Energy (oil and gas) profits levy

Debate between James Cartlidge and Peter Dowd

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (James Cartlidge)]

It is a privilege to open the second day of debate on the autumn statement for the Government. Last Thursday, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor presented this House with a plan to tackle the cost of living crisis and rebuild our economy—a statement that was honest about the challenges we face and fair in its response. His three priorities, and the priorities of this Government, are simple: stability, growth and public services. The people of this country need us to take the difficult decisions on their behalf, and that is what we will do.

In yesterday’s debate, we heard how our plan leads, among other things, to lower energy bills, higher long-term growth and a stronger NHS and education system. The subject of today’s debate is sustainable public finances and taxation, and the House will understand if I focus my remarks on those aspects of the statement.

For the record, and as the Chancellor revealed, the Office for Budget Responsibility judges that the UK, like other countries, is now in recession. Overall this year, the economy is still forecast to grow by 4.2%. GDP then falls in 2023 by 1.4%, before rising by 1.3%, 2.6% and 2.7% in the following three years. The OBR says that higher energy prices explain the majority of the downward revision in cumulative growth since March. It also expects a rise in unemployment from 3.6% today to 4.9% in 2024, before it falls to 4.1%.

One of the most salient points, and an issue we cannot and will not ignore, is inflation. Last week, the Chancellor called inflation “the enemy of stability”, noting its impact on mortgages, household bills, businesses and unemployment. We are experiencing very high levels of inflation, the primary cause of which, according to the OBR, is global factors. Those who question that should remember the following: yes, inflation is high in the United Kingdom, but it is higher in Germany, at 11.6%, in Italy, at 12.6%, and in the Netherlands, at 16.8%. The reality is that the pandemic is still casting an economic shadow, with the lasting impact on supply chains having made goods more expensive. As Members will understand, this has been significantly exacerbated by Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The OBR forecast the UK’s inflation rate to be 9.1% this year and 7.4% next year, although I note that the OBR has said that actions taken as part of the autumn statement will help inflation to fall sharply from the middle of next year. Tackling high inflation needs fiscal and monetary policy to work together, with the Government and the independent Bank of England acting hand in glove. It also needs the world to believe that this country will always pay what it owes. Thanks to the decisions this Government have already taken, the OBR has said that the peak of interest rates is likely to be lower than it would otherwise have been, in turn benefiting our economy and public finances.

But we cannot be complacent. That is why we are committed to rebuilding the public finances. The decisions the Chancellor made last week will mean that over the next five years, borrowing is more than halved. This year, we are forecast to borrow 7.1% of GDP, or £177 billion. Next year, it is 5.5% of GDP, or £140 billion, then by 2027-28, it falls to 2.4% of GDP, or £69 billion.

The Chancellor also confirmed two new fiscal rules. The first is that underlying debt must fall as a percentage of GDP by the fifth year of a rolling five-year period. The second is that public sector borrowing over the same period must be below 3% of GDP.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Given that the Government since 2012 have broken virtually every fiscal rule they have set themselves, why should we pay a blind bit of attention to this new fiscal rule? Why would we believe anything that those on the Tory Front Bench say about their fiscal rules, which are brushed aside as and when they feel like it?

[James Cartlidge]

I always enjoyed intervening on the hon. Gentleman when he was a shadow Minister and I was a Back Bencher, and I have great respect for him. The Opposition may want to airbrush from history the extraordinary events of recent years—the pandemic and now the invasion of Ukraine—but any Government would have to adjust to those circumstances. These were not minor events; they were once-in-a-generation events, and they have had a huge impact.

Overall, the autumn statement delivers a consolidation of £55 billion, with just under half from higher taxation and just over half from spending reductions. The consolidation ensures that excessive borrowing does not add to inflationary pressures and push interest rates up further. In the short term, we are taking difficult decisions to make sure that fiscal policy keeps inflation in check, but doing it in a compassionate way that still provides support to the most vulnerable.

National Insurance Contributions (Termination Awards and Sporting Testimonials) Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Peter Dowd

3rd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

That is a very good point, because that is exactly what the Government do time after time. When they introduce these notions and concepts, they always try to put up a bit of a smokescreen. My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. Let us call this essentially what it is, which is redundancy. Potentially, it is taking money from people at perhaps one of the most vulnerable times in their working life. Let me repeat: what we want is evidence. This an evidence-free zone—it is as simple as that. The other important point to make is that this is, in effect, a stealth tax. Worryingly, though, there is no coherence to this whatsoever. There is no coherence to this at all. Somebody comes up with an idea and the Government push it through because they want to push it through. There is no evidence for it whatsoever.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I have enjoyed discussing this Bill with the hon. Gentleman in Committee and on Second Reading. The definition of a stealth tax is surely a tax that is stealthy. In other words, it is not immediately visible, and has to be found in the small print of, for example, the Red Book. This is on the front of a Bill; this is the name of the Bill. I do not think that this can conceivably be described as a stealth tax. The Government have been very open about it, and it is on the front of the Bill.

