National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) that she has just made a brilliant speech, but if she wants to repeat it she is perfectly welcome to do so!

The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), who has just left the Chamber, made a valid point about the nature of today’s debate. We as a House need to look again at how we deal with financial statements. It is all well and good having a statement followed by questions, but these statements are becoming increasingly significant—they are, in effect, mini-Budgets—and we need to look again at how we try to cram a debate about the whole statement into just one piece of the legislative proposals stemming from it. In future it would be better, just as we do with the Budget, to timetable specific debates on the statement and then we would have the legislative flow from that.

I put on the record my apologies to the Pendle constituency Labour party. I was meant to be doing the Sydney Silverman annual lecture this evening, but I have postponed it. I apologise to the CLP for any inconvenience caused. The annual lecture is a significant event, because Sydney Silverman was the man who abolished capital punishment and he had a fantastic record as a Labour MP up there. They have been very good about it and we will choose another date. I have postponed it because, as I raised with the Chancellor yesterday, there is nothing in this spring statement—and for me this is the most significant thing about it—for the poorest in our society, including those forced to live on benefits and pensioners, and I am really worried about what will happen to them over the next six months. My reason for being here is to say that we need to have a proper debate in these coming weeks and months about the nature of poverty in our society, the nature of low incomes, and the options available to us to tackle those issues. I have tabled an amendment, but it looks as though the whole debate is going to run into one.

Last Friday I met a group of unpaid carers who are looking after family relatives. I remind Members that the carers allowance is £67.60. I just do not know how people can live off that. In fact, they cannot live off it. They now face the energy price increases that we have discussed today, and they are being hit by the inflation rate going up. The fact is that, although both benefits and pensions are to increase by 3.1%, the predictions for the increase in the rate of inflation are anything between 7% and 10%. That is a startling cut in people’s living standards, and I do not know how they are going to cope.

I want to wage a cross-party campaign to get the Chancellor to come back sooner, with more measures to assist the poorest in our society. As I said yesterday, I predict that when we get to November there will be large numbers of pensioners and others sitting in their homes freezing. We have gone through a period where, year after year, we have highlighted the number of excess deaths in this country, particularly of older people during winter, and I think that that number will increase again.

Much has been said about the Government’s record on pensions, but I have to remind them that the reason the triple lock had to be introduced is that Mrs Thatcher broke the link between pensions and earnings, and the pension became undermined. When the Government proposed the triple lock, I wholeheartedly supported it. That is why all our manifestos at the last election committed to supporting and abiding by the triple lock, so I found it truly shocking when the Government tore that up and suspended it last year. I thought that we had embedded it into the political thinking of this country that, whatever happens, pensioners should share in the wealth growth of this country, including wage growth, or at least be protected against an inflation hit, but we seem to be going backwards. I know that the Government have said that it has been suspended possibly for only a year, but I fear that it might become the norm. That is why Members from across the House should try to secure from the Chancellor a commitment that something should be done to inflation-proof at least the benefits and pensions of the poorest in our society.

Another issue that I think is going to come at us rapidly in these coming months—I think it will become an important part of the political debate and we should wake up to it now—is that of wages. Unless we inflation-proof wages, I predict that we will see a flaring up of industrial strife in our country. I will give the example of what has happened to council workers in the latest pay settlement. With inflation possibly between 8% and 10% by the end of the year, their wage settlement is 1.75%. That means, in effect, a wage cut of up to 8%. I invite the Government to consider the issue of wages in the public sector, because they obviously set the terms of those in the private sector as well. Unless we inflation-proof wage settlements, our lowest-paid workers will be hit hard by the erosion of their wages as a result of inflation. I think that the Government should be saying to the pay review bodies that, in negotiations, they should start with inflation-proofing settlements.

We also have to recognise that we have to play a role with regard to prices overall. The Government have accepted that there needs to be a continuation of some form of cap on energy prices. I think there should be a cap on profits. The Common Wealth think-tank published its analysis of the energy company profit rates, which were between 42% and 45%. That is absolutely staggering. If that is not profiteering, I do not know what is. We have to come back to this House within the next couple of months. We cannot leave it beyond the recess. Before the recess, we need to know the assessment of the Government, the OBR and others of what the energy price situation is going to be like in three months’ time, and we need measures in place to protect people. We know that the price of oil and so on will fluctuate, but we have to make predictions on the best information we have, before the recess at the end of July, so that we can start to protect people.

