Finance Bill

Lord Empey 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 Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, we need to recall that, in attempting to increase revenue, by increasing tax we have in fact reduced revenue in stamp duty terms. This a lesson we need to learn for the future. I ask the Minister to look very closely at how this tax is reintroduced—not only its thresholds but the rationale for it. Simply imposing a large amount of tax does not in fact produce enough revenue for the Treasury.

There is an overwhelming fear in the hearts of many people in this country about the enormous amount of money we are borrowing. There is no alternative, but having been taught in recent years to believe in the age of austerity and the dangers of spending too much money on the public sector, many people fear that we are embarking on a journey whose destination and the time it will take we do not know.

There is an underlying issue when we talk about trying to regenerate the economy. Walking into this building this morning—and indeed last week, for the first time since March—one could see the problem with one’s own eyes: the people are simply not there. They are not there because they are afraid, or they can see that there are alternative ways of working—Sir Patrick Vallance tells them one thing, the Prime Minister tells them another. The fact is, the streets are largely empty in this part of London, which is symptomatic of the rest of the country. We need to get our act together, bearing in mind that, if there were to be a second spike, our economy would be in colossal difficulty.

In the 1970s, this country made a huge mistake in turning its back on manufacturing. We are not making things, and our service sector is vulnerable to very short-term issues. As has already been mentioned, the furlough was a bold announcement. But, speaking as someone who takes a keen interest in the APPG on aerospace, I know that if we do not find a sectoral resolution for aerospace, we will have great difficulties. We are number two in the world in aerospace, but that could very quickly slip away from us.

We need to refocus our economy and take this opportunity, but we need to remember that making things is how we generate the most revenue, and we are simply not doing it.