Finance Bill

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 17th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my good friend the noble Lord, Lord German. I thank my noble friend the Minister for setting out the scenario at the start of this debate. As others have done, I commend my right honourable friend the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. He has shown great ingenuity and nimbleness. I urge him to continue to demonstrate the remarkable and appropriate lack of dogma. These are extraordinary times and they demand extraordinary solutions. I also urge my right honourable friend to consider the needs of the young, particularly those who will have lost out on crucial education and apprentices whose jobs may well have been prejudiced, and I urge him to look at job creation and job retention schemes to help these people.

I turn to some of the technical aspects of the Bill which have an impact on the current scenario. As others including the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and my noble friend Lady Noakes have urged, the return of Crown preference, even in a diluted form, is unwelcome, particularly in the present scenario. It will have the effect of prejudicing businesses as creditors at a very difficult time, effectively enabling those businesses to be queue-jumped, as it were, by the Crown. This is not appropriate.

I welcome other aspects of the Bill, as others have, such as the digital services tax, long-heralded and now being delivered from April 2020. This is the right move. Can my noble friend outline what progress we have had internationally, as I know that the success of this measure depends on international action? I also welcome the plastic packaging tax due to be introduced in April 2022, after consultation on some more detailed aspects on plastic of which less than 30% is recycled. I think that is appropriate; it helps us, it helps our position as a leader in this field and it helps in the climate change scenario.

I also welcome what the Bill does in relation to Windrush compensation payments, effectively exempting them from income and capital gains tax. This is absolutely appropriate. Can my noble friend outline what success we have had in speedier payment of the compensation, which obviously remains a key consideration and key problem?

The action of the Chancellor in particular in the Government is very much to be welcomed and encouraged. I certainly support this Finance Bill.

Covid-19: Economy

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, for introducing the debate so powerfully and seeking to address the towering challenges of the age. Like other noble Lords, I recognise the praiseworthy, decisive early action of the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. Like my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, I think that we need to move forward together, as one nation. In the limited time that I have, I will suggest some areas of action to my noble friend the Minister. I would be grateful for his comments and, hopefully, endorsement.

On education, many individuals, particularly those in deprived areas, have lost out on tuition. We need to make good the lost chances of youth. That is an area for action. Where redundancies have caused the loss of apprenticeships, people need a real chance to get a new role. The Government should move quickly towards an increase in online provision to build on the expertise of the Open University and other higher education institutions.

Green investment along with government money seems an obvious way to tackle decarbonisation, provide a green stimulus, provide jobs and provide government activity, building on COP 26 next year in Glasgow. That is important. We should use our G7 presidency similarly. Investment in housing is also needed to provide jobs and homes. As other noble Lords have done, I lend my support to strong action to protect our valuable cultural sector, which is vital to our national life, vital for jobs and vital for social and economic reasons. I hope that the Minister will endorse these areas in his response.

Census (England and Wales) Order 2020

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing this order and for his characteristic clarity of exposition in doing so. Like others, I very much agree about the importance of the census and I hope that we will continue with a census for many years into the future.

I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that we should consider flexing this present census to ask relevant questions in the light of the virus; these could include questions on health, transport and other matters. If we are not able to do that, we may want to do so in the future.

I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, about welcoming Roma as a distinct ethnic characteristic—that is very welcome. I also underline, as she did, the importance of census workers travelling to sites to ensure that people are able to fill in the forms at the relevant time. On that point, could I ask, as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham did, for some reassurance about census day next year, given the challenges that we face?

I lend support on the inclusion of an ethnic characteristic for Sikhism. That is a case well made out. I heard what the Minister said about the complexity of adding more groups to the form, but there is an unanswerable case on this, as there is in relation to Cornish ethnicity. I had the great privilege, as Minister, of visiting the nascent Cornish archive in Redruth to announce support for the language and of hearing just what strong support there is in Cornwall for this tick box. Indeed, it has had almost unanimous support from councillors on the county council as well as from all the main party groups.

Jains and Zoroastrians should also be added to the census questions. I would also welcome some reassurance on online provision and the difficulties that we may have post virus in ensuring that it works well.