Beer Duty

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Sir Roger, and I congratulate the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on presenting his case well. He was certainly a super-sub, so well done to him.

I have been contacted about the beer duty on numerous occasions—a few times by constituents complaining about the rising price of their well-earned beer at the end of a day, but mostly by the hospitality sector and industry, groaning with the weight of trying to inspire growth while being restricted by a seemingly never-ending duty increase, which happens year on year without fail. I would like to give Northern Ireland’s perspective and talk about how important the issue is for us and about the Minister’s responsibility.

I was contacted before the debate by Hospitality Ulster, which is the professional body that represents the hospitality industry in Northern Ireland—its membership consists of pubs, bars, café-bars, restaurants, hotels and major visitor attractions. Tourism is important for us in Northern Ireland, and the hospitality sector’s role is particularly important. Hospitality Ulster believes that it can transform the local economy and create additional wealth and job opportunities. The successful growth and expansion of the industry will have direct financial benefits, but only with the Government’s help and support. That is why the chance to set out the issues in this debate is important and why I am presenting this case on the industry’s behalf.

Figures indicate that there are 45,000 jobs in the hospitality sector in Northern Ireland. That may not seem a lot compared with similar job opportunities across the United Kingdom, but when we pare that down, it equates to one in 20 jobs being sourced in food and drink and the hospitality sector in Northern Ireland, so the importance of this debate is clear. The hospitality sector overall accounts for 60,000 jobs across Northern Ireland and generates some £88.4 million in tax. It contributes approximately £1.1 billion to the Northern Ireland economy and pays out £653 million in wages, keeping people in employment and creating opportunities. Its importance, therefore, cannot be underlined enough.

In my area of North Down and Ards and in my constituency of Strangford, the sector pays some £7 million in tax and provides just over 3,700 jobs. There is potential for so much more, but we need to put in place support networks and help. That is partly about addressing the issue of taxation and duty, which is the key reason why we are here.

The tourism industry in Northern Ireland is competing in a cost-sensitive marketplace locally and globally. High taxation and the additional costs of unnecessary, disabling regulations and outdated legislation directly affect its ability to compete. In addition, the lack of access into and around Northern Ireland limits not only the number of people visiting the country but its residents’ access to the evening economy. Tourism brochures and information indicate that Belfast is one of the best areas for nightlife in the United Kingdom, and there are tremendous opportunities to do much better on access to it.

Much of the responsibility for this issue lies with the Northern Ireland Assembly—these are devolved matters—and I hope that it will soon be up and running; we are in the middle of a process of talks at the moment. However, taxation and duty are major issues for this House to address. Duties on all alcohol products are forecast to raise some £11.2 billion in 2016-17. To split that up, the duties on beer and cider are expected to raise £3.6 billion, whereas the duties on wine and spirits are expected to raise £4.2 billion and £3.4 billion respectively. Receipts from beer and cider duties are expected to rise slightly to £3.8 billion in 2017-18. That is a massive amount of money, and we understand its importance to the Treasury in balancing the books. We also need sustainability for the industry, which is why we want this matter to be looked at.

We need to ensure that this is the last small rise in a series of rises that has seen the price of a pint rise to £3.46, which is 20 times the amount that it would have cost in the 1970s. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) referred to those free and easy days, and that is a fond memory of a time when I also had hair. Correct me if I am wrong, but wages have not increased at a similar rate, so people are missing out and publicans are seeing customers sitting at home with a tin of beer at half the price. We have to address that as well. I will come on to that point, because some of these issues could be dealt with in the Budget and, at the same time, the importance of the hospitality sector could be reinforced.

We want to encourage a society that enjoys a drink responsibly. That is what pubs do: people are refused drinks if they are too drunk and car keys are removed, and there are protective barriers when people leave the pub. Pubs and landlords are careful about what they do, and they are responsible. On the other hand, the alcopops sector can have special offers in supermarkets, allowing 20 shots of vodka from a one-litre bottle to be downed for a shockingly small price tag. That issue was highlighted at a reception in Westminster three weeks ago. I was not aware that a big, one-litre bottle—it looked like lemonade, by the way, but it clearly was not—was so cheap and was placed in supermarkets to make it more attractive for people to buy. We have to address these issues. We all have great respect for the Minister, as others have said; she has always done her best in the many portfolios she has held, and I know that she will do the same for us today.

Something is not quite right about how we are approaching this issue. I believe that the duty rises should be put on the alcopops sector, which is often a favourite of under-age drinkers and is often where alcohol abuse takes place. The hospitality industry should be given a break, which may well keep businesses open and attractive to consumers who can put money in the local economy as opposed to the pockets of supermarket shareholders. I am not against supermarkets making money, but something is unfair when there is a clear imbalance.

I oppose any rise on beer duty, and I ask the Government and the Minister to fully consider the needs of this industry, which brings so much into the local economy and has the potential to do so much more if encouraged to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Ellison]

I suspect that is a debate for another time. It is certainly a debate in which I took part in my previous role. If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will stick to the topic of the debate, lest we get drawn into minimum unit pricing, as it is a complex issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) spoke about the long history of the brewing industry in her constituency. She is another strong advocate for the brewing industry, and she rightly mentioned beer exports, which were worth £531 million in 2015, up 10% on the previous year. I reassure her that no duty is payable on exported alcohol, so the link between duty cuts and exports is not a direct one, although I take her point about general confidence within the industry.

The issue of high-strength alcohol has been challenged. I think the House is unanimous in wanting to tackle excessive alcohol consumption and the related health harms associated with the strongest products. The question is how we do that, but the point has been well made and the Government are of course reflecting on that.

I hope I have covered most of the points raised. I have not been able to respond to the whole thrust of the debate, although more will be said tomorrow in the Budget. The debate has been a valuable opportunity to discuss the issues, and it has been interesting to see so much common ground.

[Jim Shannon]

In my contribution I talked about alcopops—I know that might be a separate issue—and the advantage that high-street supermarkets have over the pubs. Do the Government intend to address that imbalance, the unfair advantage that high streets have over pubs, and the control of the alcohol that is sold?

[Jane Ellison]

Again, that is perhaps for a wider debate, but, as I recollect from my time as Public Health Minister, the industry was rightly praised for the extent to which it stepped up to address issues with certain products. A lot of alcopop products have been phased out by some producers who decided to change their portfolio. One or two speakers referred to the bigger chains and the fact that they have tried to shift their portfolios as they recognise the challenges that certain products pose, especially for younger drinkers. It is worth putting on the record a recognition of the industry’s actions in that regard, although there is always the challenge to do more.

I hope that I have been able to reassure Members on some issues. In opening the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay said that the industry wanted to make sure it was not overlooked, and I can reassure him that it is not. Its voice is rightly heard loud and clear across the House and within Government. We have regular meetings and dealings with the industry and we listen very carefully to all the points made.

Cerberus Capital Management: Purchase of Distressed Assets

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this matter to Westminster Hall for consideration. In the light of what he has said, does he agree that although the mortgages and loans are currently owned by entities licensed by the Financial Conduct Authority, they, like any UK mortgage, could be sold in the future to an entity that is not regulated, meaning that customers would need to seek redress under the Consumer Rights Act 2015? Does he agree that the Government must consider additional protection for people whose lives have been turned upside down since the collapse of the Northern Rock bank?

[George Kerevan]

I agree, and the hon. Gentleman gets to the heart of the issue that we want to bring before Treasury Ministers, which is that even when loans were initially regulated, they can be sold on to unregulated parties, such as Cerberus, at which point there are no guarantees about the behaviour of those companies and how customers will be treated.

Low-Cost housing

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[John Penrose]

The hon. Lady just gave a classic example of this instinctive British fear. I have discovered that in general if people see a beautiful building that is well-designed and moderately, but not too enormously, tall—Manhattan being an example of where things are incredibly tall—many of those concerns are greatly reduced. The taller something is the more impact it has on everybody else for miles and miles around and therefore the greater care we have to take. There is a middle ground that I will talk about in a minute, which will provide us with a great deal of building and housing opportunity to reduce the cost of housing without having to make everywhere look like Manhattan, if I can put it that way.

The hon. Lady’s intervention leads me to say that we need to throw off these mental shackles—these 50-year-old emotional architectural scars—and instead count the blessings of building up, not out.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this important issue of how we better utilise our space. He will know—I am sure this is the case in his constituency, as it is in mine—that people have the opportunity to live above shops. That is a special scheme brought in by local councils and local departments and is a way of utilising the space that is there. Does he agree that that is one method for addressing the issue of low-cost housing?

