Stamp Duty Land Tax (Reduction) Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Sir Roger, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

The Government’s proposal in the Bill will do some marginal good, reducing the cost of buying for some people. The danger is that it meets the needs of a very small number of people. The overwhelming majority of people living in my constituency who cannot afford a home are not in the waiting room, shall we say, to be able to access a new home on the basis of this change. If we think, for example, that £250,000 constitutes the price of an affordable home, we are not in touch with reality—certainly not in the Lake district and the rest of Cumbria. I do not propose to vote against the Government’s proposal, because I can see how it could do some good at the margins, but if we were really bothered about the fact that most people cannot afford to be a first-time buyer with a home of their own, we would be tackling the lack of development of new council homes, social rented homes across the board and shared ownership, and we would be looking at making better use of the current stock.

The reality is that whatever benefit the stamp duty cut might have brought to families has already been quashed and exceeded by the additional cost they will have to bear through mortgage interest rate increases resulting from the Government’s failures. I am told that in the financial markets, those who are in the know refer to the increased mortgage costs, which dwarf any benefit that the stamp duty may bring to new homeowners, as the moron premium—I promise you that those are not my words, Sir Roger. That is the consequence of a very foolish decision that this Government made just a few months ago.

That is not to say that there is no benefit in what the Government are choosing to do. However, my new clause 3, which—with your permission, Sir Roger—I shall move today, would give the Government the opportunity to recognise that there are unintended consequences. We know that because they have already happened. We all remember that in July 2020, when the current Prime Minister was Chancellor of the Exchequer, there was a stamp duty holiday for purchasers of properties of a value of up to £500,000. The impact on the Lake district was instant and catastrophic: 80% of all new house sales in our community were in the second home market. Some 84% of properties in Elterwater, and more than 50% of properties in Coniston, are not lived in. Communities that were already on the margins might have lost enough full-time occupants that they cannot sustain a local school, post office or bus route or have any community life whatever.

There have also been consequences for our workforce. We are all rightly focused on the impact of the massive pressures on our health and social care services; in the lakes, they are under even more pressure because the homes that care workers and health workers once lived in are no longer available to them. That possibility has been wiped out, partly because of a well-intended but poorly informed decision that the current Prime Minister made as Chancellor in July 2020. We have learned that lesson, so there is no excuse for the Government to act without thinking about the unintended consequences and making some attempt to mitigate them.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I agree fully about areas of high housing pressure where people in local communities cannot buy their own home. May I commend to the hon. Gentleman what we have done in Wales? The Welsh Government have brought in a land transaction tax to replace stamp duty, which is a devolved matter, as the Minister said. Under that system, anybody who buys a second or third home pays a premium on that tax, which comes out of the first property as a disincentive to buying more than one home. Furthermore, in areas of high housing pressure, local councils can choose to treble council tax; indeed, my county council, Carmarthenshire, has announced that it will double council tax on second homes.

[Tim Farron]

Yes. Most of our good ideas were somebody else’s first, so there is no harm whatever in looking at what devolved Administrations such as the Welsh Senedd Government have done. There are positives there from which we could learn, but it is also good to learn from our own mistakes—and the Government made a well-intentioned mistake two and a half years ago, with a very damaging impact on the lakes, on many other rural parts of England and across the United Kingdom.

Let me ram home what that means. It robs us of the life of our communities and the services on which we rely, but it also robs us of a workforce. That means fewer people working not only in social care or health, but in our hospitality and tourism industry. The lakes are the second biggest visitor destination in the country, with 20 million visitors a year, but with a very small population. The workforce that services all the folks here and the many others who holiday in the lakes have nowhere to live any more. We are in the terrible situation of facing a recession nationally but, bizarrely, having more tourist demand in the lakes than we can meet. We cannot meet that demand because we do not have the workforce, and one reason is that the Government have been negligent in providing and ensuring enough affordable homes for people in our communities.

I support the Opposition amendments that would ensure that the stamp duty cut is not available for the purposes of buying a second home; I think that is wise. My new clause 3 would place a responsibility on the Secretary of State to look every year at the policy’s impact on the number of second homes bought, not just in communities like mine but across the country.

