Local Government Finance (England)
Debate between Lord Beamish and Andrew Gwynne(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
I should inform the House that my wife is a member of Tameside metropolitan borough council, one of the two local authorities in my constituency.
The Minister’s opening remarks beggar belief. Either he is completely out of touch or he does not understand, or does not want to understand, the impact that this settlement is having on local authorities such as Tameside, Stockport and many others represented by hon. Members. As was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), it is extremely unfair. That was expressed to me loudly and clearly at a budget briefing seminar that was arranged for my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) and me by Tameside council last Friday. To say that the budget seminar was thoroughly depressing would be a massive understatement.
The starting point is that the comprehensive spending review for 2011-12 to 2014-15 has outlined real-terms reductions of about 28% in central Government funds for public services. However, Tameside will experience an overall cash cut equating to a reduction in funding of 43%. That is massive in any terms.
Mr Kevan Jones
Also, does my hon. Friend agree that no matter how many pot plants councils get rid of—indeed, even if they were to cut all chief officers’ salaries—no organisation could absorb such a cut without there being an impact on front-line services?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Tameside council is an excellent, four-star local authority. It has been highlighted as having some of the best financial procedures of any local authority. It is well managed, and it has met the Gershon savings put in place by the Labour Government with commendation and improved services at the same time. These new cuts are too far and too deep for an authority such as Tameside, however.
Using the Government’s own notional spending power methodology, Tameside’s funding cut will be 1.7% in 2013-14 and 4.9% in 2014-15, amounting to 6.4% over the two years, which is higher than the England average of 5.5% for that period. Those calculations exclude specific grants, of course, such as capital grants, grants for funding education and ring-fenced grants. However, this analysis does not reflect reality for a number of reasons. First, the starting point is taken as the adjusted start-up funding position used in the calculations for the 2013-14 grant, not the actual amounts received in 2012-13. Secondly, the cost of the council tax support scheme is included in both the council tax requirement figures and the start-up funding level, which distorts the reported position.
As was mentioned earlier, further analysis has shown the reduction in spending power, and as I mentioned in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central, it is telling that no council in any region outside the south, with the exception of Cheshire East, has a reduction in spending power of between zero and £50 per person.
Andrew Gwynne
There we have it! That highlights just how much Government Members do not get it. I am not here to speak for Manchester. I am a Tameside and Stockport MP, and the reduction in spending per head of population in Tameside is £160.98, yet Tameside is the 56th most deprived area in the country with real social needs. That is why this reduction is so unfair, and the hon. Lady just does not get it.
The savings requirements are £26.5 million for 2013-14, £13 million for 2014-15, £31.94 million for 2015-16 and £46.685 million for 2016-17, amounting to a total of £118.125 million over the next four years. That is just wrong—it is not fair in any sense of the word.
Let me briefly run through the kind of savings—cuts—that Tameside’s council is having to make. On adult services, the council is having to: redesign day services for adults; reduce home care packages; streamline care pathways; reduce voluntary sector grants by 20%; withdraw financial support from luncheon clubs; reduce employment services; outsource further homemaker services to the independent sector; and cut health and well-being services. We are talking about £3.485 million of cuts in 2013-14 and £1.388 million of cuts the year after.
On neighbourhood services, the council is putting in place: new operation structures for district assemblies—that means reducing grounds maintenance, and making cuts to parks, street scene and litter removal functions; an amalgamated parks and countryside service; efficiencies in third sector funding; a new, single, risk-based highways function—that means filling in pot holes; and more savings from the libraries review.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that his local council not only faces pressure on employment and other things, but has about 25% more looked-after children than Cheshire East council?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which brings me on to what is happening to children’s services. Next year, cuts to children’s services in Tameside will be £4.636 million and the year after the figure will be £6.509 million. This just is not right; the services being cut are for some of the most vulnerable people, both young and elderly, in our society.
Let me briefly mention the issue of reserves, because it has been raised before. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) rightly says that most of the reserves are tied up for schools and capital schemes in any case. By 2015, Tameside’s council will have £12 million in reserves. That is not enough to deal with the equal pay claims, because they continue to be major areas of risk for the council, not least in view of the judgment made against Birmingham city council in its case.
