Oral Answers to Questions

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

We take seriously the need for this country to have a set of policies that ensure the long-term health and growth of the UK economy, and the appropriate mix of fiscal policy, monetary policy and long-term investment. That is why we have the fastest growth in the United Kingdom of any advanced economy, and why there are now more than 2 million more people in work in the private sector than there were in 2010. That is a record I am proud of, and the hon. Gentleman should congratulate the Government on it.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

When considering the allocation of LIBOR fines, will Treasury Ministers consider carefully the submission of Alabaré Christian Care in my constituency? It is seeking to construct a new veterans village in Wilton that will be transformational for veterans across Wiltshire.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. As he will know, the LIBOR fines imposed on banks for the appalling rigging of LIBOR are being used for mainly military charities, and a few other ideas have been put forward. I shall bear his remarks in mind and mention them to the Chancellor.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I guess it is a tough job being shadow Chief Secretary: he has to deal with the shadow Chancellor. I saw a quote from the previous Chancellor just this weekend, in Alan Cochrane’s diaries. It said, “I don’t think Miliband gets much of a look-in on the economy now. He’s a difficult man, is Balls.” I guess that is what they mean by a zero-zero economy: one Ed has zero influence; the other has zero credibility. Let me say this to the Labour party and to the Conservative party: both of them, in different ways, are advocating relentless austerity for the whole of the next Parliament, and it is only the Liberal Democrats turning around the public finances after 2017-18 who offer any hope of a change in the future.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

T3. Public Health England at Porton Down in my constituency is at the centre of the global life sciences industry and works with 250 partnerships across the globe. The outline business case is currently before a number of Government Departments. Will the Minister assure me that the fullest range of options will be considered, including a proposal to set up a UK centre for a global response to infectious diseases, which I believe would reduce the call on the British taxpayer?

[Danny Alexander]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that this is an important and, I understand, sensitive decision, which Public Health England is considering in all its aspects. The outline business case is currently with Treasury officials for scrutiny. I know that this work is incredibly important, not least given the recent Ebola outbreak in west Africa, but it would be inappropriate for me to give any further details on the business case until the review has been completed.

Office for Budget Responsibility (Manifesto Audits)

John Glen Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I have been listening to the debate and I really do wonder what the Government are afraid of. We are talking about the democratic process. The most important people in this debate are the general public: the people who vote. What can possibly be wrong with making them better informed about the economic policies of the parties that would be in government? Opposition Members hear a lot from the Government about economic policy and the “long-term economic plan”. The Minister mentioned it four times in her speech—she may be reprimanded for not mentioning it enough. That is more than a hint about what is going to be at the heart of the debate at the next general election; we know that the economy is going to feature prominently. We also know that many people find the economic arguments put forward during an election period very complex. Some people like bits from one side and bits from the other side of the argument. They may like the idea of tax cuts but prefer their public services to be kept intact. They may like the idea of a national insurance reduction but they love their national health service. So how do they decide who is telling the truth and whose sums add up?

The Tories have been making outrageous claims about Labour’s spending commitments. We say that they are misleading people, and to prove it we are prepared to put our proposals to an independent audit by the OBR in order to say whether or not the sums add up. That is the simple element of this argument. The crux of it is: are the Government prepared to put their economic policies to an independent audit so that they can be put before the public at an election and the public can be better informed when they make up their minds? The time has come for the major parties, particularly those that might wish to take part in television debates and be taken seriously, to have their proposals independently audited by the OBR.

The OBR scrutinises Government tax policies and expenditure policies on behalf of the public, so why would we not do this for would-be Governments when there is a general election? Surely the public have a right to be as well informed as possible. The chair of the OBR agrees with that. In his letter to the Chair of the Treasury Committee, he said:

“As we have discussed, I believe that independent scrutiny of pre-election policy proposals could contribute to better policy making, to a more informed public debate, and could help facilitate coalition formation when party programmes need to be reconciled.”

So he is clear that considerable benefits would come from going through this process.

I do not think that my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor would mislead the House—I know he would not. He has had discussions with the chair—

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Clive Efford]

No, I am trying to be disciplined because I have been in here too many times when people have taken loads of interventions and others have not had a chance to speak.

