Autumn Statement

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend has campaigned on behalf of his Rugby constituents for more opportunities for young people, and we are providing those opportunities through the abolition of the jobs tax and the steps that we have taken to enable his young constituents to obtain apprenticeships and go to university. Above all, however, we are helping the businesses in his constituency. He in particular campaigned for me to do something about business rates, so he can share the credit: he is part of the Government who have delivered today.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

My constituent Mrs Patricia Zachariah complained to me yesterday that her gas bill was set by to rise by 86%. Does the Chancellor think that that is acceptable? If not, why did he not take strong action today to deal with the energy companies that are causing so much difficulty to our hard-pressed constituents?

[Mr Osborne]

First, we have taken action to take £50 off people’s energy bills. Secondly, we are looking at competition in the market that was left to us by Labour where there were only six energy companies, in order to ensure that there are new companies for people to choose. We are also insisting that people are put on the lowest tariffs, and giving them a real opportunity to switch so that they can obtain a better deal.

Tax Fairness

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

No. That illustrates why the Government were not giving away what they are going to do in next week’s Budget, but we have said clearly that if we were in government now, we would not be cutting taxes for millionaires. We would be looking to put in place a mansion tax, which the Liberal Democrats would support, and we would be using that to take a measured approach to deficit reduction. Unfortunately, we are not in government. The Chancellor is presiding over a flatlining economy, so we are suggesting a way for him to try to get some growth back into the economy —we hope that the Liberal Democrats will support us today and proposals will come forward.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend should take no lessons from Conservative Members, because when they were in opposition they refused to specify—apart from supporting Labour’s spending plans—any of the policies that would be in their 2010 manifesto.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his impassioned slap-down of the hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride). What is clear from today’s contributions is the gap between what Labour Members—and, we hope, Liberal Democrat Members—believe to be the fair and right thing to do, and what many Conservative Members believe.

As I said, the Opposition motion is based on a simple premise: a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2 million should be part of a fair taxation system and used to fund a tax cut for millions of people on middle and low incomes. Let us be honest—I know that Government Members cannot stay in denial of this any longer—those people are finding that their household budgets are seriously squeezed. An increasing number of hard-working families up and down the country are reaching breaking point. A number of hon. Members gave heartfelt accounts of the difficulties that many of their constituents are facing: the rise in the use of food banks; the VAT increase; rising energy and fuel bills, rail fares; and other household budget difficulties.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (Nurseries)

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr McCann]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman— I shall expand on that in a moment.

I was advised for the first time that the decision to rationalise the HMRC estate was based on saving money on rent. Despite my reasonable request for a review and my suggestion on how to keep the nurseries open under new arrangements, Miss Homer confirmed that the closures would go ahead regardless.

The new information did not make any difference to the nursery in my constituency and others, as hon. Members have said. I shall suspend disbelief to explain why. The nursery contract is between Mapeley Estates and Bright Horizons. HMRC provides the space for free as part of its now-defunct commitment to family-friendly policies. It planned to shut the nursery in my constituency and leave 86 families—63 of them HMRC families—searching for new child care provision. What was to happen to the vacant space in East Kilbride, on which the taxpayer would continue to pay rent? Absolutely nothing. HMRC would continue to pay the full rent to Mapeley until at least 2015, the only difference being that a wonderful, fully equipped, custom-built nursery would lie empty, gathering cobwebs. Mr Speaker, you could not make it up.

In view of the new information, I made a further request to meet the Minister, and this time my request was granted. Lo and behold, a decision has now been made to keep the nursery in my constituency, and another in Cardiff, open.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s tenacity in pursuing this issue and I am, of course, delighted that the nurseries in East Kilbride and Cardiff will remain open. But the one in Leicester’s Saxon house will not remain open, even though it is oversubscribed and there are 15 staff on maternity leave who will want to use the nursery when they return to work. Does he agree with the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) that the Minister should announce a moratorium on these closures, otherwise children will face upheaval and staff will be made redundant?

