John McDonnell
Main Page: John McDonnell (Independent - Hayes and Harlington)Department Debates - View all John McDonnell's debates with the HM Treasury
(13 years, 5 months ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on moving his new clause and on the deployment of his expertise for the benefit of the whole House. He could well be a candidate for tax personality of next year, but I would advise him that it might help his prospects if he were to lay off the Reagan quotes.
I wish to speak to the amendments tabled in my name. Amendment 15 deals with directors’ salaries and payments, and proposes a binding vote by shareholders on such payments. Amendment 16 deals with the publication of information on the salaries and bonuses of directors in all public limited companies. Amendment 17 deals with a number of issues relating to enterprise investment schemes, and it would be helpful to receive certain information from the Government in order to assess those schemes in future.
I want to deal with salaries and bonuses first, as they have been a matter of contention in the House for a number of years now. Statements have been made by leading members of all political parties expressing concern, if not outrage, at the levels of increase in the pay of company directors. The Leader of the Opposition said in a recent speech that the
“danger today is that pay and performance have become detached…Over the last 12 years, chief executive pay in Britain’s top companies has quadrupled, while share prices have remained flat.”
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has called for greater disclosure on pay and bonuses and their link to company performance. He was reported as hitting out at the
“ethics of the wild east”
in the City. He described some directors’ pay and bonus settlements as “ridiculous”, “outrageous” and “rewards for failures”. I agree wholeheartedly with the Leader of the Opposition and the Secretary of State on this matter. I believe that the Secretary of State’s sentiments have been echoed by the Prime Minister himself.
My amendments seek to address the fact that the present system for the control of directors’ pay and bonuses by shareholders is not working. The current system for judging and rewarding remuneration in major companies is clearly not linked to performance, and evidence for that now abounds. The Business Secretary was referring to the dramatic increase in the remuneration of directors and executives of the top 100 companies. In 1998, that remuneration was 45 times the pay of the average employee in the company. By 2010, it was 145 times the average pay, and if it continues at that rate, it is predicted to reach 214 times the average salary in the company that the director or chief executive controls.
At the moment, the chief executives of the FTSE 100 companies have total remuneration packages averaging £4.2 million a year. Last August, it was reported that the financial crisis had resulted in ordinary employees’ salaries being frozen in at least one third of Britain’s biggest companies, yet the average pay of the top directors increased by £500,000. Hewitt New Bridge Street has reported that the typical bonus has now increased from 90% to 120% of salary, and the total remuneration survey conducted by pay and reward consultants MM&K showed evidence of a total disconnect between rewards, actual performance and shareholder value. Performance-related pay has just gone through the roof, however, with extremely complex packages being devised. The average top award under share allocation schemes and incentive schemes in the FTSE 100 has risen from 174% to 328% of salary.
In some instances, outrageously large awards have been agreed even before the director has demonstrated any value to the company. An example is Lloyds, which gave its new chief exec, António Horta-Osório, a welcome package worth close to £13.4 million simply for joining the bank. This is a bank that we, as taxpayers, now own. Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer, said that taxpayers would be “appalled” at paying someone
“£5,000 a day, just for turning up at the office for the next three years”.
I wholeheartedly agree with him on that. Ironically, Sir Victor Blank, the former chair of the Lloyds group, described top bankers’ pay in The Sunday Telegraph—not a newspaper I regularly read—as “unconscionable” and warned that the widening pay gap could lead to dangerous divisions in society and more strikes. I shall quote him directly. He said:
“You can’t have an ongoing widening gap between the top pay and the average pay…I think we are at a time now where you have a certain amount of unrest over pensions and other issues where if we don’t start early to have a degree of moderation in the levels of pay we risk more industrial unrest than we have had.”
I could not agree more.
Some shareholders have echoed those concerns. It was perhaps best expressed by a woman shareholder who was disgruntled at the Cable and Wireless annual general meeting. She complained—and it was a heartfelt plea from the floor:
“All the money and all the profit seem to be going towards the salaries of the Board, and I did not necessarily think that they were worth that amount of money.”
I believe this is undermining confidence and engendering cynicism—and, of course, division and disenchantment—in the whole process.
Clearly, the billowing packages of directors’ pay, bonuses and overall remuneration has to be addressed. The Government have acknowledged that, as have all parties in the House. My amendments are designed to prompt action and to make action more speedy and decisive.
