Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Chris Philp

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

We simply do not know the answer to that question. I always listen to what the right hon. Gentleman has to say in Treasury and Finance Bill debates, but he is one of the archetypal Members who come to the House and pursues what I call the BMW argument: “Everything will be fine because we buy BMWs and everyone will give us what we want.” That argument is still being pursued in these debates, but it has been proved completely untrue by the stage of the negotiations that we are at. It is simply not good enough to say, “It will all be alright on the night. Everyone will transfer over the benefits we currently have. It will be as straightforward as that.” If that were case, the Government would not be in this morass and the country would be in a far better position.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

First, is it not the case that the UK and, indeed, the entire EU currently trade with major economies, such as the USA and China, under WTO terms? Therefore, while not desirable, they can be made to work. Secondly, if we adopt the shadow Minister’s approach and rule out no deal, we have no choice but to remain in the EU or to accept whatever the EU sees fit to give us, which is not a great negotiating position.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I thoroughly agree that what the Government have got us into is not a great negotiating position, but that is because the negotiations have been driven by the best interests of the internal politics of the Conservative party. If the national interest had been considered, we would be in a completely different place.

Trade can exist on WTO terms. It is not that the UK would somehow no longer be a trading nation, but that is not the test of good Government policy. The test is to consider the ramifications of that decision and to decide whether it is in the UK’s best interests, but I cannot believe that anyone would look rationally at what a no-deal outcome means and say, “I would find that acceptable for this country.”

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Chris Philp

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

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

Mr Speaker, thank you for letting me close today’s debate on the Finance Bill. The Bill represents a significant moment for this country. We have been told that austerity is over. It should be a time to rejoice. As Labour Members who have warned for eight years that austerity was the wrong choice, we should surely welcome the Bill. But the problem is, on examining the Government’s plans, you can claim that austerity is over only if you are willing to ignore the Prison Service, local government, schools, social care for vulnerable young people, social care for vulnerable older people, the police, the armed forces, those on low incomes, young people and women. I could go on, but I will not. It is enough to say that any economic policy that continues cuts to Government Departments and the squeezing of those on low incomes is not offering something new; it is simply offering more of the same.

The tragedy—the real, genuine tragedy—for those of us who were here in 2010 to listen to the emergency Budget that began austerity is that it simply has not worked. The British public have had all the pain, only to find out that there is no gain. I urge anyone who has participated in this debate to reread George Osborne’s speech in that 2010 Budget, because we know that the deficit was not eradicated by 2015 and that the retention of the triple A rating, said in that debate to be sacrosanct, does not even get a mention in a ministerial speech these days. Instead, economic growth is now the lowest in the post-war era and UK business investment the lowest in the G7. We have had eight years not even of stagnant wages, but of falling wages.

With respect, are these not the fundamentals? When we discuss a Finance Bill, should these factors—the ones that impact directly on our constituents—not be the ones we focus on? Eight years of austerity have left too many people in this country poorer, unsafe and too uncertain of their futures. It was a reckless policy that in my view directly contributed to the result of the Brexit referendum and the further chaos the Government now find themselves in. I want a Finance Bill that properly addresses these things and puts them right, but instead we have a Finance Bill that does none of these things, a Bill that offers the country nothing new—and in some areas nothing at all.

I second the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) about the way the Government have gone about the whole process of presenting the Bill. It might sound like parliamentary chicanery, but it is important. In an unprecedented move the Government did not allow us to table real amendments to the Finance Bill. By failing to move an amendment to the law resolution, they have limited the scope of amendments and new clauses only to the subject matter of the resolutions already tabled by the Government. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) referenced this in her speech. In doing so, they have restricted the rights of every Member, Conservative Back-Bench Members included.

