National Insurance Contributions Bill
Jim McGovern Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Gauke
I welcome the hon. Lady’s support for the measures. It is worth noting the considerable progress made on apprenticeships under this Government. We have created 2 million apprenticeships during this Parliament; they are giving young people the skills they need to succeed in the global race and get on in life. That is significant progress—progress on the number of apprenticeships has been considerably faster than was previously expected. For example, the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), said in 2008 that he intended to have 90,000 more young people taking part in apprenticeships by 2013. He said that, together with opportunities for those in their 20s and older, that would mean 220,000 people starting an apprenticeship each year overall. In 2011-12, 520,000 people started an apprenticeship, so we can see that there has been dramatic progress. The measure helps us to pursue that policy yet further.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
I am intrigued as to how the Minister will define an apprenticeship these days. I was an apprentice in the construction industry. I served a four-year apprenticeship from the age of 16 to the age of 20. My father had to sign my indentures to say that I was indentured to that company, and possibly sold into slavery in a way. What is an apprenticeship these days? The Minister talks about half a million new apprenticeships, but are they apprenticeships as I understand them?
Mr Gauke
The hon. Gentleman goes to the heart of the question asked by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) about who will qualify for the relief. As I have remarked, we are taking a power to define apprenticeships. Given that this is a devolved matter, it is important that we discuss it with the devolved Administrations. We want to support apprenticeships and will seek to achieve a broad definition for the purposes of the relief. However, the apprenticeship system across the UK is complex and evolving. Education and training is a devolved matter. Apprenticeships operate slightly differently in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and there are differences between Government-funded apprenticeships and independent employer schemes. The Government will discuss the definition of “an apprentice” with the Skills Funding Agency and its devolved equivalents before committing ourselves to a final definition. It is important that the definition is robust, satisfying minimum compliance standards while achieving the objective of supporting the provision of apprenticeships to the under-25s.
In terms of overall support for apprenticeships, the Government have done a great deal. We spend about £1.5 billion annually to support apprenticeship training. In Budget 2014, £170 million of additional funding was made available for apprenticeship grants for employers in 2014-16, providing a grant of up to £1,500 per apprentice for small businesses. The new budget will fund more than 100,000 additional incentive payments for employers to take on young apprentices.
It is also worth pointing out that in 2012 the National Audit Office recognised the strengths of the Government’s apprenticeship programme, highlighting how it continued to be valued by learners and businesses. It concluded that public spending on apprenticeships offered a good return, estimated at £18 for each £1 of Government investment. Evidence from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills suggests that returns may be higher, at £28 for every £1 of Government investment. I hope Members will resist the temptation to criticise the substantial progress that has been made on apprenticeships over the course of this Parliament. It has been significant.
On the definition of apprentices, which I touched on earlier, there will need to be discussion with the devolved Administrations and the Skills Funding Agency. We want a robust definition, but we have to bear in mind the complexities in this area.
On eligibility, for a business to be eligible to work with training providers to create an apprenticeship programme, the employer offering an apprenticeship needs to employ an apprentice for a minimum of 30 hours per week, pay at least the national minimum wage for apprentices, support on-the-job learning and be involved in reviewing their progress. On the question raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood regarding manipulation, I would make the point that those safeguards are in the system.
One further point I believe is important is that, as the Government are doing with employment allowance and under-21s from April this year and as we did when we came to office and increased the threshold before employer national insurance contributions is paid, we have done a great deal to reduce the burden on businesses of employer national insurance contributions. That has helped in creating the substantial progress in employment we have seen in recent years. Had we pursued the policy we inherited—an increase in the jobs tax—we would not have seen that progress.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McGovern Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mr Gauke
I remind the right hon. Gentleman, who performed the role of Financial Secretary with great distinction, that in his time in office there were no measures to reduce business rates in the way that we have done in the last two autumn statements by putting in place a cap of 2%, bringing in a rebate for retailers and extending small business rate relief. This Government have an excellent record on business rates—a message that I am sure many hon. Members heard on small business Saturday at the weekend.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
6. What estimate HM Revenue and Customs has made of the amount of uncollected tax in the UK.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
14. What estimate HM Revenue and Customs has made of the amount of uncollected tax in the UK.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
HMRC published its latest tax gap estimates on 16 October 2014. The tax gap in 2012-13 was estimated to be £34 billion, which was 6.8% of the total tax due.
