Business of the House

Debate between Jim Shannon and Chris Leslie

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

Well, the hon. Gentleman’s intervention has just added a minute to that process. That is always the way with Government Members; it is a case of, “Just shut up; sign on the dotted line; don’t criticise; everybody’s tired; don’t bother looking at this; take it all on trust.” That we have reached such a situation is perhaps a consequence of having opened the Brexit box in 2016. It need not be this way. There is false cause for the 31 October deadline that the Government are rushing towards, which is all about the promises that the Prime Minister has made in various political circumstances. We know that an extension request has been made, and we know that it is entirely feasible. There is no real reason to truncate proper scrutiny of this legislation.

I, for one, learned only today that article 271 of the deal that the Prime Minister has struck with the European Council contains proposals that will mean that goods being shipped across from Northern Ireland to Holyhead or Liverpool will need an exit summary declaration form to be shown in order for them to cross the Irish sea within the United Kingdom. I am staggered that we are seeing that level of fettering of the transmission of goods within the United Kingdom. I would like to table an amendment on the impact that will have on constituents in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Last Friday one of the supermarket giants told the agrifoods sector in Northern Ireland that it could no longer source all of its chicken product in Northern Ireland, because that was simply becoming too expensive as a result of the matters that the hon. Gentleman refers to. That means that the agrifoods sector in Northern Ireland will lose 80% of the chicken business with that supermarket giant. That is an example of what is happening, yet the Government are telling us that it will make no difference and that we will be okay. Well, we are not going to be okay.

[Mr Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman is completely correct. What makes it worse is that he and I might want to table an amendment—it would be to the early clauses of the Bill—seeking to mitigate the impact of that proposal, or indeed to remove it altogether, but potentially we will have to table it tonight for consideration tomorrow. How on earth are we legitimately supposed to do that? I know that we will have another debate on the programme motion tomorrow—I might seek to catch your eye on that occasion, Madam Deputy Speaker—but tonight we are debating a motion on whether the House should allow hon. Members to table amendments this evening, with the good grace of the Government, so that they can be considered tomorrow. I think that is the absolute minimum requirement, but this is a very bad business indeed.

Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Debate between Jim Shannon and Chris Leslie

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

We will have to hear from Ministers how they propose to deal with the extra 200 million trades going through the new system. I hope to read more in the impact assessment. If the Government can cope with, or have proposals to ameliorate, some of that administrative burden, we would like to see it in the impact assessment.

On top of that, my hon. Friend should know that, as I think was mentioned earlier, HMRC currently has a computer system or IT software called CHIEF. What does it stand for? I will not try to deal with the acronym—oh no, I can; you will be glad to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it stands for “customs handling of import and export freight”. CHIEF will be retired in January 2019—keep that date in mind, as it is crucial in the transition. We are moving to a new system called the customs declaration service. It is costing £157 million to implement and is potentially great news, but all these 130,000 new traders will suddenly be brought into this new system, and they will need to be given time, leeway and flexibility to get used to a system that they currently do not have to operate. I want to hear from the Minister what approach the Government will take to gradually phase in the new system while bringing so many extra businesses into that procedure.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

We have had the good fortune over the last week to see some of the news, including BBC news. In the last week the BBC has visited businesses on the mainland. There seems to be a confidence among businesses and private enterprise across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in what the Government are doing in relation to the points that the hon. Gentleman is making. Does he accept that a lot of those companies understand the issues and are happy to put them in the hands of the Government?

[Mr Leslie]

That is not quite the impression I am getting from the business community. Trade bodies, such the British Retail Consortium and others I have mentioned already, are voicing their concerns, but many businesses are also waiting to see if there is any clarity on the details of how this will pan out. The warm words about phase 1 agreements—“We can sort these things out”, “Don’t worry, it will all be fine”—will only butter so many parsnips. Ultimately, businesses want to know how it will affect their bottom line, how they will cope, what sort of new systems they will need to put in place, what sort of employees they will have to bring in, and so on.

Tax Fairness

Debate between Jim Shannon and Chris Leslie

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

It would be a great loss for the House to lose some of the skills and contributions of Liberal Democrat Members. Perhaps at our next Opposition day debate a Liberal Democrat protection order should be on the agenda. They may cling on in a number of ways in different places.