Jobs and Growth

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

I shall make only a few brief points.

I thought that the Queen’s Speech was extraordinarily flimsy, given that it emanated from a party that is in its second year in government and has been out of power for 13 years. When we compare it with the greatest Queen’s Speeches of the Labour Government in their second year and, indeed, those of the Thatcher Government in their second year, it is apparent to us that the present Government are running out of steam after only two years.

There was nothing about jobs in the Queen’s Speech. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) demonstrated so eloquently in his speech, the Work programme is entirely unsatisfactory. It cannot possibly deal with the youth unemployment crisis. The Queen’s Speech should have been seen as an opportunity to put right the mistakes that the Chancellor had made in his Budget. I am glad that he has dug himself out of the hole of the churches tax, but I wish he would dig himself out of the hole of the pasty tax and the caravan tax, and, indeed, his £40,000 giveaway. I believe that the Prime Minister’s former speechwriter Ian Birrell described it as

“a missile into six years of Tory modernisation.”

I could not have put it better myself.

Unemployment in Leicester South has increased over the past 12 months. Although I welcome the drops in unemployment announced yesterday, I must tell Ministers that in Leicester South it fell not by 1%, but by one. If the Government do not produce measures to deal with the youth unemployment crisis soon, I fear for the future of many of the communities we represent.

The Chancellor expected growth of 2.5% this year, but we are now in a double-dip recession. Some of the contributions from Government Members were rather complacent on that front. Many people warned the Chancellor that a fiscal consolidation of this scale and pace, along with a collapse in demand and consumption, would lead to a recession. Indeed, the Business Secretary, when he was in opposition, gave him that very warning before the general election.

What are we given in the Queen’s Speech? We are given what appear to be proposals for the further erosion of workers’ rights. I must tell the Chancellor that downward pressure on workers’ rights will not lead to the growth in the economy that he wants. What a turnaround this is for the Business Secretary. He started his career co-authoring “The Red Paper on Scotland” with my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), but it appears that in the twilight of his career he will become the Twickenham strangler of rights at work.

Government Members have talked about trade and exports. I agree that the patterns of international trade are changing. As many Members will know, the city of Leicester, which I represent, has deep and extensive links with India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and I want us to build on those links and to trade further. The hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) referred to food manufacturing, in which we in Leicester have expertise. We export British Asian food to Europe, to the middle east and, indeed, to India. However, I must tell Government Members that although the reports that I hear of UK Trade & Investment have improved, they are patchy at times.

We need more support for export finance in Leicester. It would be greatly to the advantage of the Business Secretary, when he and the Prime Minister go on trade missions to India, to take with him not the great and the good, but some of the small business people from Leicester who understand how to enter challenging markets in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Let me finish by simply saying that we have a Government who promised us growth and jobs; what they are delivering is recession and unemployment.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I suppose I should declare an interest as a patron of the St Peter’s project in my constituency, where we are trying to raise funds to make much-needed alterations and renovations to St Peter’s church in Highfields. There are already considerable pressures on the listed places of worship grant scheme, which is a very good scheme, but one problem with it is that when a church applies to it there is no certainty about the amount of grant that it will receive. Now that this change is being made, those pressures are only going to increase.

[Mr Bradshaw]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. As I said, the grant already covers only less than half of the cost of repairs, and the £5 million that is being offered to extend it to alterations covers only a quarter of the likely annual cost of those alterations.

A number of churches and cathedrals have already put on hold schemes that were planned or under way. My own cathedral in Exeter faces having to raise several hundred thousand pounds more for its exciting cloister project. The wife of the dean of Wakefield cathedral, which faces an extra £200,000 of costs for alterations, has famously composed a protest song about the VAT hike. The lovely little church in the small Herefordshire village of Llangarron, at which I attended Easter Eucharist, will have to find an extra £60,000 for a project that has been in the pipeline for seven years.

