Stamp Duty Reform

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered reform of stamp duty.

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter, and to have secured the opportunity for the House to debate and discuss stamp duty and its possible reform. I will be speaking in this debate as a politician, but also partly as a practitioner—I am a solicitor who is still in practice. I do not think I have to declare an interest, but I nevertheless think it important that it is on the record.

As everyone knows, property is a huge issue in this country. We like to think of ourselves as a property-owning democracy, and it has certainly been the long-standing ambition of the Conservative party that we see our country as a property-owning democracy, but we should not forget the significant private rented sector, which represents around 20% of the market. It is important to acknowledge the part that it and social housing play in the mix. In many respects, the key issue in housing policy is to get the mix between property ownership, the private rented sector and social housing right.

The other big issue in housing is supply, and in many respects that could be a debate in itself. That issue is clearly of concern to the Government. In my view, we should be looking for a national housing framework with a more flexible local policy. I can give a very simple example: the Carlisle housing market is different from the Lake District housing market, which is different from the Manchester and London housing markets. I acknowledge that is very much a separate debate.

Another issue is property taxes. That is extremely important, especially for public policy. Property taxes are very much part of our tax system. Council tax raises £32 billion a year. Business rates raise £30 billion. Capital gains tax raises £9 billion, and a lot of that is on property. Inheritance tax, much of which goes on property, raises £5 billion. We also have VAT on improvements, income tax on rental income and stamp duty land tax, which raises £13 billion. A huge amount of money is raised from property taxes, and in many respects I understand that—most Governments quite like property taxes, because it is difficult to hide a property.

What is the purpose of ownership? Why is it a good thing? In many respects, it creates the ambition and aspiration of many people to own their own home. They feel they have an investment. It is also a way for many people to save. It gives them a stake in society—they feel they own something and can take responsibility for it. In a survey, the Yorkshire Building Society found that 71% of young adults say that owning their own house makes them feel grown up. It is about ownership and feeling responsible.

Home ownership is a positive thing for the individual and society in general. We must recognise, however, that not everyone will own their own home, so the mix of properties between social housing, the private rented sector and so on is extremely important. We also need to remember that older property owners like to think of property as something they can pass on to their children. They have worked hard throughout their lives. It is an asset that they have enjoyed, but they want the benefit to pass to the next generation. Ownership is beneficial at so many different levels.

What is the purpose of this debate? In many respects, it is about just one element of the property debate. First, I want to look at the reforms to our present system of stamp duty. As an aside, I have a proposal to close a potential tax evasion issue and raise additional tax. I will be interested in the Minister’s response on both those things.

Today, as in the past, the buyer of a property has responsibility for paying stamp duty. They have to pay that tax. Stamp duty is effectively a buyer’s tax. My proposal is simple: change the tax to a sales transaction tax, so that the responsibility for paying stamp duty transfers from the buyer to the seller. I appreciate that that proposal also touches on tax rates, but I want to leave that aside. Each Chancellor has to decide tax rates on an annual basis. My purpose concerns the fundamental principle of who pays the tax.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing the debate; he has a lot of experience in these matters. Most people understand that the problems with the housing market are on the supply side, not the demand side. We need to build and deliver more homes. Would it not be a disincentive for people to put their houses on the market if we effectively charge them to sell those houses?

[John Stevenson]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, and accept that we probably have a slightly different view on this subject. I fully accept that the supply of housing is a fundamental problem in our housing market. As I said earlier, that could be seen as a separate debate. For the purpose of today’s debate, I believe that shifting the responsibility for the tax from the buyer to the seller would be beneficial, and hopefully I will explain why.

From the Treasury’s perspective, other than that it would be a change of regime, it is tax-neutral; effectively it would make no difference to the amount of tax that the Treasury raises. I therefore think that the Treasury must look at the issue from a different perspective: is this beneficial to the housing market and to the people who are buying or selling the property? I believe that it will help first-time buyers and give support to those moving up the property ladder. Potentially, it will improve the housing market overall. I emphasise that this is not just the proposal of a random MP; it has a lot of support from the industry, and in particular the Yorkshire Building Society, with which I have had many discussions on this issue.

First, let us take first-time buyers. The changes in the Budget were undoubtedly extremely welcome. The Budget helped a large number of first-time buyers, taking many of them out of the tax regime. That is of course welcome, but there was a cost to it, which I think is reckoned to be in the region of £600 million. There are also some practical issues, such as how we identify who is a first-time buyer and make sure that the correct person is claiming the relief.

RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. He mentions the relationship between the FCA and RBS. Is he aware of the leaked minute from an FCA board meeting that says that one of the reasons why the FCA will not release the full report is that it is concerned about being sued by RBS? Does that not raise the question of who is regulating whom in this relationship?

[Norman Lamb]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. We rely on the regulator to be powerful and tough in such situations.

The human cost is incalculable. People have been driven to suicide and marriages and health have been destroyed, but who has been held to account for this disgusting behaviour? People and businesses ruined must have justice. I say to the Minister that an independent tribunal is essential. It would act as a deterrent to bad behaviour; banks would know their actions have consequences if they knew it would go to an independent tribunal.

My constituent Mark Wright is an RBS whistleblower. His career and his health have been destroyed. He and others are the heroes of this sorry story, risking everything to do the right thing, yet he has also been horribly let down by the regulator. The FCA, including its chief executive, Andrew Bailey, dismissed his concerns, but this week he won a vital victory when the complaints commissioner ruled that the FCA was wrong to reveal his name to RBS. What cavalier disregard of a whistleblower’s rights! The FCA fought the complaint all the way, only apologising right at the end. The case was brilliantly pursued by Steve Middleton, who deserves enormous credit. He is now setting up, with others, Bank Confidential—I declare an interest in that I am a patron—to protect whistleblowers and expose wrongdoing.

The truth is that whistleblowers have no real protection in this country. Contrast that with the situation in the United States, where the Dodd-Frank legislation introduced the Office of the Whistleblower, which is there to protect whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are rewarded financially for doing the right thing—they are awarded between 10% and 30% of the sanction collected against the firm, which can run into millions of dollars. What a contrast with the position in this country! We need our own office of the whistleblower, and whistleblowers should be guaranteed anonymity; they should be rewarded for their bravery. Maintaining the integrity of the banking system is of fundamental importance to us all, and whistleblowers are necessary for that purpose.

My fear is that in the aftermath of the crash in 2008, all the focus of the banks, the regulator and Government was on rebuilding balance sheets, and a collective blind eye was turned to how that was achieved and how many victims were left along the way—business owners and whistleblowers. The Government and the FCA now need to act to clear up this scandal and to get new arrangements in place to rebuild trust in British banking and give justice to those ruined by this outrageous behaviour.

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[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

First, I must draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have been in business for 25 years and still am today, and our business was once a customer of RBS. Thankfully, we did not suffer from any of the tragic circumstances that many Members have talked about today.

I thank my co-officer on the all-party group on fair business banking, the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), for clearly setting out the case for a tribunal, to which I need to add very little detail. I will, however, make some further points. There is not only a case for justice here, but an economic imperative. We know that the powerhouse behind our economy is SMEs. Some 99% of all businesses are SMEs. They employ 60% of our private sector workforce and create 51% of its turnover, yet they have suffered terribly from these colossal injustices. There is now a crisis of confidence between our businesses and our banks. The Treasury is doing great work in trying to find funds for new companies and scale-ups that cannot borrow, but what about those companies that will not borrow because they just do not have the confidence to do so? Many people in the Public Gallery can provide great evidence to show that, in their minds and the minds of many other business people, that is absolutely the case.