I am surprised that the Liberal Democrats do not support the mansion tax proposition. It is hardly surprising that Conservatives do not support the idea. After all, half of them are in politics to defend the wealth of the wealthiest, and the other half will probably need to declare an interest before they speak on the issue.

Let us consider the mansion tax in relation to the other tax benefits that the richest 1% receive. If the Lib Dem design for a mansion tax were to be enacted, it would just recoup a mere fraction of the money being given away to high net worth individuals in the millionaires’ tax cut from April—the first of too many examples of unfairness. In the last Budget, the Chancellor took the decision to hit pensioners with the so-called granny tax, which is more accurately described as a freeze on the old age personal allowance and has caused widespread disgust, especially because the Government chose to use the money to fund a cut in the higher rate of income tax. That is not fair and it is not right, and it certainly should not be part of the society we want to build. Even Liberal Democrats must know that it is deeply resented across the country, yet the Government continue to clobber lower and middle-income families, whether by freezing the maternity pay of new parents, taking child benefit away in a fiendishly complex tax assessment process or reducing the value of the tax credits on which so many working people rely. They cannot even ensure that the money men pay their fair share, with a bank levy that for two years running has undershot the supposed target of £2.5 billion that the Chancellor claimed it would collect.

On maternity pay, the bedroom tax and the cuts to tax credits, the Government have their priorities all wrong. They are handing a tax cut to millionaires when millions of hard-working families pay more. Voting for the motion is an opportunity, especially for the Liberal Democrats, to tell the Government that they need to rebalance their priorities.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for introducing an admirable motion. Does he agree that it is not just about tax cuts for millions of people on middle and low incomes, but that it could also be an incentive for first-time buyers to get on to the first rung of the ladder? They do not want to buy a mansion, just a first house. Should the money be used for that too?

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about finding ways to help those who aspire to own their home. I am certainly interested in discussing options for how that might be achieved, because it is important. It is becoming very difficult for people in those circumstances. They are the home owners that we really need to focus on. It is amazing that so many Government Members want to defend the massive super-wealth of those with properties of £2 million and above. All we want is that they pay their fair share, as the motion states in plain and simple terms. We are giving a timely pre-Budget opportunity for the House to express support for or opposition to a mansion tax as

“part of a fair tax system.”

It could not be more straightforward. The country is crying out for a tax system that focuses on helping the majority of the public and ensures that the wealthiest 1% pay their fair share.

First and foremost, Government Members have a duty to their constituents, who will be astonished if their MP flunks this opportunity to make real change because they are suppressing their principles in a bid to cling on to power.

Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jim Shannon and Chris Leslie

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I join the Minister in welcoming the Bill. It was prompted by a Law Commission report in the days when we had a Labour Administration. The recommendations were made back in 2009, and I am glad that the present Government have seen fit to accept them,

As I said earlier, these are incredibly important changes. They put some of the more opaque and obscure elements of common law and voluntary codes into a more statutory form, thus placing them beyond doubt. They update the law in relation to pre-contractual disclosure and clarify the rules about misrepresentation, making a distinction between consumers who, perhaps unknowingly, misrepresent their circumstances, and those who knowingly mislead insurers.

There have been circumstances in which insurers have used the opacity of the common law to take advantage of consumers who were unable to make a claim because they did not disclose a particular aspect of their lives to the insurer at the time of the contract. In some particularly insidious examples, people who had developed cancer or multiple sclerosis were unable to receive insurance payments because, although they had not known that early symptoms might develop into a more serious long-term condition, their insurers told them that they should have mentioned a tingle in their feet, or some other symptom that no one would expect to be the beginning of a more serious disease. I am glad that the Bill will close some of those loopholes.

We do not want consumers to have to have recourse only to the Financial Ombudsman Service to gain redress. The current rules are inadequate, we need the courts to be able to rely on clearer legal statute to clarify the arrangements, and the Bill achieves that. It abolishes the consumer duty to volunteer information in a more general, non-specific way. It also clarifies arrangements for group insurance, life insurance and rules on intermediaries. We therefore think this is an important Bill. I am glad we have touched on some of these important questions, including the state of the motor insurance industry and why more action needs to be taken to help consumers in that regard.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In this Bill, has consideration been given to the differentials in prices across the United Kingdom? Northern Ireland has the highest insurance premiums in the entire United Kingdom. Is it not time to have the same competition in Northern Ireland—