Jim McGovern
Last week in the autumn statement, the Chancellor announced plans to address tax avoidance. If he and the Treasury are serious about that, why did they vote down an amendment that said that the quoted eurobond—I am sorry, but I cannot quite remember the words. They did not support that amendment, costing this country £500 million per year.
Mr Gauke
The reason we have not pursued that policy is that, having looked at it carefully, we do not believe that it would raise anything like the revenue that has been suggested, nor that it would do anything for the UK’s competitiveness. The Government have consistently taken action on tax avoidance, tax evasion and aggressive tax planning. I would happily list the measures, Mr Speaker, but I suspect that you would not allow me the time to do so. By 2015-16, we believe that those measures will be bringing in £7.6 billion a year.
Danny Alexander
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that this is an important and, I understand, sensitive decision, which Public Health England is considering in all its aspects. The outline business case is currently with Treasury officials for scrutiny. I know that this work is incredibly important, not least given the recent Ebola outbreak in west Africa, but it would be inappropriate for me to give any further details on the business case until the review has been completed.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
T4. I am sure that those on the Government Front Bench will be aware of just how important the video games industry is to Dundee and to my constituency. The Chancellor said last week that he would support exports. Businesses in the video games industry are often started by university graduates with little or no financial support, yet they end up employing people. What will the autumn statement mean for the video games businesses in Dundee?
Danny Alexander
I absolutely recognise the importance of the video games industry to Dundee and other parts of the country, and indeed to many hon. Members. I do not know whether Candy Crush was developed in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but it is clearly very popular in the House. The package of measures in the autumn statement to support exporters will benefit the video games industry, as will the improvements to tax relief for research and development, which will particularly benefit small and medium-sized enterprises. If he has further ideas for measures that might benefit that industry in his area, I would be glad to hear them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McGovern Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
We have increased capital investment from the period of the Labour Government. Capital spending as a percentage of our national income is more than under the Labour Government, and we have increased by £10 billion our spending on capital from the plans they left us. I agree that we should be using the Government’s credibility to do more, which is why the infrastructure guarantees and the housing guarantees are coming on stream. Guarantees are being written and that will help to build the infrastructure that this country needs.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
3. What progress he has made on supporting victims of interest rate swap mis-selling.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Clark)
On 31 January, the Financial Services Authority published the findings of the pilot review into interest rate swap mis-selling. The full review of 40,000 cases is now under way, and the FSA says it should be completed within six months. Small business organisations played a major role in exposing the scandal, so I can announce to the House that from today bodies representing consumers, including small businesses, will be able to apply to make super-complaints to the Financial Conduct Authority, giving them fast-track access to the regulator. That important power should help to ensure that any future misconduct is detected quickly and put right.
Jim McGovern
I thank the Minister for that answer. My constituent, Mr James Boyle, has a contract with Clydesdale bank, which seems to be excluded from the review. The main banks—RBS, HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds—are all included. Why are the Clydesdale bank, and my constituent, excluded from the review?
Greg Clark
I can confirm that the Clydesdale bank has now become part of the review, as have all the other principal banks. The hon. Gentleman has raised the case of his constituent with me before; even though the product was not within the review’s terms of reference, Clydesdale has agreed to consider it as part of the review.
Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill
Jim McGovern Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I am delighted to speak almost last in this debate.
I agree with the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) when he says that many people have suffered terribly as a result of the financial crisis, and when he speaks of the greed and the complete lack of regulation and control over banking over the past decade.
The British people are still furious about the behaviour of bankers, and they have every right to feel that way. Banks were already seen as greedy and arrogant. They have now reached the depths of humiliation in the wake of the LIBOR manipulation, PPI mis-selling and bank swaps mis-selling. Individual bankers are rightly being investigated by the police. I and all colleagues in the Chamber hope that if criminality is proven, they will go to jail and bear the same brunt of punishment as any other criminal.
Nevertheless, we must recognise the vital importance of the financial services sector to the UK economy. It is a huge employer. If all financial services are included, more than 1 million people have jobs in the sector. The vast majority of those people do an honest day’s work for a fairly modest salary and do not receive a large bonus.
