many sectors and professions work on a Sunday, and while there has been a lot of talk about rights, what about their rights?

We had the debate on Sunday trading 20 years ago. We cannot press a pause button and halt this changing world. We live in a global economy that trades 24/7. If we do not embrace it, we will be left behind. We need to ensure that the economy is flexible, dynamic and responsive to the new reality. I am the chair of the all-party group on local democracy. Its secretariat is the National Association of Local Councils, which represents 8,000 town and parish councils. I fully believe in devolution; it is one reason why I am a Brexiter and fully support coming out of the EU. How can we speak of devolution while we cede more power to Brussels? How can the SNP say it wants more power in Holyrood rather than Westminster, and oppose a Bill that is, in essence, truly devolutionary? To those Members who truly believe in devolution and putting the power into the hands of local decision makers, I urge them to support the provisions. By devolving Sunday trading laws, we will not only create more opportunities for our local economies and more employment opportunities, but give more power to local people. This is why I fully support the Government’s Bill.

Short Money

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I could not agree more. People outside this place—outside the Westminster bubble—who are looking at our discussions today will not understand why politicians feel that they should treat themselves separately and as a special case. Those people will look at what has happened to their budgets over the last five or six years and say, “What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the political gander as well.”

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Setting aside for a moment the outrageous detail of the request for views, will the Minister tell the House what effect a cut in Short money would have on scrutiny and on the comfort, or discomfort, the Executive feel as they go about their business?

EU Referendum: Timing

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dodds]

The right hon. Gentleman, from his considerable experience, makes a very salient point.

This debate is not about the substance of the EU referendum argument or the deal that the Prime Minister has negotiated, so I will pass over the details of that deal—it is surprisingly easy to do so. Instead, I want both sides of the House to consider whether the result of the referendum will be morally binding or politically conclusive and whether we will settle the debate for a generation. We can do that, of course, but, on the Government’s current timetable, I fear we will not. This is needless folly, not least for the Conservative party, but there is time, even now, for it to reconsider—that would be in its long-term interests—and I believe it should.

To be clear, there is no suggestion that the public cannot choose or that a compressed electoral cycle would, as some have suggested, be too complex for the voters. Of course the people can choose and understand the issues. This is not about their choice, and still less is it about their ability to choose; it is about the Prime Minister’s desire that they choose in a particular way at a particular time in the rushed referendum that I fear he is set upon.

Why hold the referendum on 23 June? No Minister has made the case for an early referendum—quite the reverse; they have extolled and observed the virtues of Electoral Commission guidance and past polls at all levels, be they general elections, local elections, devolved elections and, yes, both the national referendum in the last Parliament on the alternative vote and the recent Scottish referendum. The House and public are entitled to ask, therefore, why they are seemingly intent on kicking over their own precedents. Why is this poll to be so very different from all that have gone before? What explains the rush and the panic?

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Given the congestion of events in May and June, what does the right hon. Gentleman make of the comparative coverage already in the media of the referendum and the elections in our own backyards?

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Despite the public’s ability to discern the different issues at stake in the different election questions, the media often fixate on one issue. They will undoubtedly concentrate heavily on the national question of the EU referendum while giving little coverage to the elections in the devolved regions. That is another good argument for why the two should not become enmeshed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Iain Stewart]

I am not arguing that the elections should be held on the same day—we have accepted that they should be held on a separate day and that there should be a minimum of six weeks between them and the referendum—but there are lessons that we can extrapolate from that campaign. The Electoral Commission report on the 2011 AV referendum specifically addresses the issue of media coverage, which a number of Members have raised, and it concludes that it was not an issue. Paragraph 3.60 states that there was

“no inherent disinclination on the part of the media from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland…to cover the referendum; rather, the elections were considered to be a greater priority than the referendum.”

The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues should not be worried about the capacity of the Scottish media to cover both the Holyrood elections and the referendum over the same period.

