National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the problems in the social care market. However—this is a point I have made before—a lot of that is owing to the fact that nothing has been done since Andrew Dilnot’s report in 2011. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could point to where he has spoken out about that in the past.

[Robin Swann]

When I was Minister of Health in Northern Ireland—for four years—I looked to the Dilnot report, and I tried to introduce parts of it there because of the differential that exists: in our system, health and social care services are the overall responsibility of the Department of Health. I know what point the hon. Member may have been trying to make, but I think he failed to make it directly in that intervention. The impact of not only the Dilnot recommendations but the introduction of employers’ national insurance contributions on those services would actually run counter to anything that Dilnot was recommending, because he was talking about a funded, integral part of domiciliary care as part of the health service, which we already have, but that would put pressure on our health services at the moment.

Finance Bill

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

My constituents would be surprised that there is no tax exemption on tampons, which are used by close to 50% of society, yet there is a tax exemption for VAT on private schools, which are used by less than 5% of the country. Does my hon. Friend not agree that it is a mark of the priorities of Conservative Members that they are so quiet about the former but not the latter?

[James Murray]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that decisions on VAT reliefs are political choices. Indeed, the Opposition are showing which side of that choice they land on when it comes to education; through their new leadership, they are choosing to prioritise a tax break for private school fees over investment in state education. That is a political choice. I am very happy to stand behind where we are on that side of the debate.

I will turn to some of the clauses in detail. The changes made by clause 47 will remove the VAT exemption from which private schools currently benefit on the education, vocational training and boarding they provide. Let me be clear: this policy does not mean that schools must increase fees by 20%, and the Government expect schools to take steps to minimise the increases for parents. Schools can reclaim VAT paid on inputs and make efficiency savings to minimise the extent to which they need to increase fees. Many schools have already committed publicly to capping fee increases at 5% or absorbing the full VAT costs themselves.

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[James Wild]

We are about the 100% of pupils. We are not trying to divide and rule like the Labour party.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

rose—

[James Wild]

I will make a little progress, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

Sadly, this cruel tax, which is being imposed midway through the academic year, will damage the education of thousands of pupils. It is sadly typical of the ideological approach that we have seen the new Government take on education, where they are trashing the record of schools, pupils, teachers and governors over the past 14 years when we rose up the international league tables.

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[James Wild]

My right hon. Friend makes a typically salient point. I agree, in particular about the lack of congratulations. The Education Secretary was not prepared to congratulate the head of Michaela school, which is the best performing school in the country.

Putting VAT on independent schools will particularly hurt those parents on modest incomes who are saving to send their children to a school that they think will best serve their needs. None of those parents is getting a tax break. They are also contributing to funding places in the state system, whether or not their child takes one up. The clause excludes the teaching of English as a foreign language, education at nursery and higher education courses from the new tax, but the Government have already crossed the line. They are taxing education and learning for the first time. Will the Minister rule out widening the scope of the education tax to include university fees, for example?

The Opposition are deeply concerned about the impact the tax will have on pupils with special educational needs, small rural schools, faith schools and schools taking part in the music and dance scheme. We have consistently warned of the damage it will do to young people’s education, and we voted against the measures in the Budget resolutions. New clause 8, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), the shadow Chancellor, would require the Chancellor, within six months of the Act being passed, to make a statement to Parliament on the impact of the changes on those groups in particular, as well as the music and dance scheme. That is needed because there is such a wide gap between what the Minister is telling us and what the limited impact assessment is saying, and what all hon. Members who are actually talking to schools and parents know will be the case.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

The shadow Minister talks about talking to schools. I have spoken to schools in my constituency for many years, and I am sure he has spoken to the schools in his. The “School Cuts” website tells us that North West Norfolk has seen a £2.2 million cut in its state schools since 2010. Perhaps he could point to the record where he spoke out against those cuts.