If we are to tackle this issue, we need to understand why it is occurring. The Joseph Rowntree charitable trust funded an independent inquiry, the High Pay Commission, to which I believe a number of Members have submitted their views over the last year. It has looked at the drivers behind the trend of increases in directors’ and executives’ pay and remuneration. It provides some understanding of how the system operates to determine directors’ remuneration and puts forward the reason for the excesses.
Governments have addressed the issue over the last two decades. Legislation has been there to establish the current system of corporate governance. For publicly listed companies, it is based first on the establishment of a remuneration committee on every board to advise on appropriate remuneration; secondly, on disclosure; and, thirdly, on the shareholder having a vote on the pay and remuneration of directors. All the companies with a premium listing of shares are required on the Financial Services Authority listing rules to report on how they have applied the UK corporate governance code in their annual reports and accounts. This includes explaining how the pay was arrived at and determined.
The remuneration committees that have developed since the 1990s grew up as a result of pressure from successive Governments. They aim to overcome the conflict of interest in directors setting their own salaries. The Greenbury report on corporate governance called for them to be fully independent and to comprise wholly non-executive directors. The committees agree the pay packages for top execs and produce the report that will eventually go before shareholders.
The problem identified by the High Pay Commission and others is that the non-execs that sit on the remuneration committees are often executive directors in other companies, so setting benchmarks of remuneration is important for them. There have been charges of cronyism as executives and directors appoint each other to each other’s remuneration committees—a relationship of incestuous self-interest—while the non-execs sit alongside executive directors supporting them and unwilling to challenge them on pay. In recent years, we have seen the emergence of remuneration consultants who advise the remuneration committees on the setting of pay, but these are unregulated and they are often working for or are commissioned by the company directors on whose salaries they are giving advice.
On disclosure, quoted companies must publish directors’ remuneration reports. These appear in the annual report and are put to shareholders for a vote. This information is required to be put to companies as an ordinary resolution for approval at the AGM. The problem, however, is the UK corporate governance code guidance, according to which:
“A significant proportion of executive directors’ remuneration should be structured so as to link the rewards to corporate and individual performance. There should be a formal and transparent procedure for developing policy on executive remuneration and for fixing remuneration packages of individual directors.”
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will my hon. Friend’s amendments help with the sort of situation we faced with HBOS? It was driven into the buffers by its highly paid executive team, who seemed to lose nothing while the shareholders lost everything.
John McDonnell
My amendments would go some way to ensuring that the information is published, enabling the Government to look in more detail at such information, while also enabling shareholders to have at least some opportunity to hold the directors to account. As I said, the advisory vote system worked initially, but it certainly has not worked in recent years, as the HBOS example demonstrates. Having a binding vote will give the shareholders some authority. The amendments are an attempt to redress the current imbalance of power between the shareholder and the board. It will not solve all the problems of directors being unaccountable on pay or bonus awards, but it would put another weapon in shareholders’ hands to tackle the issue.
Amendment 17 relates to enterprise investment schemes and accountability. Just as shareholders need information to hold company boards to account, the House should ensure that taxpayer’s money and tax concessions are allocated wisely to groups in society and that value for money is achieved. The amendment would invite the Government to justify in more detail future enterprise investment schemes on the basis of past performance of previously approved schemes. The amendment would seek information from the Minister on the total cost of tax relief with regard to the tax income forgone, the number of jobs created by the companies that have gained tax relief under the schemes, and the number of companies that have failed after the tax relief has been given—calculating the cost of each job created compared with the cost of the tax relief given. The information provided in the paperwork in relation to the Budget and the Finance Bill is not clear. The Treasury briefing on enterprise investment schemes and venture capital trusts sets out the proposals but provides no analysis of past measures and their performance. The Treasury Committee, in its comments on tax relief for EIS under the Finance Bill , suggested:
“The measure also needs to be viewed alongside the other proposals for EIS and whether the existing EIS conditions encourage investment in growth businesses.”
The Treasury Committee, therefore, points us in the direction of undertaking a proper value for money exercise on the proposals.
The amendment would enable the Minister to respond to that. Before we venture into such schemes, particularly EIS, we must ensure that their objectives are achieved with value for money, and the information is not currently available for us to make that judgment.
Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)
I shall speak briefly to amendment 51. Since the Government announced the additional corporation tax on oil companies in the Budget, I have been urging and, I hope, taking a constructive part in getting the companies and the Government to talk through how field allowances can be used to ensure that projects reviewed as a result of the tax changes can still go ahead. The purpose of the amendment is to get feedback from the Government on the progress of such negotiations, which I hope will have a positive outcome. Immediately after the Budget, Statoil made the most controversial, and certainly the most high-profile, announcement: that it was putting on hold the Mariner and Bressay fields. I imagine that those fields involve up to £6 billion of investment, with 600,000 barrels of oil recoverable and the possibility of a headquarters building being located in Aberdeen. I hope that the Government will find a way to ensure that the project goes ahead.
