Finance (No. 2) Bill

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler]

I am sorry, but I am just coming to the end of my speech. If the Government fail to support this very reasonable new clause, more and more people will begin to question why this Government are so intent on harming and hindering women and those with protected characteristics, as opposed to helping them.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the final day of debate on this Finance Bill. We have had a lot of debate during the past few weeks. The hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), the Minister and I have spent quite a lot of time together in the Committee Room, on not only this Bill, but the customs Bill. It is good to be here again to talk about this. It is a great way to start talking about equalities, particularly in respect of this new clause put forward by the Labour Front-Bench team.

The new clause is incredibly important, because the way the Government and previous Governments at Westminster have done Budgets has not been particularly transparent and has not resulted in people knowing what the effects of all the policies will be. I have said before that this is a good new clause and I am delighted to support it on behalf of the Scottish National party. I wish to highlight a number of things in it and to make more general comments about transparency and the processes the Government use to create Budgets and make tax law. The new clause talks about various things, including an analysis of the impact on the different protected characteristics.

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[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a good point on the marriage allowance, as ever. Does she agree that it creates a significant inequality, in that I, as a married woman, suddenly get this advantage over an unmarried woman? That is an injustice and an unfairness in the tax system. The Government really should not be in the business of telling people that it is financially beneficial to get married.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that people should not feel that they should have to get into a marriage, a civil partnership or any kind of signing on a dotted line relationship, to get a tax break. People should have the choice on that. As I said, this allowance has a disproportionately positive effect on people who are married, particularly on men; it is women who tend to be disadvantaged because they cannot receive this allowance.

Turning to other things in the new clause, I have previously talked, particularly during consideration of the customs Bill, about the differential regional impacts that Brexit will have, particularly now that the leaked Government analysis shows that there will be significantly higher negative impact on areas in the north of England, for example, than in London and the south-east of England. Therefore, when the Government make policy they should be making sure they are trying to balance that out and to put in place policies that are more beneficial to those negatively impacted areas, to counterbalance the major negative effect that Brexit will have.

We need to provide the people in those areas, particularly those at the bottom of the pile, with a fairer system that is better for them. Were the Government to analyse that, we would be in a better position and could see more clearly what they thought the impact would be. Part of the problem is that the Government do not know the impact of some of these policies. They do not know what the differential impact will be because they have not looked at it. If they have all this analysis, it should be easy for them to publish it and to give it to Members, so that we can scrutinise it and make the best decisions.

[Luke Graham]

The hon. Lady talks about regional disparity; does she really think that the Scottish National party policy of increasing taxes in Scotland is a good way to narrow that disparity?

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[Kirsty Blackman]

I have expressed particular concerns about those people in England who earn under £26,000 a year and will pay more tax than they will in Scotland and about whether the Government feel it is fair—[Interruption.] I am sorry, Mr Speaker, but I am being shouted at from across the Chamber. Those people at the bottom of the pile who earn under £26,000 a year will pay more tax in England than they would in Scotland. That is not fair, because those people—

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kirsty Blackman]

No thanks.

It is not fair because those are the people who most need Government support, especially given the changes to tax credits and the negative impacts we have seen, with disabled people losing £30 a week. This is a major issue for the most vulnerable people. The Conservatives shout about the fact that tax rates for those who earn a reasonable income will be slightly higher in Scotland than in England, but it is clear that they support a different system that does not involve as much fairness as the system that we are trying to support in Scotland.

On the process of Budget scrutiny and the general process of scrutiny of Finance Bills, I have previously expressed vociferously my concerns about the fact that Finance Bill Committees do not take evidence. It would be much better if they did, and if they did, I would like to see them take evidence from organisations such as the Women’s Budget Group that can talk about the gender disparity in some of the tax decisions that are made. But I honestly do not think that that is enough. It is not enough to have scrutiny after the fact. Despite the Government moving to one fiscal event in the year, which is a change that I welcome, there is not the level of consultation that there could be before tax measures are suggested and put in place—before the Chancellor stands up and reveals his Budget.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

In a Westminster Hall debate this morning, I outlined the benefit that the European Community brought to my constituency through the funding of vital infrastructure projects. Of course, there is a revenue follow-on from that, because road improvements lead to people being able to get to hospital quicker and other things like that. We are grateful for that. Does the hon. Lady agree that, in respect of the Bill, it would have been helpful had some consideration been given to the effect of the reduction of that money and what that will mean for the UK Exchequer? Indeed, it would have been helpful to consider what that would mean in terms of helping the Scottish Government to replace that funding, as and when.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point. I made the point earlier about regional differences and the impact of Brexit. It is important not only in relation to the GDP reduction that areas might see because they will not be able to trade as easily with EU countries, but in respect of the money that came from the EU and was used for things like infrastructure projects. It is important that the Government counter those reductions.

