Stamp Duty Land Tax (Temporary Relief) Bill

Laura Farris Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith). The Chancellor said last week that Governments rarely get to choose the moments that define them. Apart from making the decision as to whether or not to lead the country into armed conflict, I can think of few more daunting prospects than preparing a country that is on the brink of an economic recession of significant scale and depth right in the middle of a global pandemic.

I will confine my comments to the housing market and the time-limited decision on stamp duty. I hope Members will forgive me if I contextualise this as part of what the Chancellor said about jobs in his statement last week and his attempts to stave off long-term unemployment, which, if we are honest, every Government of every stripe in the post-war period have struggled with when it takes root.

When going through a moment of history, it can be difficult to be clear-eyed about what is happening, but we know that covid-19 discriminates directly on the basis of age. From a health perspective it has the most serious consequences for the old, and from an economic perspective it has the most serious consequences for the young, in terms of both their labour market opportunities and their potentially facing a higher tax burden in the longer term.

One of the reasons I welcome this stamp duty cut is what it says to young people’s hopes of home ownership. It reaches first-time buyers and young buyers. In my constituency, the average house price is £350,000. That is an immediate tax saving of £4,500. I appreciate that a first-time buyer may be buying house worth less than that, but they were very unlikely to fall below the £125,000 previously, so it is a direct saving of several thousand pounds to them.

When I researched what a first-time buyer in my constituency looks like, I got two figures—32 and 33—but it struck me that it does not much matter, because both those ages are positioned squarely in the middle of the millennial demographic: people born between 1981 and 1996 and aged between 24 and 39, so they came of age somewhere between the beginning of the financial crisis and now, over a decade later, during a global health pandemic and, potentially, a deep recession. It is critical that there is a renewed imperative to focus on people in that demographic, who I think have, with some justification, felt a little ignored in the last 15 years, so I welcome a policy that gives them a direct financial boost.

The second consideration, which many Members have raised, is the importance of returning confidence in the housing market to jobs more generally. Construction is a £39 billion-a-year sector. It employs nearly 5% of my constituents, but that figure increases to over 8% if we take into account the secondary industries—the tradesmen we have talked about. In 2019, well over 1,000 new householder developments were approved in west Berkshire. That number has completely fallen off a cliff during the period of stagnation that we have seen in the last three months, yet we face the same pressure on housing supply. The same people want to move up and out—those having babies, settling down or living with their parents. I welcome an initiative that will get those jobs moving.

My final point I hope answers the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) about the excluded—the 3 million. If she will forgive me, I think it is important that we do not just treat them as an amorphous lump of people. When I think about some of the people in my constituency who contacted me, they were small business directors doing things such as garden design; peripatetic workers doing things such as removals, whose income is hard to trace, whose employment status is not completely clear and who have fallen through the cracks; and even, dare I say it, Instagram influencers specialising in renovation and interiors.

It is easy to say, “Well, they’re not very well-known careers” or “They’re not someone we would treat with a lot of respect,” but we should treat those people with respect. They are young, they are dynamic and they are providing a service at every Budget, and they have not always qualified for Government support. You do not need to move house to redo your garden or your interior, but moving is a huge catalyst for that kind of work, and those people directly benefit from this decision on stamp duty.

To conclude, I welcome the time-limited stamp duty break that the Bill offers, and particularly its focus on millennials, on jobs and on freelancers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Farris Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am not quite sure that is right. In reality, the future jobs fund was around £1 billion. We announced yesterday the £2 billion green home grant to provide home efficiency upgrades for hundreds of thousands of homes and create tens of thousands of jobs up and down the country. Not only will households save money on their electricity bills and save carbon, but we will create good local jobs in the process.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

From a health perspective covid-19 disproportionately affected the old, but from an economic perspective the risks are greatest for the young, in terms of both lost employment opportunities and potentially a future higher tax burden. What reassurances can my right hon. Friend give that the economic prospects of young people will be his priority in the future recovery?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: young people are more likely than not to work in affected sectors and more likely than others to be furloughed, and we know from all the evidence that the impact of scarring on young people is very significant, which is why they remain uppermost in my mind. I give my hon. Friend the reassurance that they will be prioritised as we think about our recovery and our labour-market interventions.

Budget Resolutions

Laura Farris Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

The speech that I intended to make has been somewhat overshadowed by what we heard in the House earlier. The gravity forecast in the Chancellor’s statement was rammed home with grim reality this evening and there is no doubt about the task that lies ahead.

I should like to begin by congratulating the Chancellor and his team on a Budget that was ambitious in scale and bold in reach—an orchestration of fiscal and monetary measures that truly delivered on our promise to the British people. It is right that the Budget placed at its core the small and medium enterprises that are this country’s beating heart. It is only by setting conditions in which those wealth-creating and job-creating industries can develop and flourish that we can fund the public services that are the subject of this debate. It is their support and survival that has become the great imperative for the Government.

There are three aspects to the funding of public services that I would like to address this evening. First, in relation to GP pension relief, when I was first elected and met the chair of my local clinical commissioning group, he told me that the issue of GP pensions was the most significant problem for health services in my constituency. The threat of unexpected tax bills had resulted in a spike in GPs taking early retirement and an increase in GPs reducing their practice sessions. He estimated that in real terms that was a reduction of 50 to 60 patient contacts a week per GP. I have raised the issue repeatedly in this House, and I know how welcome the change is. It will bolster frontline services at this critical time; increase the availability of GP appointments; enhance staff retention; and, most importantly, boost morale at a time at which our brilliant doctors need all the help they can get.

Secondly, in relation to school funding, I was glad to see clear confirmation of our manifesto commitment to minimum levels of per pupil funding at primary and secondary levels. However, I would like to say a few words in relation to the significant funds that have been ring-fenced for special educational needs provision—£780 million. What is critical is not how much is spent but how it is spent. Talking to heads in my constituency, three themes have emerged. First, it is critically important that some of that funding goes towards early diagnosis. I have heard how damaging, not just for the child but for other children in the class, it is for the child to linger too long without a proper identification of their needs. If the child is distracted or disruptive because they cannot access the curriculum, that affects the whole cohort.

Secondly, special educational needs funding should support smaller teaching groups, because the evidence is overwhelming that outcomes for children with special educational needs can be radically improved when focused support is provided. Thirdly, I would respectfully request that this spend is guaranteed or bettered in the years ahead. As of last year, the Government withdrew the disabled students allowance in further education institutions. I understand why they did so. None the less, that underscores the imperative for full and robust SEN support during a child’s formative school years.

Thirdly, in relation to public safety, I commend the funding that has been allocated to the trial of a domestic abuse court in England and Wales. I saw that as a clear reflection of the Government’s root-and-branch commitment to tackling this hidden and heinous crime, by focusing it in a single court, rather than via the twin tracks of the family and criminal divisions. As the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) said in a Westminster Hall debate two weeks ago, that is a critical step for the protection of children, who are often innocent collateral. At present, there is often a paradoxical situation in which a perpetrator of domestic abuse is judged to be a violent criminal in the Crown court, but he is a “good enough Dad” in the family court when the issue of custody falls for consideration. That is not just a discrepancy—it is an injustice, and a domestic abuse court offers a joined-up forum to address it.

Staying on the subject of children, I hope that in the life of this Parliament the Government will go further and recognise the need to look at legal aid, particularly in the family court. As the outgoing head of the family division, Lord Justice Munby, put it last year:

“The fact is we have far more litigants in person than we did… Our court processes, our rules, our forms, our guidance, is woefully inadequate to enable litigants in person…to understand the system… That’s a current reality.”

I hope that this bold and reforming people’s Government will seek to address that issue.