Independent Expert Panel
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(4 years ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. Before the appointments were made, we had a number of representations from Members of this House saying that they would feel confident in the system if the chairman of the panel had the experience of a High Court judge, and Sir Stephen is a distinguished—
Mr Jones
Like the Leader of the House, I have no problem with the chair being a lawyer, and I accept what has just been said, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) raised an interesting point. There is no one on the panel from an HR background in business, the trade union movement or the third sector. There are a number of individuals in the third sector who could have brought great expertise—not legal—to the panel, so I question how the consultants drew up the list in the first place. I would have thought that if they were looking for a broad spectrum of interests, lawyers are important, but so are others.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Gentleman is being unduly uncharitable towards lawyers. Lawyers can, in addition to being lawyers, have a wide range of experience in the way that they practised. Other than Members of Parliament, lawyers probably see more of life in its many and varied forms than many people in a lot of other professions. To broaden out from the people who often serve on quangos is not a bad idea for this type of panel.
As I was saying, Sir Stephen has had a distinguished judicial career, which will be of great benefit to his role as chairman of the independent expert panel. The other candidates who have been recommended for appointment are also—I hope this will reassure the right hon. Members for Warley (John Spellar) and for North Durham (Mr Jones)—of an impressive standard. Miss Dale Simon, CBE, is a qualified barrister and a former director for public accountability and inclusion in the Crown Prosecution Service, which is an important role in a public body beyond the immediate application of the law.
Dr Matthew Vickers has been the chief ombudsman and chief executive of Ombudsman Services, and we know from our experience with constituents how valuable the ombudsman services are and what an understanding ombudsmen inevitably have of a variety of lives lived and experienced by our constituents.
Sir Peter Thornton, QC, is a retired senior circuit judge with almost a decade’s experience at the central criminal court, including hearing cases of serious sexual violence. I go back to the point that I made to the right hon. Member for North Durham: lawyers do see life in the raw, and probably the rawest is on the criminal circuit seeing cases of serious sexual violence. That is an experience that few people would have.
Mr Kevan Jones
The Leader of the House is misreading what I said. If he listened to what I said, he would know that I am not opposed to people with a legal background being on the panel—I think that the chair having a legal background is right—but if we look at the CVs of the other people, what is lacking from the panel are people from, for example, industry, trade unions, the third sector and local government. People from all those sectors could have huge experience and add something to this panel.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I say once again that this panel has come from 134 applicants, and the most distinguished and capable have been drawn from it. The panel’s members include Monica Daley, a barrister of 25 years’ standing and former independent legal chair of the police misconduct committee; Professor Clare McGlynn QC, professor of law at the University of Durham—the right hon. Gentleman’s part of the world—with particular expertise in the legal regulation of sexual violence, so there is a good deal of expertise in some of the issues that may come before the panel; Mrs Lisa Ball, who brings two decades of experience in determining cases and complaints in a range of fields, including bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination, misconduct and professional standards; and Mrs Johanna Higgins, Northern Ireland commissioner for the Criminal Cases Review Commission and a barrister of 27 years’ standing.
Committee on Standards
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(4 years ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
The Commission looked at a broad paper setting out the way the recruitment would take place; it did not look at the details and the questions that the Committee would ask in terms of political affiliation. The issue—[Interruption.] That is just such a fatuous point. It is not about packing it; it is about having people who do not have a political affiliation of a recent kind.
As I said, objections were raised before we knew what party this lady belonged to, because the politicians on the Standards Committee are the Members of Parliament, not the lay members, who need to be impartial. Lay members should be genuinely independent and that did not seem to be the case, so questions were raised. It was at that point that it emerged that Ms Carter had joined the Labour party this year to vote in the Labour party leadership election. It seemed to me that anyone who had recently joined any political party in order to cast a vote in favour of an individual to lead that party, believing that doing so would ensure a viable Opposition, would find it hard to persuade people that they were genuinely impartial. Under those circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that the House of Commons Commission did not achieve consensus in approving the appointment.
In the light of this candidate’s noted support for one particular Labour leadership contender over another, I find myself in the perhaps unexpected position of juggling the interests of the rival factions of the Labour party. A lay member of the Standards Committee should be impartial towards politics that I do not like as well as politics that I do like.
As Leader of the House, I have a responsibility to all Members to protect their interest, which extends to all Members who competed in the Labour leadership election, some more successfully than others. Let me ask the House what view it would have taken of somebody who applied to join the Standards Committee who had joined the Conservative party just to vote for my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) in the Conservative leadership contest because they believed in the need to get Brexit done. Under those circumstances, we would not be having this conversation. The same principle applies to somebody who joined the Labour party to support one particular candidate.
I do not make these points in an academic, theoretical or philosophical way. It is likely that, in the near future, the Standards Committee will be asked to consider a case relating to the activity or conduct of an MP. In this instance, there is a real risk of the appearance of bias, because this proposed member has made clear her support for one candidate over another and joined a party specifically to vote for that one candidate over the other. We cannot have a situation where a lay member of the Standards Committee is perceived as being linked to a faction within a political party—as it happens, within the Labour party, but it would be just as unsuitable if someone were to be linked to a faction within the Tory party, although of course the Tory party does not have factions. What happens when that lay member is asked to make a judgment about the activity or conduct of an MP from within that faction?
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The Leader of the House just said that this individual is a member of a faction. Is it not the case that that individual might have just wanted to vote for one candidate? Does he have any evidence that she is organised as part of a faction within the Labour party, because that is what he just implied?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The point is self-evident: if somebody joins a party specifically to vote X, they also specifically vote against Y. Y is a Member of this House. The person in question who joined the Labour party clearly has a view that is unfavourable to Y and favourable to X. Y may appear in front of the Standards Committee. At what point could Y possibly have confidence that this lady, who claims not to be anything other than impartial in normal circumstances, should be impartial against them after she voted against them and specifically joined the Labour party to vote in that direction?
Mr Jones
I have to say the Leader of the House is tying himself up in knots, because that is not the question that I asked. He said that she is a member of a faction. Does he have any evidence that, apart from casting a vote for a candidate in an internal Labour party election, she has been organising with others to support a certain candidate? If he does not, he should correct the record.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I said quite clearly that she supported a faction. If someone supports one candidate in a leadership election, they are self-evidently supporting a faction. That is just normal use of English, which I am surprised the right hon. Gentleman questions, because he is quite hot on that normally. Any perception of partiality undermines the important role of lay members, who are there to provide a vital balance to the political membership of the Standards Committee. That is why we ask for lay members in the first place.
