Economic Update

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

We believe in a strong safety net during a short period so that people can get through this, which is why we have strengthened that safety net with £1 billion of extra investment to increase generosity and accessibility.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for his bold measures today, which will encourage many small businesses to believe that the Government are on their side. There is more to do, I know. Can I also encourage him, though, in his statement to come, on further employment measures to bear it in mind that the most important thing we can do is to do everything we can to keep people in employment? That will help to deliver growth.

One area I want to raise with my right hon. Friend, which has not really been touched on, although I think the shadow Chancellor raised it, is the voluntary sector. The Centre for Social Justice has done some quick work on this and come to the conclusion that the smallest elements of the voluntary sector, which have no reserves, are going to lose about £400 million during this next few months, and they are going to be the ones that are called upon most for support in the community for those who suffer. Can I please ask him to look at this very carefully and see what we can do to give them that cash aid?

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend knows better than most the value of making sure that people have the security of a good job, and I commend him for all his work in that regard. I agree with him wholeheartedly. My right hon. Friend the Communities Secretary is talking already to the voluntary sector and we stand ready to provide the support that may be required.

Lotteries Regulation

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome. I believe that this is a prudent approach. I have been very mindful that, as the Secretary of State and I as well as many other Members have found, people are fed up with waiting and want to know what the lottery landscape looks like. As Mystic Mims, I would say that this sets the landscape appropriately for protecting the national lottery and all the good that it does: it keeps the £1 million prize and the jackpot for the national lottery, but allows society lotteries that support causes such as our air ambulances, which are bumping along at the top of the headroom of the money they are able give to local causes, to be able to raise more money and support our local communities. That is the right approach.

On the minimum age issue, the hon. Gentleman will know that I cannot say any more ahead of the consultation. I seek the views of those in this Chamber and across the sector. The current licence period has seen a range of technological developments, which have changed the way that we play the national lottery, and it has also seen gambling behaviours change. We are therefore right to consider how the licence might look. It is right to consider whether it is appropriate to sell all national lottery games to those under 18 as part of future proofing it for the duration of the next licence.

On the timetable, I hope that we would lay the changes in autumn in order to see a move in 2020.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to the Dispatch Box. I completely agree that there is no need for a consultation about the age limit. Frankly, we should just get on with it—there is enough evidence out there.

Secondly, while I welcome the Minister’s comments, I am slightly concerned. Will she tell the House whether there was real, powerful and compelling evidence why society lotteries should be restricted to a gain of only £100,000 on the prize money? If there is clear evidence that they damage the national lottery, will she publish that? If there is not, will she tell us why we have been in such trepidation about moving the prize money total?

[Mims Davies]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. There has not been compelling evidence that the majority of the sector requires a £1 million prize limit to drive growth, so we have sought today to seek a balance to enable society lotteries to grow, while preserving the distinct space in which the national lottery operates, with the key feature of life-changing prizes. The Gambling Commission will be monitoring the impact of increasing the prize limit to £500,000, so we do not rule out further increases in the future, if we have a clear evidence base on the impact of the current changes.

Gambling-Related Harm

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe, and I congratulate my friend the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) on securing the debate—he is a fellow member of the all-party parliamentary group on gambling-related harm, and thus my honourable friend in this context. It is in order for me to follow the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), which is pretty much what I do all the time when it comes to this subject—I would not change that for the world.

This is a vital debate. All those years ago, the then Labour Government—this is not a party political point; I am simply making the point that they were in government at the time—were seduced by the idea that, by releasing gambling and removing pretty much all restrictions on it, we could somehow recreate and help communities. I remember that one of the great arguments was, “This will be a fantastic load of investment into communities, because gambling will create jobs and produce a happier place.” I opposed it at the time. I set up the Centre for Social Justice, which looked into the matter. I said that an innate level of harm came from gambling and that deregulating it would be like saying, “We must increase drinking”, or, “It would be far better if we had more shops selling more drugs.”

