Liam Byrne
Main Page: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)Department Debates - View all Liam Byrne's debates with the HM Treasury
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Redwood
That is what I am trying to explain, while remaining in order on this narrow amendment. The bottom line of my case is that motorists comprise a large category and, when polled, they say that they feel badly done by because they pay a disproportionate amount of tax and do not get much back. It is argued that motorists ought to pay more because they get the use of the roads, which are provided free at the point of use in most cases. It is not like that, however, because the bulk of the taxes levied on the motorist, including this insurance premium tax, are used for purposes other than roads and motoring. That is why motorists feel hard done by.
I hope that the Minister and his colleagues will consider carefully the general category of the motorist. I would love it if he could make a concession to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, but if he cannot, it would help us and the people we represent if he could say that the Government were at least aware of the bad deal that the motorist has been getting in recent years, and that, where possible, they will do something about that. As we have heard, people in rural areas have no choice; they have to use their cars. People in urban and suburban areas also have no choice at certain times of the day or at weekends. People who work antisocial hours clearly need a car. Most MPs need a car, for example, because we still work antisocial hours.
Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I am following the right hon. Gentleman’s argument with some care. He said that motorists get only a limited amount back from the taxes that they put in. Does he therefore support arguments in favour of the greater hypothecation of taxes such as the insurance premium tax, to help to resolve that problem?
Mr Redwood
No, I do not. I am sufficiently in tune with Treasury thinking to know that all Treasuries under any Government hate hypothecation, and I understand the complication. Critics of motoring and cars often argue that motorists are walking off with all these free goods, but people have come up with lots of figures that show conclusively that, in a hypothecated way, motorists get a particularly poor deal. People now look at these issues in such a way partly because the green movement has made them do so. It has now been demonstrated that, calculated in a hypothecated way, motorists put in a lot more than they get back. I do not think that the Treasury should operate all its taxation on that basis, but it does need to take account of the mood and the politics surrounding this question, which we are here to represent.
The feeling of unfairness is now quite extreme among the motoring community, and motorists want to communicate through us the fact that they are often motorists because they have to be. There is no train to take them to the shops, for example. The train might be 2 miles away from their home so, unless they have plenty of time to walk to the station, they need to start their journey in the car and sometimes they might as well finish it in the car as well. There is often no alternative, which is why some 86% of our journey miles are carried out by car, and only some 6% by train. There is a basic necessity, which is why we need to be fair when making any tax proposals affecting motorists.
The case of private health insurance is somewhat different, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch would agree. I make my declaration: I have no private health insurance, so I am not arguing my own case. I rely on the NHS, should ill health befall me, as I am sure do many other Members. However, I am not saying that some of my constituents are wrong to take out private health insurance. It is still a legal thing to do. Indeed, in a way, I feel that I am cheap-skating at their expense, because they are paying twice and I am paying only once. I pay my taxes, and if something happens to me, I hope to receive NHS care, whereas they contribute to everyone else’s NHS care through their taxes—they have no choice, of course, but some of them do it graciously—and then make the additional choice to pay for their own insurance. There is a double advantage: more money comes into the health sector, but when those people become ill they make no claim on the health service, even though they contribute to it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is making a reasonable point. Given that it is not illegal to have private insurance, and that those who have it help to eke out NHS funds, should we be taxing it more? That is a very good question to raise. I shall make no stronger statement than that, but it will be interesting to see how the Treasury responds. After all, on this side of the House, we are all now big society fans and advocates—[Interruption.] Well, practically all of us, perhaps. There might be one or two of my right hon. and hon. Friends who are not so enthusiastic about it, but I am; I think it is a great idea. The essence of the big society idea is to harness private money, voluntary effort and charitable activity, and to understand that the state cannot solve all the problems. In a complex, difficult and expensive area such as health care and related social care, we need voluntary and private contributions as top-ups, or in addition to public sector care.
This issue poses a particularly interesting question for Ministers. If they are really serious about the big society idea, do they want to increase the taxes on people who make voluntary contributions and take some of the demand away from public services? Ought they not to be encouraging people to do such things? I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend the Minister’s reply to these nice philosophical questions in this wonderful caring, sharing age of coalition government, in which the big society will require some erosion of the old boundaries between public and private.