[John Penrose]

That is a very good example—a classic example—of the kind of thing we need to look at. Many British high streets are two storeys, or perhaps three storeys, tall. Not only are those upper storeys lightly used, and in some cases unused, but there are two or three further storeys of fresh air above them that could be developed into housing as well. The crucial point that was made yesterday in the White Paper, but has been more broadly accepted for years, is that the only way to bring down the overall cost of housing in this country is by increasing the supply. We have to make sure that more of this stuff is built and finding those right, convenient locations near social and physical infrastructure is crucial. I will expand on that point a little more in a minute, but the hon. Gentleman has touched on a particularly good example.

I was about to number the blessings of building up, not out and I shall now carry on doing so. First, it will attract much needed new investment to regenerate and save tired or rundown town and city centres, bringing fresh life, a broader mix of businesses and longer trading hours to high streets that—as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned—are suffering under the twin attack of out-of-town shopping centres and online retailers.

Secondly, building up, not out could help break the stranglehold of large house building firms over the number of new homes that are built. Those firms tend to focus on larger sites, whether greenfield or in towns, and rarely pick up smaller plots where an individual bungalow or two-storey shop could be redeveloped into four or even eight smart new apartments on the same site. By releasing lots of overlooked smaller urban plots we can create a fast-growing cadre of insurgent new developers, adding much needed new capacity and competition to the sector and its supply chains and speeding up the too comfortable, cosily slow rate at which the big firms currently convert their land banks and planning permissions into completed homes.

Thirdly, building up, not out will reduce urban sprawl by cutting the pressure from builders to concrete over green fields and green belts at the edges of towns and villages across the country. Given the strain and pressure on our green spaces, they should be our last building resort, not our first. Fourthly, it will cut commuting by allowing people to live closer to work, shops and other community hubs from libraries to GP surgeries. The reductions in emissions, and the effects on both our quality of life and the wider environment, will be very significant indeed.

Finally, building up, not out would release huge numbers of new urban house building sites to solve the housing shortage. As the Secretary of State said yesterday in his new White Paper, the only way to make homes more affordable for everybody is to build a lot more of them. Whether we are talking about renting or buying, the basic laws of price and demand mean that the prices will never stabilise, much less fall, unless the supply of housing increases dramatically.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Simon Kirby]

The FCA and BBA are both looking at ways to make it easier for trusted friends or family to help people to manage their money safely, and I wish my hon. Friend luck with his meetings.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

As my brother’s appointee after he suffered severe head trauma in an accident 11 years ago, I can see many avenues by which carers’ time is taken up dealing with red tape. Will the Minister outline his view on how things such as online banking can be kept safe but made simpler for carers with regard to multiple usernames?

[Simon Kirby]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have discussed this. It is the very issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) will be discussing with the BBA and the FCA, and the Government are keeping a close eye on it.

Christmas Adjournment

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a real pleasure to follow the gallant gentleman, the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). I wholeheartedly support his comments, and those of the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti); I think they resonate with everyone in the House. We all want the prosecutions and investigations to stop.

May I first associate myself and my party, the Democratic Unionist party, with the comments that have been made about all those who have lost loved ones in the awfulness of the unspeakable attack, so close to a church, in Berlin? We offer our sincere sympathies. It is good that we remember, at this time of year, those who grieve.

In the short time available, I want to speak about making a difference. I also want to focus on this time of the year. I am one of those guys who loves Christmas. I love taking my grandchildren to special church services, attending services in different churches and just remembering the real reason for the season: a chance to celebrate Jesus. We all know, in all reality, that 25 December is not just the day Jesus was born. It is a time to focus our minds on the greatest gift ever given to mankind: the Lord Jesus, the greatest story ever told.

Last week, I tabled an early-day motion on the real meaning of Christmas. Many Members took the opportunity to sign it and to endorse that comment. The Christmas message is the celebration of Jesus who came as a baby, grew to be a man and gave his life for those who would accept him into their hearts. I love the celebration of his birth, as I see it as a time for faith, for family and for focus. I want to thank the Lord Jesus for the personal faith that I have.

I thank God for the time that I spend over Christmas with my family: with my wife and the boys, my granddaughters and my mother. I take the two days as days to be with them. I cherish the time to laugh—and to be laughed at!—and just to be in each other’s company all together. Finally, I see it as a time when I refocus on what is important and on what I need to do. It is a time when I think on my role and how I can make a difference in my own family, my own community and my own constituency.

The hon. Member for Beckenham spoke about our soldiers. While we are in this House, Army, RAF and Navy personnel, and those in the emergency services—the police, fire and ambulance services—are all working to protect us. We should put that on the record.

As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am the chair of the all-party group on international freedom of religion or belief. I want to focus on and pray for persecuted Christians across the world who cannot worship their God as we will this Christmas, and to think of the 100,000 Christians who will be killed for their faith this year, the 200 million who will be persecuted and the 2 billion who live in an endangered neighbourhood. Those are the facts of where we are.

It is Christmas time and we all enjoy a good Christmas movie. “It’s a Wonderful Life” starring James Stewart is a great film that could probably epitomise the life of every person in the Chamber and every person we meet out in the street, because every person’s life has an effect on everyone else. When I think about making a difference, I want to focus on that. I will relate a quick story to illustrate that, which I believe carries a lesson for us all.

An old man used to go to the ocean to do his writing. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish in both directions as far as the eye could see. Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching, wearing his wellington boots and carrying a bucket. As the boy walked, he paused every so often. As he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object, put it into his bucket and take it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?” The young boy paused, looked up and replied, “Taking starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up on to the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves. When the sun gets high, they will die unless I take them back to the water.” The old man said, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on the beach, and I am afraid that you will not be able to make much of a difference.” The young boy bent down and picked up yet another starfish, put it into his bucket and took it out to the sea as far as he could. Then he turned, smiled and said, “Ah, yes, but I can make a difference to this one.” People may raise their eyebrows—

[Christian Matheson]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his inspiring story. I would like to pay tribute to his work on the all-party group on freedom of religion or belief. It is my belief that he is making a difference to people across the world, and for that, I am most grateful to him.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which I greatly appreciate.

People may raise their eyebrows when I highlight individual cases in this place, but it is because I believe in trying to make a difference where I can. There is time for each Member to focus on our constituencies to see where we can make a difference. It could be the time taken to fill out a benefits form for someone who is deserving; contacting the Housing Executive to get someone’s heating fixed more quickly; the time spent sitting down with businessmen and women to see how they feel the Government could do better for small and medium-sized businesses; giving someone help to get an operation or to get further up the list for their medical examinations and investigations; contacting the road service about potholes; the time taken with producers to register concerns about Brexit and to highlight the necessities going forward; or the time we take as MPs to encourage others to focus on their families and communities. I believe that we have a duty and a responsibility to attempt to encourage others to do what we do and not simply as we say.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland in my area recently put a post on Facebook, and instead of breaking into a house where an elderly lady had rung for an ambulance but could not come to the door, neighbours were able to contact the family to let the emergency services in. This sense of community simply warmed my heart, and harks back to the days long ago when people left their doors open and their neighbours looked out for them. I am sure we can all remember that happening in the past. There is more of a need now than ever to take care of each other where we can, to look out for our elderly relatives and neighbours, and to help where we can. Yes, it takes time; yes, it takes effort; but we will all be the beneficiaries from living in a community that cares, one in which people can and do trust their neighbours. Perhaps that is the Christmas message that applies all year round, which should be sent from this Chamber: make a difference where you can.

I am very aware that I am only one of 650 Members in this place. I am only one of an eight-strong DUP team grouping in this place. It is a party that, if I may say so respectfully, boxes above its weight. Instead of throwing my hands up and giving up on making a difference, I pledge to keep on making a difference where I can. This is the mantra that I believe this new year should bring: do what we can for everyone. I have a lovely quotation from Edward Everett Hale:

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.”

This is a lesson that we in this place can all take on board: to have the mentality of doing what we can for all those that we can help.

I want to put on record my thanks to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to all the Deputy Speakers and to Mr Speaker for your understanding and your patience, and for giving us the chance to speak in this House. That applies particularly to myself, given that I try to contribute on a regular basis. I thank you, too, for understanding my Ulster Scots accent. I see that the Deputy Leader of the House is looking at me, and I know that he enjoys my Ulster Scots accent, so I hope he has understood my speech well. I want to thank all the staff who look after us here and keep us safe. I thank the Hansard staff who clearly write down all the words. Just when I think they are getting to understand me, they send down a wee note asking, “What was that you said again?” We still have some learning to do, but it is a privilege and pleasure to be a Member of this House.

[Bob Stewart]

I would like to say one thing to my friend: sometimes we may not understand you, but my God, you’ve got one hell of a heart, and we can see it.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As he knows, I think the same about him, and we have a mutual understanding in relation both to our service in Northern Ireland, in uniform, and to our service in the House.

I wish all right hon. and hon. Members a very merry Christmas and a happy new year, and God bless for 2017.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry), who gave an excellent speech. He is right to have raised the problems of extremism and hate crime on the world wide web. I had to step out during the debate because I was leading my own debate on the tragic death of Brandon Singh Rayat, a 15-year-old boy who committed suicide because of the cyber-bullying he had experienced, and I am glad his parents are in the Public Gallery, as they were earlier in Westminster Hall.