The same idea applies with gambling, which ultimately is a harmful activity. I accept that is not the case for everyone, but it is harmful for some people, and “some people” is quite a large number. The latest figures I saw—I think they are understated, to be frank—show that 3 million people are what are called “problem gamblers”. I hate that phrase, because in every other area where there are such problems, we call them addicts. These are addicts. They are addicted to a course of action that in their right minds they would not pursue in the way they do.

Of course, the industry is smart. It has invested a lot of the extra money it has got—all those billions—into figuring out how people go about gambling. As the hon. Member for Swansea East said, we had this whole debate about fixed odds betting terminals, which were a problem. I am astonished that, given all the evidence, it took us so long to finally get movement, first from the Gambling Commission and finally from the Government. The onslaught from the gambling industry was a sight to behold. There was an onslaught of misrepresented figures and everything else. I will not go into the details, because I am sure that stands in history and testimony.

The issue is that a lot of money is at stake. That is what we are dealing with, but I prefer to look at the other side, which is that a lot of human beings are at stake, and they can little afford what is happening to them. Our single most important purpose as elected Members of Parliament, ultimately, is to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. In this case, it is those who have found themselves trapped in a devastating downwards spiral of addiction.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a characteristically powerful and passionate speech. He made an important point. This debate is about addiction. Millions of people across the country enjoy a flutter on the horses, for example. It is a pursuit that contributes to our economy and human enjoyment. The debate is about those who suffer from gambling addiction. The problem is not gambling per se, but addiction, and he is very correct to make that point.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am grateful for that intervention. I fully understand that gambling is enjoyed by numbers of people who enjoy it every now and again and do not get caught up in that spiral. They might go to the races or bet on the odd football match or something like that. I am a genuine believer in free choice—people make those decisions themselves—but we have to look at whether the way the industry goes about its purposes perverts that process so that individuals end up caught in that spiral. That was a helpful intervention, because I want to talk about the industry and what it is up to.

We had some fascinating work done to look at some of the behaviour, and I was astonished by what is going on. First and foremost, anyone watching the plethora of adverts that flood every sporting event on television will see that they are all aimed at one particular type of person: young men. The adverts say, “You have to be smart, savvy, intelligent and clever. You are that kind of person because you beat the odds every time. You know what is going on. We give you special opportunities to do it, but you are so smart, you have to do it.” If someone is not gambling, the corollary is that they are not very smart and therefore incapable of doing it. The whole pattern of advertising is to drive people to gambling.

We then discovered that the way this works behind the scenes is quite scandalous. For example, bet365 has recently revealed that players who rack up huge losses are rewarded with weekly cash returns of up to 10% so that they can carry on playing. In training sessions for new staff, a bet365 worker gave an example to a reporter. They said:

“If they’ve lost, say, £15,000 in that week, then we’ll give them a weekly rebate, normally on a Tuesday, and we’ll give them maybe 10% of that back.”

That is quite sinister. We can see exactly what they are after: those who habitually gamble and lose. They are not really interested in those who win. In fact, they do not like it very much—I can understand the reason—if people actually win, so they do everything they can to discourage people who ever manage to win.

There are all sorts of delayed payments and other mechanisms. Sometimes people will not even be allowed to gamble again with a particular organisation. We are taking evidence on that in the all-party parliamentary group. It is clear that the gambling companies quickly pull away those who habitually gamble. They gamble almost by impulse, and thus they become incredibly profitable for the companies. They are induced to gamble even more, because they have this habit. The idea of targeting someone who has the habit is key.

The work done by the Centre for Social Justice, which I set up, shows that such targeting not only destroys the lives of those locked into the downward spiral of misery, but drags whole families into despair. We have already heard examples of people who have committed suicide and people who have lost all their family connections. Some have lost loads of money belonging to their families and are unable to carry on a normal life.