We must also remember that we are talking about a globally mobile business. In the investment banking business, someone can pick up the phone in London on a Friday morning, put it down on Friday night and carry on doing the same deal on a Monday morning in Singapore. While reforming the industry to make it safer for people in this country, we must be careful to preserve it so that we can take advantage of the enormous opportunities that it provides, such as the sale of mortgages and health and life insurance policies in developing markets such as China, Brazil and South Korea that do not have developed, simple, basic banking packages. We can make profits for Britain at the same time as helping those developing economies. It is important that we remember to protect this industry at the same time as reforming it.
The Bill offers the opportunity to put right many of the wrongs of the previous Government’s approach to financial services in the UK. It will help to bring back to UK banking what used to be called the balance of fear and greed. For many years, there has been enormous greed with no fear of consequences. We have allowed a small group of vast institutions to grow by consolidations, mergers and takeovers. The culture has been one of, “Heads, I win; tails, the taxpayer loses.” That has proven to be true.
The Bill will address Labour’s failed tripartite system of regulation. It will put accountability for the supervision of the banks and for systemic risk back into the hands of the Bank of England. In 1995 when Barings went bust, before Labour had had the chance to mess up the regulatory system, I was a small cog in the wheel trying to prevent a run on the banks. I remember supporting the then Governor, Eddie George, to ring the various international banks to ensure that there was not a run on the banks on Monday morning. Why did he do that over that fateful weekend? It was because he knew that the buck stopped with him and that it was entirely down to him to ensure that there was not a run on the banks. How different it was under Labour’s tripartite system. When people were queuing down the streets to take their money out of Northern Rock, the Treasury was looking at the Bank of England, which was looking at the FSA, and nobody took any action. That was utterly shameful, and the Bill will ensure that it cannot happen again.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
The hon. Lady said that she was a small cog in the wheel and that Sir Eddie George was the big wheel. Does she think that that was working at that time?
Andrea Leadsom
I always think that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the fact is that Barings was culpable for a potential massive run on the banks, because of rogue trading. It did not happen, and why? It was because one individual took responsibility, surrounded himself with people who could prevent it and ensured that it did not happen. We do not need to look any further to see that it was working.
There is one area in which the Bill is a lost opportunity. It offers us the chance to address the big elephant in the room, which is the lack of competition in the banking sector. We have the chance to go well above and beyond what John Vickers proposed. Retail banking in this country should be truly competitive. As we all know, one of the biggest problems in our economy right now is the lack of finance for small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the lifeblood of our economy.
Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), and, Mr Deputy Speaker, to be the last speaker to catch your eye before the wind-ups.
The Father of the House spoke about one of his speeches in 1984, so I took the liberty of having a look. If the House will indulge me, I will quote from it:
“There has been a great deal of talk about capital. Of course that is important, but vastly more important than that is expertise, integrity and judgment.”—[Official Report, 16 July 1984; Vol. 64, c. 68.]
Indeed, there was much expertise, integrity and judgment in my right hon. Friend’s remarks, and in essence I want to focus my comments on them. The Bill addresses structure and it is right to learn the lessons. Of course there was too much leverage in the system. No one would think that the level of liquidity available to the banks at a time of crisis was adequate, and there has been much work by regulators and central bankers since the 2008 crisis to address that. What there has been rather less of, however, is a willingness to tackle culture.
While I commend the Government for the Bill’s focus on leverage, and on dealing with the well-measured suggestions of my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) and his commission, we should be clear on what the Bill is not doing. It will not stop retail bank failures, such as Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley; it will not stop investment bank failures, such as Lehman’s; and it will not stop the regulatory failures of universal banks, as we have seen with the anti-money laundering and sanctions abuses or the LIBOR abuses by some of our largest banks. The Bill does not address the shadow banking world—the £200 billion of risk that is currently carried in private equity. Most of all, the danger of today’s debate is that we do what is so often the case after a regulatory crisis: we focus on solving the problem we have just had. We are not talking about the impact on banks if we lose control of interest rates, which we all hope will not be the case. The focus is on the structural failures relating to liquidity and capital, and that has been the tenet of the debate.