The hon. Gentleman is right that leadership needs to be shown on this issue. There has been a succession of reports by the Home Affairs Committee, one them co-authored by the Deputy Leader of the House before he was promoted to his august position. The tragedy is that these things are not followed up—an excuse is always given. The hon. Gentleman’s example of the organisation, funded by the companies, that can professionally monitor what is going on, rather than people having to try to find out who in California they should speak to if they want something removed from the net, is a very good one. Rather than serving on the Home Affairs Committee, he should be giving evidence to it on this important point. I hope he will put his example to the Committee when it next meets.

In the few moments I have to speak in this traditional debate, I want to raise a few of my passions. First, as I said, I am glad to see the parents of Brandon Singh Rayat here. I hope the debate will lead to Mina Rayat being able to pursue her important campaign on cyber-bullying, which she launched two weeks ago, and that she will continue with it. When someone loses a child of 15—some of us in the House today are parents—it must be an unspeakable tragedy for them, and this campaign will give hope to families in a similar position.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned support for his local police service. When the Deputy Leader of the House comes to reply, I hope he will give us some good news about an issue that still concerns me: the Government’s failure to announce the police funding formula for not just the Leicestershire constabulary but the police service throughout the country. The former policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), said the review of the police funding formula had been paused until the National Police Chiefs Council had completed its investigation into policing capabilities. We now know that Sara Thornton, the chair of the council, has said there is nothing to stop the review from proceeding at the same time as her capabilities review. It would therefore be good to find out when constabularies such as Leicestershire and Buckinghamshire, London boroughs such as Kingston and, indeed, Northern Ireland—although I think there is probably a different formula there—will know precisely how much money the police will have to spend.

As is my custom, I want to mention diabetes; I would be missing an opportunity if I did not. There is a time of year when people eat a lot of sugar, mince pies, cakes and things of that kind, as I have just done—I will have my metformin shortly to compensate. It is important to look at the variations in care for diabetes. Diabetes UK published a very interesting report with the all-party group on diabetes, which I am privileged to chair. The report was launched by the Health Secretary recently and pointed out that people are able to get structured education and care in certain parts of the country but not in others.

If, when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I had been sent off to the gym instead of being sent to the pharmacy to get my metformin and my other tablets, perhaps I would have prevented its onset. It would have come eventually, I know, because my mother had diabetes as well, but that might have prevented for a little longer its taking hold of my system. We should look at ways of saving money in the long term by spending more money now, and that means through structured education.

A number of my constituents will be heading off to India because the Indian Government have decided to recall the 1,000 rupee note, which is worth about £10, and the 500 rupee note, which is worth only £5, as part of their campaign to root out corruption in India. A number of British Indians came back with rupees when they last visited the country. When we go abroad we change our money and sometimes do not change it back over there but bring it back with us. A lot of my constituents, and indeed other members of the British Indian community, are having to change their money by 31 December, so many of them have very quickly decided to go back in order to bank it before it ceases to be legal tender. It is as though we had gone abroad with our £20 notes and suddenly the British Government had announced, “The £20 notes are no longer legal tender—please come back and bank them before 31 December.”

I wrote to the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, about the issue. He wrote back to tell me that if the Indian Government agreed, he would be quite happy for the rupees to be banked in an Indian bank in the United Kingdom to save my British Indian constituents, and others, from having to go all the way back to India. A lot of cricket supporters who have just gone over to India for the cricket matches have changed their pounds into rupees and now cannot change them back, so this is a good way of proceeding.

I wonder whether the Deputy Leader of the House could speak to the Foreign Secretary; I wrote to him some time ago to ask the British Government to contact the Indian Government to enable the notes to be banked in the United Kingdom. There are eight Indian banks in Leicester East; I am sure that the Deputy Leader of the House has one or two in Northampton North. This is an opportunity to save a lot of money for people who would otherwise have to go all the way to India just to put their money in the bank.

I have two final points, one of which is about Yemen. There is tragedy in Syria. The tragedies in Berlin and Turkey are terrible events that have shocked the whole world, but the situation in Yemen has now been ongoing for 15 months. Mr Speaker, you kindly granted an urgent question last week when we looked at the situation in Yemen, and the situation is not improving. The basic foods are not available. As I said to the Prime Minister when she gave her statement on the European Council on Monday, citizens in Hudaydah are eating grass and drinking sea water. The ports are closed and the airport is closed, so wheat cannot be brought into Yemen. Without wheat, people will not be able to survive.

This is not about a lack of aid. I thank you again, Mr Speaker, for coming to the Yemen day that we held last week, where we met members of the Yemen diaspora. Eight aid agencies were there, together with a Minister of State at the Department for International Development and a Foreign Office Minister, and we heard from the UN Deputy Secretary-General. Unless the ports and the airport are opened, humanitarian aid cannot be got in. The appeal launched last week by the Disasters Emergency Committee on the BBC has raised a lot of money, but there is no point in just having the money; it has to be spent on the people in Hudaydah and in other parts of Yemen. I very much hope that we will pursue the cause of a ceasefire.

Finally, let me say why I will remember 2016 as a good year. There are lots of reasons why I might not remember it as being particularly riveting, but for one reason I will: the victory of Leicester City football club as the English champions. It was one of those great events. I am not going to say that it will never happen again, because we know what happened to Mr Gary Lineker. Full marks to him for wearing only his underwear, as he promised he would do, when he lost his bet with the nation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is a Leicester City supporter—he supports the foxes. Every time I go to a match at the King Power stadium, I bring him back a programme. People wonder why I take two programmes and I always say that one of them is for him, so he has a collection that is as good, if not better, than mine. A number of other Members also support Leicester City football club. This was our year—it was a fantastic year—and that is why I was so pleased that, only on Sunday, Signor Ranieri was named coach of the year and Leicester City team of the year. The year 2016 has been a historic year for us; we will never, ever forget it and it will probably never be repeated.

[Jim Shannon]

Did Arsenal win anything?

[Keith Vaz]

I was going to say something about Arsenal—I thank my hon. Friend—because, of course, Mr Speaker is a great supporter of theirs. What unites us, of course, is that we do not really want to see Chelsea win the league. I think that it is Arsenal’s turn, but every time they get to the top of the premier league, something goes wrong. This year, we will keep our fingers crossed—not just for Mr Speaker, but for young Oliver, who can recite the players’ names backwards and forwards in the blink of an eye. Of course, we will carry on winning the premier league, but we would like to share it; it is only fair that we should give it to another team. This week I will place a bet on Leicester winning the champions league, because I am hopeful that we will proceed. That is what 2017 will be all about for me.

May I end by wishing you, Mr Speaker, the staff of the House, the Deputy Leader of the House, Ministers and colleagues on both sides of the House a very happy Christmas? I understand that it was an old tradition—I wonder whether this is in “Erskine May”—that whoever wound up this debate for the Government always ensured that every Member who was still in the House when it rose for the Christmas recess would get a mince pie. I do not know whether you have heard that particular story, Mr Speaker, but one of the Doorkeepers mentioned it to me, so I am looking forward to visiting the rooms of the Deputy Leader of the House at the end of the day and getting one. Let us hope that 2017 is a great year in which all our ambitions and dreams can be fulfilled.

UK Sovereign Wealth Fund

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always nice to be called to speak, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on setting the scene on a subject that has to be discussed and given some thought in this House. Those of us here, and those who unfortunately have not been able to make it, will have ideas about how to do this. This is the first stage of a discussion that we should, perhaps, have had many years ago. At least we are starting the process; let us start it with this discussion. I look forward to the shadow Minister’s contribution, other Members’ contributions and, in particular, the Minister’s response on how to take this forward.

We are considering the proposals put on paper by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare in his report, “The Great Rebalancing: A sovereign wealth fund to make the UK’s economy the strongest in the G20”. That is a very grand title, but it encapsulates his thoughts on the subject—and, perhaps, our thoughts as well. An enormous level of thought and groundwork went into these proposals. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the paper, which we read—not just the background notes—back home, and it gave us food for thought. I am astonished that he found the time to do so much work on it. Anyone who takes the time to read the background notes will understand the time that he has put into writing this paper, which is worthy of discussion in the House, and in Westminster Hall today.

I was raised to save for a rainy day, as many in my generation were—and that is not just because I am an Ulster Scot and we think that every pound is a prisoner. I was taught to save for a rainy day at an early age by my mother and father, and it has not done me any harm over the years. I am now married, of course, and the money is never my own anymore; it belongs to her, but that is by the bye. I do not wish to dumb down in any way the hard work of the hon. Gentleman, but to me this is like the Government saving for a rainy day, as I said to him when discussing the debate beforehand. The hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who spoke before me, is a strong advocate for the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality—women and their pensions, and I am glad he is here. Before I came in, I thought, “What if we had had this fund 20 years ago? We would have been able to look after the WASPI women and make sure their pensions were covered.” We did not, but at least we have chance to look at this issue now.