Business of the House
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
I will do better than my right hon. Friend asks; I will ensure that an extract of Hansard recording the thanks of my right hon. Friend is sent to the Chancellor. His proposals have received widespread support across the country and the House. My right hon. Friend’s point on the self-employed is very well made, and I will ensure that that is also passed on.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
May I add my welcome to the support given last week to those in employment? There is, however, real anxiety out there among the self-employed. For example, Bill Croney, one of my constituents who runs an event catering business contacted me this morning. These people have got no money coming in, and I think people need to realise that. The Government need urgently to bring forward active measures, and the indication of a statement tomorrow would at least be a ray of hope for some of those people in desperate times.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Although the Bill coming before the House tomorrow is not specifically directed at the self-employed, the scale of tomorrow’s Bill is such that it will allow expenditure of £260 billion on account. That gives the Government the flexibility that they need, assuming the House is willing to pass that Bill, to ensure that steps can be taken. I know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is giving urgent attention to ways of helping the self-employed. I think it is accepted across the House that that needs to be tackled.
Private Members’ Bills: Money Resolutions
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is not focusing on the totality of the constitution. The sovereignty of this House is there to give confidence to the Government of the day. If the Government do not have the confidence of this House, they fall. Therefore, if the Government do not operate correctly in bringing forward their requests for expenditure in terms of their dealings with this House, or if the House does not approve, the Government change.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I will not give way again because time is short, much as I would like to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
The point of the constitutional differentiation—the separation of powers—is that, as long as the Government command the confidence of this House, they are the sole proposer of expenditure.
Defence Implementation Road Map
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(9 years ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
But if we are to have an internal market, does that not begin to bring in the single market rules? It may well be in the interests of this nation to support an uneconomic defence manufacturing industry because of the need for certainty of supply at a time of war which may be unpredictable. I seem to remember that during the first Gulf war, Belgium would not supply bullets—
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is as helpful as ever. Belgium would not provide hand grenades to British forces. Can we really risk being in a situation where these decisions are in any way constrained?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I agree with that, although I think that the Government should have the right to be protectionist in relation to defence procurement. I am not sure it is always wise to be protectionist. I am a supporter of having bought ships from South Korea. That was a sensible thing to have done in the broader context. I am in favour of maintaining freedom of activity rather than saying that it is always wrong to buy from overseas.
The final point I am making is that intergovernmental co-operation is admirable. When we are dealing with issues that NATO does not want to deal with, it makes complete sense to co-operate with our nearest neighbours and to use that projection of force where it can be used. I absolutely agree with the Minister that on the issue of Ukraine, a variety of agencies needed to be involved, but what never needed to happen was for defence to come under the auspices of the EU, formally or informally. It is a great protection from the general ratchet effect of what happens in the EU if the Minister is robust. I am reassured that we have one of the most robust Ministers before the Committee today.
Cities and Local Government Devolution [Lords] Bill
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention, because it brilliantly encapsulates what I want to say, which is that Bristol is a fantastic city, a noble city, a city of fine history, but it is not Somerset. What I want to do is to protect Somerset from encroachment by Bristol. I want Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that the people of Somerset are not subjected to any pressure, any force or any arm twisting to be ruled from Bristol or to subsidise Bristol. I would rather, and I know the people of Somerset would rather, see our money spent through decisions made in Whitehall than decisions made in Bristol. We see the unity of the nation and we see the history of our county; what we do not see is a random administrative area.
I hope that the Minister can give me one commitment, which is that if we do not sign up to these things and if we retain our independence and freedom of manoeuvre, the Government institutions that spend money, such as Highways England, will continue to spend money—that it will not mean any loss of money, but will merely be about who decides how it is spent. For once, I am trusting the man in Whitehall against the man in red trousers in Bristol.
Mr Kevan Jones
The Minister made three startling claims in his opening remarks. He said that mayors will not be imposed, that devolution settlements will not be imposed and that the Government will seek consensus on such settlements. That is just not what the Government are doing.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) talked of an iron fist in a velvet glove. What we have here is complete doublespeak. The portrayal of the situation by the Minister and others is that these decisions will somehow be taken in local areas. At the same time, the North East combined authority is being told that it will get devolution, but that a non-negotiable condition of that is to have a mayor. When councillors meet the Secretary of State and ask him why they need a mayor, he says that it is because the Chancellor of the Exchequer requires it as a prerequisite of devolution. The Conservative party and its friends in the north-east state that when the North East combined authority’s leaders ask sensible questions about why other areas have devolution without a mayor, or legitimate questions about how the mayor will work in practice, they are somehow being difficult, and that is why amendment 51 is so important. Throughout this entire exercise we are forgetting one important group of people—those who elect us and who are served by local councils and local areas.
Last week on Second Reading the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) claimed that the Secretary of State was being a Chamberlain-style reformer. No, he is not, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) when he says that we will end up with a complete dog’s breakfast.
There has been no great commission. When the Conservative party restyled local government in the 1970s we had the Redcliffe-Maud report, and in the ’60s—I think it went over into the Heath Government—the Crowther commission considered devolution. At least we are considering the issue and have some consistency to our approach, but that is because this Bill has nothing to do with real devolution and is about the Chancellor’s political control. He is seeking to ensure that the cuts required by his ideal of a small-state Britain can be devolved to local authorities or mayors, so that when people ask, “Why do you have to make these cuts?”, he will stand back and say, “It is nothing to do with me. It is down to your local mayor, and you decide.”
Scotland Bill
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Jones
I agree, but if air passenger duty were zero in Scotland and the same as it is now in Newcastle, Scotland would clearly have an advantage. I do not want to get on to how much Scotland is able to devote to its tourism promotion budget, something that we need more of in the north-east.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman seems to be setting out the most attractive form of tax competition. If Scotland gets rid of air passenger duty, there will be real pressure on the Chancellor to abolish it for the rest of the United Kingdom, and the whole economy will grow. It is marvellous to see the whole House moving in such a right-wing direction in its economic debates.
Mr Jones
On this very rare occasion, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I would abolish APD altogether; it is a tax that, as the Scottish Government have recognised, stifles economic development. A PwC report says that the number of overseas visitors would grow by 7% if we abolished it altogether and that more money would come in from other taxes.
Scotland, for her own, sensible reasons, could halve and then abolish APD, leaving Newcastle at a great disadvantage. That would cost jobs; it has been anticipated that up to 1,000 jobs could be lost by 2025 if the situation remained the same, along with £400 million gross value to the economy of the north-east. One of the poorest regions in the UK cannot afford to be at such a disadvantage.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) said, there seems to be a bit of confusion over the Government’s approach. He read out the Chancellor’s comment at the Treasury Committee sitting. The Chancellor seemed to be sanguine, giving the impression that if Scotland reduced its APD, airports such as Newcastle could happily soak up a 10% loss in traffic. I am sorry, but I have been a director of the airport and I know the management team well—I know how hard they have to work to attract every single flight and new route to Newcastle. A clear 10% loss would not be acceptable. My hon. Friend mentioned another point. The Chancellor also said that his personal view was that tax competition should be allowable. If that means putting the north-east at a disadvantage, the Government have to address that.
