Taxes

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Vince]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. So I cannot talk about my father’s and grandfather’s experiences—[Interruption.] No, okay.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for becoming the human face of tax collection in this debate. A number of my constituents also work for HMRC, and they have told me that the period of cuts has impeded the agency’s ability to collect corporate taxation and get into the public purse revenues that are rightly due. Is that not a relevant factor when talking about the Opposition’s plan to cut 132,000 civil servants?

[Chris Vince]

The ultimate point here is that an estimated £5.5 billion was lost to the Treasury in 2022-23 as a result of tax evasion, and an estimated £6.6 billion was lost in 2023-24. What impact does the Minister think the previous cuts to HMRC will have on the amount of revenue collected, based on the current taxation rules, which were also agreed to by the Conservative party? How different would the amount in the coffers be if those cuts to HMRC had not been made? Will he consider that fact in the Budget and look at how we can support HMRC to ensure that we collect the correct taxes? Let us talk about the tax that should be collected but is not being collected because of the starving of funding for HMRC. From personal experience, I know that my mum and her colleagues made money for the Government. I appreciate that I went a little bit off topic, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I hope you understand the point I was trying to make.

To reiterate what my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said in his opening remarks, the Budget will be set on 26 November, which is why we will vote down this motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

Opposition motions are usually detailed—as, indeed, is the next motion on the Order Paper, relating to energy—so the brevity of this motion deserves comment. The most important line is, I think, the first:

“That this House calls on the Government to control public expenditure”.

In the hands of this Opposition, that short and seemingly innocuous phrase is a euphemism for cuts to essential services, and a return to the austerity agenda that the public rejected so decisively a year ago. All that follows in the motion hangs on that intent. After all, the Opposition accept that were the positions reversed, they themselves would probably be putting up taxes.

Earlier in the debate the shadow Chancellor, who is not in the Chamber at the moment, said that he had been quoted out of context. According to the longer transcript, as reported by City AM, he said:

“If I was in exactly her position”

—the Chancellor’s, that is—

“and I had to deal with tax, and I was down the end of the spectrum where the black hole was really big, I would probably go for income tax…I wouldn’t want to be in that position but that’s the cleanest thing to do.”

[Jerome Mayhew]

As we are looking for clarity, what the shadow Chancellor was saying was that if he was in the Chancellor’s position, that is, if he could not cut spending and had to raise tax, perhaps that is what he would do, but that is not what his intention is. His intention, very properly, is to control spending, as any responsible Government would. Why will the hon. Gentleman’s Government not do the same?

[Laurence Turner]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because it brings me to my next point. The Opposition have come to the House today stating that all these difficult matters have been resolved and there is no need for tax increases at all. They say that they have a plan for cutting £47 billion of public expenditure. I have a copy of that plan with me, but it is not much of a boast, because it is a very sparse document. The right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) said, “Further detail will follow,” but a month has passed and we are still waiting. Perhaps the shadow Minister who winds up the debate can let us know whether the Opposition will be publishing a more detailed document.

[Gregory Stafford]

To bring the hon. Member back to the controlling of spending, may I ask him a question that other Members on his side have failed to answer? Would he be in favour of keeping or scrapping the two-child benefit cap?

[Laurence Turner]

I have said it a number of times on the record and in this House before, so it is no evasion to say that I am no fan of the cap at all. As an incrementalist, I would like to see at least some solid progress on lifting that cap, and I hope that we will be in a position to remove it completely.

[Lincoln Jopp]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Laurence Turner]

No. I have already taken two interventions and I want to make a bit of progress with my speech, but I might come back to the hon. Member.

I hope that the Opposition do publish more detail, because, if they do not, it will be widely suspected in the country and the House that they know that their claims do not withstand the lightest of scrutiny. It will also be concluded that the real function of that document is to act as an exercise in wishful thinking, and that it is designed to avoid the taking of difficult and unpopular decisions.

Some parts of the Opposition’s claims can be dispensed with briefly. They tell us that they would save £3.5 billion by closing asylum hotels; I think my constituents would choke on their cornflakes on that one, because they know that the Conservative party was the originator of hotel use, just as small boat crossings were not an issue before 2019. I am glad that, under Labour, hotel placements in Birmingham are down by 50% compared with their peak, and I look forward to their use being eliminated completely.

The greater part of the Opposition’s claimed savings is £23 billion of supposed cuts to the welfare bill, but, again, we have had only the scarcest of details. Let us be clear about the scale of what is being discussed: £23 billion is the equivalent of a quarter of the universal credit bill, more than half the disability social security bill, and two thirds of housing costs.

To give her credit, the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), said last week that she would be happy to share a further breakdown of those savings. Again, that has not been brought forward. If the Opposition are to ask the House to have any confidence in their proposals, they must provide that information—not examples of proposed cuts, but the cuts in their totality.