[Hywel Williams]

rose—

[Stephen Gethins]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) on securing this debate. The Minister referred to Alan Greenspan, and said that he was not going to give any clues, and that certainly was the case with his remarks. I quote back to him Henry Kissinger who, when facing a very excited press conference, scanned the excited news hounds and said, “Do any of you boys have questions for the answers I’ve already prepared for you?” That is rather how it felt this afternoon.

Plaid Cymru is in favour of staying in the Union—we believe there is a strong positive case to be made for that, and that another EU is possible. Among other things, developing the Union has strengthened protection measures for the environment, farming and rural life, increased social protection for the workforce, improved the protection, wellbeing and prosperity of minorities—including linguistic minorities—and strengthened progressive cohesion and regional policies. We will campaign on those issues. I certainly regret the rather tetchy tone of the campaign so far, but that is quite separate from our concern about the date of the referendum—a concern that is shared by people on both sides of the argument.

The First Ministers of the three devolved Governments have written a joint letter to the Prime Minister to insist on a later date for the referendum, and, as others have said, that is important for the respect agenda. There is a risk that the May elections could become proxy votes for the referendum, and I agree with the Electoral Commission’s concern about the proximity of the proposed referendum date to the elections, which could lead not to confusion but to voter fatigue.

The DUP will campaign for a power-sharing set up in Northern Ireland, and—from my reading at least—it is unlikely that an early EU referendum could influence the consequence of the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in the same way and to the same degree as might be the case in Wales, Scotland or London. The result in Northern Ireland will be a power-sharing Executive, but the result in Wales, I am glad to say, is much more open—indeed, it is possibly wide open. That is why I was particularly disappointed with the response of the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), because there is a question for us in Wales about the position of the Labour party—I note the vast green acres of empty Labour Benches.

[Alex Salmond]

And on the other side.

[Hywel Williams]

And on the Conservative Benches.

Carwyn Jones, our First Minister, has written to the Prime Minister and made his views abundantly clear. However, the Labour party at Westminster does not oppose a June referendum—in fact, it seems very much in favour of that as it wants a quick referendum. Either the Labour party headquarters does not listen to Carwyn Jones, or possibly it is part of a less laudable plan to frame the National Assembly election as a fight between Labour and UKIP. There is no doubt that there will be a strong UKIP campaign in Wales, and it might even achieve some membership of the National Assembly. It is in the Labour party’s interest to frame the debate in that way, thus avoiding scrutiny of its dismal record in government for the past 17 years.

[Alex Salmond]

It is difficult to see how the Government or the Labour party can pursue a respect agenda to the devolved nations if none of their Members is in the Chamber to hear the arguments being articulated from those countries.

[Hywel Williams]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Some Welsh Members were here earlier in the debate, but it is regrettable in the extreme that they are not here now to contribute. I assume, however, that they will be trooping through the Lobby if the Labour party decides to take part in a vote.

The media campaign has already started, and it feels almost as if every news broadcast and every newspaper is running stories on the latest developments in the referendum campaign. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who is no longer in his place, said that it was quite easy for people to make up their minds, and mentioned the press in their respective countries. However, 85% of people in Wales get their newspapers not from Cardiff or Llandudno Junction, but from London, and the so-called national debates in England and Wales, or the UK, often influence their voting behaviour. Few media outlets will pay proper attention to the Welsh general election, and anything that detracts from that is to be regretted.

Few media outlets will cover crucial issues such as the state of the Welsh NHS, the proposed 32% cuts to Welsh universities by the Welsh Labour Government, or election pledges from other parties. The Welsh NHS is no less important to the people of Wales than the English NHS is to the people of England. Given the constitutional significance of the result of the referendum, particularly if people in Wales and Scotland vote in contrast to the people of England, the Government would be well advised to pause before setting an early referendum date.

HMRC and Google (Settlement)

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right that it is the action that we have been taking that has meant that companies are changing their behaviour and that we are getting in revenue.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

The deadline for submission of self-assessment tax returns is in six days’ time, on 31 January. What consideration has the Minister given to reaching deals, victorious or otherwise, with any of my self-employed constituents who miss that deadline?