[Peter Dowd]

I am very pleased that a Conservative Member of Parliament admits that he is putting taxes up. He has admitted that the Government are openly putting up taxes. Okay, even if I accept that it is not a stealth tax—

[James Cartlidge]

rose—

[Peter Dowd]

Just a moment. Even if I accept—[Interruption.] I am happy to give way. Even if I accept, which I do not, that it is not a stealth tax, it is, none the less, about a Tory Government putting taxes up. It is as simple as that. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[James Cartlidge]

The point is not whether it is going up, but whether it is being done in a stealthy fashion. I accept that this is raising revenue. The Minister will not cut it, because that will take revenue from elsewhere. The question is whether it is stealthy. It is on the front of the Bill; it is the name of the Bill. It is not remotely stealthy. Stealth taxes are so named when we pull the wool over people’s eyes, but this is very open and transparent, and, yes, it will increase revenue for the Treasury.

[Peter Dowd]

The hon. Gentleman can point that out to me as much as he wants. I admitted, or acknowledged—call it what you will—that even if it is not a stealth tax, it is a Tory Government putting up taxes. [Interruption.] We agree on that. [Interruption.] I am happy to have that conversation with him outside the Chamber, if need be, so that I do not get into trouble with either you, Mr Deputy Speaker, or those Members on the packed Benches. The bottom line is that what we have here is quite clearly and unambiguously an admission from the Tories that they are putting taxes up. That is what it comes down to. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) says from a sedentary position that they do so in a sneaky way.

Ministers have claimed many times that they have a desire to simplify tax. They talk all the time about simplification of tax. They have an Office for Tax Simplification. They institutionalised it. Has there been much simplification? Not as far as I am concerned. There certainly has not been any simplification of national insurance contributions. Therefore, despite the many claims from Ministers that they have a desire to simplify the tax and national insurance treatment of termination awards, the Chartered Institute of Taxation and other tax experts have raised concerns about the lack of information in the Bill as to how this new class 1A charge will be collected. In their rush to try to get more money into the Exchequer, they have not even decided or worked out how they are going to collect it.

National Insurance Contributions (Termination Awards and Sporting Testimonials) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between James Cartlidge and Peter Dowd

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Dowd]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised that. Perhaps when we have a little chat in the Tea Room I will give him a copy of the letter from the shadow Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), to the Chancellor, setting out not our plans, but what Labour has done in the past on tax enforcement. [Interruption.] The Minister says from a sedentary position that they did not work. He should try telling that to taxpayers, who, as a result of Labour’s proposals over the best part of 15 years, raised billions upon billions of pounds, which went into public services. I will send a copy of the letter to the hon. Member for Walsall North, in case I do not bump into him in the Tea Room. I do not think the Chancellor replied; I cannot possibly think why.

Moving on to the substantive issue—[Interruption.] I do not mind a little bit of chuntering from Government Members, but if they made it at least marginally coherent, so that I could hear it, that would be really helpful. The Opposition’s new clause 4 would require the Government to review the impact of class 1A national insurance contributions on termination awards. The review would include:

“(a) an assessment of the impact the new Class 1A liability has on the level of termination payments workers receive;

(b) an assessment of the impact the new Class 1A liability has on employers;

(c) a distributional analysis of the new Class 1A liability; and

(d) anything else the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”

We are being very generous, and are giving the Secretary of State lots of room for manoeuvre in reporting to us on these matters.

As we stated on Second Reading, the condensed Bill before us is a shadow of its former self, standing at just five clauses. In fact, if it was a person, it would resemble a skeleton. The Government’s timetable for the Bill has been determined by the internal politics of the Conservative party—that is the reality; it is as simple as that—rather than an honest assessment of the time needed to scrutinise the measures properly.

The origins of the new class 1A contributions charge levied on termination awards can be traced, as Members know, to 2013, when the Office of Tax Simplification published its interim report, “Review of employee benefits and expenses”. Following the publication of the final report, the Government consulted on the proposed NIC changes and announced their intention to introduce the measure in the 2016 Budget. Two and a half years later, we are finally scrutinising the Government’s NIC reforms to termination awards.

The tax and national insurance treatment of termination payments remains a sensitive topic to workers and employers alike. As I said on Second Reading, employees facing redundancy often consider this final payment an evaluation of the work they have done for their employer. Termination or redundancy payments therefore have both an emotional and financial significance; the financial significance is sometimes slightly out of proportion, but there is nevertheless a relationship.

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman is right about the psychological impact of redundancy payments. Does he therefore agree that we should celebrate from the rooftops that unemployment is at its lowest level since 1974?

