Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Kirsty Blackman

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

You will be delighted to know, Sir Roger, that I will be talking about the bank levy and the new clauses that have been tabled both by the Opposition and by our party. I wish to start by saying that I have rarely been more embarrassed to be part of this House than I am this evening. This debate followed hot on the heels of a statement on bullying and harassment and we ended up in a situation in which there was a ping-pong between Government Back Benchers and the Opposition Front-Bench team. It just was not acceptable. I appreciate the fact, Sir Roger, that you intervened and brought Members back to the matter under discussion.

[James Cartlidge]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kirsty Blackman]

No, I will not give way.

The other concern about the tone of this debate thus far is that it has basically been a history lesson. Both sides have been talking about the history and how we have ended up in this situation. Very few people have spoken at any length about the future and about how the bank levy in the future will affect the tax take of the Treasury, as well has how it could be made to be more fair and ensure that we redistribute taxes and wealth in a positive way.

The SNP has a manifesto commitment to support the reversal of the reduction in the bank levy. We stand by that commitment and have been consistent in our views on that. We have also been consistent in supporting the introduction of a tax on bankers’ bonuses.

I am pleased with the way in which Labour’s new clause 1 has been written; there is a lot to commend it to the Committee. The suggestion of looking at the effects on revenue of the bank levy compared to the bank payroll tax is utterly sensible. It strikes me that this information should be in the public domain, so that we can all talk from a position of knowledge about the actual effects that this has had, rather than the projected effect that the Treasury thought it would have when it was first put in place or even thinks it might have now. It is totally reasonable for us to ask for a review of these things.

We would be able to go further and ask for more drastic changes if the Government had proposed an amendment of the law resolution, which would allow us to be more flexible in tabling amendments. As I think I have said before—if not, I am quite happy to say it now—the fact that the Conservative Government are not proposing an amendment of the law resolution means that future Labour Governments will be likely to do the same thing, so this creates a situation whereby the House is less transparent and there is less Opposition scrutiny. It would be much better for all parties if there was an amendment of the law resolution.

New clause 1 states that the proposed review would consider

“the effectiveness of the levy in reflecting risks to the financial system and the wider UK economy arising from the banking sector”.

That is key. Despite all that has happened since the financial crash, there are concerns about ensuring that banks continue to make less risky propositions and continue to be safe places for people to put their money. It is reasonable to look at the bank levy in the context of discouraging risky behaviour by banks, and the reference to the incoming revenue is key.

New clause 11, tabled by the SNP, would deal with two things: inclusive growth and equality. We will hear an awful lot in the debate tomorrow about equality, and this should apply across all measures. The review proposed in our new clause would consider whether reducing the bank levy would disproportionately affect, for example, people of a certain gender or people who are not wealthy. People who work for banks are more likely to be male and wealthy. Therefore, reducing the bank levy is more likely to support them than it is to support groups that are disadvantaged in the first place.

We in the SNP have been absolutely clear and consistent in our support of inclusive growth. We have also been clear that things such as quantitative easing—certainly since the first round of QE—do very little to support those people at the bottom of the pile or to inject money into the real economy, but actually have a disproportionate effect in organisations such as those in the FTSE 100. We will keep being clear that inclusive growth is important, which is why we have proposed progressive options for taxation. Particularly in this place, it is difficult to get any sensible answers from the Government about how their proposals will affect people across the spectrum. That is not necessarily because the Government have not done the work; they may have done the work, but they are unwilling to publish it. They do not produce comprehensive reviews of how the tax takes have changed as a result of the changes they have made to the tax system.

Hon. Members will be unsurprised to hear me calling again for the Government to be more transparent, but that is what I am doing. I will also be very clear that we are keen to support new clause 1 if Labour decides to push it to a vote.

[James Cartlidge]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman). Interestingly, she mentioned inclusive growth, to which I will return shortly. It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), whose speech was a real tour de force. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North criticised him for not talking about the future and dwelling on the past. Actually, he was talking about the present—the challenges facing his constituency today, in the here and now. The bank levy is incredibly important because it is all about the future prosperity of those constituents, so I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s comments.

Interestingly, the Opposition’s new clause 3 gives us a good way of looking at the bank levy as it stands. Subsection (2) of new clause 3, which would affect schedule 9—the schedule that contains the details about the bank levy—states:

“No later than 31 October 2020, the Chancellor of the Exchequer shall lay before the House of Commons an account of the effects of the proposed changes in Part 1 of Schedule 9—(a) on the public revenue, (b) in reflecting risks to the financial system and the wider UK economy arising from the banking sector, and (c) in encouraging banks to move away from riskier funding models.”

I accept that those three points are incredibly germane. In fact, let us not wait until 31 October 2020. Let us stand here now and think about how a review would fit under Labour’s very own new clause.

Look at subsection (2)(a) of new clause 3, which is about the impact “on the public revenue”. What do we see? Well, the banking sector paid 58% more tax in 2016-17 than in 2009-10. That is under a Conservative Government. The average amount paid by the banks every year since 2010 has been 13% higher than under Labour. In 2016, the Government introduced an additional tax on banks—the 8% corporation tax surcharge, which we have been discussing—which will raise nearly £9 billion by 2022.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The types of borrowing that I have talked about were the reality, but what have we done since? It is no longer possible to get self-certified mortgages. It is very difficult—almost impossible—to get interest-only mortgages as a residential purchaser.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Lady did not give way to me, but because I believe in inclusive growth and equality, I will give way to her.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very sensible case about the issues there were with mortgages before, but there are currently issues with consumer credit. The Bank of England has raised concerns about, for example, the card credit that people are taking out, and the fact that half of households have less than £100 in savings. When is he going to take the punchbowl away?