[Ian Blackford]

As always, the hon. Gentleman makes a number of pertinent remarks. There is a view that we do not have the resources to pay the appropriate pensions to people, but we should keep an eye on the Government Actuary’s Department, which has argued—I am keen that people should not get away from this—that the national insurance fund will be in surplus to the tune of about £30 billion by 2016-17. The resources are there to give the women what they are due, and over the next 20 or 30 years, pensions will remain affordable.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those figures. I was not aware of them, but if that money is available, perhaps we are in a position to start the fund today with some of those resources.

I am sure that, like me, many hon. Members, including the hon. Gentleman, will know of 63-year-old women in their constituency who still have to work as their pension is unavailable. Those women are wishing that in the 1980s, at the time of the North sea oil find, which we have heard many comments about, the Government had decided to invest in a rainy day fund, which could have helped the pension pot. For that reason, the sovereign wealth fund must be considered seriously by the Government. That is why this matter is worthy of debate.

This issue is not cut and dried, by any means. There is talk of the Government’s shale fund being similar to this plan, as the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare mentioned, but this is not the day to debate the pluses and minuses of fracking. A lot of hard work would need to be carried out before the fund saw any profit, but many people are already making claims about the potential for shale oil, if that comes through—and I suspect that, at some time, it will. We must think about what can be done for the future benefit of all people in the UK. Today’s austerity is a reality for us all. We have to be honest in this House about moneys and finances.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I apologise for my late arrival, Mr Owen; I had another meeting. Does my hon. Friend agree that we have to look forward, when it comes to these funds? Oil prices, fracking and all the rest have been referred to, but we have to debate the issue as a whole, including wind turbines and all of that. Green energy could be as much as 40% more expensive, and we have to look at all of it. If we are going to put money in, we have to get the price correct.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend and colleague for his intervention. As always, it is good to have his businesslike approach; he looks at the real issues critically and focuses on the situation that we are in. We need to look at the issue more widely and at some things that will cost more. That is part of the debate for the future.

We all know that the deficit needs to be cut, as the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare openly acknowledged, yet it is incumbent on us all to look at the long term; in this House, we have to be visionary, and this debate gives us chance to do so, and to look at how we can secure a better future, using our resources for future generations.

I respectfully point out that, like many people, I have opposed the severity of Government cuts. I have met people in my office who have come for help and thought that they were deserving of benefits, but those have become harder and harder to get. I am sometimes overwhelmed by the cases I come across. It is very hard as an elected representative, no matter which party Members belong to and whatever their views, not to become perturbed and emotional about those cases. When I see people who should be on benefits, whose medical conditions are being made 10 times worse because there is no alternative than to work, I think, “No, we cannot sustain the cuts.” I stand by that belief. I stand by the fact that our front-line medical staff and emergency services need investment to sustain services. I stand by the belief that we need an Army that is capable of dealing with international commitments. All those things need to be in place.

Achieving all that and still cutting the deficit is incredibly hard to imagine, yet it can and must be done. Looking at the situation and saying that we need to invest in our future with a portion of the money is even more difficult, and that is why we are having this debate. Perhaps the national insurance contributions that the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber referred to can kick-start the fund.

We expect people to budget with their money at home in exactly the same way. People must pay for a secure home with a mortgage, which should be paid off in some 30 years of work. People must pay their tax and national insurance to ensure healthcare and future security. On top of that, we ask people to pay into a compulsory private pension fund set up by their employer, and they must then live off the returns from that money. That is what we all must do in this place: we must keep all the balls in the air, as we expect our constituents to, while living a normal life. We must pay our mortgage—the deficit—at a rate that enables us to meet the rest of our obligations. Many young couples out there would love a 15-year mortgage, but it is not possible to pay that and live daily. As my mother says, “You cut your cloth to suit your needs.” We must pay off what we can afford to, and continue to spend money on what we must not neglect.

The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare said in his paper on the sovereign wealth fund:

“We can and should start doing this immediately, because it is the only kind of Government spending which can justifiably be paid for with long term debt. It will inevitably mean a slightly longer wait to eliminate the Government deficit and achieve a balanced budget, but should earn a good financial return through higher economic growth nonetheless.”

I agree, and we should consider that. It is a difficult, but not impossible, task. We are elected to take difficult decisions in this House and to ensure that they are the right ones. That is why this debate is so helpful.

At the very least, the proposals merit full Government scrutiny and consideration. A committee should be set up to do this work and to see how the Government can invest now to help future generations. I think of Katie and Mia, my wee granddaughters—most of us probably have grandchildren—and I would give them the world, if only it were mine to give them. We would all do that for our children and grandchildren. We have an obligation to the generations ahead to do the right thing, to make the tough choices now and to secure a better future for them than seems to be on the horizon. The work needs to be done, and the hon. Gentleman has started it with this debate. We now need seriously to consider in this place how to do that. The Minister will lead on this issue, so there is no pressure on him whatever. We look to him genuinely and seriously for guidance on how best we can fulfil our obligations as MPs, and—I do not mean to sound like Trump—on how to make sure that we keep Great Britain great.

Shale Wealth Fund

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. From what I understand of the places where shale gas could be recovered, it is an open question as to how much could be received in revenue. There may be difficulties in getting the gas out of the ground: it might be under the ground, but we might not be able to recover it all. It is an open question. At the moment, it is too early to know just how much could be gained. Now is the time to think about the principles for such a fund and about how we can ensure that it is not frittered away across Government on different schemes so that, at the end of the day, we cannot really see the power of good that it has provided for the nation.

As I said, the Norwegian wealth fund was quite amazing in how it was put together. First, the Norwegian Government said that they could draw down only 4% of the fund each year to spend, but March this year was the first time that they drew down 4%, and that is despite the fact that the fund was worth $890 billion. Secondly, they invested for the long term. The oil fund is Norway’s pension fund. We do not know exactly how much the shale wealth fund will generate, but it is forecast to generate £1 billion over 25 years, which is a considerable sum to put to good use, and it may be more.

To create a defined wealth fund is a start. The Government’s intention is that it should be a fund that is clearly separate from the general revenue pot. A further lesson would be to follow the Norway example and use the fund for a specific purpose. I am talking about one that everyone could see the point of—a big picture idea, with an impact that can be clearly seen.

Norway looked forward to a day when it no longer depended on oil. We could look forward to a day when we are not dependent on fossil fuels by reducing our long-term energy use. Energy efficiency in this country is at a crossroads, as existing programmes end or decline. As shadow Energy Secretary, I raised serious concerns about the coalition Government’s flagship proposal, the green deal. We were sceptical about how it would work. It lasted two years before it was scrapped.

I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee and we recently revisited the coalition Government’s household efficiency schemes. The Department of Energy and Climate Change’s financial model depended on large numbers of households taking out a green deal loan. The Government projected around 3.5 million green deals, yet a tiny 14,000 households signed up. That was bad policy making and, sadly, it wasted taxpayers’ money.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Prime Minister has indicated that 10% of tax revenue could be used for communities, which could amount to up to £10 million per eligible community. Does the right hon. Lady think that new infrastructure, skills training and long-term job opportunity could benefit each and every community?

[Caroline Flint]

Absolutely. The great thing about energy efficiency is that it has a multiplier effect. It not only makes our homes warmer and reduces bills, but creates jobs and encourages innovation, too. Although it will be a national fund, the delivery should be at a local level, and the leadership should be held regionally within our communities across the UK.

One bad scheme such as the green deal does not mean that we should give up. With the green deal gone, and the energy company obligation soon to exist solely to tackle fuel poverty, we need to be asking serious questions about how to move forward on energy efficiency. We know, because the Competition and Markets Authority told us, that 70% of bill payers are paying over the odds for their energy and even if the latest Ofgem measures are introduced, they will reduce bills for only a few. It is very likely that, even by 2020, we will still be talking about energy bills that are as high, if not higher, than they were in 2010. I am sure the Minister would agree that the cheapest energy is the energy that we do not use. A shale wealth fund could provide an opportunity to enhance a large-scale retrofit of the UK’s housing stock, protecting households from future energy price rises. The fund should not be the only programme for energy efficiency, but it would provide a new means beyond passporting the cost to the general bill payer.