Stockport faces the same situation; Stockport metropolitan borough council is losing £96.59 per person over these four years. Stockport’s council is much more affluent than Tameside’s, but this settlement is still unfair to it and worse than the settlement anticipated by its Liberal Democrat council. Come the end of this week, that council, too, will be looking at huge cuts to park services, to libraries and to support for children. This is just not fair. It is not fair on places such as Greater Manchester, it is not fair on most of the north of England and it shows that this Government just do not get it.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Lord Beamish and Andrew Gwynne(12 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend makes a good point about uncertainty. If a local authority’s income mid-year falls below what is in the budget plans, that causes all sorts of problems. That happened just the other year, with the in-year cuts. Local authorities had prepared a budget on an assumed amount for that year and ended up with substantially less funding.
Mr Jones
They did. If local authorities have to lay people off mid-year and sever contracts, that costs local government more. In County Durham, when we had those in-year cuts, it cost the council more money to sever contracts than it would have cost to allow them to fulfil them. No money was saved, but things were made very difficult for local councils, not only to plan their budgets but to manage services.
Mr Kevan Jones
I think that this Secretary of State will be very creative. He will no doubt put out a press release saying that he is giving money to local councils and various initiatives, without telling them that it is their own money. The difference is that he will now have control over how the money is spent, rather than the local councils.
My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North asked on what basis money will be redistributed. The Government’s track record shows that they do not recognise need as an element in the redistribution of capital. We need only look at last year’s local government settlement to see that.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) said, the baseline will be set for the next 10 years, so councils will not only lose out in the first year but will continue to lose out over the next 10 years. County Durham’s revenue spending power for 2011-12 is £498.2 million, which is a reduction of £35.9 million or 6.73% of its budget. It will see a further reduction of £10.94 million in its spending over 2011-12 and 2012-13, which is a further loss of 4.5%. That will be used as the baseline. This will continue, as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) said, for ever more.
Which councils did the Government reward in the settlement? They rewarded southern councils with far lower demands on local government services than councils such as Durham county council. I do not think that that was done by accident.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is making an interesting point. I commend to him a study that produced a heat map showing the areas that face the largest cuts in local government funding. If that is superimposed on to a map showing the most deprived areas and the areas of greatest need according to socio-economic data, the two maps marry up quite well.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point. One of the very deprived local authorities that the Government were determined to help last year was Wokingham in Berkshire, which saw its budget increase by 0.2%, meaning that every person there has had an additional 30p spent on them.
We must take need into account. There are services that County Durham and northern cities need. For example, County Durham has a growing population of elderly people, who are high users of services. Added to that, we have the Government’s reduction of the public sector and deficit reduction strategy, which are affecting the economic viability of regions such as the north-east of England. More individuals will therefore use local councils’ services. More people will certainly become eligible for council tax benefit as unemployment rises. Need has to be an important element in redistributing this money.
We are leaving it up to the Secretary of State to decide how the money will be distributed. In the last debate, the Minister failed to define “significant”. He used the word on several occasions and was pressed by Members on both sides of the Committee to define what it meant, but he could not come up with an answer. We are again being asked in the Bill to trust the Secretary of State. It will not come as a great surprise to hon. Members that I do not trust the Secretary of State. He is a very political individual who is clear in his philosophy: he will help people who support the Conservative party at the expense of northern councils. He does not care whether those councils thrive or not.
Although need is not part of the assessment, let us look at some of the figures. In County Durham, 31% of people live in the 20% most deprived areas of the UK, and 22,805 children, or 21.8% of children, live in households that are defined as living in poverty. In Wokingham, it is just 7% of children. Between January 2011 and January 2012, unemployment in the north-east rose by 19%. It now stands at nearly 12% across the region. As I said earlier, as unemployment rises, the demand on local government services increases, just when the ability for councils such as Durham county council to raise finance is being constricted.
Mr Jones
I do. In regions such as that represented by my right hon. Friend, there will be regional disparities between councils. We are told that this Bill is about giving local government the powers to grow business rates, for example, but it will lead to an increased cycle of deprivation in those constituencies and make it harder for councils to attract businesses and grow their council tax base.