There has been some confusion. During the general election, the Prime Minister was asked by a local newspaper about unfair competition affecting Newcastle airport and—we should not forget the other airport in the north-east —Durham Tees Valley airport. He was questioned about reducing rates of APD for north-east airports to match the reduction in Scotland, as the Labour party in the region had been arguing. He said that that could be a positive suggestion.
What we need now is clear action. We have a new Minister for the northern powerhouse, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton). I understand that his constituency includes Durham Tees Valley, so whether he can persuade the Treasury to do something about the effect of the clause on the north-east economy will be an interesting test of his power. We hear a lot about the northern powerhouse. Those of us in the north-east think that it ends in Manchester.
It is important that the effect of the clause is addressed. If it is not, this unfair tax will not only cost jobs in one of the poorest regions of the UK, but stifle one of the few economic drivers in the north-east in Newcastle airport, which can grow not only business, but competition. As I said in an earlier intervention, Newcastle airport is important not only for passengers, but for cargo revenues. It enables companies in the north-east to export around the world. The direct flight to Dubai has meant that a lot of local businesses have been able to export products there directly and to grow.
I am interested to know the Government’s approach to this issue. If the clause is passed, we cannot have a lag that leaves regions such as the north-east being hit by the tax competition which the Chancellor seems to think is acceptable, but which the Prime Minister clearly wants to do something about. The ball is firmly in the Government’s court to ensure that this anomaly is put right.
Consumer Rights Bill (Carry-Over Extension)
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Jones
I am quite aware of that, and I apologise for digressing into areas that are beyond the scope of the Bill.
The central point is that this Government have not been able to programme their Bills properly during this Parliament. Depending on where this Bill gets to in the stack of Bills in the other place, it could end up in the wash-up. If Lord Moynihan presses these matters to a vote again, as he said on the radio this morning that he would, we shall have ping-pong and this Bill and others could end up either being filleted or in a ping-pong session. That could result in important legislation not being put forward. The use of this Standing Order shows that the Government have failed in one of their basic tasks—that of timetabling their legislation in this House. It is an indictment of the incompetent and arrogant way in which they have acted.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Does not this show precisely the reverse? Does not it show the ambition and forthrightness of the Government in having such a busy programme, even at the end of five years, that they need an extra 67 days? That dynamism is something of which the Government should be proud.
Mr Jones
I am glad I have woken the hon. Gentleman from his slumbers. In fact, the opposite is the case. The Government have had a year in which to get the Bill through, yet they have had to argue for an extension to finish the process for this and other legislation. They cannot hide behind the argument that there has not been enough time to consider the Bill; there has been plenty of time. This Government have an inbuilt practice of trying to get Bills through the House as quickly as possible, which is why they have ended up with a logjam in the other place. That is not good for this House, because the Bills do not receive proper scrutiny. This House should be the place in which amendments are tabled and discussed.
During this Parliament, we have seen some very badly drafted Bills. They have not only needed amendment in the other place but come back to this House, at which point the Government themselves have had to table reams and reams of amendments. That is about bad drafting of legislation. It says exactly the opposite to what the hon. Gentleman suggests, in that if the Government cannot get it through in a year, that shows either incompetence or, as I said, a strategy whereby they were trying to push everything to the other place so that when they have their in-built majority there they can bang it through as quickly as possible.
That does this House, or how the public see it, no favours. They do not understand the effectiveness of the other place and how it changes Bills. This House should be where amendments are introduced and things are changed. Without that, all we are doing is rubber-stamping the Government’s legislation—that should not be the position. Members should propose amendments and argue against badly drafted legislation and against things they feel strongly about, as on occasion have the hon. Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg).
I think that we will be seeing more of these carry-over motions, which is an indictment of how this Government have been managing legislation. The Procedure Committee needs to look at this practice in order to ensure in future that this House is the body that not only drafts legislation, but ensures that it receives proper scrutiny.
Question put and agreed to.
Recall of MPs Bill
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(10 years ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to be serving under your chairmanship in the Chamber, Sir Roger, rather than being hidden away in a dark corner of the House.
I have a very modest amendment to bring forth: amendment 38, which I hope the Committee will consider. All I am doing is changing one word. I am changing the word “maximum” to “minimum”, so I am in fact changing only two letters; I am changing “ax” to “in”, so we are axing “ax” and bringing in “in.” The reason for doing so is because I am a supporter of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith): I think that if we are going to have recall we should do it properly, and if we are going to do it properly we should do it generously, and if we are going to do it generously, it should be easy for people to exercise their right under it.
Mr Kevan Jones
I know the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is unable to be here today through illness, but in the argument he was putting forward last week in Committee he championed the fact that people would have to turn up to one place to sign the petition, arguing that that would somehow make it very difficult to achieve the threshold. Is the hon. Member for Richmond Park now saying that that was not the case?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My amendment is supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, and he kindly added his name to the list; indeed it appears immediately beneath mine on this amendment, so yes, indeed, it does have his support, which I am very grateful for. It is a recognition of the difference between constituencies and the fact that this point is already provided for in other areas of legislation. I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Minister said and he made some very important points in saying that there may be discrepancies between one constituency and another and raising the issues of cost.
Mr Jones
I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman has not answered my question. The point the hon. Member for Richmond Park was arguing last week was that because people would have to turn up in person to one point—the town hall, for example—his proposed provisions would not often be used. Is the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) now saying that the hon. Member for Richmond Park is arguing we should have multiple centres to make it easier for people to take part in a recall?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is tempting me to make arguments for somebody who is not here, which is a wonderfully hypothetical approach to be taking. I must make my own arguments for what I believe about this Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park will make his arguments when he is here, as he did so eloquently last week in favour of his amendments to the Bill. I must focus on my amendment 38, and its purpose, however. I hope that clarifies the matter, Sir Roger.
I was saying that I completely understood what the Minister was saying on the issues of differentiation between constituencies and cost, but the first point is accepted in all our elections anyway, and is accepted in legislation that this very Government passed. The legislation providing uniform constituencies made exceptions for the very largest geographical areas, because it recognised that it is unreasonable not to make different arrangements for those beyond a certain size. Therefore, when there are thousands and thousands of acres—sometimes into the thousands of square miles—we make different arrangements from those that we have for the much smaller, more compact constituencies.
I do not fully accept the Minister’s point about cost. Clause 18 provides Ministers with considerable powers to make regulations affecting the opening hours of the places where the petition may be signed. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) has raised this matter in the past. In my view, it would therefore be possible for people to sign the petitions in local post offices during their opening hours. This would involve minimal cost, while giving constituents in the larger geographical areas easier access to the process.