We also need to consider other measures on prices. Last week the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan proposed a 12-month rent freeze in London. I proposed a rent freeze last October because it was clear from talking to ACORN, the London Renters Union and others just what rent increases were coming through post covid. Unless we start protecting people with rent controls, particularly in high-rent city areas, a rush of evictions will start again, leading to an increase in homelessness and to those homeless families unfortunately having to rely on cash-strapped councils to support them.

Finally, in addition to the need to provide more support for the hardest hit, including those living in poverty and pensioners, and the need to control the implications of increased prices in both energy and rents, we need—and I hope this is coming next week—clear plans from the Government on where we go from here in tackling the energy crisis. I welcome the lifting yesterday of VAT on solar panels and so on, but, to be honest, that was a fairly small step in terms of what is needed. One of the most effective ways in which we can help people in this coming period is through investment in home insulation. A few years ago, we put forward a plan to insulate 27 million homes, the independent assessment of which was that it would create about 450,000 jobs and reduce energy bills significantly. What we can do now is make sure not only that we insulate people’s homes and bring down their energy bills, but that we create good jobs. We need the Government to come forward immediately with a programme that prioritises that action. Of course we need to go for green growth and investment in wave, wind and solar power, but the quickest gains can be made through home insulation. In that way, we might give some hope to people who, at the moment, are viewing the coming winter as a pretty bleak period.

I have listened to this debate from the start, and I have listened to all those who are quoting the IFS, the Resolution Foundation and so on, but what sticks in my mind is the fact that there are 2 million pensioners and 4 million children living in poverty. We can argue about the Government’s record over the past 10 years, but that is the stark reality of it. The Resolution Foundation analysis that 1.3 million more people will be forced into poverty is shocking and it should shock us all. We should treat it as an emergency that we need to address very quickly. That is why I say that this cannot be the last debate on it between now and the summer recess. We need to have the chance to consider clear proposals about how we deal with the plight of the poorest in our society, how we tackle the way that they are being hit by prices rises and rent increases, and how we can insulate their homes for the future.

I will finish on the point that I made yesterday. A 3.1% increase for those forced to live on benefits and for pensioners, with inflation at anything between 8% and 10%, will push so many people over the edge into real poverty, real stress and mental health problems, and unfortunately for some it will further existing distress. That is what we should be talking about today. We need to be considering measures to address the whole issue, otherwise we will be failing in our duty.

One final point. We are all on good wages and salaries and we do not suffer anything like the hardship of many of our constituents, so it behoves us to try to take into far greater account the most deprived people in our society. So far in these discussions, with all the point scoring and so on, I do not think that we have properly done so. In the coming months, how we tackle this matter must be the nature of our debate.

[James Daly]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very thoughtful speech. Among his proposals is a cap on profits. I wonder whether he could expand on that. In my constituency, for example, we have many small businesses; we do not have multinationals or anything such as that. Does he advocate that all private sector businesses, whatever their size, should have a cap on profit?

[John McDonnell]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman heard me properly. I was referring to the energy companies, specifically in regard to the profits that they have made. If he looks at the report of Common Wealth, the think-tank, he will see that it was looking at 42% to 45% rises for a number of those energy companies. That is where we need to cap profits. That would then give us the opportunity to redistribute some of that into supporting families and so on. It is about trying to be as targeted as possible so that we get the maximum benefit for the maximum number of people in our country. In his speech the hon. Gentleman used the slogan, “For the many, not the few”. It just shows what a good slogan it is when the opposing side starts stealing it.

National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I want to speak to new clause 2. Yesterday, I was shocked by the Chancellor’s response to people’s entreaties of him to do something more for those on low incomes. As I pointed out to him in an intervention, there is an anomaly—I hope it is one—that the Government will want to put right: when those on universal credit who pay national insurance have their threshold raised to £12,500, the £330 that they gain as a consequence will be subject to the 55% taper. That means that they will not get the full saving. Money is being clawed back by the Government from some of the poorest workers in the country. That cannot be right.

Last year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the reduction in the taper, which was very welcome. He announced a number of measures that increased the incomes of the poor, although we should remember that he took away the £20 a week uprating of universal credit. Those people are still going to be better off as a result of the changes yesterday, but the ones on universal credit who I have just referred to will be less well off than they were anticipating ahead of yesterday’s statement. How can that be? The poorest workers in the country number 2.3 million; I suspect that what the Government claw back from them will mean hundreds of millions going back to the Treasury. That cannot be fair and it cannot be right. By my calculation—I will stand corrected if I am wrong—such people will gain £330, of which they will lose £171, so the actual gain will be in the region of £159. That cannot be right.

