Finance Bill

Debate between James Murray and Andrew Murrison

2nd reading
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

I will come to the energy profits levy in a moment, but we have engaged with the oil and gas industry to ensure that we raise the money we need for the clean energy transition while supporting investment and jobs in that industry. We recognise that oil and gas will play a part in the energy mix for years to come, but we also recognise that the industry must contribute to this essential transition.

This Bill maintains the 25% cap on corporation tax that we set out in our manifesto. It also makes no changes to the permanent full expensing regime or the annual investment allowance.

Before turning to other measures in the Bill, I note that the Leader of the Opposition has already committed to reversing several of them. If Conservative Members disagree with the difficult but necessary choices that this Government have had to make to repair the public finances and protect working people, they have every right to oppose our plans, but they must explain what choices they would make instead. So far, their new leadership has fallen at the very first hurdle of being a credible Opposition by trying to have it both ways. [Interruption.] They make plenty of noise, but I do not hear any alternatives.

The Leader of the Opposition has said that she opposes the measures in this Bill, but she also claims to support the investment that those measures fund. She says that reintroducing the VAT tax break for private school fees would be the very first thing she does if she became Prime Minister, yet she also appears to support the extra £2.3 billion that our Budget puts into state education. In fact, we have calculated that she has made unfunded pledges worth £12 million for every hour since she was appointed. By my reckoning, that is £1 million-worth of pledges since I began speaking five minutes ago.

By behaving this way, the Conservatives simply remind people how very far away they are from being a credible Opposition, and they are getting further away by the day.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The then Leader of the Opposition, and now Prime Minister, rightly said that his Administration would go for growth. He made it his No. 1 priority, and he inherited the fastest-growing economy in the G7. [Interruption.] The Minister shakes his head, but this is a fact. Can he say what has happened to growth since 4 July?

[James Murray]

Every business knows that we can make investment decisions only on the basis of secure public finances and economic stability, which is why this Government’s first priority has been to wipe the slate clean of the mess we inherited from the Conservative party, to deliver economic stability and to provide the environment for businesses to make the investments on which we will grow the economy. That remains our No. 1 mission.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Murray]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that the lack of funding that the previous Government put into the state sector has implications. It takes a toll on children if schools are not properly funded. If the capital budgets for schools are not properly funded, as well as their revenue budgets, that has an impact on children’s lives. That is why the funding that we are putting into schools is something for which I will make no apology. The fact that we are having to take difficult decisions to fund it is the nature of government. I note that Conservative Members are happy to support our investment in state schools, but they refuse to support the difficult decisions necessary to generate that funding. Frankly, that underscores how far away they are from even being a credible Opposition.

[Dr Murrison]

On that point, will the Minister give way?

[James Murray]

I have already given way to the right hon. Gentleman, so I will make some progress.

Within the policy, provision for pupils with special educational needs is an important matter that a several right hon. and hon. Members have raised with me. The Government recognise the importance of that too, and I am glad to confirm that where pupils have special educational needs that can only be met in private schools, as determined by an education, health and care plan in England or its equivalent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, local authorities and devolved Governments that fund those places will be compensated for the VAT they are charged on those pupils’ fees.

Fourthly, this Government are delivering on the manifesto commitments to increase the energy profits levy by three percentage points, from 35% to 38%, and to extend the period over which the levy applies by one year. The Government are also ending unjustifiably generous allowances by removing the levy’s core investment allowance, which was unique to oil and gas taxation and not available to any other sector of the economy. We are, however, providing stability within other features of the system, by maintaining the level of tax relief available for decarbonisation investment, by setting the rate of the allowance at 66% and by maintaining the availability of 100% first-year allowances.

Health and Social Care Levy Bill

Debate between James Murray and Andrew Murrison

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

My hon. Friend makes us think about what we have read recently about what the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) has been saying about a rebate from this tax for those who take out private insurance. Make no mistake, that is a slippery slope towards a two-tier healthcare system.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has been speaking for some time, but he has not said what taxes he would raise. Why was it okay for Labour to raise national insurance to pay for healthcare in 2003, when there was not a pandemic and we did not have the scale of social care need that we have today? If it was right then, why is it not right now?