This is about not just RBS, but many other banks, such as HBOS and Lloyds. We are talking about tens of thousands of businesses, but that statistic masks individual tragic stories. These are people’s lives and their life’s work. My constituents John and Kerry Welsby had a good business. They were persuaded to take on a loan that the bank salesman did not understand, and that they could not understand, but in the pressure of business, sometimes people take on such loans. They signed up to the loan but, as interest rates fell, the cost went from £6,000 a month to £17,000 a month. That broke the business. The bank then decided that it would compensate them for the cost of the loan—a few hundred thousand pounds, which is an awful lot of money—but what about the cost of the business that was broken? That was their life’s work—tens of millions of pounds. It is an outrageous injustice.

The difficulty, as we all know, is not only that banks are too big to fail, but that they are too big and too wealthy to sue. No form of justice is available in this situation. I do not believe that the Financial Ombudsman Service could deliver the solutions we need. We need to look at other solutions to provide justice. Our all-party group is considering the idea of a tribunal and we need to ensure that we get that justice. In a tribunal, the plaintiff will not have to carry the costs of the defence if they lose, so it represents an accessible form of justice. We believe that that could be delivered through secondary legislation, but obviously we need to look into that.

The all-party group accepts that we need to do proper research. One thing we absolutely cannot countenance, and that even businesses that have been wronged in this process will not countenance, is to stem the flow of lending. We cannot afford to do that, so we must take the time to conduct research. We are prepared, as an all-party group, to do that. We have support from some surprising places—participants in the financial services industry. We just need time for the Treasury to work with us to ensure that we deliver the right solutions for justice and to benefit small businesses and the UK economy.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

I will not give way.

In addition to the funding crisis in the NHS, social care and the police, which my hon. Friend the shadow Policing Minister has highlighted so effectively, there is a developing and significant funding crisis in children’s services, which face a £2 billion funding gap by 2020. Last year, 72,000 children were taken into care, while the number of serious child protection cases has doubled in the past seven years, with 500 new cases initiated each day. There are stresses on other parts of children services, including, among others, child and adolescent mental health services, school transport, and education, health and care plans. All are inadequately funded, with the buck passed to professionals who are already hard pressed to manage and deliver services.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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[Peter Dowd]

I say to my hon. Friend that—to use an old phrase—he should not hold his breath.

The Government need to wake up and face the cold, hard reality that the Exchequer is losing billions every year and letting multinationals, which do not pay their fair share, off the hook because HMRC simply does not have the resources.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman is very clear and honest in his plans about wanting to spend a lot more money—half a trillion pounds in manifesto commitments—but at the same time the manifesto said that Labour would reduce the national debt. How is that possible?

[Peter Dowd]

I have the greatest respect for the hon. Gentleman, but I refer him to the answer I gave earlier. He should have a look at and dig into the documents, which are very easy to find.

The bottom line is that, wherever they are in the country, businesses that play by the rules are disadvantaged, so it is unfair not just to individual taxpayers but to business taxpayers. Meanwhile, back in Westminster, the Government continue to have absolute contempt for parliamentary oversight.

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[Kit Malthouse]

There is no doubt that stamp duty, as a frictional cost, causes all sorts of problems and distortions in the property market, and one may be at the lower end, particularly when dealing with an asset class that is highly geared—where taxation effectively has to be paid out of equity or deposit. That is operating throughout the property system. We are seeing a slowdown in the number of transactions, largely because of the frictional cost of exchange. That mechanism operates in any capital market. I may be out on a limb, and I am not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, trying to collect money to pay for everything else, but a general loosening of the stamp duty regime, and therefore more transactions in the property market, is more likely to mean that more people can access it at all levels.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Employee shared ownership is something that I did with my business—I draw attention to my entry on the register—but my hon. Friend is right: there are no incentives to do that, other than trying to build loyalty in the workforce. We were advised against it by our tax advisers on the grounds of complexity and cost. We went ahead with it anyway, but putting incentives in place would increase the number of companies that consider taking that important route.

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. How can it be that an enlightened farmer is deterred by the tax system from spreading to his employees the wealth that his company creates? Something is fundamentally wrong if that deterrent is created.

I know that the Minister can see the truth of my argument and will want to address it in a future Finance Bill. I am sure, given his performance thus far, that his tenure in the job will be a long one—so much to the good, for us and for the economy.

I have one small note of caution about clauses 46 and 47. They would give Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs the power to enter premises and break into vehicles or vessels without a warrant. I stand to be corrected, but as I read them, they would grant more powers to the taxman than the police have to pursue crime. That makes me a little nervous.

Over the last few years, we have seen a general trend towards a new style of legislation and law on the powers of the Revenue. We have seen legislation that allows the taxman to help themselves to money in someone’s bank account without judicial oversight. We have seen the extension of retrospection, and we have seen a reversal of the burden of proof—not “You’re innocent until proven guilty”, but “We think that you need to prove that you are innocent”, in certain circumstances. While I understand that the powers are merely an extension of the old excise men’s powers to deal with smugglers in ports and airports—Daphne du Maurier fans who have read “Jamaica Inn” will know of the problems in the 18th and 19th century—I question whether such powers are appropriate today. I hope that Ministers will think carefully about whether it might be more appropriate for a warrant to be obtained to access someone’s premises, in the same way that the police do when they have suspicions.

I understand that the imperative for the Government is to deal with criminality that is often clever and smart. Sometimes such powers are contemplated because we cannot think of any other way, but unless we maintain the rule of law, especially on taxation, and unless we have a sensible, level playing field, the relationship between business, individuals and the Revenue becomes much more antagonistic. That would be an unfortunate development.

All in all, the Bill is solid and welcome. Those who are perhaps a bit more radical might like the Government to go a bit further in the next two or three years, in particular on the idea of dynamic capital and spreading share ownership, but the Minister is to be congratulated on his conduct. I look forward to Report.

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[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton). This Finance Bill has short-changed my constituents, the city of Bradford and the people of the north in ways too numerous to list in the short time I have available today. But there was one instance where the north was not just short-changed but plain snubbed: it was starved of the vital investment needed to unleash the potential of its people and its businesses. In this Finance Bill, Ministers did nothing to redress the imbalance in favour of London in spending on transport, whereby it gets seven times more per head than the north. That is illogical, given the Government’s much publicised commitment to rebalancing this country’s two-speed economy.

Modern and efficient transport infrastructure is a catalyst for growth, and improved regional transport connectivity is the key to unlocking prosperity in my home city of Bradford. It is essential to the fostering of wider prosperity throughout west Yorkshire and the whole of the north of England. It is fundamental to addressing the regional differentials in the economy. With clause 33 and schedule 9, the Financial Secretary has found the money to cut the bank levy, but he cannot find the funds for trans-Pennine electrification to fulfil the Conservative manifesto promise made ahead of the 2015 general election.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Does the hon. Lady welcome the huge investment in northern powerhouse rail and the latest proposals for the route to go through the centre of Bradford?

[Judith Cummins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point; unsurprisingly, I am going to mention that later in my speech.

Just yesterday, I read with great interest that the ambitious plan for full trans-Pennine electrification is to be scaled back, with the scrapping of the line connecting Manchester to Sheffield and Leeds via the HS2 network. The north is being starved of the investment it needs to prosper. The north wants, needs and deserves full and fair funding, and transport infrastructure fit for the 21st century.