As 26 deans of cathedrals wrote in an unprecedented letter to The Sunday Times on Sunday, this change will seriously jeopardise the sustainability of many of our great buildings, not only for present-day use but for that of future generations. I urge the Government to think again on this very important matter, and I hope, Ms Primarolo, that you will help to facilitate the expression of the will of the House on it shortly.

Tax Avoidance (Public Servants)

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for welcoming the tough action that we have taken in this case. I have contacted the Secretary of State for Health and the accounting officer in the Department of Health to ask whether any such arrangements apply in the areas for which they are responsible.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

I welcome the review that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has announced, but why did it not occur to him to launch such a review when he was asked to sign off this deal? Secondly, he said that he was not aware of the tax benefits to the individual involved, yet a BIS spokesman said last night:

“Details of the arrangement were transparent throughout”.

The right hon. Gentleman will presumably have received a submission from officials. Will he put that submission in the Library? At what point did the Minister for Universities and Science know about the tax benefits to the individual? Will all the submissions that the right hon. Gentleman received be put in the Library as well?

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for generously welcoming the steps that we have taken to deal with this issue. As I said in my statement, and in answer to several questions, I was not made aware of any tax benefit to any individual in this case. There is a great deal of information in the public domain that has been released under freedom of information, and I would urge him to study it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

As a consequence of the measures that we announced last year to tackle avoidance, we believe that something like £1 billion will be raised, £750 million of that relating to disguised remuneration, a policy that was opposed by Labour. I cannot talk about individual advisers to the leader of the Labour party and their tax affairs, but if such a person is advising the Labour leader, as far as we are concerned he is doing a great job and should carry on.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

Can the Chief Secretary confirm, so that we are clear, that the Chancellor is set to borrow more and debt is set to be larger than it would have been, had the Government followed the path of my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling)?

[Danny Alexander]

I certainly cannot confirm that debt is higher than it would have been if we had followed the path advocated by the Opposition. That path was leading to lack of economic credibility. When this coalition Government came into office, our credit rating was on negative watch from one credit rating agency, and it is only because we have taken tough action to deal with the deficit that we have got our spending under control, we are reducing our deficit and we have established this country’s credibility on the international markets, which was in considerable doubt under Labour.

Autumn Statement

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We look forward to hearing about the dates for the diggers, as I am sure do the people of Kettering.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

May I push the Chancellor a little further on borrowing, because so far in the exchanges he has not quite brought himself to admit that he is going to be borrowing £158 billion more than he planned to borrow a year ago? Will he confirm that that is the case—yes or no?

[Mr Osborne]

I set out the borrowing figures to Parliament and what the hon. Gentleman should admit is that the plan he is pursuing would add to the borrowing. We cannot borrow our way out of a debt crisis, and as long as the Labour party goes on advocating that approach, I suspect that its credibility will fall and fall.

Northern Rock

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The directors of Northern Rock have been subject to enforcement action by the FSA, but I shall not go into detail about that. I recognise that the directors have their responsibility for the failure of Northern Rock, but the Labour party should also share some responsibility for the architecture of the financial regulation it put in place, which meant that no one was in a position to prevent Northern Rock from being an outlier when it came to its dependence on wholesale funding. It was a consequence of that dependence that led to Northern Rock’s being nationalised and we should welcome the fact that it is returning to the private sector.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

Will the Financial Secretary confirm, so that we are clear, that the Treasury did not apply to the European Commission for an extension of the 2013 deadline? Will he also confirm, further to his answer to the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), that given the price of shares in Lloyds and RBS, the Government and UKFI have no immediate plans to sell off their shareholdings in those banks as well?

Eurozone Crisis

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I can just say yes to that.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

May I just press the Chancellor a little further on the Prime Minister’s desire to repatriate powers over employment and social policy? What discussions has he had so far with eurozone Finance Ministers on these matters and how many of them would he expect to support the Prime Minister’s position?

[Mr Osborne]

The discussions on treaty change, which the Council conclusions on the eurozone mention, have only just begun, so I have not had those discussions.