When the Chancellor stands up to give his spring statement, which we hope will be light on tax changes—that is what tax experts and the business community are asking for—and when he delivers his Budget, it is incredibly important that he has done as much consultation as possible beforehand. He should not only speak to business organisations and Conservative MPs, as I know he does, but open the net wider and consult in advance on any tax measures that he wishes to put in place. He should also take on board new clause 9, which would ensure that an impact analysis is carried out afterwards.

[John Lamont]

Can the hon. Lady explain the consultation that the Scottish Government undertook before they introduced higher taxes for Scottish taxpayers? Many of my constituents do not feel that it was fair and many businesses have expressed concerns. Despite the calls for consultation, the Scottish Government’s consultation before the introduction of their own plans for higher tax was not reflected in any changes.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Before the vote on the Scottish Government’s budget, they produced a paper on the rationale behind their proposed changes. They consulted each of the parties in the Scottish Parliament and asked them all to put forward their tax plans, so that they could be analysed. The consultation was first put forward in October or November—I am not entirely sure—and the vote is taking place today. That left a significant length of time between the production of the consultation documents and the first discussions and the actual vote in Parliament.

Here in Westminster, we have the Budget debate and then the votes on the Ways and Means resolutions. We have votes on proposals that are being put in place from that day. That is very different from the situation in the Scottish Parliament, where a length of time is allowed for consultation because the draft budget is produced. All the parties in the Scottish Parliament are welcome to produce an Opposition budget and they are welcome to take that to the Parliament to be voted on. Some of them have chosen to do that and some have not. I suggest that those that have not chosen to do that might be struggling to balance the books, or they might have just decided that ours is clearly the best option.

I do not wish to take up any more time. The call for equality assessments and for more transparency and information would be helpful not only for the Opposition, who scrutinise the Budget, but for the Ministers who take decisions. They would take better decisions if they could see all the impacts, particularly on people with protected characteristics.

[Helen Whately]

I wish to make a few brief comments, particularly as I was unable to intervene on the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler). I was quite shocked by some of the accusations she made and by what I consider to be her somewhat unsubstantiated claims about a rather illusory bright future under a Corbyn Government. I felt that she somewhat ignored the legacy of the previous Labour Government, who failed to build homes, thereby contributing to the current housing challenge; who failed on jobs, leaving many thousands of families jobless when the Conservative Government took over; and who increased inequality in our society.

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[Stephen McPartland]

I will keep my comments focused on the bank levy, PFI and tax evasion. Results speak far more than rhetoric, and it is important to put on the record that in 2016-17, the banking sector paid £27.3 billion in taxes, which was up 58% from the £17.3 billion that it paid in 2009-10. I understand that under the current proposals, the bank surcharge is expected to raise an additional £1.8 billion for the Exchequer.

I would like to talk briefly about PFI. I have a lot of sympathy for the comments made by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), but a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate. I have a lot of experience of PFI. In 2012, I launched a campaign because the last Labour Health Secretary signed a PFI deal for the Surgicentre in Stevenage to be built and operated by Carillion. As a result of the deal, when the centre was fully operational, 8,500 records were lost, leading to damaged eyesight for a large number of patients, and three people died. It was a complete nightmare.

As a result, I ran a long, hard campaign and persuaded the Health Secretary in 2013 to nationalise the facility and return it to my local hospital trust. A Conservative Member of Parliament therefore had a piece of the NHS nationalised that had been privatised by the last Labour Health Secretary, so if there is a specific issue, local Members of Parliament can go in there and create a change. I took Carillion on in 2012 and I won. As a result, I then worked with the GMB union. We launched a campaign to stop blacklisting among construction workers and we won again. It is important that individual Members of Parliament identify problems with PFI in their areas, so we can then work on and tackle those problems as individuals.

Turning to tax evasion, it is very important for people to look at what they can do as individuals. Again, back in 2012—I was obviously incredibly active at the time—I launched a campaign on tax transparency, before it was fashionable. In association with Christian Aid, I wrote to all FTSE 100 chief executives to ask whether they would commit to greater tax transparency and help developing countries around the world. In the drive towards globalisation, the situation is incredibly difficult—it is almost a race to the bottom in some areas—with regard to what each country will offer to allow large multinationals to move around.