Next week, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) and I are taking a number of oil companies that are members of Oil & Gas UK to meet the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to discuss in detail the implications of the tax. The difficulty is that the tax changes impact differently on every field and on every company and its planned investments. I hope that active negotiations will lead to a recognition that allowances can be adjusted for particular types of field or circumstances, and that as a net result we will not lose too many of the investments that were originally at risk. I also hope that engagement over time will lead to both parties agreeing that a simplification of the tax system might be desirable. When prices are high, the industry might reasonably be expected to make a contribution; equally, we should recognise its need to know with some certainly the return that it is likely to get on significant investments.
The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) made a powerful and persuasive case regarding rewards for work not done or risk not taken, but it is easy to look at the oil companies as rich fat cats, which is how the public and the House often view them. However, developing oil from under the North sea involves huge risks in relation to technology, geology, exchange rates, markets and weather. Many people engaged in the industry use their technical knowledge and expertise to make a substantial return for their companies and for the UK economy, and although they have good, well-paid jobs, the payments and returns they receive are not in the same league as those received by people in financial services.
The Government have acknowledged that they do not want to lose the production from marginal and mature fields, and they are prepared to use field allowances. According to conversations I have had, negotiating in detail over a project for a field is incredibly complicated, requiring an enormous amount of civil service time, expertise and engagement, as well as executive management time, so I hope that the system will be simplified. Perhaps everybody is prepared to devote such time to significant projects, but the Department has a limited capacity to engage in too many of those negotiations, and companies sometimes have a limited capacity and willingness to engage, to the extent they might say that investigating or investing in other projects is more worth while.
I want to be encouraged by the knowledge that constructive engagement is taking place. I get good feedback from the industry about talks that it hopes and believes will lead to agreements that ensure that investments go ahead. In the long run, I hope that we will have a system in which there is trust and understanding and the Government get the revenue from high oil prices to which they are entitled, but the country gets the investment in the expertise, people and resources that will maximise production of oil and gas in the North sea, maximise jobs in the UK, and maximise and sustain the export industry, which is growing substantially. I hope that the Government will give a positive response in due course.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
As I listened to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) speak to amendment 15, I thought that my ears were deceiving me because I felt so much sympathy for what he was saying. Indeed, he put me in mind of a book by a reformed Trotskyite, James Burnham, who predicted in “The Managerial Revolution” the system of capitalism—the set of structures—that we now recognise in publicly listed companies. My discomfort evaporated, however, when I realised that the hon. Gentleman was defending the interests of the owners of capital.
Steve Baker
In that case, I am delighted that we are on opposite sides of the Chamber.
It is strange that capitalism has come to this: that, nowadays, the owners of capital need to be defended by the House from their own directors. If I have understood the amendment correctly, it would mean that the change in the main rate for 2011 would not come into force until legislation had provided arrangements for shareholders to approve their directors’ remuneration. It is almost incredible that such an arrangement does not already exist.
We must reunite ownership control and the risk taken with capital, and I believe that the amendment goes to the heart of one of the problems of our capitalist system. I am not sure that it would achieve the aim that the hon. Gentleman has set out because it might not affect the rate for 2011, and I therefore cannot support it. Nevertheless, I think it is an extremely good idea, and I urge the Government to consider it.
Mr Hanson
That is an interesting argument, and I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s detailed knowledge of these matters, which goes back to his professional experience before entering the House. My worry has been placed on the record on Second Reading, in Committee and on several other occasions. For the moment, it is best that we keep our arguments to the effectiveness of capital allowances, and I will, thus, still be unable to support the new clause.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) tabled amendments 15, 20 and 17. I suspect that he was even more surprised than me to hear the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) offer his unflinching support for my hon. Friend’s suggestions on this matter. I thank him for tabling his amendments because they make an extremely important contribution to the debate. We face a real issue in how we collectively address what is now a cross-party concern and shed light on the remuneration of executives, who are ultimately paid by the companies for which they work and by us as consumers of those goods in our society at large.
