Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

Yes, it is a vital cornerstone of our institutional structure that the Bank of England remains independent, and those who have suggested that they would seek to politicise appointments to the Bank of England would be doing a great disservice to this country and our economy.

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

The Chancellor, like most of us, has been watching the accumulation of spending promises by the Tory leadership candidates. They amount now—[Interruption.] They amount now to nearly £100 billion, and one of the Chancellor’s colleagues commented yesterday that they make me look like a fiscal moderate. May I ask the Chancellor what impact this level of unfunded commitments would have on his economic strategy, or can he tell us how they could possibly be funded?

[Mr Hammond]

There are many people who could comment on spending commitments that have been made by candidates in the Tory leadership competition, but the right hon. Gentleman is not one of them.

[John McDonnell]

Let me try this one. Both Tory leadership candidates are threatening no deal. This morning, the Chancellor has eloquently set out the consequences of no deal. Bearing in mind what he said, may I ask him very straightforwardly whether he will join us and commit himself to doing everything he possibly can to oppose the Prorogation of Parliament to try to sneak no deal through, and also to voting against no deal?

With your permission, Mr Speaker, if I may: this might be the Chancellor’s last Treasury questions and I just want to thank him for the civility with which he has always maintained our relationship. I also admit that there have been times when we have enjoyed his dry sense of humour. I gave his predecessor a little red book as a present. We have another red book today, but this is a guide to London’s rebel walks and we hope that he will enjoy it in his leisure periods.

[Mr Hammond]

That is very kind of the right hon. Gentleman; I much prefer this little red book to the one he gave my predecessor, although I have to say that I have not read this one and I have read the other one.

On the broader question, I have been consistently clear that I believe that a no-deal exit would be bad for the UK, bad for the British economy and bad for the British people. We cannot rule out that happening, because it is not entirely in our hands, but I agree with him that it would be wrong for a British Government to seek to pursue no deal as a policy. I believe that it will be for the House of Commons, of which I will continue proudly to be a Member, to ensure that that does not happen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Commons Chamber

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

The Chancellor’s speech to the CBI this evening has been much trailed. I welcome his clear warnings to his Conservative colleagues about the hit the economy would face from a no-deal Brexit, especially those who have said there is nothing to fear from a no deal. For the benefit of Members in the Chamber, will he explain what he sees as the impact of a no-deal Brexit and his clear view that with

“all the preparation in the world”

a no-deal Brexit will still damage our economy?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman: I may not have to take the trouble to go and deliver the speech this evening.

The right hon. Gentleman has raised a serious point. There are two separate effects of a no-deal Brexit that concern me. First, there will clearly be short-term disruption, which will have an unpredictable and potentially significant effect on our economy. Secondly, and probably more importantly, all the analysis that the Government and external commentators have published shows that there will be a longer-term effect, meaning that our economy will be smaller than it would otherwise have been. I did not come into politics to make our economy smaller; I came into politics to make our economy bigger, and to make our people better off.

[John McDonnell]

I shall be happy to deliver the Chancellor’s speech this evening. Any time!

The reality is that for many the Brexit vote was, and may well be again, a kick at the establishment: an establishment that has inflicted nine years of harsh austerity on them, and which many feel has ignored them. As has been revealed this week, that austerity programme has meant children going to school hungry, without warm clothes or dry shoes, and single mothers with no food in their cupboards skipping meals so that their children can eat. Does the Chancellor even acknowledge the role that his austerity politics have played in delivering the Brexit vote?

[Mr Hammond]

I think the reasons behind the Brexit vote are complex, and it would be trite to stand here and try to identify them simplistically. Let me also remind the right hon. Gentleman of the contribution that his party’s Government made to the situation that we inherited, which caused us to have to make the tough decisions to which he has implicitly referred.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

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

With the Brexit dialogue ongoing it is best to leave exchanges on that topic to the negotiations, although I hope we can all count on the Chancellor, if not everyone on his own side, to continue to insist that no deal is not an option.

Turning to Google, when will the Chancellor tackle the scandal of Google’s tax avoidance? Google has an estimated taxable profit of £8.3 billion in the UK, so it should have a tax bill, according to the Tax Justice Network, of £1.5 billion. That would pay for 60,000 nurses, 50,000 teachers, seven new hospitals, 75 new schools. It pays £67 million. Why is the Chancellor, year on year, letting Google the tax avoider off the hook?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

As the right hon. Gentleman probably knows very well, the issue is a good deal more complex than he suggested in his question. We have announced the introduction of a digital services tax to begin to address the challenge of shaping our tax system to respond to the digital age, but the problem is that we have a set of international tax rules that we are obliged to follow, which were invented in the age when international trade was all about goods. Nowadays it is mostly about services, and much of it is about digital services. The international tax system is simply not fit for purpose and the UK is leading the charge in international forums—including the G20, which will be meeting later this week in Washington—in looking for a new way to allocate profits appropriately between jurisdictions where digital platform businesses are involved.

[John McDonnell]

After nine years in government, that smacks of an excuse, and let me say to the Chancellor that the Government’s digital services tax has been roundly criticised as being too narrow and having artificial carve-outs. Let me move on from one scandal to another: the scandal of London Capital & Finance. LCF collapsed in January, leaving 11,000 investors in the lurch. They had £286 million invested in the company and most of them were not wealthy people. The Financial Conduct Authority was repeatedly warned of LCF’s dubious structure and operations and failed to respond to those warnings. A decade on from the financial crash and our regulatory system is still not fit for purpose. What action is the Chancellor taking to secure justice for the LCF investors and to reform our regulatory system?

[Mr Hammond]

We take very seriously the failure of London Capital & Finance. Last week, my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary directed the FCA to launch an investigation into the company. We will carry that investigation out and look carefully at the findings.

Spring Statement

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

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

Let me thank the Chancellor for providing me with an early sight of his statement, no matter how heavily redacted. We have just witnessed a display by the Chancellor of this Government’s toxic mix of callous complacency over austerity and their grotesque incompetence over the handling of Brexit. While teachers are having to pay for the materials their pupils need, and working parents are struggling to manage as schools close early and their children are sent home, and as 5,000 of our fellow citizens will be sleeping in the cold and wet on our streets tonight, and young people are being stabbed to death in rising numbers, the Chancellor turns up today with no real end to or reversal of austerity. He threatens us—because this is what he means—saying that austerity can end only if we accept this Government’s bad deal over Brexit.

Let us look at some of the claims this Chancellor has made. He has boasted about the OBR forecast of 1.2% growth this year, but what he has not mentioned is that this has been downgraded from 1.6%. Downgrading forecasts is a pattern under this Chancellor. In November 2016, forecasts for the following year were downgraded from 2.2% to 1.4%. In autumn 2017, forecasts for the following year were downgraded from 1.6% to 1.4%. Economists are warning that what little growth there is in the economy is largely being sustained by consumption, based on high levels of household debt.

On the public finances, the Chancellor boasts about bringing down debt. Let me remind him that when Labour left office—having had to bail out his friends in the City, many of them Tory donors—the nation’s debt stood at £1 trillion. The Government have borrowed for failure and added another three quarters of a trillion to the debt since then. That is more than any Labour Government ever.

The Chancellor boasts about the deficit; he has not eliminated the deficit, as we were promised by 2015. He has simply shifted it on to the shoulders of headteachers, NHS managers, local councillors and police commissioners, and worst of all on to the backs of many of the poorest in our society. The consequences are stark: infant mortality has increased, life expectancy has reduced and yes, our communities are less safe. Police budgets have faced a £2.7 billion cut since 2010. Nothing that the Chancellor said today will make up for the human and economic consequences of those cuts.

The Chancellor talks about a balanced approach; there is nothing balanced about a Government giving over £110 billion of tax cuts to the rich and corporations while 87 people a day die before they receive the care they need. The number of children coming into care has increased every year for nine years. Benefit freezes and the roll-out of universal credit are forcing people into food banks in order to survive. Let me give the Chancellor a quote:

“Sending a message to the poorest and most vulnerable in our society that we do not care”.—[Official Report, 20 October 2015; Vol. 600, c. 876.]

That was the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) referring to the cuts to tax credits in 2015.

The number of pensioners now officially living in severe poverty, in the fifth largest economy in the world, has reached 1 million. We have a Government condemned by the UN for inflicting destitution on its own citizens. There is nothing balanced about the Government’s investment across the country. There is nothing balanced about a Government investing more than £4,000 per head for transport in London and only £1,600 per head in the north. There is nothing balanced about the fact that a male child born in Kensington in Liverpool can expect to live 18 years less than a child born in Kensington and Chelsea.

On employment and wages, this is the Government who have broken the historic link between securing a job and lifting yourself out of poverty. The Chancellor has referred to a “remarkable jobs story”; what is remarkable is that this Government have created a large-scale jobs market of low pay, long hours and precarious work. More than 2.5 million people out there are working below 15 hours a week. Some 3.8 million people are in insecure work. The Chancellor talks about pay; average wages are still below the level of 10 years ago. So it is hardly surprising that 4.5 million children are living in poverty, with nearly two thirds of them in households where someone is in work.

The Chancellor has bragged about his record on youth unemployment. Let us be clear: youth unemployment is 7% higher than the national average, it is higher than the OECD average, and it is at appalling levels for some communities. Some 26% of young black people are unemployed and 23% of young people from a Bangladeshi or Pakistani background are unemployed.

The Chancellor has claimed an advance with regard to women’s unemployment. What he does not say is that women make up 73% of those in part-time employment and are disproportionately affected by precarious work. Let me give one example: by 2020, the income of single mothers will have fallen by 18% since 2010. According to the much-respected Women’s Budget Group, women are facing the highest pay gap for full-time employees since 1999. All that on his watch.

On infrastructure and housing, the Chancellor has been claiming that he is on the way to delivering record sustained levels of investment. Let us be clear: he is talking about wish lists; he is not talking about what the Conservatives have actually done. The UK ranks close to the bottom of OECD countries for public investment. We are 24th out of 32 countries, according to analysis done by the Trades Union Congress.

The Chancellor describes

“the biggest rail investment programme since Victorian times.”—[Official Report, 27 February 2018; Vol. 636, c. 667.]