Stephen Barclay
Of course that is not wrong. I said that the Bill is welcome, and that it is a positive response to the commission’s report. The focus on leverage and liquidity is absolutely right, and that is why I pay tribute to the work of central bankers and regulators. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman was listening to my remarks. The danger is that we focus on the past and do not anticipate the future. There is a need for flexibility, and for that the Bill needs to tackle culture. The paradox is that individuals in banks are motivated by big bonuses, which drive their behaviour, yet when things go wrong, we do not have their corollary, which is big fines against individuals. That might be the sort of thing to grab people’s attention when they become aware of issues.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) is back in his place, because he missed addressing that point in his remarks—it is a shame he would not take interventions from me. Under his Government, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, probably the most-debated Act for many years, created a rulebook of more than 6,000 pages. He spoke about the need for more regulation and suggested that Conservative Members had failed because of the lack of regulation, yet we had 6,000 pages of it. The issue was that the regulation was not enforced.
It is even worse than that, because the hon. Gentleman actually allowed a regulatory regime that included things such as guaranteed bonuses. Not only would somebody get a bonus if they performed well, but they got a guaranteed bonus even when the bank collapsed. When the financial crisis hit in 2008, contractually the banks were signed up to guaranteed bonuses, so they were still doling out money under the enhanced regulatory regime to which he referred—true socialism in action.
It gets worse. There was a fines system that incentivised banks to profit from the wrongdoing of other banks. When a bank was subject to a regulatory fine, the money went not to the taxpayer in the form of funding good works or to customers of the bank affected, but to the other banks in the form of lower levies to the regulator. When a bank committed a wrongdoing, therefore, other banks in the sector profited. This is the regulatory regime on which we are now being lectured.
Let me give another example on structure: the collapse of RBS. After 10 months of the brightest minds in our Treasury—I am sure they are the brightest minds—looking at this issue, they still could not rely on the books. So untrustworthy was RBS’s auditing that the permanent secretary to the Treasury had to send for a letter of direction from the Chancellor saying, “I can’t rely on the books. It’s such a mess, Chancellor, you’ll have to give me a letter of direction.” We will not take any lectures from the Opposition, therefore, about their regulatory regime or the mess in which it has left our constituents, who are the ones footing the bill.
Stephen Barclay
No. I have taken two interventions from the hon. Gentleman and he did not do well with either. I want to make progress, because I am conscious that time is moving on.
I shall return to the comments made by someone who, unlike the hon. Gentleman, speaks with professional expertise, namely the Father of the House. He was correct—as he is on so many issues, but particularly this one—to talk about the danger of focusing on structure and not rooting out conflicts of interest. That is at the heart of the point I want to make about individual accountability, linked to conflicts of interest—about the awareness, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk pointed out, of those in institutions who know where the risks are and how they are incentivised to speak up. On Thursday we will have a debate on the NHS and the fear of whistleblowers to speak out. Many of the issues in the NHS are similar to what we have seen in our banks. Let me give the House an example that makes the point highlighted by my hon. Friend. So far, the two biggest fines imposed on any individuals in banking were imposed on two Northern Rock executives. On both occasions they were less than those individuals’ bonuses the preceding year. How are people incentivised to do the right thing in our financial sector when they can see such short-term benefits from wrongdoing and very little downside risk?
I very much endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) said about empowering consumers by having portability in the system and grass-roots pressure. However, we cannot rely on that alone—I do not think she would suggest for a minute that we could—to address the regulatory failures or the asymmetry of information that customers face.
Jim McGovern
I became an MP in 2005, and between then and about 2009, I do not think any business people approached me. Since then, however, a lot of them have approached me to express their grievous concern about keeping their businesses going. I have to say that I am struggling to understand what the hon. Gentleman means, and I think the people in my constituency who have started small businesses as joiners, bricklayers or whatever would also struggle to understand him. Will he please make his point in lay terms?
Stephen Barclay
Yes, I can address that question head on. It is logical to have introduced measures to try to manage risk in the financial sector, but we are requiring banks to retain more and more assets at the same time as asking them to lend more. We are therefore asking them to do two conflicting things, as well as introducing a structural fix that innovative people will often be able to find ways around. For example, the shadow banking sector is not affected by this kind of proposal. If we want to address innovation, to be flexible and to move with the market, and retrospectively to impose fines for wrongdoing, we would be far more successful if we changed the culture than if we imposed rigid rules.
