Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Hoban and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I have regular discussions with ministerial colleagues, particularly the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, on careers guidance and advice. A further education college in my constituency is setting a good example by having an employment adviser in the college who talks to young people about the opportunities that can flow from the courses they are taking. That kind of innovation is really important if we are to ensure that young people make the best of their qualifications.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I hope that Ministers will be aware of the excellent research being carried out by the Single Parent Action Network, which supports young single parents as well as older parents who are trying to get into work. Its recent report on the Work programme found that many barriers still exist to prevent them from getting work, including the lack of affordable child care. May I urge Ministers to look at that report and to acknowledge that getting into work is not so easy for people with child care responsibilities?

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. We need to work with those organisations that support lone parents to see what more the Work programme can do to help them into employment. The Chancellor announced last week that we will be providing more support to lone parents in the two or three years before their child goes to primary school.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Hoban and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, and having visited his constituency, I know it is very rural. He might encourage businesses in his constituency to apply for the rural economy grant scheme, which is worth £60 million and is open to businesses operating in rural areas in certain markets, including agri-foods, tourism and digital media technology. I would encourage them to do so.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

18. What estimate he has made of the revenue which would accrue to the Exchequer from maintaining the additional rate of income tax at 50 per cent in 2013-14.

Finance Bill

Debate between Mark Hoban and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Government are here to answer for the activities for which they are responsible in the English health service—it is one of those things that goes with devolution. We have heard from Government Members in this debate that the Government are increasing spending on the NHS. They have trumpeted that over and over again—it was meant to be a platform on which the Conservatives sought election—but the truth is that there is not a real-terms increase in spending on the NHS. When inflation is taken into account, there is actually a cut in NHS spending, and it is time that the Government owned up to that.

I am under pressure to finish my speech and allow those on the Government Front Bench to come in. [Interruption.] As hon. Members can see from the fact that not one but two Opposition Whips are sitting behind me, shouting at me to hurry up, I am indeed under pressure.

How can Conservative MPs tell the hundreds of thousands of people who have signed up to the “Save our NHS” campaign that a spending commitment priority for this Government should be subsidies for private medical insurance? The coalition has tried to deny that it is creating a market in the NHS, but now Conservative MPs do not even want it to be a fair one, by creating incentives for the private sector. If the Treasury thinks it wise to spend such considerable sums, I hope that it is clear by now that they could be much more wisely and fairly spent on the NHS for the benefit of everyone, not the few who need it least. Why not invest in the NHS as a universal service of which we should all be proud, rather than sending the clear message to patients and enormously dedicated NHS staff that private health care is better? Is the coalition planning to run down the NHS to such an extent that people will need to resort to private insurance?

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) knew when the relief was withdrawn in 1997, not only could those funds be of great value to the NHS, but ending the relief could fund a reduction in the VAT charged on domestic energy supplies to 5%—a rate that the Conservative Government had increased to 8%, and which they would have increased still further to 17.5%, had they not been defeated by Opposition MPs. The Labour Government at the time made clear their priorities. Rather than giving a tax break to older people who could already afford health insurance, they chose a tax cut that benefited everyone, but made the most significant difference to older people on low incomes who were struggling to heat their homes.

It is worth reminding the House that the Conservatives wanted to reverse that policy and reinstate the relief in 2001. Now, 10 years later, they still have the wrong priorities —priorities that will quite simply be incomprehensible to the average person feeling the effects of this Government’s reckless spending cuts. It is estimated that 4.5 million families in the UK are living in fuel poverty, while people are facing 10% increases in their electricity bills, which are likely to increase still further as a result of the coalition’s poorly thought out plans for a carbon floor price, which we will debate perhaps in the early hours of tomorrow morning or next week. Moreover, this Government have decided to cut the winter fuel payment for pensioners.

Faced with individuals and families who will struggle to heat their homes this winter, are the Government taking positive, responsible action to help them? No; instead, they have already hiked up the VAT bills of a couple with children by £450, and those of a pensioner couple by £275, and their Back Benchers think that it is more important to reverse a decision taken to help with fuel costs and instead give tax relief to the minority who can already afford the luxury of private health insurance.

The Labour Government lifted 1.1 million pensioners out of poverty, but there is a continuing need to support those on the lowest incomes. I fear that these proposals betray how some Conservative Members neglect the needs of the poorest pensioners. With the new clauses, they want to add insult to injury by giving tax breaks to the richest to buy private medical insurance, while poorer pensioners have no option but to rely on the NHS—a service that the coalition seems determined to decimate. New clause 1 explains that the relief would apply to people over 65 but, as we all know, the coalition is planning rapidly to increase the state pension age, which will affect the associated support for older people. Does the hon. Member for Mole Valley therefore envisage the age limit increasing with the state pension age, or does he disagree with the Government’s timetable?