The Government know what is happening. The evidence is before their eyes: their temporary stamp duty cut in 2020, a well-intentioned attempt to boost the economy at the beginning of the pandemic, had the immediately negative consequence of hollowing out communities in my area in Cumbria and in Northumberland, the west country and other parts of the UK. I am not theorising; it has already happened. My communities were badly hit by a well-intentioned but foolish Government policy. Why would the Government not accept new clause 3, which would allow them to do something about a policy that is positive on the whole, but that they know has a negative consequence on communities such as mine?

We will not vote against the Bill. We recognise that it does some good, although we think it is a bad use of public money. We could do so much more with that money by investing it in affordable homes for local families, ensuring more council homes and making sure that we tackle inequalities in rural communities in particular. We reckon that there is a marginal benefit from the Government’s policy, but there is a disbenefit for communities such as mine. Will the Minister take new clause 3 on board and agree simply to review the situation year on year, to prevent communities such as mine in the lakes, the dales and the rest of Cumbria from being hollowed out? Otherwise, they will be turned into ghost towns, their workforces will be eradicated and no young people will be able to set up a home there—all because of a decision with an unintended consequence of which the Government cannot now claim to be unaware.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 7th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I welcome the fact that the Government have finally announced that they will bring forward access-to-cash legislation, but this Bill does nothing to protect face-to-face banking or free access to cash, which is our main concern and is what the most vulnerable in our society depend on.

Since 2015, on this Government’s watch nearly half of the UK’s bank branches have closed. It is inevitable that banking systems will continue to innovate—no one is denying that—but the failure to protect these services risks leaving millions of people behind. My amendment would empower the Financial Conduct Authority to review communities’ needs for and access to essential in-person banking services. To be clear, I am not saying banks should be prevented from closing underused branches—far from it. I explained this thoroughly in Committee but will say it briefly again now: vital face-to-face services could be delivered through a variety of models, such as shared banking hubs, which are already being set up across the country to provide cash services.

In Committee, the Minister was again very persuasive and convinced me to withdraw my new clause. He said he accepted the underlying need for action and that solutions would be brought to the table. I believed him, but despite warnings from Age UK, Which? and the Access to Cash Action Group—which does fantastic work in this area—that vulnerable people are at risk of being cut off from the services they desperately rely on, the Government have completely failed to engage on this important issue, and this time I will not be making the same mistake: I will not withdraw my new clauses. The Government need to demonstrate they will not simply abandon those who are struggling to bank online.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I want to pledge my support for new clauses 2 and 3. In my constituency we have lost 13 to 15 banks since 2015, and we are more or less wholly reliant now on the Post Office to provide financial services in large parts of north Carmarthenshire. Worryingly, the new deal starting next year only lasts until 2025, and if that were to break down for whatever reason, there would be real issues in many communities.

Russia: UK Companies

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I always enjoyed working with the hon. Gentleman in my previous position at the Ministry of Justice. He makes an extremely powerful point. The abuses that we have seen have been horrific, and he is right to draw attention to them. A great range of activities are taking places in that regard—for example, the significant support that we have given to the International Criminal Court at The Hague so that it can look into those abuses. Of course, it will be very difficult until we get a resolution to the conflict, which is why the most important thing we can do in all these cases is to continue supporting the people of Ukraine, their armed forces and the humanitarian effort.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I fully support the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) in her efforts. Would not one way to dissuade UK companies from investing in Russian oil assets and to encourage disinvestment be to prohibit any such companies from benefiting from the North sea windfall tax investment allowance?

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman asks an interesting question, knitting together two points. To be fair to him, I have to say that he has consistently attended all the recent Treasury debates at which I have been present. I am grateful to him for that.

We should not confuse divesting and investing. We are clear that there is an outright ban on investing in Russia: the Prime Minister said back in March, when he was Chancellor, that there was “no case” for such investment. Divestment is happening. It is a process that for some companies will take time, but I think we are all clear that we want to see it happening.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight the windfall tax. While it will raise more than £40 billion to support our economy, help us fund public services and, above all, support people with energy bills this winter, it does have a generous allowance. Let me be clear about the reason why, which goes back to my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell): while we want to raise funds from the levy, we also want to incentivise investment in energy security. Ultimately, the long-term answer to the question of how to defend ourselves against being held to ransom over energy prices is by ensuring our energy security for the future.