In many ways, I agree with the hon. Gentleman, in that we all have constituents who complain that the banks are not lending, but perhaps that is an issue for another day. There are many areas in which the banks’ behaviour is wrong, but we cannot change the culture through rules alone. We had more than 6,000 pages of rules, but that did not achieve the right culture. We can achieve it by having individual accountability, and one of the best ways of doing that is through personal fines.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman read the Daily Mirror today, as I did; I always try to avail myself of the Daily Mirror. On the front page, there was a story about the “Fat cat in the hat”, who is a former Barclays executive, according to the report, and it must be true because it was in the Daily Mirror. The point is that it is individuals like that, where there is alleged wrongdoing, who are able to keep their bonuses and keep their profits. That does not send the right message on culture. Rules are too blunt a tool.
If we want to change the banks, the Bill is extremely welcome, but I hope that the very constructive proposals put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester will be given further consideration. There is much to support in the Bill, however.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McGovern Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Danny Alexander
The hon. Lady ought also to have noted that the autumn statement announced the complete dualling of the A1 between London and Newcastle, which is a very important scheme, and the upgrades for the A160 to Immingham, a very important port on the Humber estuary. That work has been accelerated under the new scheme introduced by the Department for Transport. I would have thought that she would welcome that, rather than criticise it.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
17. What steps he is taking to tackle interest rate swap mis-selling.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Clark)
The Government have been clear that the mis-selling of financial products is wrong, and we support the Financial Services Authority’s ongoing work to tackle the issue. The Treasury and the FSA have established monthly round-table discussions with the banks and the business groups to ensure that these concerns are addressed. We will continue to work with all parties involved to ensure that the banks provide the appropriate redress.
Jim McGovern
Constituents who have contacted me said that they are struggling and that they have been waiting for more than a year for the FSA review, during which time the banks have taken no remedial action whatever. What can the Minister do to help the victims of mis-selling now?
Greg Clark
I am glad the hon. Gentleman has asked me that question. I agree that customers who have been mis-sold products need quick redress, so I have pushed the FSA and it has agreed to implement a six-month maximum time scale for the banks to complete the review and provide the redress. I have also asked the banks and they have agreed to stop payments on these products for businesses facing financial difficulty.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McGovern Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
The managing director of the IMF put it in a very graphic way. She presented to the whole country the alternative that we faced in May 2010. If we had stuck with the Labour party’s incredible plans, we would be one of the countries seeking a bail-out, rather than, as we are now, a country that is a relatively safe haven in the very, very difficult European situation. [Interruption.] The shadow Chancellor will not move forward unless he concedes his role in getting Britain into this mess. Until he does that, he will remain a man of the past with no ideas for the future.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
T2. Will the Chancellor update the House on what progress has been made on his offer to the computer games industry of tax incentives in his last Budget? It is important to get the details of the policy correct, but it is also important that time is not wasted unnecessarily. As the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words. When can we expect to see the words turned into action?
Mr Osborne
We will be consulting on that policy very, very shortly, alongside the new credits for animation and high-end television production. The video games industry is important in Scotland—for example, in Dundee there is a particular centre of excellence—but it is important across the entire UK, and the video game tax credit will help, alongside animation and high-end TV production.
Jobs and Growth
Jim McGovern Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Binley
I do not suggest that at all. What I suggest is that we understand the real needs of small businesses. If we want them to grow and create jobs for both men and women, we need to ensure that they are released from much of the burden that they face at the moment. I ask the hon. Lady to consider that burden, because it is a considerable one for small businesses—I have worked in the sector pretty much all my life and founded two such businesses. We need to release small businesses from that burden, so I would particularly welcome their being excluded from the sort of burdens that paternity leave suggests. The Opposition need to get real in that respect.
I turn to the attitude of the banks and financial services.
Mr Binley
No, I am not going to give way. I have given way twice, so the hon. Gentleman will respect the fact that time is of the essence.
Small businesses have not had the support and understanding of the financial services sector. Again and again the banks tell us that 85% of applications for money are met, and of course that is true.
Mr Binley
My time is running out; I know the hon. Gentleman understands.
Yes, 85% of those applications that are finally made are met, but many people go along to the bank and are told before they reach the application stage that they are not going to get the money, so they never apply. The figures are twisted, and we need to understand that.
On regulation, I welcome the Government’s attitude to one-in, one-out, but they could do much more for small businesses by recognising that they would be the great engine of growth if they were only released. They could be excluded from many of the regulations that apply to business generally, and I urge the Chancellor to press that point in Cabinet.