I published all those results in The Daily Telegraph and on a website. This was all before tax evasion and tax transparency became far more fashionable. The Government got involved and I am very pleased that as a result, £160 billion has been raised since 2010 in additional tax revenue, tackling avoidance, evasion and non-compliance. For me, that is an additional £160 billion that has been invested in my local and national health service, and in my hospital that has been rebuilt and paid for by the Government, not by outside organisations or PFI. That money is being invested in children’s futures in my constituency. Individual Members of Parliament have a great opportunity to go out and create change in their areas, if there are specific issues that they can tackle, and it is possible to win on those issues.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I think that I was as surprised as you were, Madam Deputy Speaker, by the brevity of the speech by the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). I very much appreciate it—it is great. I was willing the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) to keep going for an extra 30 seconds to hit the half-hour mark. He was close, but did not quite get there.

I want to talk specifically about the bank levy, tax avoidance and evasion, and, briefly, PFI. We will support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). I will not expand on that because she covered the issue broadly. On the bank levy, the position in our 2017 manifesto was that we did not support the reductions in the bank levy; we supported the reversal of those reductions. What the Labour party has proposed is a good way to tackle this, given, as has been said in exchanges across the House, that there is not an amendment of the law resolution, nor are we able to move some of the more exciting, more interesting things that we would have liked to move. I hope that the next time there is a Finance Bill, the Government choose to do that, and if we end up with the Labour party in charge, I hope that it will make that change and ensure that an amendment of the law resolution comes through in any Budget process and Finance Bill. That is the only way in which we can have a reasonable level of discussion on this issue.

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[Neil O’Brien]

I am afraid that I am not entirely sure what the hon. Gentleman is driving at, and I am conscious of the time.

I support the measures before us because they will provide immediate benefit, and they form part of a wider strategy to support first-time buyers, including Help to Buy, which has helped 230,000 people to get a home of their own, the lifetime ISA, which gives people a 25% bonus as they save for a deposit, the huge support for shared ownership and new supply measures, such as the housing infrastructure fund and the huge increase in funding for affordable housing in the 2015 spending review. My younger constituents will warmly welcome the end of stamp duty for first-time buyers, as will many older constituents—parents and grandparents.

The hon. Member for Oxford East rather made the case against her own measures by drawing on the huge amount of published detail about and analysis of our proposals. I have in my hand the OBR’s estimate of residential SDLT elasticities, and it notes the significant degrees of uncertainty. The creation of the OBR was a welcome reform, because it makes things more transparent, and it is right that the OBR is cautious in its forecasts. We created the OBR because Gordon Brown fiddled the figures and changed the economic cycle and led us to disaster by doing so. It is also right to stress the uncertainty around such measures, because it is fundamentally difficult to model things in the housing market.

When we introduced the annual tax on unoccupied dwellings, which I am sure the hon. Lady supports, we raised four times more money than predicted, so things are difficult to predict. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) has already made the important point that even if we believe that the £5,000 would be entirely capitalised into the price of a house, my young constituents would be £5,000 better off as a result. In Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, that is still a significant sum of money, so I am hugely glad to be able to support these important reforms today and to oppose the Opposition’s amendments.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I rise to discuss new clause 10, tabled in my name and those of my SNP colleagues. Given that we are tight for time, I was tempted to make an incredibly short speech and just say, “Can you give us our money back, please? Thanks,” and then sit down, but I will expand on that a little.

[Christine Jardine]

Like other parties, the Liberal Democrats supported the SNP’s call for an exemption from VAT for emergency services. However, the SNP Scottish Government was warned that this would happen and chose to go ahead anyway, and we now have a police force that the public, many politicians and many members of the police are unhappy with. Would it not be better for the hon. Lady to plead with her colleagues in Holyrood to fix the problem, rather than try to divert attention on to something—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Time is short, and Members should not be taking advantage. I want to get the leader of the hon. Lady’s party in, but I will not be able to if we have interventions that are speeches.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I am actually going to talk about why we should be given the rebate and why what happened makes sense.

Scotland’s police and fire departments have been paying an annual charge of about £35 million a year in VAT, and we have repeatedly asked for those services to be excluded. The SNP has asked for it 140 times, and several other people have asked for it, too, and we have been given so many excuses why it could not be done. Murdo Fraser said that there was

“no justification for a VAT refund.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 31 October 2017; c. 77.]

The Chancellor himself said that they would not be able to recover the VAT under EU law. However, the fair thing for the Government to do has always been to give police and fire services access to the VAT rebate. Highways England and the London Legacy Development Corporation have access to the rebate, and both are national organisations. Now, suddenly, the welcome decision has been taken to give us the rebate, but nothing has changed to cause that to happen. The situation is no different from what it was three years ago. The police and fire services are structured exactly the same as they were three years ago, yet somehow the Government have decided that we are now eligible for the rebate when previously we were not.