[James Wild]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. If he checks the record, he will see that the level of per pupil funding actually increased over the last 14 years. I congratulate the schools in my constituency that have just received good ratings from Ofsted—a number of them have done so.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

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[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Norfolk county council, which covers the area that the shadow Minister represents, has a housing waiting list of 1,341 homes sought. That is up 400 since he was elected in 2019. If the new clauses are about reviewing the impact of actions, perhaps he could take a moment to review the impact of the last Government’s actions, which saw the housing waiting list increase in his constituency?

[James Wild]

I am grateful for the hon. Member’s interest in my constituency. He intervened on me earlier to talk about education in North West Norfolk.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

The numbers are from the House of Commons Library.

[James Wild]

I do not doubt the figures. I simply note that King’s Lynn and West Norfolk borough council, which is the council for my constituency, has met the housing need target it was set. Thousands of homes are being built in and around King’s Lynn, which will be a mixture of tenures—to rent and to buy. One of the big blockers is that the Government have not yet approved schemes that the previous Government were committed to—schemes for the roads and infrastructure needed to bring that housing online. I hope that the Minister will take that up with her colleagues, because if the Government are to meet their target of building 1.5 million homes, they need councils to deliver. That means funding the infrastructure. I am grateful to the hon. Member for enabling me to make that point.

We are concerned about the increased cost of private rent and a decreasing supply of rental properties due to this latest tax increase. New clause 6 would require the Chancellor to publish an assessment of the impact of the increased stamp duty rates on the private rental sector within six months of the Bill passing into law.

Farming and Inheritance Tax

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)]

As someone who lives on a farm, which is surrounded by farms, and whose family has farmed, and diversified, for generations, I add my voice to all those who have paid tribute to farmers for the crucial role they play in our economy. Many other hon. Members have said it more eloquently than I can, but let us all recognise the vital role of farms in our economy.

In common with colleagues, I met with farmers in the post-Budget period. Frankly, I was expecting a pretty hard time and there were some robust discussions, but they were also civil, constructive, informative and understanding. I pay tribute to the farmers and the NFU representatives who took that approach to the discussions. What most surprised me was how quickly the discussions immediately pivoted to the sense of anger, abandonment and betrayal that arose from the past 14 years, which have decimated the industry.

Fellow Members have described in detail—the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) described the situation particularly well—the betrayal of Brexit, the spiralling energy and feed prices, the spiralling land costs, and the terrible trade deals that opened the doors to poor-quality imports, which undermined the very farming markets that Conservative Members claim to value. As we have heard already, that dire management resulted in over 12,000 farms and agribusinesses going out of business since 2010. That is a terrible, shocking, shameful legacy. For Conservative Members to now present themselves as the champions of farmers is outrageous. They have used the word “arrogance”, but that is what they have displayed—a refusal to reference, understand or learn from their own history and failings.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

Conservative Members talk about being friends of the farmers but for the past 14 years they were not. It shows how little they care that only 18% of their parliamentary party is present for a debate that they have called—[Interruption.] Only 21 out of 120 Conservative Members.

[Andy MacNae]

It is amazing; one of my colleagues talked about “the green fields opposite” in reference to the empty Conservative Benches.

Given that background, it is no surprise that farmers are angry, worried and feeling vulnerable. I associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour), who called for calm and sense in the debate. Emotive language, designed to sow fear and cause concern is irresponsible at the very least, so let us try to keep to the facts and keep things calm and reasonable.

The focus of Conservative Members seems to be family farms, but the phrase “family farm tax” immediately creates a sense of fear and targeting, which is completely wrong. With some sensible tax planning, £3 million of assets can be exempt. Many speeches have glanced over the importance of gifting rights. Let us take the scenario of a family farm, in its truest sense, that is to be passed between generations. Surely, gifting rights are a massive opportunity to avoid all inheritance tax and remove the sense of fear that Conservative Members are trying to create. Most of the rest of the country has to do that simple estate planning by default.

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[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

Staffordshire is the largest dairy-producing county in the midlands and across the county we have 9,600 people working on farms. Four hundred and thirty-two of those farms are in my constituency, and they are an incredibly important part of the fabric of the area. So many of my constituents who listened to the Budget were genuinely shocked. They were shocked because they took it at face value when the Labour party said that there would not be any changes in inheritance tax for agricultural land. They listened and they believed.