Well, tell that to the people who faced the timetabling chaos of last year. Tell that to the rail passengers who have to deal with the incomparable incompetence of the Secretary of State for Transport.

The Chancellor has been hailing his announcement of a national infrastructure strategy. Let me remind the House that the Government announced a national infrastructure delivery plan for 2016 to 2021, and then announced a national infrastructure and construction pipeline. So, there are plans, pipelines and strategies, yet today he announced another review of the financing mechanisms, but no real action to deliver for our businesses and communities. The Institute for Government described this Government’s decisions on infrastructure as

“inconsistent and subject to constant change.”

The Chancellor made announcements on housing, again. Let us hope he has learned the lessons of the Government’s recent initiatives, which have driven profits of companies such as Persimmon to over £1 billion, with bosses’ bonuses at more than £100 million.

The Chancellor has some cheek to speak about technical and vocational skills: almost a quarter of all funding to further and adult education has been cut since 2010. The number of people starting apprenticeships has fallen by 26%.

On research and development, this Government have slashed capital funding for science across all departments by 50%.

Unlike at the Budget, the Chancellor has at last actually referred to climate change. The review of biodiversity he mentioned might, hopefully, show that the budget of Natural England, the body responsible for biodiversity in England, has more than halved over a decade. A review of carbon offsets might reveal that they do not reduce emissions, and that offsetting schemes such as the clean development mechanism have been beset by gaming and fraud. This from a Government who removed the climate change levy exemption for renewables; scrapped the feed-in tariffs for new small-scale renewable generation; and cancelled the zero-carbon homes policy. Gordon Brown pledged a zero-carbon homes policy standard. We endorsed it and celebrated it; the Tories scrapped it in 2015, just one year before it fully came into force.

Of course, Brexit looms large over everything we discuss. Even today, the Chancellor has tried to use the bribe of a double-deal dividend or the threat of postponing the spending review to cajole MPs into voting for the Government’s deal. What we are seeing is not a double dividend; we are seeing Brexit bankruptcies as a result of the delay in the negotiations. The publication of the tariffs this morning was clearly part of this threatening strategy. It is a calamitous strategy. It is forcing people into intransigent corners rather than bringing them together.

What we need now is for the Chancellor to stand with us today and vote to take no deal off the table; to stand up in Cabinet against those who are trying to force us into a no-deal situation; and then, yes, to come and join us to discuss the options available, including Labour’s deal proposal and yes, if required, taking any deal back to the public.

Outside this Westminster bubble, outside the narrow wealthy circles in which the Chancellor moves, nine years of hard austerity have created nine years of hardship for our constituents. Today, and in recent times, the Chancellor has had the nerve to try to argue to those who have suffered the most at the hands of this Government that their suffering was necessary. If austerity was not ideological, why has money been found for tax cuts for big corporations while vital public services have been starved of funding? Austerity was never a necessity; it was always a political choice. So when the Chancellor stands there and talks about the end of austerity and about a plan for a brighter future, how can anyone who has lived through the past nine years believe him?

This Government have demonstrated a chilling ability to disregard completely the suffering that they have caused. To talk of changing direction after nine years in office is not only impossible to believe, but much too late. It is too late for the thousands who have died while waiting for a decision on their personal independence payments; too late for the families who have lost their homes due to cuts in housing benefit; too late, yes, for the young people who have lost their lives as a result of criminal attack; and too late for those youngsters whose clubs and youth services have been savaged. This is the Chancellor’s legacy; it is this that he will be remembered for. He was the shadow Chief Secretary to George Osborne and designed the austerity programme. History will hold him responsible for that. There are no alibis. He is implicated in every cut, every closure, and every preventable death of someone waiting for hospital treatment or social care. It is time for change. People have had enough, but increasingly they know that they will not get the change that they so desperately need from this tainted Chancellor or from his Government. It is time for change, and it is time for a Labour Government.

[Mr Hammond]

We have just heard the same old recycled lines. I must be going a little bit deaf, because I did not hear any mention of record employment. Perhaps the shadow Chancellor is so ashamed of Labour’s record: no Labour Government have ever left office with unemployment below that which they inherited. I did not hear anything about rising wages; they are rising the fastest in a decade. He did not mention the extra £1.3 billion for local government, or the extra £1 billion of police funding, both of which he voted against. He did not mention the fact that we have had nine years of unbroken growth. He did not mention the fact that this economy is out-performing that of Germany this year. He witters on about manufacturing without any recognition of the global economic context in which this sits—perhaps he does not inhabit the global economy. If he did, he would know very well that the downturn in manufacturing is happening across Europe and is affecting everyone. He did not mention the remarkable turnaround in our public finances and the real choices that we have as a consequence. He just relentlessly talked Britain and its economy down.

Once again, we hear this absurd proposition that the decisions that we took in 2010 were some kind of political choice—as if we could have gone on borrowing £1 for every £1 spent indefinitely, racking up interest bills and burdening future generations with debt. No responsible politician could credibly believe that these were choices in 2010.

The shadow Chancellor talks about homelessness. We have committed £1.2 billion to tackling homelessness and rough sleeping—I did not hear any mention of that. He talks about the downgrade of the 2019 economic forecast without mentioning the global context. He confuses the debt and the deficit. The reason that the debt has risen—[Interruption.] He is not listening, but it is very, very simple. It is not even economics; it is just maths. It is very, very simple. If you have a £150 billion deficit in your last year in office, your successor will find that debt is rising, and that is what we found. I have announced, since 2016, £150 billion of additional public spending as well as getting the forecast deficit down to 0.5% of GDP. That means that we have real and genuine sustainable choices in this country for the first time in a decade.

The shadow Chancellor delivers repeated misinformation which we have heard countless times from those on the Labour Benches. Let us take transport funding for example. He knows that central Government transport funding is higher per capita in the north than it is in London and the south—that is a fact. He knows that there are 665,000 fewer children in workless households now than there were in 2010—that is a fact. He knows that public investment set out in the OBR report today represents Britain’s biggest public capital investment programme for 40 years—that is a fact. He accuses me of talking about housing again. Well, I will talk about housing again, and again, and again, because we have announced £44 billion investment in housing, and that is an awful lot of announcements that I will have to make.

The ultimate audacity is the moral lecturing tone in the shadow Chancellor’s closing remarks. I really do take exception to being lectured to by a man who has stood idly by, turning a blind eye, while his leader has allowed antisemitism to all but destroy a once great political party from the inside out. Attlee and Bevan must be rotating in their graves. People should look at what this pair have done to the Labour party and just think what they would do to our country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I can understand why the Chancellor has broken convention today in not responding, because I think he would be ashamed to respond. Let me tell him what the answer is: if a DUP vote is worth £100 million, what Labour MPs were offered yesterday was £6 million.

Let me ask the Chancellor to undertake another calculation. Seven days ago, he was forced to publish the Government’s assessment, again, of how much a no-deal Brexit would cost this country—in today’s prices, nearly £200 billion. How much of a threatened cost to this country will it take for this Chancellor to find a backbone to stand up to the Prime Minister and the European Research Group to prevent no deal or a bad deal? Or is the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions the only Cabinet Minister willing to put country before career?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

Oh dear, oh dear. As the right hon. Gentleman knows very well, I have been working tirelessly to ensure that we avoid a no-deal exit—that we leave the European Union in a smooth and orderly fashion to a new negotiated partnership that allows our complex and important trade relationships to continue to flourish in the future. That is what I spend every working day doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

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

Let me bring the Chancellor back to Brexit. He knows full well the impact that no deal would have on people’s everyday lives. As we have heard, the British Retail Consortium warned yesterday that a no deal would lead to higher food prices, and even to empty shelves. The Government’s own economic analysis suggests a 10% hit to real wages. Knowing all this, would not a responsible Chancellor—a senior member of the Cabinet—stand up to the Prime Minister to insist that she rule out a no deal?

[Mr Hammond]

We are absolutely determined to avoid no deal, but the way to avoid no deal is to deliver a deal. As the Prime Minister has said from this Dispatch Box many times, the choice is stark: do the deal or face no deal or no Brexit. No Brexit would be a betrayal of the democratic decision of the British people, and no deal would be a betrayal of our economic future. The deal is the only way forward that protects our democracy and our economy.

[John McDonnell]

It is a deal that lost in this House by a majority of 230. Just as business leaders were not reassured by the Chancellor’s phone call, I do not think the House will be reassured by his response today. The Bank of England has warned that we are potentially facing an economic crisis even more severe than the financial crisis of 2008. Past holders of his great office of state would have had the strength and authority around the Cabinet table to prevent the Prime Minister from behaving so recklessly. At a time when the country is facing a potential national economic crisis, has there ever been a Chancellor so weak?

[Mr Hammond]

If the right hon. Gentleman believes what he has just told the House, he should get off his backside and get the Leader of the Opposition off his backside, and they should get themselves over to Downing Street to sit down and engage with the Prime Minister so that we can solve this problem in the national interest.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary is the expert on this matter and he might find a meeting with him more fruitful, but either one of us is very happy to meet him.

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

Many of the shops and firms located on the high street are represented by the Federation of Small Businesses. Has the Chancellor seen what the FSB has said about the current Brexit position? Its chair has said:

“Planning ahead has now become impossible for a lot of firms as we simply don’t know what environment we’ll be faced with in little more than 100 days’ time…the economic warning signs are now flashing red.”

The Chancellor knew full well in our debate last week that the Prime Minister’s deal was not going to receive the support of the House. Is it not only right that he is straight with her by telling her that businesses cannot face any more uncertainty and that a decision on the deal cannot be delayed and put off until late January, as some around her are suggesting?

[Mr Hammond]

I would be the first to agree that businesses need an end to uncertainty and clarity about the future, but frankly I think that the shadow Chancellor is probably the last person who should give us that lecture, because his policy agenda has been designed to create uncertainty and a lack of clarity for business in the future. What the Prime Minister is doing—absolutely rightly—is making a last attempt to see whether she can get further concessions from our partners in the European Union, which is clearly the desire of this House. She will come back and report to the House when she has done so.