The hon. Member for Swansea East made much of the PwC report for the Gambling Commission, which found that 59% of the profits for a remote gaming company come from those with a gambling addiction or problematic behaviour. The model is based not on any long-term relationship with loyal customers, as would be common for most business models, but on sifting out those who gamble from those who fundamentally lose. When we watch the advertising process, we can begin to realise that the companies are going to that very selective targeting. My general view is that they are completely out of control. What has been going on for some time is a front. They are trying to pretend somehow that they are reasonable and are behaving well, but they are behaving appallingly. They have set out fundamentally in the pursuit of money, and they do not care if they destroy lives.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a characteristically powerful speech on a subject dear to his heart. Here we are: another week, another debate on online gambling, which only goes to show how important the issue is to us all. Does he agree that a powerful start to righting some of the problems that the gambling companies have created would be a mandatory 1% levy on gross profits to fund decent research and help set up more gambling clinics?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my right hon. Friend—[Interruption.] No? He is right hon. in my book. I agree with him, because what has happened so far is too much about the voluntary. I am not one for constantly regulating—far from it—but we see the level of harm and the lack of knowledge about how deep the harms go, and it is time for the Government to do something.

I want to pick up on loot boxes, which the hon. Member for Inverclyde talked about in his very good speech. Almost the most sinister thing going on at the moment is the inducement of young people—kids, really—to get into the habit early. They are locked into their rooms—often their bedrooms—often until quite late at night. Sometimes parents do not realise what is going on, but they get into this process where they are often gambling money, but not money as we might term it; it is an alternative form. Sometimes they are gambling for clothing, which eventually becomes a monetary derivative.

Interestingly, I saw a report by Macey and Hamari for the University of Tampere on participation in skins and loot boxes. Worryingly, the report concludes that almost 75% of those participating in gambling related to e-sports were aged 25 or under. What is going on is clear: it is highly addictive and very fast. People build up a box of prizes. They get used to a process of inducement when they go on to bigger gambling. They hear about a 10% gift or going to a fancy party somewhere and it becomes a part of their lives, because they understand it from the gambling process that they were engaged in in the gaming.

My apologies, Mr McCabe, if I have gone slightly over my time. I will conclude by saying to the Minister, for whom I have huge respect—no one is more pleased than I am that she is on the Front Bench—that the Government need to right a wrong. The wrong was that we opened the whole of the regulatory process to gambling. It does not matter which Government did it; it was done. Now we need to bring the beast back under control. I simply say to her that there are recommendations—I will not read them all out—from the all-party group, and I hope that she will give them full consideration. It is time now to demand more of an organisation of companies that derive profits and in too many cases cause harm. There are good people who gamble occasionally, but others are locked into a spiral of harm. We look to the Government to change their circumstances.

[Steve McCabe (in the Chair)]

To be sure of getting the final four speakers in, I will have to impose a five-minute limit.

Online Gambling Protection

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is right. I welcome the report that the Committee is working on; it may show higher correlations between addiction to gaming and gambling than we previously knew, which would be extremely valuable.

What we are hearing is that Josh’s case is not a one-off; hundreds commit suicide every year as a result of gambling. We do not know exactly how many—it is somewhere between 250 and 650 a year. That is a margin of error about life and death that would be completely unacceptable in any other sector. The implication that we just do not know whether 400 people committed suicide as a result of a gambling addiction or for other reasons is truly shocking. Were it, say, the construction sector or the armed forces, there would be a public inquiry about dereliction of duty.

The first thing that we have to do is radically to improve our knowledge of the facts, and to improve the research and data that is collected. The Gambling Commission, the regulator, is working on a series of partnerships with the police, the NHS, GPs and so on to improve the situation. I am sure that the Minister, who I know is very concerned about this matter, will show support for all that work. However, serious money is needed to do it effectively, and the current £8 million a year or so given by the industry as a percentage of turnover is, given their £14 billion of profit, frankly peanuts. No wonder we know so little.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Two or three really important facts are only just becoming known. One is that the big gambling companies give inducements to those who have the highest level of losses because those people make them their profits. I understand that they also do their level best eventually to get rid of those who are not in debt, and do not lose so much. They do not want them on their sites; they want those who lose, whom they can condition to it.