[James Cartlidge]

I did say that I would come to the current position on credit. I want to finish on the analysis of the three tenets in new clause 22 under which Labour says that we should consider how the bank levy has worked. According to subsection (2)(c), we should look at it in terms of

“encouraging banks to move away from riskier funding models.”

It is quite amusing to see a Labour new clause that contains the phrase

“encouraging banks to move away”.

My colleagues will appreciate that the whole point of reforming the bank levy is not to encourage banks to move away, but to encourage them to stay here and create wealth and jobs. Let us not forget that in all the figures we have heard about, we have not heard the key one. Banks contribute £116 billion of value added to our economy, not including any of the tax take.

Finance Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Kirsty Blackman

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I thought I would take a leaf out of the shadow Chancellor’s book by bringing a red book into the Chamber to wave around in his style. It is a copy of “The Middle Way”, by Harold Macmillan, written in 1938. I brought it here because I think that what is significant about the Bill is not any of the individual measures, which we all accept are very technical—they are not particularly headline-grabbing or, dare I say, sexy—but the context. This is a serious point. I think many people feel that they are still living in a time when capitalism itself—in which I believe very strongly—is being questioned. It worries them that it is not seen to be fair, and they fear that our economic system is not rewarding everyone evenly.

Here we are, eight years after the credit crunch and its major impact. Macmillan wrote his book in 1938, nine years after the Wall Street crash, but, then as now, the impact of the crash was still being felt by society, and there was a drive towards populism. I believe that such a move to populism can be resisted only through sensible measures from centre parties that address the injustices of capitalism while still ultimately supporting its success and its growth.

We are very fortunate, in that when Macmillan wrote that book there was high unemployment and a deep depression. The situation was very different, but it was comparable in the sense that people on both the left and the right were turning to much more extreme alternatives. Interestingly, Macmillan’s answer was a national living wage. His answer was nationalisation. His answer was making all kinds of what we might typify as socialist interventions in the economy. Since 2008, we have nationalised the banks. A Conservative Government have introduced a range of measures that could be seen as potentially hitting—dare I say—our voters.

I think that the most classic example, for which I had argued myself, is the introduction of measures relating to buy-to-let landlords. We have seen a huge surge in that area of home ownership, with people owning multiple portfolios. I know that those measures have not been popular with the few. If we were the party of the few and not the many, we would never have introduced them, but we had the guts to do so because we felt that that was right at a time when first-time buyers were struggling ever harder to get on to the property ladder.

I think that this is the key point. The sense of injustice that is out there now, and which leads people to question our economy, is about asset wealth. Yes, wages have been under pressure since the crash, but when we came out of the crash, what did we do? In order to escape the worst effects of the depression, we pumped huge amounts into the economy. Inflating assets again, the help-to-buy scheme and quantitative easing—all those measures were right at the time, and in many ways continue to be.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The hon. Gentleman has been talking for three minutes, but I do not think that he has mentioned the Finance Bill yet. Are we going to have a discussion about it at some point?

[James Cartlidge]

That was a charming intervention by the hon. Lady—is that the best she can do? I am talking about our current economic context, which is why we have introduced this Finance Bill, and I was coming on to say that its measures could be seen by some as an attack on large corporations. The measure on dividends—I have to say that I still receive dividends—will be unpopular with some of our voters, who are some of the richest people in society, but we feel at this time that we have to strike a balance, and I support the balance we are striking. We are bringing in permanent non-dom status, but at the same time we will be encouraging non-doms to invest in this country, incentivising them to use money held legally abroad so that it comes here.

To me, that is the most important aspect of this Finance Bill: it acknowledges that there is still for the wider public what Ted Heath called the unacceptable face of capitalism—those people who are seen to be abusing the system with avoidance, evasion and all the other tactics. It is right that we are tough on those, and we have been incredibly successful in that, but the difference between us and the Labour party is that we act from a standpoint of fundamentally believing in capitalism. We believe in free enterprise, and in the idea of people standing on their own two feet, being brave, taking risks and creating businesses. We understand that in order to protect that system, just like Macmillan said, sometimes we have to take measures that can be seen to be even potentially anti-business, but the alternative is throwing the baby out with the bathwater wholesale by a party which now is fundamentally against our economic system.

There may be people who are unhappy with some of these measures, such as on dividends or the buy-to-let taxes I mentioned, but the alternative is a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire—into the arms of a Labour party whose leadership, at least, is fundamentally against the capitalist system. When those people attack with vigour the measures such as those we have taken on tax avoidance, saying we could go so much further, they do so because fundamentally they do not believe in the entire system. I do, and I think these measures are sensible. They help us to strike a difficult balance at this difficult economic time, and that is why we should support the Bill.

Economy and Jobs

Debate between James Cartlidge and Kirsty Blackman

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman]

What we are proposing is not a massive increase in public sector debt, but targeted public sector spend in order to increase economic growth.

We demand that the UK Government put in place a proper living wage—a living wage that people can actually live on, not a pretendy living wage. We also demand that the living wage is in place for those aged 18 and above, not just for those who are over 25.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Is the hon. Lady aware that the only international measure of the generosity of living wages is the Big Mac index? Under that index, our minimum wage is the second most generous in Europe, after Luxembourg.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The national living wage that has been put in place by the Conservatives does not provide enough to live on. It does not matter how generous it is compared with other places; what matters is whether people can live on it.