Finance Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

Will the Minister give way?

[James Cartlidge]

If the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) will forgive me, we have some interest from another part of the House, so will I take an intervention from Wales, from the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards).

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful to the Minister. I welcome the announcement in the Bill that reduces the additional rate level to £125,000. The calculations I have seen show that somebody earning £150,000 will pay about 1% more in income tax, so this is definitely a step in the right direction. However, somebody earning £1.5 million will pay only 0.1% more as a result of the proposals. Does that not make the case for a further band to be created for those earning very high wages? My understanding, if my history lessons were correct, is that the Thatcher Government, for instance, had a 60% rate.

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting suggestion. He will not be surprised to hear that I do not announce new tax bands from the Dispatch Box on Second Reading of a Finance Bill. I can confirm, however, that those earning £150,000 or more will pay just over £1,200 more in tax every year. That is the precise figure.

For the final time, I give way to the hon. Member for Eltham.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Murray]

I seem to be engaging more with the hon. Gentleman now that he is on the Back Benches than when he was briefly on the Front Bench. If he looks at the statistics, he will see that, over the last 12 years, the UK’s growth rate has been a third lower than the OECD average, and a third lower than it was during the previous Labour years. I will take no lessons from him or his colleagues on the need for economic growth.

I take this opportunity to give the previous Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), some rare credit. At least he took responsibility for the mess he inherited from his colleagues when he confirmed that our economy is stuck in a “vicious cycle of stagnation.” On that point, he was absolutely right.

Over the Conservatives’ 12 years in power, as I said to the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), the UK economy grew a third less than the OECD average and a third less than during the previous Labour years. What is more, we are now the only G7 economy that is still smaller than before the pandemic. Over the next two years, we are forecast to have the highest inflation in the G7 and the worst economic growth of any country in the G20 except Russia.

What is more, we are the only country in the G7 whose governing party chose to inflict profound damage on its own economy. Although the Prime Minister and the Chancellor refuse to take responsibility, the British people can see through them and will hold them to account. What the British people want and need is a Government who will get on and do the right thing without having to be pushed, dragged and forced into doing so. That is one reason why people across the country have been so exasperated by the Government’s reluctance at every turn to implement a windfall tax on oil and gas producers’ huge profits this year.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) first called on the Government to bring in a windfall tax in January. It took five months of pushing the Government along a painful journey to get them to act. In those months, Conservative Ministers tried to defend their position, saying that oil and gas producers were struggling. They said a windfall tax would be “un-Conservative”, and the current Prime Minister said it would be “silly” to use this money to offer people help with their energy bills. Conservative MPs voted against a windfall tax three times, and then, when they finally realised their position was untenable, they did a U-turn.

Even then, having been dragged kicking and screaming into introducing a windfall tax, the current Prime Minister coupled it with a massive tax break for the oil and gas giants. This tax break will be given to the oil and gas giants for doing the things they were going to do anyway, which helps to explain why some of them have paid zero windfall tax in the UK this year, despite record global profits.

Despite having another go at windfall tax legislation with this Bill, the massive tax break is still there. It is set at a level that will, to quote the explanatory notes,

“maintain the overall cumulative value of relief”.

This tax break leaves billions of pounds on the table. These profits—the windfalls of war—could go towards helping people facing the difficult months ahead. This tax break is set to cost the taxpayer £80 billion over five years. This tax break was brought in by decisions that this Prime Minister took when he was Chancellor, and it is staying thanks to the decisions of the Chancellor he appointed from No. 10. What clearer evidence could there be that, no matter which Conservative goes through the revolving door of Downing Street, it is all more of the same?