In stark contrast, in his Budget the Chancellor committed the Government to multi-billion pound public investment in transport improvements across the Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge arc. I have no quibble with investment in transport infrastructure in London and the south-east—connectivity in that region is important, too—but it should not and must not be at the expense of rebalancing the country’s economy. It should not and must not be to the disadvantage of the business community in Bradford, west Yorkshire and throughout the north. Regional business in the north deserves the Government’s attention and support just as much as the London-based business community. Indeed, the Government talk about fixing the country’s productivity problem, and the key to that is addressing regional differences. The Government have missed an opportunity to tackle that in the Bill.

Clause 19 will increase the rate of the research and development expenditure credit from 11% to 12%. I am sure that business innovators in the north will welcome that, but the one constant that I hear from business is the need for better transport infrastructure. As well as R and D, physical connectivity is crucial for industry. As a region, the north’s economic output by gross value added was £304 billion in 2014, which would make it the 10th largest economy in the EU if it were a country. As a region, though, it trails substantially behind the south-east in economic output per capita. That has to change if our nation as a whole is to prosper and our productivity is to increase.

Bradford and the north of England are in desperate need of transformational investment in their creaking railway infrastructure. Spending in the area has multiple benefits, with just two examples being the easing of congestion and the reduction of air pollution. On that last point, the Minister had an opportunity to address air pollution from vehicles by investing to make public transport better. Instead, clause 44 makes changes to vehicle excise duty and clause 9 makes changes to benefits in kind for diesel cars. Both measures seek to address vehicle emissions. Few in the House, if any, would disagree that reducing air pollution is both necessary and desirable, but I fancy that more carrot and less stick would have been welcomed by my constituents.

Tackling congestion and air pollution through a modal shift, moving more journeys from private cars to public transport, is an option, but not one currently available to my constituents. The creaking rail infrastructure that my constituents have to contend with currently makes the motor car not just a more attractive option but in many cases the only option. The Minister could have shown real determination to change that, with a commitment to investment in modern and efficient public transport systems. As I have said, the much delayed, now much diluted, partial trans-Pennine electrification would be a key first step in addressing the north’s transport woes, but it would be just that: a first step. What is really needed is a game-changer, but on that the Bill is silent.

My home city of Bradford is a leading voice in northern powerhouse rail. In recent months, in a bid to maximise the value of the project to Bradford’s economy, Bradford Council launched Next Stop Bradford in partnership with the city’s business community. Next Stop Bradford is a cross-party campaign calling for an NPR stop in Bradford. Initial research suggests that a Bradford station would bring an annual boost of £53 million pounds to the local economy, and at least £1.3 billion pounds for the region as a whole. If the media reports from over the weekend are accurate and Bradford is now included on the NPR route, that is welcome news for the Bradford economy and for my constituents.

Bradford is a growing city, with one of the youngest populations in the country. It has huge potential. As I have said in the House before, Bradford is Britain’s fifth largest local authority, with a population of 530,000 residents, and it is the biggest city in the country without a through stop connecting it directly to the intercity rail network. An NPR stop in Bradford would be a huge step change in our regional connectivity. Faster services and higher capacity would draw the region closer together, and it would connect people to jobs and businesses to new opportunities across the region and the country. The currently disconnected economies of the great cities of the north would be united. The economic opportunities would be enormous, as would the boost to this country’s productivity. This is a priority for my constituents, but a priority that is not in the Finance Bill.

During the recent Budget we learned that, as a country, we face an era of economic stagnation unseen in modern times. Wages in my home city are flat, real incomes are falling and the cost of living is rising, all of which is not helped by a 3.4% hike in rail fares from January. Crucially, productivity improvements have stalled. That point is massively important in the context of my remarks today, because arguably the single most potent driver for improving productivity is sustained investment in transport infrastructure. I ask that the Minister and this Government commit to NPR with a Bradford stop, and the resulting transformation that that will deliver.

This Finance Bill concentrates on many of the wrong priorities as far as my constituents are concerned and, importantly, does not seek to redress the economic imbalance between the north and the south.

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[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to speak in this important debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately). I am speaking in support of Labour’s reasoned amendment, setting out our opposition to the Finance Bill. That includes our opposition to the £4.7 billion reduction in the banking levy while children’s services are cut, the lack of adequate equality impact assessments, the lack of provision for lifting the public sector pay cap, and the lack of provision for addressing the funding crisis in social care and our NHS. I also oppose what I see as a lack of concrete action to tackle tax avoidance and evasion properly.

There are a number of areas that I will not be able to cover, but I did not want to make a contribution without mentioning the Women Against State Pension Inequality. We in the Opposition want justice for the WASPI women. I am sorry that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), is no longer in his place, because there will be an opportunity for the Government to do something about the matter on Thursday, after the Backbench Business Committee debate.

I am concerned that the Budget does not do enough for disabled people. I am concerned about stagnant pay and the failure to provide resources to lift the pay cap. I am concerned about the failure to provide resources for local government and the funding of our police and fire services. On housing, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent said that Labour were not proposing any concrete, tangible solutions. I have been around for a few years, and I can look back at what works. Legitimate concerns have been expressed about the stamp duty proposals, which are feared to be the wrong solution. My understanding is that 40% of council houses that were sold under the right to buy are now in private ownership and, on average, rents in the private sector are twice those for council houses in the social housing sector. That costs this nation £10 billion—not as a one-off, but each and every year.

Surely a sensible person would say that in those circumstances, we should be building many more social houses. The Government’s target is, I believe, about 200,000 or 250,000 houses a year—[Interruption.] It is 300,000; I am grateful for that sedentary intervention. The last time we got anywhere near that was in 1973. As I am sure Members will recall, that is the year that Sunderland won the FA cup. Ian Porterfield scored the goal, and Jimmy Montgomery made a marvellous double save from Trevor Cherry and Peter Lorimer. In 1973, 100,000 council houses were built. That is the scale and magnitude of the challenge we face, and the Government should take that into account.

Like several of my hon. Friends, I want to concentrate, in the short time I have, on making the case for more investment in integrated transport networks, particularly in the north-east—we have heard about the north-west; I want to put the case for the north-east. The Budget is the time when the Government make political choices, and they should be held to account. I acknowledge that the Government have announced an investment in the Metro on Tyneside, which is certainly important, but the Metro is 40 years old, and the investment is to replace the rolling stock.

I represent the constituency of Easington, and I would love to see the Metro extended to the hinterland of Tyne and Wear, providing opportunities for expansion to towns such as Seaham and Peterlee in my constituency. That would naturally promote economic growth in the north, help to join up communities, and allow access to jobs in places such as Sunderland, Gateshead and Newcastle.

I know that Ministers like to have an evidence base, and I draw their attention to an excellent Library publication, “Transport Spending by Region”, published just last month. It gives transport spending totals overall, with the margin of discrepancy, with population factored in, between investment in the north-east and London. Overall, there is 10 times more investment in London and four times more in the south-east than in the north-east, while for railways there is 20 times more investment in London and five times more in the south-east. They say there is a big investment in the Metro system, but we have to recognise that, in the five years from 2011 to 2016, there has been a massive lack of investment. We have had terrible under-investment during that period.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point about the disparity in investment, but he might be interested to know that the moneys from central Government are very similar across the country. What lies behind those figures is the ability of London to leverage in private sector and local authority investment, because those local authorities also get a much better deal.