[John McDonnell]

Both sides of the House have to address the seriousness of the situation we face. The director general of the British Chambers of Commerce has said:

“Firms are looking on with utter dismay at the ongoing saga in Westminster”.

Today’s Treasury Committee report is devastating in its criticisms of the way in which the Government have sought to assess options not even on the table. A month ago, the Chancellor committed his support to a deal that guaranteed frictionless trade with the EU. Will he now be absolutely straight with the Prime Minister and tell her that unless she comes back with a deal that does fulfil his promise of frictionless trade, it will not succeed in protecting our economy and could not be supported?

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman can practise his synthetic concern at the Dispatch Box, but the remedy lies in his hands. There is a deal on the table that will end the uncertainty and allow this country to move on, and our polling shows that that is exactly what the British people want. All he has to do is get behind it, vote for the Prime Minister’s deal and we can all move on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, I have a very firm plan to reduce the debt. My hon. Friend will see from the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast published last week that the debt will fall from over 85% of GDP to below 75% by the end of the forecast period. But my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have decided to take a balanced approach, where reducing the debt has to take place in tandem with keeping taxes low, supporting our public services and, probably most important of all, investing capital in Britain’s future.

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

There are reports that the Cabinet has been briefed on a possible deal with the EU that includes a customs union that can be ended through a review mechanism at any stage in the future. So after two years of uncertainty, of business holding back investment and of jobs relocated abroad, we are now presented with a fudge that gives no guarantees on a long-term basis of our future trading relationship. Investment in our economy today is the lowest in the G7 and falling. If a customs union with our largest trading partner can be ripped up at any stage, how does the Chancellor expect businesses to have the confidence to bring forward the long-term investment needed to support our economy?

[Mr Hammond]

That was a perfectly reasonable—if a little long—question, but unfortunately, it was built on a false premise. The Cabinet has received no such briefing.

[John McDonnell]

Well, it is interesting, because the Chancellor knows then that a free trade agreement without a permanent customs union will not protect our economy from the damage that a hard Brexit would cause, so to guarantee frictionless supply chains, we need a secure, permanent customs union with the EU. Businesses and workers are looking to the Chancellor to fight their corner, so will he join me and MPs across the House in calling on the Prime Minister to do the sensible thing and agree a permanent customs union that protects our economy, and yes, the livelihoods of millions of our people?

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman and I do not share very much in common, but we do share the desire to maintain frictionless trade between the UK and the European Union to protect British businesses and British jobs. His preferred way of achieving that is through a customs union; the Prime Minister has set out an alternative plan that will ensure that we can continue to have frictionless trade with the European Union. I prefer the Prime Minister’s plan.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I think it comes back to the same point: it depends if my hon. Friend is buying.

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

There are only weeks to go now before a deal has to be agreed with our European partners, but there are still mixed messages coming from Government Ministers. The Foreign Secretary says that crashing out of the EU without a deal would be a

“mistake we would regret for generations”,

the Brexit Secretary says that no deal would bring “countervailing opportunities”, and the Prime Minister says that it

“wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

The Chancellor has a critical role to play in bringing some rationality to this debate. The Treasury has calculated that no deal could result in the UK’s GDP being over 10% smaller. Will he outline, and be absolutely clear to some of his colleagues, what that would mean for jobs, wages, investment and living standards?

[Mr Hammond]

There is no ambiguity at all about the Government’s objective. We want to strike a deal with the European Union based on the White Paper that we have published, which we believe will be good for Britain and good for the European Union. We are devoting all our efforts over the coming weeks and months to securing that deal and protecting the British economy.

[John McDonnell]

The problem is that time is running out, and increasingly people on all sides of this issue are feeling let down, so let me put this to the Chancellor: can we both try to get the message across to the Prime Minister, who continues to insist that no deal is better than—[Interruption.] She continues to insist that a bad deal is better than—[Interruption.] I will negotiate that again, Mr Speaker. She continues to insist that a bad deal is better than no deal. Business organisations are clear. The CBI is warning of a “catastrophe”, the National Farmers Union says it would be “an Armageddon scenario”, and, according to the TUC, a no deal Brexit would be “devastating for working people”. So may I appeal to the Chancellor? He knows the consequences of a no deal scenario, so will he now show some leadership and make it clear to his colleagues that he will not accept it?

[Mr Hammond]

First, I would love to know what it actually said on the right hon. Gentleman’s bit of paper. Let me be very clear to him. I, the Prime Minister and all members of the Cabinet are committed to achieving a deal that protects British jobs, British businesses and British prosperity going forward. That is what we are committed to. He is absolutely right that time is running out. We are working against the clock; we understand that. We will be working flat out over the coming weeks and months to achieve that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

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

As my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) pointed out, the British Chambers of Commerce has said today that its patience with the Government over Brexit is at “breaking point”. Its sense of frustration reflects accurately what trade unions and businesses across the country feel. All the British Chambers of Commerce wants are answers to some very basic questions, so will the Chancellor and those on the Treasury Bench provide some answers today? Post-Brexit, will goods be subject to new procedures and delayed at border points? Will regulation checks on goods conducted in the UK be recognised in Europe? Will firms be able to transfer staff between the UK and the EU as they do now? Above all else, will Ministers stop squabbling and provide some answers to these vital questions?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

It is fascinating to see the right hon. Gentleman posing as the champion of business when he has been attacking and undermining business ever since he got into his current position. Yes, I recognise all the questions he asked. The Cabinet will meet on Friday to set out our way forward in our negotiation with the European Union. We recognise that this is now urgent and that we need to make progress. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned minimising frictions and maximising flexibility for employers in order to protect jobs and investment. We agree with him and the British Chambers of Commerce on all those things, and we will be looking to deliver a Brexit that maximises employment and prosperity in this country.

[John McDonnell]

The Chancellor does not have to worry about others undermining capitalism; the Government are doing a pretty good job themselves.

When the warring factions in the Cabinet meet this weekend, it is the role of Treasury Ministers to bring them into the real world and point out to them firmly the real cost of a no-deal Brexit for jobs, the economy and all our living standards, so will the Chancellor tell us today the Treasury’s latest estimate of the cost of no deal, its consequences for the economy and the potential loss of jobs? Surely it is time for him to show a bit of grit and to make it clear that no responsible Chancellor could remain in a Cabinet that is so recklessly putting our economy at risk through no deal?

[Mr Hammond]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I will be setting out for my colleagues, in the privacy of our Cabinet meeting on Friday, the Treasury’s assessment—indeed, the cross-Whitehall economic group’s assessment—of the implications of potential routes forward. However, as the Prime Minister has said, we cannot give a running commentary in public on a matter about which we are in intensive negotiation with our European interlocutors. I have said before, and say again today, that when the time comes for Parliament to vote on our proposed package, I will make sure that all the available material is put into the public domain so that Members of Parliament are properly informed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I do not have a figure for the latest valuation of those assets. Many of the assets in question will be property assets, I suspect, meaning that the values will move from time to time. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Treasury is fully engaged in the process across Whitehall of seeking to deal with unacceptable behaviours of the type that we have seen in Syria. Financial sanctions will remain an important tool in our armoury, whether we are dealing with chemical attacks in Syria or attacks on the streets of the UK.

[John McDonnell]

I welcome the Chancellor’s response, but the problem is that the lack of transparency in our financial system makes it virtually impossible for him to know exactly how many assets linked to such regimes are owned in the UK. It is estimated that more than £5 billion of assets owned by Assad and his associates are being held overseas and, according to international reports, the UK is recouping far less of the corrupt assets owned by individuals linked to the Syrian regime than is being recouped by other countries. For example, assets linked to the Assad regime worth more than half a billion pounds have been not just frozen but seized by the Spanish authorities. So far, no unexplained wealth orders have been used against Syrian regime figures.

The Government promised to give a date for the publication of a register of owners of UK property based overseas back in 2015, but now, three years later, we are told that a register will not be published until 2021. Will the Chancellor bring forward the date for the introduction of what is an essential defence against corruption?

[Mr Hammond]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman is being a little bit harsh on the unexplained wealth orders. The legislation has been in place for only a couple of months, and we will of course look at opportunities to use it. As for his challenge on the date for the registers, I will look into the matter, as he has asked me to do. I will then write to him to let him know the reason for the date that we have set, and whether there is any opportunity for it to be brought forward.

I think that we are all in the same place on this issue. We all want to ensure that London cannot be used as a route for dirty money—for the ill-gotten gains of regimes that are stealing from their people and channelling money offshore. It must be recognised that London is the world’s largest global financial centre, which presents us with some challenges, but we will continue the work.

Spring Statement

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I am appealing to Tory MPs today, if they are serious about ending austerity, to vote with us this afternoon to give those children the free school meal they are entitled to.

The Chancellor has shifted the deficit on to the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary. Crime is rising, yet he has cut the number of police officers by 21,500 and the number of firefighters by 8,500, and our prisons and probation service are in dangerous crisis.

In shifting the deficit on to the shoulders of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in reality he has shifted the burden on to local councillors—Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative councillors alike. I raise again the stark reality of what that means for the most vulnerable children in our society. There has been a 40% cut in early intervention to support families. The result is the highest number of children taken into care since the 1980s. Children’s charities—not us but children’s charities—are saying that this crisis could turn into a catastrophe without further funding. Last year, 400 women seeking refuge were turned away because there were no places available for them in refuges. There are now nearly 5,000 of our fellow citizens sleeping rough on our streets—more than double the number in 2010. Tragically, one of our homeless citizens died only feet away from the entrance to Parliament.

The Chancellor mentioned additional housing funding in London. The additional housing funding announced for London today is not a new announcement: this is money already announced. Any new funding is welcome, but it is simply not enough and it represents a cut in London’s budgets compared with the money that Labour allocated in 2010. One million vulnerable older people have no access to the social care they need. Conservative Councils are going bust. Many will be forced to hike up council tax. Councils are running out of reserves, as the National Audit Office explained to us. I ask the Chancellor: will he listen to Conservative council leaders, such as the leader of Surrey, who said:

“We are facing the most difficult financial crisis in our history. The government cannot stand idly by while Rome burns”?