I know—I always like to believe the very best of people—that the Ministers on the Front Bench from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs would have fought for that position, but this policy was a diktat from the Treasury. In my experience, there is a tendency for the Treasury to do that to many Departments. That diktat has meant a change in position, and one that has a severe impact on many people’s lives. If there were a factory in Staffordshire employing 9,600 people and its future viability was in jeopardy, Ministers would be rallying to its support. Members across the House would be saying, “Let us do something to save these jobs and save these livelihoods.” But that is not the case here.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I will, of course, give the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to burnish his potential to be that Parliamentary Private Secretary in DEFRA that I know he is so desperate for on any occasion.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Why is the right hon. Member so dismissive of DEFRA, which is a fine Department whose work those of us who believe in the countryside value? I wonder why he was not so loud when 875 agribusinesses in his region closed in the last 14 years.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

All the while I have been a Member of Parliament, I have fought for my farmers, and I will continue to do so.

I invite the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs to the next Staffordshire agricultural show as my guest. I will happily take him around, and he can look for farmers who are in favour of the Government’s policy. He can talk to my farmers. There are 446 farmers in the Stafford constituency, which neighbours my own, who I imagine will have a very similar view to that of farmers in my constituency: that this policy will put them out of business. If I take the Minister around the Staffordshire agricultural show, he might meet some of the 351 farmers from the neighbouring Lichfield constituency. Let him see how many of them believe that his policy will help them to grow their businesses.

A family business, whether it is a farm or a manufacturing business, invests not just for five years but for a generation and more. The Government’s policy will drive large financial institutions to own much more of our land—not local farmers who are invested in the community and care about the villages and towns that serve them. This policy is already having an impact. Many businesses that supply farmers are already seeing a significant drop-off in orders, whether it is people who supply agricultural machinery, people who supply seed or many more. I urge the Minister, who I believe comes to this House with a good heart, to look at the wider impact that the policy will have on our countryside, and at how it can be changed and improved.

The Labour party says that it wants to capture the large landowners—the James Dysons. I have a great deal of confidence that such people will be able to find different arrangements that mean that their wealth will never be touched, but many small farmers, who have worked hard all their lives to build something that they can hand on to their children, will be impacted. I fear for them, and I urge the Government to put the dogma of party politics to one side and really think of the impact that the policy will have on the lives of so many farmers who are trying to do the right thing for this country and our countryside.

Employer National Insurance Contributions

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

I was interested by the train drivers’ pay deal, where the Government actually went back to the deal that we had made and undid the productivity commitments that we put in.

Why would the Chancellor front-load spending on the NHS before the Health Secretary even has a plan for how he will use that precious cash, therefore risking billions being wasted? It makes no sense, and everyone outside this place and all those inside it, apart from the Labour Members who are gleefully wafting their Order Papers around, can see that.

The Chancellor is asking for an extra £40 billion in taxes from the British people, and it is largely being taken from some of the most productive, entrepreneurial people in the country: the people who provide jobs and who do the right thing. I worry deeply that their good money is going to be poured into the public sector and benefits without any noticeable improvement in public services, and that when that happens, the Chancellor is going to come back for more. The incentive for anyone in this country to be entrepreneurial, to stick their neck out, to take the risk of employing people or to build true wealth for this nation will diminish. We will then find ourselves in a downward spiral, ever more unable to withstand external shocks and ever less appealing as a country in which our young people will want to stay to create, to innovate and to build.

As we know, a big chunk of that £40 billion is coming from the sneaky rise in employer national insurance—something the Government obscured from their plans in July—but let us start with the pain that the Chancellor’s choice on NI is causing her own Cabinet colleagues. She has blown holes in the budgets of every major Government Department. The Health Secretary now has problems with GPs, pharmacies, social care and hospices. The Deputy Prime Minister has councils telling her that they have to find over £1 billion extra to pay providers for their services. The Culture Secretary has charities, tourism businesses and cultural venues telling her that they have major problems. The Education Secretary has had to raise tuition fees by £400 million because universities are telling her that they now have a hole in their budgets of exactly the same size. It goes on.