[Grahame Morris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; I am sure that what he says is true. I have had conversations about the nature of the very large-scale transport infrastructure investments that are, in effect, self-funding, and I think we should apply those principles. I was a great fan of the documentaries about opening up the west with the railways, in which Michael Portillo argued that investment was not put into the existing cities on the east coast, but into the west, to open it up and bring in jobs and investment. There is an enormous case for doing that.

I want to speak briefly about the A19, which is vital to the economic health and wellbeing of my constituency. However, it is a dangerous road, and at this time of year it is a nightmare for people travelling on it. I want the Government to future-proof our regional transport infrastructure. There are multiple housing developments in my constituency, which will create tens of thousands of more vehicles and journeys in my area. We want to encourage new businesses to locate on the A19 corridor, but the road is already too dangerous and not fit for purpose.

If Ministers do not believe me—I do not have a Library paper to support this—I urge them to google the A19, and they will find a whole list of terrible headlines. One, about an “11-CAR pileup on the A19”, is from the Daily Mail. They may be more inclined to believe that newspaper than the Sunderland Echo, which has reported this afternoon that the A19 has reopened after a six-vehicle crash near Seaham in my constituency brought traffic to a standstill. They will find a whole list of accidents and crashes.

The Government need to future-proof our transport infrastructure, and the Budget is an opportunity to do that. There is the possibility of investment north of Nissan, linked to the automotive hub, and in my constituency, preparatory work has begun on a 55-acre industrial park, the Jade Park development, adjacent to the A19. I welcome the fact that that will bring new, bespoke manufacturing jobs and a variety of others, but the failure of the A19 will make it more difficult to attract future businesses. If we are to accommodate new developments, I urge the Government to use the Budget to take action.

The A19 is one of the principal economic drivers in my constituency. It is vital for manufacturing, export-focused businesses such as Caterpillar, NSK and, until it closes the week before Christmas, Walkers crisps. The lack of investment, maintenance and upgrading of that vital economic highway is holding back business in my constituency. I have raised the issue several times: I have tabled questions and even an early-day motion, but we need the Government to recognise the problem. They need foresight; they need to realise the value of investment, try to future-proof our economy, and support our regional development.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris). We share an economic interest in the A19, so I agree with many of his points.

I draw hon. Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests on my business background, and I am also vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking. I want to focus on the latter in the short time that the Whips have allocated to me this evening.

Productivity was an important element in the Budget, and it is the key to improving living standards. However, as the Budget also states, competition is the key to driving productivity. The Budget addresses that in many different areas, particularly through access to finance. It deals with those who cannot currently access finance.

However, there are two sectors of the business community: those who cannot and those who will not access finance. The £20 billion investment in patient capital, the doubling of EIS relief—I have benefited and suffered from my investments in EIS; I declare an interest there, too—and challenger banks are all positive moves in the right direction when it comes to opening up finance to small and medium-sized enterprises.

There are also difficulties in terms of people who will not borrow. Some people do not want to borrow because they want to run a certain type of business, perhaps a lifestyle business. In the UK, we are good at start-ups. We are at the top of the league table in Europe for the number of start-up businesses. However, we are well down the league table—13th out of 18—in scale-ups. There is a problem in moving from start-up to scale-up, and some people will not borrow because they are worried about experiences—sometimes their own—of borrowing from banks.

We have seen an example of that in the Royal Bank of Scotland and Global Restructuring Group scandal, in which viable businesses were totally inappropriately taken away. Not all businesses that went through that scheme were viable, but around 16% were, according to Promontory, which undertook the independent report into the GRG scandal, yet the businesses were taken away. This is about not just financial, but human cost. Somebody’s life’s work in starting and building a business has been totally inappropriately taken away from them. The human cost is huge; sometimes it is the ultimate cost.

[Ruth George]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is terrible that more than half of small businesses fail in the first five years, largely due to lack of capital investment, as he says? Does he agree that it is time for more radical ideas, as the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) said, and that Labour’s proposal for a business investment bank would help those companies?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Businesses fail for many reasons. Business is an extremely risky undertaking—I have been in business most of my life—which is why we should pay tribute to all people who take the step forward to create wealth and jobs. I accept that we need to find more different and innovative ways to get finance to business start-ups and scale-ups.

Business banking is unregulated. If a bank acts inappropriately, it is usually far too wealthy for an individual or business to sue. To rectify that problem, we need an independent redress scheme for businesses. I have a constituent who was mis-sold an interest rate hedging product that resulted in him paying £18,000 a month in interest payments from a relatively small business. It was put into receivership. The bank eventually compensated him for the mis-selling of the product, but did not compensate him for the business he lost. That cannot be right. The Government propose expanding the financial ombudsman scheme to deal with the problem, but that will not be enough.

We need an extension of the tribunal system, similar to the employment tribunals, so that small businesses can seek redress without going to the huge cost of suing a bank in the courts. Financial services tribunals already exist, but for the wholesale markets. We need to expand that system to bring in SMEs, so that judges preside over cases, instead of us having a cosy internal system involving ex-bankers who now work in a different part of the sector. Such a system would be low cost and funded by the banks. It would increase confidence in the banking system and, crucially, result in banks lending more money, because people would have confidence in the system. I hope the Minister will look at the financial services tribunals. I am meeting the Economic Secretary in January to discuss this in more detail, but I believe it is one of the missing pieces of the jigsaw when it comes to improving productivity. I welcome the many measures in the Budget and will support the Bill this evening.

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[Dr Johnson]

I shall give an example from my constituency. United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust is considering setting up a body to look at how best to deliver rural care, examining ideas such as using Skype to have consultations with people who might otherwise have to travel a long distance. There are also the possibilities of using telemedicine to monitor patients’ blood pressure, for example, while they are in the community. In such ways, we can ensure that we deliver the best possible care using very modern technology.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Does my hon. Friend agree that all these opportunities to reduce the cost of providing health services in rural areas mean we also need to invest in superfast broadband and digital networks to make sure that people can actually receive this kind of new innovative care?

[Dr Johnson]

My hon. Friend brings me to my next point. These investments are welcome, but we also need to invest for those people who are currently receiving poor service. Church Lane in Kirkby-la-Thorpe in my constituency has among the lowest broadband speeds in the entire country. In some parts of this country, downloading a film takes longer than flying from London to Sydney. There are children in that area who are unable to do their homework, while shopping is impossible and dealing with tax online is difficult. The Government have invested strongly in this, and now over 90% of people have access to superfast broadband, but I urge them to take any steps they possibly can as soon as possible to ensure that those few remaining homes that cannot yet do so can receive superfast broadband and are connected to this vital utility which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) said, will be vital for the provision of healthcare.

People in rural communities face long travelling distances when they go from their home to school or work. That is why I welcome the Chancellor’s freezing of the fuel duty for the eighth consecutive year. This is the longest such freeze for 40 years.

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[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I assure him that I have spoken to WASPI women in my constituency, and I have spoken to many other women of that age or older who have welcomed my comments.

The next thing that the hon. Member for Bootle omitted from his long list is that 31 million people have seen a tax cut during this Government’s time in office, meaning that people take home more of what they earn—more hard-earned money in their pocket at the end of the week.

Let us talk about the jobs that have been created.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Is my hon. Friend aware that no Labour Government have left office with unemployment lower than when they entered office?