How many more children have to go into care? How many more councils have to go bust? How many more have to run out of reserves before the Chancellor wakes up to this crisis and acts?

Today’s statement could have been a genuine turning point but it is, depressingly, another missed opportunity. People know now that austerity was a political choice, not an economic necessity. The Conservatives chose to cut taxes for the super-rich, the corporations and the bankers, and it was paid for by the rest of us in society. They even cut the levy on the bankers in the Finance Bill. We were never “all in this together” as they claimed—never. They cut investment at the very time when we should have been developing the skills and infrastructure needed to raise productivity and grasp the technological revolution with both hands. And when they had a responsibility to meet the challenge of Brexit, we have a Chancellor who this weekend admitted he has not even modelled the Government’s options.

Today we have the indefensible spectacle of a Chancellor congratulating himself on marginally improved economic forecasts, while he refuses to lift a finger as councils go bust, the NHS and social care are in crisis, school budgets are cut, homelessness has doubled and wages are falling. This is not a Government preparing our country for the future; it is a Government setting us up to fail.

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman supported the switch to a single fiscal event, and now he is complaining that I have not delivered a mini Budget today. I am not surprised that he cannot quite understand anybody passing up the opportunity to introduce some new taxes, because that is what a Labour Government would be doing, not once a year or twice a year but every other week.

I heard the right hon. Gentleman referring to some of my hon. Friends as “Tory bully boys”. I remind the House that this is the man who still refuses to apologise to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, so I do not want to hear anything about bullying from the Labour Benches. The public will draw their own conclusions.

The right hon. Gentleman knows his Lenin, of course. The task is to win power, and that is why we see from him the smooth reassuring mien of the bank manager, but every now and again, the mask slips, and we get a glimpse of the sinister ideology that lies beneath—an ideology that would wreck our economy if he ever gets anywhere near the controls, threatening confiscation, dismissing property rights, undermining the cornerstones of our economy and the basis of our freedom and prosperity.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about political choices. Let me tell him the political choices we have made. We have closed the tax gap to one of the lowest in the developed world. We have raised £175 billion by 100 measures against tax evasion and avoidance. We are collecting 28% of all income tax from the richest 1% in our country—a higher percentage than in any year under Labour. He says that real wages are falling. I have good news for him: the OBR expects real wages to rise from quarter one 2018, which, in case he has not worked out, starts in two weeks’ time.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about spending on the disabled. Well, I have good news for him again: spending on the disabled will be higher in every year of this Parliament. He talks about research and development to support our economy. Research and development spending is at a record high.

The right hon. Gentleman reels out the same old bogus statistics on regional distribution; I think he has got the briefing from Russia Today. Let me tell him this: the Infrastructure and Projects Authority has published figures that clearly show that the highest per capita spending on transport infrastructure investment is in the north-west region, not, the last time I checked, one of the southern regions. All regions have benefited from the boom in employment. All regions will end this Parliament with lower unemployment and higher employment.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about £700 billion of increased national debt. We have had to deal with the legacy of Labour’s meltdown in 2009 because they did not fix the roof while the sun was shining. Our historical function is to clean up Labour’s mess, and my report today shows that we are doing it once again.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about funding for the NHS. I have put £9 billion into the NHS since autumn statement 2016. He talks about school budgets. School budgets are increasing per pupil in real terms. On children’s services, he must know that Department for Education research shows that spending on the most vulnerable children has increased by around half a billion pounds in real terms since 2010. We have committed £1 billion to tackling rough sleeping and homelessness and made a manifesto pledge to eliminate rough sleeping by 2027 and halve it by 2022.

No one watching our exchanges today can be in any doubt that Britain faces a choice. We have a plan to get our economy growing. The shadow Chancellor says it does not matter whether GDP grows or not. We have a plan to get people on the housing ladder, while the shadow Chancellor does not want “to get bogged down in property rights”. We have a plan to deal with our debts. The shadow Chancellor wants to send debts soaring because he fantasises that he can borrow for free.

The choice is clear: our vision of a dynamic, modern economy, or the Labour party’s vision of an inward-looking, narrow-minded country. We have to win this argument, because if we do not, it will be ordinary people—not the rich and the powerful and not the globally mobile—who pay the price, as they always do for Labour’s failings.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I refer my right hon. Friend to the analysis of the Opposition party’s proposals, if we can call them that, done by the Conservative party at the time of the general election. The Government’s policy is to sell assets when there is no longer a policy reason to retain them and to reinvest the proceeds of such sales in policy priorities. Nationalising assets would increase public sector net debt, which would increase our debt interest bill and divert public spending away from more valuable areas. It would also mean that the future investment needs of any nationalised industries would have to compete for capital with our public services.

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

I listened very carefully to the Chancellor’s response to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) on the issue of no deal. May I tell him that his response was crushingly disappointing? Expressions of hope of a deal are just not good enough. The Chancellor knows the economic perils our country faces if there is no deal: he described it, rightly, as a worst-case scenario. May I urge him, in the interests of our country, to have the courage of his convictions, and stand up and face down his opponents in Cabinet and confirm today that, like us, he will not support or vote for a no-deal Brexit?

[Mr Hammond]

As the right hon. Gentleman very well knows, our clear objective and priority is to achieve a deal with the European Union. Our preference would be for a deal that gives a comprehensive trade, investment and security partnership between the UK and the European Union in the future. As part of such a deal, we will seek an implementation phase that gives British businesses, and indeed Government agencies, proper time to prepare for the new circumstances they will face.

[John McDonnell]

If the right hon. Gentleman cannot stand up to his opponents on a no-deal Brexit, can he at least stand up to them on the transition period? Business leaders yesterday made it clear that they need certainty now on a sensible transition period, yet the Prime Minister yesterday sowed more confusion in her statement, giving the impression that the transition is to be negotiated only after we have settled on what, as she describes it, the “future partnership” with Europe will be. Businesses cannot wait: they need to plan now; jobs are in jeopardy now. If the Prime Minister is not willing to stand up to the reckless Brexiteers in her party, will the Chancellor? Will the Chancellor make it clear, in a way that the Prime Minister failed to do yesterday and as business leaders have been calling for, that we need the principles of any transition confirmed by the end of this year?

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman is correct to say that this matter is urgent and pressing, which is why we were so pleased that last week at the European Council the 27 agreed to start internal preparatory discussions for an implementation period. I am confident that we will be able to give businesses the confidence and certainty they need.

Economy and Jobs

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman just clarify for the House what the standard rate of capital gains tax was under the last Labour Government and what it is now?

[John McDonnell]

This is a Government who want to cut corporation tax from 28p—[Interruption.] I thought the right hon. Gentleman was referring to corporation tax. Remember who the capital gains tax cut is going to: the 60,000 wealthiest families in this country. That is what this cut is all about.

[Mr Hammond]

Will the right hon. Gentleman just tell the House what the rate was under the last Labour Government and what the basic rate is now?

[John McDonnell]

When it comes to—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

I will in just a moment.

Then there is the nationalisation programme. Let me explain these plans, Madam Deputy Speaker, because they are important. The Labour party wants to nationalise gas and electricity, water and Royal Mail. They would borrow a fortune to do it, and it would deliver no economic benefit whatsoever.

First, a Labour Government would have to buy up the shares of publicly listed companies on the stock exchange. Taking over just the single largest company in each sector would cost close to £44 billion, and the Government would have to pay a market premium on top, because a programme to buy the shares would drive up the price. Moreover, the taxpayer would take on those companies’ debts; that is another £26 billion. So that is £70 billion of public debt. When the Labour Government were done with the publicly listed companies, they would have to strike deals with scores of private investors and funds to buy the rest. All told, we are looking at more than £120 billion. [Interruption.]

The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington says from a sedentary position, “You do not understand. It is a financial transaction, so it does not need any money, and it does not require us to go out and borrow any.” He is simply wrong. Financial transactions add to public debt—[Interruption]—and that is before we even get to the railways, which he has been chuntering about. I have deliberately left the railways out of my equation, because his proposals for those are more complex.

[John McDonnell]

The right hon. Gentleman fails to understand that we will gain an asset when we take over the railways. It will give us an income that will cover any borrowing costs, and as the franchises drop out, it will be cost-free.

[Mr Hammond]

So the proposition is this: would I entrust an asset to the right hon. Gentleman? Would I lend him the money to buy that asset, on the assumption that he would be able to produce an economic return by operating it? Let me ponder on that one, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[John McDonnell]

It will be managed by the people of this country, in whom I have confidence, not by the profiteers whom the right hon. Gentleman represents.

[Mr Hammond]

Let us test that proposition. When these industries were last in public ownership, who were they managed by? They were managed by intervening, interfering politicians and their buddies in the trade unions.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

It was increased under George Osborne and then cut back again. Let me remind the Chancellor of the Financial Times survey that found that the measures on tax evasion and avoidance introduced by Gordon Brown were 10 times more effective than anything that this Government have done.

[Mr Hammond]

Let me do the maths. Hmm, it would be £1.5 trillion that they raise. Perhaps one of my hon. Friends will check down the back of the Treasury Bench in case the previous Chancellor hid that away down there. As usual, the right hon. Gentleman is talking absolute nonsense.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I do not recognise the picture that the hon. Gentleman paints of my position. I have stood at this Dispatch Box on countless occasions and lamented the fact that Britain has a poor productivity record—worse than Germany’s, and worse than those of the United States, France and Italy—but simply lamenting that fact is not enough. What we must do is put together a plan for tackling it, and it will be a long—

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

Seven years.

[Mr Hammond]

If the right hon. Gentleman checks the records, he will discover that this problem has existed for 40 years. It would be better if we tried to tackle this challenge in a spirit of bipartisan recognition and if we both recognised that there is a real problem that we have to tackle by investment in infrastructure, by investment in skills and by actions to spread growth and prosperity across the country.

[John McDonnell]

Seven years.

