Finance (No. 2) Bill

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

It was a business motion that was agreed yesterday, but not the terminology, I presume. Mr Speaker is not in the Chair so I do not know when he was told. I was told about five minutes ago when I came into the Chair. [Interruption.] No, that is correct. There is a business motion. [Interruption.] Mr Doughty, we are trying to deal with this. We have many other points of order on that matter.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have had some slightly strange events on the Budget, with Ministers speaking from the Government Dispatch Box—from the Treasury Bench—but speaking for their parties. My understanding is that the Government speak from there—the Government Benches. May we be clear? Is the motion a Government motion, which has therefore been signed off by the coalition partners, or is it a motion from the Conservative party?

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I agree with my hon. Friend that strong tax receipts require a strong economy, and the focus of this Government’s economic policy since the coalition was formed has been to rebuild the UK economy and clear up the mess left to us by the Labour party. We now have the strongest growth in the major world economies, and Government Members should be very proud of that.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Revenue officials have always been slow to catch up with the latest tax-avoidance scams in the construction industry, the latest of which is the umbrella company. Such companies are costing the Revenue huge sums and are exploiting workers. This is spreading rapidly to other sectors, including supply teaching. What is the Minister going to do about the scandal of umbrella companies?

[Danny Alexander]

We introduced measures precisely to deal with intermediary companies, which are often vehicles for tax avoidance or for minimising tax. We take that very seriously. If the right hon. Gentleman has evidence that he wishes to bring to my attention of specific issues that have come to his attention, I would gladly look at it.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

The backdrop to today’s debate is an economy that is flat-lining, as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury admitted last week. Since the Chancellor’s spending review, we have had no economic growth, and it is ordinary people who are hardest hit by that stagnation, with 2.5 million people out of work, including nearly 1 million young people—one in five 16 to 24-year-olds. An increasing number of people have been jobless for more than a year—nearly 850,000 and rising. This year, as the Government’s cuts start to bite, hundreds of thousands more people could lose their jobs. I believe that that is what the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office called an

“immediate national crisis in the form of less growth and jobs than we need.”

Apparently, it is what the Chancellor describes as “good news” and a sign that the economy is on the right track. Families are feeling the effects of the crisis in their pockets. Prices are still rising by more than 5% on the retail prices index, while earnings are growing at just 2% a year.

Rising fuel prices are a big part of this squeeze. According to the Office for National Statistics, fuel prices are currently one of the most significant contributors to consumer price inflation. According to this week’s figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the average UK pump price is now £1.36 for a litre of petrol and £1.42 for a litre of diesel. I am sure that many Members will be aware that at their local petrol pumps prices are even higher. That means that petrol is more than 3p a litre more expensive than it was last month, or 15p more than this time last year, and that diesel is 3p more expensive than last month, or nearly 20p more than last year. Unfortunately, the 1p saving we got from the Chancellor’s cut in fuel duty lasted barely a week before price rises at the pumps wiped it out.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to fuel prices. Does she not find it extraordinary that the coalition Government are proposing to subsidise fuel prices in some of their friends’ constituencies, thereby increasing by default the duty on those in many of the urban constituencies that we represent?

[Kerry McCarthy]

My right hon. Friend is quite right that the Government are looking for a derogation in some rural areas, but only a very limited number. When the House last discussed the proposal, considerable representations were made by Government Members who argued that if there was to be a derogation, other areas should also benefit from it and that it was unfair that just a few remote islands should see the benefit.