Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Mike Gapes and David Lammy

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), whose eye for forensic detail and lucidity in these matters are second to none. He could not be described as brief, and on this occasion I intend to be a bit briefer. The amendment seeks a review of this proposal because, at its heart, this is about equity and fairness. You, Dr McCrea, understand better than anyone what fairness and equity mean.

There has been much talk about small business men. A small business man came to see me a month ago about the lack of finance from Barclays bank. It is true to say that even though we all have stories of small businesses that are unable to get loans, many constituents come and ask Members specifically not to contact their banks, because they are scared, frankly, that they will be cut loose and that the intervention of a Member of Parliament could make things worse. The fact that across the Chamber no party is suggesting that we have got back to a situation in which there is access to loans indicates that industry and small businesses in this country are in a very serious way.

That brings me to the other deceit, or conceit, that lies at the heart of what has been suggested. Much has been made of the manufacturing sector. Yes, it is hugely important, but it employs 4 million people or thereabouts, whereas 23 million are employed by the service sector, which is a depressed sector. That is perhaps why, alongside the public sector cuts we are now seeing, unemployment in Tottenham is the highest in London. The levy, set at the right amount and consistently reviewed, could have done something to ameliorate that.

It is about fairness and equity, and it is also about what the Government’s story on growth really is. Some of what we are hearing on how they see the levy and the box into which they want to put it, with the constraints of £2.5 billion only, can only mitigate the growth that we want to see in our constituencies.

The single mums who came to see me a few weeks ago because the after-school activity club is being cut for their young children and they are wondering how they are going to get back from work by half-past 3 to pick them up need to feel that bankers, too, are making a contribution. The elderly suffering from Alzheimer’s in one of my local residential homes, against a backdrop of three being closed because the local authority is being squeezed, need to feel and want to believe, because of the age they have reached and the contribution they have made to this country, having paid into the system, that the banking sector is also making a contribution that is fair. The many public sector workers who received their payslip for the last time just a few days ago also want to believe that bankers are making their contribution.

These people cannot understand why, despite the fact that growth in our economy is so sluggish, at barely 2% over the most recent period, City workers are taking home an increase of 7% on average. Why have 231 workers at Barclays bank managed to receive bonuses of £554 million between them? How is that possible, when the dividend for those who have shares in that bank was just over £600 million? That is a bonus culture that has not been checked, that has not been sorted out, and that feels brutally unfair.

When I was canvassing in Slough at the most recent general election, a 90-year-old said to me, “Love, you know what it is? The poorer you are, the more you give in this country.” That is how it feels at this point, when we have to come back to a subject on which really we ought to agree. We know that the banking sector led to this depressed economy, so why should it be let off the hook at this time?

When my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham asked, “Where did we get this £20 billion from?”, I asked the Minister to begin his contribution with the answer. Where did that £20 billion allowance come from? It is a staggering amount of money to slot in at the last minute so that the figure drops beneath the £3.9 billion mark which the industry itself originally predicted. Where did that money come from, and how did we secure the millions in tax relief for that sector? We owe a bigger contribution from the banking sector to the young people of this country, one in five of whom is currently unemployed.

This Government have led us to a situation in which the new arrangements for funding higher education are between the student solely and the university. They have taken the state entirely out of the picture, cutting teaching funding by 80% and abandoning arts and the humanities and any contribution to them. Effectively, with a proper banking levy they could have said that the state could stay involved. Industry, the other sector that benefits, could have made a contribution, too, but the banking sector is certainly somewhere where we could have started. The Government, however, turned their face against that, saying, “No, we’ll land the debt on our young people and let the very people who have led to their unemployment off the hook.”

I want to understand why the Minister has made that decision, and how we will get back to growth, given that young people are to be dealt with in that way.

[Mike Gapes]

My right hon. Friend asks why. Is it not clear why? This is a Government of millionaires and toffs, and they are in the pocket of the banksters. That is what it is all about.