On the all-party parliamentary group, we have also discovered that gagging orders are being put in place to stop employees talking about what is going on. Companies are not supposed to give inducements to people who are already addicted, but it happens. Does my hon. Friend accept that that is a real problem?

[Richard Graham]

My right hon. Friend, who has done a lot of work on this subject, not least through the Centre for Social Justice, is right to highlight some shocking practices that have undoubtedly happened. In my own constituency, a friend of mine who is a taxi driver ran up £650,000 of debt with one gambling firm. I hope that all taxi drivers in Gloucester are well remunerated, but frankly none of them can afford such vast amounts of money. Part of it came from inducements—indeed, there was a lot of wining and dining of such a profitable customer. That is one of the intrinsic slight conflicts of interest within the sector. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for mentioning that.

My first call today is for a serious contribution by the industry to fund vastly improved and independent research. Campaigners have been calling for it, the gambling review supported it and the industry expects it; William Hill has even called for it. I therefore ask the Minister when we can expect to see legislation in the shape of a statutory instrument to implement a levy of 1% of company gross profits as soon as possible.

It is not just research that will help us to prevent the rapid growth of what is fast becoming a social epidemic. As my hon. Friends have said, action is needed to protect the young. That means action on the astonishing amount of online gambling advertising on sports programmes. It is rampant. Fathers watching football or rugby at home and having a flutter with an accumulator on Raheem Sterling scoring a hat trick for Man City are unwittingly starting their children off with the idea that gambling is normal. We need to keep gambling adverts off TV sports programmes.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I praise my hon. Friend for his role in this matter, and I will come in due course to the hon. Member for Swansea East and other colleagues who have played a decisive role in these events.

In deciding on a date for implementation, the Government were obliged to consider not just those who would have been harmed by FOBTs, but the impact on wider society—the tens of thousands whose livelihoods would be at risk following the new stake. Stakeholder evidence varied considerably, but it was widely acknowledged that there would be a significant impact, whether as a result of the cap in itself or because the decision to change the cap would bring forward wider changes that were already likely to occur in a sector undergoing a great deal of change as a result of new technology. The Government have not wavered from their commitment to set a £2 stake and considered the best way to mitigate the negative impacts of the policy on the individuals and their employers, giving them time to prepare for the impact if possible. Accordingly, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport published a written statement confirming that a £2 maximum stake will be implemented from April 2019, and we have tabled Government amendment 16 to reflect that.

I will now briefly describe the events leading up to this point. When we announced the decision to reduce the stake, implementation in April 2020 was a date that I discussed with the hon. Member for Swansea East when she came to the Treasury in late spring to talk about the matter. A decision was then taken by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to consult informally with stakeholders and it was then proposed in the Budget to bring forward the date to October 2019. The decision was, I believe, intended in good faith to represent a balance between expeditiously bringing an end to the harm caused by FOBTs and enabling those working in the sector to prepare for the implications for them. None the less, it became abundantly clear that a large number of colleagues disagreed and wished to see the stake change implemented sooner, which is exactly what we have done.

I am grateful for the counsel and the campaigning zeal of a number of Members on both sides of the Chamber, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) and, of course, the hon. Member for Swansea East, whom I respect and whom I have enjoyed working alongside throughout this process.

I admire my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who was an outstanding Sports Minister and is a great Member of Parliament. She clearly played a decisive role in the Government’s decision to reduce the stake in the first place and, indeed, to do so expeditiously in April 2019. I have always believed that, in politics as in life, all we have is our reputation, and she chose her principled belief that this change must be implemented as soon as possible over her role in government. I respect that, and I am sure Members on both sides of the Committee do so, too.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I fully accept what the Minister says about the reputation of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), but does he agree that these things should not have necessitated her departure when she was doing such a good job? I do not expect the Minister to express an opinion, just that it would have been better otherwise.