Andrew Gwynne
Is the situation not worse than that, because the plans do not just lock in the funding from one period of time? Instead, on top of those real cuts in local government finance we will also have a huge increase in demand for statutory services in those areas of deprivation.
Mr Jones
Exactly. Hidden in the Bill is the localisation of council tax benefit, which the Minister does not like to talk about and which comes with a 10% cut. As unemployment is rising in the north-east under this Government, more people will qualify for that benefit. Where will the money come from if it is locked into this system? The only other option for local government would be to increase the domestic rates, but there is an inbuilt problem in doing so. For example, in the north-east, 50% of properties are in band A, so the amount that can be generated is limited. In Surrey, only 2% of houses are in band A, so it is easier for some of the wealthier areas to generate that cash if they wish to do so. An increase of 1% in council tax in Durham, for example, gives a lot less in the long-run than the same increase would in Surrey.
Mr Jones
That is right. This issue is highly political. All credit to the Secretary of State—he knows exactly what he is doing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) has said from the Front Bench, the measure will end up pushing on to local councils some of the tough decisions on spending that will have to be taken. There are two ways of dealing with this—increasing local rates or cutting services—but that will be happening at a time when demand for local government services in deprived areas such as some of those my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts) represents is going up. One has only to look at some of the statistics we have heard on Second Reading and in our debates in Committee. Demand for adult services and other services in County Durham, south Tyneside and Liverpool, for example, will be a lot higher than in Surrey and the south-east.
I do not know what the Government have to fear from the reset being on a five-yearly or three-yearly basis. They think they can lock that unfairness into the system, and it is clear that when local people realise that not only are their services going to be cut but they face council tax increases as well, the Secretary of State will say, “Oh, well, it’s your profligate local council that’s doing this.” But in fact, the problem is the system of local government finance being introduced that will directly cause that. We need to keep repeating that point. It is quite clear that the Local Government Association and even some Conservative councils are working on the basis that what the Secretary of State says is not always true. For example, he can offer money for the freeze in council tax, but only for three years. If people take that, they have to realise that there is no guarantee about what they will get just before the next general election.
The measures build in unfairness and we need to make sure that the Minister explains why the period will be 10 years. That figure seems to have been plucked out of thin air—there is no justification for it and local governments do not support it—so what is the rationale behind it? The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) said earlier that there could be in-year adjustments for councils that fall on hard times in terms of their business rate income going down, and that is mentioned in the Bill, but we have not seen exactly how that will be distributed. There is no guarantee that a council faced with large redundancies and the closure of a big provider of local business rate will get any benefit at all, because it will be down to the Secretary of State’s determination. On present form, it seems quite clear what the Secretary of State will be doing—looking after Conservative councils.
Andrew Gwynne
We spoke earlier about the need for local government to have certainty and the fact that the Bill does not provide adequate certainty for local government, particularly for council treasurers, in planning their budgets. Is it not ironic that although the 10-year reset provides a degree of certainty, the certainty for councils such as Tameside and Durham is that we will have pretty poor settlements for the whole decade?
Mr Jones
Indeed. I know that the Secretary of State will say, “We are giving you these local responsibilities”, but how are authorities going to plug the gap? It will be either by cutting services even more or by increasing domestic rates.
Another point on which we need clarification is the “exceptional circumstances” mentioned in the Bill. I should like to know what “exceptional circumstances” are. In what circumstances would the Secretary of State look at a reset during the 10-year period?
Local government needs certainty, and not just in providing services. For example, three-year budgets allowed councils to take decisions that led to efficiencies. If councils are not sure how much money there will be each year, that uncertainty will prevent them from making strategic decisions, savings and investments. That flexibility will be lost. The argument is that this is a localism Bill giving local councils a say, but as we have explained clearly, it actually gives more powers to the Secretary of State and Ministers to decide the future of local government. I should like to know from the Minister why 10 years was chosen for the reset.
