Finance (No. 2) Bill

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Today I will vote against this Bill’s Second Reading, and I will focus on three reasons why.

Reason No. 1 is that I genuinely believe that our NHS and key workers deserve a decent pay rise, not just platitudes—the clapping of hands every Thursday some time ago, the selfies and the video clips. A vote for this Bill today is a vote to cut, in real terms, the salaries of those heroes, our key workers.

Reason No. 2 is that the regressive council tax bombshell of 5% imposed by the Chancellor on councils up and down this land is classed as spending power in his Budget—a Budget of smoke and mirrors—while ushering in a new era of austerity, with billions of pounds taken from the public sector providing vital services for the most vulnerable and the most needy, whether children or adults, in our society.

Reason No. 3 is that I and others are making a stand for the millions excluded from financial help and business support, whether freelancers in the Northwich part of my constituency or care workers from Frodsham who deserve a fair level of sick pay when they have to self-isolate in this covid pandemic.

My constituents may not have a direct line to the Chancellor, Ministers or leading civil servants, and they certainly do not have share options worth millions of pounds. However, 305 of my constituents in the Daresbury area of Weaver Vale have just lost their jobs—former employees of Greensill. That is the bulk of the UK employees; they are 305 of the 400 or so who have lost their jobs in the UK. Of course, there are thousands in associated industries, whether that is at Liberty Steel or further afield. They are victims of an unregulated shadow banking crisis and the new episode of Tory sleaze.

I want to see a Chancellor who pushes his team not to support his old boss, the former Prime Minister, but to give our key workers a decent pay rise and fully fund our councils, as promised, to help the many who have been excluded from business and personal support. That is how we build forward fairer for all. It is certainly not through supporting this Bill, which I and those on the Opposition Benches will oppose.

Leaving the EU: Impact on the UK

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab) [V]]

The news that EU exports are down by a catastrophic 41% since the introduction of the wafer-thin trade deal does not bode well. From the shores of Scotland to the chemical industry in my constituency, the promised land of sovereignty—of taking control with bonfires of EU red tape—is now experiencing what happens when reality bites. It seems that British-inspired red tape has grown in abundance as the result of a shabby deal and the fact that Ministers did not read the detail. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) admitted that she did not bother to read the deal. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs agreed to decimate our shellfish industry, accepting the consequences of the deal in a letter to the EU that he signed, then protesting about them, seemingly forgetting about the letter.

These actions have consequences, with exports from Scottish fisheries to the EU now down by a massive 83%—jobs and livelihoods being dealt a crushing blow—while Ministers proclaim that at least unwanted fish are now British and others bizarrely suggest recipes for the types of fish that the British consumer does not usually consume. We are governed by a Dad’s Army without the humour.

We have a Prime Minister who has stated that there will be no border across the Irish sea—of course, we now have a border across the Irish sea—and that if any paperwork comes as a result of this deal, it will be ripped up. HMRC has confirmed that British businesses will now spend £7.5 billion a year on handling 215 million more customs declaration forms. Chemical exporters, some of which are based in my constituency, are now paying an additional £1 billion for the pleasure. The only thing that has been ripped up are the business plans and the profit margins of British businesses. Many SMEs simply do not have the resources to cope with the level of bureaucracy.

What legal measures are the Government putting in place to mitigate these permanent boulders in the road? At what stage will the Government do an impact assessment —a courtesy accorded to Albania but not Britain, and certainly not Scotland? As for the SNP, they cannot have it two ways. They claim to want to return to a union with the EU while breaking up the Union with their closest neighbour in the rest of the UK.

North of England: Infrastructure Spending

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and I give the hon. Member for Southport (Damien Moore) credit for securing such an important debate, the topic of which is vital for our region of the north and for our infrastructure.

Levelling up, closing the economic divide and dealing with decades of inequalities in the north has certainly been a clarion call for me and many Labour MPs. We now have the new voices that the hon. Gentleman referred to in seats in the north of England that were traditionally red. They talk about powering up and levelling up the north, as well as regional disparities and infrastructure. The evidence cited by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and others is clear, and it is decades long. For example, in London and the south-east, nearly three times as much is spent on transport infrastructure. The hon. Gentleman mentioned average spend as well.