My new clause 2 would require the Government to confirm in a report whether my fears and estimates are right that people on universal credit who pay national insurance will lose roughly half the money that they gain. Subsection (2) aims to find out how much the Government will gain from some of the poorest workers in the country because of the changes. If we highlight how much that is, I hope that they will attempt to do something about it and compensate such people for their loss. As we have heard all too often in this Chamber, people on low incomes in this country—families, in particular—have to make choices between feeding their children, clothing their children and switching on the heating, and about what food they buy. When people are living on the margins of, or in, extreme poverty, sums of money that may sound small are extremely significant. How did we manage to have a statement yesterday that clawed money back from such people?

Subsection (3) calls on the Chancellor to deliver that report to Parliament in 30 days. It cannot be right that such people are missing out in this way. It must be an oversight by the Government. It would be an extremely callous move if they actually knew that, as a consequence of the national insurance threshold being lifted, people would miss out in this way. I would be interested to hear from the Government, without delay, exactly who misses out, if they do at all, and how much the Government will benefit from it, if they do.

[John McDonnell]

I tabled new clause 1 because, from now on, I do not think that the House should discuss any legislation that has financial consequences without it understanding or at least having information about the effect on poverty and low pay. I would have liked that information for this Bill, although I can understand why we do not have it today. However, in future, the Government should lay a report before the House that explains the expected impact on low pay and poverty of any piece of legislation and assesses the effectiveness of its provisions.

The nature of this debate so far has demonstrated a lack of appreciation or understanding—and certainly a lack of agreement—about the objective realities of what is happening. Many have quoted the comments of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation, but some of this is about hard facts, so let me put on record again the situation that we face. At the moment, 4.3 million children and 2 million pensioners in the UK live in poverty. Overall, 14 million people live in poverty, and that was before the cost of living crisis hit us. A report from a UN rapporteur described people living not just in severe poverty, but in “destitution”. According to analysis today from the Resolution Foundation, 1.3 million more people will be living in poverty.

One reason I am asking for such a report is so that we can ask simple questions of the Treasury. What forecast have Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions, or the OBR, made of how many children, pensioners and people in the UK will be in poverty by the end of 2022-23?

Yesterday the shadow Chancellor asked the Chancellor how many pensioners and children would be pushed into poverty by the failure to uprate benefits and pensions in line with inflation, and the Chancellor failed to give any answer. It would be useful to have an answer today. Child poverty is already up by more than 500,000 since 2010, and it is interesting to note that most of those children—more than 60%—live in households in which one adult works. That, too, calls into question the levels of pay in this country.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that the uprating of just 3.1% will drag more than 400,000 more people into poverty, and as we have pointed out time and again during the debate, inflation is forecast to rise over the year to between 7% and 10%. Has the Treasury analysis come up with the same figure as the foundation, or a different one? If the figure is different, we would like to know why, and on what basis.

The other issue raised in the new clause is low pay. A total of 4.8 million workers earn less than the UK real living wage of £9.90 an hour, or £11.05 in London. The rise in the minimum wage this year—a 6% rise to £9.50 —still falls short of the Living Wage Foundation’s real living wage, and, given that forecast of an inflation rate between 7% and 10%, it is a real-terms pay cut. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility:

“Real incomes have been stagnant since the start of 2019 and this is now expected to continue over the next few years”.

The OBR went on to say that we were about to see the largest fall in incomes on record:

“With inflation outpacing growth in nominal earnings and net taxes due to rise in April, real livings standards are set to fall by 2.2 per cent in 2022-23—their largest financial year fall on record”.

A presentation of analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies took place this morning. According to the IFS, public sector pay has fallen by 3% in real terms in the last year, and is 2% lower in real terms than it was 12 years ago. The Department for Education’s average pay offer to teachers is 4%, and the fact that inflation is so much higher has obviously hit their wage levels. There is a group among the workforce who are being hit particularly hard by the Government’s changed arrangements relating to loans for tuition fees that they incurred while they were studying, and who will again be impacted severely by what is almost, in effect, an additional income tax.

Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies expressed incredulity—as have many of us—that the Government had done nothing for those on benefits or for pensioners. He pointed out that, according to the OBR, we are seeing the biggest fall in incomes since 1956, and that the inflation rate experienced by poorer households is even higher than the average. He said that it was “hard to understand” the Government’s “lack of action” on benefits. That lack of understanding of the Government’s approach is the reason for my new clause. I think that in future when we are debating issues such as this—Government measures involving public finances, benefits and wage levels—we will at least need to have a detailed report before us which explains the consequences of measures relating to low pay and poverty.