This is important because the difference in size between the constituencies is extreme. I have here a little list, at the top of which is Ross, Skye and Lochaber, whose area is 4,709 square miles. That is a little over 3 million acres, which is three times the size of the county of Somerset. To have only four places in such a vast area would place an unreasonable constraint on people’s ability to exercise the democratic right that we are proud to be giving them. We should be positive about the Bill; it is a good thing to allow constituents to have greater control over their Members of Parliament. Access to the process would be very easy in the smallest constituency, Islington North, which has an area of only 2.8 square miles. Such a constituency would hardly need more than one place, because it would not be too difficult for people to get around, unlike in Ross, Skye and Lochaber.
In my own area, God’s own county of Somerset, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath)—whom I am happy to see in his place—represents an area of 367 square miles. The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) is even bigger, with an area of 417 square miles.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I rather agreed with the hon. Lady when she expressed her concern about the difficulties of voting by post. It has become much too easy and is susceptible to high levels of fraud, and I do not believe that that is a problem only in Northern Ireland. It is increasingly a problem in England, and probably in Wales and Scotland as well. We have heard about the problems in Birmingham; my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) has made regular references to them. I would therefore prefer people to be able to go somewhere physically and add their name to a list.
Mr Kevan Jones
It is a Daily Mail myth that postal vote fraud is rampant. When the Electoral Commission ran its all-postal-vote pilots in, I think, 2006, it found that there was not widespread fraud, although there were problems in certain communities.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
There are undoubtedly greater difficulties with postal voting. My major concern is that it undermines the secrecy of the ballot. When ballot papers go into people’s homes, they are likely to be seen as a family affair, in contrast to the secrecy involved in going into a corner of a polling station to vote. As I was saying in response to the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), I believe that it is better for people to turn up to vote in person and that that should be facilitated. That would reduce the need for excessive postal voting.
I shall not go through all the constituencies on my list, but I should point out that my own has an area of 122 square miles, or about 85,000 acres. That is about the maximum area that could conveniently have only four registration places. Such an arrangement would simply be unreasonable in a bigger constituency, such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome.
There is a broader point to make: the rural areas often get forgotten. There is a polling station in my constituency that is in somebody’s porch. About 85 people go to vote there. There are even smaller polling stations across the country; some have only a couple of dozen electors who are eligible to vote in them. We used to make it easy for people to turn up and vote, and if we are introducing new democratic rights, we ought to make it similarly easy for people to turn up and exercise them.
We should think about the rural areas: they have fewer people, but their democratic rights are just as important as those of people who live in dense urban areas, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) so rightly said. There are differences between constituencies, and we recognise them in other ways. In passing, it is worth mentioning the great county of Yorkshire, which has a particularly large number of seats that cover large areas and have small populations. Yorkshire has more acres than there are words in the Bible, if the Apocrypha is excluded, and it is divided into very large geographical constituencies. Again, each of them ought to have more than four places for people to go to. I hope that the Government will listen on this matter, and understand the need for rural populations to exercise their rights as freely, properly and easily as the urban mass population.
Mr Kevan Jones
I want to comment on amendment 38, which the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) has just spoken to. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), I am generally sympathetic to the idea that having a maximum of four places would be disadvantageous and totally impractical in some large rural constituencies. In the Western Isles, for example, there would have to be a decision about which islands should have such a place. There is a genuine need for the Government to consider that problem.
Finance (No. 2) Bill
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), who is unfortunately no longer in his place, said that the Budget gave him a feeling of “upbeat optimism”. We have also just heard the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) say that we should all be smiling, as though the Budget were to be the salvation of our nation. The Conservative party will clearly go into the next election using “Happy Days Are Here Again” as its theme tune.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman will recall that “Happy Days Are Here Again” is traditionally a Democrat theme tune. I think it unlikely that the Conservatives would borrow from the left in America.
Mr Jones
I would not put anything past the new Conservative party, although I know that the hon. Gentleman is part of the ancient—even prehistoric—Conservative party. It is clearly part of the Conservative party’s strategy to try to give the impression that we have turned the corner and that the sunlit uplands are now before us. The public are neither so stupid nor so naive as to believe that, however, because they are living the reality of what this Government are doing to this great nation of ours.
Mr Jones
I agree. Some particular issues that appertain to Northern Ireland need to reflect the common land border with the Republic of Ireland.
As we have heard several times this afternoon, the Liberal Democrats are trumpeting as a great thing the fact that we have increased the personal allowance. The people who gain from it most are not the poor but those on middle incomes. MPs—quite apart from some Government Members who earn a lot more than their parliamentary salaries and who will gain even more—will gain more than the low paid.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman must bear it in mind that nobody gains more than the £700 and that in the early stages the higher rate taxpayers were not included in the increase in the lower rate threshold. It was clawed back from them, so what he says about MPs is actually not correct.
Mr Jones
I was referring to some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues and I do not know whether he is included, as I did not look up his figures. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), who was in the Chamber earlier, earned £213,000 last year on top of his salary. He will therefore gain from the tax cut that the Government have given him. The Conservative Member with the highest figure earned something like £800,000 a year.
VAT, the cuts to housing benefit, the bedroom tax and the changes to tax credit have all affected those individuals. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East also mentioned national insurance, which affects those who are on very low pay. As for the idea that the increase in the personal allowance is somehow a great gift to the low paid, it is, as somebody said earlier, simply about giving with one hand while taking away with the other.
One missed opportunity in this Budget is that of putting investment into our economy. Clearly, the narrative is about a small state and the Conservative party wants as small a state as possible. The view expressed by the hon. Member for Macclesfield gave the game away and that is, basically, that the only people who create wealth in this country are entrepreneurs and business, that somehow public expenditure is a bad thing and that spending money on services does not create any wealth at all. In the early days of this Government, the one thing that sucked more money out of the economy than anything was the cuts to public services and local councils. Councils do not sit on money, they spend it in their local communities. I know that many small businesses, including one small building company in Chester-le-Street, nearly went to the wall because their main contracts were with the local authority.
The hon. Member for Redcar used a comparison with maxing out credit cards, but the idea that the state is like an individual’s personal bank account is complete nonsense. Clearly, if the state invests in infrastructure and other things, we get growth in the economy.
Mr Jones
I totally agree. The hon. Gentleman should look at my record on Newcastle city council, because I always ensured that we got value for money. But there is a big difference between getting good value for money for the taxpayer and his suggestion that local authorities and public services spending money will somehow not have an effect on local economies. It should come as no surprise to anyone that taking money out of people’s pay packets, whether in local councils or public services, will have an impact on private sector jobs in local communities.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The point that the hon. Gentleman is missing is that the money that is taken out of the taxpayer’s pay packet is tax in the first place, so this is merely changing the money from being spent in one part of the country to being spent in another; it is not creating new money.
