Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Julian Knight and Rebecca Pow

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Julian Knight]

My hon. Friend is correct. The very recent change will benefit basic rate taxpayers to the tune of £120 a year—a direct tax cut for millions of hard-working Britons—and that is to be welcomed.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend—I nearly called him my right hon. Friend, but he is not yet; perhaps he will be in the future—agree that the difference in the figures is stark? The personal allowance was £6,475 when this policy kicked in in 2010, and it has gone way up to £12,500. Surely, that is of huge benefit to the people we want to give more money to.

[Julian Knight]

I thank my hon. Friend for that short intervention. She makes a really good point, and it is almost the next point that I was going to make. The personal allowance will have nearly doubled in just eight short years. That is against a backdrop of trying to get the public finances under control from a debt of £152 billion a year—11% of GDP—which is an astronomical level outside wartime. It represents a real achievement for the Government to have been able to put this amount of money into the pockets of millions of hard-working Britons each year, so that their living standards can rise, despite the difficult decisions we have had to make.

Members from all parts of the House will probably know that I am no particular lover of the Liberal Democrats, and I am pleased to say that in my constituency of Solihull, we are now 24,000 votes ahead of them. However, I pay tribute to them in one respect. In the 2010 coalition agreement, we took on board what the Lib Dems had been proposing, and it was an excellent idea. I am pleased that the Conservative party was open enough to take on that idea and follow it through, from the coalition agreement, to raise those standards of living and raise personal allowances. I pay tribute to that sort of ideas process from the coalition. We have carried it on, as we see it as a key way in which to reduce inequality and expand opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Knight]

My hon. Friend is completely correct. The realities are that the more tax people keep in their pockets—the more of their earnings they keep, without that money going through the Government filter—the more efficient it is, the better it is for the economy, and the better it is for what is known as the multiplier effect through a local economy. My hon. Friend’s on-the-ground view, reported here in Committee, is testament to why the process really benefits high streets and wider local economies.

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend has not yet touched on this, but the Government have kept down the corporation tax rate. Does he agree that in areas such as the south-west, where productivity is on average lower than it is in the rest of the country, it is crucial that we leave more money in local businesses so that they can invest, which will help with skills and eventually raise productivity?

[Julian Knight]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Not only does cutting corporation tax increase the tax take, as we know, but in the round it allows companies to employ more people—I think that it has made a major contribution to the jobs miracle in this country—which then feeds through the taxation system and the multiplier and into the economy more widely, thereby boosting growth and productivity, plus the tax take down the line.

The abolition of stamp duty for first-time buyers of shared ownership properties worth more than £300,000 is an important step for our economy and for strivers in our country. We all know the difficulties that come about in respect of home ownership. I got my first home when I was 31—many years ago, I hasten to add—but I had to buy outside London to get on to the ladder. Even then, people were making enormous sacrifices to find their way on to the property ladder.

Frankly, the situation that I faced is nothing compared with what younger people face now. Not only is it now more difficult in respect of having the income required to get the amount of loan needed to buy, but many people have to rely on what is known as the bank of mum and dad. All that has a damaging effect on equality in our society and the passing down of wealth through the generations if we end up in a situation where those who gain housing wealth do so only if their fathers or mothers had that housing wealth themselves.

Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Bill

Debate between Julian Knight and Rebecca Pow

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), and I want to add my comments on what is a very precise Bill. Although it relates to plants, it is not in any way flowery; it is a tight, neat little Bill that very much that does what it says on the tin—or, we might say, on the plant pot.

The Bill exempts from non-domestic rates buildings that are, or form part of, a nursery ground. That is highly significant for our highly professional and essential horticultural industry, which does not often get as much attention as it deserves. The horticultural industry supplies many fantastic plants for the whole nation, and as the Minister mentioned—I am glad he referred to this—there is scope for the industry to increase.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her knowledge in this area; in fact, I think she was a TV star in the horticultural sphere for a short time. Is it not true that the changes in the Bill will make it much easier for plant nurseries to grow and be productive?

[Rebecca Pow]

Yes, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. One of the programmes my name was attached to was called “Loads More Muck and Magic.” It was a Channel 4 series and it was all about growing plants organically, which is terribly trendy now, so it was a bit ahead of its time—it was all ponytails and carpets then, though. It was filmed not far from my hon. Friend’s constituency at the Ryton organic gardens at Ryton-on-Dunsmore, which is still a terrific centre for organic gardening. The organisation there was called the Henry Doubleday Research Association, and it did a lot of great work on how to grow plants and what we should all do as growers at home.