[Mr Gauke]

Let me return to this case. There has been a lengthy inquiry by HMRC into the affairs of Google. That inquiry has now come to an end and reached a conclusion. There is nothing to suggest that anything other than the proper enforcement of the law as it stands has led the way to this particular conclusion.

Spending Review and Autumn Statement

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend. He came to see me and we discussed what more we could do to level the playing field so that families trying to buy their own home are not disadvantaged when compared with those purchasing buy-to-let properties in places such as Croydon. We discussed what we could do with stamp duty, and he was one of a number of people who discussed clever ideas about how we could help families to buy their own home. I am glad that his thinking has come to fruition in this autumn statement.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

We look—sometimes in vain—to the Welsh Government for transparency and coherence. Given the increase in health spending in England, will the Chancellor enumerate in real terms and on a year-by-year basis the consequential increases in funding for the Welsh Government? If he cannot do so now, will he write to me?

[Mr Osborne]

The Welsh block grant will rise in cash terms and will be worth £15 billion—over £500 million more than this year. There is also additional capital investment, and £900 million more is available for investment in Wales. Today we have made the historic announcement about a Welsh funding floor, which addresses long-held concerns in Wales that it is under-protected and not fairly treated by the Barnett formula. We have addressed that by building on work that has been done over many years by people such as Professor Holtham, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman agrees with me that this is a good deal for Wales.

Tax Credits

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field]

I will certainly do that, because I want to refer to a proposal that I initially made about making a reform at nil cost. I did not do that because I wanted to be dragged to the stake and burned as a result, but because I was anxious to begin a debate. If one is asking the Government to change their mind, somebody who has made proposals might also change their mind. With any proposal, the net withdrawal rate is crucial. We in this House thought it intolerable that people should pay more than 45% on their income tax and suffer that rate of withdrawal. It is not a bad rate to aim at for poorer people when we add income tax, national insurance, and withdrawal of tax credits and other benefits. That underscores the point that the right hon. Gentleman made.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Would the right hon. Gentleman also see merit in looking at the geographical distribution of the effects of these measures, given that as the Member for Birkenhead he will know that there are very poor communities where the effects will be very widespread? The result will be not just poorer people but poorer communities.

[Frank Field]

I very much agree. I know that the Exchequer Secretary also has an interest in improving Treasury data so that we can better understand tax and benefit changes. I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s plea will not fall on deaf ears.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) on securing the debate. When he first proposed it, he wrote to me and a number of other Members and I readily agreed. That was, of course, before the storm broke. We have moved on, as he acknowledged in his remarks earlier.

Unfortunately I am old enough to have worked not only with tax credits, but with family credits and even family income supplements. The inherent problems with such systems was apparent from the start. There have been low-wage subsidies, to a lesser extent than now, initially with tapers of well over 100%, and the cost to the taxpayer was apparent. These problems have not gone away.

As I said in the debate on 20 October, I have no problem in principle with removing low-wage subsidies, so long as we ensure a decent living wage for all; family support to make up for the variation in income when people have families of different sizes; and proper, affordable childcare provision, available universally, particularly in deprived and rural areas where the current provision is very poor and patchy. For rural areas in Wales, support for small businesses is extremely important to enable them to earn and to pay a living wage. Those are the sorts of changes that I would like to see. Then I would gladly agree to the Chancellor’s proposals.

I do not have much of a problem with tapers. Tax credits should lessen as people earn more and, as I said, tapers over 100% are, thankfully, a thing of the past, but the disincentive effects remain when high rates of combined tax credits and benefit withdrawal reduce people’s incomes substantially. The Chancellor’s proposals will worsen this effect. What incentive will there be for working harder and earning that extra marginal pound if it melts away in reduced tax credits and benefits, as we heard earlier in the debate? The figure of 93p in the pound was mentioned.