[Peter Dowd]

I celebrate anybody getting a proper, secure, well-paid job. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman should not expect me to celebrate somebody getting a job on two or three hours a week, and he should not expect me to celebrate the fact that £30 billion-worth of tax credits are going to subsidise people in poorly paid jobs, when only 20 years ago that was £1 billion. Do not ask me to celebrate that. Let us have the full picture. Yes, I always celebrate when somebody gets a decent well-paid, well-trained job with good terms of employment, but no, I do not welcome poorly paid, less well-trained jobs. I am sorry, but I cannot. But for the record, yes I welcome job creation—well-attuned job creation.

To get back to termination payments and their emotional significance, the amount awarded is often determined by painstaking and careful negotiations between managers and trade union representatives. A good employer might offer a generous termination payment to an employee as a sign that it is not a judgment on the intrinsic worth of the staff who are leaving, even though they have had to make them redundant. The job losses might be because of the Government’s economic policies.

The Government’s rationale for the introduction of a new class 1A employer NIC charge, which will be levied at 13.8% on termination awards above the £30,000 threshold, is to do with ease and simplification. In its “Review of employee benefits and expenses: final report” in 2014, the Office of Tax Simplification stated that

“many employers are unclear about which parts of a termination package qualify for the exemption”

from tax and national insurance. I stand to be corrected, but I am not sure whether we got a significant amount of clarity on that today.

Additionally, Ministers have cited the opportunity for well-advised employers to avoid paying the right amount of tax and national insurance on termination payments as justification for wider reform. However, neither the Office of Tax Simplification nor Treasury Ministers have been able to provide figures on the number of employers who have taken advantage of the existing loophole, or of the amount lost to the Exchequer as a result of that. That was probably confirmed today—we do not know.

Despite the many claims of Ministers about the desire to simplify the tax and national insurance treatment of termination awards, the Chartered Institute of Taxation and other tax experts have raised concerns around the lack of information in the Bill about how this new class 1A charge will be collected. We did not get a great deal of clarity on that today. Currently, Ministers plan to leave it up to secondary legislation, as alluded to earlier. That is not only a break from normal practice, but looks set only to confuse employers even more, rather than simplifying the national insurance treatment of termination awards. The people who came to speak to us today were probably a bit too polite to say that.

The provision will also add additional administrative burdens to HMRC at a time when it is hamstrung by what can only be described as the disastrous reorganisation of their estate by the Government—my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East has been involved significantly with that—the introduction of Making Tax Digital, which has added to the problem, and of course the preparations for a no-deal Brexit, which have compounded it even further. Taken in the round, that is a challenge.

So what is the rationale for the introduction of this new NIC charge on termination awards, if not to make things less confusing for employers or to tackle tax avoidance, which is supposedly rife? I suggest that the Government’s rationale is wholly to do with the revenue they expect to raise, and is little more than an attempt to increase national insurance receipts for the Exchequer, while shying away from any major tax or national insurance policy change. I think that there was an acknowledgement of that today. This is just one element of what should have been a wider examination, as set out in the press release to which I referred, on 16 November 2016. This is certainly the opinion that the Office of Tax Simplification advocated in its 2014 report, in which it stated that a new NICs charge could raise revenue for the Exchequer and offset the costs of any tax treatment change affecting termination payments.

The report went on to concede that the policy was likely to lead to increased employer NIC costs and to individual employees receiving reduced termination payments, as employers would be unlikely to increase their redundancy budgets. Similarly, the Government’s own impact assessment notes that this measure will present an “additional cost to employers” that will be

“reflected in lower wages and profit margins with a reduction in total wages and salaries of 0.1%”

within the first year of its adoption. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East clarified that with the Minister in today’s evidence session.

To put it simply, this new NICs charge will lead to added costs to employers, some of whom will be small and medium-sized business owners, and less generous termination payments to employees as a result. At the same time, the Treasury has downgraded its forecast of the likely amounts this new charge will raise for the Exchequer from £485 million to £200 million a year. I am sure the Minister would like to provide clarity on that.

This issue goes to the heart of new clause 4, which seeks a review of the measure’s impact on the level of termination payments that employees receive and the cost to employers, and a distributional analysis of this new class 1A charge, which Treasury officials said had not been done. On the ground, it might have been too complicated and the cohort may not have been large enough under the circumstances. Given the likely cost to employers and of falling workers’ wages and termination payments, as well as the Government’s shrinking forecast of the amount of revenue the charge would raise, surely it makes sense to pause and gather further information before proceeding. After all, the Office of Tax Simplification noted in its original report that if Ministers were to follow its recommendations for a new NICs charge on termination awards, more data on the potential winners and losers would be needed. We were not able to establish who they were today. I specifically asked that question and could not get an answer. It was like an aggregate amorphous statement.