Earlier, there were some comments about revaluation. When the Secretary of State was in opposition he argued vigorously against the revaluation of domestic rates. It is time to look at domestic rates, because in all our constituencies we see disparities between different properties. The revaluation process was rushed, which led to a record number of appeals. The Bill will give rise to a situation where the inequality set in domestic rates in the 1990s will be set in the business rate assessment too.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Lord Beamish and Andrew Gwynne(12 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Jones
I do not know when the hon. Gentleman left local government, but we introduced three-year budgeting, which helped local councils. I agree that under the old system, when I was a councillor in the days when the Tories were last in government, the biggest problem for councils was having to guess what their annual budget would be. I am not sure whether three-year budgets were introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), who is in his place, but they gave councils some certainty. The Bill will add more uncertainty. Councils will be asked to second-guess what the system will be, and we will have no opportunity to scrutinise it before it becomes law.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is precisely that uncertainty that is unsettling a number of local authorities, including Tameside metropolitan borough council in my constituency. Had we had the opportunity to scrutinise properly the impact of the Government’s changes on various local authorities as part of the process of deliberating on the Bill, we would have been able to assess the winners and losers across the country. Despite the picture that Ministers paint that everybody is a winner and nobody is a loser, the reality is quite the contrary. Over the coming years, as the new mechanism operates, the gap between authorities that win and those that lose will widen. I believe that areas such as mine, and no doubt my hon. Friend’s, will be the losers.
Mr Jones
I agree, and that uncertainty will be a problem not just because councils will not know what the rebate is going to be. It is quite clear that Durham is not going to gain from the new system, and it was interesting to hear the Secretary of State and the Minister say last week that the area would be a net gainer. However, the Secretary of State failed to tell the House—he is very good at that—that he was referring to the last five years’ figures, for some of which time the economy of County Durham was growing. Now, under the coalition Government, it is—
Mr Jones
Indeed. Now, we see that the latest unemployment figure is nearly 7.8% for my constituency and nearly 12% for the north-east in general, and businesses are closing. Is the hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) saying that those businesses are somehow going to grow over the next few years as a result of this measure? In fact, councils will lack certainty about how much they will get. The local authority is one of the biggest employers in County Durham, but there has been a reduction in the numbers of people. I think the policy is that by cutting back in local government and public services, all these new jobs will rush forward from the private sector, but today’s figures show that 67,000 people have left the public service in the last quarter, while only 5,000 jobs have been created in the private sector.
As I said on Second Reading about my constituents in the north-east, the Bill will actually help the affluent south. Clearly, it is a damn sight easier to attract business to the likes of Westminster and other economic hotspots in the south-east of England than to parts of County Durham. That is no criticism of the work that local councils do to attract jobs—for instance, with the council’s full support, the area has succeeded in attracting Hitachi trains to Newton Aycliffe in County Durham. I know of the tremendous work that my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) did on that campaign.
The Bill is being rushed through with undue haste. We are expecting councils and local people to walk blindly into the future. The parties in government sometimes try to portray this as a simplified system, but it is not; it will be a centralised and bureaucratic system. We cannot allow a situation to develop in which local people or local government do not know how much money they will get or how the system will work in practice.
Andrew Gwynne
Is not one merit of pausing, delaying and taking stock of the changes that it would allow us to get the baseline starting point absolutely right for each local authority, which is crucial, and is it not the case that using the 2012-13 formula grant model, including the damping, to determine the baseline will, for local authorities such as mine in Tameside, lock in the funding losses arising from the damping exercise and the disproportionate reduction in funding from the 2011-12 and 2012-13 settlements?
Mr Jones
Yes. That would have come out had we had proper pre-legislative scrutiny in Committee. It is the same for County Durham. Under the funding settlement introduced last year by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, County Durham lost about £10 million. That will be in the system for ever more now because of the measures in the Bill. Surprisingly, Wokingham council, Surrey council and many others gained from the system. That injustice will be written into the Bill for ever.
Mr Kevan Jones
Again, that is part of the contradiction in the Government’s thinking and policy. As we have seen, LEPs are toothless tigers. They are not going to produce much growth or investment, as I know from the ones in the north-east. Certain people in the business community are becoming increasingly cynical and feel that LEPs are just going to be talking shops, rather than organisations that will do things to regenerate areas or attract growth.
Amendment 19 refers to “need” and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) said, it sets out the important issues that we need to take into consideration. I know from my north-east constituency that unemployment is a very important issue to take into account. The level of unemployment stands at 11.7% in the north-east of England, which is 3.5% above the national average. As my hon. Friend said, unemployment means that additional services are required and it puts further strains on local councils, which is why it is important to take it into account.