All we get from the Conservatives is the same vicious cycle of stagnation. This doom loop has been dragging wages down, forcing taxes up and hitting public services, all of which come round again and keep economic growth low.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I agree with many of the hon. Gentleman’s points. Much of the narrative around the autumn statement and the Budget is about restoring market credibility after the implosion of the previous Administration. In reality, the one thing we could do to restore market credibility is to have a more sensible trading relationship with the European Union. There is no hope from the Government, but will the Labour party offer us that hope?

[James Murray]

Later in my speech I will talk about our plan for growth, which will involve fixing the holes in the Brexit deal with which the Conservatives left the European Union. Alongside other measures, it is important to make sure that the deal has a proper plan for growth that is sorely lacking from this Government.

This Finance Bill is a bill in more ways than one, because as well as being legislation, it represents a bill landing on working people’s doormats. It is a bill that working people are being forced to pay for the Government’s failure. Working people are paying for the Tories’ decisions that, for the last 12 years, have held back the economy, and for the last 12 weeks have crashed it.

This Bill freezes the income tax personal allowance, which will leave an average earner paying over £500 more income tax a year by 2027-28. In the autumn statement, the Government announced a council tax bombshell that will force a £100 tax rise on families in the average band D house from next April. As a result of all the tax measures announced in this Parliament, middle-income households will see their tax bill rise by £1,400. That is what it looks like when working people are made to pay the price.

It is all the more galling for people to be asked to pay more when the Conservatives are so slapdash with public money. Today, new figures show that the current Prime Minister wasted a staggering £6.7 billion on covid payments to businesses and individuals that were fraudulent or mistakes. Despite wasting public money so carelessly, he is now happy to put up taxes on working people across the country.

It could have been different had the Government made fairer choices. The Government could have chosen to close the unfair private equity loophole that gives hedge fund managers a tax break on their bonuses. They could have chosen to reverse their tax cut for banks. Perhaps they have forgotten what their position is, having voted for the cut at the start of the year, before U-turning on it a few months ago and then, more recently, U-turning again.

The Government could have finally chosen to scrap non-dom tax status, an outdated and unfair tax break that costs the taxpayer £3.2 billion a year. A tax break for non-doms should have no place in the UK in 2022. As if evidence were needed that this tax break belongs in a different era, the law makes it clear that people can inherit non-dom status only from their father, unless their parents were unmarried. More fundamentally, this loophole ignores the principle of fairness that should be at the heart of our tax system. If a person makes Britain their home, they should pay their taxes here.

There are theories going around about why the Government are so reluctant to modernise the tax system and abolish the non-dom tax break. Perhaps the Minister will be able to confirm at the end of the debate, or in writing afterwards, whether the Prime Minister has been consulted on the option of abolishing non-dom tax status. Perhaps he can confirm whether the option was ever considered. When the current Prime Minister was Chancellor, did he recuse himself from discussions on this matter? I see the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury acknowledging my request, so I look forward to his response either later today or in due course.

We know that the Conservatives’ choices on tax are deeply unfair, but we also know that the lack of economic growth is the deep root of the rising tax burden in the UK. Over the last 12 years, the UK economy has grown a third less than the OECD average and a third less than during the previous Labour years. We are now the only G7 economy that is still smaller than it was before the pandemic, and over the next two years we are forecast to have the lowest growth of any country in the G20 bar Russia.

A plan for growth has been missing for a decade, and its absence is having a greater impact than ever. In its report this month, the OBR confirmed that measures announced at the autumn statement will make no difference to growth in the medium term. The CBI’s director general, Tony Danker, put it starkly following the autumn statement:

“There was really nothing there that tells us that the economy is going to avoid another decade of low productivity and low growth”.

We cannot afford another decade like the last. We cannot afford another decade of being held back, another decade of lost growth. That is why Labour’s plan is so crucial to raising wages and living standards, supporting and sustaining public services and driving business investment and job creation in the decade ahead.

Energy (oil and gas) profits levy

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman asks a perfectly good question. He will be aware that we have made huge progress on closing the tax gap, which effectively means that we are making huge progress on cracking down on tax avoidance. There is always further to go, but we have scored significant savings from those measures over the forecast period.