The Government have had plenty of time to have meetings about this issue over a long period of time. We have challenged Ministers about this, asking whether they have discussed it during any meetings. They have said in the past that they are committed to audits, so it is extraordinary that the Government cannot refer to any meeting where they have discussed this issue with the chairman of the OBR. That is an absolute disgrace; this is about having a better informed debate at a general election and they should be ashamed of themselves. Clearly, they have completely ignored this issue because they do not want to go through the process. As for the arguments about specialist skills, the chairman of the OBR is saying that he can deliver on this if we can get an agreement in principle now and if we can start to go through the details by the end of the summer. He is the first person we would go to if we were trying to set this up, so if he is saying—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mudie]

I follow my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor in not wishing to inflame matters or become party political. We are speaking about an issue that is very important to the general public and a first step to giving Back-Bench Members an input into Budgets, as the Americans, the Dutch and other Parliaments do, whereas we are simply used as voting fodder when a Chancellor presents a Budget. This is a first step and it is an important step.

It is outrageous that we are turning the motion down to protect the OBR. Members should not allow the Government to hide behind the OBR or to besmirch and lessen the reputation of Robert Chote. Robert Chote and his colleagues have carried out extremely important work. Their forecasts are not always right, but they make them sincerely and within the finite probabilities. The OBR is a very important institution. When it was first established, I thought the Chancellor had taken an extremely significant step, though not a big enough one.

Sadly, the Minister and some of my colleagues on the Treasury Committee have taken quotes out of Robert Chote’s letter of January and the minutes of the March meeting of the Treasury Committee. That should not be done. Robert Chote was asked by the distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee:

“Can I begin by asking you, do you in principle support the OBR having a role in the costing of political parties’ manifestos in the run-up to an election?”

Robert Chote replied:

“Yes, I do.”

He went on to say that this route

“does offer the prospect of improving the quality of policy development for individual parties and it potentially improves the quality of public debate in the run-up to an election”.

The Chairman, putting his finger on the real issue, which is time, asked Mr Chote:

“Do you think that you could get this job done between now and the general election?”

Mr Chote replied:

“It would be difficult but by no means impossible”

and he spelled out that the decisions to enable the OBR to do that must be taken by this summer.

[John Glen]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Mudie]

No. I shall finish my point. I have quoted what Mr Chote said, but Back-Bench Members do not necessarily have a full picture of all the details and discussions that have gone on. For the Minister to say to the shadow Chancellor, “I will only believe this if you put it in writing” is quite disgraceful.

Twice, to my knowledge, Robert Chote was asked in the Committee whether he wanted to go ahead with this idea, whether he thinks it would harm his reputation and whether he has time to do it before the election—we have gone through the whole gamut—and the answer on each occasion was yes.

The Minister used the word “insuperable”, which she got from Robert Chote’s January letter, but Mr Chote did not say that the problem was insuperable: he said that the issues that she has spelt out “are certainly not insuperable”. The distinguished Chair of the Treasury Committee lured out of Robert Chote the information that tells us what is going on. He said:

“As you know, Mr Chote, I have been very keen on this idea for 20 years”,

and that was accepted; he has been. He then said:

“Have you…spoken to the Chancellor”

on this, and Robert Chote said that he had, but the Chancellor was not in favour of it for this or that reason. But then—and this goes to the core of why we have a space on the Treasury Bench—the Chair said:

“Given my enthusiasm for this idea, George’s position has been consistent but always unsupportive.”

We are not talking about there being no time to do it this year; the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not want it to happen, full stop. In other words, he does not want the public to go into a general election having the full, objective, independent assessment of all the political parties’ economic policies, and that is a disgrace.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I speak in part as a member of the Treasury Committee and as a member of the council of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research and a senior fellow of Policy Exchange.

One of the tragedies of modern politics is that so many issues are no longer discussed soberly and on their merits but are viewed purely through the prism of party politics. The present subject of debate—whether, and if so how, manifesto policies should be costed by the OBR—is one of potentially great importance that could shape political debate across many years and many future Parliaments.

The shadow Chancellor, who is no longer in his place, despite his strictures about the Government Benches, has attempted to politicise this debate and drag Robert Chote’s name into it. Let us simply say that expert opinion on the issue is divided. The Institute for Government has described the pre-election timing as “hasty”, and the IFS has questioned the very idea of the OBR undertaking this role. As I will show, there are several crucial issues of principle as well as practice. They must be addressed before legislation can be considered.