This procedure has only been used by Chancellors six times in the last century and only when a Finance Bill was tabled close to an election: Churchill in 1929, Healey in 1974, Brown in 1997, Osborne in 2010 and the current Chancellor last year in 2017—probably the only time the Chancellor has been mentioned in the same breath as Churchill. We know why these restrictions have been applied. The Government are running scared of the House of Commons and, most of all, their own Back Benchers and perhaps their allies in the Democratic Unionist party.

Time and again, the Government have used the Brexit process as a pretext for a power grab, transferring powers to the Executive without any thought for constitutional checks and balances. I ask hon. Members to have a look at clause 89, rather innocently named, “Minor amendments in consequence of EU withdrawal”. In that clause, Ministers are giving themselves the power to amend tax law outside any normal due process. That will go on the statute book with no sunset clause or limitation of any kind. It is reckless, unprecedented and unnecessary, but it is indicative of the Government’s whole approach to Brexit: grab powers first, make decisions later.

That said, I have, as ever, enjoyed listening to today’s debate. We have had some good speeches and the usual mix of slightly spurious claims and downright incorrect statements from the Government Benches. It seems we will never get Government Members to listen to the IFS on the cost of their corporation tax cuts, but it also seems that the Financial Secretary, whom we are all tremendously fond of, has chosen today to repeat his claim that unemployment rose under every Labour Government. I am afraid that, unfortunately for him, that is just not true.

While listening to the debate, I have taken the liberty of doing some research for the Financial Secretary. I can tell him that he need look no further than the very first Labour Government, who took office in January 1924. There was a general election in December of that year, something we are not in favour of. The very first Labour Government reduced unemployment from 11.9% to 10.9%: those figures are widely available. It is true that the Labour Government of 1945 had to deal with demobilisation following the end of the second world war, but they did found the national health service, build a million homes and still satisfy the legal definition of full employment, so I think we can say that they were the greatest Government in British history.

I must also place on record that the claim made by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty)—I am not sure whether he is still in the Chamber—about the book edited by the shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), is simply not correct. I think that the hon. Gentleman was trying to quote the economist Simon Wren-Lewis, who accused the Prime Minister of lying when she gave a similar quote in the House of Commons. I ask for that to be recognised and I ask Members to reflect on its incorrect use.

Several Conservative Members referred to the increase in NHS spending. I felt that there was a slight lack of recognition of the fact that it is predicated purely on an improved forecast for the tax revenues. It is not money in the bank and, remarkably, the Chancellor chose to blow most of it in one go. That may not have been prudent.

I listened intently to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). He said many things that I thought were fundamentally wrong about Brexit and tax policy, but he did make some interesting comments about monetary policy. There has, I feel, been insufficient recognition that austerity has been accompanied by an unprecedented period of ultra-loose monetary policy. The Bank of England cut interest rates to record lows, and then introduced quantitative easing as a form of “life support” when they could not go any lower. We have not discussed that enough, and we have certainly not discussed enough the distributional impact that it implies.

The Bank has essentially compensated for Government austerity by pumping money into the economy to increase consumption and investment, while the Government have done the opposite. We would say that the lack of sustained growth under the Government’s stewardship has meant that we have not yet been able to unwind that policy, so that, at present, if we need it again it is not available to us. That is why, today, we are even more badly placed to deal with the next recession, when it comes.

As ever, I was slightly frustrated by the speeches of the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) and others who made no distinction between Government borrowing for investment and Government borrowing to pay for day-to-day spending. As the International Monetary Fund itself has pointed out, if debt is accrued to finance investment, and if that investment will generate stronger tax revenues than the cost of borrowing, it is entirely sustainable. Debt as a percentage of GDP does not tell us much without reference to when that debt needs to be serviced, and at what cost, relative to the growth of taxes that have to pay for it. The public finances are not like a household’s finances, and every Member needs to remember that. The worst legacy for the next generation is a failure to grow the economy as we could. It is nonsense to talk about burdening future generations with debt when they are exactly the ones who would benefit from that long-term investment.

