Tax Fairness

Debate between Mel Stride and Nicholas Dakin

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin]

I am afraid my hon. Friend is also luring me down a route that I would rather not go down, because I would not like to face your ire, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman is being exceedingly generous in giving way. As he has said, he is keen to talk about tax fairness. He referred earlier to the iniquity of reducing the top rate of tax for higher earners from 50p in the pound to 45p, which is coming up this April. Does he therefore not accept that, in his terms, the last Labour Government acted totally unfairly in having a top rate of just 40p in the pound right the way through until the last 36 days of his Government?

[Nic Dakin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I have not yet said that—I am going to say it later, so I will come to his point when that is appropriate.

I was describing the difficult choices that hard-working families are having to make to keep their heads above water. The obligation we face—those of us who govern, as well as those on the Opposition Benches—is to make difficult choices about where revenue is raised. It is therefore right and proper to look at ways of taxing people who have significant wealth, such as people who own properties valued at more than £2 million. Therefore, it is right and proper to look at ways of ensuring that that part of our nation makes a contribution in these difficult times.

We know that people of great wealth are sometimes quite imaginative and inventive when it comes to avoiding taxes. I commend the work of Government over the ages to find ways of tackling tax avoidance—this Government have done a number of things that are to be welcomed. Property is obviously difficult to hide. One of the big advantages of a property tax—a mansion tax, as expounded over the years by the Liberal Democrats in particular—is that it is difficult to avoid paying, because property is visually identifiable. As my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) said earlier—she is no longer in her place—60% of high-value properties in London are owned by people from overseas. Indeed, I note the comments of the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) on this issue. He made an intelligent and helpful contribution to the debate.

I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton) in his place and I very much welcome him to the House. I am sure he will continue to build on his excellent maiden speech and make good contributions to the work of the House. However, prior to the by-election, the Deputy Prime Minister, writing in The Observer, described the Prime Minister as being “stuck in the past” for opposing the mansion tax. The Observer commented that this came

“amid signs that the Liberal Democrats are ready to challenge the Tories more vigorously over key aspects of economic policy.”

Today’s debate is an ideal opportunity for them to do that. The Deputy Prime Minister attacked the Prime Minister in his article, saying that the Conservatives were instinctively against fairer taxation

“even as people on lower incomes feel the pinch”.

He said that the plan for a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2 million, which was being backed by the Labour party, was an idea “whose time has come”, and said it was a “certainty” that some levy on high-value properties would be introduced soon. He continued:

“The Conservatives and opponents of fairer taxes have a choice. They can dig their heels in and remain stuck in the past. Or they can join with the Liberal Democrats and the chorus of voices seeking to make our tax system fair. Far better, surely, to move with the times.”

I very much welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s rather prophetic contribution to this debate. It puzzles me that the Liberal Democrats who have spoken so far have indicated that they might not support the motion. However, a number of them have been here for a large part of the debate, so I hope they will be persuaded by the power of argument.

It is worth noting that the motion says:

“That this House believes that a mansion tax on properties worth over £2 million, to fund a tax cut for millions of people on middle and low incomes, should be part of a fair tax system; and calls on the Government to bring forward proposals for such a tax at the earliest opportunity.”

As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) said from the Opposition Front Bench, nothing could be simpler. Indeed, this is the sort of simple motion that the Business Secretary called for and that the Deputy Prime Minister called for before the Eastleigh by-election. Indeed, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) confirmed today that he could have written it himself, so one wonders why the Liberal Democrats cannot support it. One is helped to understand why they cannot do so by reading the rather entertaining amendment, the middle of which

“notes that the part of the Coalition led by the Deputy Prime Minister…advocates a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2 million, as set out in his party’s manifesto, and the part of the Coalition led by the Prime Minister does not advocate a mansion tax”.

We have a pushmi-pullyu Government, pushing in one way and pulling in the other. We have a real pantomime horse, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East said, from a pantomime Government, but this is not pantomime time. It is a serious time, and a serious time requires serious politics. The Liberal Democrats have an opportunity to stand by their principles—to stand on the side of honest, hard-working people—by coming into the Lobby this afternoon to support our motion, which could have been written by the hon. Member for Bristol West.