Collectively as northerners, regardless of whether we are Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, or the odd Green that we might have, we represent our communities, and I hope that at times we can act together to ensure that the Executive—Downing Street—become more focused on our street in the north. However, this is about more than the fiscal environment; it is about power, democracy and shaping our own future. The missing part of the jigsaw, or the unfinished business, is genuine devolution for Cheshire and Warrington.

In the past, I worked for Andy Burnham, the current metro Mayor. I was a councillor for 11 years in Manchester, so I have been involved in shaping devolution in that patch, which is just up the road from my constituency and that of the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey). On the other side of my constituency there is devolution in the Liverpool city region, so we have a missing part of the jigsaw where things are largely done to us, sometimes mistakenly and sometimes not the right things. We have minimal say.

I want to ask the Minister about the devolution White Paper. We genuinely have an oven-ready deal, ready to go with the support of Cheshire West and Chester Council, Warrington Borough Council, Cheshire East Council, and, very importantly, the business community, whether that is the Tatton Group or the local enterprise partnership. We just need to get on.

Before the pandemic, the economy was worth about £38 billion. We can realise that potential and shape our own destiny, which will help us to focus on the things that we need in our patch, such as the mid-Cheshire line, which the right hon. Member for Tatton and others are campaigning on cross-party. We need that to happen in our constituencies and we need it to happen yesterday. We need to realise the potential of hydrogen in Cheshire, where we can not only lead in Britain, but be world leaders. However, we need that say, that investment and that devolution deal.

I will conclude there. I thank the hon. Member for Southport for giving me, a Labour voice, the opportunity to contribute to today’s debate.

North of England: Economic Support

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), also a metro Mayor, for securing such a vital debate.

The levelling up of regions of the UK is a stated focus of the current Government, as has been said across this Chamber today. Coronavirus has become the first—and, I would imagine, the largest— hurdle to this agenda for us all. At this first hurdle, the Government have fallen. They have given away the fact that, at their core, they do not value people and jobs equally.

In the spring, when the Government decided to lock down—lockdown 1—under pressure from the Opposition Benches, businesses and unions, they quickly drew up plans to provide 80% of wages through the furlough scheme for people who could no longer work. However, in October, when my constituents, and many others across the north, were plunged into tier 3, along with the Liverpool city region, it was decided that workers needed only 67% of their wages. The Chancellor told us that more money could not be found, but three weeks later—hey presto!—the Treasury suddenly uncovered more cash when we went into national lockdown. Now we are back to 80%, after a sustained campaign by many people—not only parliamentarians, but businesses and trade unions. What hope can we have of levelling up when, in the middle of an international crisis, the Government send the clear signal that northerners, northern livelihoods and northern businesses mean less?

As my Labour colleagues highlighted this week, we can harness the opportunities for green growth if the Government act urgently to deliver the economic recovery that the nation requires. That must include the plan that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central eloquently put forward for levelling up growth, skills and investment in the north through the UK prosperity fund. We must also look at the Green Book reforms that have been much peddled and promised in the media. In my constituency, we also need more investment in hydrogen, which hon. Members from across the House have mentioned, and investment in Sci-Tech Daresbury, with which the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), is very familiar—he was helpful with it in the past. We need more investment with a laser-like focus to drive up prosperity and economic recovery.

We have had enough of second-rate public transport and hand-me-down rolling stock, the talk of levelling up while levelling down to rubble a multimillion-pound college in the Northwich part of my constituency, and the spin of “build, build, build” while the Government’s housing algorithm means 28% fewer houses in the north and more than 160% more houses in London. Any investment in regional economies must be matched by investment in local decision making. We need to harness it is as much as we harness the economic power that the north is capable of. The levelling up agenda must include a radical transfer of fiscal and political power. We lack not just funding and investment in the north, but the ability to shape our fortunes and make change ourselves. We cannot continue to tolerate inequality of power, which drives inequalities of prosperity across the country and the north, so I ask the Minister to consider—

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

Order.

Future of Financial Services

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s campaigning on this important issue. She asks the right question to make sure the money is going where we want it to go. I can give her the reassurance that we will be using the use of proceeds structure, along with the principles from the International Capital Market Association. That is the most widely used and recognised structure in the ESG—environmental, social and governance—investing space, and it is the structure that is used by pretty much all other sovereign issuers. It will ensure that the money raised goes where it is required and deserves to go.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Credit unions have been a lifeline for many people in local communities during the pandemic. What steps is the Chancellor taking to support credit unions and the mutual sector in terms of growth?