First, there are practical matters of funding and staffing. Let us not forget that the motion states that manifestos should be costed. Manifestos are very long and their policies are often described very briefly and vaguely, so there would be an enormous amount of work. When Mr Chote and others appear before the Treasury Committee, they refer to individual clusters of policy, not whole manifestos.

[John Glen]

Is it not also significant that there is room for great interpretative range? There is a massive number of think-tanks and analysts out there who will all draw different conclusions. The idea that one entity could somehow create a reliable and completely authoritative conclusion about any single manifesto is totally unrealistic.

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will move on to that point shortly.

The OBR is a new institution. Would it be right to put its recently created reputation at risk by inserting it into the political process in the run-up to an election? The answer is obviously no. These issues need to be calmly and soberly addressed, not patched together late in a Parliament. The proposal would require primary legislation, which will take time and consideration. It should not be rushed into on this timetable. The Institute for Government was perfectly clear that it should not be adopted as a hasty change to the OBR’s remit at this point in the Parliament.

The second question is this: would such a new role compromise the OBR’s key functions? There is an obvious danger that it might. The remit would require careful amendment. Clear rules would be needed on how many policies could be costed, if not a full manifesto, and on which political parties would be eligible. The OBR could not be expected to invigilate in hard cases or act as judge on these issues. It would undoubtedly be attacked by parties that were ineligible to have their policies costed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I spent 13 years in opposition in this House, and I sat through several Budget speeches under the Labour Government. They were interesting, to say the least, because it usually took some weeks to find out, having read the small print, what they actually meant. At that time, we were told that boom and bust had been abolished. I very well remember the debate we had when it was revealed that the deficit was £164 billion.

This Government had a very tough economic inheritance. We would not be in coalition if we had not, because normally, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives enjoy fighting each other all the time, but the problems of the country were so damn serious that we had to get together to try to sort them out. That is the legacy of how the last Labour Government managed our economy.

One of the important things in 2010 was credibility. Confidence in the markets was very shaky, and the OBR was part of a range of policies that the Government introduced to add some degree of independence, so that people had more confidence in what the Government were going to do and in the figures and, indeed, so that the City and forecasters could see the direction of British policy. It was a limiting factor, because no longer could the Government adjust the growth factors or the tax take to show a rosier scenario, so that they could cut taxes. They had to live within the framework set by the OBR.

But I do not think the OBR is some kind of magic bullet. All forecasters are, by their nature, wrong. What we have seen throughout the last four years is forecasts from the OBR go up and go down with the economic cycle, and the Opposition, on many occasions, have accused us of having large deficits and putting up the national debt on the basis of OBR forecasts. As the economy is now growing and they are going the other way, no doubt we are praying in aid the OBR that things are getting better and we are getting on top of the problem.

The reality is that the OBR is a small body of public servants who do their best to give some independent credibility to Government policy. If I were to focus additional money or resources, it would be on having a few more people in the OBR rooting around in what our Government are doing, rather than in what the Opposition might do. Even today, when we look at budgets and financial statements, the reality is that there are still a lot of figures about tax avoidance and Swiss agreements to bring in more taxation that ought to be rooted around in by the OBR to see whether or not the Government forecasts are robust, because the OBR is dealing with matters of fact. It is dealing with the Government, with public spending and with how a country is being run.

I do not think that focusing on what the Opposition may or may not do is a terribly good way of spending money. Would it have been a good use of money for civil servants to spend a lot of time looking at what the leadership plans of my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) were for the country? Simply on the basis of the 2001 election, no. Would there have been a lot of benefit in looking at the plans of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) or of Michael Howard? The only time when there might have been some benefit would have been before 2010, when it looked like there would be a change of Government.

[John Glen]

Is the other lesson not that in government, decisions are made as a consequence of actions that are being taken in other parts of the Government and, in fact, the costs of delivering some programmes are very different when those decisions have to be taken? Therefore, any judgment would be somewhat qualified.

[Mr Syms]

Yes, and lots of assumptions would still have to be made. Clearly, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), the Chair of the Treasury Committee, made some very good points about ground rules that ought to be discussed in peacetime. If this is an idea worth exploring, it is better to explore it in a relatively more peaceful political time post the 2015 election to see whether it has some merit.