Sadly, Ministers have not provided that information, despite having years to do so. Treasury Ministers have refused to undertake a distributional analysis, citing the cost or that the cohort is not large enough as excuses, and they are still unable to provide credible figures on the number of workers who receive statutory redundancy payments versus those who receive non-statutory payments. Uncertainty also remains about whether the Government will seek to lower the £30,000 threshold at a later date through primary legislation or secondary regulations. The Minister said they have no plans to do this, but we already raised this issue during consideration of a previous Finance Bill—in fact, I think I raised it. The question was, “If you have no intention of doing it, why introduce legislation to do it and why introduce it through the process of secondary legislation?” If it were me doing that, I would not be banking a piece of legislation unless I intended to use it. That is the case here; the Government will use this. Otherwise, why take up parliamentary time to do so? If they are taking us on a run-around to fill time, that too is inappropriate.

New clause 4 seeks a review of the proposed class 1A charge, focusing on its impact on workers’ wages, on termination payments, added costs for employers and a distributional analysis of the measure. Without such a review, which will provide a wealth of information and further evidence of the likely effect on wages, termination payments and employers, the Opposition will not support this part of the Bill.

I will comment later on new clause 3, but at this particular point, that is all I want to say. I may ask questions of the Minister in due course.

National Insurance Contributions (Termination Awards and Sporting Testimonials) Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Peter Dowd

2nd reading: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

The condensed national insurance Bill before us is a shadow of its former self. I would have liked to be able to say that I was bowled over or knocked for six by the Minister’s speech, but there were more own goals than anything else. It is far from the extensive Bill that was promised by the Chancellor’s predecessor at the 2016 Budget, which included the Conservatives’ 2015 manifesto pledge to abolish class 2 national insurance contributions. Instead, that manifesto pledge, like many of the Government’s promises, has quietly been sent to the landfill, barely even being recycled in this five-clause Bill. As for scrutiny, we have not even been able to amend the last three or four Finance Bills, but I am pleased that we will have an evidence session in Committee. I will be grateful for small mercies because we may be able to tease matters out a little more.

The cannibalisation of the national insurance Bill, which has been driven by the Chancellor’s volte-face on a tax cut for 3 million self-employed workers, reflects once again why the Conservative party has long ceased to be the party of the self-employed in particular and business in general. To many observers this will be viewed as another missed opportunity—one of the many opportunities that this Government have missed—to seriously address the relationship between the growing levels of self-employment in the UK and the levels of taxation and national insurance contributions that are paid.

The rushed timetable of this Bill has shown, once again, the Government’s complete lack of respect for parliamentary convention and the procedures of this House. The Opposition were notified only last Wednesday of the Government’s intention to timetable the Bill’s Second Reading, with an updated version of the Bill published last Thursday. The Government do not know one day from the next, although they do try to live from one day to the next. They gave parliamentary colleagues just one sitting day to examine the content of the Bill before today’s debate. The Government might not take their legislative responsibilities seriously, but the Opposition do.

Of course this is nothing new. Members have become accustomed to the Government’s handling, or mishandling, of legislation. The Government are engulfed in chaos and infighting on Brexit, and The Times reported yesterday that their rushed introduction of this hollow, some may say vacant, Bill is a further desperate attempt by the Prime Minister to keep this zombie Parliament in session.

Unwilling to face the electorate and unable to bring her dead-in-the-water Brexit deal back to Parliament for the fourth time, the Prime Minister is attempting to pack parliamentary business in the hope of avoiding an early Queen’s Speech that would no doubt be opposed by the Democratic Unionist Party and her own Back Benchers. This is a new embarrassing low for a Government who are all at sea. It is high time that the Prime Minister did the honourable thing and set a date for a general election and her departure. We have a kakistocracy dressed up as a Government.

The Bill is comprised of two key measures: the introduction of a new national insurance contributions charge for employers on the taxable element of termination payments above £30,000, as the Minister set out; and the introduction of a national insurance contributions charge on income from non-contractual sporting testimonials over £100,000.

The new class 1A employer NICs charge will be levied at 13.8%, if I understand it, and its introduction will align the NICs treatment of termination awards and income from non-contractual sporting testimonials. On the face of it, the Minister would have us believe that these changes are technical and benign. However, there is nothing technical about fundamental changes to the treatment of termination payments either for the employer paying them or for workers facing redundancy, who regard this final payment as an evaluation of the work they have done for their employer.

Termination payments, therefore, have both an emotional and a financial significance, and the amount awarded is often determined by painstaking and careful negotiations between managers and trade union representatives. A good employer might offer a generous termination payment to an employee as a sign that, even though they have had to make them redundant, it is not a judgment on the intrinsic worth of staff who are leaving.

However, a likely by-product of the Government’s proposed employer NICs charge is that it will incentivise employers to reduce the level of non-statutory termination payments to employees so that the overall level of non-statutory payments declines. This will diminish the level of termination payments available to workers who lose their job, while increasing the amount that the Government receive in NICs receipts.