In 2006, 10.6% of the population were covered by private medical insurance, and only 3% by personal private medical insurance. The latest figures that I have seen indicate that just 7% of people over 65 have private medical insurance, so the clear motivation behind new clause 1 is the choice to prioritise a very small percentage of the population at a time when the country and the NHS cannot afford it. Inflation is running at more than double the target rate thanks to the Chancellor’s decision to increase VAT, growth is flat-lining, the jobseeker’s allowance claimant count is increasing and more than 80 claimants are applying for each vacancy in some areas. That all means that the Government will have borrow £46 billion more than they planned last autumn, so how on earth can this measure be a priority?

I urge the Government to reject these new clauses, to consider how the money could be much better spent and to secure the future of the NHS as a high-quality service that everyone can access and trust. Instead of an unfair income tax cut for the few, we need a temporary emergency VAT cut that will benefit everyone, particularly those on low and middle incomes, and that will give a much-needed boost to the economy to reduce the deficit over the long term in a fair and balanced way. I conclude by asking the hon. Members who tabled the new clause what their priority is. Is it a tax cut for the minority who can afford private health insurance, which would undermine and undervalue the NHS, or a tax cut that would help everyone at a time when the economy needs it most?

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

New clauses 1 to 4 seek to provide for tax relief on medical insurance premiums for individuals above the age of 65. I understand that the argument for introducing such relief is that it would encourage individuals above that age to take up private medical insurance and therefore reduce pressure on NHS resources, and that this would result in a net saving for the Exchequer in the medium to long term.

The Government introduce new tax reliefs only when there is a compelling case that to do so would represent a good use of public money. Turning first to cost, we estimate that this relief would have a direct and immediate cost to the Exchequer of at least £135 million pounds a year—a significant amount, especially given the fiscal climate in which we are now operating. That would reflect the cost of restricting relief to the basic rate of tax.

Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Debate between Mark Hoban and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

That is an unfortunate consequence of the difficult decisions that we have to take to tackle the deficit that the hon. Lady’s party has left behind. Tough decisions have had to be made to target help as closely as possible on those in the greatest need. The support that exists, whether through the Sure Start maternity grant—yes, we are restricting that to the first child from April 2011—or through the Healthy Start vouchers, provides targeted, focused help for those in the greatest need. That is the best way to give support to help mothers on low incomes through pregnancy. The health in pregnancy grant does not tackle nutrition, and it is not well timed because it should be delivered at an earlier stage to help families.

I have to say to the hon. Member for Bristol East that if the grant goes, there are still plenty of opportunities for expectant mothers to access health visitors, midwives and GPs to get the support that they need to help them with their diet or with smoking cessation, and to give them advice and support throughout the pregnancy. Support is not limited simply to receiving that grant; it is there throughout pregnancy, and we should not overlook that fact in discussing the Bill.

It is right to remove the health in pregnancy grant, even though we do not do it lightly and would not choose to do it unless it were a consequence of the situation that we have inherited. The previous Government lost sight of good fiscal discipline, and we are having to take measures today to tackle the problems that have resulted.

[Kerry McCarthy]

In all our debates on the health in pregnancy grant on Second Reading, in Committee and today, we have been going round and round in circles without ever quite nailing what the Government’s objections are to the grant continuing.

I shall try to pin down what the Minister has said. He says that the grant would be better if it were paid earlier, yet he has not brought forward any suggestion that it should be. He says that it is a problem that there is no guarantee about what it is spent on, yet he seems perfectly happy to go on paying child benefit to mothers or the winter fuel allowance to pensioners. There is no guarantee about how that money is spent, so I reject that argument. It has been suggested that there has been no evaluation of the scheme, but as he said, it was introduced in 2009. How on earth can we possibly have had the chance to carry out a full evaluation of the take-up of the grant, what it is spent on and people’s access to advice?

My final point, and the crux of the matter, is that the Minister praises the Healthy Start scheme because it is targeted at the people who need it most. He also mentioned the Sure Start maternity grant, which, as we know, is being reduced to cover just the first child. Does he not accept that if we abolish the health in pregnancy grant, the families he spoke of, who need the Healthy Start vouchers to cover expenses and to have a healthy diet during pregnancy, will be £190 a week worse off? That is why we argue for the retention of the grant, with a review of whether it should be means-tested and better targeted. In rejecting the idea of a review totally, he is basically saying that the poorest families, who are already suffering because the Sure Start maternity grant is being restricted to the first child, must lose £190 a week. That is something of a scandal. I therefore wish to press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.