[Robert Jenrick]

I clearly hear my right hon. Friend’s point, and I have fairly set out the chain of events that led to this moment. As I said, I enormously respect my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford and her decision. When I was first elected to Parliament, an elderly constituent sent me a quote by John Quincy Adams:

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”

On this occasion, of course, my hon. Friend is not alone, and I am grateful for her work in this area.

Government amendment 17 complements Government amendment 16, both of which relate to amendments 12 and 13. As I have just set out, the Government recognise the strong will of the House that the implementation date for the new maximum stake for fixed odds betting terminals be brought forward to April 2019. The Treasury has been clear throughout the process that we do not seek to use the issue of FOBTs to increase Exchequer revenues, but we do have a responsibility, which I hope Members on both sides of the Committee will recognise, to protect the public finances and to ensure that we have the means to fund our public services. The cost of eliminating the damage caused by FOBTs must not be paid for by our having fewer doctors, fewer teachers and fewer people working in mental healthcare.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes his excellent point well, and I agree with it entirely.

Page 11 of that report describes what “at risk of closure” actually means. It means that once the £2 cap is implemented, just under half of those shops would make a net annual profit of £20,000 or less. Are we seriously to believe that a net profit of £20,000 a year is terminal? KPMG did not think so. The report concludes that these shops would not close, but would simply be “less profitable”. The threat was not to our constituents’ jobs, but to corporate profits. Can the Minister assure Members that the Treasury will never again seek to justify resisting evidence-based policy on the basis of secret reports and clandestine meetings?

By choosing to take such an approach, the Treasury ignored the recommendation in the May 2018 gambling review that the £2 limit should be adopted within nine to 12 months. Let us remember that that policy was designed to reduce the harm caused by gambling addiction. The evidence of harm associated with FOBTs is overwhelming, with that harm disproportionately felt by the poorest in our society. Put simply, there are twice as many betting shops in the poorest 55 boroughs of the UK as there are in the most affluent 115.

Even in narrow economic terms, viewing the delay as merely a reduction in tax income to the Exchequer makes little sense. As we have heard today, the social cost of addiction, crime and debt that accompanies the ever-increasing losses on FOBTs is estimated by the Centre for Economics and Business Research to cost the UK £1.5 billion a year. It has an impact on many aspects of social welfare, including employment, mental health and financial stability, so the awful human cost, about which we have heard so powerfully, is matched by an economic cost that we all bear as a society and as an economy as well. Perhaps the Minister would address whether the Government have factored into any of their fiscal calculations the prospect of alleviating the cost to public services, given a decline in gambling-related harm and crime?

Of course, the most important reason for an immediate stake reduction is a moral one—an issue of social justice that must be resolved. Lives are being destroyed, and this policy change is a milestone on our journey to tackle this harm. Labour Members are proud be part of taking that step forward, and we will keep striving to carry on making these changes until eventually we get to the bottom of what the gambling industry actually is: something that preys on people’s vulnerabilities. Labour Members recognise that quite clearly.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I want to summarise some of the issues relating to the amendments standing in my name and those of many others, including, most importantly, my hon. Friends the Members for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan)—they are hon. Friends in this case, although I am not sure they will want to be pursuing that one further. This genuinely was a very cross-party process. Interestingly, the list of names of Members who support the amendments tells us everything we need to know about the strength of feeling that existed in the House.

We accept the Government’s change, to which I shall come back in a moment, but it is worth reminding ourselves that this process has had a long gestation. I remember having conversations with my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) probably two years ago, at least—

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Three.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It was a long time ago, and even then we discussed the specific problems with fixed odds betting terminals, along with wider issues. There was this long process of gestation, and then the hon. Members for Swansea East and for Inverclyde got involved and the all-party group was formed. I congratulate them on managing to get things on to a much more even keel in respect of this being a cross-party process, in which I played a part.