Mr Jones
I disagree. Were we to build a new motorway or railway line, such as HS2—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is a great advocate of that vanity project—the increased speed with which people would be able to move around and do business would have an impact, so it cannot be said that that will not have an effect. We come back to the idea that somehow Governments cannot have an impact on what is happening.
Last week my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) raised with the Prime Minister the disproportionate amount of money spent on transport in London, compared with the north-east. Interestingly, the Prime Minister rattled off four transport projects that he claimed this Government had delivered for the north-east. He was very confident about his facts, which did not surprise me, because his public school background means that he can be very confident even when talking complete nonsense—it does not really bother him, because that is the way he has been brought up. He mentioned the Tyne and Wear Metro and the Tyne tunnel—I cannot remember what the third and fourth projects were. They were all agreed by the previous Labour Government. In fact, the Tyne tunnel was finished before this Government came to office. The idea that this Government are somehow leading on those big infrastructure projects, which are desperately needed in the north-east, is ridiculous, because clearly they are not.
Housing is an issue that could be completely missed in the Budget. The way forward is clearly to encourage people to buy their own homes, and I have no problem with that, but if someone is in low-paid work on a zero-hours contract, and possibly having to work two part-time jobs, as many people do, the idea that they will ever get the credit worthiness to own their own home is complete nonsense. What we need, certainly in the north-east and in my constituency, is affordable housing for rent. The easy thing that the Government could do—it would not cost them any money—is give housing associations the borrowing requirements they need against their assets to build houses. The Government could do that, but they are not. Instead, they are creating an artificial bubble in the housing market. Look at the difference between the north-east and the south. Prices in the north-east are still £5,000 lower than in 2008; in London and the south-east, they are 77% higher. Ridiculously, housing is completely unaffordable for most people in London and parts of the south-east, with average house prices of £400,000. Even people with reasonable standards of living find it hard to buy a house.
I turn to youth unemployment, one of the great tragedies of the Government. I fear that there will be a repeat of what we saw in the 1980s—a completely lost generation of young people. They have no opportunity for a job, not only in the short term but in the longer term. Why is that important? If someone meets us for the first time, they usually ask us two things: our name and what we do for a living. Some people cannot answer the second question about a fundamental part of who they are. Some say that there are lazy people, but I am sorry—there are hard-working people struggling to make ends meet.
I will give two examples from my constituency. I met someone on a zero-hours contract working in a store, which I will not name, in the Metrocentre—that great cathedral to Thatcherite free market enterprise.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The thing about corporation tax is that a lot of corporations can be taxed almost anywhere in the world. That is why I think the Government are absolutely right to bring down the rate of corporation tax. It will help businesses to be headquartered in the United Kingdom, which is good for the UK in terms of employment and, indeed, tax revenues, by which I mean not just corporation tax revenues, but the other tax revenues paid by companies, namely business rates and employer national insurance contributions, as well as the taxes paid by their employees. We get a larger, more successful economy if we are relatively generous to corporates.
Northern Ireland Members have spoken of the particular circumstances there and the competition Northern Ireland faces from the Republic of Ireland. That is a very good case of tax competition between neighbours and it can be seen very bluntly in Northern Ireland because of the land border. We see less of it on the mainland of the United Kingdom because we do not cross borders quite so easily and we do not necessarily focus on it as much as we should. I think that the Government are absolutely right on corporation tax and that they should continue down that line.
The Government have also been right on the raising of thresholds and I hope they will continue with it. It makes sense, as my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) has said, because it is not logical for people on the minimum wage to be paying taxes. There is no point in taxing people who are low earners merely to pay them benefits with their own money. Although it was a Lib Dem policy in the last election and they deserve credit for that, it was suggested earlier by Lord Saatchi and Peter Warburton in a booklet they produced for the Centre for Policy Studies. The Conservative antecedents of the policy are pretty good and solid. It is a Tory policy in origin and it ought to continue.
The aim of the Government in the long run should be that people on the minimum wage should pay neither tax nor national insurance. In that way, the amount of benefits that needs to be paid to them will be very significantly reduced, as will the administrative burden. Roughly speaking, tax collection costs 1% of the amount collected, and benefit payments cost about 2% of the benefits paid out, so if we tax people to pay them benefits, the overall cost will probably be about 1.5% of the total amount paid and received. The policy is very good and welcome.
Another policy that must be welcomed is the change to pensions. Questions about pension funds came up when my right hon. Friend Chief Secretary to the Treasury spoke. What the Government are doing is very simple: they are allowing people to keep their own money. That is not very popular among Labour Members, who seem to have the view that it is the Government’s money and should be distributed as they, rather than individuals, wish. Conservative Members and, indeed, Liberal Democrats who still have some residual liberal attachment believe that the money belongs to the individual taxpayer.
The policy has a very clear advantage for the tax authorities, because it clarifies the idea that pension saving is nothing but a tax avoidance boondoggle. It is about taxing people once, rather than twice. People are taxed when they withdraw the money from their pension fund, with a 25% exemption, rather than taxed when they put it in. It is worth bearing in mind that if that was at any point reversed, the withdrawal would be taxed as a capital gain rather than as income, and the rates that applied might be very different from those that currently apply to withdrawals from pension funds. Any Government who intend at any point—whether at the higher or the lower rate—to withdraw the benefits of saving through a pension fund should consider the ultimate pay-out, and how the policy is a fair means of taxing people and ensuring that they are not taxed more than once.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) said, this was a “steady as she goes” Budget. It is very impressive. The Government have not gone for cheap gimmicks, as parties sometimes do before elections; they have gone for continuing the work, which they started in 2010, of getting the country back on track. They are doing so in a way that benefits the least well-off in society the most. It is absolutely striking that the real incomes of every decile other than the highest-paid decile will rise by more than prices this year, as they did last year.
That Government achievement is helping where help is most needed: it is helping business to allow it to invest; doing more to help exporters; helping to rebalance the economy for the long term; and—gloriously, splendidly and rejoicingly—it is doing something to ensure that people have their own money. What a fine Conservative principle that is. We believe that the individuals and their families who build up society have the greatest wisdom about how they spend their money, not the tax authorities that dish it out. What is being done with pensions is the clearest statement of that. Yes, if people buy Lamborghinis, Bentleys or Porsches, they will spend it unwisely—
Jacob Rees-Mogg
None of them is British, unless people buy Aston Martins. We could say, “Let us all buy Aston Martins with our pension funds to save the British car industry.” If we decided to do so, we would at least be spending our own money to support Britain. If we ended up sleeping in the Aston Martin, we would have nobody but ourselves to blame; it would not be the nanny state, the socialist state or the “Let’s tell you what to do” state that had taken charge. For that, we should rejoice at the Budget and the Bill.