I want to talk about the pain that this policy is causing to my constituents, particularly the lowering of the NI threshold, which is whacking the kind of businesses that employ a lot of young lower-wage workers, parents getting back into the workplace and people who are picking up extra jobs to make ends meet. Let me give some examples. The first is a local after-school club provider employing 34 people and offering wraparound clubs that help out hundreds of Havering families. It is the kind of club that makes that work/family juggle survivable. Because of the NICs hike and the lowering of the threshold, its bill is going to rise from £10,851 to £26,040 annually. The last thing it wants to do is to lose staff or hike fees for local families, but it cannot see a way around that.

Another example is an outdoor activities business that gives young people across London the most amazing opportunities. Its costs next year are going to increase by £70,000 as a direct result of the Budget, and it now worries that it will not be able to fund the young people’s bursary that is providing over 1,300 disadvantaged kids in the region with outdoor experiences. A third is a home care business that looks after older people in Havering. Its branch in Hornchurch faces paying an extra £100,000 a year, making it loss-making from April. That is absolutely crazy.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Julia Lopez]

No, I am afraid there is simply not enough time.

Finally, I want to mention a small private school in my constituency. Its pupils are some of the most vulnerable and deprived in our capital, as it is an alternative provision school. First, the Labour Government hit it with VAT. Now they are going to hit it with NICs and wage increases. Either it absorbs that cost or it passes it on to the local council. Those are four businesses from Harold Hill to Hornchurch providing critical services to my constituents, employing young people and giving working families opportunities. Now they are going to be hit by tens of thousands in extra costs, and that is before I even talk about the GPs, the pharmacists, the dentists, the charities, the shops, the restaurants and the pubs. It is for them that I am going to wholeheartedly—

Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 25th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The Bill is about raising rates on private schools, which is why I mention them, but I am very happy to talk in glowing terms about the state schools in my constituency, including the one that I attended as a boy and the ones that my children went to. I am for state schools, but I am also for independent education. Why is it either/or? Why would anyone ever tax education?

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

The Stop School Cuts campaign website estimates the combined school cuts since 2010 in Thirsk and Malton, the shadow Minister’s constituency, as more than £70,000. Will he point to where in the public record he has spoken out about that?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I was part of the fairer funding formula for schools in my area, which had the worst-funded local authorities in the country. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that schools in my constituency improved under the stewardship of the Conservative Government. Surely that is the key metric, rather than just how much money is put in.

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[Daisy Cooper]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this broken business rates system is unfair in many ways and it is the big giants, online or otherwise, that are getting an easier ride.

The Bill fails to address many other problems with business rates. For example, it does nothing to support businesses outside the three sectors of retail, hospitality and leisure, meaning it excludes key sectors such as manufacturing that are particularly negatively affected by the current system. It does not address the £51,000 cliff edge. Properties with a value over that threshold are not eligible for the small business multiplier, even though they are small businesses, and with rates relief going down, business rates bills for small businesses will go up. From next April, business rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure will be cut from 75% to 40% and this Bill does nothing to avert that blow.

The Minister said he wants to rebalance business rates. I welcome that direction of travel, if it turns out to be true, but in the absence of an impact assessment, I am particularly worried about unintended consequences. I say this in the spirit of constructive opposition: it appears as though the Government are moving from a system of temporary relief to a lower multiplier. At the moment, a small business enjoys 75% business rates relief, but a very large chain has its relief capped at £100,000. If I have understood it correctly, independent shops will see their relief drop from 75% to 40%, while big chains such as pubcos and supermarkets may see their relief uncapped, which could give them a tax reduction of tens of millions of pounds. I would be grateful if the Minister wrote to me to share some modelling to reassure me that that is not going to happen and that we will not see independent businesses inadvertently subsidising big chain stores and multinationals.