We arrived at the point when we had finally persuaded the Government, with massive internal support from my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford, that it was necessary for us to make this change, given that these machines, although not alone in this, were peculiarly addictive. It was accepted that they led to a higher level of addiction and had dramatically changed the nature of betting shops. Years ago, when gambling was liberalised under a previous Government, I said, given my involvement in some of the studies, that I thought that was a mistake. When it comes to widening and liberalising gambling, the situation is not like in any other industry. It really is not just about jobs and businesses, because change involves people making decisions that are not about positive life outcomes. Thus, the situation needs to be treated separately. I remember the discussions about super-casinos, when I said that I was appalled by the idea that establishing a super-casino would somehow regenerate a town. I said, “It won’t regenerate the town. It will make it descend, and everything will then hinge around the behaviour of people in and around the massive casino.” That is by the by; liberalisation became the process.

I was really pleased when the Government finally agreed to reduce the stake to £2. My goodness, what a peculiar argument we had. We heard the Gambling Commission and the gambling industry asking many times why we would not go to £30 rather than £2. The slow extraction of teeth in this process was fascinating to behold. The worst bit for me and, I am sure, for my colleagues, was hearing the endless testimony about the families’ lives that had been blighted by this terrible addiction. Even though I was opposed to FOBTs, I had not been aware of the real human harm being caused, because one does not see it, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford knows, that was the real driver behind why we wanted to act. It was really quite moving to hear the stories at first hand and to see families’ dedication to never allowing others to get into such a situation.

I was really proud of my Government for making the decision and accepting that there was a need for change. We thought the process was done. I argued for making the change this October, because there was no point in hanging around. I thought that we did not need to worry about the gambling industry, because it would make whatever changes were necessary and it gets a lot of money anyway, so I was not that bothered about it. I remember the discussion about why we were not acting in October, and we reluctantly agreed that perhaps 1 April would give the industry time. The next thing we heard was that the date had gone back to 1 April 2020 —the following year—which was never agreed.

All of a sudden, the Government then said that they had agreed to make the change in October 2019, which they said was an advance of six months, and we said was a delay of six months. We established that the gambling industry would make well over a billion pounds during that six months. The real problem was why there was a delay, as it was clear that, as the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) said on behalf of the Opposition, the gambling report said nine to 12 months, and nine to 12 months from the date of the original decision took us to approximately April or May the next year. All that was part of the consideration. We had debates about why the date had gone back and, although I will not make a big thing about this, I did say to my right hon. and hon. Friends in government that they needed to put it back to 1 April. At the time of the Budget, their date was rejected.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) was inadvertently erased, but I will come to him momentarily—he need not fear.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

There was a recent announcement about extending contracts for rental homes to three years and losing the six-month rental position. May I urge the Treasury to look carefully at that? The last thing we want is fewer rental homes on the market and higher costs, as that would also have an impact on welfare costs.

[Mr Philip Hammond]

That consultation was announced by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. I am acutely conscious of the risks that my right hon. Friend sets out. I assure him that I have looked very carefully at the wording of the consultation and I am confident that we will not fall into the trap that he suggests. We are looking at making a three-year term the default option for private sector renting.

Spring Statement

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am committed to delivering a Brexit that protects British jobs, British businesses and British prosperity, and I spend a significant amount of my working time ensuring that that is the route we follow. I expect that we will make further progress at the March European Council. I understand the concerns that he expresses on behalf of British businesses, but I talk to businesses all day, every day, because that is my job—[Interruption.] The shadow Chancellor says so does he, so he will know this already. Business is concerned about what the consequences of a bad Brexit deal could be, but business is much more concerned about the consequences of the policies advanced by his right hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

May I say what a huge pleasure it is to hear the Chancellor so upbeat, and indeed Tiggerish? He has a right to be so, given that unemployment is at its lowest level for 40 years, and manufacturing is seeing its best performance for 50 years. Given his answer to our right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) on looking at every avenue for money, and given that we will be about four months away from our official departure date, at the next Budget will my right hon. Friend consider setting out in the Red Book what he plans to do with the money that we will no longer have to pay in contributions to the European Union?