John McDonnell
I had better correct the record. As someone who still sees the relevance of Trotsky’s transitional programme, I am attempting not to salvage capitalism but to expose its weaknesses.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
We have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate on this group of amendments, which propose a number of changes to the taxation of business. Let me start by reiterating our position on business tax. The first step in the Government’s plan for growth is a competitive UK tax system. In fact, the Government’s aim is to create the most competitive corporate tax regime in the G20, and we have been clear about how we intend to achieve that. Last November we published our corporate tax road map, setting out our plans for reform over the next five years and the principles underpinning those reforms. I am quite clear that if we are to provide business with the certainty that it needs to invest in the UK, tax reforms need to maintain stability, avoid complexity and ensure a level playing field for taxpayers.
Let me deal first with the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), and in particular amendment 15, which deals with directors’ pay, and on which we saw an unlikely alliance between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) in defence of the interests of capital versus workers—if I can phrase it in a way that will please my hon. Friend but not the hon. Gentleman—albeit the highest paid workers. It is worth noting that both hon. Members have made many declarations of independence, and today was no exception. As I have said, a competitive tax regime is the foundation of our plan for growth, and the consequence of amendment 15 would be to delay the reduction in corporation tax.
The Government take the essence of the hon. Gentleman’s concern—directors’ remuneration—seriously; indeed, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills raised it on 22 June in a speech to the Association of British Insurers, asking how we can ensure that directors’ remuneration is effectively linked to company performance. To help answer that question, the Government already have plans to consult in two relevant areas. In July, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will look at the narrative aspects of reporting directors’ remuneration, examining the provisions dealing with the disclosure of directors’ remuneration and making the link to company performance much clearer. In the autumn, the Department will explore other policy options related to the role of remuneration committees and company accountability to shareholders.
Turning directly to the proposals made by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, let me first remind him that UK-quoted companies are already required to publish a directors’ remuneration report. That includes full individual details of each director’s pay, including salary and bonuses, share schemes and all other forms of remuneration. His proposal to make the remuneration vote binding in nature would raise difficulties, as such a vote would inevitably cut across contractual arrangements already entered into between the company and the director. That is why the vote is currently advisory in nature.
John McDonnell
Is this issue to be part of the consultation in the autumn? Will it be addressed at all?
Mr Gauke
As I have said, the consultations I have announced will focus on the narrative provisions, the role of remuneration committees and company accountability to shareholders. I am sure that representations could be made to the latter consultation. However, there remains a difficulty with cutting across contractual arrangements and I dare say that there might be issues with the Human Rights Act 1998 were that to happen.
John McDonnell
First, I think it would be greatly reassuring to the House overall if the issue of the binding vote was within the scope of those consultations. Secondly, the issue of contractual commitments has always been the red herring brought up on any future reform. The way around it is simply to make future contracts subject to that binding vote of shareholders.
Mr Gauke
I do not know whether my hon. Friend is trying to lose the support of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington on this, but I fully take his point on board and I shall ensure that BIS is aware of this debate. My right hon. Friend the Business Secretary has said that shareholder accountability is an area that his Department will be looking into in the autumn.
John McDonnell
This is a serious point, and I say to the Minister that this will come back time and again, because every Government structure put in place by successive Governments on this issue has been unsuccessful in controlling remuneration. There is outrage among the general public about what has been happening, not just in recent years but today with £6 billion bonuses in the City and elsewhere. I say to him in all seriousness that any Government need to address this issue, which concerns the democratic control of what are now public companies in terms of ownership.
Mr Gauke
The hon. Gentleman makes his point forcefully. It is worth pointing out that the UK leads the way internationally on the reporting of executive pay and accountability to shareholders. I hope that he will acknowledge that, just as I acknowledge the legitimate concerns he raises. It is our intention to make sure that the framework remains fit for purpose and in line with our approach to delivering long-term returns as our economy grows out of the recession.
The hon. Gentleman’s second amendment, amendment 17, would delay the introduction of clause 42 until a report on the impacts of the enterprise investment scheme had been published. In contrast with corporation tax as a whole, EIS is a focused relief with a particular purpose and is a vital component of the Government’s plan for growth. The scheme encourages investment into smaller, riskier companies by offering a tax incentive to investors. For example, it benefits new start-ups in high-tech sectors such as IT bioscience. Since 1994, about £7 billion from private investors has been contributed to qualifying companies. The Government are building on the success of the scheme with changes in this Finance Bill and in the Bill next year that will increase the incentive for people to invest in smaller companies, helping them to establish and grow.
John McDonnell
How do the Government assess value for money with regard to those schemes, if not in job creation?
