Finance (No. 2) Bill

Leo Docherty Excerpts

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

[Peter Dowd]

The answer to the last question is no, they do not. The Budget proved yet again that the Government are completely unable and unwilling to recognise the challenges that the country faces. The Chancellor and the Prime Minister are instead more concerned about sorting out the Democratic Unionist party and the fringes of the Tory party.

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is presuming to tell us about the opinion of the electorate, but I appeal to him to bear in mind my constituents’ opinion during the rest of his remarks. They fear the unleashing of Marxist mayhem by the shadow Chancellor. Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that in 2013, the shadow Chancellor said that

“I’m straight, I’m honest with people: I’m a Marxist”?

[Peter Dowd]

The hon. Gentleman can ask as many questions as he likes—[Interruption.] And the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) can say “Yes or no?” But the Conservative party is in a state of chaos, it is as simple as that. After seven years, the verdict on Tory austerity is clear for all to see. Economic growth stands at its lowest point since the Conservatives came to power, and it has been revised down by the Office for Budget Responsibility for every year of the forecast. The UK has the slowest growth in the G7, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned of two decades of lost earnings growth. That relates to what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Leo Docherty]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Dowd]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but then I must make some progress.

[Leo Docherty]

I know Labour Members are not necessarily very good at numbers, but for the benefit of people watching, will the hon. Gentleman say very clearly how much his proposed policies will cost, including the renationalisation of our major industries? Will he give us a figure, and where does he expect the money to come from?

[Peter Dowd]

I am not quite sure whether the hon. Gentleman is actually listening to anything I say. I am not going to repeat what I have said. If we continue to have spurious interventions like that one, it prompts the question: what is the point? [Interruption.] It is the third or fourth such intervention.

The bottom line is simple: the bank levy will take £4.7 billion less in tax revenue, and this at a time when the crucial services on which many children and families rely are at risk of collapse.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Leo Docherty Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

I will come to that in the course of my speech.

I was asking about the context for these measures. First, there is the political context; then there is the ideological context. Politically, we saw a new low for the Government last week. We witnessed an increasingly weak and ineffectual Prime Minister being pulled between the troika of the Democratic Unionist party, her hard-line Front-Bench Brexiteers and, latterly, rebels on her own Back Benches.

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned ideology. The shadow Chancellor is on record from 2013 as being a self-declared Marxist. Does the hon. Gentleman share that ideology? Is he a Marxist, too?

[Peter Dowd]

The hon. Gentleman is nothing if not persistent in asking that question. We are dealing with the bank levy, not the political opinions of the shadow Chancellor. I will be happy in due course to pitch our policies against those of the Conservatives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Burghart]

rose—

[Leo Docherty]

rose—

[Peter Dowd]

I will give way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Leo Docherty]

rose—

[Peter Dowd]

I will take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman.

[Leo Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned tax. If we had a Labour Government, by how much would corporation tax rise?

[Peter Dowd]

We discussed this issue last week, but the bottom line is that we are here to talk about the tax policies of the Government, not the Labour party. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman reads “Funding Britain’s Future”, which we call the grey book. As I said to one of his colleagues last week, I am not his research assistant. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority provides the hon. Gentleman with enough money to employ his own research assistant, so he should not need a shadow Minister to do his research for him.

Labour’s position on the bank levy has been clear. We have consistently argued for a higher bank levy and pointed out that the levy, introduced in 2011, would raise substantially less then Labour’s bankers’ bonus tax. In short, we have always stood against the Government’s divisive austerity agenda. That was why we voted against the 2011 Finance Bill, which introduced the bank levy along with cuts to corporation tax and tax giveaways for the most well-off. That was also why we voiced our concern in 2015 over the Government’s cuts to the bank levy and the introduction of a corporation tax surcharge. It is why we will vote against the measures in the Bill.