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of credit unions in providing credit to those who need it. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary recently hosted a roundtable to make sure the industry is getting the support it requires.

Finance Bill

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I come to the debate more with sadness than with pleasure, having read the progress report from the Committee on Climate Change on how the Government and the country are doing. The report is absolutely damning of the Government’s performance. It says that they are not even meeting the 2° warming target, they are failing the commitments that we made in Paris five years ago, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) said, they are not expected to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets. The report goes on to say that many national plans and policies are not acknowledging the long-term risks of climate change, and that many Government Departments are not acknowledging those risks.

I am going to talk about a few different areas and measures, hopefully not for too long, to let other colleagues fully take part in the debate. We have with us a Minister who has spent time at the Department for Transport, along with my neighbour the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who was a long-serving Minister in that Department, so I will start there.

I am pleased that there are measures such as clause 83, which exempts electric vehicles from vehicle excise duty, and clause 82, which deals with the calculation of cars’ CO₂ emissions, but is that enough? We are talking about a country still addicted to petrol and diesel vehicles. Just look across the North sea to Norway. We have to thank the Norwegians, because their No. 1 selling vehicle is the Nissan Leaf. They are therefore supporting Nissan jobs in Sunderland with their Government measures, yet we are not sufficiently supporting them with ours. Those two measures in the Bill will not be enough to make Nissan Leaf the top selling car in the UK, which is what the Government should be aiming for. Not that I am particularly promoting Nissan—this goes for any electric vehicle. I have no interest to declare in relation to Nissan; this is about British jobs. We should look to Norway and its measures on sales tax, charging points and other things, which have meant that the majority of vehicles sold in Norway are electric.

Looking forward to COP next year, the reason why Paris was so successful was that the French showed global leadership, through domestic policy and diplomacy. The problem we will have is that we are not showing the same global leadership in domestic policy. We are a global leader, rightly, in reducing the use of coal-fired power stations, which will effectively have ceased in this country by the time we get to COP. However, we are not a global leader in any other area, so how can we secure a world-leading agreement in Glasgow next year? It is incumbent on the Treasury to introduce incentives to ensure that we reach those points, so that we can show that our measures work. It is not enough to talk a good game; we have to deliver.

Let me turn to some points drawn up by the all-party net zero group, which I chair, which should be instructive for the Minister. They are points that he should take on board and that hopefully the Government will look into. One thing we have seen in the renewable energy sector is a lack of confidence, because in many areas the Government have withdrawn support or not introduced it. One area where I would say the Government have done well and are world leaders is offshore wind. Contracts for difference have made a huge difference. However, we do not have the same confidence in other areas of the renewables market.

What has happened with solar feed-in tariffs has removed confidence from the solar market. Support for green hydrogen and the renewables to create it has not come forward in the way that it should have. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) mentioned the tidal barrage. Again, we are not talking about value for money; we are talking about a world-leading project that could create new technology that we could export. We are not thinking broadly enough about these measures, and the Treasury needs to rethink them.

Obviously we are in the post-covid period, and we need to think about retooling our workforce, because of the many people unfortunately losing their jobs and the Government’s own agenda of levelling up areas. I want to give one example of where that might really work. Not far from my constituency, in East Yorkshire, we have a plethora of factories that build caravans. I will come to the construction industry later, but the way in which we build houses is the 19th-century way of doing it. In fact, we have been building houses in more or less the same way since the Romans. Why are the Government not incentivising the repurposing of those factories to build modular, Passivhaus standard, zero-carbon homes, creating jobs in areas neighbouring coastal resorts, a lot of which are going to lose jobs, and making available houses at different specs for a wide range of people, from social housing right through to the most expensive types of houses in this country, all of which could be implemented quickly? The Prime Minister said, “Build, build, build”, but it is not enough just to build; we have to build in a way that creates a green recovery.

There is a real dilemma around how we incentivise the construction sector. If someone has a property—a terrace, a house or even a heritage property—and wants to refurbish it and put in green measures, they have to pay VAT. If they want to demolish that property and build a brand new one, they pay no VAT. Is that not perverse? Should the Minister not be looking to fix that? We have systems and financial incentives in place that are going to create more carbon, not less.