Mr Gauke
There have been assessments of the enterprise investment scheme, which has been in place since 1994. We want to encourage greater investment, particularly in smaller companies. We recognise that sometimes there is market failure in that area, which is why tax incentives are justifiable. We have set out as much information as we can, but it is not something on which we can provide precise numbers. That is not the nature of the economy, but the scheme will encourage greater investment and that should be welcomed.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) for his remarks on my award as tax personality of the year. Some may think it a somewhat oxymoronic award, but I can tell the House that it has changed my life considerably.
My hon. Friend brings much greater expertise to these matters than I do. I welcome the fact that he seeks simplicity, which is not always the case with new clauses and amendments to Finance Bills. I want to make a couple of points that relate to both his new clauses.
First, we do not see it as our role to direct the Office of Tax Simplification. The office has done a lot of good work, but it is important that its independence is respected. Secondly, in its broad work the OTS has looked at the various allowances and reliefs in the tax system and has concluded that they are not areas where it wants to devote its efforts. None the less, I know that the OTS will closely read my hon. Friend’s speech. We are always keen to look at areas where we can improve the administration of the tax system, including his proposals in new clause 14 on consolidated filing.
On new clause 12, the OTS has given initial consideration to capital allowances as part of its review of tax reliefs and its ongoing review of small business taxation. The Government have set out their approach to capital allowances in the corporate tax road map. Allowing each business asset to be written off for tax purposes in line with its own depreciation rates would not necessarily bring the benefits to businesses that the new clause anticipates. Some business assets would depreciate more slowly than they currently do under the capital allowances regime, and it should be noted that the annual investment allowance gives immediate write-off for the plant and machinery expenditure of 95% of UK businesses. There is thus a danger that the new clause could increase business tax complexity.
I know that my hon. Friend tabled his new clauses as probing provisions. I may not have entirely satisfied him, but he has put his case on record and the OTS will of course look carefully at what he says.
I turn finally to amendment 51, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), who has played a constructive role on the issue in the three months since the Budget announcement on oil and gas. He made an important contribution when the House debated clause 7 in the Committee of the whole House. He has stressed the importance of working closely with the industry in the months ahead, which the Government committed to do at the time of the Budget. We announced then that we would work with the industry in three key areas: setting the right trigger price for the fair fuel stabiliser; looking at whether we can find a way to provide long-term certainty on decommissioning relief; and looking at the case for new categories of field qualifying for the field allowance. I am pleased to tell the House that we are making good progress in these discussions. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary, who is here this evening, will update the House on progress on those discussions as soon as is appropriate. I hope and expect that she will be able to do so in the very near future. I thank my right hon. Friend for tabling his amendment. Although I have been unable to respond in full detail, I hope that the Government will be in a position to do so shortly.
In conclusion, I remind the House that it is the Government’s aim to create the most competitive corporate tax regime in the G20. We have set out our plans for reform over the next five years in the corporate tax road map, which was published last November. In order to provide businesses with the certainty they need to invest in the UK, tax reforms need to maintain stability, avoid complexity and ensure a level playing field for taxpayers. Therefore, although we have had a good debate, I invite my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley to withdraw the motion.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
I shall not press amendment 30 to a Division tonight, because we will return to the subject in greater detail later in the Parliament. However, I want to address some questions to those on the Treasury Bench. I accept that there are problems with the amendment, but it was the only way that I could find to debate the matter in the House.
I wish to remind the Minister that in the Budget debate of 2010, the Chancellor said that
“the Government are asking the public sector to accept a two-year pay freeze, but we will protect the lowest paid…They will each receive a flat pay rise worth £250”—[Official Report, 22 June 2006; Vol. 512, c. 171.]
He said that the cut-off point would be not £18,000 but £21,000 a year, and he, not the Opposition, estimated that 1.7 million people would receive that pay increase.
A number of Opposition Members, including those who put their names to amendment 30, and many hon. Members, have constituents who believed what the Government said. They believed that they would be protected. The Chancellor’s announcement was a crucial part of protecting those workers, but it was also a crucial part of selling to the wider public the pay freeze that the Government announced. However, those people have so far received no £250 pay increase.
I should therefore like to ask the Minister two questions. First, of the 1.7 million whom not I, but the Chancellor, said would be eligible, how many have received the £250 across-the-board pay increase? Next year’s earnings figures show that the numbers eligible will rise to 2.2 million. Therefore, my second question for those on the Treasury Bench is this: how many of that 2.2 million will receive their £250 pay increase?