I think that the greater benefit for public debate in this Chamber between the parties is a greater focus on what the Government are doing with their plans. That would give more information to the Opposition and Back Benchers to question and hold the Government to account, rather than focusing on the hypotheticals of what may or may not happen if, indeed, the Government change. Not least, if the focus is on manifestos—they come out in March before an election, at the last possible moment, so that there are nice surprises for the newspapers—how on earth could the OBR look at those and objectively give any kind of costing before the election?

Looking at the future programme, in the autumn, we have the autumn statement and all the spending plans. We are then immediately into the Budget, and just beyond that, we are into a general election. It is bad enough trying to predict what the Government are doing, let alone what the Labour party are trying to do at that time. As I said at the start of my speech, any kind of forecast is bound to be wrong, so the OBR would be wrong about what the Government are doing and wrong about what the Labour party is doing.

National Infrastructure Plan

John Glen Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful for that question. I will mention a couple of things. First, Scotland within the United Kingdom is one of the key places for developing renewable energy, particularly offshore wind. I hope that the strike price that we have set out today will be a real benefit to investors and potential investors in Scotland. Secondly, the availability of a lower rate from the Public Works Loan Board—in other words, cheaper borrowing for local authorities for key local infrastructure projects—is being extended from local enterprise partnerships in England to local authorities in Scotland and Wales, so that those areas, too, can benefit from it. Cheaper borrowing is one of the things that we certainly would not get if Scotland were ever independent. That is further confirmation of why we are better together.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

In welcoming the news about the progress on the feasibility study for the A303, will the Chief Secretary bear in mind my constituents’ concerns about Stonehenge and Winterbourne Stoke? Unless that area is properly unblocked, people will not be able to get down to Devon to enjoy Tiverton and Honiton. This has been going on for several generations, and we need to make sure that it is sorted in any plans that come forward next year.

[Danny Alexander]

I think Stonehenge has been there for more than several generations, and I do not intend to remodel it at this Dispatch Box or anywhere else. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to one of the issues on that route. We are conducting the feasibility study to work out what are the right steps to take at every stage. I am sure that his concerns will have been heard by colleagues in the Department for Transport, and I will certainly make sure that they are taken on board, as the feasibility plan is developed.

Investing in Britain’s Future

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

There are projects and programmes announced today, including on energy and broadband, which will be of huge benefit to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, and I hope that he would welcome them, as well as the new prison in north Wales, which his hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) welcomed just a moment ago—[Interruption.] A prison for English people? I am sure there will be some Welsh people in there too, if that is what the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) would like. As for the M4, this is closely connected to the discussions, which are in their final stages, on our response to the Silk report, which we will publish very shortly. I hope that he will, in due course, have news that he will wish to welcome.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the £10 billion investment in roads, in particular the mention of investment in, I assume, the dualling of the A303. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that representations from residents around Amesbury and Stonehenge will be heard and that economic benefits will also accrue to Wiltshire from the investment announced today?

Armed Forces (Recruitment Age)

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham]

I have no doubt that there are young people recruited at a very early age who go on to excel, but there are some people who might have chosen a different path had they been given the opportunity. I will address some of that later in my speech.

There is no similar under-age recruitment in other dangerous public service vocations, such as the fire or police services. Young people under 18 are legally restricted from watching violent war films and playing violent video games, yet they can be trained to go to war.

Not many people realise that having 16 as a minimum recruitment age is hardly typical among developed and democratic countries. In fact, the UK is the only member of the European Union and the only permanent member of the Security Council that still recruits at 16. We are one of only 20 countries that continue to recruit at 16, while 37 countries recruit from the age of 17. We receive the same criticism as several countries that I am sure no one here would want to see us lumped in with.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked the Government to

“reconsider its active policy of recruitment of children into the armed forces and ensure that it does not occur in a manner which specifically targets ethnic minorities and children of low-income families”.

I am saddened that such language could be used about our country.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman make a clear distinction between those countries that routinely exploit children as young as 10, 11 and 12 and this country, which recruits 16 to 18-year-olds in non-combat roles where they have an opportunity to change their view of what they want to do at 18 and beyond?

[Alex Cunningham]

There is a tremendous difference between countries that deploy children as young as 12 or 13, or even younger, and what we do in Britain, but we are still recruiting children into our armed services. Although they do have the opportunity to leave the armed services before the age of 18, they do not have to make that specific decision. I will address that later in my speech.