This debate is also about where we start from, which is why it is important to take the council tax base level into account. In the north-east, 50% of properties are in the lowest band, band A, whereas the corresponding figure for Surrey is just 2%, with 75% of properties there being in band D and above. It is very difficult for councils in the north-east to raise extra finance outside the business rate, so we are not starting on a level playing field. Mention has been made of South Tyneside, where 66% of properties are in band A, and that must be compared with the figure for Kensington and Chelsea of less than 2%.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is making a superb point about the ability of local authorities to raise income from council tax. Is not a major issue for local authorities such as his and mine the fact that the formula grant for 2013-14 will lock in those very real cuts that such local authorities will have had to face from 2011-12 onwards?
Mr Jones
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning that, because I was about to discuss the baseline, as it has been set at 2011-12 levels. Durham county council had a grant reduction last year of some £10.9 million, which represents about a 4% loss, and that is now going to be set in stone for the next 10 years. Let us compare that with the situation in Wokingham, in Berkshire, whose authority actually had an increase in its grant of 0.2% and each person living there got an extra 30p in grant.
As I said on Second Reading, it is quite clear—I take my hat off to the Conservatives and do not know why the Liberal Democrats are turning a blind eye to this—that the Conservatives are looking after their own. They used to accuse the Labour party of doing so, but the Secretary of State makes no bones about the fact that he will help the people who voted for him. Does he give a stuff about the north-east and other places? No, I do not think he does.
It is important that we consider need because, as I said and as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North said earlier, with unemployment, a more elderly population and deprivation, people use council services more in such areas. Some 31% of the people living in County Durham, for example, live in the top 20% of the most deprived areas in Britain and 21.8% of children in the county live in homes that are classed as in poverty. In Wokingham, that figure is under 7%. The demand for local services in Durham is obviously a lot higher. Likewise, eight people go for every job in County Durham. A good example is looked-after children: in Wokingham, there are 22 per 10,000 children whereas in Middlesbrough, in the north-east, there are 104 per 10,000.
It is not just about the numbers but about the types of services. Elderly care and services for looked-after children are very expensive to provide. There is no cheap way of looking after elderly people or vulnerable children in care, so that puts added pressure on those councils. That must be taken into account in any assessment, as otherwise we will do exactly what my hon. Friend said that we would. We will start from the premise that this Government like to put out, which is that irrespective of where a local government organisation is in this country, there is a level playing field. There is not. Any system must take need into account and that is why amendment 19 is important and why I do not understand the Government's not being in favour of it.
Another issue that we heard about on Second Reading and that we have heard about again tonight is the idea that by retaining a certain percentage of the business rate councils will be able to incentivise and develop business. That might well be the case in some areas, but councils must cater for other factors, one of which is location. My hon. Friend mentioned Consett. Consett has actually done very well in attracting businesses, but it is a damn sight harder attracting jobs there than it is in parts of the south-east and London.
Mr Jones
A bit far, perhaps. The Government know exactly what they are doing. As I said on Second Reading, their strategy is quite clear: they want to give freedoms to local councils, push decision making down as far as possible and then, when they have cut grants, as they will with council tax benefit and others, they will say to local people, “Well, it’s your local council that has to decide how and where the cuts come.” The Government will stand back and say, “We’re sorry, but it’s nothing to do with us.” That is the clever side of it. Part of their strategy is about making sure that they save money and cut it out of the system but that local councils, rather than themselves, get the blame for implementing the cuts.
Andrew Gwynne
Does my hon. Friend agree that an unforeseen consequence of the Bill could be that local authorities become overly dependent on one type of economic development—the type they can generate the most from in business rates? In an area such as mine, that would mean an overdependence on retail.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. In terms of economic development, local authorities might go for what will generate income rather than what will create the right mixture. Although retail shopping and warehousing produce business rates, they do not produce large numbers of local jobs, but there might be a growth in those types of business in some areas.