[Mr Hammond]

It is always a pleasure to hear from my right hon. Friend. We are absolutely not complacent, because there are many challenges as well as opportunities ahead of us, but we have a plan to embrace the opportunities and rise to the challenges. This country has many advantages that our neighbours would give their right arm to enjoy. We must go forward robustly and in good heart to seize those opportunities and make the best of them for the future. On his specific point, of course in the forthcoming Budget we will look at taxation and spending over the future period. The OBR, of course, will decide what to present in its report to the House. He will have an opportunity to question OBR officials about their approach when they appear before the House shortly after the Budget statement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

As a matter of principle, it is not the position of Her Majesty’s Treasury to apply tax changes retrospectively but, as I have indicated, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I will be looking carefully at the issues that my hon. Friend has raised.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

Pursuant to that question, may I add one further caveat, given that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is beginning to look at all the other referendums that have taken place? Will it take into consideration those organisations that are not charities or political parties, but which do public good? They are beginning to be concerned that HMRC will pursue individuals who have made donations to them. Will my right hon. Friend take looking at that under his wing as well?

Exiting the EU: Costs

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his supportive comments. I am glad that he agrees with the Government’s strategy. The next step will be making sure that his Back-Bench colleagues also agree with his strategy. He is absolutely right that we should not reveal the details of negotiations while they are ongoing. However, the Opposition’s approach of saying that any deal is better than no deal is not the best way of securing a deal. Although our preferred option is an implementation period followed by a strong agreement, we are preparing for all eventualities, which is why we are putting in £3 billion. I suggest that the Opposition should also support that very responsible approach.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I am not in favour of anything that is not legal, so I support my right hon. Friend completely. I am also in line with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), in that whatever the legal agreement is, bound against the contingency of a free trade arrangement, it is exactly what the Government will set out to do. Will the Chief Secretary please remind those who have raised this question that even if we agreed a figure of something in the order of £40 billion over 40 years, because we will not be paying contributions to the European Union, it means that the UK Exchequer will be better off by £360 million in the course of those 40 years—a net gain, with a free trade arrangement?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My right hon. Friend makes a very fair point. Whatever happens, we will not be paying anything like what we would have paid as an EU member. That represents a considerable saving to the British taxpayer.

The Economy

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

May I start by congratulating you on returning to your position, Madam Deputy Speaker?

It is a pleasure to conclude this debate on the Gracious Speech. I am conscious of the fact that we do not have a huge amount of time, but I want to congratulate right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House on their contributions, particularly those who have made maiden speeches. I will come back in a little more detail to those speeches and to a few comments that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) made. I think I have a few tips for him.

We are elected and in power now, although I remind my colleagues that a month ago pollsters said otherwise. As my right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his excellent speech, we defied expectation and were elected to govern with a majority Government, and we intend to govern accordingly. We were elected to continue with our long-term economic plan and our welfare reforms, which have seen employment rates at record highs, the number in the main out-of-work benefits down by 1 million since 2010 and workless household rates at record lows. We will also carry on our work on repairing the economy, reducing the deficit and creating jobs. That is our purpose, and we will stick to it.