[Rachel Maclean]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has reminded me of that excellent point. He is absolutely right. This Government understand how jobs are created. That is a serious point, because jobs are created when businesses grow and risk their hard-earned savings—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) is talking to me from a sedentary position. Does she want to intervene?

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

10. What recent progress has been made on reducing the deficit.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

15. What recent progress has been made on reducing the deficit.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

The Government have reduced the deficit by well over two thirds—from a post-war high of 9.9% of GDP in 2009-10 to a low of 2.3% of GDP in 2016-17. We have done that not out of some ideological obsession, but because the key challenge is to get debt falling to increase the resilience of our country so that if the need were ever to arise, we would have the capacity to support the economy against a future shock.

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[Mr Hammond]

Yes. It is not responsible to make so-called hard choices by loading the price on to the next generation and the generation after that. We have to make difficult decisions and we have to bear the consequences of those decisions. At £65,000 per household, our public debt is still far too high, so I can confirm to my hon. Friend that we will continue the plans that we have announced to reduce the deficit in a measured and balanced way to ensure that debt falls as a share of GDP.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Despite this Government’s significant efforts to tackle the deficit by reducing tax avoidance, companies such as Microsoft and Apple are still saving hundreds of millions of pounds in corporation tax by booking sales in Ireland. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to continue to develop measures to make sure that companies that sell to UK customers pay tax in the UK?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on an important problem. Corporation tax in the UK—in fact, in all countries—is levied on profits generated by the activities of companies within the territory. The big global digital companies present us with a new challenge of attributing profits effectively to individual jurisdictions. We are continuing to work with the OECD’s taskforce on the digital economy, and we are also looking carefully at ideas emerging within the EU for interim solutions pending a full international solution.

Equitable Life Policyholders: Compensation

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions that over 1 million people subscribed to the Equitable Life pension funds. Over 900 of them are in my constituency, many of whom, as he says, are people who are just about managing. They have done the right thing, but they are now, at the very best, just about managing. This is about maladministration under previous Governments, so is it not incumbent on this Government at least to open the door a little more to an improved offer that will possibly improve over time to give such savers a fair deal?

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because one of the great things we do in this House is to work on moral issues such as Equitable together, across party lines. I am proud to work with the hon. Member for Harrow East—I hope he will allow me to call him an hon. Friend—because he has done an awful lot, and I pay tribute to him for the work he has done. I have done my best to work collectively and collaboratively as the co-chair of the all-party group, because we need to do this together. This is a moral issue, as I shall come on to elaborate.

In July 2008, the parliamentary ombudsman published her first report on Equitable Life, “Equitable Life: a decade of regulatory failure”. On 11 December that year, the Public Administration Committee produced a report entitled “Justice delayed”, which said:

“Over the last eight years many of those members and their families have suffered great anxiety as policy values were cut and pension payments reduced… Many are no longer alive, and will be unable to benefit personally from any compensation. We share both a deep sense of frustration and continuing outrage that the situation has remained unresolved for so long.”

Well, there has certainly been no shortage of reports, just a shortage of justice for those who, through no fault of their own, suffered huge losses in the life savings they had accrued over years of hard work.

At the core of the problem is the fact that Equitable Life simply could not meet the obligations it had made for itself, because it had made no provision for guarantees against low interest rates on policies issued before 1988. It therefore declared bonuses out of all proportion to its profits and assets.

Following the ruling of the House of Lords in July 2000, the society effectively stopped taking new business in December of that year, which spelled the end for Equitable. More than 1 million policyholders found that they faced severe cuts in their bonuses and annuities, which caused a huge loss of income on which many small investors were depending. After all, as I have said, the average investment among the 500,000 individual policyholders was just £45,000, which even at its height, according to the Equitable Members Action Group, would have yielded no more than £300 per month.

In its December 2008 report, one of the many recommendations of the Public Administration Committee stated:

“We strongly support the Ombudsman’s recommendation for the creation of a compensation scheme to pay for the loss that has been suffered by Equitable Life’s members as a result of maladministration. Where regulators have been shown to fail so thoroughly, compensation should be a duty, not a matter of choice.”

Reacting to the Government’s lack of response to the ombudsman’s report, the then Conservative Opposition expressed their determination to introduce an Equitable Life (Payments) Bill early in the next Parliament, should they form a Government after the general election of 2010. The legislation planned in the coalition agreement did, indeed, include such a Bill and it was introduced in June 2010, shortly after the new Government took office.

On 10 November 2010, I tabled an amendment to the Bill in Committee, supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, that would have included the pre-1992 with-profits annuitants—WPAs—who had been specifically excluded from the proposed compensation scheme contained in the Bill. The Bill offered 100% compensation to all with-profits annuitants who had taken out their annuities after 1 September 1992 and, as we have heard, 22% compensation to every other policyholder. Many Members from all parts of the House felt that that was inherently unfair, as the date of 1 September 1992 was somewhat arbitrary. That relatively small group of with-profits annuitants were the eldest and by far the most vulnerable policyholders. Many of them would not even live to enjoy the compensation, were it to be paid. Indeed, that has been borne out in reality.

My amendment to the Bill simply read:

“Payments authorised by the Treasury under this section to with-profits annuitants shall be made without regard to the date on which such policies were taken out.”

The Public Bill Office helped me to draft that amendment. The debate on the amendment took just over two hours, but the Division was lost by 76 votes in favour to 301 against. The debate did, however, strongly set out the case for including the pre-1992 with-profits annuitants.

The Bill received Royal Assent in early 2011 and the compensation scheme was set in motion. At first it was slow, but it began to pick up over the subsequent years. By the end of January 2015, more than £1 billion had been paid out to 896,367 policyholders, although more than 142,000 policyholders were still to be found and could not be traced. The scheme, as we know, has now closed. We also know that 37,764 with-profits annuitants, or their estates, were issued payments by the scheme. Those initial and subsequent payments totalled £271.4 million.

In conclusion, I have to give credit to the coalition Government for introducing a compensation scheme from which the majority of Equitable policyholders received 22p in the pound. I am sure we would all agree that that is a lot better than nothing. However, when we examine the compensation that was paid to Icesave investors following the collapse of the Icelandic banks in 2008, from which every investor received up to £50,000 of their losses in full, the Equitable scheme looks rather less than generous. Given that the average policy involved a total sum invested of £45,000, as I have said, it seems rather unfair to Equitable policyholders that they did not receive more. That is why EMAG continues to campaign for full compensation for all Equitable policyholders in a reasonable way—in line with the growth of the economy, not all at once—and why so many Members from all parts of the House continue to support that view.

Equitable policyholders have been very patient. They understand that the recession, at the time, meant austerity and a huge shortage of money for many parts of Government and the state. What they cannot understand is that, as the economy grows, they are denied any further payments against their very real losses. I have heard, as many right hon. and hon. Members will have heard, heartbreaking stories from individuals and constituents, some of whom have lost everything, including their homes, all because of Equitable’s failure and the company’s “catastrophic” regulation.

