Finance Bill

Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

We think that this is a debate about the Finance Bill, and about how much money we raise and how we raise it. A very important question to consider when deciding how much money we raise is how much we need to spend. We are debating, in part, a very important promise that was made by the Opposition party. My electors—and many other Members’ electors—thought that that party would want to sustain it and come up with ideas about how to raise the odd £100 billion, but we now discover that that promise was not meant to be for any time other than the election and that it has now reneged on it. That is exactly what the people outside this House want to hear about. They want us to be topical and relevant to their lives. Very technical matters that deal with certain kinds of tax abuse are all very important to a limited number of people and in the interests of fairness, but what matters out there, and what should go back from this debate today, is this: does the principal party of opposition have any principles, or did it merely offer to cancel student debt before an election knowing full well that we cannot raise in this Finance Bill, or any other, £100 billion to deal with it?

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given that Conservative MPs want to spend a considerable amount of time on this matter—indeed, they appear to have decided to filibuster their own Finance Bill—and given that the quote from the Leader of the Opposition has been used, let me finish that quote, word for word. He said:

“I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage—I don’t think anybody would expect me to, because this election was called unexpectedly. We have had two weeks to prepare all of this, but I am well aware of the problem.”

That is the quote.

[John Redwood]

I am very grateful for that clarification. I think that we can rest our case. It seems very clear that an impression was given. This is relevant because the Opposition now have the opportunity to tell us how they would raise £100 billion. I will let them into a secret: if there was an easy way to cancel everybody’s student debt, I would be delighted, because it would make us extremely popular. Clearly, it made Labour very popular before the election. I am not persuaded that there is a simple way of raising £100 billion, which is why it would be interesting to hear in this debate whether there is something that we have missed.

The hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) chided me for not debating what is in the Bill, and said that she did not have time to read it all. That is very odd, because I seem to remember that this Budget was delivered weeks and weeks ago—before the general election. She has had plenty of time to study the Bill and to come up with some principles that the rest of us here could debate today. I wish now to move on to some of the actual measures that the Government are recommending, but, first, I give way.