Mr Byrne
It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) and the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). The strength of their contributions was in illustrating that the proposals in clause 4 raise a wide range of policy concerns and debates. Hitherto, the House has not had much explanation of the logic or rationale of all the changes set out in the clause. The arguments for some of the proposals are fairly easy to deduce, but the core of the clause is the increase in the standard rate of insurance premium tax, which has not been explained.
The lack of explanation underlines the fact that the Bill is somewhat piecemeal. It is fragmented. It is not a whole Bill; it is not even a half Bill; it is a bit of a Bill. We were told with great fanfare a few weeks ago that the Government were introducing an emergency Budget. The Bill and the clause illustrate in our debate this afternoon that the only emergency was the need to get some pretty difficult changes on to the statute book by the summer, before Liberal Democrat members on the Treasury Bench got cold feet or had, dare I suggest, too many conversations with their constituents.
So the result of that emergency—something that some would uncharitably call a panic—is a Finance Bill with measures such as clause 4 that so far are bereft of logical explanation. The strategy has also produced clause 5, which we shall debate later this afternoon, which withdraws tax legislation without putting anything back in its place. Where there is certainty, the Government in their panic have decided to substitute mystery. So much for the simplification credentials.
The effect of clause 4 on one level, as I have said, is reasonably straightforward. It raises the higher rate of insurance premium tax from 17.5% to 20%. That would appear to be a fairly automatic consequence of the decision to raise VAT to 20%. The higher rate of IPT was introduced in 1999 to prevent a problem called value shifting, whereby some retailers and other producers tried to lower prices of goods and bundle them with insurance policies, for which they redeemed some of the value. I was not sure whether that was some of the financial innovation that the hon. Member for Dundee East was beginning to welcome in his remarks. Perhaps he will say more about that a little later.
Mr Byrne
The hon. Gentleman raises an important question. The answer is that I do not know. It is a mystery. The Budget scorecard has a certain number, but of course it has bundled together the revenue that is to be raised from the increase in the higher rate and the increase in the standard rate. I hope that the Minister will be able to enlighten us.
It is possible to deduce why the higher rate has gone up, but it is curious that the Government have chosen to increase the standard rate. We have to assess that decision alongside the decision to preserve exemptions and zero-rating from VAT on a range of goods and services. We were told on Tuesday night by the Economic Secretary that the existing zero ratings and exemptions would be kept in place for the course of this Parliament. That commitment was given to the House on Tuesday night, and we will all watch the Government’s adherence to it with a great deal of attention over the next few years. That decision to keep in place a series of zero ratings and exemptions just adds to the mystery of why this standard rate has been singled out for such an enormous rise.
Chris Leslie
My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly important point. Many pensioners in my constituency will be oblivious to the impact that this stealthy tax rise from the Government will have on them, especially as they are diligent in keeping up with their contents insurance, buildings insurance and motor insurance. In many ways, the Government are grinding the burden of taxation on their shoulders. My amendment on advertising the increase in IPT was not selected. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the cost of the Treasury’s imposition should be more prominently displayed on policy documents so that at least pensioners are aware of what the Government are doing?
Mr Byrne
My hon. Friend raises an extremely significant point. I am sorry that his amendment was not selected. The insurance industry will almost certainly pass on the increased taxes directly to consumers. That has been the history of increases in this kind of tax. So there is a strong case for advertising the increase more widely. I am sure that all of us as politicians will do our level best to make the news known in our constituencies.
Mr Bone
Is the shadow Minister saying now that he would support the private Member’s Transparent Taxation (Receipts) Bill—something in which the First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means had a slight interest in a previous life—which required that receipts showed how much tax and duty had been paid so that they were better advertised?
Mr Byrne
I have not studied the Bill, so I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing it to my attention. We have had good debates over the past two or three weeks about the need for greater transparency both in economic policy making and in tax policy. The Bill certainly sounds as though it would contribute to that agenda.
The hon. Member for Christchurch raised a number of public policy points. He did not dwell much on the impact of the new charges on low income groups, and I should like to touch on that different policy question. It is important that we debate it this afternoon. The Association of British Insurers has argued for a long time that the tax is regressive. IPT has been raised in the past by Conservative and Labour Governments, and the ABI has been consistent:
“IPT is a regressive tax. It imposes a disproportionate burden on the less well off individuals and the smallest businesses. These are most likely to need the protection of insurance.”