Some excellent speeches were made by Labour Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) made an important speech about housing and homelessness. She emphasised that, apart from increasing first-time buyers relief, the Bill does little to encourage house building or to tackle the UK’s housing crisis. As she said, many of the Government’s initiatives, such as Help to Buy, cause substantial problems in themselves. She also updated the House on the Grenfell situation, and I pay tribute to her for all her work on behalf of her constituents and the nation in that regard.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee) spoke with passion about what austerity has done to living standards in this country. There is no better example of that than the impact of universal credit. Let us not forget that the £1.7 billion promised for universal credit is only a third of the £7 billion cuts in the social security system that were already scheduled. The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) made that point well. Let me tell Conservative Members, with complete sincerity, that I am kept awake at night by the casework that I receive on universal credit, and I do not believe that I am the only one.

[Chris Philp]

Does the shadow Minister accept the Resolution Foundation’s analysis, published after the Budget, that said that the total fiscal cost of the amended universal credit will exceed that of the preceding benefits? That is, more money is going into universal credit now than even was the case before.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I have seen that analysis. The Resolution Foundation said that the cost is greater, so the question for the hon. Gentleman is this: if more money is going in and so many people are still losing out, what terrible choices have the Government made to produce a situation as bad as that?

My hon. Friends the Members for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned the Government’s shameful delay in limiting the maximum stake for fixed odds betting terminals. Many Members, including me, see the damage done in our constituencies by these machines every week. They both gave forceful and persuasive speeches, but I am hopeful that the will of the House on this matter is clear and that the Government will be forced to do the right thing, especially given several speeches by Conservative Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) gave a powerful testimony about what austerity has meant in his borough. I only hope that his school governors’ meeting was quorate without him.

There was a lively exchange on the environment. I do not think it is unreasonable to say that, given the potential catastrophe we face—as outlined in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report published in October—this Finance Bill is unsatisfactory. I sat in Mansion House in June, listening to the Chancellor promise that the UK would be leading the way on green finance, but we have yet to see any tangible evidence of the Government’s intentions on the statute book. We are lagging behind our European counterparts, which already have mandatory climate disclosure laws, and those that have issued their own sovereign green bonds. This just does not seem to be a priority for the Government.

The good news for all my colleagues is that they can join me tonight in voting for Labour’s reasoned amendment, which declines to give this Bill its Second Reading on the basis that it continues the austerity policies that have caused so much damage, and instead proposes a progressive taxation system, real funding for public services, greater public investment and a halt to the roll-out of universal credit.

I say to colleagues across the whole House, is it really unreasonable in Britain today for people to want to take their children into a city centre without having to explain to them why so many people are now sleeping on the streets? Is it really unreasonable to believe that, if we really had a strong economy, thousands of our fellow citizens would not be dependent on food banks to get by? And is it really unreasonable to believe that, when a Government present a Finance Bill, their priorities should be those most in need, not those who are already better off? We do not think that any of those things are unreasonable, so we will vote against the Finance Bill tonight. We know that this country does not just need new ideas; it needs new hope for the future. The Bill sadly offers neither and it does not deserve the endorsement of the House tonight.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Chris Philp

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

As always, it is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), whose speeches are always entertaining and occasionally informative. He spent a great deal of time talking about the bank levy and the various new clauses standing in his name on that topic. I wish to start by addressing the central thesis of his comments on the bank levy: his suggestion that banks are not paying their fair share, particularly as two of them received state money from about 2009.

It is a matter of incontrovertible fact that banks, as organisations, are paying more tax proportionately than other kinds of corporates. It is of course right that they do, for the reason that the hon. Gentleman and my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) mentioned: they did receive taxpayer money. They pay this extra money, compared with other businesses, in two ways. The first is through the surplus profit tax of 8%—they pay about a third more corporation tax proportionately than a non-bank corporation does. The second is through the bank levy. Although the bank levy is being reduced, it will remain in force, so banks will continue to pay proportionately more tax than non-bank businesses after the implementation of this Budget. That is a vital point to get across.