For a moment, let us consider the future if we do not make energy efficiency a priority. Quite rightly, the UK has ambitious and legally binding emissions targets, and we shall have to meet those targets, with 80% of the UK built environment still existing in 2050. The UK building stock is a long way from the low-energy housing stock that the UK will need, and the challenge is still huge. The Government’s own figures for 2015 show that, overall, their largest energy efficiency scheme, ECO, installed one or more measures in around 5% of homes. Some 320,000 homes had cavity wall insulation installed, 230,000 had new loft insulation, and 50,000 had solid wall insulation fitted. Yet of the 620,000 green deal assessments, 89% of those homes were rated as D, E, F or G. There is a long, long way to go.

There is a huge job that needs to be done, and for whatever reason—poorly directed funding or lack of profitability—the hard-to-treat properties have been substantially ignored. Many of the easiest measures have been undertaken first. Now Britain needs to finish the job. An energy efficiency dedicated shale wealth fund could be a hugely positive step, and I am not alone in suggesting this. Neil Marshall, chief executive of the National Insulation Association, commented:

“There are still some 5 million cavity walls, 7 million solid walls and 7 million lofts that need insulating and therefore we welcome this proposal. Insulating these homes will combat fuel poverty and climate change as well as reducing energy bills and creating jobs.”

The association rightly identifies the fact that many homes have yet to be adequately insulated, including 95% of homes with solid walls.

Finance Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I have a couple of questions about Government new clause 9, which relates specifically to Northern Ireland and the tax treatment of supplementary welfare payments that might be made there, but before I come on to that I want to acknowledge some of the other amendments before us.

The hon. Members for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) and for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) spoke persuasively about amendment 141. The question that arises is: why would the Government and Parliament not do what is proposed in that amendment?

Similarly, on new clause 19, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), it is hugely important that this Parliament is in the business of making sure that there is transparency in our debates. Yesterday, the emphasis was on making sure that there was transparency in the tax affairs of companies. We as a Parliament should insist that we show full transparency in our intent on tax policy and taxation measures.

New clause 19 would take us back to having transparency on the anticipated impact of taxation on families and households of different incomes. There would also be an analysis later in the year of what the impact of particular tax policies and the cumulative impact of various tax policies had been. Surely that is what we should all be in the business of doing when we go through the complicated and confusing exercise of having the various stages of Budget debates here. One thing we all value is knowing what the impact of what we are talking about will be.

I was in this House when a Labour Government adopted a misguided Budget measure in respect of the 10p tax band. A number of Labour Members raised the alarm and said that there would be an adverse impact on people of low income. The Government briefed heavily that that was nonsense and people were marched through the Lobbies. Similarly, we had the recent experience of the proposed changes to working tax credit. People were celebrating the changes and thought they were wonderful, having believed the Chancellor’s spin. Thankfully, not only Opposition Members but Conservative Members raised real and practical concerns about what the impact would be.

Why would it be wrong to follow new clause 19 and ensure that in all our Budget deliberations in future there is an effort to have a properly appraised impact assessment for taxation measures? That would allow us to answer not the question that is usually asked immediately after a Budget, which is what credit particular MPs or Ministers should get for what measures—that is not really what a Budget is about—but that of who gets the benefit in terms of fairness, social equity and the efficiency of economic impact that that induces. For those reasons, I fully support new clause 19.

Similarly, many hon. Members have made the case for new clause 15. Many of them have made the straightforward point that it would be almost perverse for the Government to refuse a new clause that would preclude an increase in VAT on the installation of energy-saving materials. I know the Government will say that it is otiose because they have no intention of increasing it, but over the past few years, we have experienced the Government adopting a series of perverse measures that have confounded the underlying policy commitments in respect of the green economy, renewables and energy efficiency. Given that the Government have introduced so many measures that have had a perverse effect on that sector and an adverse impact on households, it makes sense to have the belt and braces of new clause 15. I cannot see what is wrong with that.

I also note in passing—and at the risk of another voice-activated intervention—that when the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) sought to contradict the Financial Secretary’s earlier comments, he cited what he thought was a point of clarity in the Brexit Secretary’s performance yesterday. He is the first Member to have offered me any point of clarity from that performance, which I thought demonstrated the new Secretary of State’s wish to be the first Minister to fulfil the new Government policy on environmental sensitivity, given that he treated us to more than two hours of cosmetics without a single microbead of substance.

The lead measure in this group, new clause 9, refers specifically to Northern Ireland. It deals with the ability there will be for the Northern Ireland Assembly to make additional supplementary payments as mitigation measures to offset some of the impact of the welfare reform measures now being imposed by direct rule from this House, courtesy of the so-called “Fresh Start” agreement. My party expressed our misgivings about and opposition to that overall arrangement, with regard to direct rule powers and the imposition of the effects of welfare reform legislation on Northern Ireland. However, we have long canvassed for mitigation and supplementary payments, and established that case with the Department for Work and Pensions early in 2012.

The one concern people will have about new clause 9 is with the language used. Although in the new clause the Government clearly provide for the Treasury to ensure that

“no liability to income tax arises on supplementary welfare payments of a specified description”

they also allow the Treasury to make regulations to

“impose a charge to income tax under Part 10 of ITEPA 2003 on payments of a specified description”.

The power is there to make sure that the Treasury does not activate a tax liability on supplementary payments that have been discussed and voted through by the Assembly but there also seems to be a power to subject some of those payments to tax.

I wonder why the Treasury feels the need to have that reserve power to impose a tax liability on such payments. We should remember that those payments will be made out of the Executive’s own resources in the devolved budget, because they come out of the departmental expenditure limit for the Assembly. The payments will not come under annually managed expenditure.

Why is that power there? Many people will be concerned that the Treasury will attempt to insinuate itself into any debate among Executive or Assembly parties about what measures they should adopt in mitigation of welfare reform by saying that it may subject some of those measures to a tax clawback. That is clear from subsection (3) of the new clause, and also from looking at subsection (4), which will permit the Treasury’s regulations to

“make…different provision for different cases…incidental or supplementary provision”

or “consequential provision”. That differential raises the question of why we want to reserve the power to impose tax on measures that the Executive or Assembly seek to bring forward and why the Treasury should be able to do so differently on a case-by-case basis, as that will give rise to arguments about inequity and capricious performance. The suspicion is that the Treasury sought to answer the stand-off on welfare reform in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Assembly would not discharge the karaoke legislation it was being asked to pass in relation to welfare reform. The Treasury intervened by saying, “If you don’t pass it, we will effectively tax your devolved budget to the tune of what we estimate you would be overspending on welfare.” The Treasury insinuated itself into what should have been a debate for the devolved Assembly.

The danger is that now, even in the area of the mitigating powers—the supplementary payments the Assembly will be able to offer, as provided for in the “Fresh Start” agreement—the Treasury could, in the language of the new clause, insinuate itself in the choices and consideration undertaken by the Executive and Assembly. The Treasury’s past form shows that it has not resisted the temptation to insinuate itself. I therefore want assurance from the Financial Secretary that this language will not be there to give the Treasury the right to interfere in the choices that may be made by Ministers and Committees in the Assembly in respect of the supplementary payments they would be allowed to bring forward.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend all hon. Members who have made very valuable contributions, in particular the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). He is no longer in his place, but I would like to speak to his presentation on new clause 3. He set out clearly where we stand.

I want to put on record again the consistent support of the Democratic Unionist party for the provision of the transferable allowance for married couples. I remember the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and I taking some verbal attacks in this Chamber—mostly from the Opposition Benches, I have to say—for our stance on this issue, but we persevered and the Government persevered. I thank the Government for bringing in the provision in their previous term. I had hoped there would have been some indication that the Government could support new clause 3. I understand, after talking to the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate, that he will not press it to a Division. If that is the case, we have to abide by that.

The sadness for me is that the Government have, until today, chosen to invest the lion’s share of their resources in their other income tax policy of raising the personal allowance. It is undoubtedly true that that policy helps poorer families, but it is very badly targeted. If I may say so in a respectful way, it seems to be targeted at those who can well afford it, as against those who cannot. I have to put on record that I have some concerns about that. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has demonstrated that 75% of the benefit—and now, as the allowance is being raised from £10,000 to £12,500, even more than 75% of the benefit—goes to those in the top half of the income distribution. That is what the available statistics and charts indicate and I have to say they are very stark. They indicate an imbalance in the system that, as the hon. Gentleman clearly stated, is a concern.

[Fiona Bruce]

There is another imbalance in the system. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that the married couple’s allowance, which provides support to married couples where at least one spouse was born before April 1935, is worth £8,355 a year. Should we not also be looking at providing for those families with young children who are in the lowest socioeconomic bracket and supporting them similarly?

[Jim Shannon]

I could not agree more and I would like to make a comment on that later. New clause 3 clearly outlines the importance of that, but unfortunately we do not have the opportunity to support it today. I am sure the Minister, who knows I respect her greatly, will be able to respond to some of our concerns.