[James Murray]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks about a tax rise 20 years ago, following a decade of wage growth, and it came with a plan for how the money would be invested. In stark contrast, this Government’s tax rise hits working people after a decade of stagnating wages, after we have been hit by a global pandemic and after years during which where people get their money from has changed. Above all, the Conservatives’ tax rise comes with no promise that it will clear the NHS waiting list backlog in this Parliament and no promise that any money will be seen by the social care sector.

Despite all that has been said, there is no guarantee in the Bill that social care will benefit from the Government’s tax rise. In fact, the Bill explicitly rules out any money going towards social care in the first year, and there is nothing to guarantee that a single penny of this new levy will ever go into the social care sector.

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services realises this, and it said on Monday that

“it is not clear that there is any new money for adult social care to help improve care and support from April 1st next year… It will not add a single minute of extra care and support, or improve the quality of life for older people, disabled people and unpaid carers.”

As the association rightly points out, this could leave councils with no option other than to raise council tax. Indeed, the Government have admitted that they expect councils to cover increasing need and rising costs. Despite £8 billion having been cut from local council care budgets by a decade of Conservative Government, there is no money for councils that need it now.

In truth, this levy does not set out to fix the crisis in social care. It seeks only to be a political fix for the Prime Minister. I suspect Conservative Members know that, and I suspect the Prime Minister is noticing that his attempt at a political fix is quickly becoming a political headache.

Although some Conservative Members may be worried about how to explain to their constituents that they have broken their manifesto promise and still failed to fix social care, others have a different agenda. The hon. Member for Yeovil, as I mentioned earlier, has been reported as saying that he wants people with private social care insurance to get a rebate from the new tax. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), the shadow Health Secretary has said, this looks very much like a “slippery slope” towards a two-tier healthcare system and privatisation.

Health and Social Care Levy Bill

Debate between James Murray and Andrew Murrison

Committee stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

I am going to make some progress now; I have given way to the hon. Gentleman already.

As I said, although new clause 8 has not been selected today, I hope that Government Back Benchers have seen it on the amendment paper and will perhaps raise the matter with their colleagues on the Front Bench.

I hope, however, that there will be a vote this evening on new clause 5, and I urge Government Members to join us in voting for this crucial review of how the Bill will make inequality worse. We know how widespread and deep rooted inequality has become in our country. The latest bulletin from the Office for National Statistics on household income inequality in the UK for the financial year ending 2020 confirms what we all know: the income gap between the richest in society and the rest of the population has widened over the last decade. A tax rise that singles out income from employment can only make this inequality worse, and new clause 5 seeks to expose this.

Not only does inequality manifest between people who may live in the same area, it also creates divides between different nations of a country and the regions within them. In areas where average wages are lower and fewer people get income from other assets, the impact of the national insurance rise and the levy will be more acutely felt. Recent analysis in the New Statesman suggested that within the regions of England, it is people in the north-west and the west midlands who will take the greatest hit to their disposable income as a result of the Bill.

Data from the Office for National Statistics’ wealth and assets survey shows that the south-east is home to well over 3 million adults living in families with net wealth per adult of more than £250,000. That is roughly six times the number in the north-east. A tax increase that ignores income from renting out properties and selling financial assets, and that seeks to fund a plan that ignores differences in house prices and care costs between different regions, is destined to make inequality worse.

[Dr Murrison]

We are getting more granularity in the proposals that Opposition Front Benchers have in their heads for funding the uplift, which I think we all agree is necessary for health and social care, but can I probe the hon. Gentleman to describe the nature of the landlords or property-based businesses he has in his crosshairs for the levy of the moneys that he has in mind? Does he mean, for example, the mom and pop organisation that has bought a small residential property because it has no public sector pension, for example, and is relying on that for income in old age, or does he have in mind a business like any other business that has large numbers of commercial properties? How much does he think he is going to raise from the alternative that he has suggested?