The upshot is what the Chancellor rightly called a “balanced path to stability”. We are tackling inflation to help all our constituents with the cost of living, while at the same time providing the stability that business needs to be able to invest and grow. We want low taxes and sound money, but sound money has to come first.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

What worries me about the Budget is the lack of focus on how the economy will grow in subsequent years. If we have an austerity Budget, public investment is falling; exports are falling because of Brexit; and consumer spending is going to fall because household budgets are being crushed by the cost of living crisis. That leaves business investment. Are businesses seriously going to invest when all other areas of growth are collapsing?

[James Cartlidge]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The key issue for growth at the moment is inflation. What on earth do we think is causing consumers to rein back spending? The answer is that this year, this country will have to find an additional £150 billion to pay for the higher cost of energy—that is the equivalent of an entire NHS. Yes, we are taking difficult decisions, but that is the best way to ensure that we get inflation down, in partnership with the independent Bank of England, and build the platform of stability that businesses need to grow and invest. On the point about Brexit, if it was causing the problems, why do the Netherlands and Germany have higher inflation? He should think about that.

On tax, the House will have heard the Chancellor say that we will be fair by asking those who have more to contribute more, and by avoiding tax rises that most damage growth. That means, for example, that while some taxes are rising, we have not raised headline rates of taxation. Tax as a percentage of GDP, meanwhile, will increase by just 1% over the next five years.

On personal taxes, we are reducing the threshold at which the 45p rate becomes payable from £150,000 to £125,140, which means that those earning £150,000 or more will pay just over £1,200 more a year. At the same time, we are maintaining at current levels the income tax personal allowance, the higher rate threshold, the main national insurance thresholds and the inheritance tax thresholds for a further two years until April 2028.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [Lords]

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate, and to make a very short speech about the sort of projects that I hope the UK Infrastructure Bank will support. Given that we are talking about more than £20 billion, I am surprised that a great many Members of Parliament are not making specific bids. However, I will make the best of the time available to me.

This bank was created to replace the European Investment Bank, which, as you well know, Mr Deputy Speaker, had a proud record of investing in Wales. In the decade preceding the EU referendum, the EIB made £2 billion worth of investments in a wide range of sectors in Wales, including social housing, transport, energy, water and education. Wales was promised “not a penny less” during the referendum campaign, so a benchmark figure should be £200 million of investment in Wales per annum, adjusted for inflation. The Welsh Government have already expressed their concern that there is an overall shortfall of more than £1.1 billion in the Welsh budget as a result of our departure from the EU. I hope that the Minister will clarify whether the “not a penny less” promise applies to UK Infrastructure Bank spending.

Before I turn to the main focus of my speech, I want to touch on governance and accountability. Infrastructure development in my country is largely the responsibility of the Welsh Government, and I therefore welcome what the Minister said in his opening remarks about a greater role for the devolved Administrations. However, I am sure he will be aware of the Welsh Government’s view—as well as that of various Senedd Committees—that that Government should have equal status in terms of establishing the bank’s governance structures, as well as a role in setting its remit.

Currently all the bank’s directors are appointed by the Chancellor, and one small and obvious first step would be for the Welsh Government to appoint a director. According to the House of Commons Library, between five and 14 directors can be appointed by the Chancellor. While this would still be a far cry from an equal partnership, if the devolved Governments appointed one each, that would still allow 11 appointments for the Chancellor, including those of the chair and chief executive.

On the issue of scrutiny, it seems to me completely reasonable for the bank to be subject to a statutory requirement to appear annually before the relevant Senedd Committees. It may surprise Ministers and indeed other Members, but the Welsh Government do not brief Welsh MPs on their position in relation to UK Government Bills. In view of the work that has taken place in the Senedd and the statements made by Welsh Government Ministers about the Bill, they would do well to inform Welsh MPs of their reasons for not allowing those of us who bother to research their proceedings to understand where they are coming from. However, my understanding is that following close scrutiny of the Bill, the Welsh Government, as well as three separate Senedd Committees, believe that every clause requires the Senedd’s consent, as opposed to the six clauses for which the UK Government are currently seeking consent.