The tax information and impact note for this measure goes to great lengths to clarify that this new charge will be limited to employers, and the Minister asserts that the Government have no plans to make further changes to the £30,000 statutory threshold, yet the Government’s own policy note states that this additional cost for employers will be reflected in lower wages.

The Office of Tax Simplification, which the Minister mentioned, noted in 2015 that imposing tax and national insurance contributions on all termination payments is

“likely to have a significant cost impact for some people, particularly those lower paid employees who may…often be the ones receiving smaller termination payments”.

Despite the clear impact that this measure will have on workers and employers alike, the original consultation noted that the Treasury had failed to undertake a distributional analysis of the impact of this new charge. With that in mind, will the Minister confirm whether, a few years on, that remains the case?

Similarly, the Chartered Institute of Taxation has raised concerns that the Bill does not set out how the new class 1A charge will be collected by HMRC, stating that it will instead be left to secondary legislation—more secondary legislation, the Government’s default position. The Treasury says it anticipates that the charges will arise and be paid in “real time,” rather than after the end of the tax year. However, tax experts note that this is a break from normal practice and will prove extremely cumbersome, requiring additional resources at a time when the Government are continuing their disastrous reorganisation of HMRC.

[James Cartlidge]

It is always a great pleasure and highlight to hear the hon. Gentleman talking about distributional analysis, but does he agree that, where we have what are effectively exceptional one-off payments that are hard to predict, it can be difficult to undertake such analysis? Sometimes we just have to be honest and accept that a measure is relatively minor. Although the money it raises is significant, we are unlikely to have the sort of data he is asking for.

[Peter Dowd]

It might be a minor measure, but the actual impact on individuals is potentially significant. I am interested in the impact it might have on individuals who lose their job, and not necessarily the capacity or otherwise of the Government to make an assessment of that. I focus my attention on those who may not get another job for a considerable period.

I now turn briefly to the second measure in the Bill, which seeks to introduce a similar NICs charge on non-contractual sporting testimonials for employed sportspersons. I look forward to leading the Government’s testimonial sooner rather than later.

Sporting testimonials have become a key part of our nation’s rich sporting history, presenting an opportunity for fans to pay tribute to sportspersons who are coming to the end of their playing career. I come from Liverpool, a city with a fantastic football team, Everton, and another football team, Tranmere Rovers. There is another team whose name I cannot remember; it has slipped my mind.

Under the Government’s proposal, the new class 1A employer NICs charge will apply after the first £100,000 and will make the controller of the sporting testimonial, usually an independent committee, liable to account for the charge where the employer is not organising the testimonial.

Although the Opposition recognise the logic of applying employer NICs to non-contractual sporting testimonials, where the money is going not directly to a sportsperson but, rather, to a testimonial committee, we are concerned that the majority of income from such testimonials comes from fans who make voluntary payments. If this measure is passed, there will be a clear inconsistency in the NICs treatment of voluntary donations or tips at sporting testimonials compared with the treatment of cash tips in the service sector, where the employer is not involved. That is something we will seek to address in Committee.

This condensed national insurance Bill is further evidence of the Government’s perpetual desire to shift the tax burden from the well-off to workers. Rather than tackling tax avoidance and raising taxes to ensure that the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share, the Government are yet again introducing measures designed to raise additional revenue for the Exchequer from the termination payments of workers.

The introduction of a new employer NICs charge will inevitably lead to employers reducing non-statutory termination pay, leaving workers worse off when they have just faced the trauma of losing their job. To put it simply, this measure is unfair, cynical and disproportionate considering the scarring effect it will have on workers compared with the limited amount of revenue it will raise. We cannot support this, but we will look at it in more detail in Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

These testimonials are very important. A former Liverpool football player, Jamie Carragher, a Bootle lad, also had a testimonial and he put the best part of £1 million into his Jamie Carragher 23 Foundation. That is worth a mention.

[James Cartlidge]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the other Liverpool team, as it were. They seem to be doing quite well this season. It is a good and important point to make, because it sounds to me as though a relatively small number of sportspeople will have to pay a bit more tax in the coming years as a result of the Bill—there are a small number who do not have testimonials agreed contractually—but it is fair to have fairness.

Let me conclude on fairness. The hon. Member for Bootle and I have had one or two exchanges on Treasury matters over the years. He finished with quite a stirring wind-up, saying that with this Bill we were somehow supporting the rich—that classic old storyline that we were the party of failing to crack down on tax avoidance by the rich and were instead hitting the poorest. Well, what is the threshold in the Bill? It is £100,000.

[Peter Dowd]

What about redundancies?