As the minimum wage or the national living wage rises, the taper reduces tax credit payments—an obvious point—and the cost to the taxpayer goes down. All this is well known and well understood, but what the Chancellor intends goes well beyond what is normal and what is acceptable. Had he been happy to operate the tapers as they are and keep the thresholds as they are, he would have gained tax revenue. Had he been satisfied with that course of action, people earning more would be paying more tax and claiming less in tax credit. Significantly, many would be claiming less housing benefit, which is a problem that Members on both sides of the House recognise. However, he has deliberately gone further. Tax credits will be withdrawn earlier and at a faster rate. That is on top of the freeze on tax credit levels for four years, as set out in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, and the decision to limit the child care element to the first two children in a family.

With regard to childcare, what discussions have the Government had with the Welsh Government, because provision in some parts of Wales differs significantly from provision in England? If we are tailoring a system to promote proper childcare, there needs to be consultation with not only the Welsh Government, but the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. I am also concerned about the effects on the under-25s. My concern is that these measures will reduce work incentives and deepen child poverty—we have heard the figure of 200,000 for the number of children who will be pushed into poverty.

There are also geographical effects, as I mentioned in an earlier intervention on the right hon. Member for Birkenhead. There are communities in Wales in which a large percentage of people take advantage of tax credits, so whole communities will be hit as tax credits are cut. That is particularly true in west Wales and the valleys, which at European level is recognised as a very poor region that is subject to various European grants. Actually, it is on a par with parts of former-communist, eastern Europe. Many people in those communities claim tax credits in order to go out to low-paid work, and I am concerned that they will be struck hard. Therefore, adding to what the right hon. Member said, I repeat my call for data to address the geographical distribution of the effects of these measures, and not just the effects for poorer families individually.

Let me turn briefly to some of the other points the right hon. Member for Birkenhead made. As I have said, I hope that data and childcare have been discussed with the Welsh Government. There is almost a philosophical point here, which is that we recognise the value to society of bringing up children, because they are the next generation who will be caring for the elderly—perhaps my social administration slip is showing. I am a veteran of many campaigns to save and secure child benefit, and as far as I am concerned that is one of the central arguments.

Postponing the introduction until after next April is clearly a good idea. Restricting it to new claimants is something that I would agree with, although that would put them in the difficult position of going out to work for reduced tax credits, and I have already mentioned the disincentives to taking up work that that might provide, so we have to be very careful.

Pensions tax relief has been mentioned. I am afraid that I am also a veteran of previous debates on tax credits. That was one of the suggestions my party made when Adair Turner was reviewing pensions. Of course, the circumstances are different now. Certainly, we could have seen that happen then, which would have meant that the Government might not be in the position that they are in now.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I have heard that argument a lot recently, and there is no evidence to support such a contention. It is nice to believe that were we to reduce the amount of money people have—withdraw the subsidy, as the hon. Gentleman would say—some employers would increase their payments to people and wages would go up, but I do not suggest that that is true or that any evidence supports it. Tax credits have been a necessary subsidy for low wages, and I welcome and applaud the decision by the Government to increase the national minimum wage. That is the right thing to do, which is why Labour called for it before the election—the Government could get on with it a little faster and stop spinning it as a national living wage when we know it is not, but it is a welcome step. There is no evidence to suggest that if we withdraw the subsidy at a stroke, employers will think, “I’d better put up wages for my workforce because they will struggle to survive on what they earn.”

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Surely the answer to the first question from the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer) is that tax credits must ensure a decent, reasonable standard of living. Such standards have been defined over many years by large numbers of people in research institutions—I will not trouble the House with those matters now, but they are well understood.

[Owen Smith]

Let me be clear: tax credits are a success. They have kept people in work in this country, and we have seen a shift in the volume of single parents in work.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

The problem with welfare reform, as all who have wrestled with it well know, is that we either have a large number of people facing a moderate rate of withdrawal or we have a more limited number of people facing a high rate of withdrawal. All the time that we have means-tested benefits—our system is still riddled with them—means that we will have to make that difficult choice about whether there is a fast move off benefit when people’s income goes up or a slower move. That will mean we either have fewer or more people affected by the taper. Labour never solved the problem of the taper. The Labour Government had lots of difficult tapers and high marginal rates of tax and benefit withdrawal.