--- Later in debate ---

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

As you know, Mr Speaker, this morning the Prime Minister called a general election. She is breaking her commitment not to hold an early election, which was made only weeks ago. She has blamed Brexit, she has blamed our European neighbours and she has blamed the Opposition parties, but the real truth is that after seven wasted years of failure the Tories have failed to close the deficit; they have added £700 billion to the national debt; pay has fallen behind prices; 4 million children are growing up in poverty; our schools are in crisis; more people than ever are on NHS waiting lists; more families are homeless; and more elderly people are not getting the care they need. Will the Chancellor use this last opportunity before the election to apologise to the British people for the utter failure of this Government’s economic policies and for the pain he has inflicted on this country?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman has some brass neck to stand there and accuse us of having failed to eliminate the deficit, given that his policy is to add another £500 billion to it overnight. The British people understand very well what is going on here: we have a Conservative Government who are maintaining growth, and who have got unemployment down and record levels of employment, and a steadily closing deficit; and we have a Labour party which remains as fiscally incontinent as ever and which, if given a chance, would wreck this economy once again.

[John McDonnell]

There we have it: not one word of apology—no contrition whatsoever—from a Chancellor who has broken his promises to the British people and is still failing to deliver on a manifesto on which he was elected only 23 months ago. The Government are entering this election having scheduled £70 billion-worth of tax giveaways—for whom? It is for the super-rich and for the corporations, and is over the next five years. The Government are entering an election with a £2 billion unfunded black hole in the Budget the Chancellor delivered only a few weeks ago. So will he now use this opportunity before the general election to put on the record that his party will rule out raising VAT and rule out raising income tax? Will he commit unequivocally to support legislation to protect the triple lock? If the Tories cannot be straight with the British people, Labour will be.

[Mr Hammond]

The truth is that promises made from the Opposition side of the House are not worth the paper they are written on. The voters, pensioners and workers of this country understand that very well, and they will give their verdict on Labour’s promises on 8 June.

Class 4 National Insurance Contributions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

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

This is chaos. It is shocking and humiliating that the Chancellor has been forced to come here to reverse a key Budget decision announced less than a week ago. If the Chancellor had spent less time writing stale jokes for his speech and the Prime Minister less time guffawing like a feeding seal on the Treasury Bench, we would not have been landed in this mess.

Let us be clear: this was a £2 billion tax hike for many low and middle earners, and a clearcut and cynical breaking of a manifesto promise. Sickeningly, at the same time as the Chancellor was cutting taxes for the rich and corporations, large numbers of self-employed people have been put through the mangle over the past week, worried about how they would cope with this tax increase, yet today there is not a word of apology. Nobody should be too arrogant to use the word “sorry” when they blunder so disastrously.

Let me thank all those who helped to force this reversal. My right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party was the first to raise the matter in his response to the Budget. Labour MPs, many other Members across the House, the Federation of Small Businesses and several trade unions forced the Chancellor to see sense, but this blunder has consequences that he now has to address. The £2 billion that would have been raised was to go some way to tackling the social care crisis. We need to know where these desperately needed funds will come from now. We need guarantees from the Chancellor that no working people will be hit, either now or in the autumn statement, with stealth or other tax rises, and that there will be no further cuts to public services to pay for this blunder.

The Prime Minister and the Cabinet would have been briefed on the contents of the Budget in advance. Did the Prime Minister or any Cabinet Member raise their concerns with the Chancellor before he announced the measure? The Chancellor has announced a review. We need him to set a clear deadline for that review, and to give a commitment that its findings will be reported and debated on the Floor of this Chamber. We need him to address the real issues facing the self-employed: the scourge of bogus self-employment; the exploitation that goes on under that guise; the pressure from large corporations to reduce costs relating to the self-employed unrealistically; the problem of late payments; the lack of access to maternity pay; no paternity pay; no adoption pay; no sick pay; no compassionate leave; and no carer’s leave. That is the real agenda that should have been addressed last week, not tax hikes.

We welcome this reversal, but we now need an honest and forthright commitment that the self-employed agenda will be addressed. These people are the engine of our economy. They deserve to be respected, not attacked in the way they were seven days ago.

[Mr Hammond]

To echo what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in Question Time, I am rather reluctant to take lessons from the right hon. Gentleman on anything except, perhaps, chaos theory; he certainly knows something about that. He talks about being forced to make a decision. We have listened to our colleagues and the voices of public opinion. In my view, that is how Parliament should work. We listen to what our colleagues say and make our decisions based on that. As I said to the House a few moments ago, we remain clear that the issue needs to be addressed. We have recognised that there is a legitimate view that the commitments that were made need to be interpreted widely; we have said that we will interpret them in that way and not go ahead with any national insurance contributions increases in this Parliament.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the leader of the Labour party, who, apart from in his performance today at Prime Minister’s questions, has scarcely mentioned class 4 national insurance contributions; he scarcely did so in his response to the Budget. I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) is even aware of this, but the Labour party actually has a self-employment commission, which it established last November. At the time it was established, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, acknowledged the need to address the discrepancies in access to entitlements and the contributions that pay for them. Despite the understandable tone of the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, I hope that he agrees that, on the substantive underlying issues, there is a significant degree of agreement across the House that there is a discrepancy and a threat to the tax base that will have to be addressed over time.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about additional benefits for the self-employed. Of course we will review the issues around parental benefits, as I said in the Budget—we will actually take the review wider than that—but I hope that he agrees that if additional benefits are to be made available, we will have to look at how to pay for them, and it will not be done by borrowing half a trillion pounds that the country cannot afford and our children will be left paying for.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

The straight answer to my right hon. Friend is that only in the la la land that the Labour party occupies is that trick possible. Of course, my right hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the issue, and I emphasise again my commitment in this Budget to fiscal neutrality—the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, of course, does not believe in fiscal neutrality.

[John McDonnell]

Oh, dear me. You just, in a week, reversed a decision—

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

Read your own manifesto.

[Mr Hammond]

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman, but I am not hearing anything worth listening to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

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

Last week, the Government snuck out a statement on regulations denying 150,000 disabled people access to personal independence payments awarded by the upper tribunal. That was brutal. Last year, the previous Chancellor absorbed the costs when the Government were forced to halt cuts to personal independence payments to disabled people. In this case, are those disabled people being denied benefits because the Chancellor has refused to absorb the costs resulting from the upper tribunal decision?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

What we are doing is restoring Parliament’s original intention for the payments, ensuring that they go to the people to whom they were intended to go and that the benefits cap, which is in place as part of our fiscal rules, is able to be met.

[John McDonnell]

One of those people contacted us. She has type 2 diabetes, fibromyalgia, depression, and anxiety. As a result of the Government’s action, she will now not be extended the support that the courts awarded her. It is clear from last night’s announcement of further austerity measures for Departments that the Government are all about forcing Departments to meet the Chancellor’s spending targets so that he can pay for further tax giveaways to the wealthy. Will he rule out further unfair tax giveaways, such as cutting the top rate of income tax to 40p in this Parliament? Otherwise, it is clear that he wants tax giveaways for the wealthy few and austerity for the most vulnerable in our society.

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman will have to wait until next week to find out what my proposals are, but let me be clear that we have no plans for further welfare reforms in this Parliament. However, the reforms that we have already legislated for must be delivered, and Parliament’s original intent in legislating for those reforms has to be ensured.

Charter for Budget Responsibility

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

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

The motion before the House rewrites the rule by which the Government intend to manage their fiscal policy, as the Chancellor has set out. This rewriting is urgently needed because the Government’s previous fiscal rule lies in tatters. As we argued when the old rule was introduced in November 2015, it was a political device rather than a sound economic tool.

We argued that the commitment in the previous version of the charter to reach a budget surplus by the end of the decade was unachievable. That became obvious by the Budget of last year, when the previous Chancellor had to stretch budget accountancy to breaking point simply to claim that the economy was still on course to achieve the target. That was well before the referendum. By the summer, the target had to be abandoned entirely. It was dropped because the surplus target was never about sound management. No credible economist could be found to support the surplus target because it had no plausible economic justification. The Treasury Committee rightly concluded that the old surplus rule was not

“credible in its current form”.

The previous Chancellor made a political choice to impose the surplus target. Therefore, the austerity measures that the target required were not just cruel, but unnecessary. Members will recall that those measures meant that people living with disability were suddenly threatened with the loss of their independence, and those going to work, doing the right thing, looking after their children and just attempting to get by were suddenly faced with serious cuts to their income. The tragedy is that all those sacrifices and all that suffering were in vain.

The record of this Government in office speaks for itself: at the same time as imposing grinding spending cuts, they have added, as of this morning’s figures, almost £700 billion to the national debt. That is not just more than the previous Labour Government borrowed; it is more than the borrowing of every post-war Labour Government added together. It is equivalent to £25,600 of extra debt for every household in the country.

[Mr Philip Hammond]

For clarification, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that it is still his policy to borrow another £500 billion on top of that?

[John McDonnell]

That is interesting; I am pleased the Chancellor has raised that point. We have seen £700 billion borrowed over the last seven years as a result of economic failure. The Labour party’s policy, based on the recommendations of the CBI and others, is to spend £500 billion on investment over a decade. There would be £200 billion of mainstream direct funding and £100 billion would go to a national investment bank, which would prise from the private sector and elsewhere, on European Investment Bank rates, £250 billion. Such long-term investment in our economy has been recommended. Infrastructure investment is required to tackle the productivity crisis that has been caused by his Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

Don’t worry, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was enjoying that.

The reality is that this is Government investment, and those figures are just not acceptable. Investment of £5,000 per head in London compared with £400 in the north-east is an unacceptable level of inequality that has to be challenged. The right hon. Gentleman is usually fair, so I am sure that he would accept that, no matter how much we are both champions for our capital city.

While the shift in rhetoric is welcome, it must be backed up by meaningful action, and that is where the revised charter still falls short. It is good to see the Chancellor taking on board Labour’s recommendations and ditching the surplus target. In doing so, he has held out at least the possibility of lifting some of the burden of the austerity measures that have led to crises in health and social care. I deeply regret, however, that he failed to take that option at last year’s autumn statement.  His failure to act on both NHS and social care funding has contributed to the worst funding crisis in the NHS for decades and a social care system pushed beyond breaking point.