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the limit for testimonials is £100,000. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman mentions redundancy payments from a sedentary position; he can correct me if I am wrong again, but I do not think the Bill affects redundancy payments. It is about other, voluntary termination payments. On the subject of terminations, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be delighted to hear that I shall now terminate my speech, but I will support this very good Bill.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Peter Dowd

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

[Peter Dowd]

I think that the shadow Chancellor is more interested in Groucho Marx than Karl Marx, quite frankly.

[James Cartlidge]

It is very kind of the hon. Gentleman to take so many interventions on the trot. [Laughter.] This is not a minor issue. Let us not forget that Marxism destroyed the economy of half our continent. I very much admire the hon. Gentleman, but he did mention ideology in the first place. It is therefore not only in order for me to raise the question in his terms, but pertinent. Is he a Marxist—or is he perhaps a Leninist, a Bolshevist, or an adherent of one of the various other isms?

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend is right. Conservatives always try to take the credit. They take responsibility for the good things and no responsibility for the bad things—it is the way they are made.

The banking levy was not designed to ensure that the banks received enormous and unprecedented bail-outs from the taxpayer, such as the £76 billion of shares the Government purchased in RBS and Lloyds. It was designed to make them pay their fair share. In fact, the very concept of a levy was developed at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh in 2009. It was championed by the previous Labour Government, who subsequently introduced the bankers’ bonus tax. In the coalition’s 2011 austerity Budget, the Government decided to dump the bankers’ bonus tax and adopted the bank levy. At the time, Labour made it clear that the levy threshold was far too low in comparison with the money that would be raised if the Government stuck with Labour’s bonus tax. Instead, Ministers wilted under pressure from the banks and set the levy at a puny £2.6 billion.

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about where the bank levy came from. I remind the Committee that it was actually Geoffrey Howe who introduced a deposit levy in a Budget in the early ’80s as part of his stabilisation of the financial system inherited from a previous Labour Government.

[Peter Dowd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that history lesson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

There are many, many calls on the taxpayer, and that is one of them. The Government would do well to pay attention to the exhortations of the hon. Gentleman.

[James Cartlidge]

rose—

[Peter Dowd]

I am more than happy to give way in relation to corporation tax, but it is important that I maintain the theme of the austerity project. It has not led us to prosperity. It has delivered misery for this country, yet the Government stick to the same old rules: tax breaks for wealthy bankers and cuts for the rest of us. It is like a stuck record.

[James Cartlidge]

I am sure that, coming from where he does, the hon. Gentleman takes a close interest in the Republic of Ireland, a country he has not mentioned. Is he aware that, by keeping its corporation tax rate low, it has revolutionised its economy and become an export tiger, and that that has been a key factor in helping it to recover from the crash?

[Peter Dowd]

Huge amounts of support from the European Union have revolutionised the Irish economy. My forebears came from Ireland, but I do not think even the Irish would compare themselves as a small country of 3.5 million people or thereabouts with the United Kingdom with its 60 million—this is chalk and cheese. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that that is a ridiculous comparison to make in the debate.

Our amendment will finally help to demonstrate the true cost to the public purse of the Government’s favourable approach to some. In that way, we can understand exactly what the cost in revenue is. This should be all the evidence the Government need to change course—things simply are not working. Productivity is low, inflation is up, wages are stagnating, public services are in absolute decline and the NHS is under strain, as is social care, yet the Government just do not get it. They seem to think that we live in Shangri-la, but, unfortunately, we do not. We know that the Conservative party relies on support from vested interests for its own survival, but the question we must ask ourselves is: should the survival of a clapped out, atrophying, self-centred, out-of-touch, diminished Tory party take precedence over the needs of children? I know the answer, so I will simply leave Conservative Members to answer it in the silence and solitude of their own consciences.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

I never talked about fecklessness or being immoral. I was talking about the economic fact that the savings ratio was dangerously low throughout much of the Labour Government’s time in office, and they were warned about it. Labour Members are saying that we never said anything, and that simply is not true.

The hon. Lady seems to think that Labour had good policies on debt. I remember when someone could get a self-certified mortgage, with no proof of income, on an annual percentage rate relating to bad credit, so they could have a history of failing to pay debt. Not only that, but it was interest-only, so they were not even repaying the capital. There was a whole menu of different types of sub-prime such as light-adverse, medium-adverse or heavy-adverse. As I have said before, basically the question was, “Do you have a pulse?”, and then one got a mortgage.

[Peter Dowd]

Will the hon. Gentleman simply acknowledge that in August 2007 the Conservatives had a policy of significantly more deregulation, including of the banks, and that was ratified by the Tory shadow Cabinet at the time?