That brings me to the second fundamental pillar of the Government’s strategy, which I support, after the promotion of work and better-paid work: taxing people less, particularly those on lower incomes. Both the coalition and this Government have worked away at that, by trying to get more people out of paying income tax. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor thinks about his pre-Budget judgment and his autumn statement judgment later this year—he is rightly in listening mode—I trust he will think about the tax element in his policy mix, because the more he can do to take people out of tax or to lower the tax rate upon them, the more he will succeed in promoting prosperity and the more he will offset the impact of benefit changes.

[Hywel Williams]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about prosperity, but he will know as well as I do that small businesses are one of the chief drivers of it. How does he square that with the cuts to small businesses and single earners’ income from their self-employment?

[John Redwood]

The Government are trying to encourage people to earn more in self-employment—that is the whole point of the policy. The idea is to create better incentives so that it is worth while people working more and longer hours if they have not had sufficient hours of work and not a sufficient income, and they keep more of the money they make by being in self-employment. That is true for them as well as for people in employment.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Hywel Williams]

rose—

[John Redwood]

The hon. Gentleman has had one go and I am sorry he messed up his question.

Tax Credits

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

When tax credits were first brought in, people were often overpaid. They would then receive a demand for an end-of-year repayment. I fought many of those cases, but Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs would engineer the perfect excuse. Deep in its standard letter demanding repayments was this astonishing sentence:

“Even though we told you that your assessment was correct, it was not reasonable for you to believe it.”

That is how I view the Chancellor’s proposals—even though he tells me that there will not be any problems, it is not reasonable for me to believe him.

I have no problem in principle with removing low wage subsidies so long as we ensure a decent living wage; family support to make up for the variation in income when people have families of different sizes; proper affordable childcare provision available universally, particularly in deprived and rural areas, which are currently very poorly served; and support for small businesses to enable them to earn and to pay a living wage.

When tax credits were introduced, I asked the then Labour Treasury Minister what pilots had been carried out. Essentially, she said that none had been carried out. I fear that we are in that same position with these proposals. We know what happened then: chaos, over- payments, underpayments, misery to families and the damage to the Government’s reputation. The impact of these changes has not been thoroughly assessed, and I fear that we will all regret that at our leisure.

Tax Credits

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Lady is making a ridiculous argument and once again trying to pretend that there are people on welfare and people in work whereas in reality—as illustrated by the tax credit system—many thousands and millions of working people are dependent on benefits because of low pay. That is the key issue in this debate. The Government are attacking low-paid workers, just as they have over the last Parliament, while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our society. The deep cuts to the incomes of the poorest families that the Government are trying to enact today will only exacerbate the inequalities we already have in our society and push opportunities even further out of the reach of those who already lag behind.

The most bizarre claim that has been made for the Government’s austerity measures is that they will encourage people to work harder. I think that we should reject the rather insidious implication that people in low-paid jobs somehow do not work as hard as people in better paid jobs, because that is simply not the case. We must remember that those low-paid jobs are often far more physically demanding, and many people who are set to see their incomes cut under this measure are already working very long hours in exhausting and often pretty unrewarding roles.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Does the hon. Lady also reject the glib answer from those on the Government Benches that low-paid workers can somehow just take more hours, because clearly those hours are not available?

[Dr Whiteford]

In various parts of the country unemployment is still unacceptably high. Whether someone can easily pick up extra hours depends on which part of the country they live in, which sector of the economy they work in and what caring commitments they might have, whether for children or other family members. It is not so straightforward when lots of parents are chasing part-time work between the hours of 9 am and 2.30 pm, when their children are at school. A lot of part-time work needs to be done outwith those hours, when parents have real difficulties accessing childcare.