High Cost Credit Bill
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The obvious answer to that is that there is no better credit-rated borrower than the Conservative party, the oldest party in history.
Mr Jones
Given the mess that the Chancellor is making of the economy, I am not sure I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The point is that the Conservative party can accept a cheap loan from a person involved in payday lending, at the same time as many of our constituents and ordinary hard-working families are being charged 74% interest. It goes further. Adrian Beecroft is a major stakeholder in Wonga which, as has been mentioned, charges up to 4,000% interest. He wants us to deregulate more—zero-hours contracts, the minimum wage and all the other things that he wants put forward in a deregulation Bill—but that will cause more of the problem. I am not surprised that he is in favour of it, because it will lead more people to payday loans at exorbitant rates from the likes of Wonga. I am a bit baffled by the Government’s approach to the Bill. It would be sensible to send it to Committee, debate it and if they want to amend it, they can bring forward proposals.
The heart of my point is how policy is influenced. The Prime Minister said this week that nobody buys Conservative party policy. We have heard very good contributions from Conservative Members who are clearly in touch with what is happening on the ground. However, while the Conservative party chairman, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) has described payday lenders as “obscene”, he is not afraid to accept their money.
Representatives from Wonga attended an event at the Conservative party conference that was described as a “speed dating event”, at which the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Gauke) and the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) spent 20 minutes at each table. The idea of speed dating two of them might not seem too bad, but the idea of speed dating the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks is taking things too far.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Perhaps the hon. Lady refers to:
“You have made my Father’s house a den of thieves”.
I was not going to quote that because I thought it was so well known that it would be unnecessary to trouble the House with it. Interestingly, however, the money changers in the temple were changing ordinary Roman coinage into the special coinage used in the temple for buying sacrifices and so forth, and making a very healthy return on that. I am not quite sure that it is the same as usury, which is another reason why I was not going to mention that precise example. However, it is interesting that these issues have come up over the years.
The councils of the Church have considered the matter. At the council of Nicaea, the Church council that set out the Creed also decided that the clergy may not lend money at interest, and that interest may not be charged above a rate of 1% a month. The same issues were being discussed then—the rate of interest being charged and who may be involved in the process. The rather splendid Pope Sixtus V—I rather like somebody called Sixtus V; there seems to be some incongruity in it—said that charging interest was
“detestable to God and man, damned by the sacred canons and contrary to Christian charity.”
We see that these issues have been problematic for not just hundreds but thousands of years. They have been debated by theologians and looked at by economists.
The fundamental point is that there are people who have money to lend and people who want to borrow, and bringing the two together, when done in a suitable way, is beneficial to both sides. It makes it possible for people to spread payments, make investments and order their lives in a way that is convenient to them, and at the same time it makes a profit for the person on the other side of the transaction, who has excess capital to lend out. However, with that come difficulties and problems that Governments have sought to solve over generations.
At this point, I think it is relevant to quote the introduction to Henry VIII’s Act against usury, which shows the context of the problem. It states:
“Where before this Time divers and sundry Acts, Statutes and Laws have been ordained, had and made within this Realm, for the avoiding and Punishment of Usury, being a Thing unlawful, and of other corrupt Bargains Shifts and Chevisances, which Acts Statutes and Laws been so obscure and dark in Sentences, Words and Terms, and upon the same so many Doubts Ambiguities and Questions have risen and grown, and the same Acts Statutes and Laws been of so little Force or Effect, that by reason thereof little or no Punishment hath ensued to the Offenders of the same, but rather hath encouraged them to use the same.”
That, I fear, is why, in the end, I am not going to support the Bill. What happens is that Parliament legislates to rectify a problem but finds that what it legislates does not actually do that. Henry VIII’s Act was repealed within six years. It was against usury and also set a maximum rate on mortgages of 10% per annum. However, it did not work, because there are always people needing to borrow money and people willing to lend it to them. The question is how that is done, at what stage in the process and who is involved.
Having a source of borrowing within a regulated business system is preferable to loan sharks, who have been mentioned. We hear about “legal loan sharks”, and they may become illegal in some of their practices, but as far as I am aware Wonga, however bad a company it is, does not send people round with baseball bats. There seems to be a fundamental problem in legislating in a way that will push people in difficulties in that direction.
Mr Kevan Jones
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but in many cases such companies use financial baseball bats on people.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
But the difficulty is that the loan shark uses both financial and physical baseball bats. That is not to say that the behaviour of Wonga is good, and I will come on to that. However, there are already measures available for a crackdown, to use the word we heard earlier, on the operations of such companies. I accept that there are problems with the way in which such lenders operate. I oppose the Bill not because I do not think there is a problem but because there are already measures that can be taken but are not being taken. Another statute is not the answer to the problem.
That leads me on to the FCA and the normal laws. If I may, I will cite the case of a constituent who came to me not because he had borrowed money from Wonga but because it came after him saying that he had. Somebody had used his name, had borrowed I think about £300, and had got it deposited in a criminal bank account—a bank account not belonging to my constituent. Wonga then came after him and said, “You owe us this money. Please may we have it back?” He is a wealthy man, so he would have had no difficulty paying this money if he felt like it, but he was also not the sort of person who was going to be fiddled around with and pay money that he did not owe. So he said to Wonga, “I do not owe it. I never took out that loan. That is not my bank account.” Wonga wrote back saying, “That’s absolutely fine. We’ll write it off.” He said, “No, that is not absolutely fine, thank you very much. That is criminal activity and I should like it reported to the police.” He reported it to the police, but he was not the sufferer of the crime. It did not affect him. He was not short of £300; merely his name had been used. The police therefore would not do anything on his account and Wonga refused to report it to the police. Therefore it was allowing a crime to be committed and in effect rolling up the cost of that into the interest rate it charged to the people who borrow from it—in a payday loan at a very high rate, as has been mentioned—and taking that as a cost of doing business.
I have a serious gripe with that on two counts, which I know very well from my own business life in financial services. The first is that there is a basic principle of know your client. If somebody comes to my business and wants to invest with us, we have to know that client. We have to understand what their objectives are, what their wealth is, what their situation is, what type of investment is suitable for them. We have also to know who they are—who they really are, that they genuinely are who they claim to be. The know your client rule is at the absolute heart of financial regulation in this country, but for some reason Wonga and the payday lenders can completely ignore it.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, but knowing your client is not knowing a group of clients or a class of clients; it is knowing your client as an individual—as a person. That has been in the rule book of the FSA before and of the FCA now, and of the Investment Management Regulatory Organisation before them. It is a fundamental rule of financial services that we should know the counter-party with whom we are dealing and we should not deal with that counter-party if we do not, because we have a regulatory obligation to ensure the product we are offering is suitable to them. This seems to me to be a matter not of legislation, therefore, but merely of the FCA covering the bodies that are making the payday loans through its existing regulations, which would need very little change. That is a very straightforward means of putting this anomaly right.