We should not be fooled into believing that the Government do not know what they are doing, because they do know. They are passing legislation down to local government and making sure that those in central Government do not get the blame. We need to be saying that these cuts have been implemented because of the Government—including the Liberal Democrats. It amazes me that Liberal Democrats in Durham can complain about the closure of leisure services or a leisure centre while stepping back and saying, “It’s nothing to do with us,” even though their representatives on the Front Bench in government and others are going through the Lobby to vote for such measures, as they will tonight. Without amendment 19, and without some assessment of need in the Bill, I have little faith that the Government will not do what they have a track record of doing: rewarding the areas that vote for them.
Finance Bill
Debate between Lord Beamish and Andrew Gwynne(13 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Kevan Jones
New clause 5 would allow married couples to transfer their personal income tax allowances between each other, along the lines of what was said by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions during the election campaign about recognising marriage in the tax system. The new clause is not exactly what the Conservatives were proposing at the general election, and I shall deal with the differences in a while. The important point, which has not been clearly articulated by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), is that this policy arose from a 2005 report by a Conservative think-tank, the Centre for Social Justice, on the breakdown of the family. Its main argument was that marriage is the important point in keeping families together, tackling poverty and dealing with all the other arguments that he has covered. It also supported the introduction of an incentive in the tax system to encourage people to marry, and I shall return to that in a moment. I am not sure that most people who get married are thinking about the tax system before they decide to do so.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point and one that we were discussing on the Back Benches earlier. I am married and all three of my children attended my and Allison’s wedding in 2003. We did not need a tax allowance in order to get married—that is the important factor here that is being missed.
Andrew Gwynne
The Deputy Prime Minister did not just say that this proposal was Edwardian. I believe that he went on to say that it was also patronising drivel.
Mr Jones
That is a bit rich coming from the Liberal Democrats, because most of the things that they come out with are patronising drivel. However, they were clearly not happy about this policy, so in the scramble to get the red boxes and cars they had to reach some type of compromise. Thus, the coalition agreement simply states that there will be a provision whereby the Liberal Democrats can abstain at some point in the future when this policy is introduced.
Mr Jones
I think that report has been discredited, but I can look at the north-east of England and my constituency and consider the changes in employment that happened under the previous Labour Government as well as the life chances we gave to individuals, the new hospitals we provided and the investment we made in things such as Sure Start centres. Although I accept that such changes will not have benefits straight away, they will have real benefits over the lifetimes of those individuals. The Government that the hon. Gentleman supports is taking away such provision and says that the state is not important in one respect while, in this case, they want the state to engineer people’s private lives socially. I find that a completely contradictory stance, but, again, the hon. Gentleman is a Conservative and is therefore allowed to be contradictory.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way and he is making the point that the state can be family friendly through its policies without having to give away a tax break to people based on their marital status. The previous Labour Government made great changes by giving life chances to young families, in particular, without having to manufacture the tax system in such a way.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point. A little later, I shall discuss what our Government did to recognise the fact that if we are to address the issues raised by the hon. Member for Gainsborough about child poverty, the tax system and marriage are not necessarily the way to do it. The way to do it is to ensure that the money goes to the families and children who are affected. That is why the child tax credits and other such provisions were vital in raising people out of poverty. Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) mentioned the minimum wage, which lifted a lot of very poor individuals out of poverty who were getting a pittance. I remember seeing as a trade union official an advertisement in the jobcentre in Newcastle that read, “Night guard, bring your own dog, £1.35 an hour.” That is a thing of the past. I hope that it will remain so, but I do not know, as we hear from Conservative Back Benchers that they might want to change the minimum wage in some way.
Finance (No. 3) Bill
Debate between Lord Beamish and Andrew Gwynne(13 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Does he understand the dismay of those from small and medium-sized companies in Denton and Reddish who come to see me? They would not mind their banks being a bit more generous in their lending now and then. They cannot even get a decent proposal through their local banks for funding to expand their businesses. These are not risks; they are sound business proposals that would generate jobs in my constituency. No doubt the same happens in my hon. Friend’s constituency, too.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Those examples can be seen up and down the country.
Given the amounts of money that some of the directors of Barclays are being paid, they could lend money to those small businesses themselves. The two highest-paid managers, Jerry del Missier and Rich Ricci—great name!— were handed more than £40 million each after share deals awarded over the previous five years. Bob Diamond, the chief executive, took the helm in January this year and, in that period of remorse, has received £27 million, including £6.5 million in bonuses for 2010 and £2.525 million awarded in shares, which could be paid out in the future. The share deal for the past five years paid out £40 million, and the one for 2007 paid out £5 million.