Despite the recommendations from the various groups I have mentioned, no British Government have yet carried out a feasibility study for an all-adult military. I realise the Minister’s representative cannot speak for previous Governments, but is that something on which the Government will keep an open mind? Is it something that will be considered within the MOD?

I certainly do not wish to denigrate the efforts of our troops and those who serve at the age of 16 and 17. They serve our country proudly and should be congratulated, like all armed service recruits, on their bravery and commitment, but these are decisions that should be made on the basis of as much information as possible and with full adult consent—and I do not mean the signature of a parent or guardian, but young people making their own decision when they reach adulthood.

Income Tax

John Glen Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me make it clear that I am not against success. I believe that everyone should be rewarded with the fruit of their labours. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Government are in the grip of a failed economic theory—a theory which claims that tax cuts for those at the very top will somehow trickle down through society and that it is possible to go on cutting taxes and spending and that that will have absolutely no consequences.

I am someone who likes to look forward, but I think that in this instance we must look back to the last occasion on which we followed trickle-down economics. When the Thatcher Government followed that policy, they ran deficits in every year except 1988 and 1989. In 1990, we saw record business repossessions, unemployment above 3 million, record mortgage rates and record inflation, and I fear that we are going back there.

Let me tell hon. Members who say that the argument about cutting the top rate of tax is a “left versus right” argument that they are entirely wrong, because it is not a political argument. It is about something quite simple: mathematics. When we take £3 billion out of the economy, we will have to make up that shortfall somewhere, somehow. Judging by what I have heard from the Chancellor so far, I do not think that the Government are very long on detail.

The Chancellor and the Government talk about tax evasion, which has been mentioned today, including by the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), and they talk about going after all those people who avoid taxes. Well, I say this to the Chancellor: “Good luck to you.” Does he honestly believe that the last Government did not go after tax evaders? Does he honestly believe, when faced with people who have created byzantine systems to avoid the taxman, that it will suddenly be possible to close the loopholes? It is simply not going to happen.

People are working harder than they have ever worked before. Some are working 37 hours a week; some are doing two or three jobs just to make ends meet, and what do they see? They see food prices rising all the time. The worst effect is on their families; when they come home from work, they are too tired to involve themselves in their children’s lives. In my constituency, unemployment has risen by 429% in the past year. More people are struggling than ever before, and what do the Government do? They stand back and give tax cuts to the people who are riding in Bentleys and tax increases to those who drive vans for a living.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech, but if he is so committed to fairness in the tax system, can he tell me why, for 666 weeks under the Labour Government, the higher rate of tax was lower than it is now? How can he possibly stand up and make the case that he is making, given that his party, which was so recently in power, adopted a very different approach?

[Chris Evans]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his factual recall. Yes, the top rate of tax was lower, but—I do not know whether he is aware of this—we experienced something called the financial crash and the rules changed somewhat. That is the truth: things have changed. We live in a different world now, and that should be accepted. My argument, which I shall maintain throughout my speech, is that the people at the bottom are feeling the pain.

The increase in VAT is a tax on the low-paid, because everyone has to pay it; everyone has to buy goods. When I walk down Blackwood high street, I see that every retail business there has been affected by the VAT increase. VAT on food is zero-rated, but the haulier who delivers the food will pass on the increase in VAT on his petrol to the food shop, just as the increased price of cotton is passed on to the clothes shop. Not a single person has been helped. People in this country are suffering, and what do we see? We see a tax cut for those at the very top.

We hear much talk about rebalancing the economy. We are told that the economy is being built, but what this tax cut shows us is an economy that is being built not on people and products, but on perks and promises. That is the wrong message for us to be sending.

Business and the Economy

John Glen Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I rise to speak in the debate this evening with the words of the recent public discussion between business leaders and my right hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench ringing in my ears.

The essence of that debate seemed from the business leaders’ side to be, “The Queen’s Speech did not do enough for business,” and from Government Front Benchers, “It is business, not Governments, that create jobs. Governments can create only the conditions for growth.” Frankly, both sides of the debate share a common aim: to see business prosper, more jobs created, more tax revenues and growth in our economy.