I will pick up on some of the speeches that have been made, as is normal for a Member winding up a debate. I start with the right hon. Member for Doncaster North. I feel like I am the only one in the House who understands where he is. As he knows, and as I mentioned earlier, I won some money on him when he became the leader of the Labour party—I put a bet on him two years out. I never felt that I was wrong. Whatever else the British public and others may have decided, I have always felt, and I have told him this, that he is a decent man who is highly intelligent and motivated to serve the British people and his constituents. His speech today showed the best of him. In the leadership election campaign, there will be collective amnesia among some of his closest colleagues about who was in the room when policy decisions were made. He may feel now like he was the only man in the room, but that short-term memory loss will not last. His colleagues’ short-term memory does not mean that he should have anything less than a long-term political career. I sense that the best is yet to be.

There were a number of really good maiden speeches from Government Members. I will try to go through as many as I possibly can. I commend the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), who took well to his task of recommending his constituency. He made an incredibly fluent speech, and even though he strayed back to 1066 to draw upon his predecessors, he made powerful comments about getting the economy right, and always doing it with social justice. I recommend that he stays with that idea.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) made a really interesting speech. I think she upset some Scottish National party Members when she referred to her predecessor but many, one Oliver Cromwell, who, she said, had found a solution to the West Lothian question that we might not necessarily wish to pursue today. [Interruption.] And the Irish problem, although some may say that he made it worse.

My hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) spoke movingly about his predecessor. Our friend, Francis Maude, served diligently. He was always reminded that he was the one who signed the Maastricht treaty—everybody else apparently had a medical appointment on that particular day. My hon. Friend will go far.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) showed her business prowess. She brings that very welcome experience to this House. As she represents Cannock Chase, I will offer her one little bit of advice: she should make sure she does not wear any fancy dress, as this does not help one’s prospects.

My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Marcus Fysh) made an excellent speech in which he talked about transport infrastructure and quoted T.S. Eliot on humility. It was a very powerful speech. I recommend it, for those who want to read it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) paid a powerful tribute to our old friend Peter Luff. He talked about the virtues of service, which he intends to follow.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) paid a strong tribute to Anne McIntosh, who served both in the European Parliament and here in the House of Commons with great distinction. Many of us who are her friends feel that she has yet still more to do. His business experience is most needed in this House. No matter what his age is—I have to say he looks pretty young to me—he will go far with that experience and he should use it.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) spoke movingly about his constituency and recommended that everyone tour there. His speech got a bit complicated when he started asking about wanting to set up all-party groups on country dancing à la Thomas Hardy. I will leave that to him if he does not mind, but he spoke very well indeed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) finished off by paying tribute to his predecessor, Stephen Dorrell, who served with huge distinction in this House through some very difficult periods, particularly when he was Health Secretary. He spoke well and fluently. I recommend him to the House.

Many other hon. Members spoke well, but I cannot go through them all. I hope they will forgive me if I do not mention them. I will make one exception and mention the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin). I thought he spoke brilliantly. He is the successor to Gordon Brown and he spoke just as powerfully and as loudly as him—and almost with the same politics. I wondered whether there had been any change at all, although he is not quite the same age. I recommend him to his colleagues and to the House. He made a really, really good speech.

The Queen’s Speech builds on the best of what we can do here in Parliament and sets out our plans for the next. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor made it very clear that we will introduce a full employment Bill. It will contain a range of measures to reform welfare and to grow the economy. We will give more people the security of a pay packet by achieving full employment and we will report on progress annually. We have the highest employment rates in the G7. Too many Opposition Members kept on repeating the same mantra they had before, laying out the course for more spending, more borrowing and more taxation. The electorate rejected that at the election and we must never cease to remind them.

There are four areas in the welfare Bill. I want to speak about three areas in particular. In the previous Parliament, we delivered 2.2 million apprenticeships. It is really important to train and provide the skills our young and older people need to get on and to develop their productivity. We intend to deliver a further 3 million. We intend to report on this. We take it so seriously that the Chancellor has made it clear that he will not put up with any divergence: we will get those apprenticeships and they will work.

In conclusion, we will pursue what we set out to do: unemployment going down, workless households down, the deficit down. The Queen’s Speech builds on our success and I commend it to the House.



Question put, That the amendment be made.