I have said in all my previous speeches in the House on Equitable Life that this is fundamentally a moral issue. When the Government are supposed to protect the life savings of individuals who have been encouraged to provide for themselves, as was the case with Equitable, they have a duty to ensure that the losses incurred are adequately compensated. That obligation should I believe, come above pet projects such as, perhaps, HS2 and even Trident renewal; otherwise, the whole fabric of trust in the state is damaged, which I believe is exactly what has happened in this case. Finally, I urge all Members of this House to continue to uphold the cause of Equitable policyholders and to try to restore their faith in the ability of Members of this House, as the elected representatives of the people, properly to compensate the victims of one of the greatest financial scandals of our age. After all, I believe we have a moral duty and we should not be afraid to carry it out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I generally find it best not to comment on straws in the wind, but I recognise the pressure that many authorities are under from underlying demographic trends. As we have said before, we are alert to that concern and will seek to address it in a sensible and measured way.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

For people moving into a residential care home the means test takes into account the value of their home, whereas it does not do so if they are applying for care in their own home. Does the Chancellor agree that there should be one simple system of means-testing, for whatever state funding people are applying?

[Mr Hammond]

The system that my hon. Friend refers to has been around for many years and predates the deferred purchase agreements which all local authorities now offer to people contributing to their care. We do not just need to look at individual, specific aspects of this challenge; we need to look broadly at the question of how to make social care funding sustainable for the future, in the face of a rapidly ageing population.

Parking Places (Variation of Charges) Bill

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 3rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

No, councils can make a reasonable surplus from their car parking and contribute it to their bottom line. It is a shame that my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) is not present, as I think he would confirm that the town council in Stratford-on-Avon owns the car parks, rather than the district council, and, given the popularity of Stratford as a visitor destination, almost funds its operations—legitimately—through its car park ownership.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Increasing parking charges may be legitimate, but it might have a very damaging effect on local businesses. Is not the Bill’s purpose under clause 2(2) to give local authorities opportunities to put in place different conditions? If they want to raise charges, they might have to go through a consultation, but if they want to lower them, it makes it easier for them to do so, whereas my hon. Friend’s amendment allows them to do virtually anything without consultation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

Consultation is always important. The two issues are interlinked. Many hospitals are situated in and around town centres, and that can cause all sorts of pressures. The measures in the Bill would have a beneficial effect if the local authorities used them positively. If authorities decide to lower charges, the number of people using local authority car parks may increase, which would then take pressure off other car parks.

Many residents live around town centres. If parking charges are not proportionate, people quite often park in the streets around a town centre and avoid using the car parks because it is quite easy to walk into the centre of town. That exacerbates problems for many people living in such areas. By definition, a town centre is a historic place so properties around it usually date from quite a while back—the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century—when nobody had a car. Those streets were not built for cars, so there is a lot of competition for parking among the residents alone. The last thing they want are councils that hike up parking charges without consultation, which would put more pressure on their streets and the parking arrangements in them. It is an important part of the Bill that we put in place a situation whereby councils consult.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Will the Minister confirm that the regulations will also cover coach parking? Coach parking charges were introduced in one of my market towns, Helmsley. That reduced the number of tourist coaches coming to the town, which is a renowned market town and a tourist destination. We then ran a campaign, and the local authority decided to remove the charges, which has helped tremendously to attract new visitors to the town. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on whether coach parking charges are also covered.

[Mr Jones]

As I was sitting down, I glanced up and noticed that I have cleared the Public Gallery, which is an achievement in itself.

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[Craig Whittaker]

As always, my hon. Friend makes a valid point. The strategies that councils have in place in the centre of London, Manchester, Birmingham or Leeds will be entirely different from those in some of my smaller local villages, such as West Vale, Ripponden, Hebden Bridge, Todmorden and Brighouse.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend’s experiences contrast with mine of my local Conservative council, Hambleton—this is not a political point, but it reflects a pro-business culture in that council. One of our market towns, Thirsk, has introduced a scheme whereby the first hour is free in the market square car park. That has increased the turnover of shoppers and parkers, which he mentioned at the beginning of his speech.

[Craig Whittaker]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. For a retailer, it is vital that a local resident can pop down to the town centre to get a pint of milk or a loaf of bread—the essentials that we need for daily living—with absolute ease. An excellent car parking strategy would allow them do that as easily and quickly as possible.

High streets and town centres continue to play a fundamental role in the lives of our communities, and parking is one of the factors most able to shape their success. If local authorities can strike the correct balance, a successful parking strategy can bring in visitors. I mentioned the Brighouse Business Initiative, which runs farmers markets in our area. Every year, it runs a massive 1940s weekend, which brings in about 200,000 additional people. Such initiatives in town centres can bring in the footfall, and car parking plays a vital role in that. It can help to reinvigorate a town centre.

Sadly, if the local council gets it wrong, a town centre can experience an all too different result. When local authorities seek to support the high street by reducing charges, the Bill will facilitate that and give them the flexibility to do so. If they adopt a different approach and seek to raise charges, it will ensure that local people and businesses are properly consulted and that the impact on the town is fully considered before any changes are made. The Bill has the potential to have a lasting and positive impact on our town centres, and I wholeheartedly support the intention behind it. I welcome the fact that both the Government and the Opposition have suggested that they will support it, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth for bringing it before the House.

My final point is a message to the Minister. He might have a great knack of emptying the Public Gallery, but if he looks up he will see that it is now almost full.

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[Amanda Solloway]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. As I mentioned, Derby has just won the Great British High Street award, partly because of the unique offer in places such as Sadler Gate, in the cathedral quarter, where a group of designers have got together to offer goods, all individually designed, and are taking it in turn to sell those products in their shop. It is very innovative and inspirational and draws people in because it is not something found in the shopping centre. That is good way forward.

The private sector has an important part to play.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

On the private sector, it is important that local authorities consult the private sector, yet in York, where I first located the head office of our business, the council sold off lots of car parks and then raised the charges in the remaining ones. That destroyed a lot of the independent retailers in the city because, at the same time, it was giving consent for out-of-town shopping centres, of which there are four around York, and then benefited from the huge section 106 contributions flowing back into its coffers. It is anti-business in terms of the important independent retailers in our town and city centres.

[Amanda Solloway]

I agree absolutely. Having been not only in retail for over 30 years, but an avid shopper for over 30 years, I have often visited York, and it is a shame. Shopping centres have their place, but we need to work in partnership to ensure two offers. As I mentioned, these two things are very different—they are almost two defined destinations: one a shopping centre, the other independent retailers with a very different offer.

By giving councils such as Derby the freedom to set parking charges more flexibly, we can enable local knowledge and understanding to have an impact to meet local demand. It is also important that the local authority consults on increasing the parking charges. There needs to be an opportunity to consider whether the increase is correct, and local people and businesses need to be consulted on whether it is appropriate. I acknowledge that the council could still then raise the charges if it chose to, but it is important that people have the opportunity to have that discussion. It means that there would not be any surprises. Businesses and consumers would at least know that the charges were going up and could take note.

I fully support this incredibly sensible Bill. I cannot emphasise enough the need to support these retailers and independent retailers and to encourage entrepreneurship, and parking is such a simple, effective way of encouraging people into our city centres to see the offer available. The Bill is long overdue. In fact, I am surprised it has not been brought forward before because it makes so much sense. These changes will have a positive impact on villages, towns and cities up and down the country.

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) on introducing this important Bill. For as long as I represent the constituents of Thirsk and Malton, I will be a champion of small independent businesses. Everything we do in terms of regulation, taxation and infrastructure should consider the needs of small businesses, and in particular try to create the level playing field with large business that we absolutely need to encourage the success of the local small independent retailer and business. Small independent businesses account for about 60% of our private sector-employed workforce and about 50% of our private sector turnover, so they are hugely important.