We know about those amounts because of the Government’s great deal under Project Merlin to force banks to expose what their directors are being paid. If that was supposed to act as a threat to them, they seem to be ignoring us and doing it all anyway. They seem to have very tough hides, because rather than being remorseful for the mess that they got us into, they are still taking the money.
Andrew Gwynne
Why does my hon. Friend think that those on the Government Front Bench are so apprehensive about having a review of their own banking levy? Does he suspect, as I do, that the findings could show that it was not working?
Mr Jones
I am, but that is part of the scrutiny process, and so is this. If the hon. Gentleman is so interested in the banking levy and the effects of the Bill on his constituents, why does he not speak? At one point he was alone on the Liberal Democrat Benches. The Government Benches have been fairly deserted this evening: the poop deck of the Mary Celeste may have had more life in it. Members who support the proposal in the Bill should at least turn up to argue in favour of it. No doubt we will be receiving “Focus” leaflets from the Liberal Democrats—although after Thursday they may be called something different—describing how tough they have been in regulating the banking system, but it is clear that they have not.
The hon. Gentleman has until late tonight, and tomorrow, in which to contribute to the debate so that he can reproduce his contribution in his “Focus” leaflets ad nauseam, which I know the Liberal Democrats love doing. People will be able to learn about how he stood up for them against the bankers rather than just listening to the hollow words and rhetoric of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in the run-up to the general election. The beauty of being in government is that politicians can actually do things. I know it has come as a big shock to many Liberal Democrats that they are in a position of responsibility whereby they can actually affect the lives of ordinary people. [Interruption.] Yes, responsibility without influence, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) says from a sedentary position. As the Liberal Democrats are in government, they can follow through and make sure that the Bill deals with the people who were responsible for getting us into this mess three years ago. They also have an opportunity to tackle the excessive profits. I do not know what the average salary is in Bradford, but I am sure that £1 million is a lot of money to the people there. I know that in 1914, prior to the first world war, Bradford won the competition for being the place where the most Silver Ghosts were sold, because it was a rich mill town back then; I learned that from the predecessor of the hon. Member for Bradford East when I was working for him in a by-election many years ago. I doubt whether many Rolls-Royces are sold in Bradford nowadays, however, and the hon. Gentleman’s constituents can only dream of some of the bonuses he is supporting this afternoon.
Andrew Gwynne
Will not such a review serve to make it clear that many of the commitments made by the Liberal Democrats in opposition have not been implemented—and, indeed, have not even made it off the drawing board to become Government policy?
Mr Jones
Yes. I do not particularly like giving opportunities to Liberal Democrats, but it would give them an opportunity to show that they have the teeth that the Liberal Democrat Cabinet Ministers claim they have got in this coalition, because they would be able to say to the Conservative part of the coalition that they want change—that they want, for example, to increase the levy or to make sure that the huge bonuses being paid are taxed in a different way, or to bring in regulation. Let us be honest about this, however: most Liberal Democrat Ministers have not got sharp teeth—unless they have been to the dentist in the last few weeks. In the next few days we will see the beginning of the demise of the Liberal Democrats, and, as it were, the extraction of their teeth. It will certainly be interesting to see how sharp their teeth are after Thursday.
The current Government’s bank levy should take the same amount as the Labour Government’s bank bonus measure raised, which was £3.5 billion.
Mr Jones
I am becoming concerned. The hon. Lady’s blood pressure does not seem stable tonight. She seems to be turning red and getting rather excited in tonight’s debate, which I am not sure is good for her health. Why did she argue for and push through an increase in VAT when she and her Prime Minister stood on a manifesto saying that they would not put VAT up? That is not being honest with the British people. What she has to explain to hard-working families in my constituency, North Durham, and in Putney is why she reneged on that promise.
There has been much talk in recent weeks about trust in politicians, and a lot of nonsense talked by the yes to AV campaign about whether MPs are hard working and trustworthy. When the Prime Minister and the hon. Lady say clearly that they will not increase VAT, and then that is the first thing she does, I understand why my constituents and hers are rather cynical about certain promises.