I will finish soon as I want to give colleagues a chance to speak. Every Department’s plans should include a green fiscal rule or measure that every single policy has to meet. Every time the Treasury or another Department are putting forward a new policy, they should be asking whether it will reduce carbon, and help to meet our fourth and fifth carbon budgets—and the carbon budgets after that, if we get to that stage. If it does not, that policy should not be coming forward, because we only have one chance to do this. There is no planet B. There is no second United Kingdom. We need to be doing this now and in the best possible way.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Yesterday, like a number of Members across the House, I was lobbied—by 15 residents, in my case. The time is now.

Today I spoke to 180 delegates of CPRE, the countryside charity. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) was there as well. Those people told me what they wanted fed back to Ministers about the progress they would like to see in the green economy. They are frustrated with the lack of progress, and determined and ambitious to ensure that we get to net zero a damn sight quicker than the Government’s current targets suggest. They are keen to protect our green spaces and environments, and, in turn, to create great green jobs. Where there is development, they are determined that we have a brownfield-first policy, and that the houses built are genuinely affordable and carbon neutral. Picking up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel); there are some great examples of modular houses that we can build at scale and create the jobs, jobs, jobs that the shadow Minister spoke about.

We need real and bold investment in our cycleways and pathways, and affordable transport, until the point that it is in our DNA to ensure that our buses are electric, that we get more people working on buses and that our railways get people from A to B, which they clearly do not do currently. At Northwich station in my constituency, people who are disabled or have mobility problems cannot get to the other side of the tracks. That affects their mobility across the conurbation and productivity in terms of sustainable growth.

People have spoken about renewable energy, including the decision on the tidal lagoon. That was a retrograde step; the lagoon should have been invested in. There is a similar situation in Merseyside, where Mayor Steve Rotheram is taking forward a project. I sincerely hope that the Government can escalate that problem—not only for Merseyside, but for the whole nation.

Finally, on renewable energy, people have mentioned hydrogen, which is a real growth industry in my community in Weaver Vale. I would like to see the Government actually escalate such support and put some speed behind it. I would also like to see a recovery plan, which again is about jobs, jobs, jobs, but also about building back better and certainly building back greener with more ambition.

Loan Charge 2019: Sir Amyas Morse Review

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Like many of those who have spoken in this debate, I have met many constituents, during the election and since, who have been directly affected by this issue. I have had the chance to go through with them many of the contracts they have signed and some of the advice they received from many of the professionals, who, we would all agree, based on what has been said today, are the villains of the piece from the perspective of this House. I have heard many examples of where professionals were paid and people should have been able to rely on their providing good, clear and legal advice, but they have left those people in a difficult financial position today.

I sympathise with the position that Sir Amyas Morse found himself in, and I believe that what he has put forward in his report, although a number of points and concerns remain, represents a reasonable attempt at a compromise to bring about a resolution of this situation. It is my understanding that many of these legal cases revolve around the question of how we define a loan. The position of the Inland Revenue, as it was, and now of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is that money that someone receives for doing their work and that they spend as their income is their income and should be taxed as such. The Inland Revenue and HMRC have always permitted both employees and directors to receive loans from the organisations for which they are working. Indeed, many of our constituents will have access to things such as season ticket loans, provided on a regular basis, which are free of tax because they are loans.

From reading the contracts that many of my constituents have signed and having heard in detail the advice that they received, it seems clear that at the heart of this is a fundamental problem: the schemes themselves were lawful because it was lawful to receive a loan, but the money the constituent received was tax-free only if it was genuinely a loan. But as five, 10, 15 or 20 years have gone by and there has been a complete absence of evidence that these things were genuinely loans, because the person has received that money as remuneration and spent it as their income, HMRC has naturally begun to take a lot more detailed interest in that, and this situation has left many of our constituents in a real bind.

I am mindful that, when we read Morse’s proposals, we see that he proposes a process of resolution containing a number of different avenues that the individual taxpayer affected can explore. I hope the Minister will consider that somewhere at the heart of this is making sure that individuals who acted in good faith, notwithstanding the fact that they were badly and incorrectly advised by professionals, should be enabled to have the benefit of the fact that they acted in good faith when they signed their tax return, even if the information on it, prima facie, was not correct. They were not intending to evade tax and thought they were doing something that was within the law.

In summary, I am also conscious that although we have heard a vocal campaign on this during the election campaign, 99% of taxpayers in this country never go near a scheme such as this. Quite a few of those taxpayers have said to me that they find it hard to credit that anybody thought that by describing the pay they received for their work on their tax return as a “loan” that meant they did not and never had to pay any income tax on it.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Jeff in my constituency, who is hard-working, played by the rules. According to the rules, as far as Jeff was concerned, and as advised by accountants and even by HRMC, everything was in order. He was doing a good job and paying his way. As Members from across this House have said, this is about fairness and justice.