I conclude by merely trying to express, perhaps inadequately, a sense of how low-paid workers in my constituency feel. They feel that they have again been let down. The previous Labour Government did not do too well by that group, with the 10p tax rate abolition, and this Government have done not too well by them. Many are women coming up to retirement age who now learn that they must work two years more. They thought they would get £250 as a lump sum to protect them against rising prices and a general wage freeze, but many now find that no such increase is forthcoming. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister could give us answers to those two questions.
John McDonnell
May I associate myself with amendment 30, which I also signed? For my constituents, £250 means a lot. It is a lot of money in terms of paying daily bills, but it is also the difference between some children having a summer break this year and not. I hope the Minister responds positively and examines that matter, but I will give him this assurance: if we do not have positive assurances from the Government, we will be back time and again until that money is paid.
I wish to speak to amendment 14, which is in my name. The amendment simply proposes that, as we determine personal income tax rates for the coming year, we look carefully at their impact on inequality. The proposal is from various lobbies in recent months, from religious groups, churches, welfare rights groups, trade unions and other civil society organisations, which have expressed their anxiety about inequality in our society. Like them, I believe that our country is disfigured by inequality and the extremes of wealth and poverty. Consequently, I believe that we should use every legislative weapon possible to address it.
I mentioned some of the extremes of wealth and poverty in the earlier debate on executive pay—some top executives earn a salary that is 145 times the average salary of their workers. The Government’s assessment of wealth distribution last year showed that the total wealth of the top 10% of the population is now 100 times that of the bottom 10%. The simple reason is that the poorest have so little wealth.
In 1986 in the UK, the richest 1% held 25% of marketable wealth. Twenty years later, that had risen to 34% of total national wealth. The poorest 50% had gone from holding 11% of the nation’s wealth to holding just 1% today. That is not solely the result of economic trends or globalisation—it has been Government policy, largely in the 1980s and 1990s, to pursue the systematic redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, and the last Government at least held back the tide for a period.
Taxation policy has a key role to play in addressing inequality and I note that the Treasury Committee quoted Wendell Holmes’ popular dictum that tax is the price we pay for a civilised society. I agree, but civilisation has a range of definitions, one of which is that we should not live in a society that is so starkly unequal—
Kate Green
I very much support the sentiments my hon. Friend is expressing. Does he agree that it is not only the income and consumption taxes that need to be encompassed in his amendment, but the wealth taxes, especially in light of the examples that he has just given us?
John McDonnell
My amendment proposes examination of the whole range of taxes, indirect and direct. It is interesting that the direct taxation system can be progressive in redistribution, but that the indirect system is so regressive in this country. It has a considerable impact on ensuring that we see these vast extremes of poverty and wealth.
It is not only the lobbyists from various organisations who have expressed their concerns about this inequality, because the general public are averse to high levels of inequality too. In recent surveys, 80% to 90% have been in favour of a more equal distribution of wealth in our society. We have had various discussions in this House about the impact of inequality, and none better than the debates around the work by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, “The Spirit Level”, which was ground-breaking.
Richard Wilkinson was an adviser to my party in the early 1990s, when he did the earliest work on the impact of inequality on health. That was revisited in 2005, when he came to the House and briefed several MPs. “The Spirit Level” confirmed what he had suspected in the 1990s and started the debate. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have both accepted that inequality is an issue that must be addressed. In 2009, the Prime Minister quoted from Richard Wilkinson’s book in a major speech, demonstrating that the Conservative party at that time was keen to address some of the issues of inequality. He said that
“among the richest countries it’s the more unequal ones that do worse according to almost every quality of life indicator.”
In his first major speech as leader, the Leader of the Opposition said:
“I do believe that this country is too unequal and the gap between rich and poor doesn’t just harm the poor, it harms us all.”
That is based on the work in “The Spirit Level”.
The argument in “The Spirit Level” is straightforward—that when people in the same social class, at the same level of income and education, are compared across countries, those in more equal societies do better on every measurement, be it health, mortality, obesity, teenage birth rates or mental illness. Their quality of social relations is better too. Inequality is socially divisive, increasing the rate of homicide, hostility and racism. The level of trust in unequal societies is lower than in societies that are more equal, and social capital is less —the engagement in civil society and even in political processes. That is why we need to address the issue of inequality when we consider taxes and our financial strategy.
I realise that this has been a contentious debate, and I have read the arguments made by the TaxPayers Alliance, which has tried to rebut Wilkinson and Pickett’s work, but I have also read the more recent independent research studies that have simply reinforced the inequality argument. Whichever side of the argument Members fall, it is clearly an issue to be considered, and that is why I suggest that we look at taxation as a whole—
Stephen Williams
I agree with virtually everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. I have “The Spirit Level” at home and it will be part of my summer reading as I have not had time to read it yet. Does he at least acknowledge that one of the good things that the coalition Government have done is reduce the exposure to income tax of the lowest paid in society, while at the same time increasing capital gains tax? His Government did the reverse.