Furthermore, I understand that the Welsh Government have made it clear that they will not grant consent to the Bill unless their concerns about governance and accountability are addressed—perhaps the Minister was being slightly optimistic in his opening remarks—because the bank operates on a UK-wide basis, and will be able to exercise functions in Wales in areas of devolved competence.

If the new Prime Minister wants to restore integrity and accountability to the premiership, he surely knows that a key part of that process is resetting intergovernmental relations not only with the EU but with the Welsh and Scottish Governments. As I have said, nearly all post-Brexit related Bills are being used to trample over the devolved settlements. This is the first big test for the new Administration: that the UK Government is going to adopt the more grown-up approach of collaborating fully with the national Governments within the Union. Can the Minister guarantee that the bank will not support any projects in Wales that the Welsh Government oppose?

What I really want to talk about, however, is a project that I believe falls perfectly within the UK Government’s stated aims for the new bank, namely helping to address geographical wealth inequalities within the British state and helping to tackle climate change. The Minister will be aware of the protracted discussions about the proposed Swansea Bay tidal lagoon. In 2013, plans were announced to develop the lagoon. The development received planning permission in 2015, but plans collapsed in 2018 after the UK Government decided that they could not justify a contracts for difference financing model for the scheme. Since then, new proposals for a £1.7 billion lagoon were announced in October last year. DST Innovations hopes to build the lagoon over a 12-year period as part of the wider Blue Eden scheme that will include the UK’s largest floating solar farm, 5,000 cutting-edge eco-homes and a high-technology battery factory creating 1,000 jobs. The lagoon itself aims to produce 320 million MW of electricity, and agreement has already been reached with Swansea Council for a plot of land for the battery facility.

Such a project would place south Wales at the forefront of global environmental technology innovation. It would be a transformative project for the area and I am sure we all agree that we want to see the plans come to fruition. My concern is that we have felt close to delivering a Swansea lagoon on many occasions. I therefore ask the Government: is there scope for discussions between the infrastructure bank and the developers—that is, if they are not already happening? The ability of the bank to offer guarantees, for instance, could be useful in helping the developers to draw down the private finance they are seeking, hopefully at a preferential or slightly more favourable rate.

New technologies such as this come at a premium, but I hope the British Government will have learned from wind and solar that, once established, these technologies become much cheaper and an essential part of the electricity generating mix. Tidal is also a reliable energy source, giving it added value compared with other renewable technologies. Tidal technology off the Welsh coast offers huge opportunities for Wales, and I am sure the Minister will be aware of proposals for a far bigger lagoon, over 30 km in length, off the north Wales coast.

Furthermore, the Welsh Government last month announced the creation of their own renewable energy generation company, with initial plans to develop wind technology on public land. I really welcome this policy, because my constituency houses many wind developments that are owned by the state-owned companies of other Governments, which means that the profits from the use of Welsh resources leave Carmarthenshire and leave Wales. Revenue from the new Welsh Government-owned company will be reinvested in schemes to increase energy efficiency in the Welsh housing stock, and it therefore becomes circular—another stated aim of the bank. Clearly, there is therefore scope for formal links between the UK Infrastructure Bank and the company owned by the Welsh Government.

NHS Pensions and Staffing

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support, and she is absolutely right to highlight that this issue affects all of the United Kingdom.

This year in particular, due to certain factors related to inflation, we are facing a real challenge that is created by the pension penalties that exist under the current legislation. That needs to be looked at urgently, or we will see a reduction in the NHS workforce at the very time we can least afford it, while we are tackling the covid crisis.

“Scheme pays”, which is effectively a loan against a pension, is often suggested by the Government as a way for doctors to pay their pension tax bills. However, it attracts an interest rate of CPI plus 2.4%. So in the current climate, with inflation being at over 9%, “scheme pays” is prohibitively expensive and can result in a significant reduction in the total value of the pension, particularly for younger NHS workers in their 30s and 40s. Many doctors and nurses are left with little option but to pay the tax from their post-tax income instead, take out bank loans or, in some cases, increase the size of their mortgages. As I shall explain later, due to rising inflation, senior workers are being billed thousands of pounds in tax for pseudo growth in their pensions which never materialises as inflation continues to rise.