The IFS has demonstrated that, in contrast to the personal allowance, the transferable allowance results in 70% of the benefit going to those in the bottom half of the income distribution. The problem is that so far this has received only symbolic recognition. That has had two effects. First, the fundamental marriage accessibility challenge has not really been addressed, which is a massive issue given the impact on life chances of being brought up in a married home compared with a non-married home. Secondly, the very limited symbolic recognition has translated into low take-up. Given the distributional impact of the two tax policies and the impact of the transferable allowance on life chances, I have to say that if the Government are to have one symbolic policy and one substantive policy, they have got it the wrong way around. I say that with great respect. It would have been wiser to focus investment on the transferable allowance rather than redistribute billions to those in the top half of the income scale by raising personal allowances. I believe that we urgently need to change that. If the allowance cannot be made generally available to basic rate married couples, it should be focused, as the hon. Member for Congleton said, on families with children under five.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the highest levels of marriage breakdown occur when children are aged between nought and three? We are looking to support marriage at just that moment of greatest strain.

[Jim Shannon]

As always, the hon. Lady is wise in her interventions. I thank her for what she said, which underlines other important issues. If we can help at that critical time when the pressure is on, I believe that this House should do so. I hope that the Minister will do so, too, in her response.

The impact of the allowance on low-income households also needs to be addressed, as new clause 3 proposes. I hope we can do that at the right time. The new clause refers finally to

“ways in which the allowance could be changed to target low-income families with young children.”

Those points clearly illustrate for me what is necessary in this Bill, although the provisions may not be as hard and fast as I would like them to be.

Let me conclude; I am conscious of the time. In the longer term, there is a pressing need to adopt a more balanced approach to the resourcing of raising the personal allowance and increasing the transferable allowance. I fully support the transferable allowance and I would have hoped that the Government could commit themselves to it. Speaking as someone committed to progressive tax policy which targets those in the lower half of the income distribution scales rather than those in the top half, if the proposal means less money going to the personal allowance, in my judgment and, I believe, in the judgment of many in this House, that would be no bad thing.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I wish to speak to new clauses 15 and 19, and amendments 141 and 180 to 182, which were tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends. I shall also touch on a few of the other amendments and new clauses in the group, which has turned into a bit of a rag-bag of issues.

New clause 15 relates to VAT on energy-saving materials. The new clause would prohibit the making of any order that would have the effect of raising the rate of VAT on the installation of energy-saving materials or any individual category thereof. In short, it would prevent the Government from implementing their planned hike in VAT through secondary legislation.

For hon. Members who might have forgotten the background, let me briefly recap how our ability to debate this amendment today came about. Amid the fallout from the so-called “ultra-shambles” Budget, the Government were forced to become the first in history, so far as I am aware, to accept an Opposition amendment to their Budget. It was designed to block the Government’s planned 300% increase in VAT on solar panels and energy-saving materials—essentially a green energy tax hike. The solar tax alone would add £1,000 to the cost of a household solar energy installation, punishing those who are trying to do the right thing and do their bit to halt climate change. It would also put at risk thousands of jobs in an industry that is already expected to experience up to 18,700 job losses, as was conceded by the former Energy Secretary, and this tax raid would have caused even more damage. For those reasons, we tabled an amendment to the Budget to enable the Chancellor to use the Finance Bill to maintain the current rate of VAT on green energy and home insulation.

The Government initially claimed that a European Court ruling prevented them from stopping the tax hike, although it was apparent that they had failed to negotiate at European level to protect the renewables industry. None the less, the industry made very clear that there was room, even within the ruling, to avoid the drastic measures that they were planning to impose. When that led to a significant number of Conservative Members adding their weight to calls from Opposition Members, it appeared that the Government would be defeated on the issue. Ministers initially backed down, claiming that what we were proposing had been their position all along, only to avoid making such a commitment when pressed during Treasury questions and, just a few weeks later, during questions to the Secretary of State for the now abolished Department of Energy and Climate Change.

That is not surprising, given the Government’s abysmal failure to provide any kind of certainty for the renewable energy sector in the United Kingdom. Over the past six years, they have consistently undermined support by, for instance, cutting the feed-in tariff by 64%, scrapping tax relief for clean energy projects, and removing subsidies for new onshore wind farms. The £1 billion for investment in carbon capture and storage has also been scrapped. At the same time, safeguards to reduce the environmental risks posed by fracking have been stripped away, and fracking under national parks has been given the go-ahead. The executive director of Greenpeace UK put it succinctly recently, saying:

“A tax hike on solar panels was just the latest addition to a litany of poor decisions”.

He also said that the Government should accept that they had

“a reverse Midas touch on energy investment”.

This would be an opportune time for the new Chancellor and his team to signal a change of direction by accepting our new clause, but I fear that, given the abolition of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Conservative party’s husky-hugging days are long gone. I am pleased, however, that the Government have finally seen fit to publish the report by the Committee on Climate Change on the compatibility of UK onshore petroleum with meeting the UK’s carbon budgets. I can see now why they sat on it for four months.

The report states:

“Our assessment is…that onshore petroleum extraction on a significant scale is not compatible with UK climate targets”.

That, it says, will remain the case unless three key tests are met: first,

“Well development, production and decommissioning emissions must be strictly limited”;

secondly,

“gas consumption must remain in line with carbon budgets requirements”;

and thirdly, the report specifies the importance of

“Accommodating shale gas production emissions within carbon budgets.”

Does the Minister agree, therefore, that tighter safeguards in fracking—for which Labour consistently called during the passage of the Bill that became the Energy Act 2016 —are now absolutely necessary?

I digress. Let me conclude my remarks about new clause 15. Opposition Members want to ensure that the original solar tax U-turn is guaranteed in statute in the Finance Bill, to prevent a second U-turn. That would give the renewable energy market the certainty that it needs and deserves, and would, we hope, send a signal that the new Administration are prepared to look again at the future of the industry in a green economy. If we are to take seriously the intention of the new Ministers to rethink these fundamental issues, now is the time for them to show it.

New clause 19 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). As my hon. Friend explained so articulately, it would require the Government to review the impact of the measures in the Bill on households at different levels of income. It would also require the Chancellor to review the impact of Government fiscal measures on households at different levels of income at least once in each financial year. It is an excellent new clause, and it has the full support of the Labour Front Bench.

As I pressed on the Government earlier today in the capital gains tax debate and yesterday on corporation tax, this Bill has unfairness at its very core. The reduction in CGT alone amounts to a tax giveaway to 200,000 people—just 0.3% of the population—of around £3,000 a year on average. Clearly this Government conduct no distributional analysis of the measures they introduce, or if they do the results are so bad that they do not publish them. This amendment would force the Government to publish such analysis, and therefore I am pleased to have heard the Minister’s earlier comments; it seems that the Government are seriously considering this matter and I hope she takes it forward.

Amendments 180 to 182 specify that the chair and tax director of the OTS would be appointed and terminated only with the consent of the Treasury Committee, in line with what happens with the Office for Budget Responsibility. A similar Labour amendment, which would have had the same effect, was debated in the Public Bill Committee, but we did not divide the Committee on it. During the course of that debate I made the point that while Labour supports establishing the OTS on a statutory footing, we feel its independence is of the utmost importance. As I am sure the Minister is aware, Labour has placed on record our concerns about the OTS potentially being used for political purposes, and ensuring that the chair and tax director is accountable to the Treasury Committee seems a sensible approach to safeguarding its impartiality. Again, I am pleased to hear today that the Minister seems to be taking our opinions and those expressed in the House today seriously.

Amendment 141 would introduce a de minimis tax exemption for residual cash balances remaining in a share incentive plan when they are donated to charity, with an upper cap of £10. This seems like an extremely sensible suggestion, and the Labour Front Bench is supportive of the amendment. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) on tabling it and explaining it so articulately.

I shall say a few quick words on new clause 8 in the name of the hon. Members for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin), for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Philip Boswell). This new clause would require a review of how the changes to the tax on dividend income will affect directors of microbusinesses. There are some concerns, as we have heard today, that the changes to dividend taxation will have a detrimental effect on the owners of microbusinesses. Jason Kitcat, who has become quite famous today, has done some detailed analysis which shows that the dividend tax changes included in clause 5 and schedule 1 are somewhat regressive in nature. For instance, Crunch analysis shows that a limited company director paying themselves through dividends would be paying £1,528 more a year when their pre-tax profits are £48,000, whereas a director with £78,000 in pre-tax profits would only be paying £1,343 more in tax.

The Federation of Small Businesses has also stated that these measures have caused substantial disquiet among its members. This is especially acute for members on modest incomes who, unlike their employed counterparts, will now see a rise in their tax liabilities. This is very worrying and indeed makes the case for distributional analysis, referred to in relation to new clause 19, even more important. A review of the impact of these measures therefore seems quite sensible at this stage and we will support the SNP if it divides the House on this issue.