[James Cartlidge]

I do not accept that. Those mortgages were being advanced. The FSA knew about them and the Government knew about them. The fact is that when you are in charge of the financial system, you have a responsibility to act in a prudent manner. The Governor of the Bank of England always says, “Your duty is to take the punchbowl away when the party gets started.” The problem was that when the party got started under the new Labour Government in terms of debt and borrowing too much, they did not take the punchbowl away—they came out with a new round of tequila slammers, and when that was not enough, they brought out the Jägerbombs, until in 2008 we had the biggest hangover in our history, with the crashing of our economy on the back of the most reckless oversight of financial regulation that this country has ever seen.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Peter Dowd]

We have talked about the rewriting of history. The Shadow Cabinet at the time—we are talking about what happened at the time—said:

“We need to make it more difficult for ministers to regulate, and we need to give the critics of regulation more opportunity to make their case against specific new proposals.”

The Conservatives’ direction of travel at that time was towards not more regulation, but less. Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that at all?

[James Cartlidge]

All the financial plans of that shadow Government would have been about fiscal prudence, and the context would have been completely different. The Labour Government crashed the economy on every single front, which is why we are where we are today.

There is one final point I want to make. We had a wide-ranging discussion earlier about Marxism, which I thought particularly intriguing. We have to decide, as a country, whether we want to be a flourishing free enterprise economy or a centrally commanded one in which everything remains in, or is taken into, the public sector. When the banks were nationalised, they were bailed out on the basis of rescuing the economy from an extreme threat that could have left us resorting to barter. The point is that we have put the banks on a stable footing so that they can flourish again and become competitive businesses. The bank levy, to me, is about striking a balance but having a competitive financial services sector to drive our exports and growth, and that is why I will be voting to support it.

Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Debate between James Cartlidge and Peter Dowd

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Transparency is at the heart of all this. I experienced a bizarre situation last week when I was on “Newsnight” with the chairman of the Cayman Islands stock exchange. What an insouciant attitude that man had to tax avoidance. He actually said that there had not been any wrongdoing—maybe not—and called for the journalists to be jailed. That is what he did, and that is the position in which we find ourselves.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Peter Dowd]

I am going to take Mr Speaker’s suggestion and push on, because it will become an admonition otherwise. I will then take some interventions.

I hope that Members across the House will join me in condemning the irresponsible and offensive comments of the chairman of the Cayman Islands stock exchange. All of us owe a debt of gratitude to the journalists involved for their hard work and diligence. They have demonstrated the importance of a free press in holding the wealthiest and most powerful individuals and multinationals to account.

To be clear, we are talking about tax avoidance that covers activities that are within the law but work against its effective application. Most of the people involved in the cases have not broken any laws or acted in a criminal way, but that does not make tax avoidance acceptable or justifiable in the 21st century. After all, as has been identified, tax avoidance costs us all. Every pound avoided is one pound taken away from our children’s education, from our armed forces—the very people who protect us—and from the elderly and disabled. The conservative—and Conservative—figures that the Government have published on tax avoidance show that HMRC recorded from 2010-2015 that £12.8 billion was lost to the Exchequer through tax avoidance. That is unacceptable.

People have a view about what the previous Labour Government did. They think that it was much better than the Tories overall, but I am not going to go there. The question arises—[Interruption.] I refer the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) to the Financial Times. With the greatest of respect, I am not his researcher, and I am sure he is more than capable.

[James Cartlidge]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if the current tax gap was at the same level that it had been on average under Labour, our deficit would be £12 billion higher?

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) says, “Move on.” and I think she is absolutely right. I will reaffirm the point that was made in Labour’s tax programme document: we have to push on with this debate. It does no good for the Government to talk about the past; we want to talk about the here and now and the future.

[Peter Dowd]

I will give way to the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge).

[James Cartlidge]

I had not expected—[Interruption.]

[James Cartlidge]

I will ask the shadow Minister a question. The tax gap is now 6%. It averaged 8% under Labour. Does he accept that if the tax gap was 8% now, the deficit would be £12 billion bigger?

[Peter Dowd]

The hon. Gentleman can extrapolate all he wants. I could extrapolate all sorts of figures, but I am not going to get into that. We will no doubt come back to the matter in due course at the Budget.

Finance Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Peter Dowd

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman’s memory is wrong about that, as are the memories of some Ministers, and I will come on to discuss that in a moment. This Finance Bill does little, if anything, to address the legitimate concerns raised in the IPPR report. On being provided with his speech last week, I suspect even the Financial Secretary asked—if only himself—whether he really had to present more worn out, tired platitudes that pass for Tory economic policy. He drew the short straw—a very short straw; in fact, he was the only one in the ballot. He was both the warm-up act and the main act. The Chief Secretary graced us with her presence for a short time and then went off with the Chancellor, calculator in hand, to work out how they will pay for all their U-turns.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

On U-turns and our national debt, will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether it is still Labour policy to spend £100 billion clearing all outstanding student debt?

[Peter Dowd]

I do not mind Government Members making up their policies on the hoof, but they should have respect and not make ours up on the hoof.