Education Performance

Debate between Mel Stride and Nicholas Dakin

Thursday 12th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for helpfully reminding me of that. I am sure that the shadow Minister will address that comment in due course.

Whether we have gone up or down a bit in such surveys is not the main point, as a number of hon. Members have said. At the end of the day, as I shall demonstrate, being average or around average is simply not good enough—as I think the Opposition accept, including the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) who very much stressed that point. According to the 2009 league table, if we were to have achieved at the level of the best—for example, Finland—67% of students in this country would have obtained five A* to C grades, including English and mathematics. The actual figure is just 49.8%. That is a huge loss of human capital and is to the enormous detriment of students who did not achieve those grades as a consequence of us not being the best. Average performance is clearly changing through time because those countries with good education systems that consistently put them at the top of the table are good at adapting and innovating. Such countries are not standing still and they are getting better.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Interesting evidence given to the Select Committee on Education this week from the OECD demonstrates how complex the matter is. What does the hon. Gentleman have to say about the OECD’s report that, although Finland is very good in terms of attainment, it is very poor at getting young people into employment? The UK is better at that than, for example, Finland. These issues are complex.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. Of course, these matters are complex. That is exactly what I have been arguing. However, there is no getting away from the fact that we have remained average for far too long across too many measures—PISA, TIMSS, the progress in international reading literacy study and so on.

PISA is, indeed, a complex study. It looks not just at 15-year-olds in terms of reading, mathematics and science, but at the background of those students. It looks at their aspirations and attitudes and how the schools in which those students are studying function. One of the key conclusions that is drawn by the OECD from those studies is that education in this country is not promoting social mobility to the extent that it should. One of the ways of identifying that point is to look at the different achievement levels of individual pupils. There is a high correlation between social deprivation and poorer students, and lower achievement. In fact, 13.9% of a student’s achievement can be attributed to their socio-economic background. That figure is far lower in other countries, including in Finland at 8.3% and Canada at 8.2%.

That brings me on to my next point. This is not a zero-sum game where having excellence and achieving well in these league tables means letting down poorer students. It is quite possible to achieve both—to make sure that we are at the top of the league table and that we are doing well by students from less advantaged backgrounds. That has been shown not just by Finland and Canada, but by Japan and South Korea. In this country, we have for too long tolerated a long tail of underachievement in the distribution of education performance, which is why I am pleased that a lot of the Government’s very radical education policies are specifically designed to address that.

My final point—I will be brief—is that the PISA studies also highlight the link between various underlying factors in education and performance, for example, the key effect of operational independence of schools on results. There is a clear correlation between schools being allowed to get on with it and good educational achievement. That is one of the reasons why I welcome the free schools and academies programme we have put into effect. Standards-based external examinations are also key drivers of performance in education. I also welcome the English baccalaureate and very much subscribe to the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk made about it.

The quality of teachers lies right at the heart of the issue and is absolutely key; in fact, it is referred to in the title of the White Paper that we have brought forward. It is absolutely right to raise the bar on qualifications for teachers and to be more rigorous in selecting them. That includes taking a close look at interpersonal skills as well as academic qualifications. I urge the Minister to look very carefully at the point about interpersonal skills for teachers. We can all remember from our student days—in my case, at Portsmouth Grammar school in the constituency next door to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Denny Mordaunt)—those teachers who were highly-qualified, but could not inspire. It is very important that we do what we can to identify them.

The final point that comes out of the PISA and OECD analysis is the importance of the culture in a school, specifically as regards discipline, an issue mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe). I welcome the Government’s approach: 24 hours’ notice will no longer be required for detentions; pupils may be searched if teachers are concerned; anonymity will be provided to teachers who face serious allegations from pupils; and head teachers and governing bodies will have more autonomy over exclusion. As a governor of a school, I think that all those things are absolutely spot on, and I congratulate the Government.

This is an important debate. For too long, measuring success in education has been with reference to the past. It has been done with reference to inflated examination results—results pumped up by resits, continuous assessment and diminishing examination standards—and we have simply disguised failure by doing that. Worse, we have also failed far too many of our young people. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk on securing the debate, and the Government on placing international standards right at the heart of our education policy.