Finally, Government new clause 9 relates to the tax treatment of supplementary welfare payments in Northern Ireland. The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group has outlined some technical points for clarification on which I hope the Minister can shed some light: in essence, which payments will be taxable? The Budget said:

“Where the Northern Ireland Executive intends to top-up UK-wide benefits from within its block grant as it implements welfare reform, the Government will exempt from tax the top-up payments to non-taxable benefits.”

The implication, confirmed in the explanatory notes to the amendment, is that top-ups to taxable benefits will be taxable as well. However, if we take the payments to mitigate the impact of time-limiting contribution-based employment support allowance it seems that two situations are possible. One is that the person’s contribution-based ESA ends and they claim, or are already getting, income-related ESA. If the income-related ESA awarded is less than the person would have received through contribution-based ESA, they will receive a welfare supplementary payment to cover the difference. The second possibility is that their contribution-based ESA ends but they do not get income-related ESA, in which case the WSP will equal the full amount of the lost contribution-based ESA.

Private Finance 2/Private Finance Initiative

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Most MPs can show in their constituencies where there are rotting floors, outdated buildings and potholes. Some may even have made a website about it, but the truth is that this is no laughing matter. We know that our schools in this country are falling apart, and that investment in our education buildings is 18% lower in 2014 than it was in 2009. Britain is now ranked 24th by the World Economic Forum for the quality of its infrastructure, down from 19th in 2006, and we cannot see this getting any better. Indeed, spending on infrastructure has nose-dived since Brexit.

Whatever some may say about fixing these problems, all of it has to be paid for, and Governments of all persuasions, including the previous Labour Government as well as the current Government, have used private finance to build. It is the equivalent of getting a mortgage or even remortgaging our home to pay for a new roof or an extension. Crucially in these deficit-denying times, it is seductive not only because it spreads payments for new schools, hospitals and stations and their management over decades or more, but because it keeps them off the books.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

According to a report of 2014, in Northern Ireland there were some 39 PFI projects with a staggering total cost of £7.3 billion for the maintenance and so forth. Does the hon. Lady agree that any further PFI must be an absolute last resort and indeed should only be permissible in cases of extreme need?

[Stella Creasy]

I hope to convince the hon. Gentleman that there may be many alternatives to PFI, because the question for us is: at what cost have we engaged in this borrowing? We now pay £10 billion a year in PFI repayments, equating to £3,400 for every man, woman and child in Britain. These projects are worth £57 billion, but we are committed to paying back £232 billion by 2050.

It is clear that PFI has addressed some of the project management issues we had in the public sector that made it so bad at building. As the National Audit Office highlights, it has dramatically cut late delivery of projects and overspending on buildings, but as the Treasury Committee points out, it is “sub-optimal value for money”.

One hospital was charged £52,000 to demolish a £750 shelter for smokers, and a school had to pay £302 for a plug socket to be replaced, five times the cost of the equipment it wanted to plug into it. In my constituency of Walthamstow, we have seen first-hand the damage done. My local hospital, Whipps Cross, is part of the Barts health foundation, which has the largest UK PFI deal, at £1.1 billion. By 2049 the amount paid back will be £7 billion. Last year alone the trust shelled out £148 million, equivalent to the salaries of 6,000 nurses, of which half was the interest paid on the loan. Its deficit of £90 million has led managers to downgrade nursing posts. It is little wonder the Care Quality Commission placed my local hospital into special measures as the quality of care declined.

The Minister will, I have no doubt, say his Government have reviewed PFI and made cuts to the costs, renegotiating to buy fewer lightbulbs and to do less cleaning, saving us a whole £1.6 billion out of about £220 billion, but as the NAO has pointed out, no one has really considered whether private finance itself is value for money.

Tonight I want to ask three simple questions: whether the terms of PFI—the rates we pay to borrow this way—are the best we as taxpayers can get to build schools and hospitals; whether even now we can save money on the costly deals that have been signed by Governments of all persuasions, and which are draining our public services of much-needed money; and above all whether the Government are doing enough to secure the competition for our business as taxpayers.

Of course it is hard to answer those questions without the data on what we are paying. I know that the Government do not have those data, because I have asked. I tried asking all the hospitals around the country what rate they were paying, because on 8 February this year Treasury Ministers told me that they do not hold those data centrally. Most NHS trusts refused to disclose the information, claiming that it was commercially sensitive, but those that did were very revealing. Their data showed that, in December 1994 under John Major’s Government, two PFIs in Durham—one for the Dryburn district hospital and one for the Bishop Auckland general hospital—had rates of return of 15% and 18% respectively. In comparison, the 10-year gilt rate was just over 8% at the time. In December 2002, the Crosshouse maternity hospital in Kilmarnock was rated at 16%, while a month later Edmonton acute services were rated at 14%. The gilt rate was 4.6% at that time. In March 2010, the Leeds Wellbeing Centre offered a return of 14% and the Liverpool University hospital redevelopment offered 11%. The long-term gilt rate was then 4.2%.

Some people will argue that we cannot make a direct comparison with gilt rates, so let me flag up the fact that equity returns on the stock market have averaged between 5% and 6% per annum over the past 30 years. It is therefore clear that PFI investors got a great rate, and that was no accident. Critically, research from Edinburgh University shows that these rates do not vary as other premiums do in our financial markets, and that they stay well above the cost of other forms of funding. So public bodies might know full well that the premiums are high, but if that is the return that the market expects for managing the projects and there is no alternative, there is not much they can do without the Government’s help.

I should also point out that those are the rates for when the contracts were signed. As we now know, much profit has been made by selling the debts on. The South London Healthcare NHS Trust, which collapsed, had two large PFI contracts, one of which was offering investors annual returns of 71%. Most PFI contracts were let on an expectation of an already high rate of return of 15% to 17%, but refinancing has seen some returns to investors rise to over 70%.

In 2007, a new standard contract clause was created to allow authorities to request this financial information in order to track the returns that investors were creating. However, there is little evidence that the clause has been used or even that the Government have promoted it, so it is hard for us to see just how much taxpayers’ money is being recycled into higher payments for investment funds rather than into infrastructure for the UK. Again, no central database exists.

We might not know what we are paying, but we do know who we are paying, and it is often the same companies, with 45% of projects funded by the same people. Firms such as Dalmore Capital, Semperian, Kajima, Innisfree and Barclays crop up time and again, and they often invest together too. This dominance by a small group of companies matters because this Government are continuing to use their services in their proposed replacement for PFI, known as PF2. PF2 separates out the service element—the building management—from the capital, which involves the building of the project. So far, so good. Those lightbulbs might be replaced after all, if their cost is not connected to the cost of building the schools.

However, PF2 is supposed to attract more long-term investors by increasing the requirement for equity—the most expensive bit of the deal—potentially making it even more expensive to the public purse than PFI. It also expects us as taxpayers to take on more—not enough to be in charge of the project, but more to cover the cost. So it is not that different from PFI. It is still about us borrowing money from private companies to build things, at rates that are not transparent or competitive with the alternative sources of finance that we could raise.

Are there better ways to borrow to build? Certainly the calculations used by the Government in the Green Book to compare the cost of these deals with public spending have not made that question easier to answer. They set the value of public sector borrowing at 3.5% real and 6 % nominal since 2003, despite the cost of public borrowing being well below that for over a decade. The Treasury Select Committee has suggested that the Government review the Green Book, but it is not clear that the Government have heard that message. Will the Minister tell us whether PF2 is using the same calculations as PFI, at the very time when the cost of borrowing to the public sector is even lower? The Green Book also includes the shadow price of tax—the money that private companies will pay in tax in the UK as a result of getting this business. That money is set against the cost of borrowing from those companies to decide whether the deal is better than using public money to fund a project.

The lack of information about such projects means that the Government are simply unable to verify whether the tax presumptions are accurate. The NAO suggests not. The companies themselves continue to be sited overseas. Innisfree and Palio Partners are sited in Guernsey, and Semperian is registered in Jersey. PF2 will do nothing to tackle that or to stop the resale of shares in such deals, which make more money by taking advantage of the fact that Governments do not default. What does the Minister make of the bosses of the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, who admitted that they could not stop Carillion, investors in the PF2 for the Midland Metropolitan hospital, from selling on its equity investment to generate the kind of profits that we saw under PFI?

At a time when huge spending cuts are being threatened and when the NHS faces a financial shortfall of £20 billion by 2020 alone, to continue to pay inflated rates to rich investors is to continue to ignore the problems. A quarter of single-tier and county councils now spend the equivalent of 10% of their revenue on debt servicing. The answer to the first question is no; private deals are not always a good deal. We therefore need to answer a second question: if we cannot get out of them, can we renegotiate? Can we consolidate to reduce the repayments and put the savings back into front-line services? To date, sadly only Northumbria NHS Trust has done that and only at great expense to the council and with minimal savings. Imagine the savings that could have been achieved had the Government negotiated a group of the contracts with these companies at the same time. The savings in interest could be paying down debt or paying nurses and teachers properly.