As I was saying, when the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary waltzed off, they left the Financial Secretary to do the business, and he did a very good job last week. He managed to keep a straight face throughout his adumbration of how remarkably well the economy is doing, but amnesia had taken hold.

Balancing the Public Finances

Debate between James Cartlidge and Peter Dowd

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Peter Dowd]

In a moment, if I may.

A Government can balance the books in many ways, and very many difficult decisions have had to be taken during the past seven years. No one doubts that. However, this Government chose the path of austerity over the long-term prosperity of everyone in the country. Some hon. Members have said that that was not a choice, but it was. The Government chose to cap public sector wages and to cut local council budgets by 40% and in certain cases by as much as 60%, with more on the way.

[James Cartlidge]

Does the hon. Gentleman remember that the 2010 Labour manifesto promised a 1% cap on public sector pay? Does he think that that was because the Labour party does not support public sector workers, or because it was the right thing to do given the circumstances of the economy?

[Peter Dowd]

The reality is that that pay cap has now been institutionalised. It has been there for virtually a decade and it will continue. The Government have also chosen to underfund the NHS and cut £4.6 billion from social care, and they now threaten huge cuts for schools. However, despite those huge and deeply unfair budget cuts to public services, the Government have been able to find £70 billion of tax cuts for those who need them least of all.

Throughout the election campaign, which I might add is a happy memory, we were told that there was no magic money tree that could be used to solve the nation’s financial problems. If anything was magic about it, it was that it turned into a cherry tree, and the Prime Minister proceeded to pick the cherries and hand at least £1 billion-worth to the Democratic Unionist party to keep her in No. 10.

Savings (Government Contributions) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between James Cartlidge and Peter Dowd

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Dowd]

Q I have another quick question. The witness speaking before you was asked about evidence. I would ask you, what is your evidence that this will make people save? What evidence is there? You say that there is a flexibility in the system, but what is the evidence for encouraging this specific product to encourage people to save more? That was clumsy, but you get the gist.

Calum Bennie: When you introduce a product or investment that has clear advantages, as this one does, it will attract people to save. We have got quite a long experience of incentivised investment products for all sections of the community. In particular, our focus is on those with low to modest incomes. As a company with roots as a friendly society, for the last 30 years we have focused, initially, on friendly society tax-exempt savings plans. There was a clear tax advantage with those.

Twenty-five years ago, the minimum investment was £10 a month, and that attracted a substantial proportion of C2 and DE investors to put their money in those plans. In more recent years, the child trust fund was introduced. That is certainly going to help a reasonable group of people when they reach 18 with a reasonable start in life, and that has obviously then translated into the junior ISA. We were also a proponent of the insurance ISA that is no longer here, which attracted a mid-group part of the population that may have been put off by stocks and shares ISAs before.

That is why we are pretty certain that this product will also be taken up. It will not be by everyone, because there are going to be clear wealth warnings against it. If we were to introduce it, we would certainly need to make clear what you would be getting yourself into if you decided to try to access the fund before age 60—if you were saving for that length of time. But, all things being equal, savers do know what they are letting themselves in for. In our experience, a lot of savers like the discipline that they cannot touch the money. We have done focus group after focus group and that constantly comes up. That is why they like some of the products we offer—because they are long-term—and that could be a key incentive for something like this.

[James Cartlidge]

Q I was very interested in your main point. May I just clarify? Obviously there is this attraction for those who are self-employed, but are you suggesting that, perhaps because of a lack of faith or trust in pensions, even those who might actually be better off focusing on the pension side will simply be attracted to this, as it is something they have more trust and understanding in? Is that your basic point?

Calum Bennie: Yes. There are clearly some people who just do not want to touch pensions for whatever reason. The fact that we are having to force people into pensions is almost an indication that for many people, pensions are broke. We are not saying that pensions are bad and LISA is good; we are just recognising what is out there with people and that some people are very comfortable with ISAs.

We were one of the first friendly societies to introduce several ISAs in 1999 when they came out. More recently, we have moved away from friendly society tax-exempt plans, because they were inflexible, to a much more flexible ISA. We launched that five years ago. That was quite a risk. We did not quite know whether the market that we were aiming at—as I said, that is very much the low to mid-income group of people—would take ISAs, because it is a stocks and shares ISA that we market; it is not a cash ISA, because we are offering people growth potential. So there is a learning experience that people perhaps have got to think about before they invest in this, because it is a stocks and shares ISA, but it has been very successful in terms of the take-up of those ISAs.

In our experience anyway, because we are not focusing on the wealthy and well-advised, people are comfortable with ISAs; not everyone is comfortable with pensions. Therefore, this product, in the short-term perhaps—until a more holistic set of savings plans and investment plans, which perhaps has cross-party support, comes about—could attract lots of people who would otherwise not put money aside for life after work.