Members will not be surprised that I now turn to my constituency. We are trying to create a new approach to jobs and development by establishing Northampton Alive, a project involving 15 major developments, part of which is the enterprise zone that, thank God, this Government allowed us to create in Northampton—the largest in the country. We have also introduced, however, a forum for the leading 60 to 80 people in the town, so that every six months of this major project, which lasts for 15 years, they get the opportunity to provide their input and to take ownership of their town, the new developments affecting it and the new job opportunities that will ensue.
Finally, local measures matter. We can do more locally, and I encourage the Chancellor to urge local authorities and local people to take up that challenge.
Jim McGovern
I thank my hon. Friend—a fellow former Lawside RC academy pupil and Dundonian—for giving way. From 2005 to 2010, I never had any business people coming to my surgery. Since 2010, an ever-increasing number of have been coming to tell me that they are not getting a fair deal from the banks. Does my hon. Friend share that experience?
Mr Mudie
As a member of the Treasury Committee, I can tell my hon. Friend that we argue every month with the Governor of the Bank of England and appeal to him to do something about the banks, which are not lending to small businesses at the level that they promised and have been allowed to get away with it without any complaint from the Government.
If Government Members think that it is partisan to say that there is no plan for growth and no understanding of growth, let me read out what the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said in a letter to the Prime Minister regarding industrial policy. He wrote:
“I sense however that there is still something…missing—a compelling vision of where the country is heading beyond sorting out the fiscal mess; and a clear and confident message about how we will earn our living in future.”
He clearly and comprehensively set out five areas where there should be investment, the final one being investment in the construction of houses, which he said would get people into work and have an effect on the supply chain. None of those issues appears in the Queen’s Speech or was addressed in the Budget. If the Government cannot trust and listen to their own Business Secretary about how to get an industrial policy for growth, what chance do the people of this country have?
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim McGovern Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is absolutely vital that businesses and banks engage together to understand the challenges businesses face. We have taken a number of measures through the seed enterprise investment scheme, relaxing the rules on venture capital trusts and enterprise investment schemes, to encourage more equity funding for business. We are working closely with the banks to ensure that we do all we can to reduce the cost of funding to SMEs.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
Yesterday I found myself again agreeing with a Government Minister, at least in part, when the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) said in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) that the most sustainable way to reduce child poverty is through parents going to work. GMB, my old trade union, today published a study showing figures suggesting that, on average, eight jobseekers are chasing every vacancy in Scotland, and unfortunately in Dundee the figure rises to 12 jobseekers for every vacancy. What are the Government doing to address this scandal, and are they working with the Scottish Executive on the matter?
Danny Alexander
I am sorry if agreeing with a Government Minister makes the hon. Gentleman uncomfortable, but he is of course right that work is the best route out of poverty. That is the driving force behind our welfare reforms, the Work programme, which is the most extensive initiative ever undertaken to help people off benefits and into work, and our youth contract. Of course the country is in very difficult economic circumstances, but the Government are doing everything we can to support people off benefits and into work for precisely the reason he gives.
The Economy
Jim McGovern Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Mr Anderson
I will come to what the hon. Lady’s party has had to say and pick up her point then.
It is little wonder that we are in a mess. We are told that even in the City of London—the heart of capitalism—job vacancies have fallen by 16% in a single month. In the past month alone, retail sales have dropped by 1.7% despite huge pre-Christmas discounts. The Engineering Employers Federation says that it expects a drop in its production from 2.2% to 0.9% next year. But do not worry—the Deputy Prime Minister, the leader of the hon. Lady’s party, tells us that he is going to crack down on top corporate pay. Does that mean that he will do what he and his friends in the Conservative party are doing to public sector workers—to nurses, doctors, firefighters and policemen—by putting a two-year pay freeze and a 1% cap on to private sector pay and the fat cats? Of course not. The Deputy Prime Minister tells us:
“I don’t mean the government starts going around setting pay rates in the private sector...I believe that people should be well paid if they succeed.”
Can he tell me where the nurses, the doctors, the firefighters, the police, the home care workers, the child care workers, and millions of others are failing?