What is the impact on the NHS? The NHS is at a care and staffing precipice. GP workforce numbers are falling, while hospital consultant numbers are not increasing rapidly enough to keep up with demand. Many staff are also feeling burned out and demoralised due to workload and rising instances of abuse. In addition, the secondary care backlog in our hospitals for both urgent and elective operations, as well as for cancer care, is at an unprecedented level, with 6.48 million people currently waiting for treatment. Return referrals to GPs have also seen an 87% increase and a care backlog for general practice, with 401,115 patients waiting for treatment as of November 2021. Those circumstances, coupled with low levels of hospital beds, mean that staff and patients alike are feeling the impact.

We can all agree that the NHS needs more staff. England would need the equivalent of an additional 46,300 full-time doctors simply to put the NHS on an equivalent standard to today’s OECD EU average of 3.7 doctors per 1,000 people. However, as of March 2022, over 100,000 posts in secondary care are vacant, more than 8,000 of which are medical posts. The NHS needs to keep the staff it has simply to keep the current level of service running. In the year between June 2021 and May 2022, the NHS lost 323 GP partners and 462 salaried and locum GPs. That means the number of fully qualified GPs decreased by a net 785 full-time equivalent GPs in just under one year.

That trend is exacerbated by the fact that despite there being 1,737 fewer fully qualified GPs today than there were in 2015, each practice has on average over 2,000 more patients than in 2015. So, there are fewer GPs but each with more patients to care for, and many more patients now have complex care needs to manage.

Pension rules are making it financially unviable for some senior doctors and nurses to either stay in the NHS or work the number of hours they would like to. By tackling the NHS pension crisis through amending the Finance Act 2004 and introducing a tax unregistered scheme for those senior NHS workers, we could help to keep those much-needed doctors and other frontline clinical staff in the NHS for longer, and we would be supporting patients to get the care they need. Without those changes to the pension rules, more staff will leave and the care backlog together with waiting times are likely to continue to rise.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I congratulate him on securing the debate and on making that key point on the retention of staff. When a similar problem happened with the judiciary, the Government brought in a tax unregistered scheme which, critically, breaks the link between working more hours and the additional tax bill, as well as ensuring that the right amount of tax is paid. Does he think that the UK Government should consider that?

[Dr Poulter]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman is right, and that is one of the recommendations I will make in my concluding comments to the Minister.

It is useful and important to use an example of a particular workforce group. I will focus primarily on the pension crisis faced by doctors by means of an example of the way the pension rules need to be changed. How many doctors could the NHS lose as a result of the current pension rules? There is not an exact figure, but British Medical Association modelling suggests it could be anything from 10% upwards by the end of 2022. We already know that the average retirement age has fallen from 61 in 2007-08 to 59 in 2018-19. There has also been a fourfold increase in the number of voluntary early retirements since 2008, with 30% of consultant retirements and 54.7% of GP retirements in 2020 being voluntary early retirement.

A survey of 800 GPs in Pulse last month found 47% said they intend to retire at or before 60. Respondents gave a number of reasons why they wanted to retire, with problems around pensions being listed as a significant reason. A survey by the Royal College of Physicians last year revealed that more than a quarter of senior consultant physicians expect to retire within three years. A survey by the Royal College of Surgeons showed that 68% of consultant surgeons were actively considering early retirement because of the pension arrangements, and 71% of consultant surgeons were considering reducing their non-clinical commitments, including educational and managerial roles—that relates to the point made by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford)—which has worrying implications for the future training of surgeons.

A British Medical Association survey of more than 8,000 doctors revealed that 72% said that freezing the lifetime allowance would make them more likely to retire early; 61% of respondents said that they would be more likely to work fewer hours; and 41% would be more likely to give up additional roles and responsibilities. At the time of the BMA survey, CPI was only at 0.4%. It is now at 9.1%, and in real terms that is the rate by which the lifetime allowance is reducing each year. The BMA believes, with some credibility, that if it were to rerun the survey now, the results would show a significant increase in doctors intending to retire due to the impact of inflation on NHS pension policies. There can be no doubt that senior NHS workers are looking to leave the NHS in significant numbers, and a significant contributing factor to that—alongside burnout and workload—is the punitive pension taxation policies that they face.