The impact of the Government’s changes to business rates will have a massive effect on small businesses in my constituency. The oldest pub in Britain—or so they claim—Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, will see a whopping increase of £30,000 per year in its business rates alone. The Save St Albans Pubs campaign says that even an average pub in St Albans, with a rateable value of £100,000, will face an additional £19,000 in its business rates bill from April. If we assume that an average pub makes 30p profit per pint, each of those pubs would need to sell an extra 60,000 pints a year, or almost 1,200 pints extra a week—and that is before factoring in the increase in national insurance contributions.

Other low-margin, large-premises businesses, such as children’s soft play activity centres, will also lose out under these changes. DJ’s Play runs much-loved indoor play centres across Hertfordshire, which exist in large warehouse-style premises. The buildings are large, but the profit margins are not. DJ’s Play and many others like it provide a valuable and enriching educational experience for children, but they too will struggle to keep their heads above water.

The Liberal Democrats are also opposed to the Bill because it would levy a tax on education by removing the business rates exemption for private schools that are charities. We are opposed in principle to the taxation of education, because it is a public good. We believe that parents must be given choice when it comes to their children’s education. Many families feel that, whether due to bullying, SEND provision, mental health issues or other factors, the state system cannot meet their child’s needs.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

One of the first things the coalition Government voted to do was to scrap the Building Schools for the Future programme, which impacted schools in my constituency including Calder high school, Brooksbank and Todmorden high school. Will the hon. Lady reflect on whether that was a mistake by her party and whether it has prevented state schools from being able to provide for more students?

[Daisy Cooper]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He may know that during those coalition years, both the health and education day-to-day budgets were protected and it was after the Liberal Democrats left the coalition in 2015 that capital budgets were serially raided to pay for day-to-day spending.

To return to my point, there are almost 100,000 children with SEND in private education without education, health and care plans, and it will be those families who bear the brunt of this measure.

We Liberal Democrats have tabled our own reasoned amendment setting out the reasons why we are against the Bill, but I have a number of questions for the Minister that I would be grateful if he could address in his summing up. Will there be an impact assessment that sets out the impact on small businesses on high streets? Will he exclude any new investment from business rates valuations from April, so that businesses that are able to invest in their future will not see that investment pushing up their rates bills even higher? Will he think again and complete the consultation before unfreezing the rates relief, which could badly affect small businesses and our high streets? Will he confirm whether the change from a system of capped temporary relief to an uncapped lower multiplier will inadvertently end up with small businesses subsidising big corporations?

The Government say that they want growth, and so do we, but these business rates changes will stifle the growth of small businesses and high streets at a time when we should be unleashing it. We urge Ministers to think again.

VAT: Independent Schools

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

I am proud to have gone to Calder high school in my constituency—the first purpose-built comprehensive school in the north of England. The history of that school and its teachers are fantastic, but the building is not. After years of under-investment in the capital programme and the shameful cancelling of Building Schools for the Future, the building is crumbling. The same can be said for Brooksbank school and Todmorden high school, which are also in Calder Valley. All of them would have been scheduled for a rebuild sooner, had the Government not cancelled Building Schools for the Future.

In the state sector, the problem is not just that the buildings are on their knees; there is also the issue of everything inside the buildings. At the start of the previous Government’s austerity programme, we heard about teachers going without items, or buying them with their own money—glue sticks, books and so on. Now when I talk to headteachers, they talk about going without teachers and support assistants, who are so vital for children’s needs.

We can judge a Government, or indeed an Opposition, by their priorities. Frankly, the fact that the first Opposition day debate on education focuses on the 7% of students who go to private schools shows where this Opposition’s priorities are. If they had held a debate on SEND, I would have welcomed it, because SEND provision has been left in crisis. In Calder Valley, I can point to multiple examples of parents for whom advocating for their child has become a second job—and that is just those who have the resources to do so.

Ahead of this debate, I asked headteachers what their priorities for education would be. One, who did not want to be named, said:

“Any therapeutic service is no longer easily accessible. No educational psychologists, no speech and language therapist access for the increasing number of pupils who can’t access the curriculum.”

We need to focus on the next generation in state schools—in all schools. That should be our priority. If I asked my constituents in Calder Valley what they think £1.5 billion should be spent on—that is the value of this tax break—it would not be the 7% of children who go to private schools.