EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Debate between John McDonnell and Dennis Skinner

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

There is a desperate need for long-term, patient investment in our manufacturing base in order to develop an industrial strategy. The threat of Brexit is undermining those who make the decisions about that long-term, patient investment, and Brexit would be a disaster for recreating our manufacturing base in this country.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

There is no better time than this for the labour movement to be considering employment rights in the manner that my hon. Friend is now doing. There is a pit site at Shirebrook that is now owned by Mike Ashley where he employs only 200 full-time employees and 3,000 people, mainly east Europeans, on zero-hours contracts, and where a lady went to the toilets to give birth to a child on new year’s day. That is horrific. At that pit site, after the war, east Europeans got the same money as me for working down the coal mine and they were members of the NUM. We have to get rid of this idea that people can be brought here on zero-hours contracts. If we state it loud and clear here today that we are going to get rid of this Mike Ashley and thousands of others around Britain, we will set fire to this campaign.

[John McDonnell]

I wholeheartedly concur not only with the criticisms that my hon. Friend has levelled but with his solution, which is based on the development of employment rights that have been consistently undermined in recent decades in this country.

As I was saying, there is a well founded concern that withdrawal will put jobs, investment, trade and employment at risk. The unpredictability of the outcome of this leap in the dark has united virtually every economist and economic institution of any standing, from the International Monetary Fund and the OECD to the Bank of England and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in expressing their concerns about the risk to the economy. In the past 72 hours, we have witnessed the reaction of the world markets to shifts in the polls pointing to a possible Brexit, with £100 billion knocked off the value of shares, and the value of the pound dropping. The Brexit campaign has done more damage to capitalism in four days than the Socialist Workers party did in 40 years. This comes at a time when our economy is extremely fragile. Six years of unnecessary austerity, the chaotic failure of the various fiscal rules adopted by this Government, and our record current account deficit have made our economy extremely vulnerable to even a minor shock. And as the markets have just demonstrated, leaving the EU would certainly not be interpreted as just a minor shock.

Let me turn to the issue of migration. I believe that the economic arguments for remaining are overpowering—

Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Debate between John McDonnell and Dennis Skinner

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

Let me press on if I can.

We need serious action on enforcement. We need not central registers but, as Christian Aid and others are calling for, full public registers accessible to all, including journalists and other businesses, if we are going to curb the activities exposed in the Panama papers. This package of measures is Labour’s tax transparency and enforcement programme. We believe that it offers a sound basis to take the first necessary steps against avoidance and towards openness and transparency. We are presenting it today as we want to see immediate effective action.

This is a test of leadership. The leadership of the Conservative party could take this opportunity to correct the series of errors that it has made. It could join us today in taking effective steps towards dealing seriously with avoidance. People want to see the Conservatives take these steps. Otherwise, they will rightly stand accused of siding with the wrong people and of being the party of the tax avoiders. Incidentally, it was not long ago that the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared on television to give advice on the “pretty clever financial products”, as he described them, that would allow the wealthy to dodge inheritance tax.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Dodge? Can you use that word?

[John McDonnell]

Don’t tempt me, Mr Speaker.

Some of the Conservative party’s Back Benchers believe that tax avoidance is a sign of success. The party’s donors are named in the Panama papers, and the Prime Minister himself is a direct beneficiary of a scheme set up in an offshore tax haven through his prior ownership of Blairmore Holdings shares.

The Panama leaks have presented a stark political choice. Do we continue to allow a system of corruption and avoidance, or do we now take the action necessary to restore fairness to our taxation system and to correct the abuse of democracy? That is the challenge, and the choice, ahead of us. I urge the Government and all Members of this House to join us in a serious programme of work to tackle the abuse of our tax system. The Government can make a start by supporting our motion today and adopting Labour’s tax transparency enforcement programme. I commend this motion to the House.