The charity Gingerbread has today pointed out that some lone parents working full time on the minimum wage with one child will, by 2020, be no better off than non-working lone parents were in 2010. By 2020 many parents working full time will have fallen even further below the minimum income standard than they are at present, but essentially they will be no better off working full time than they would have been had they been out of work five years ago. Where is the work incentive in that? If we really want to incentivise work, we should be increasing work allowances, as my party proposed in the run-up to the general election, not cutting them. That would incentivise work and cut child poverty.

Once again, we have been told today that increases in the minimum wage will compensate for those losses, but the numbers simply do not stack up. Even if the Government proposed raising the minimum wage to the level of the current living wage, which is already £7.85 an hour—well above the Government’s proposed ceiling—the calculation of the living wage is based on not only the cost of living but the assumption that low-paid families are already receiving their full entitlement to tax credits at the current rate.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Resolution Foundation, trade unions and others have all pointed out that the proposed increases in the minimum wage, and indeed the increases in the personal tax allowance, will not make up for the loss of tax credits. The crucial point is that if we cut tax credits in the way the Government are proposing today, the minimum wage would have to rise substantially further, to around £11 an hour, just to keep incomes standing still in real terms.

European Union (Finance) Bill

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

As I said earlier, I represent the constituency of Strangford, and the fishing industry is particularly important to me. We have had a cod recovery programme in the Irish sea for the past 10 to 12 years, and there are greater numbers of cod than there have ever been during that time and the fish are bigger. However, Europe restricts our fishermen’s ability to fish those cod. That is an example of why we need a new common fisheries policy that local people can control and have an input in.

[The Temporary Chair (Hywel Williams)]

Order. I hope that the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) will not go too far down that line of discussion.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I shall move on to my other points in a second, Mr Williams, but I agree with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that if member states control their own fisheries, they will be able to stop irresponsible fishing and the plundering of fish stocks by other nations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but it is a counsel of despair to say that because we cannot trust our own Government, we have to go to the European Union. I was on a march through London opposing austerity last Saturday, and there were tens of thousands of people there who felt strongly about it. Even though we may have Governments we do not like from time to time, we have the chance of pressurising them in the short term and getting rid of them and replacing them with more progressive Governments in the long term. Pressurising Governments is what I do in politics, as I think Members of all parties do. I want to see the Government elected in this country governing this country, not giving away our powers so that we are governed by a bureaucracy in Brussels or wherever.

I have mentioned spending on the CAP, aid, structural funds, regional policy and so on. If we had responsibility for those things, some of the fiscal transfers that effectively take place between the richer and poorer countries in the European Union might no longer happen. If we want fiscal transfers, the way to do it would be for us to make substantial contributions to a fund that could be allocated to the Governments of less well-off countries. Lithuania, Latvia, Poland or wherever could benefit from donations, but they would go to those countries’ Governments, who would decide how that money ought to be spent in their countries. It would not be about the European Union subsidising certain sectors in a way that may or may not be beneficial to those countries. As I said, in Lithuania, and no doubt in other countries, they are being paid not to grow agricultural products and their own food. That is nonsensical, and I wish to see an end to it. If we want fiscal transfers, let them be up front. Let us contribute to a fund that poorer countries in the EU, or in a new association of member states, could draw on. That would be a more sensible way forward.

Of course, that would loosen the bonds of the European Union. We would not have decisions about all sorts of sectors being made by the Commission in Brussels. They would be made by democratic Governments, and we would have a looser association of states within Europe, which would be a much more sensible way of operating. I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South said, and I support her probing new clauses and her amendment 1, which we hope to be voting on soon.

[The Temporary Chair (Hywel Williams)]

I call Peter Grant.

[Peter Grant]

Tapadh leibh—thank you, Mr Williams. I apologise for not being able to say that in Welsh despite your attempts at tuition last night. I will keep practising.

It struck me after hearing the first two speakers in the debate that we had spent an hour and 45 minutes discussing the Bill and the only point of contention appeared to be whether the Government should write letters, and, if so, how many. If we are serious about sorting out great European institutions that are inefficient and have a lot of waste, I suspect that many of the audience of millions watching live on television will ask us to hold a mirror up to our own face. A debate such as this surely cannot be what this place was designed for.