Tax Avoidance (HSBC)

Debate between Mark Garnier and George Osborne

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

He nods his head, but the information was provided in April 2010, when there was a Labour Government and he was in the Cabinet. He has nothing to say either about the agreement with the French authorities restricting the use that could be made of this information—an agreement that we are now busily trying to change.

None of these things has the shadow Chancellor admitted to or apologised for, and none of it is of any surprise to Government Members, because the Labour party was the friend of the tax avoiders and the tax evaders when it was in office. When we entered office, City bankers were paying lower tax rates than those who cleaned for them; foreigners were not paying capital gains tax; hedge funds were abusing partnership rules; and the richest in our society routinely did not pay stamp duty at all. We have put at end to all of that, and we will take more action in the Budget. All we have on the Opposition Benches is a bunch of arsonists throwing rocks at the firefighters who are putting out the fire that they started.

The shadow Chancellor comes to the House fighting for his political life. He asks about tax evasion, but he was the principal tax adviser when tax evasion occurred. His economic policy is in tatters, and he cannot name a single business supporter of his business policy. His tax avoidance campaign has turned into a war with his own window cleaner. Now he has lost the confidence of his colleagues and his leader, but he lost the confidence of the country a long time ago.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

Will the Chancellor confirm that British taxpayers will receive more money back from tax evaders as a result of civil actions than they would through criminal actions?

[Mr Osborne]

When we can pursue criminal prosecutions, of course we do so, but that is a matter for the independent prosecuting authorities. Frankly, the suggestion from some on the Labour Benches that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should direct the prosecutions of our independent prosecuting authorities shows how far they have gone from the constitutional principles of government. We set the overall resourcing for HMRC and pass the tax laws, but we have independent prosecuting authorities. The shadow Chancellor goes on about the policy, but the policy was set out by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath in 2002 and repeated in 2005.

EU Budget (Surcharge)

Debate between Mark Garnier and George Osborne

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

As I have said, we worked with the other member states to achieve the deal at ECOFIN. We needed the agreement of the other member states on the delay, paying no interest and the permanent change in the rules. It is always good to get lectures from Labour Members about working with and supporting colleagues, so we look forward to the shadow Chancellor’s speech supporting his leader in the next couple of weeks. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman nods, and I know that he is a man true to his word.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

Much of this discussion has centred on the rebate, but has my right hon. Friend done any calculations of the value of the forgone interest that would be paid as a result of the extension of the date for this payment from 1 December to the middle of next year?

[Mr Osborne]

Of course, the shadow Chancellor estimated that it would cost £114,000 a year, which is the EU penal rate on £1.7 billion. If interest had been charged even on the rebateable amount, it would of course have been about half that figure.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Garnier and George Osborne

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I find it extraordinary that the Labour party is against Help to Buy, which is assisting those who are on low and middle incomes to get into the housing market. The great majority of those homes are outside London and the south-east. Almost none of them has been bought at £500,000 or £600,000, as the hon. Gentleman says, and what we are actually seeing is that the homes that are being built and bought are below the national average. So instead of carping about Help to Buy, Labour should get behind it.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

A key component of the financial crisis was a debt-fuelled housing bubble. The Governor of the Bank of England confirmed to the Treasury Committee this morning that a failure of regulation and macro-prudential policy was instrumental in that crisis. Is my right hon. Friend confident that the measures that he has introduced, including the new regulatory framework as well as the Financial Policy Committee, will succeed in heading off any future housing bubble-inspired crisis?

[Mr Osborne]

The Bank of England now has very powerful tools to deal with the kind of risks that we saw develop in 2006 and 2007, with such catastrophic consequences for our banking system and for our economy. The new powers that it will receive—subject, of course, to parliamentary approval—on being able to limit loan-to-income ratios and loan-to-value ratios for every mortgage or, indeed, as a percentage of mortgage portfolios, are very powerful tools. It is up to the Bank of England to make independent judgments about when to deploy them, because, as we have learnt with such monetary and macro-prudential policies, it is better that the politicians stay out of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Garnier and George Osborne

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The advice from the rating agency could not be clearer: a reduced political commitment to fiscal consolidation would put Britain’s creditworthiness at risk. That reduced political commitment would come from the Opposition, who oppose every single spending cut, who have no credible economic policy and who, despite having promised for two years to produce a deficit reduction plan, still do not have one. We hear that a draft Labour manifesto is coming this July; perhaps then we will see a proper plan to deal with the deficit Labour created.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the only true measure of creditworthiness is the price paid by the Government to borrow? Gilt yields are still 16 points lower today than before Moody’s downgrade. Does that not reconfirm the international markets’ confidence in this country’s ability to pay its debts and the Chancellor’s programme to tackle Labour’s deficit crisis?

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right that our credibility as a nation is tested every day when we seek to borrow money to pay for the deficit that the Opposition racked up. We can borrow at historically low rates, which means low rates for people’s mortgages and low rates for people’s small business loans. Of course, if we lost that credibility by pursuing the Opposition’s policies, interest rates would rocket, people would be put out of their homes and businesses would go bust. That is exactly what we will avoid.

Economic Policy

Debate between Mark Garnier and George Osborne

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Infrastructure spending—actual money being spent on infrastructure—is higher in this Parliament than it was in the previous Parliament. That is, I am afraid, the simple fact produced and audited by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. We have increased capital spending compared with the plans that we inherited, and under this Government in this Parliament it is higher as a percentage of GDP than under the previous Labour Government. That is what has happened.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is going to take slightly longer than two and a half years to sort out a problem that was 13 years in the making?

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend puts it very simply. It is a bit like the arsonist calling the fire brigade and then complaining that we have not put the fire out quickly enough.

LIBOR (FSA Investigation)

Debate between Mark Garnier and George Osborne

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Of course the Financial Services Bill is before Parliament and there is still some time to go before it completes its passage, so it is a readily available vehicle, but we want to make sure that we get this right, given what went so badly wrong with the previous attempt to regulate the financial services industry.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

While £60 million may sound like a great deal of money to the average man in the street, when it is compared with the size of Barclays’ balance sheet and the potential claims for compensation, does my right hon. Friend not agree that it is a relatively small amount of money? When he is looking at compensation for those who have lost out, will he take care to ensure that Barclays is liable for its own liabilities—that they will not necessarily be shared with other banks and that each bank takes care of its own liabilities?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Garnier and George Osborne

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

This morning’s GDP numbers are a positive step, but of course the British economy has a difficult road to travel from the very high debts—the record debts—that we inherited. That is made more difficult by the international situation, as people can plainly see today, but we are determined to make that journey to the growth and prosperity that this country was so lacking under the previous Government.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

6. What recent discussions he has had on social impact bonds.