My hon. Friend makes the good point that this Bill looks very much at the beginning of the plant chain when people take seeds and grow them—that exciting germination and propagation process that grows up plants, which can then be handed through the chain. I will go into that in more detail shortly, but it is an area that people forget about, even though it is such a valuable part of this important industry.

Although this is a great industry and it is highly valued, it is quite difficult to put an exact value on the horticultural trade. For example, estimates show that the whole gardening industry—that category is very wide, and would include garden tourism and events such as the Chelsea and Hampton Court flower shows—is worth approximately £16 billion to the economy and employs 300,000 people.

Normally, however, the best measure of an industry’s contribution to the economy is gross value added. I am not an economist—I am sure that most of my colleagues are much more knowledgeable about this than I am, particularly the Minister, who I know is very good with his figures—but I believe that GVA measures the value of an industry’s goods or services to the economy, excluding any goods or services used in production. However, that breakdown of statistics is not carried out for the horticultural industry. If it were, we would have a much better figure to show just how important the industry is. Should the Minister ever move to the Treasury—he may well do, given his mathematical brain—he might like to look into that GVA anomaly. That would be incredibly helpful to the nation as a whole, particularly in the light of Brexit. It is hard to grow an industry and attract the investment that it needs if we do not have the exact figures relating to that industry. You might think that I am digressing, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I think this is an important point.

[Julian Knight]

I do not think that my hon. Friend is digressing at all. In fact, she has made a germane point in mentioning the 300,000 people who work in the industry. Does she agree that if we can get people to plant more and get them really interested in horticulture in ways such as this, we could get a great deal closer to self-sufficiency, not only in food but in plants?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is a man after my own heart. I do not know whether you are a gardener, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am—

Schools White Paper

Debate between Julian Knight and Rebecca Pow

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I rise primarily in praise of academies, because in my constituency their spread has been transformative. We have some of the finest schools in the country, and I want the system that has brought us such success to be offered to many more children across the nation. In my constituency, six of our seven state schools have achieved academy status, and all save one produced results that greatly exceed the national average. The other one began to convert to academy status only in 2015, since when Ofsted reports that it is making very good progress.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way because I know that he is pressed for time, but I wish to back up what he has said, particularly for the secondary system. For example, in Taunton Deane in January, Court Fields School, which had problems, became an academy and was highlighted by Ofsted inspectors as having made vast improvements, including a 20% increase in maths results.

[Julian Knight]

My hon. Friend has added grist to my mill.

The greatest success in my constituency has been Tudor Grange Academy, which for four consecutive years has registered more than 90% of its students as achieving five A to C grades, including in maths at the end of year 11. We also have our first primary school, St James, which I am pleased to report has risen above the national average for reading, writing and mathematics. It is clear that putting teachers and headteachers in charge is a recipe for success. Those Solihull school success stories should give pause to all those who deny that academies can make a powerful, positive difference to our young people.

I believe that Solihull, with its very high levels of academisation and excellent results, is a model for the future of our education system. A first-rate school system is essential if our children are to compete in the globalised economy they will grow up in. In too many instances, the old structures have failed to help talented young people to fulfil their potential.

At a time of great pressure on public finances, it is to the Government’s credit that they have chosen to invest so heavily in education. However, I have certain concerns about the academisation proposals with regard to rural primary schools. I would like to see whether, in further discussions, we can allay concerns about whether those schools are the right size and whether the process can be managed effectively over the extensive six-year time period.

In the main, the reforms give school leaders the freedom and authority to find educational solutions that work best for them, based on their first-hand experience and understanding. In particular, they are a vote of confidence in our teachers. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, teachers will now be afforded the same status as other professionals, such as those in law, medicine and the sciences.

Our move away from the top-down approach to reform has other benefits. A sad consequence of the central control of our school system has been an unhelpful level of standardisation. In pursuit of the laudable goal of equality, the drive has too often been to make sure that every school is the same. Our predecessors knew far less than we do about how pupils learn. We are now aware that children learn in many different ways and that a one-size-fits-all approach leaves too many far behind.