The hon. Gentleman also tried to link funding for children’s services to the bank levy. In one of my interventions, I gave some figures on the total amount of tax that banks are paying. We can argue about why they are paying that extra tax. Clearly, it is at least in part due to the surplus profits rate and to the bank levy. It may also, in part, be due to the fact that the banks’ profits have increased. Whatever the cause, the bare fact is that they are paying £7 billion or £8 billion a year more in tax now than they were some time ago. So suggesting that children’s services have been deprived of money as a consequence of changes to bank taxation simply does not bear scrutiny, given that the financial services sector is paying significantly more tax than it was before, whatever the cause of that may be.

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

The hon. Gentleman is, as he knows, unfairly paraphrasing my hon. Friend the shadow Chief Secretary. What my hon. Friend has pointed out is that politics is about choices and that this Government have decided, through this set of proposals, to reduce the amount of tax the banks will pay, in a situation where many core services in this country—public services that are supported by Members on both sides of the House—are on their knees. So references to the background situation or attempts to paraphrase what my colleague said are not correct. He is simply making an analysis of the choices this Government have made, which do not bear scrutiny.

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention but, as I say, the central, key, cold, hard fact, which will not go away, is that financial services are paying £8 billion or £9 billion more in tax now than they were before. That is money that can be spent on children’s services in his constituency or in mine, on the NHS or on schools. We should welcome the fact that the sector is producing this extra taxation, partly because it has become more successful and partly because the rate of tax has progressively been increased over the past seven or eight years.

The hon. Gentleman made a point about choices and his intervention was unpinned by an assumption: that if we increase the rate of taxation, we invariably raise more revenue. I challenge that assertion, as the famous Laffer curve clearly does. It is clear to me that it is possible to reduce the rate of taxation and at the same time collect more tax, because we, thus, incentivise investment and growth. There is no better illustration of that than the trajectory of corporation tax, taken as a whole, over the past seven years: the rate of corporation tax has come down from 28% to 19%—it is heading down to 17% in a couple of years—yet the cash take from corporation tax over that same period has gone from about £35 billion to about £53 billion or £55 billion. That goes to show that we can cut the rate of tax and, by stimulating the economy and investment, actually collect more money. Similarly, it does not follow that putting up the rate of tax necessarily means that more money is collected, because that might disincentivise investment and job creation.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I feel that we have had this discussion in many of the debates on the many Finance Bills we have debated over the past 12 months. No one on the Opposition Benches denies the existence of the Laffer curve; we simply point out, as a point of fact, that the very large reductions in corporation tax that the Government have introduced have cost the country revenue. That is not in dispute. The analysis is clear that it is not the case that, had the corporation tax level remained as it was when the Conservatives came to power, more tax would not have been generated.

On new clause 3, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the bank levy is a levy on the risk-assessed capital that is on the big banks’ balance sheets. The Laffer curve would not apply to the calculation of what the return would be if the levy remained the same.

[Chris Philp]

Let me take each of those points in turn. The hon. Gentleman asserts that, had the corporation tax rate remained at 28%, we would now be collecting more than £53 billion. That is an assertion, and not one with which one can agree without contention. For example, because of the lower corporation tax rate, plenty of businesses have made investments that they would not have made otherwise. Several companies had located their corporate headquarters outside the UK—

[Chris Philp]

Just a moment; let me respond to these two points.