I must draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Our estate agent business has about 190 small, independent outlets around the UK in various high streets and market towns. We do not particularly rely any more on footfall, so that is not a big issue for us in terms of car parking and people coming to town or city centres, but it is a big issue for the general health of our towns, villages and cities in helping to ensure that we have a vibrant and healthy sector in our high streets and town centres.

We started our business in 1992, and it grew and we became the market leader in our town of York, which is where our first business started. We thought, “This is going quite well. We’re doing okay here. Our business is starting to prosper.” Three or four years later, however, another very good independent started up in York city centre, and started to take market share off us. We had to look very carefully at the business we were operating and what we were doing, and we started to work harder again. It made us focus on what had made us successful in the first place.

That is a small illustration of the importance of small independent businesses. It is not just about the fact that they are at the heart of communities and about the fact that they provide better service, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) said; it is also about their dynamics and the commercial realities of business. Small businesses hold big business to account. Wherever we have a big business monopoly—big businesses tend to monopolise the big out-of-town shopping centres—quality is often not as good. An extreme example of that is BT, which is a private sector monopoly, and we all get letters and complaints from constituents about the lack of quality from private sector monopolies, so we need a balance. This nation quite rightly has many good big businesses—my business aspires to be a big business—but we must ensure that the small independent business sector is vibrant. That is why this Bill is so important.

I have experience of some really bad local government car parking policies, and I referred earlier to the policy in York, where we started our first business. York is not in my constituency, but it is just down the road and many of my constituents work in York or have businesses there—our head office is still in York. The city council had a policy of selling off important city-centre car parks, which created revenue for the council and generated section 106 contributions from the developers of those car parks, but that led to more demand for and pressure on the remaining car parks and the charges were increased. It costs £2 an hour to park in the centre of York—a ridiculous figure that deters people from going into the centre. At the same time, the council granted planning consent for out-of-town shopping centres with free parking, and there are four such centres around York—a town of 200,000 residents. Local businesses were not consulted about that. In the conversations that did happen, there was panic from some independent retailers in the centre of York, but the council pushed ahead anyway, much to the detriment of those city-centre retailers.

There are some more positive examples in my constituency. Hambleton District Council has an innovative policy in some of its towns, such as Thirsk, where the council allows people to park for an hour in the market square. People get a ticket from the machine and stick it in the window, but they do not have to pay anything for an hour’s free parking, or they can pay 60p and park for two hours. That has created shopper turnover in the town centre, which is exactly what businesses want. They want people to come in and shop in that short shopping cycle. It is easy for people to go for lunch or just shop for a short period without having to go home and get their money to put in the machine—unless they want to pay to park for longer.

[Jo Churchill]

The situation is similar in my constituency, which is also near to a larger town—Cambridge in my case. The circumstances in the larger towns are different from those in small, rural environments around small market towns. We want to generate throughput so that traders can survive and so local people, who may be unable to shop without getting in their car, have the same choice as those who live near a town.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and I could not agree more. We are looking for a symbiotic relationship between the local authority and businesses. There already is a close relationship. The local authority benefits from the success of businesses—retail or otherwise—in its town, but that conversation is sometimes not as comprehensive as it needs to be. The relationship sometimes lacks understanding. The provisions of this Bill about consultation when there is a change to car parking charges and the ability to lower car parking charges without going through a detailed process are why it is so important that we take the Bill through.

My town of Malton is another good example. Unusually, most of the shops, houses and car parks in the centre are owned by a family estate, the Fitzwilliam estate. It is in the estate’s interest for the centre to be a vibrant commercial environment, so, as well as investing heavily in the town and in improving the shops, it gave two hours of free parking in the town centre car parks. That has developed the fantastically vibrant commercial activity we see in Malton.

Malton has been tremendously successful and very clever. A guy called Tom Naylor-Leyland set out to develop a brand around Malton, which he calls Yorkshire’s food capital. The Malton food festival is a fantastic weekend, and hon. Members must consider coming—it is a wonderful weekend to attend. It is vibrant, with music and a beer festival. There is some of Yorkshire’s finest food, and Yorkshire is the finest place for food, as Members can tell. The food festival has been a wonderful success story, and the town has regenerated on the back of it. It has to be seen to be believed. There is a symbiotic relationship between the car park owners, the town centre owners and the businesses, with a deep understanding between the three.

A lot of coach parties come to see the wonders of Helmsley, a fantastic market town. Richard III, the last king of the house of York, had a connection with Helmsley castle, as well as with Richmond castle. As the Minister said earlier, Helmsley was successful in the British high street awards, winning best market town on the back of the fantastic efforts of the town’s traders and local authority. Coach parking charges were introduced in one of its car parks, which deterred coaches carrying 50 tourists from coming to the town. Local people went to the council and campaigned on that issue, and they got the parking charges removed, which brought the coach parties back to the town. That is a good example of how businesses and local authorities, working together, can have a positive effect and foster a deep understanding of some of the challenges of running small independent businesses.

Those are positive examples, but we have heard others. According to the Royal Automobile Club, £756 million was spent on charges and penalties for parking in car parks across the UK in 2016, which is up 9% on 2015 and up 34% on 2010. That can be a tax on shoppers, and it can also be a tax on businesses. Businesses are paying rates and want service from their council yet, as we have heard, they are seen as sitting ducks or golden geese, or as both at the same time. We should make sure that we look after those golden geese and not treat them as sitting ducks because, ultimately, shoppers and businesses will vote with their feet.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

Does my hon. Friend think that local authorities that take the wrong approach are likely to cook their goose?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That is a very good point. It has been a fantastic debate. We have talked about some of the foul consequences of not having good parking policies in local towns. We did mention the Dog and Duck earlier—our local pub is called the Durham Ox. Members may ask, “Durham? In Yorkshire? Why is that?” It is because it has a connection with the Neville family, which is also linked to Richard III. It was a staging post on the way from Durham cathedral to York Minster.

In conclusion, what we need is a level playing field. We must always look after the interests of small business. We should not, in this House, worship at the altar of big business. We should absolutely put small business and independent retailers at the heart of everything we do. I absolutely support the provisions in this Bill, because that is exactly what it does.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Jo Churchill]

It is my pleasure also to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) on bringing forward what is—unusually in this place—a simple Bill with a simple aim that affects a great number of people.

I welcome the fact that it is easier for local councils to sort out their car parking, but I want to speak a little bit about enabling them to have a sense of place. That is a really important factor, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) alluded, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), who said that we should not be looking for a one-size-fits-all solution. A sense of place is about local authorities understanding their locality, including businesses, residents and the people who visit the town. Our towns are changing, which is why local authorities need flexibility.

In the town of Bury St Edmunds, residents live near businesses and tourist attractions, and a vast number of tourists visit. As I mentioned earlier, we have getting towards 2 million short-stay parking slots each year in a town of some 42,000. That shows the popularity of the town, but it also shows that we need to have local flexibility and accountability. A very different situation exists down the A14 in Stowmarket, which is also in my constituency. Stowmarket has a less vibrant town centre, so the local authority will need to apply different measures to accommodate its businesses and stimulate a vibrant economy that is right for the town. As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) said, the provision is about building communities. It is about people having the time to go into town centres and actually enjoy where they live.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the different types of town in her constituency. Is not the point of the Bill to require local authorities to work alongside businesses in order to develop the right strategies—for parking or other things—so that those businesses can make the best of their opportunities, no matter which conurbation they are in?

[Jo Churchill]

Absolutely—I could not agree more.