John McDonnell
I believe that the hon. Gentleman joined the House at the last election.
John McDonnell
The hon. Gentleman clearly has not been reading my alternative Budgets that I table year after year and which address some of those issues, although he is not alone in not having read them—but there you are!
The purpose of amendment 14 is to examine the issue again and regularly. The equality assessments that we receive from the Government in the budgetary papers consist of one sentence telling us who will gain and who will lose. They do not address the issue of inequality. A wider debate is needed, however, and my amendment would ensure that that debate is revisited and kept in close focus as we determine our financial policies. There have been previous attempts at this, and various reports by various governmental bodies have partly addressed the issue, but they have not been related to specific policy decisions or policy development.
This is more of a plea. The previous Government, of which I had occasional criticisms, set up an excellent initiative in founding the national equality panel under its chair, Professor John Hills. The panel still exists within the Home Office, and it produced a major report in January 2010 entitled, “An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK”. It was extremely detailed and brought together the evidence on economic inequality in our society. It was enlightening and depressing but at the same time motivating. It was enlightening because it exposed not only the scale of inequality but the trend growth over time, which, as I said, was only arrested in the previous decade, not reversed. It was depressing because, as the report stated, the sheer scale of inequalities in outcome—for instance, the sheer scale of differences in wealth—was shocking. The report even implied that it might be impossible to create a cohesive society given the scale of inequality.
The report identified a backdrop of widespread ignorance of the scale of inequality and the lack of awareness in society as a whole among the rich and the poor. It was not just the poor who did not realise how unequal society was; it was also the richest. The report was motivating because it demonstrated that public policy interventions can reduce inequality, particularly interventions around tax and welfare benefits. They can narrow gaps between the rich and the poor and create a more cohesive and successful society. My plea, through this amendment, is that before we agree tax levels, we address the issue of inequality and that we bring forward a further report. I suggest that the national equality panel continues its work, assesses the taxation policies set out in the Budget and brings a report back to the House so that we can be sure that the policies we are pursuing are addressing inequality in our society.
I am obviously aware that through the Child Poverty Act 2010 the previous Government set up the Child Poverty Commission, the remit of which has now been extended to include the issue of social mobility. I am sure that the commission could play a valuable role in assessing the tax decisions in the Finance Bill and their impact on inequality.
Kate Green
Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be an important opportunity to look again at the assertion that the countries with the highest levels of inequality are also those with the least social fluidity and therefore at the role that tax could play in achieving the Government’s social mobility objectives?
John McDonnell
That is particularly important given that we are in if not a recession, a period of economic inactivity in which the economy has been scraping along the bottom. We have 2.5 million unemployed, of whom nearly 1 million are young people and 1.7 million people are in enforced short or part-time working. As Richard Wilkinson demonstrated, during the ’80s, the social psychological response was either fight or fright: fright meant depression, alcohol and drugs, and fight often meant violence on our streets and, unfortunately, an increase in violent crime.
We should be addressing those issues now, as we pass through this economic recession, which might last some time. It behoves us, as we discuss taxation and if taxation can play a role in addressing inequality, to examine the matter in detail. The amendment simply tries to emphasise that inequality is an important issue that has to be addressed and that all legislation needs to be reviewed and assessed in the light of its impact and effectiveness in addressing inequality. The amendment therefore calls for a report to be brought back to the House addressing that matter. In that way, we might at least acquire an understanding of the impact of taxation policies on inequality, even if we might disagree on specific taxation policies.
Mr Love
I associate myself with the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and its focus on inequality. I want to pick up on that focus, and on the discussion we had a few moments ago about the Government’s claim that we are all in this together. I shall subject that to scrutiny through amendment 13, which was tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). As my right hon. Friend said, and as has been said by those on our Front Bench, the Conservative manifesto at the 2010 general election included a commitment to
“freeze public sector pay for one year in 2011, excluding the one million lowest paid workers”.
It was announced in the 2010 Budget that there would be a two-year pay freeze, except for those earning £21,000 or less, who would receive an increase of at least £250 a year. In his statement, the Chancellor went on to say that 1.7 million public servants would benefit from that and receive the £250 for two years.
In the Budget statement this year, the Chancellor had changed his tune somewhat. He said:
“I can confirm today that in the coming year all workers in the armed forces, the prison service and the NHS, and teachers and civil servants, earning £21,000 a year or less will receive a pay uplift of £250.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 508, c. 963.]