In the Budget the Chancellor used the gimmick of cutting the price of petrol by 1p. We will shortly debate how he will pay for it. It has had disastrous consequences for the economies of parts of Scotland and north-east England. He also increased VAT by 3p. He took it off with one hand and put in on with the other. Paying for that will have consequences for oil exploration in the North sea not only in the next year or so, but for a generation.
Andrew Gwynne
Does my hon. Friend recall that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, soon after the Budget, took a very dim view of those retailers who did not pass on the 1p decrease in fuel duty, and does he agree that the purpose of having such a review is to see whether the Government’s policy was ultimately a success or a failure?
Mr Jones
That is a very good suggestion. That is one of the issues that could be included in the review. Do the Government honestly think that they can con my constituents and others and that a 1p reduction in petrol duty will really be a vote clincher for them? Late last Friday I was in the excellent Sainsbury’s in Pity Me in Durham, and I noted that customers who spent £70 on their groceries could get 5p a litre off their fuel. It is a deal offered by other supermarkets—I do not want to favour Sainsbury’s. Are those on the Treasury Bench really convinced that constituents will be conned by the 1p reduction, when the cost is being increased by 3p, and if they can get 5p a litre off when they spend more on extra groceries?
My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) made a good point, which I accept, about the differences in fuel prices in different parts of the country. I think that there is a case for part of the review looking at why fuel is priced differently across the country. I hasten to add that at the weekend, when I was in Worksop in Bassetlaw visiting my father, I went to a Sainsbury’s—it happened to be the supermarket there—and noticed that diesel was £1.38, although down here in London and in parts of Durham it is £1.42. Clearly the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) are getting a good deal from the Sainsbury’s in Worksop. These are the issues that could be looked at in a review.
Mr Kevan Jones
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and her point about investment will increasingly be thought of when making such decisions.
That brings us to the question of what the decision-making process was when coming up with this tax. We have already had the ludicrous situation whereby even a Minister who practically used to work for a gas company did not recognise the difference between gas and oil prices. In my experience as a Minister dealing with Treasury officials, I always thought that they knew what they were talking about, so I am surprised that the Treasury allowed this measure to get through, because everyone knows the difference between the prices of the two.
We have already seen the effects of that this week, with the possibility that Centrica might turn off investment in Morecambe bay, and I am sure that the Minister will be off the company’s Christmas card list next year unless she does something radical to change what has been proposed. That decision will not only mothball a gas field that would have provided this country with gas for years to come, but write it off.
What will we do instead? We will import gas, which does not make sense economically or for energy security, especially when we look at where the large concentrations of gas are in the world—the former Soviet Union, parts of the middle east and, lo and behold, north Africa. Any idiot can work out that even Morecambe bay, and possibly Blackpool on a rowdy Saturday night, is more peaceful than north Africa or parts of the former Soviet Union, so it is important that we take seriously the comments of companies such as Centrica, which have invested over many years and not just in oil and gas fields but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon said, in new technologies.
It is a dirty industry, but it is also a leader in new technologies, such as robotics and drilling, and, owing to the difficulty of extracting oil and gas from parts of the North sea, we have been able to develop new techniques that are now used throughout the world. That is why many UK companies are leaders not only in this country, but throughout the world.
It has also become increasingly clear that the tax rate will have a real effect on the economy of north-east England. I accept that hon. Members who represent Scottish constituencies feel passionately about the issue, but the measure will have a dramatic effect in the north-east, too. The Conservative part of the coalition tells us that we in the north-east should grow the private sector, but the oil and gas industry is a very vibrant part of the private sector. Indeed, my hon. Friend has already mentioned the sub-sea sector, which supports 10,000 jobs and 380 firms in the north-east.
Andrew Gwynne
Like my hon. Friend, I feel passionately about those jobs in those cutting-edge industries. Is not the issue to protect jobs today and invest in future jobs in the north-east and the north-west, including in things such as apprenticeships?
Mr Kevan Jones
It is, and the north-east has been able to take advantage of the change in, for example, the River Tyne, which was heavily dependent on shipbuilding. Now we have facilities such as the Walker technology park, and the city council was far-sighted when it developed an offshore park for the North sea oil industry.