Bury St Edmunds has a 6% retail occupancy rate, which, as my hon. Friend will know, is very low—in fact, it is 50% of the national average. Bury St Edmunds won the award for the best Christmas fair anywhere in the country this year. It has a plethora of things we can enjoy. It has its own cathedral. Tonight, I hope to attend a performance of “Northanger Abbey” at the Theatre Royal, which is one of the only regency theatres in the country. All of that is fantastic, but there are also great things in Stowmarket and Needham Market. However, these places are different, and we need to understand how the Bill can address that.

There is one thing I would like to ask the Minister, and perhaps he can write to me if today is not the time to tease it out. In my area, I have a county council, a borough council, a district council and three town councils. Very often, it is only the fact that those councils work well together that facilitates solutions, despite the complexity involved in different authorities owning different car parks. For example, when Stowmarket Town Council wished to have a cheaper parking rate of £1 for two hours, that was facilitated through collaboration with the district council. Sometimes in these multiple tiers, we have a complexity that even a simple instrument such as this Bill may not address. There might be a little more work to do to deal with areas where things are not as simple as in a unitary authority or a metropolitan authority so that those areas can have conversations that facilitate changes to their local environment—to their car parking—more quickly than is possible at the moment.

That is particularly pertinent in places such as Bury, where we have the contra-problem to a lot of towns: we often do not have enough car parking spaces. It would be really good if these places could drive issues such as the funding of multi-storey car parks, which would allow us to have more parking so that our town centres are not sclerotic. When our town centres are blocked—hopefully, that is what the Bill will address—it is my residents who suffer. When people park somewhere in the town without thinking, residents cannot access their houses. Permits are good, but they stop people parking for business, and that is what I mean about this issue being about the whole environment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

The right hon. Lady and I have recently spoken about this issue, and as she knows, there has been some work done to look at the broader issue. It is complicated, but I undertake to look at it again and respond to her. Of course, some of the broader aspects of the gig economy will be covered during the Taylor review.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

According to the Library, infrastructure spending per head is 2.5 times greater in London and the south-east than in the regions. Does the Chancellor agree that now is the time for a fairer distribution of investment spending across the UK?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

The Government are committed to investment in all the regions of the UK. We have delivered more than 500 infrastructure schemes in the north since 2010, and more than £13 billion of spending is planned on transport in the north during this Parliament. In Yorkshire, this includes new trains on the east coast main line, the trans-Pennine railway upgrade and bringing the A1(M) up to motorway standard for its full length. I would just say to my hon. Friend that figures for London and the south-east are distorted by the effect of the strategic Crossrail project, with a cost of £14.8 billion.

Shale Wealth Fund

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint]

Absolutely. The great thing about energy efficiency is that it has a multiplier effect. It not only makes our homes warmer and reduces bills, but creates jobs and encourages innovation, too. Although it will be a national fund, the delivery should be at a local level, and the leadership should be held regionally within our communities across the UK.

One bad scheme such as the green deal does not mean that we should give up. With the green deal gone, and the energy company obligation soon to exist solely to tackle fuel poverty, we need to be asking serious questions about how to move forward on energy efficiency. We know, because the Competition and Markets Authority told us, that 70% of bill payers are paying over the odds for their energy and even if the latest Ofgem measures are introduced, they will reduce bills for only a few. It is very likely that, even by 2020, we will still be talking about energy bills that are as high, if not higher, than they were in 2010. I am sure the Minister would agree that the cheapest energy is the energy that we do not use. A shale wealth fund could provide an opportunity to enhance a large-scale retrofit of the UK’s housing stock, protecting households from future energy price rises. The fund should not be the only programme for energy efficiency, but it would provide a new means beyond passporting the cost to the general bill payer.

For a moment, let us consider the future if we do not make energy efficiency a priority. Quite rightly, the UK has ambitious and legally binding emissions targets, and we shall have to meet those targets, with 80% of the UK built environment still existing in 2050. The UK building stock is a long way from the low-energy housing stock that the UK will need, and the challenge is still huge. The Government’s own figures for 2015 show that, overall, their largest energy efficiency scheme, ECO, installed one or more measures in around 5% of homes. Some 320,000 homes had cavity wall insulation installed, 230,000 had new loft insulation, and 50,000 had solid wall insulation fitted. Yet of the 620,000 green deal assessments, 89% of those homes were rated as D, E, F or G. There is a long, long way to go.

There is a huge job that needs to be done, and for whatever reason—poorly directed funding or lack of profitability—the hard-to-treat properties have been substantially ignored. Many of the easiest measures have been undertaken first. Now Britain needs to finish the job. An energy efficiency dedicated shale wealth fund could be a hugely positive step, and I am not alone in suggesting this. Neil Marshall, chief executive of the National Insulation Association, commented:

“There are still some 5 million cavity walls, 7 million solid walls and 7 million lofts that need insulating and therefore we welcome this proposal. Insulating these homes will combat fuel poverty and climate change as well as reducing energy bills and creating jobs.”

The association rightly identifies the fact that many homes have yet to be adequately insulated, including 95% of homes with solid walls.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Most of my constituency is covered by exploration licences for shale, so I have done a lot of research, visited Pennsylvania and set up an all-party parliamentary group on the subject. Does the right hon. Lady accept that the greatest impact of shale gas exploration is above the ground and consists of traffic movements, noise and light pollution? As a consequence, does she agree that some of the financial benefits should go directly to some of the householders who bear the brunt of those difficulties?

[Caroline Flint]

I entirely agree. Some of those problems come down to planning. As in any other planning arrangements, there should be mitigation by any developer of any undue impacts caused in the community. It is important to emphasise that not every place that is the subject of an application will get through, because of the drawbacks that the hon. Gentleman outlines. There are many different ways that compensation could be found from shale gas development, whether through the planning process, the £100,000 per well, 1% of revenues to local communities, or the shale wealth fund, which I believe has a particular role to play in addressing a massive problem in this country—the lack of energy efficiency.

IGas has decided to focus its community fund awards this year on local renewable energy generation and long-term conservation. In its submission, INEOS argued:

“The Government may wish to consider allocating a portion of funding towards energy efficiency initiatives or developing renewable technologies. This will also help to debunk the myth that it is an either/or between gas and renewables.”

Let us remember that INEOS is one of the firms that has had to import shale gas from the USA to meet its current needs.

Lancashire County Council argues in its submission that as part of a devolution deal the shale wealth fund in Lancashire

“could be focussed on green and renewable technologies and also ensuring that ordinary families in the county can help reduce their energy costs through energy efficiency measures in the home.”

Concentrix

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

I have said, both in reply to the urgent question on 14 September and in my opening remarks today, that front-line Concentrix staff have been working hard to resolve these issues. The problems of a contract like this, and of getting through on the phone, are never usually the fault of the person you finally get through to. It is right to say that people have been working hard. I suspect the hon. Gentleman represents many of the people who work there.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I also welcome the statement that we are terminating the contract with Concentrix. That is absolutely the right thing to do. I have a number of constituents who have suffered these problems. Mr and Mrs Young from Malton provided evidence that they were married. Despite that, Mrs Young was identified as unmarried and living in Whitby on her own. Members of Parliament have the emergency hotline—I have used it—and people can get emergency hardship payments. Does the Minister welcome that and should we make it more publicly known that those measures are available for people in hardship?

[Jane Ellison]

That is exactly right, and today’s debate is timely as it allows us to focus on that. I am now going to give way to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who has done so much work on this matter.