Given those arguments, we deserve a full and thorough explanation of the public policy rationale for introducing such taxes.
We have heard about the impact that the tax will have on consumers. The hon. Member for Christchurch did not remind us of his distinguished career as a Transport Minister, but he understands well the impact of higher rates on, for example, car insurance. In the days shortly after the Budget, The Guardian told us that the average car insurance buyer would pay about £18 a year more in tax. The AA said that the bill would be slightly higher—at least another 35 quid on an average insurance policy. The right hon. Member for Wokingham spoke eloquently about the impact that the increase will have on young drivers. Some press reports estimated that the bill would rise by only £15, but the intimation in the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks, and those of the hon. Member for Christchurch, was that it might be a little higher. Of course the increase comes at a time when car insurance premiums have been rising consistently for the last 12 months.
There will be an impact on travel insurance, to which Members have alluded, but many Opposition Members are particularly worried about increases in the cost of general household insurance. Many of us serve constituencies with high rates of poverty and worklessness and many areas, including some in my constituency, are also troubled by relatively high rates of crime, with drug use fuelling burglary. Over the short number of years that I have served in the House, I have seen many constituents who did not have insurance and lost everything in burglaries and had to rebuild their lives, sometimes from scratch. The ABI has told us that for the average household a 1% increase in IPT will put at least another £8 a year on the general cost of household insurance, taking it up to £850. For many of my constituents, £850 is unaffordable, particularly if they live in areas that attract premiums.
For those reasons, the director general of the ABI has described the move announced by the Chancellor as “regrettable”. Kerrie Kelly, in remarks to which the hon. Member for Dundee East alluded, was clear, saying that the change
“is a direct tax increase for the vast majority of people who sensibly protect themselves.”
The hon. Member for Dundee East also mentioned Eric Galbraith, who said bluntly:
“This is a tax on protection.”
That is a public policy concern which we need to hear more about.
We do not have a theoretical objection to insurance premium tax and, subject to a decent explanation from Treasury Ministers, I do not plan to put our amendment to a vote. The history of IPT is one of consensus. It was introduced by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe—now the Lord Chancellor—and increased in 1999 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). None the less, there are some important questions that it is important for the Government to answer this afternoon.
What assessment has been made of the increase in insurance premium tax? I should be grateful if the Exchequer Secretary would set out his assessment of the impact of that hike on Britain’s pensioners? What will be the impact of the increase on the availability of general household insurance for people on low wages? Why is he raising the rate from 17.5% to 20%? Is it to preclude the value shifting that was the inspiration for the rate change in 1996? Most important, why is he raising the standard rate from 5% to 10%? Can he confirm that it is not the Government’s policy to harmonise the standard rate with levels across Europe?
In 1999, when Labour raised the IPT rate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Dawn Primarolo), then the Paymaster General, was clear on the matter. She said:
“Rates vary tremendously across Europe, but they are significantly higher than in the UK, which has one of the lowest rates.”
It was put to her that the rise was part of a wider, hidden plan to increase the rate successively to levels in Europe, but my right hon. Friend was clear:
“The increase does not signal a future change.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 15 June 1999; c. 642.]
I should like the same assurance from Ministers on the Treasury Bench this afternoon. Can the Exchequer Secretary confirm that the change is not part of a plan successively to increase rates of insurance premium tax to levels across Europe, which amount to 11% at the low end of the range in countries such as Austria and 22% at the higher end in countries such as Italy.
It is important that we have some assurances this afternoon that there will be no further rises in IPT in this Parliament. Subject to satisfactory assurances and explanations of the points I have raised, I would see no need to put the amendment to a vote. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in reply.
Mr Gauke
What I can say is that given how IPT is currently structured and where it is levied, it does not apply to long-term insurance; the conclusion to be drawn about something that falls within the definition of long-term insurance is fairly logical.
However, in respect of the types of insurance that are affected, insurers have the right to respond to the tax as they see fit. They are not obliged to pass on IPT through higher premiums. [Interruption.] We recognise that many insurers will pass it on to their customers through higher premiums, but I will not be dragged into the detail of the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie).
The question was asked whether further regulation should be imposed on insurers, making them display prominently how much is being paid in IPT. Unlike VAT, IPT is a tax on insurance, so there is no obligation to pass it on or to recover it for businesses. We do not think that that would be appropriate. Insurers are, of course, perfectly free to display the IPT rate on documentation, and many do so. Requiring them to do so, however, would be burdensome and unnecessary.