That is considerably less than the commitment given in the 2010 Budget, and it is different from—and, in a sense, considerably less than—the commitment given in the Conservative manifesto. Some work has been done that shows that if the measures include only public sector workers who are under ministerial control and subject to pay review bodies—that is in essence what the Chancellor is saying—that commitment is very considerably less. As I understand it, it equates to less than half the original number affected.
In supporting amendment 30, I want to ask the Minister directly whether he accepts that the Conservative manifesto misled the people of this country. Does he accept that, in his Budget statement in 2010, the Chancellor misled the House and the people of this country? Does he also accept that the present number of people who will benefit from the £250 uplift is considerably lower than the number originally envisaged? In those circumstances, and given the difficulties that we face in a debate of this nature on taxation, will he accept the thrust of the amendment? Will the Government recommit to doing something to address low pay for those earning less than £21,000 a year? Will the Minister also ensure that everyone earning under that amount will receive the £250, given that only some are doing so at present?
Mr Gauke
As was mentioned earlier, we have increased capital gains tax rates from those that we inherited, and our income tax decreases have been focused on the low paid. That is an example of what we are trying to do. The point is how to ensure that we have a competitive tax system so that we have the growth that the economy needs and that benefits all our constituents.
Let me turn to the report requested by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington.
I draw his attention to the detailed analysis that the Government have published on the impact of direct tax, indirect tax, tax credits and benefit reforms, which can be found in annexe A to “Budget 2011”. The Government have gone further than any previous Government in presenting distributional analysis of how changes to taxes, tax credits and benefits affect households. We have published detailed analysis at Budget 2011, the spending review and the June Budget 2010. That analysis shows that the top decile sees the largest losses from the cumulative impact of tax, tax credit and benefit reforms introduced at Budget 2011 and previous fiscal events. In cash terms, the top decile loses more than twice as much as the ninth decile, and 10 times as much as the bottom decile. That is the case if one looks at the overall impact or in cash terms, as a percentage of net income, or across income or expenditure deciles.
John McDonnell
Will the Government publish anything with regard to the distribution of wealth—for example, the impact of such policies on the Gini co-efficient?
Mr Gauke
We will make further announcements as and when necessary, but we are publishing much more information on distributional analysis than any previous Government have. It is right to do so, and to take steps to ensure that the House and the whole country can debate such matters with as much information presented in future. A striking contrast can be drawn with regard to one policy—the doubling of the 10p rate—about which the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) had concerns. It was difficult to obtain any information on that policy’s impact, although we have learned in recent weeks that much of the information about that was available to Ministers at the time.
Amendment 30 seeks to provide a one-off £250 reduction in the tax liability of all public sector employees earning less than £21,000. In the June 2010 Budget, we announced a two-year pay freeze for public sector workers earning a full-time equivalent of £21,000. That is one of the many difficult choices that we have had to make to help put the UK’s public finances back on track, and it does not mean that we do not value the work done throughout the public sector. All Members know that those in the public sector work hard for the benefit of society. However, pay freezes of this sort save jobs. Given that we are having to constrain public spending and given that the fiscal deficit requires cuts, a pay freeze will help to mitigate the effect of those cuts. Because we recognise that the freeze will be hardest on the lowest-paid public sector workers, it was announced in the June Budget that those earning a full-time equivalent of £21,000 or less would receive an uplift of at least £250 in both years of the freeze.
Both the Labour party’s manifesto at the time of the last general election and the 2009 pre-Budget report announced a 1% increase for public sector workers across the board, apart from the armed services. No distinction was made between the low paid and the high paid. Under a Labour Government, none of those earning less than £21,000 a year—including nurses, teaching assistants, police community support officers and hospital porters—would be receiving a £250 increase.
Mr Gauke
It is for local authorities to determine what they pay their employees, but we have given them the extra money to fund this, and we would like local authorities to fulfil the objective that we are achieving at national level. We do not control local authorities, but we can provide them with the funding, and we did that. Our intention was that all low-paid workers would receive the £250, but we do not—and should not—have the ability to mandate local authorities to pay their workers, and that is currently up to them.
John McDonnell
When the Chancellor made his statement, there were no caveats; it was a straightforward commitment to pay 1.7 million workers the £250. The Chancellor gave a moral commitment; it therefore behoves the Government to intervene to ensure the Chancellor’s pledge is fulfilled to all 1.7 million workers, without any caveats.