In the new clause, I have also asked the Government to assess alternative measures that they could take, and to provide an analysis of why those measures were not taken or why they might be brought to bear in the future if not immediately. All I am pleading for is a rational debate based on the widest possible information being provided to this House when we consider measures like this, so that we know whether the decisions we are taking will improve or undermine the standing of our constituents when it comes to low pay and poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

I wish first to address amendment 1, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and would bring forward to 6 April the increase to the primary threshold that is introduced in clause 1. Of course the Government want to help people with the cost of living as quickly as possible, which is why the Chancellor introduced a number of measures immediately, including the cutting of fuel duty, which came into force at 6 pm last night. However, it was not possible to deliver the increase to the primary threshold from 6 April, which is in less than two weeks’ time.

The Government are implementing the change as early as possible, from 6 July. It is not possible for the majority of software and payroll providers to deliver the measure for April. Its delivery to an April timeline would see millions of individuals paying the incorrect amount of NICs at the start of the tax year, in just two weeks’ time. There would then be an additional administrative burden on employers, who would have to manually re-run the payroll once the software was ready. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) said, the earliest that we can deliver the policy and it can be implemented by all software developers is July. That will avoid millions of taxpayers having to make manual claims for refunds.

Overall, the delivery timetable strikes the important balance between ensuring that individuals see the benefits of the increase as early as possible and allowing employers and payroll-software providers sufficient time to update and test their systems so that the change is delivered smoothly and individuals can enjoy the benefits at the same time. I hope the hon. Member for Bath will withdraw her amendment for the reasons I have outlined.

Let me turn to the new clauses in combination, because they address similar matters. On the points that Members made about poverty, if we look back at the past 10 years, we see that around 1.3 million fewer people are living in poverty, half a million fewer children are growing up in workless households and hundreds of thousands fewer children are living in poverty.

[John McDonnell]

I do not want the Minister to miss the point of new clause 1. I understand why she is setting out the statistics as she understands them, but they are contested. Nevertheless, the point I was trying to make with my new clause is that the Government should always publish a full report on their assessment of the implications of their legislation for both low pay and poverty, and that that report should include their assessment of the other options available to them that they could have taken. It is a simple measure that I hope would apply to all Governments of whatever political colour.

[Lucy Frazer]

I was going to come to the distributional analysis of the spring statement. The analysis in the document “Impact on households: distributional analysis to accompany Spring Statement 2022” shows that

“government policy continues to be highly redistributive; in 2024-25, on average, households in the lowest income decile will receive over £4 in public spending for every £1 they pay in tax”.

It also shows that

“in 2024-25, the poorest 60% of households will receive more in public spending than they contribute in tax”

and that

“on average, the combined impact of personal tax and welfare decisions made since SR19 is progressive, placing the largest burden on higher-income households as a proportion of income.”

[John McDonnell]

I do not want to labour the point. I have read the analysis of the impact on households; it is always very helpful, but it does not address the issue of low pay and poverty, or other policy options that could be considered. I make the point for the future. I know it is impossible to address now, but I think such a report should be published automatically. If the Government do not publish it, maybe a report should be published by the OBR or some other body that we establish to enable that to happen.

[Lucy Frazer]

I recognise the point made by the right hon. Member and I will of course consider it for the future. Considering a variety of hypothetical scenarios is time-consuming, which is why that is not traditionally done, but I will take his point away and consider it further.

I reiterate some of the points we discussed on Second Reading only a moment ago about the impact of the measures on those in lower pay and on universal credit. As hon. Members know, there was an autumn Budget not very long ago, followed now by this spring statement. In the autumn Budget, the Chancellor started the journey of helping to support those on lower pay through the tax system. He announced the first tax cut on his journey to cut taxation—the cutting of the taper rate, which will put £1,000 into the pockets of those on universal credit.

Hon. Members will already know about the increase in the national living wage. They will have seen the £1 billion household support fund, which is helping people in all our constituencies, building on other measures that were announced at the autumn Budget. More recently, we have provided £9 billion in energy support. There is the increasing generosity of the local housing allowance for housing benefit and the holiday activities and food programme. The Chancellor’s plan for jobs—the Conservative plan—whether through the kickstart scheme, the restart scheme, work coaches or boot camps, is to ensure that, where people can get into work, they get into work, and they are upskilled so that they earn more for themselves.

On new clause 4, the increase to the primary threshold and the lower profits limit is a tax cut on earned income that will benefit almost 30 million working people.