[James Murray]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I do feel that there is a broad consensus across this country that those with the broadest shoulders should make more of a contribution. It is quite clear from the reaction that people have had to the Government’s proposed increase in national insurance and new levy that this is falling on working people and jobs rather than taking other sources of income from wealth into account.

I have just spoken about the massive impact that this will have on inequality between different regions of the country. I therefore ask Conservative Members to guess how many times last Tuesday, when the Prime Minister announced his approach here in the House of Commons, he used the phrase “levelling up” in that 90 minute statement. It was zero. Last Wednesday, when the Financial Secretary had to take the rap here on this tax rise, how many times did he use the phrase “levelling up” in a six-hour debate? Zero. The truth is that we are a very long way from the levelling-up agenda that we hear, or at least used to hear, so much about.

Of course it is not just workers and the self-employed who will feel the direct impact of the Government’s tax rise in this Bill. This tax rise will hit businesses that want to create jobs too. That is why we have tabled new clause 4 to show the impact it will have on businesses, and on small and medium-sized businesses in particular. There will be no point in the Financial Secretary denying the impact of this measure on businesses creating jobs: it is set out starkly in the Government’s own tax information impact note that he approved last week and that we have referred to several times today. I set out earlier how this note admits that the Government’s approach will impact business decisions around wage bills and recruitment. It goes on to explain how this measure

“is expected to have a significant impact on over 1.6 million employers who will be required to introduce this change.”

No wonder the Government have managed to unite business groups, workers and trade unions against their plans. At just the time when we need to see job growth, and when furlough is ending, the Government impose an extra flat cost on getting people into work. The Federation of Small Businesses has shown that this move could lead to 50,000 more people being left out of work. Yet again, small and medium-sized businesses least able to afford this tax rise will be hit hardest while online multinationals continue to dodge their tax on this Government’s watch.

The Government’s justification for much of the Bill is that they claim the levy will fix the crisis in social care. As we made clear on Second Reading, however, there is no plan to fix social care, nor even a mention of or reference to one, in this Bill. Fundamentally, despite all the rhetoric from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, there is no guarantee that social care will benefit from the Government’s tax rise in any way at all. In the first year, the Bill explicitly rules out any money raised going toward social care. Beyond that, when the levy comes into force, it is entirely possible that not a single penny of any money raised will ever go towards the social care sector. I know that Treasury Ministers will deny that this is the case, so we ask them and Conservative Members to back our straightforward new clause 6. I note the Financial Secretary’s comment that the new clause would simply require the Chancellor to report transparently and straightforwardly on the share of the levy spent on social care each year so that we can all see what proportion of the money raised is going to the social care sector.

Finally, I turn to our new clause 7. Nothing could sum up the intrinsic unfairness at the heart of this Bill more than the case that this new clause points towards. The unfairness of the Government’s approach is impossible to ignore when we realise that this tax rise, raising money the Government claim will go towards social care, will not see those with the broadest shoulders paying their fair share but instead hit low-paid social care workers themselves. Our new clause asks the Government to be transparent and honest about this by requiring the Chancellor to report on how much revenue the levy raises from those working in the social care sector. This Government’s choices to raise national insurance, to cut universal credit and to freeze personal allowances mean that a social care worker will pay £1,108 more in tax a year. The Chancellor once clapped for key workers; now he is taxing key workers. This will hit working people hard, and we will not let voters forget it.

Middle East Peace Plan

Debate between James Murray and Andrew Murrison

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

The aim is clearly to have a peaceful settlement that enables a two-state solution. Clearly, that has to be a viable state and the hon. Lady has identified some of the characteristics of a viable state. We have not endorsed this, but we have welcomed its publication and we hope it will be the start of negotiations that will lead to a solution that both parties to this dispute can accept.

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)]

There is a fundamental point on which the Minister needs to be pushed, which is whether he will make it absolutely clear from the Dispatch Box today that Britain still abides by all the international laws and UN resolutions that have ruled that the annexation of Palestinian land and the building of settlements is illegal, and therefore must be condemned, not legitimised in the form of this plan.

[Dr Murrison]

We stand by the existing UN Security Council resolutions, of which there have been 100 since 1946. They remain extant until they are replaced by others.