Draft Onshore Hydraulic Fracturing (Protected Areas) Regulations 2015

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Graham P Jones

Tuesday 27th October 2015 General Committees

[Graham Jones]

You don’t have them? There are test wells and test pads very nearby on the Fylde coast. Licences have just been issued for that area, and Lancashire MPs are deeply concerned.

Finally, on my constituents’ concern and on the policy being the wrong way round, the beginning of the impact assessment mentions a new tax regime. I am delighted to oppose the Government’s plans for fracking in Lancashire so long as they are accompanied by an insulting 1% retention rate for local authorities while the Treasury collects 60% should gas flow from the wells. The Treasury is taking a huge amount of money that my constituents, and constituents across Lancashire, think is just going to be spent on Crossrail 2 or some other London or south-east project. It is outrageous that the Bowland basin should be so used. The Minister talks about a new tax regime, but that new tax regime is an insult to the people of Lancashire.

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

The hon. Gentleman may be confusing two different figures. The 1% figure is based on revenue, but the 60% figure is taxation on profits.

[Graham Jones]

The hon. Gentleman has a point, but he will find that, when the gas finally flows, it will be nearly all profit because the capital investment will be at the beginning and there will be minimal capital investment as we go along. Year on year, the balance sheet will essentially show profits. He is not wrong, but if he looks at how it will play out, there is huge disparity and there will not be much closing of the gap between the 1% that Lancashire gets and the 60% that will be given to the Chancellor.

Tax Credits

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Graham P Jones

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

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

“We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added”—so said Ronald Reagan. In 2010 nine out of 10 families in the UK were on welfare. We do not need more welfare; we need more jobs, and better jobs which will pay a national living wage of £9 by 2020, ahead of the estimated living wage at that time.

We have record employment in the UK. Britons have more opportunity and more jobs. During the last Parliament, we created more jobs than were created in the rest of the European Union combined. What we have not discussed in this debate is the effect of the whole package of these reforms—universal credit, tax thresholds, child care and the national living wage. They create an incentive, enabling people to do more work. All those estimates from the IFS and the Adam Smith Institute have not taken into account people’s potential to go out and work more.

[Graham Jones]

I find the hon. Gentleman’s comments bizarre. This matter is close to home for me. My son and his wife are on tax credits. He does over 40 hours a week, and she is retraining and doing 12-hour bank shifts. I have a granddaughter who is going to suffer a cut of more than £100. Can the hon. Gentleman explain to me how they can retrain any more than they are, where they are going to get extra hours when they are both doing nearly 50 hours, and the impact that that has on my granddaughter? The hon. Gentleman is out of touch.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Wages have been subsidised for employers for too long. It is a crazy, convoluted system in which people pay tax and then it is returned to them in welfare. How can that be right? Employers should value their workforce and pay them more. Of course we need to look carefully at the consequences of these changes, but without the reforms in the previous Parliament the tax credits bill would have been £40 billion. We cannot afford that. We have to balance the books, and employers have to take up the slack.

We are still losing £73 billion a year in this country, so we must balance the books, and we can do that by building a new culture. What do I say to an employer in my constituency who employs hundreds of workers? He says that on a Friday night, when the shout for overtime goes up, it is the overseas workers who step forward. We need to build the right culture. The culture in my house was built by my parents, who worked all the hours God sent, not to line their pockets, but to benefit the next generation and set the right example for them.

Freud, distilling the learning from his life’s work, said that happiness depends on two things: love and work. Over the previous Parliament, 700,000 workless families went back to work. We need better jobs, we need to balance the books, and we need to build a new aspirational culture in which work pays.