Mr Gauke
I am not denying that we expect the increase to be passed on predominantly to consumers; we expect that the bulk of it will be. The analysis of VAT, another indirect tax, shows that two thirds tends to be passed on straight away and that much of the rest is passed on over the following 12 months. However, it is not always possible to predict and it partly depends on the level of competition.
Mr Gauke
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for underlining an earlier point that I made—that it is not necessary to introduce regulation in this area. As I say, we anticipate that it will be passed on, but it is not mandatory. I am not denying that position.
Despite these modest impacts, the IPT rate increases will contribute more than £450 million a year to reducing the deficit. As I said, such decisions have been forced on us by the economic circumstances that the UK finds itself in, and they have not been taken lightly. We are confident, however, that this modest rise in IPT, which leaves the main rate of the tax significantly lower than that of many of our European competitors, is a means of raising much-needed revenue that will not have a significant impact on households, businesses or the insurance industry.
Mr Byrne
The Minister is making an argument about choices that are made in order to increase revenue, but I think the Committee is struggling to understand the reason for the increase in the standard rate of IPT. Other choices were available. Why have increases in cider duty been withdrawn, for example, while new taxes are being introduced on insurance?
Mr Gauke
The central point is that the country is in a very difficult position as regards the public finances. I hope that the shadow Chief Secretary is grateful for the fact that I have got this far through a speech without once referring to his letter. With another intervention, I may be tempted to do so. We have made a series of judgments. If he thinks that cider duty is the way to reduce the deficit, I suggest that he is somewhat mistaken.
Amendment 18 would exempt personal health insurance from the increase in the standard rate of IPT, and amendment 19 would do the same in relation to motor insurance. In effect, that would mean creating a new reduced rate of IPT that applied only to private medical insurance and motor insurance. Of course, the Government recognise the value of these types of insurance and, indeed, of insurance more generally.
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that we do not disapprove of people taking out private medical insurance—that is not something we wish to prohibit, either in law or by imposing enormous costs on it. In health policy, our focus is of course on improving the national health service, and we have this week set out important proposals on improving the quality of the health service and reducing expenditure on bureaucracy. We are also, as a Government, protecting the NHS from spending cuts, which is not, as I understand it, a policy endorsed by Labour. The purpose behind this tax increase is clearly to raise more revenue—it is not an attempt to try to dissuade people from taking out private health insurance.
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman demonstrates his old socialist credentials and his prejudice. I shall not get into a full debate about the NHS, as I hope that we will have an opportunity to do so when the private Member’s Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)—which I support—is debated on a Friday in February. Let us not forget that many of our top clinicians stay in this country because they can supply their services to the NHS—[Interruption.] Yes, they do so for money, but they can also top up their income by getting money for providing their services to private patients. That mixed market in health care provision, including the providers of health care, is healthy for our country and I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not support it. That is a philosophical divide, but I think that we need the best health practitioners in this country. The private health insurance companies make a significant contribution to the health of the nation.
I shall not go through all the contributions that were made in this debate, but I wish to touch on the motor insurance issue, which found most common cause across the Committee. Because the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) did not seem to be committed to the idea of protecting motorists—especially young motorists and those from areas with high insurance premiums—and did not say that he would support my amendment, he has created a slight difficulty for me.
Mr Chope
The right hon. Gentleman has deployed an old trick. Instead of responding to my challenge, he has put a challenge back to me. He has listened to the same debate as I have, and the Government need to raise money because—as he so candidly recognised—there is no money left. That is one of the reasons behind the insurance premium tax.
Mr Byrne
The hon. Gentleman is being slightly unfair. We had a very different approach to introducing £19 billion of new taxes. The Government have chosen a different course, but they have had to raise so much in VAT and IPT because the Budget so slows down the recovery that £9 billion in extra taxes will have to be raised to make up for the lost growth.
Mr Chope
I shall not get involved in that debate now, because I want to keep the focus on the narrow issues in my amendments. I am disappointed that the Minister did not respond to my concern—echoed by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) and others—about the regressive nature of the insurance premium tax, especially on the motoring public. One suggestion I made was that instead of having a standard tax on insurance premiums, we could have an individual transaction tax so that every motorist would pay the same tax for his annual insurance premium.