An image can sometimes capture the plight of a particular situation. A couple of years ago, it was the image a child’s body on the shores of the Mediterranean that brought to our attention the plight of people in the refugee crisis. Last year it was that photo of a child in an ambulance, covered in blood and dust after being pulled out of the debris in Aleppo. Two weeks ago, the image that put the NHS crisis into focus for me was that of a child below the age of five, in a hospital corridor, being treated on two plastic chairs that had been pushed together. That is unacceptable in the sixth richest country in the world, and it is the result of a failure to address underfunding in the autumn statement.

I have written to the chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility to ask whether it will look into providing an assessment of healthcare funding against expected need. In the last month, the British Red Cross has described the ongoing situation as a “humanitarian crisis”. The Government’s response has been to play down the situation, despite the volume of continuing complaints from frontline NHS staff. I strongly believe that this is leading to widespread public distrust of the Government’s presentation of funding and support for the NHS and social care. It makes sense to attempt to provide an objective assessment of the real needs of the NHS to help to prevent the real-terms funding cuts that have taken place under this Government. Let me say to the Chancellor again that he can and must take action now to ensure that both health and social care are properly funded in this period of crisis.

I am afraid that the charter represents only the smallest improvement on the previous dire fiscal policy. Unbelievably and, I think, contrary to all advice, it still attempts to keep investment spending within the spending control framework. That has already been criticised by experts from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Keeping the investment spending cap inside the overall spending cap means that every pound delivered for investment comes at the expense of possible spending on public services. At a time when the capital costs for the Government are close to their lowest in history, that choice makes little sense. As we face Brexit, the challenge for us all is to think boldly about how this country can respond, and the amended rule falls far short of that.

[Mr Philip Hammond]

What is the right hon. Gentleman’s position on public debt? Ours is set to peak at just over 90% of GDP, yet he is setting out a course of action that would cause it to rise indefinitely—it would go on rising forever. Is he comfortable with such a position?

[John McDonnell]

That is clearly not the case. If the Chancellor had looked carefully at Labour’s fiscal credibility rule—[Interruption]—and, indeed, adopted it, he would have seen that what we would actually be doing is reducing debt in the lifetime of a Parliament as a result of ensuring that we invest properly in tackling the productivity gap, in bringing people back to work and in ensuring that they have the highest skills. Those skills will produce the high wages that will make it possible to fund the economy through a tax regime that is fairer than the existing one.

It simply will not be possible to deliver the scale of support and investment that is needed to rebuild our economy within the strictures of the rules that the Chancellor is proposing. We will get half-measures and rhetorical commitments. What we will not get is a serious commitment to delivering the economic transformation that we now need, because that would require the Government to take on a few too many vested interests. Such a commitment would involve a serious attempt to clamp down on tax avoidance, reversing handouts to giant corporations and the super-rich, and ending—in reality, not just in rhetoric—the colossal imbalance in investment between a few favoured places in the south-east and the rest of the country.

In changing the rule, the Government are admitting their prior failure, but then failing to address its causes seriously. Investment is too low, productivity is too low and wages are too low. Labour’s own fiscal credibility rule follows the recommendations of world-leading economists, business organisations and trade unions by keeping day-to-day spending entirely separate from the Government’s plans to invest. In contrast, this Government’s fiscal rule is excessively tight on Government investment at the same time as being excessively loose on Government control.

The primary reason for introducing a rule is to show that a Government’s fiscal plans are consistent and planned well in advance. That allows businesses and investors themselves to plan, and reassures markets that a Government will not attempt to spend excessively. An ideal rule should be the basis of the strict enforcement of borrowing limits—we accept that—but it should also contain the flexibility for Governments to respond when unexpected shocks occur. Getting the balance between these two points is difficult so, following the best available economic advice, Labour’s fiscal credibility rule places the power to determine when we are outside normal times in the hands of the Monetary Policy Committee, which can declare under the terms of the fiscal rule that it is necessary for fiscal policy to adjust in response to an unanticipated shock. The freedom to determine the fiscal stance is a significant power for a Government, so it has to be used responsibly.

Labour does not believe that it is desirable to return to the days when Governments would produce their own economic forecasts and then decide on their own terms where the business cycle was and how much extra fiscal leeway they were allowed. That meant that the Treasury had excessive power to determine fiscal policy, and that in turn meant Governments would have the power to favour short-term quick fixes at the expense of longer-term action to rebuild the economy. A credible fiscal rule should not allow that to happen. It should be bolted into place, compelling a Government to act for the longer-term good.

Labour’s fiscal rule does that by handing power to recognise economic shocks over to the MPC, yet the new charter for budget responsibility appears to hand the power to recognise economic shocks straight back to the Treasury. It returns us to the bad old days when short-term Treasury thinking would be allowed to dominate economic policy making. It could mean that once again Conservative Chancellors would be tempted to ease off on or tighten up their spending not because of the economy, but because an election is due. In other words, it largely defeats the purpose of having a fiscal rule in the first place. Instead of breaking with the short-term thinking of the past, it bolts it more firmly into place. How can the rule be taken seriously when it is so obviously open to being undermined? In other words, the revised charter leads us dangerously close to the worst of both worlds. It is excessively tight on Government investment when building a post-Brexit economy should demand Government intervention, yet it is excessively loose on the Government themselves, handing too much power back to the Treasury.

The Chancellor and the Government are squandering an opportunity here. They could have ditched the failed existing fiscal rule and put in place a new fiscal mandate that would grant the space needed to rebuild and transform our economy as we prepare for Brexit. Instead, they have handed more powers back to the Treasury while the Chancellor has insisted on maintaining austerity spending cuts. No part of the Government’s new fiscal rule can be supported and we will be voting against the charter as a whole.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am disappointed to hear the hon. Gentleman resorting to the soundbite; he is normally better than that. The discussions I have had with third countries that have free trade agreements with the European Union suggest that there is a strong appetite for a quick and simple agreement with the UK so that, as we leave the European Union, we can immediately enter into a successor agreement with those countries—Korea, for example—that will allow us to continue trading with them on the same terms.

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

At the weekend, the Chancellor told a German newspaper—not this House, you will notice, Mr Speaker—that he is prepared to turn this country into a tax haven. If that means competing with the likes of Ireland on a 12.5% corporation tax rate on top of existing Tory tax cuts it means, according to the House of Commons Library, giving away more than £100 billion to corporations over the next five. That is equivalent to almost 5p on the basic rate of income tax. How then does the Chancellor ever propose to solve the funding crisis in the NHS and social care, given that this morning the Office for Budget Responsibility thinks that public finances are on an unsustainable path?

[Mr Hammond]

Let us take that question apart. There are two points. First, the OBR’s 50-year forecast sets out a possible outcome if the Government take no action. As I made very clear in the autumn statement, we are acutely aware that action will be required in order to return the public finances to balance. Secondly, with regard to my interview with Welt am Sonntag, what I said very clearly—I am sorry if this did not come across in the UK reporting, but the right hon. Gentleman should read the original—was that Britain wants to remain in the European mainstream, with its economic and social model, but that can happen only if we get a sensible Brexit deal for continued access to the European market. If we do not, the people of this country will not simply lie down and accept that they will be poorer. We will do whatever it takes to maintain our competitiveness and protect our standard of living.

[John McDonnell]

The threat is there on the record: this country will be a tax haven, according to the threats the Chancellor has issued today. We know from what the Prime Minister is saying right now that she is intent on pulling up the drawbridge and leaving the single market, and possibly the customs union, cutting us off from one of the largest markets on the planet, threatening jobs and public finances. This is not a clean Brexit; it is an extremely messy Brexit. We can already see the consequences in the rise in the rate of inflation. With real living standards squeezed by this policy announcement, is it not time for the Chancellor—I appeal to him—to reconsider his cuts to in-work benefits and withdraw them in full in the Budget in March?

[Mr Hammond]

No. What the Prime Minister is setting out today is an ambitious agenda for a Britain engaged in the world, and a Britain engaged with the European Union. What she is setting out is a broad-based offer for future collaboration on trade, investment, security, education, technical and scientific areas, and many other matters. We want to remain engaged with the European Union, and I am confident that the approach the Prime Minister is setting out today will allow us successfully to negotiate a comprehensive future relationship with the European Union.

Autumn Statement

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

We have heard today that there will be more taxes, more debt and more borrowing. The verdict could not be clearer. The so-called long-term economic plan has failed. As the Treasury’s own leaked paper reveals, the Government knew it had failed before the referendum result was announced. We now face Brexit—the greatest economic challenge of a generation—unprepared and ill equipped. The new Chancellor acknowledged the failure of the economic strategy in October when he promised a reset of economic policy.

Today, we expected a change of direction after those six wasted years. Instead, we have seen further cuts to earnings for those in work through cuts to universal credit, and a living wage increase that is lower than expected under the previous Chancellor. This is a new Conservative leadership with no answers to the challenges facing our country following Brexit, and no vision to secure our future prosperity.

Labour respects the decision of the British people to leave the European Union, but the chaotic Tory handling of Brexit threatens the future prosperity of this country. The Chancellor must now do the right thing for British workers and businesses. He must insist on full, tariff-free access to the single market. He and the Treasury know that that is what will get the best deal for jobs and prosperity here. It may not be in the Chancellor’s nature, but in the national interest I urge him to stand up to the Prime Minister and the extreme Brexit fanatics in her Cabinet. If he stands up for British businesses and jobs by fighting for single market access, he will have our full support.

After six wasted years, wages are still lower than they were in 2008. Self-employed people are, on average, paid less than they were a generation ago. Six million people are earning less than the living wage. Too many people are having to worry about buying school uniforms, affording a family holiday or even just paying the rent or mortgage.

We have had a month of briefing from the Conservative party on those people who are called “just about managing”—the JAMs. To the Conservative party, these people are just an electoral demographic. To us, they are our friends, our neighbours and the people we represent. Let me tell the House why those people are just managing. It is the result of Tories imposing austerity on an economy that could not bear the strain. We have seen productivity stagnate, but there is nothing in the autumn statement on the scale needed to overturn those six wasted years.