National Insurance Contributions Increase

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is the great deceit at the heart of this national insurance tax rise. I will address some of those details in a moment.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I fully support what the hon. Lady is saying. Does she agree that some of the measures we have seen for dealing with the cost of living crisis—for instance, the energy rebate—might now make matters worse? That rebate works on the basis that it will be repaid over subsequent years, and will only really work if energy prices normalise or fall, but all projections now indicate that energy prices will rise and rise, so the Government’s interventions are going to be inflationary and add to the problems people are facing.

[Rachel Reeves]

I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman. A buy now, pay later scheme for energy prices, based on the premise that prices are going to fall, does not bear any relation to the facts. That is why I say, when the facts change, so should the Government’s policies. They should not just carry on steering the boat in the wrong direction, towards the storm.

It is fair to say that the Prime Minister’s word has recently been deeply discredited, but let me remind the Chamber what he previously said about tax:

“Read my lips: we will not be raising taxes on income, or VAT, or national insurance.”

This is not just another of the long list of broken vows from a leader who has a fleeting relationship with truth and accuracy. This manifesto breach now belongs to the entire Conservative Government and especially the Chancellor, who seems not to want to take responsibility for his own tax rises. Let us not forget that last March, a year into the pandemic, the Chancellor said,

“We’re not going to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance, or VAT.”

This is not just the wrong thing to do; it is a broken promise. It is a clear and flagrant breach of the Conservative party’s own manifesto. They promised the public that they would not do this, and now they are going back on their word.

The Chancellor is not here to defend his new tax on jobs—I do not know why—but it is becoming increasingly clear that rather than help people now when they really need it, the Chancellor is telling his colleagues and briefing newspapers that he will make people wait until an election, when he wants to make a new set of promises to win people’s votes. People need help now and the Government should act now, not play games with people’s living standards. Voters are smarter and savvier than the Chancellor assumes. They have already seen through his buy now, pay later loan scheme, meant to help with energy bills. It is not too late for the Government to look again at Labour’s proposal for a one-off windfall tax on oil and gas producers in order to cut household energy bills by up to £600 this year. The case for our proposal gets stronger by the day, and the Chancellor should adopt it, but instead of easing the cost of living crisis, the Conservatives are the cost of living crisis.

Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Appointment

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I would like to know what part I could play in such a role. We do have, and we will have, in our chief of staff—[Interruption.] I did not hear that, Madam Deputy Speaker. What I will say is that we will have, in the chief of staff who has just been appointed, someone who will be accountable and responsible to the British people.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

It seems the Welsh Government were not forewarned of the Chancellor’s intention to introduce a council tax rebate during his statement last Thursday on energy prices, despite that being a clearly devolved policy area. That means no policy has been announced in Wales, leaving many of my constituents, who are already concerned, in a state of confusion. Will the new Office of the Prime Minister prioritise better intergovernmental relations, so that Wales and Scotland are not blindsided by the British Government’s policy announcements?

[Michael Ellis]

Every Department of Government, without exception, does everything it can do to support the Union of this country.

Downing Street Garden Event

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I can only say that I leave others to make those judgments.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

This morning, I received an email from a constituent whose mother died from covid at the end of April 2020. The funeral was conducted via webcam in order to follow the rules. The family said that that meant they were not able to say a proper goodbye. My constituent says that the revelations have “destroyed” her. If the investigation reports that a party was held and that the Prime Minister, or other Ministers, attended, what does the Paymaster General think would be an appropriate political sanction?

[Michael Ellis]

That is hypothetical. It is not appropriate for me to make that judgment. It would not be appropriate no matter the result of the investigation. As a Minister in the Cabinet Office, my responsibility is to answer for Government business in the way that we have been hearing. What I am inclined to do is what I would do for anyone else, because we are all equal under the law, and that is to await the fair results of a fair independent inquiry.