When we step beyond the headlines, which inevitably, as ever, over-simplify and polarise statements, we see that the issue before the country, as expressed by the Institute of Directors and other business organisations, is the pace and scope of reforms. Businesses want to see an extension of the sunset clauses for regulation and for the one-in, one-out regime. They might also like to see more moves towards no-fault dismissal and flexible structures, so that the decision to take on a permanent employee does not require so much deliberation. The CBI said:

“We hear a lot about regulatory reform, but the big prize for businesses would be to major on the new power for ‘sunset clauses’ on regulation and regulators. Every new bit of regulation should be time-limited and then reviewed.”

[Mr George Howarth]

Has the hon. Gentleman seen the Business Department’s own survey of small and medium-sized enterprises? The priorities that they cited were what was happening in the economy and what was happening in the banks, and only 6% responded by saying that regulation was an issue.

[John Glen]

I have seen plenty of businesses in my constituency which have argued consistently over the past two years that their real challenge is dealing with unnecessary regulation, and I agree. The Prime Minister, although in favour of no-fault dismissal, could not unfortunately persuade our coalition partners to agree, so it did not go forward.

Some primary legislation will be helpful and desirable, but I do not believe that in a Queen’s Speech the Government can legislate to create jobs, so I am somewhat confused by the logic of Justin King, who has questioned the consistency in Government policy. From the very first Budget, the Government have been consistent on the need to reduce corporation tax, but in 24 months there is only so much consistency that they can demonstrate.

Mr King says that he wants to know where the “big bets” will be placed, but he might like not only to reflect on the state of the public finances and on the limited room for such investments, but to grasp the fact that on High Speed 2, on health care and on schools the budgetary certainties were put in place a long time ago, and the announcements were made in the first few months of this Government. The reforms to planning, especially the radical simplification of planning regimes, should enable big employers such as Sainsbury’s to get on with their primary role of creating jobs.

Let us turn to small businesses, which constitute such a high proportion of the jobs in my constituency and throughout the UK economy. For them, the Queen’s Speech offers a great deal. The groceries code adjudicator should rebalance the relationship between small businesses and large supermarkets; perhaps a fear about that led Mr King to make his remarks last week. I am concerned, however, about how flexible maternity and paternity leave will work out in practice for small businesses.

Small businesses and small business people know how to look after their employees through good times and bad and life-changing events, and an employee has a reciprocal responsibility to work hard, providing dependability, a willingness to demonstrate responsibility and a responsiveness to economic conditions so that rewards are brought to him and his employer.

I hope that the Government consider the implications of the masses of paperwork that will be introduced if the measure is not considered and adopted carefully. As the Forum of Private Business said:

“The UK already has one of the most generous parental leave systems in the world”,

and small firms must not be

“stung financially at a time they can ill afford any more business costs being foisted on them.”

What happens when managers find themselves having to arbitrate on competing requests for flexible leave? Could not this time be better spent establishing new markets and growth opportunities?

A debate on business and the economy at the current time would not be complete without reference to the eurozone crisis. There can be no doubt that the uncertainty in European economies, centred around the state of the euro, is causing many in this country to put off vital investment decisions. Fear of a slide in equity values, anxiety over the dependency on hidden “toxic debts” in European banks, and frustration at the gap between the political will and the economic reality are draining our economy of a great deal of optimism. I always resist the simplistic call that the solution is, “Pull out of Europe and all will be well,” but I do feel that the Government, and politicians in all parts of this House, need to begin to explore what the world will be like when Greece defaults and leaves the euro. What will happen when the Hollande rhetoric cannot fix chronic indebtedness? We are not insulated from the euro; our economies are interdependent given that 48% of our trade is with the EU 27.

We should look to the future with some trepidation. The future will primarily be in the hands of business leaders, but the conditions for investment decisions need as much certainty as possible. All good business strategies have contingencies and reserves. The emerging challenge for the leaders of our Government is to demonstrate a contingency for the scenarios that are evolving in the eurozone.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

T4. How much revenue does the Treasury expect HMRC to receive as a result of recent measures to reduce tax avoidance, and how much does the Minister estimate could be accrued from tax exiles who make £100 million in this country, clear off to Switzerland for five years, and then come back and advise the Leader of the Opposition?

[Mr Gauke]

As a consequence of the measures that we announced last year to tackle avoidance, we believe that something like £1 billion will be raised, £750 million of that relating to disguised remuneration, a policy that was opposed by Labour. I cannot talk about individual advisers to the leader of the Labour party and their tax affairs, but if such a person is advising the Labour leader, as far as we are concerned he is doing a great job and should carry on.