If the Chancellor really wants to make a fairer tax system as well, he can start by bringing back the 50p tax rate for the richest in our country. We have heard familiar hollow rhetoric from the Tories on tax avoidance, when they have cut the resources of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—the very people who collect these taxes. The resources available to HMRC today are 40% less than they were in 2000.

The Chancellor has frozen in-work benefits at a time when food prices are rising and we do not expect wages to keep up. We need an economy that is fundamentally more prosperous and where prosperity is, yes, shared by all. The increases in the national living wage announced today are lower than expected and leave the poorest-paid workers still earning less than they need to live on. So I ask the Chancellor to adopt a real living wage level, as Labour has pledged, and abandon his predecessor’s empty rhetoric.

Regrettably, the Chancellor is still going ahead with some of the cuts to universal credit. Thanks to pressure—I pay tribute to Members of all parties who have campaigned on this issue—he is offering to soften the blow. We do not want the blow softened; we want it lifted altogether. Today’s changes will leave a single parent on average at least £2,300 worse off. These are the very people who are working hard to deliver for their families, and the Government are betraying them.

People with disabilities, who have been put through the ordeal of the discredited work capability assessment and are trying to get themselves ready to return to work—they are “just about managing”—still remain in the Chancellor’s firing line. He is cutting £30 a week from the support that these disabled people receive. In our society, that is scandalous.

Those who are “just about managing” also rely on our public services. They send their children to local schools; they depend on their local hospital; they rely on local council services to clean their streets, tend to their parks and playgrounds and open their libraries. The reality, however, after six wasted years is that our public services are just not managing. Today, the childcare that parents rely on remains underfunded, as the Public Accounts Committee has reported—and it will remain underfunded, even after today’s announcements.

I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) for the important work they did in bringing the issue of child burial fees to public attention. I ask the Government to do the right thing on child burial fees and reconsider making funding available for families in these desperate circumstances.

Councillors from all political parties are reporting that they are at a tipping point in the provision of social care. The previous Chancellor cut nearly £5 billion from social care, meaning that over 1 million people who need care are not getting it. They are not even “just about managing”, and they got little help today. We call for additional support for social care, because the funding being provided today is only a stop-gap measure. Our social care system will not be secure without long-term funding. Tonight, many elderly people will remain trapped in their homes, isolated and lonely, lacking the care they need because of continuing cuts to social care—and social care cannot be cut without also hitting the NHS.

The supposed £10 billion funding allocated to the NHS is a restatement of an earlier commitment, but the Health Committee described this £10 billion claim as “misleading and incorrect”. The real amount is less than half that claimed. As a result, we now have 3.9 million people on NHS waiting lists—more than ever—and many of those 3.9 million people are waiting in pain, and they got no relief today. Across the country, hospitals face losing their A&E units, their maternity units and their specialist units. This Tory Government are failing patients, as well as failing the dedicated NHS staff who serve us so well. This is the first time that healthcare spending per head has declined since the NHS was created, and I fear there will be a crisis in funding and care over this Christmas. The NHS cares for us, and we should care for the NHS.

Members of this Government have also overseen the biggest real-terms cuts in education for four decades. One pound in every seven has been cut from further education college budgets, and Conservative policy has saddled a generation of students with a lifetime of debt. How can a Government seriously talk about supporting a 21st-century economy when they are planning to pour tens of millions into the failed 20th-century policy of grammar schools, segregating our children at an early age?

As for housing, the Chancellor announced today that he was scrapping “pay to stay” proposals and letting agents’ fees—a U-turn that is a victory for Labour’s campaigns against both the “tenant tax” and letting fees. The Chancellor has spoken before about the dream of home ownership for the young. Nothing that he has announced today is of the scale that is needed to suggest that that will remain anything other than a dream. The hard facts are these. The Government of which the Chancellor was a member built fewer homes than had been built at any point since the 1920s, and there are now a third of a million fewer home owners under the age of 35. Today the Chancellor could have delivered the scale of investment that is required to build the homes that we need and to create a new generation of home ownership. He significantly failed to do so.

Thanks to campaigning by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), the Wentworth Woodhouse building will be saved. I am grateful for that. The accusation was that a Labour Government had sited an opencast mine near the building and threatened it. That, I believe, was in 1947. I only wish that some of the policies pursued by Tory Governments since the 1950s could be reversed so easily.

The Government’s biggest investment failure is this: the Chancellor has failed to address properly the Government’s most consistent shortcoming. His predecessor cut public investment to the lowest that it had been since the 1990s. Instead of delivering the ambitious investment that our economy needs throughout the country, the Chancellor has failed to recognise the scale of the challenge. He also risks repeating the mistakes from last year, with the national flood resilience plan failing to provide the protection that our communities need.

Just one in five of the projects in the investment pipeline is under construction, and shovel-ready projects worth £82 billion are still being delayed. The infrastructure gap between London and the rest of the country remains unbridged. London was scheduled to receive 12 times as much public investment per head as the north-east of England. The announcement of a £1.1 billion investment in transport is a reannouncement. The Oxford-Cambridge rail link is significantly delayed against Network Rail’s original planned completion date of March 2019. There are no new ideas here, just a promise to deliver what the Government have previously failed to deliver. This is press-release policy-making, not provision. All that we need now is the return of the high-vis jacket.

The “fourth industrial revolution” will not be delivered on delays, old news and reannouncements. The Government have, at last, realised their mistake, and now talk about an industrial strategy—words that Ministers refused even to refer to in the past—but it is not enough to change a few ministerial titles. The Government and the Chancellor need to deliver. We have yet to see the proposed Green Paper on industrial strategy that was promised over the summer.

The same Government who now talk up high-tech investment oversaw a real-terms cut of £1 billion in science funding during the last Parliament. The OECD recommends that developed countries should be spending 3% of GDP on science. On the basis of what we have heard today, the new spending will lift our expenditure from 1.7% of GDP to a mere 1.8%.

It is the same familiar story for business. The Chancellor is continuing the race to the bottom on corporation tax, and, while continuing the cuts in public services, he is cutting taxes for big business. We know that it is not headline tax rates that encourage long-term investment by businesses. Business investment has been revised down every year under this Government. What encourages businesses to invest is the knowledge that they have access to skilled workers, world-class infrastructure and major markets.

Today’s grim economic forecasts reveal the challenge that lies ahead. The Chancellor admitted over the summer that it was time for a change of course. He has now had to abandon the Government’s fiscal charter, with its failed hard surplus target. Labour warned that a hard surplus target lacked the flexibility to adapt to economic circumstances and the capacity to allow investment. The Chancellor’s U-turn today demonstrates just how right we have been over the past year.

Only weeks ago, the Prime Minister offered the hope of change and the Chancellor offered to “reset” economic policy. Today, we have seen the very people whom the Prime Minister promised to champion betrayed. The Chancellor has failed to break with the economic strategy of austerity. The country remains unprepared and ill-equipped to meet the challenges of Brexit and secure Britain’s future as a world-leading economy. I fear that, after all the sacrifices that people have made over the last six years, today’s statement has laid the foundations for more wasted years. Only a Labour Government will deliver on the ambition and vision to rebuild and transform our economy so that no one and no community is left behind.

[Mr Hammond]

Let me begin by associating myself with the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks about the Jo Cox trial and sending my deepest condolences to her family and friends, who will be suffering again today.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment to the Privy Council. I only wish that I could have been present at the investiture. I remember the procedure quite well: they give you a little red book to hold. [Laughter.]

I listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s response to my statement. His central argument appears to be that the deficit is too high and borrowing is too high. That is a bit of a problem, because, as I have understood it, his central proposal for our economy is to borrow more and spend more. Under his rule, Labour would always be borrowing, in good times as well as bad. His analysis of the problem of the last Labour Government is not that they spent too much money, but that they spent too little. Indeed, his rule has remarkable similarities to Gordon Brown’s “golden rule”, and we all know where that got us. His big idea is to spend an extra £500 billion, without any notion of how he would pay for it.

The right hon. Gentleman welcomed the industrial strategy. I am not sure that I welcome his welcome, but I warn him not to welcome it too quickly, because it will not look anything like an industrial strategy that would come out of his office. What he has heard about today is a responsible set of decisions, such as the decision to borrow £23 billion of tightly targeted investment while paying for every single penny of every other commitment that has been made.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about Brexit, and attacked us over the way in which we are handling the Brexit process. I honestly do not know whether he has ever been involved in a negotiation—I suspect not—but I invite him to look across the continent for a moment and note the admirable discipline that our negotiating counterparts are displaying in their messages, revealing nothing as they prepare to go into this negotiation with us. My advice is this: if we want to secure the best possible deal for Britain, we must keep our cards appropriately close to our chest.

The right hon. Gentleman may have heard “cuts in people’s incomes” in my announcement about universal credit. Let me explain to him how this works. When we cut the taper from 65% to 63%, we allow people to keep an extra 2% of the income they are earning. I would have thought he welcomed that.

This is all about making tough decisions, and I am very happy to debate with the right hon. Gentleman, but I just wish he would be honest enough to accept that we cannot shower money everywhere, proposing to spend money on everything, without having to raise that money, either by taxes on ordinary people or by cutting spending elsewhere. It is simply no good to keep on pretending that we can do that just by taxing the rich. The top 1% of people in this country already contribute 27% of income tax paid, and unfortunately there are just not enough of them to be able to finance all the right hon. Gentleman’s ambitions.

The right hon. Gentleman said he was disappointed by the announcement on the national living wage. I do not remember—perhaps one of my hon. Friends can remind me—the level of the national living wage during the 13 years of Labour’s Government. He might note that the level I have announced today is precisely the level recommended by the Low Pay Commission, the body set up to pronounce on these things.

I wish the right hon. Gentleman would also be honest when he talks about the work-related activity group in the employment and support arrangements. This applies to new claims only, as he very well knows, so nobody is going to have £29 a week taken away from them however many times he says it. He also knows that it is not a stand-alone measure; it is part of a package. The money saved is being reinvested in a £330 million package to get these people into work, with targeted support to help them to be ready for work.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about house building starts. House building starts were 45% down under the last Labour Government.