[Dr Ben Spencer]

One of the striking features of this debate is how much time the Government Benchers have spent discussing our record in Government and our future plans. It is almost as if they are lingering, cheering on, and desperately in need of a change of Prime Minister. Will they facilitate that?

[Laurence Turner]

When Opposition Members talk about defenestration, I do listen—because of their greater expertise in these matters. And, of course, “What’s past is prologue”—the hon. Gentleman tempts me to get on to the Zinoviev letter, but that might be one for another day. However, I have actually made only one brief reference to the last Government’s record. We are scrutinising their motion and their proposals; this is an Opposition day debate, and that is a proper function of Parliament.

The other part of the Opposition’s document that I want to comment on is their intention to axe 132,000 civil servants. Some of those people are my constituents—as has already been noted. Not only is this pledge a rehash of a “here today, gone tomorrow” promise once announced by Boris Johnson and never seen again, but it is unclear where exactly the Opposition see those job cuts falling. Is it the additional trade and customs officials hired since 2016? Is it the additional Department for Education staff hired as a result of academisation—effectively a transfer of functions from local government to central Government? Is it the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government staff hired as a result of the growth in statutory burdens on our local authorities? I think all our constituents who work in those roles deserve at least clarity on what the Opposition’s intentions are.

[David Pinto-Duschinsky]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is interesting that the Conservatives have put forward lots of fantasy proposals about various cuts they cannot make, yet strangely failed to mention any of the covid money that went missing on their watch, or its recovery?

[Laurence Turner]

My hon. Friend is right, and we could all point to examples of waste and inefficient spending under the previous Government. That is, of course, part of the context of where we find ourselves today, as are the £9.5 billion of undisclosed spending pressures that were withheld by the Treasury on their watch from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

I will just say this before concluding, because it has been part of the debate: we are today in a pre-Budget debate, and no Back Bencher knows the contents of what will be announced. But when we do look back on the past in that reflective way, I think the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) had—

[Bradley Thomas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Laurence Turner]

I will give way to my constituency neighbour.

[Bradley Thomas]

I wonder if the hon. Gentleman could tell the House whether he would be content if income tax, national insurance or VAT were to rise in the Budget in two weeks’ time.

[Laurence Turner]

I will happily say to the hon. Gentleman that I do not think any of us come to this place wanting to raise taxes. I will just draw attention to one thing in the Labour party manifesto: an important statement that a growing economy needs strong public services. I welcome the record investment in our NHS—the biggest in 20 years—which has seen waiting lists in Birmingham fall by 20%. That is a philosophical difference between my side and his, but it was also a very important part of the manifesto that I stood on.

Earlier, the right hon. Member for New Forest East suggested that he remembered when Hugh Dalton resigned in 1947. I am not sure that the numbers can be right on that one, but I will just say this. Every Conservative Government and leadership from 2010 onwards claimed mitigating circumstances—some were great, such as the pandemic, and some less so—when they deviated from manifesto commitments. There is no doubt that the weakening of international trade, the imposition of tariffs and the forthcoming OBR revision on productivity estimates are new and relevant factors. That is why difficult conversations are currently happening in Governments and Parliaments across Europe. When the Conservatives demand consistency from others, they would do well to reflect on their own confounding record.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Tomlinson]

Let me make a bit of progress if I may—I will happily take a further intervention in good time. It is a sorry fact, but it is true that Conservative Members squandered their time in power, just as they squandered much taxpayer money. After 14 years of failure they left people paying more for less, and enforced a policy of austerity for too long, which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) spoke about in his contribution. That policy brought public services to their knees—something we needed to fix—and saddled us with so much debt that we now pay £1 in every £10 of public money in debt interest payments alone. I agree with the contribution from a Conservative Member who said that that is not a morally acceptable situation, but that is the situation we inherited, and one that we intend to change. Over the course of this Parliament the international comparisons bear out, and we are on track to reduce the deficit that we inherited faster than any other G7 economy. That is the stability that the Chancellor is returning to the public finances.

[Laurence Turner]

The Minister has just spoken about public services and touched on productivity. At the start of the debate, the shadow Chancellor talked about the importance of timely public sector pay settlements to productivity increases. Having been a union official in the aftermath of the strikes by ambulance workers, I have some insight into this issue. Ministers in the previous Government said that they wanted productivity increases, but negotiators for the Government had nothing to suggest on productivity links and they were asking the trade union for ideas.

[Dan Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and for his years of work and experience supporting public sector workers and our proud trade unionists.

Conservative Members have mentioned the statistics that have been published of late. There is much that we need to do to ensure that the investment that we make in the NHS comes with improvements in productivity and output. The Health Secretary was talking about that today in reference to our reforms to NHS England, and about ensuring that we are not duplicating spending in both the Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England. I thought that Conservative Members were against quangos, but it turns out that they are against that reform.