Those companies had located their corporate headquarters outside the UK and so paid corporation tax outside the UK, but in response to the Government’s cutting the rate of tax, they came back onshore and now pay corporation tax here. It does not follow at all that a higher corporation tax rate—28% in the case mentioned by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds)—would lead to a higher tax yield. The direction of travel shows that, as the rate has come down, the amount collected has gone up. I just do not agree with the suggestion that, if the corporation tax rate were 28%, we would be collecting £60 billion or £70 billion.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

rose—

[Chris Philp]

If the hon. Gentleman will let me answer his second point, I shall happily take an intervention. He suggested that, because the bank levy is a tax on a balance sheet, there is no Laffer curve effect. I dispute that. Banks are mostly international—for example, our largest bank, HSBC, is a very international bank—and they can choose where they deploy capital. Their finance director will sit and decide where to allocate capital around the world. If the taxation or regulatory regime in a particular jurisdiction leads to the returns in that jurisdiction being unattractive, they will rationally respond to that by allocating their resources—in this case, their bank equity—somewhere else. There is unquestionably a Laffer curve effect in relation to the bank levy.

Before I take the two interventions that I promised to take, and will, let me just say that all that links to a related point mentioned by the shadow Chief Secretary, the hon. Member for Bootle: the disapplication of the bank levy to the non-UK part of a UK-headquartered bank’s balance sheet. In these international times, a bank such as HSBC can choose where it is headquartered and domiciled. HSBC was famously thinking about moving two or three years ago. HSBC is a good example because I think the majority of its balance sheet is non-UK—it has huge operations in Africa and the far east. Were we to continue to levy the bank levy on HSBC’s non-UK balance sheet, there would be a powerful, perhaps even irresistible, temptation for it to change its arrangements such that those profits and that balance sheet were booked through some other centre, such as Shanghai, or probably more likely Hong Kong, or possibly Singapore.

It is beneficial to the UK to have those HSBC assets booked here, because, of course, we get the corporation tax, including the corporation tax surcharge, booked through London, and there are clearly jobs connected with that. If we leave the bank levy on the non-UK balance sheet—the business is done overseas but booked here—and drive the booking overseas, we will lose that corporation tax and those jobs. The change to the bank levy is a sensible measure that will protect London’s status as an international financial centre, because the relevant part of the balance sheet is very internationally mobile.

I think there are two, or perhaps even three, interventions stacking up, so I shall happily take them all.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. This argument is integral to the economic prosperity of the UK. On the point that he has just raised, I say clearly that we should wish to keep that substantial national asset, which is our financial services industry, in the UK, but it is Brexit that will drive it away. HSBC’s plans at the minute, in terms of relocating staff, are entirely linked to wholesale banking functions under Brexit. However, if there is one phrase that I would wish to etch on to the door of this Chamber, it is that causation and correlation are not the same thing, and that applies to his corporation tax argument. The average rate of corporation tax in OECD countries is 25%. There is a diminishing return from reducing it. When even Conservative councils are effectively going bankrupt, surely that requires greater reflection and self-analysis of the disastrous trajectory of some of the Government’s tax policies over the past eight years.

[Chris Philp]

A number of points have been raised there. On the point about correlation and causation, of course I understand that they are not the same thing. However, in my remarks about corporation tax reductions, I did point to some of the causal links. The two causal links that I cited were, first, encouraging investment and, secondly, companies choosing to move their domicile—for example, from Switzerland back to the UK. Therefore, there are two causal explanations as to why a reduction in the rate of tax might lead to an increase in the tax yield.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

There is no allegation; they were said publicly. I will of course convey the hon. Gentleman’s comments in a spirit of reciprocation, but I dispute the remarks about Brexit. We saw fantastic progress before Christmas and are moving on to the next stage. I look forward to the series of speeches by my Cabinet colleagues in the coming days and weeks that I appreciate are on a different topic to the one at hand.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I must defend the Leader of the Opposition. The comments that he made to the EEF national manufacturing conference were simply that finance must serve industry and that this country has to find ways to increase lending to businesses, to have more productive outcomes for the economy and to lower regional inequality—all things that were previously said by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who now finds work as the editor of the Evening Standard. I do not think that that is unreasonable in any sense. The feedback I have had from that conference is that the reception in the room was very favourable.