The right hon. Gentleman and the Leader of the Opposition have spread division and disunity through the Labour party, and that is exactly what they would spread through the country if they ever—God forbid—got into government. The right hon. Gentleman says there are no new ideas; I have to say that he needs to check the opinion polling, because that is not quite what public opinion believes. Instead of carping and opposing every measure we propose, why doesn’t he roll up his sleeves and support us in the hard work of building an economy that works for everyone?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I certainly join in wishing my hon. Friend and his wife a very happy 30th anniversary. Taking my queue from last week, I probably will not suggest how Mrs Double might commemorate the event.

My hon. Friend is quite right to highlight the value of marriage in society. I hope that I can reassure him that the Government remain firmly committed to supporting this important institution through the marriage allowance. Eligible couples could benefit by up to £432 this year, and we have just passed the landmark of 1 million families who have made successful applications. I agree with my hon. Friend that take-up of the marriage allowance is not high enough, but HMRC will launch a new campaign early next month to increase awareness and take-up.

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

Bringing the Chancellor back to Brexit and the role of his Department—happy anniversary, by the way, to the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double)—before the referendum, as the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) said, the Treasury published a paper warning that the impact on Government receipts of leaving the single market would be a loss of up to £66 billion. Last week, Tom Scholar, the permanent secretary to the Treasury, told the Treasury Committee that the figures were “not directly applicable”. The Chancellor then questioned his own Department’s calculations by referring to mitigating factors that were not taken into account. There is fumbling chaos about Brexit not just in the Cabinet, but in the Treasury as well. Will the Chancellor clarify his Department’s exact calculation of the outlook for public finances if access to the single market is not achieved?

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman can characterise it however he likes, but the simple fact is that all economic modelling must make assumptions. The model that the Treasury produced in April assumed no policy response by Government—we know that there has been a monetary response in the form of the monetary expansion delivered by the Bank of England on 2 August—and that an article 50 notice would be served immediately after the referendum, which we know was not the case.

As for the ongoing work, the right hon. Gentleman will have to wait until 23 November when the Office for Budget Responsibility will publish its forecast.

[John McDonnell]

No figure is attached to anything that the Chancellor has said, which again confirms the chaos in Cabinet and in his Department. Can I ask the Chancellor to pass on my thanks to the officials who helpfully published on the Treasury’s website a document labelled

“Public Sector Finances Briefing – Official: Sensitive for internal use only”?

The document at least gives us some reliable information in that it confirms that the Government are failing to meet predictions on tax receipts and deficit reduction. It also reveals that that data are based on

“activity from before the referendum so any post referendum downturn will exacerbate this.”

Does that not prove once and for all that far from fixing the roof while the sun shone, this country was scandalously economically ill-prepared and politically totally unprepared for the Brexit decision?

[Mr Hammond]

Just so that the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely clear, it is quite wrong to suggest that my Department does not have any figures—it does, but I am just not giving them to him.

As for the document that the right hon. Gentleman spent such a lot of time yesterday rather unsuccessfully trying to tout around the media, it was published by mistake, but all the figures in the document have already been published elsewhere. All of them are in the public domain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As my hon. Friend notes, that is a CLG lead, but I am very happy to facilitate such a meeting for him.

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

The Chancellor will, I hope, have seen the research published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies this morning. It shows that young people in work are still earning 7% less than before the crisis, while older workers have seen no improvement in their earnings for seven years. Will the Chancellor take this opportunity to put an end to what is becoming a lost decade of austerity, deliver the public investment that can provide well-paid, secure jobs across the country and scrap the anachronistic fiscal rule?

Defence Procurement

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend—someone who, again, knows something about this from his long service in the Department. The key distinction is between a model that puts the private sector in day-to-day leadership of the organisation—working on an incentivised fee that places it at risk—and a model where the private sector provides specific skill sets to civil service decision makers. That is the distinction. What we envisage in the DE&S plus model is probably three separate contracts; one to provide us with programme management support, a spine for the organisation; one to provide us with HR support, an area of particular weakness in DE&S; and a task-and-finish project to install some additional financial control systems within the organisation.

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

I said on Third Reading of the Defence Reform Bill that having one bidder stretched the concept of competition to absurdity, so I welcome today’s decision. However, there are 16,000 workers whose futures are still vulnerable following the Secretary of State’s statement. May I suggest that it is not just about bringing in expertise; it is about retaining expertise and skills as well? I would welcome the Secretary of State personally meeting the unions to assure them that, under his new proposals, there will be no detriment to their conditions of service.

[Mr Hammond]

I have personally met the unions and I am aware of their concerns. I have also explained to them the opportunities that this model will create for employees in DE&S. The core DE&S—that is to say the part of the organisation that is responsible for procurement —has about 9,500 people. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that one of the big challenges at the moment is retaining the highly skilled people. We are losing people to the private sector; worse, we are losing people to other parts of the public sector that have greater freedom to hire. That is why we must address this issue in the way I have outlined today.

McNulty Report and West Coast Rail

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I do not want to pre-empt the rail fares policy review, to which I am sure that my hon. Friend will make a submission, but I have recently enjoyed meeting the Northampton rail users group, and the Minister of State has just said that she would be happy to meet the Kettering rail users groups, so perhaps we can carry a dialogue forward.

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

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. On a constituency matter, with regard to First Great Western and the handing back of the franchise, I would welcome the Secretary of State or the Minister convening a meeting of the relevant MPs along that line to discuss the security of service provision. This looks like a creeping re-nationalisation of the railway service—but there we are! However, as the Secretary of State said, there is a big staffing agenda. All three rail unions have welcomed the opportunity to work with the Government on that agenda. However, it is crucial that they are represented at every level of the industry and in every forum discussing the staffing agenda. It is not conducive to good industrial relations to have statements about threats of further anti-trade union legislation at this time.

[Mr Hammond]

I will have to disappoint the hon. Gentleman on creeping re-nationalisation: there is not one, and I can assure him that so long as I am in this job, there will not be one. However, I am happy to meet MPs along that route to talk about the Great Western franchise. First Group will continue to operate the franchise until 2013, and it has assured us that it will operate it as normal and run the franchise properly during that period. It has every incentive to do so, because, as I just announced, our policy is that eligibility for participating in franchise competitions will depend on demonstrated ability to deliver co-operative working, and to bear down on cost pressures.

I am absolutely ready to meet the unions. In fact, I think my office is in the process of arranging a meeting with the rail unions through the TUC, which I hope can play a constructive role in this process—it is a process I think we all want—of making this a viable and affordable industry that has a bright future, and which will employ not fewer but more people as the railway expands on the trajectory of current projections.

Severe Winter Weather

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We will, and my hon. Friend’s question has to be addressed to the operators. British Airways made the call on Saturday morning to cancel all flights, because it considered it certain that the airport would have to close. I have spoken to Willie Walsh today, and he has told me that based on the forecast he saw on Saturday morning, any airport anywhere in Europe, bar none, would have had to close. BA therefore made the decision to pull all its flights.

The lesson that is emerging for BAA, which it will take away from the situation, is that it has to be more proactive in examining forward forecasts, and that when airlines do not make a decision to stop flights, the operator might have to make that decision for them, to avoid large numbers of people being stranded in terminals.

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

I hope that the Secretary of State will join me in thanking many of my constituents and their colleagues who work at Heathrow for trying to get the airport open and fully operational again in the most difficult circumstances.

I join the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) in saying that the lesson to be learned from the last occasion when such a problem occurred, although not on the same scale, was about information. We thought that lesson had been learned. BAA and the individual airlines must be required not only to take decisions soon enough, but to communicate them proactively and directly to customers travelling with them.

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to record my thanks, and the thanks of the Government, to the hundreds of workers who have been out, often in temperatures of minus 10°C or minus 11° C, clearing snow and de-icing through the night, as well as caring for passengers stranded in terminals. They have done a fantastic job, and I am afraid they will have to go on doing that fantastic job for the next few days.

The hon. Gentleman is also right to focus on information. Nobody likes to have their travel plans disrupted, but one of the interesting features of human psychology is that somehow, things are never quite as bad if people know what is going on. As he will know, we have committed to introducing an airport economic regulation Bill during this Parliament. One thing that we are committed to doing in that Bill is ensuring that airport operators’ financial incentives are clearly aligned with the needs and interests of passengers. I will ensure that supplying information is part of that matrix, so that the operators will do it because it is in their financial interests. That certainly seems to be a motivating factor.

High Speed Rail

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I say to the Secretary of State that I am just grateful we are getting a train set for Christmas and not a third runway at Heathrow. He has referred to the Heathrow link, the Mawhinney review and the Arup proposals for a transport hub near Iver and has concluded that there should be a spur to the airport running close to the M25. Does that mean that the Iver hub will or will not take place?

[Mr Hammond]

We do not favour the proposal for the Iver hub as a way of delivering high speed rail passengers into Heathrow. It is worth noting that the proposals that Arup worked up on its own account—it was not commissioned to do so—around the hub at Iver were originally intended as a proposal for getting traffic from the Great Western main line into Heathrow. HS 2 came along as a bit of an add-on to that proposal, and Arup may still wish to pursue it as a proposal that is of interest for that purpose, but it is not our preferred route for getting high speed rail passengers into Heathrow.

Rail Investment

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The question of brand-new rolling stock versus cascaded rolling stock depends ultimately on the business case that can be made. It is expected that some brand-new rolling stock will be deployed on the Greater Anglia franchise. I cannot tell my hon. Friend that that will necessarily be used on the London-Ipswich-Norwich line, but it is expected that there will be some new rolling stock in that franchise.

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

I associate myself with the statements made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). On the High Speed 2 consultation, will the Government be expressing a preference about the Heathrow link based on their acceptance of the Mawhinney report? While the Secretary of State is at the Dispatch Box, will he say when the interim McNulty report will be published?

[Mr Hammond]

Sir Roy McNulty’s interim report will be published shortly. I intend to make a statement to the House in the near future about how we intend to take that process forward, looking at the structure and affordability of the railways. I should make it perfectly clear that the consultation on HS 2 will be around a preferred route. It will be open to other parties to suggest alternative routes, but the Government will put forward one preferred route.