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
As everyone is aware, the Prime Minister referred to last week’s day of action as a “damp squib”. I think that it was anything but a damp squib. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the coalition Government stay on the course they are on at the moment, there will be many more squibs and none of them will be damp?
Mr Anderson
I certainly hope that there is no need for any more squibs, damp or otherwise. It was absolutely wrong that people felt forced to go on strike last week, but they felt that they had no option because the Government were clearly not listening; I hope that they are now.
All in this together? What a laugh! Has Bob Diamond really become 5,000% more successful than his predecessor was 30 years ago? Of course not, but his salary is 5,000% more than his predecessor’s was in the early 1980s. The people who are running our public services are asking, “Where is the fairness?” At a time when other people are wandering around with massive pay packets, they are losing their jobs by the bucketful. Last week, in a throwaway line, the Chancellor dropped in the horribly disrespectful term, “headcount”, when he said that the headcount of job losses in the public sector would rise from 400,000 to 710,000. The headcount! These are men and women, flesh and blood—people with kids, with mortgages, with debt, and with holidays, cars and Christmas to pay for, and they face a future with no hope because this Government put the interests of the market before the interests of the people. It is economic madness driven by an ideology that does not care about the impact on real people.
Of course, the Conservatives will argue that this is all necessary. Perhaps we could accept that if it was actually working, but we see now that it is not. This year, in the north-east alone, 32,000 public sector jobs have gone, 1,080 of them at Gateshead council, with another £38 million cuts to come next year. We will have more people on the dole, poorer service delivery and more hardship all round. It is the classic Tory remedy, and we have seen it all before. Mervyn King may well be right—this might be the worst crisis in our history—but, sadly, the Tories are using exactly the same old methods to get out of it.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) said, we need a real dialogue that puts the needs of ordinary people first, and not the demands of the market. We need to move away from the appalling situation that we are in yet again, where bankers and people in the money markets are acting like the arsonist who burns your house down and then comes back next week and offers to rebuild it for you and charges you twice the price for doing it. This is a challenge to all parties in this country, including mine. We need to go beyond the narrowness of the past 30 years and look to develop an economic system that ignores the markets and does right for the people of this country.
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend, as usual, makes an interesting and relevant point. I hope to return to it later if time allows.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast that growth will now be lower this year, and for every year until 2014. Unemployment will rise next year and be higher than previously forecast in every year until 2015. Consequently, Government borrowing, which we have heard so much about, is set to be £158 billion higher than was planned a year ago.
The coalition Government’s economic policy is simply not working. When Labour left office, the economy was growing. In the past 12 months, only Greece, Portugal and Cyprus have grown more slowly than Britain. That is not just because of the eurozone crisis. The British recovery was choked off more than a year ago. In the 12 months since the Government’s spending review the UK economy has grown, but by a mere 0.5%, while the EU has grown by an average of 1.4%. Their policy has starved us of growth.
Britain needs sensible public sector projects that will stimulate our economy, so that it is less dependent on a downward spiral of destructive cuts. Instead, the OBR forecasts more than 700,000 public sector job losses as a result of Government measures, and for anyone who remains, a ceiling of 1% is being put on pay rises for the two years following the spending review period.
Youth unemployment has exceeded the 1 million mark, and long-term unemployment among 18 to 24-year-olds is up by a shocking 83% since the start of 2011. What do the Government do in the face of that crisis? They scrap the future jobs fund and introduce three-year work placement subsidies, which will mean just over 53,000 funded jobs—a far smaller number than the 105,000 starts provided by the future jobs fund between October 2009 and March 2011. Those new placements are not even guaranteed. No wonder our young people feel cheated by society. That message certainly comes over to me in my constituency.
If we are not careful there will again be a lost generation of young people—just as there was in the ’80s, Mrs Thatcher’s time—which will lead to broken homes, broken relationships, dashed hopes and broken dreams. I would not for one second condone the riots that took place in England earlier this year, particularly as I am asking the House to reflect on what youth unemployment actually means. Indeed, I am pleased that they did not extend to Scotland. However, it would be naive in the extreme to think that we can continue with the figures and statistics that are a reality in Scotland and not expect young people to articulate their views.
We were first warned about these matters as long ago as during the war, when Sir William Beveridge wrote:
“If full employment is not won and kept, no liberties are secure, for to many they will not seem worth while.”