Youth Unemployment and Bank Bonuses

John Glen Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the debate. I would like to make three points, but before I do I wish to put on record my grave concern about the issue of youth unemployment. It is most regrettable that when we have debates such as this, Opposition Members seek to label Government Members as being glib and unconcerned about the plight of their constituents who are in real difficulty.

I was put here by the people of Salisbury, and in my constituency 340 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 are unemployed. I readily concede that that number is significantly higher than it was in the previous year, but I do not accept the comments of the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), who is no longer in his place, that somehow my colleagues and I do not care. I am not complacent about the matter or unwilling to acknowledge the grave seriousness of the problem of youth unemployment, nor am I unwilling to listen to suggestions from Members of all parties of how to tackle it effectively.

I do not see the point of belabouring the fact that the trend from 2004 was in the wrong direction, or that there were 279,000 more unemployed young people when we came to power than there were in 1997. As the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) said, that trend started in 2004, well before any global banking crisis. Let us therefore be honest in the debate about the nature of the problem and how long we have faced it.

However, we must realise that we owe it to those young people to find a lasting and effective solution. The Opposition suggest that the Government’s cuts and tax increases have choked the economy, that our welfare-to-work programmes are failing and that borrowing has increased, so that the solution, very simply, is to tax bankers’ bonuses and introduce a permanent bank levy. That is supposed to sort everything out overnight.

I have three concerns about that. Fundamentally, I am worried about the economic literacy of such a proposal. One cannot just buy jobs. That logic led to the current ruinous situation. It is misguided on several levels. The Government are doing things to address the points that the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) legitimately highlighted: the grave frustration and anger about bankers’ bonuses. However, the banking levy that the Government introduced, which was effective from January 2011, will yield more than the one-off policy on bankers’ bonuses in the last year of the previous Government. That is factually correct.

The Government will take on board the Vickers commission’s conclusions, and reforms to the banking sector will be adopted. However, when the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), who is no longer in his place, worked alongside former Prime Minister Tony Blair in No. 10 Downing street, I wonder where the desire to reform the culture and the system of banking bonuses was then. We have all failed to address the creeping callus of immorality in our society.

However, the notion that the Government can somehow just kick-start things and buy a few jobs here and there does not do justice to the macro-economic realities. The financial systems—the markets—will not see more spending as a signal that the Government are serious about tackling the underlying problem of the debt in this country. Interest rates would rise. That would lead to mortgage payments rising and businesses losing confidence in making investments.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, and I do not want to impugn him or any of his colleagues who are genuinely concerned about, for example, the plight of young people in my constituency. I meet college students who are devastated because of the impact of withdrawing education maintenance allowance and trebling tuition fees, and the fact that 10 people are chasing every job. However, all the evidence shows that some of the measures, such as enterprise zones, that the Government have introduced have no effect. Would the hon. Gentleman like to comment on that?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Can we have short interventions?

[John Glen]

The Government have not been complacent. They have made, and are making, relentless attempts to deal with the difficulty—the £1 billion investment in the youth contract, 250,000 work experience places and 440,000 apprenticeships demonstrate Government action. The effect is not immediate; things will not change overnight, or in the next three months. We must be realistic about what it takes to rebalance the economy. However, 20,000 extra apprenticeships with £1,500 attached to each will encourage people in the private sector, including small businesses, to take on new people.

We must recognise that there needs to be long-term fundamental change in our economy. We must pay down the debt, reduce the burden of regulations and develop schemes that incentivise private sector employers to make the leap and invest in our young people. We must recognise the reality that we are in an international scenario, and that simply pressing a few buttons in the Treasury will not deliver immediate outcomes. Reheating the flawed logic and instincts of the late 1970s, which said that we could press those buttons and jobs would appear, is flawed.

The most senior economic adviser to the former Prime Minister and Member for Sedgefield said in 1997 that the Government whom he served had a golden economic legacy. That is not what this Government had when they took power nearly two years ago. It will therefore take time, but there is no complacency. There is a determination to face up to the underlying economic challenges. Only when we have done that will we have a sustainable basis for dealing with the problem—the deep and desperate problem—of youth unemployment.