Finance Bill
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
No, I do not. I do not believe that taxation is a matter of morality. I believe the law is a matter of morality and it is immoral to break the law, and therefore I divide very firmly between tax evasion and tax avoidance, which is the historical position of this Parliament—and, indeed, of English law. Tax evasion is criminal and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I think the scheme used by a comedian, whose name momentarily escapes me but who is quite famous, was almost certainly unlawful, and that scheme should be prosecuted.
Mr Kevan Jones
I know the hon. Gentleman lives in a rarefied world, but does he not understand the anger felt not only by low-paid workers, but middle-earners, who pay their tax through pay-as-you-earn and have no opportunity to avoid tax, unlike the footballers to whom he referred? This situation cannot be fair in any society.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
It is very important, once again, to differentiate between avoidance and evasion. If we have passed laws that allow people, for example footballers, to sell the rights to their name and corporatise that, we can change the law, and the fact that this Parliament has not changed the law means that people are entitled to do it.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Oh, he is behind me. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley said that the effect of the amendment from our Labour friends would be to bring the tax rate down to 40p. I am not sure that it was wise of him to say that, because those of us who were listening may be tempted to go into the same Lobby as the Opposition later, to help them achieve that objective.
I want to talk about the other great aspect of the Budget, and to give full credit to our Liberal Democrat friends for twisting Conservatives’ arms to get them to do something that they have always wanted to do anyway: get as many people out of taxation as possible by raising the thresholds. As the thresholds are raised, so the incentive to work becomes greater. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) said that we wanted to make the out-of-work work harder by cutting their benefits, and the in-work work harder by cutting their taxes, and thought that was illogical. Of course it is not, because a person does not get unemployment benefit for working; if a person works, they lose their benefit, and if we encourage people to work, they have more money. Likewise, if we cut people’s taxes, they have more money, so they are likely to work harder.
When we raise the threshold, we find that many millions of people are able to work more easily. They will be taken out, to some degree, of the poverty trap, which is one of the most crushing and pernicious taxation and benefit traps that anyone has to face. The move, in stages, to a £10,000 threshold is a very bold thing to do in a time of economic difficulty, but it may have some of the greatest social benefits of any of the policies that the Government are following. It really is a noble approach to taxation—an objective that is fundamentally worthy.
Mr Kevan Jones
I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but I am not sure that he realises that a large number of my constituents, and possibly his, who are in low-paid jobs claim council tax benefit, housing benefit and tax credits. However, all of those have been cut by the Government, and that counters the encouragement to work, in terms of the increase in the threshold.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am always grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s thoughtful interventions, but one of the greatest mistakes that Governments make is to have this merry-go-round of taxation and benefits, whereby we tax people and then pay them back their own money in benefits, with a cut taken for administration in between. It is much more sensible to take people out of tax altogether. I would like the threshold to be raised considerably higher, basically towards average earnings, so that the bulk of people do not pay tax at all on what they earn, but do, of course, pay in other ways, through other taxes—through indirect taxation. That takes away the major disincentive to go into employment, and lets people benefit from the fruits of their labour. That is an important proposal that has come forward, and it is popular throughout the country, though I would not say that there was literally cheering in the streets.
Sovereign Grant Bill
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Jones
That is another debate and it is difficult to quantify what the hon. Gentleman says is brought in. I do not just look at this in terms of money, but take the more fundamental view that we have a Head of State and should support her in the work that she does on behalf of this nation. What I am saying is that we need to be clear about what that costs. We should be honest about how much it costs, even if it costs more than £34 million, and not hide the way in which moneys are spent.
I broadly welcome the thrust of the Bill, but I hope that the NAO report looks not just at how royal expenditure is spent on the sovereign grant, but at other moneys that are paid to the royal household. It might suggest, for example, that the money that comes from the Ministry of Defence should not come out of defence expenditure.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The shadow Chancellor concluded his remarks by saying that he had looked up the Commons Journal for 1760. He is, of course, a very modern man. I went a little earlier and looked up the Commons Journal for 1575. I thank the Library for its assistance in helping me to find what I was looking for. I was looking for the behaviour of the House towards a Mr Peter Wentworth, a man who represented a Cornish seat and had the temerity to criticise the then sovereign, Elizabeth I. He said that
“none is without fault, no, not our noble Queen”.
For this “prepared speech” and
“divers offensive matters touching Her Majesty”
he was taken prisoner to the Tower and held there for a month at the insistence of the House of Commons. I must say that I think they knew how to behave in 1575, and it is a model for us today.
I want to come on to who really owns the Crown Estate, because that is important in this discussion. That is why I intervened on the Chancellor, and I am grateful to him for taking my intervention. It is important to remember that the Crown Estate is the property of the sovereign in an ultimate sense, though gifted for a reign. The importance of that is that the sovereign therefore has a right to ask for money. One might think that they would get the money anyway, but sovereigns have been promised money by Parliament that has been stopped. One just needs to go back to Charles II, who handed over all his feudal dues to the Government for £100,000 a year in perpetuity for all his heirs and successors. I am not sure that that £100,000 has been paid once in the last three hundred and some odd years. The Crown, by virtue of owning the Crown Estate, can guarantee that it is entitled to a revenue. The fact that at the beginning of each reign it could theoretically demand the Crown Estate back is important reassurance and a reassertion of that right.
Civil List
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
I clearly have not asked for full transparency on the royal tax affairs. Indeed, I would argue for the precise opposite, because I do not think it is particularly sensible to be investigating in close detail how the royal family spend their money. I recall a line about motes and beams; we have had quite a problem with our own expenditure in this House and I am not sure that we have got things entirely right. Before we start criticising the monarchy and looking over every biscuit that the Queen buys, we should make sure that we have our own house in order.
Mr Kevan Jones
The hon. Gentleman would not be suggesting that a way of controlling the royal household would be to have the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority running it, would he?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I would most certainly not be recommending that IPSA comes anywhere near our sovereign.
When the Crown Estate was granted in 1760 by George III, at the same time as he gave up his claim as King of France, the monarchy was in deficit and it needed extra money to fulfil the functions that were being fulfilled. Some of those functions were greater than those now paid for by the civil list. That is all certainly true, although Parliament would vote excess resources to pay for things such as the Army, so my hon. and noble friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) was not entirely fair on the point about paying for the Army.