We then face our final question: why are we borrowing only from these companies? Why are more companies not competing for our business as taxpayers? In the past few years, this Government have been making it harder for local government to pay down its debts. The Public Works Loan Board could use the Government’s financial strength as a borrower to secure much lower rates and then pass them on to public bodies. Instead, they changed the early repayment terms in 2007. In 2010, changes were made to loans to make it harder, not easier, for local councils to borrow efficiently.

If that does not excite Ministers, perhaps they will support an alternative in the shape of the new municipal bond agency created by local councils. The agency seeks to lend at margins of between 0.6% and 1% over the underlying Government funding rate. Currently, if a council wants to borrow money for 30 years from the Public Works Loan Board, it will charge just over 2%. In contrast to the complexity of PFI or PF2, municipal bonds are simple and transparent. Bonds are issued to the market to raise funds and local government lending is at a fixed rate.

The Government could make pensions funds more likely to invest in partnerships with Government by being more transparent about the deals and the returns to be made. The current Pensions Infrastructure Platform has led to such companies buying old PFI debt, but that can change. The Manchester and London local government pension funds have recently acted together to invest in windfarms and biomass, so there is clearly a market. With Government support, that could be the basis for a UK sovereign wealth fund—the people’s money used for the people’s projects. The sad truth, however, is that no such innovations are coming from this House or the Treasury, so why are we throwing good money after bad trying to make private finance initiatives work? With a Prime Minister who has pledged to put infrastructure investment at the heart of post-Brexit economy, Britain cannot afford to keep making expensive mistakes.

I have five simple questions for the Minister. First, will he commit to publishing the rates at which public agencies are borrowing so we can have greater transparency of the costs incurred to the taxpayer and so that we can check whether, as many fear, PF2 will be more expensive than PFI? When will the Government publish the equity returns data, promised since last year, on the PF2 deals? Secondly, is the minister not perturbed by the relationships between a small group of institutional investors in these deals and the lack of competition for taxpayers’ business? If so, will he ask the Competition and Markets Authority, which acts on the behalf of consumers—as taxpayers, we are consumers—to review the sector and explore whether barriers to new entrants exist? Thirdly, will the Government help public bodies saddled with PFI and PF2 contracts to renegotiate debts and get the costs down to save money for front-line services? Fourthly, will the Government rewrite the Green Book to reflect the real costs and benefits of public borrowing versus private borrowing? Fifthly, what does he make of the new Eurostat rules published in March that consider the equity stakes that the Government intend us to take out under PF2 to be direct financing, meaning that they should be on the books? Does that not undermine the point of PF2 in the first place?

Finally, how will the Minister stop money simply going overseas into tax havens and into higher profits for private companies, not public services for the people? As things stand, 46 schools, and many more hospitals, will be built using £700 million of that PF2 control total, at a time when borrowing is at an exceptionally low cost for government. Do not take my word for that. Instead, take the word of Leo Quinn, the chief executive of Balfour Beatty, who recently said that “money is effectively free”. There is no excuse not to act, to tackle the costs of existing PFI contracts and the lack of competition for our business as taxpayers, so that we can really get value for money and so that instead of injecting our cash into profits for private companies overseas, we can inject our money into the kind of projects that will get Britain’s economy and Britain’s people back into business.

Summer Adjournment

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I welcome the Deputy Leader of the House to his new position and wish him well for the times ahead. We look forward to working with him and speaking to him on many issues.

I am going to bring something completely different to the House on this occasion. I want to speak about some of the history of Northern Ireland and, in particular, the Loyal Orders, and one of those especially. Those not associated with the Loyal Orders will immediately think of the Orange Order, and as it is the largest fraternal Protestant association in the world, that is understandable. However, there is more to the Loyal Orders than meets the eye. We have other associations, some linked to and some not linked to the Orange Order. The Loyal Order that I wish to speak about in order to enlighten Members and anyone watching about its illustrious and too often unknown history is the Apprentice Boys of Derry, of which I am a member and have been for 39 years. I am also a member of the Orange Order and of the Royal Black Preceptory.

The Apprentice Boys of Derry is not linked to the Orange Order. However, membership overlaps, as indeed it does in my case. The Apprentice Boys of Derry has a membership of some 10,000 in Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, England and Canada, with supporters and affiliates in many other Commonwealth countries. The institution seeks to commemorate and celebrate the siege of Derry, recognised as the longest siege in British military history. It goes back to the Glorious Revolution. It is called the Glorious Revolution because, as many people know, it was a rather bloodless revolution. In that revolution James II was ousted from power by Parliament in 1688, and Parliament subsequently offered the English throne to James’s daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange. In Scotland, the then ruling body, the Privy Council, asked William to assume responsibility for the Government in January 1688, and in March that year King William and Mary assumed the throne.

The different situation across the Irish sea is what ultimately led to the siege of Derry, the creation of the Apprentice Boys of Derry and the famous battle of the Boyne. In November 1688, there were two garrisons in Ulster that were not loyal to James. They were Enniskillen and, of course, Londonderry. I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson), who referred to the gillies. He said they were small in stature, but when the Earl of Antrim was trying to recruit some soldiers, he went to Scotland because he wanted men who were six feet-plus. He managed to get a force from Scotland, the Scottish Highlander Redshanks, who set off for Derry. On their way they made sure to strike fear into the hearts and minds of the resistance by being merciless to any opposition.

On 7 December 1688, as the King’s forces approached the city of Derry, they were met not with the welcome that they expected, but with shots and cries of “No surrender”. The Brave Thirteen, the 13 apprentice boys, as they were, are one of the central pillars of symbolism and significance within the institution to this day. In April 1689 hope arrived, in the form of reinforcements from England led by Colonel Cunningham, a native of the maiden city. The governor of that city, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lundy, called a meeting with his most loyal supporters to discuss the surrender of the city. News of the meeting spread, however, and the citizens were furious. Lundy had to flee the city in disguise with his supporters. The impact of Lundy’s betrayal is that Unionists and loyalists across Ulster and in Scotland to this day refer to a perceived traitor as a “Lundy”. His name went down in history for the wrong reason.

On 18 April the Jacobite army reached the city, expecting the inhabitants to be overwhelmed by the presence of the king and to admit them to the city. James repeated his attempt to enter the city three times, but on each occasion he was refused with cries again of “No surrender” and with many shots. Hamilton’s forces on behalf of King James rounded up hundreds of Protestants from nearby villages, proclaiming “Let your fellow Protestants in or let them die.” The act horrified King James himself, because he had given no instruction for that to happen and in no way approved.

On 28 July two armed merchant ships, the Mountjoy and the Phoenix, sailed towards a boom protected by HMS Dartmouth. The Mountjoy rammed and breached the boom and the ships moved in and relieved the city. After 105 days the siege was over, with some 8,000 of the 30,000 inhabitants dead. The Mountjoy, like those who oversaw the siege, has become iconic in the remembrance of the siege in the Apprentice Boys and in wider loyalist and Unionist circles. Today, the siege is commemorated by the Apprentice Boys of Derry, named after the Brave Thirteen.

We have in Londonderry a week-long Maiden City festival, which culminates in a parade around the city by members of the Apprentice Boys of Derry. Our colours are crimson red, commemorating the blood of the 8,000 who died in those battles. The institution is now widely commended for how it conducts parades, which have been peaceful and successful over the years. The parade this year will be on the second Saturday of August, which is 13 August.

What is good about the parade is not just the history, but the fact that this is the one place in Northern Ireland—well, there are lots of places in Northern Ireland—where there was contention before, and now there is not. The agreement to parade in the city of Londonderry is a catalyst for other parts of the Province to have a loyalist parade in a mainly nationalist city and to have the tolerance that is needed to make that happen. If Members want an example of how things can happen in Northern Ireland, that is the example I would give, and that is why I wanted to speak about it today.

The parade has become a tourist attraction for many people. People from Northern Ireland, from the Republic and from across the world come to watch the historical enactment that takes place on that day, and I would like to commend the Apprentice Boys of Derry for all they have done to make that happen.

In conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to thank you, the other Deputy Speakers and the Speaker of the House for your kindness to all right hon. and hon. Members in giving us a chance to participate in debates in this Chamber. I would also like to thank the Backbench Business Committee, which also makes it possible for us to come here and speak in debates. I am told I have a season ticket for the Backbench Business Committee, and whether I have or not, I am very pleased to participate in the debates in this Chamber and in Westminster Hall. I thank the House staff for all their kindness to us, and I thank the Hansard staff, who have told me they can now understand my accent and my writing, and they do not need any more help with what it should say. I thank the people of Strangford for giving me the privilege of representing them in the wonderful political and democratic institution we have here in the House of Commons. It is a pleasure to be here, it is a pleasure to represent Strangford and it is a pleasure to have so many friends in this Chamber.