[David Simmonds]

Everybody in the Chamber is going to agree with that point, but fairness and justice clearly extend to this Chamber making decisions that are appropriate for everybody. I am very mindful of what my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said about ensuring that everybody pays their taxes and everybody is treated fairly. I simply say this: there has understandably been a huge outpouring of sympathy towards people who did not expect to find themselves facing a very substantial tax bill because they thought they had done the right thing. I urge Ministers to be as helpful and as considerate as possible in approaching the settlement of that, but it is also clear to me, as someone who worked as a professional in the financial advice business—not as a tax adviser—when these schemes were being rolled out, that huge numbers of people avoided them, because they recognised that they were being asked to put something on their tax return that they knew was not correct. We therefore have to strike the right balance in how we deal with the issue today.

Economic Update

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and I will certainly take that up with the Transport Secretary.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

If Denmark can step in and offer 70% subsidies as a transitional arrangement, why can’t the Chancellor? Step up. Step up!

[Rishi Sunak]

I have already mentioned looking at the Denmark scheme and indeed the German scheme. The point is what we are able to deliver at pace. Other countries have had schemes in place beforehand, which makes it easier for them to do things, and we need to work with what we have got. But the principle of providing support is one that I fully acknowledge, which is why we are working on that at pace. Again, when considering individual measures, it is worth looking at fiscal interventions between this week and last week in the round, which, in the context of any global response, are extremely significant.

Economy and Jobs

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

That is an important point. I am aware of some of the serious flooding to which the hon. Lady has referred. That is why our national infrastructure plan includes much more funding—significant new funding—for flood defences, and I hope that she will welcome that and support those plans when they come before this House.

Let me also briefly address the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. Every Labour MP stood on a manifesto that would have cost the average taxpayer an extra £2,400 each year—each and every one of them did that. Labour committed to spending an extra £1.2 trillion over five years, which is equivalent to funding the NHS budget for nine years. It is no wonder that the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) said, just a few days ago, that the policies that she helped to write lacked “economic credibility”. It is a bit late for that.

Whatever they may say now, every single one of the would-be Labour leaders tried to make the Leader of the Opposition Prime Minister. They endorsed his vision, his world view and his ideas for Britain, and that is why they will never be able to bring the change that the British people voted for. Instead, they are confirming that Labour is the party of the past and that it is out of touch with working people. Labour will just keep on refighting the same old internal battles while this Conservative Government get on with renewing the country.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I remind the House that taxpayers paid billions of pounds to bail out banks that the Chancellor worked for when he was an investment banker; he should be thanking the British taxpayer.

[Sajid Javid]

May I remind the hon. Gentleman that the banking crisis was so much worse in this country because of the changes made by the previous Labour Government? They were responsible for the depth of that crisis. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair should have listened to the then shadow Chancellor Lord Lilley, who now sits in the other place; at the time, he said that if Labour went ahead with those changes it would be a “field day” for “spivs and crooks”. If they had listened to him, things would have been different. It was the Labour Government who were responsible for the largest banking bail-out in history, and the British people will never forget that.

Just a few weeks ago, the British people were given the starkest choice in decades, between two completely opposed economic visions. On the one hand, the Labour party wants to reach into every corner of people’s lives with the dead hand of nationalisation, excessive regulation and punitive taxation, and its answer to any question one cares to name is yet more state intervention. On the other hand, the Conservatives believe in a dynamic market economy, founded on a promise of openness, enterprise and freedom. The British people have made a decisive choice. They have given us a mandate to deliver. We have a tremendous opportunity to get on with tackling some of the long-term challenges for our economy. A new economic plan will transform the country as we go from a decade of recovery to a decade of renewal. I commend this Queen’s Speech to the House.

No-deal Brexit: Short Positions against the Pound

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

That is a very serious suggestion. I would not recommend that the hon. Gentleman repeat it outside the Chamber.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I welcome the new Minister to his place. Will he clarify the statement he made earlier that the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), is part of the tinfoil hat brigade perpetuating a conspiracy theory in regard to this serious matter?

[Mr Clarke]

I have a great deal of admiration for the former Chancellor, but I am clear that in this case he is wrong.