Now the Crown Estate is in substantial surplus and I think that the Chancellor, in his proposals, which in many ways are very good, may be being somewhat canny, because the next sovereign would be able to cancel this arrangement and say, “I should like £200 million a year, thank you very much.” There is no requirement on a new sovereign to agree to hand the Crown Estate over in return for a civil list. The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said that this is taxpayers’ money and not the Crown’s money, but it really is the Crown’s money because, on becoming King, the Prince of Wales or any other sovereign could simply rescind the agreement and claim it back. The Crown Estate is the sovereign’s property, which the sovereign gives to Parliament to help to pay for the costs of the nation; it is not taxpayers’ money that is being handed over. [Interruption.] Does the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) want me to give way?
European Union Bill
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Jones
I had moved on to dealing with a new point, but I am willing to go back. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raised that point, because I can now mention a couple of issues in response. First, any law passed in this country will be interpreted by the courts. If they do something that we do not agree with, this House has the power to change it. The danger with including the sovereignty argument in clause 18 is that courts would then have debates about sovereignty, and that would be strange. How would this House then be able to change the law or interpret a court’s interpretation of sovereignty?
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I believe that what Lord Hope is saying is that this House could pass an Act that was not, in itself, lawful. What amendment 41 would achieve is a reassertion of the fact that this House could not do anything of the kind and that any act of this House is superior to any judgment of any court. If these arrangements are based on the rule of law, rather than the supremacy of Parliament, the judges could always overrule Parliament, and that is extraordinarily dangerous.
Mr Jones
Judges often do overrule Parliament on the interpretation of the law. The danger of going down the line that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting is that we might be saying that when we pass a law it could never be challenged or changed. Would we be saying that every law passed in this Parliament is perfect and will never be in need of amendment or interpretation? As has been said, the entire case law of this country and the way in which we have developed laws in this country has resulted from people challenging laws, including in terms of European legislation. The Thoburn v. Sunderland City Council case clarified the position. I am not a lawyer, but I have employed many lawyers over the years at great expense and so I know that they will argue different ways around things. Sometimes they will do so to make a point, but on other occasions they will do so to get their fees up. On laws such as this or on health and safety legislation, which was the area that I was involved in, case law precedents always develop. In the cases I was involved in, that went on to bring justice to many people who had been involved in the asbestos industry. The important question is: do we really want judges to start giving interpretations of sovereignty? That is the danger in what the hon. Member for Stone is proposing in his amendment.
May I return to what I was discussing before I was interrupted by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd)? I am always pleased to take interventions from him because, as he knows, I am a great fan. Amendment 52 would be useful, not only for the debate, but as a safeguard. If we were in a situation where we thought that European law was somehow infringing on not only the rights and liberties of our citizens, but the activities of this House, it would be important. This is not an ideal situation. The Government are always talking about unnecessary legislation and it is possible that this entire Bill is just that. Clause 18 certainly is unnecessary because it simply declares what is already the case. That is an important point. There is an idea that the Government have dressed this up and that they are going to make some great fundamental change or are going to protect against any changes in European law, but that is not the case at all. It is also important to make it clear that future Parliaments will interpret European law and will disagree with what is being put forward in this Bill. We cannot allow this Parliament to leave future Parliaments hamstrung in relation to freedoms.
In conclusion, clause 18 was introduced as a political fudge and I doubt whether it will placate the red-blooded, anti-Europe sceptics on the Tory Back Benches. Neither will it placate the commentators in the press who want us to withdraw from Europe. The clear option is to amend the 1972 Act, which would be more honest. This has exposed the Prime Minister not only in that the detoxification of the Conservative brand clearly has not taken place but because, judging by tonight’s attendance, it has put him on a collision course with large sections of his own Back Benchers. As this Parliament goes on, we will increasingly see the true nature of the new Conservative intake.
Finance Bill
Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Beamish(14 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady ought to allow me to get over-dramatic before accusing me of being so. Her point is to some extent valid; of course we need to consider these things rationally and deal with them in a sensible and prudent fashion. That is exactly what we have done. The point that I am trying to establish is that the level of debt needs to be tackled urgently. I am not saying that the United Kingdom is bankrupt; there are studies that show that there has been no default on our debt since 1688. I do not believe that the situation was going to lead to a default on gilt-edged securities. We had not reached that stage.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
However, I do not believe that it would have been impossible, purely because of our strong history, for us to have reached that stage if we had not done something early—sooner rather than later. Does the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) still want to intervene? I shall be delighted to give way.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is why, as I was saying, it is right to address the problem now, when we are in a strong enough position to do it and take the pain. Nobody denies that cutting is painful. It is always difficult.
Having, I hope, established the seriousness of the situation, I want to move on to the balance between tax rises and spending cuts and why I think, once again, that Her Majesty’s Government have exactly the right balance. One figure has not been drawn out in these debates, but it is noteworthy. If we take net tax receipts and national insurance contributions as a percentage of GDP, we see that they will reach 36.4% in 2013-14. That level has not been achieved in any single year of socialist government from 1970-71 onwards. We are having the highest level of taxation as a percentage of GDP because of a Conservative Budget, of all things. Incidentally, the same figure was reached under the chancellorships of Lords Howe and Lawson. So the Conservatives are willing to tax when it is necessary to ensure the financial stability of the country.
Mr Jones
As a former trade union negotiator, I can tell my right hon. Friend that that is an old trick. People go into negotiations asking for 50% knowing that they will come out with 5%. It is exactly as she portrays.
If anybody wants to read about the Government’s game plan, or war plan, I recommend an excellent book—someone sent me a copy from Canada—called “Shooting the Hippo” by Linda McQuaig. It is nothing to do with wildlife, and I say to the more delicate individuals in the Chamber that it is not actually about murdering hippos, but where the title comes from is interesting. Part of the media hype in Canada centred on the example of the baby hippo that would have to be shot because the zoo could no longer afford the size of compound it needed. We thereby get into a self-fulfilling prophesy, in which there is somehow no alternative.
Hon. Members have mentioned the comparison with Greece; the Canadians used the example of New Zealand. The Tories and the Liberal Democrats have justified the emergency Budget by talking about our “sovereign debt crisis” as though it were the same as Greece’s, or that of some other southern European country. That has been the entire justification for the proposals. The hon. Member for North East Somerset referred to gilts and other investments as though they would be at risk if nothing were done, and actually claimed credit for the Government for the change in the gilt yield. However, the 10-year bond yield in the UK today is around 4.5%, but it actually dropped to 3.5% in February, way before the election.
Mr Jones
To somehow attribute that decline to— [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) asks me to give way. I am glad he is now either a Parliamentary Private Secretary or some other kind of bag carrier on the Back Benches, because it will stop him making his fatuous contributions. I hope that the Exchequer Secretary is a good Minister to carry bags for, unlike the Minister for Equalities or one of the other Liberal Democrat Ministers. I shall give way with pleasure to the hon. Member for North East Somerset.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The financial markets in February had the intelligence to work out that there was an election in May and to consult the opinion polls. It was not exactly a case of consulting Mystic Meg.