So what about the poor and people with disabilities? Since 2010 jobseeker’s allowance claimants have risen in the most deprived areas of my constituency—I underline the word “deprived”—from 26.3% to 28.1%, against a UK average of 3.9%. We are asking what the Government’s response will be, because that is a real problem. Additionally, Mencap has found that one in two families with a disabled child live in poverty. The Chancellor is playing with the lives of those people. As they teeter on the breadline, tax credits are being cut, Sure Start centres are closing at an alarming rate and the number of people able to claim disability benefit is being cut.
Jim McGovern
My right hon. Friend may be aware that last Friday, a Spanish wind turbine company called Gamesa abandoned its plans to locate in Dundee, my home city. It is a devastating blow for Dundee and means that a prospective 1,800 jobs will not be created. Does he agree that the UK Government and the Chancellor should work more closely with the devolved Administrations to ensure inward investment throughout the UK?
Finance (No. 3) Bill
Jim McGovern Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Alec Shelbrooke
My hon. Friend pre-empts me, because I was going to say that the Swedes put aside 2% of gross domestic product during the good times and the Australians paid off their national debt in the last quarter, leaving them well placed to deal with these issues.
People often say that the new deal in America, with its Keynesian attitude, dug the American economy out of its hole. No, it did not—that was achieved by the second world war and the fact that America was able to lend money and sell armaments to the rest of the world while not having its mainland invaded. That put the Americans in the economic driving seat, from which they have never looked back.
I want to talk about fuel prices. The Opposition were going to add another 5p to the price of petrol. I know that it is difficult to prove a negative. If we say to people, “We’ve cut 6p off a litre of petrol,” they will say, “No, you haven’t—you only cut a penny,” because if they are not paying that 5p it is difficult to prove it to them. However, at least we have done something to help, and we have to pay for that somehow. We cannot just go on printing money and saying, “It doesn’t matter. It’s the Government’s money—we’ll supply it, don’t worry about it,” because that completely misses the point and gets us into these problems. Under the previous Government, fuel prices rocketed because of taxation; under this Government, fuel prices have gone up because of the oil price, over which we do not have influence. If we are to believe what is said, we may have reached peak oil. We could have a discussion for three hours about whether that is so, and people would say, “Well, more oil comes online because at the current high oil price it becomes more economical and there is plenty of oil out there—it isn’t going to run out.” However, the key to that argument is that it relates to the current oil price. Let us not forget that the oil price is controlled by the oil traders and speculators, and if they believe that we are at peak oil, that oil price is here to stay. We have tried to cushion the impact and help hard-working families, and it is pretty cheap for Labour Members to snipe at that.
Drawing on the comments by the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, at the same time as the argument that we should try to reduce our carbon emissions, we hear that we should not build any nuclear stations or put any subsidies into moving forward with nuclear power. We have seen an absolutely terrible and disastrous event in Japan—something that shocked the world and daily covers the newspapers, and still gets talked about constantly, with Russia now making criticisms. As far as I am aware, that nuclear reactor has not killed anyone. It is funny how quickly people completely forget about the 20,000 people who died in the tsunami: the real human cost. But no, they focus on a nuclear power station hit by the third biggest release of energy the world has ever seen and a 30-foot tsunami doing 60 mph, and everybody says that that is why we should not have nuclear power. Nobody adds that more than 20,000 people have been killed by this natural disaster. Let us get some perspective. We know that nuclear power may not be the best way forward, but it is the best way forward at this moment. Until we develop the technology so that we can get to nuclear fusion and perhaps some better green technologies, these are our options and this is what we face. We cannot keep saying no to everything.
The Opposition always want it both ways. They want to cut the fuel price, but they do not want to tax oil companies. They want the banks to lend more, but they want to tax them so much that they would leave the country. They want to reduce carbon and to have secure energy, but they do not want to go nuclear. They are a joke. Their speeches vary from Member to Member. Some could be on this side of the House, some could be old Labour and some could be new Labour. I do not know what their policy is, but the blank sheet of paper is certainly something that they are all sticking to vigorously. We have seen very little in the local election campaign except for criticism of the Government.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman speaks about nuclear energy and fossil fuel energy. Does he have an opinion on the Scottish National party’s view on nuclear energy?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman must sit down. He has asked his question. Members should not just walk into the Chamber and intervene.