Anti-corruption: Beneficial Ownership Registration

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 26th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I agree with my noble friend. It is important to make the point that we would like to help developing countries to facilitate this, and we are spending money and resources doing that. DfID, for example, and the HMRC are capacity-building, and we are spending more money. We agreed to double our expenditure on that under the Addis tax initiative.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, what proportion of the illicit capital flows that my noble friend asks about end up invested in the London property market? If the Government persist in their privatisation of the Land Registry, will they undertake that no bids will be entertained from business interests that have connections with secretive jurisdictions, such as the Cayman Islands, Jersey or Delaware? Will they also undertake that any organisation that is allowed to have charge of the Land Registry will be subject to freedom of information requests, with cast-iron guarantees of full transparency and public access?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, about 100,000 properties in England and Wales out of 24 million titles are owned by foreign companies, and of those about 44,000 are in London. As I say, we will be the first country to insist on a public register of beneficial ownership by foreign companies for property and, as I said, that will apply to existing properties, not just new ones. We are leading the way in the world in opening this up to transparency.

European Union: Single Market

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 17th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I agree. The question is whether a genuinely free trade area of 500 million people on our doorstep is a good thing to be part of.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord spoke of lower prices in the single market. However, since this organisation is a protectionist one, is it not clearly the case that consumers within the EU are paying higher prices than they would otherwise be paying?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I shall just give the example of flights, which have come down dramatically in price.

Economic and Social Inequality

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 18th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they will prioritise to reduce economic and social inequality in a One Nation Britain.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, the Government believe that the best way to reduce inequality is by delivering full employment and reducing the number of workless households. By restoring growth to the economy, low-income households will become more likely to enter work, and households will reap the benefits of a growing economy. More people are in work now than ever before, and since 2010 the number of children in workless households has fallen by around 390,000.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, while the Prime Minister sloganises about the Government’s one-nation approach and as the Chancellor forswears any tax increases on the well off and remains bent on hitting the poorest again with a further £12 billion of cuts in social security, is it not inevitable that inequality will worsen, with its associated pathologies of ill health, underperforming education, poor productivity, slow economic growth—as the IMF pointed out this week—and, whatever tokenistic legislation they pass, a budget surplus continuing to recede beyond the horizon?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I do not agree with the noble Lord. Income inequality in the UK has actually come down, and this is reflected in household incomes since 2007-08. The annual average disposable income of the poorest fifth of households has risen by £100 in real terms, while over the same period the largest fall has been in income for the richest fifth of households, which has reduced by £3,000 per year. The way to address inequalities, both social and economic, is to get people into work so that they can reap the benefits of full employment.