Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent question. She is right that it is not just the lowest effective tax rate for someone on average earnings since 1975, but the lowest headline tax rate and the lowest tax rate in the G7. That is the fundamental divide in British politics: taxes have gone up, and on the Government Benches we do not think that we have to accept the status quo; on the Opposition Benches they do. Why is that? Because lower taxes mean higher growth.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

T7. A recent survey from the Debt Justice campaign has shown that 13% of adults have missed three or more bill or credit payments in the past six months, and 6.7 million people are now in financial difficulty. Does the Chancellor accept that for millions of people, getting from one end of the month to the next under the Tories is a nightmarish struggle, and that people feel worse off because they are worse off?

[Jeremy Hunt]

May I gently correct the hon. Lady? As I said, living standards have risen by £1,700 per household since 2010, and the number of people in absolute poverty is down by 1.7 million. She is right to talk about the debt pressures that people face, which is why in the Budget we abolished the £90 fee for debt relief orders, having talked to Citizens Advice.

Budget Resolutions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

At last week’s Budget, the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box like a smiling, villainous fairy tale character holding out a shiny apple glistening with national insurance cuts, while all the while knowing that inside it was a deadly poison: the fact that we will all pay 10p more tax for every 5p we get back. The Chancellor is supposedly giving back, but people across the UK are suffering from the highest tax burden in 70 years, with the stealthy drip-feed of the poison of freezing tax thresholds.

The freezing of the basic threshold has brought 3.7 million more people into paying tax, and more taxpayers are squeezed by now having to pay the higher rate of tax, as more of their income is in that bracket, often because of a pay rise that has not even kept pace with inflation, so there is a double whammy of more tax and less purchasing power. The freezing of the tax thresholds affects many pensioners too. They do not need much of a workplace pension topping up their state pension before they are in that tax threshold country again. Of course, freezing the tax threshold hits those on the lowest income in particular.

And all this while we have had rampant inflation. Although inflation may now be calming down, prices are still rising, with higher food bills and higher energy bills—the Government’s failure to roll out renewables more quickly has made that all the worse—and higher mortgages and rents.

This Government have also devolved economic woes, including through cuts to council tax budgets in England. The Welsh Government settlement is some £3 billion less than if it had grown with GDP since 2010, meaning that they have to pass on cuts to Welsh councils. Across the UK, people are being asked to pay higher council tax for fewer services. We have had the biggest fall in living standards in our history. People in Llanelli and across the UK are worse off under this Conservative Government.

This Conservative Government have been squeezing household incomes for 14 years. Back in 2011, the Tories increased VAT to 20%, putting up household bills. They have cut and cut and cut the benefits paid to the least well-off in society—many of whom are, of course, in work—leaving many without enough to live on. Back in 2011, the Government started using the retail prices index instead of the consumer prices index to calculate benefits, which worked out as a cut. Then, there were cuts to health and pregnancy grants, Sure Start maternity grants and the baby element of child tax credits, leaving the parents of newborn babies with less money to fend for them. Then, in 2013 we had the bedroom tax, which was a cut in housing benefit that had originally been calculated as what people needed simply to cover the cost of rent. By 2022, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported that in eight out of 10 benefit changes between 2013 and 2022, unemployment benefit had lost value, either through freezes or increases that were worth less than inflation. Then along came rampant inflation. People are even poorer, and even more are now having to turn to food banks.

In all of that, we lost the child trust fund. Anyone turning 18 used to be able to claim money that had been put by for them by the state and their family. In 2011, however, the Tories cut it, meaning that 18-year-olds do not have that to look forward to. England lost the educational maintenance allowance as well, but in Wales we managed to keep it for the very poorest pupils.

We desperately need growth in the economy. This has been a complete Tory failure. At 22 Budgets, Tory Chancellors have promised growth, but they have failed. There have been seven consecutive quarters of falling GDP per capita and now officially we are in a recession. With cuts back in 2011, the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition choked off growth with swingeing austerity, and the incompetence continued with that disastrous mini-Budget in autumn 2022, leaving people facing years and years of increased mortgage payments. There has also been the failure to give business and industry the confidence they need to invest, including in renewables and to reform the energy market.

People in Llanelli and up and down the country are desperate for change and desperate for hope of a better life. That is why we need a Labour Government, who will slash energy bills for households and industry, invest in the new green technologies of the future, and invest £3 billion to ensure that we develop primary green steelmaking here in the UK. And the sooner, the better.

UK Economy

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bim Afolami]

I believe that the right hon. Lady asked a similar question of the Chancellor at the last Treasury questions, and the Chancellor responded by saying that he was absolutely clear about the need to compensate people in the way that she has described. He will update the House in due course and indeed update her with further details in response to her question.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has failed to get growth and industry has completely lost confidence in this Government. With projects cancelled, HS2 cancelled, Building Schools for the Future cancelled, hospitals never built and an absolute failure to bring down high energy prices, it is no wonder that business investment forecasts are down. With the US and the EU incentivising investment, what is the Minister now going to do to get the investment we need in the green manufacturing industries of the future?

[Bim Afolami]

To increase investment we brought in full expensing at the last fiscal event, which should represent an increase over the forecast period of £14 billion of investment and deal with the chronic weakness of our economy over generations. That is what we are doing to increase investment. In relation to green investment in particular, what we are not doing is having a huge unfunded £28 billion plan—or maybe now it is not Labour’s plan; maybe it is a secret plan or maybe the Labour Front Benchers have stopped their plan. We have a responsible costed plan to increase investment; the Opposition do not have one.

Silicon Valley Bank

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our actions demonstrate that we are on the side of business. We mean it when we say that we want to make the UK the best place to start, grow and run a business, and, I will add, to list a business, because he is quite right that HSBC is an enormously successful global business that is headquartered in the UK and proudly listed on the UK stock exchange.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

In the light of recent events and the risk of contagion, can the Minister spell out exactly what action he is taking to ensure that we do not see a contraction in the availability of credit to these specialist, fast-growing companies? What more will he do to facilitate access to appropriate credit to help our groundbreaking tech industries to develop?

[Andrew Griffith]

It is a core focus for the Government to ensure that our scaling-up businesses get access not just to credit, but to capital at every level through their life: the Prime Minister has made that a core priority. That is why we are bringing forward many reforms that will open up capital markets to growing businesses, and it is why we will continue to look at reforming packets of trapped capital, whether that be in respect of insurers, through the reform of solvency II, or through looking again at pension arrangements to make sure that savers and potential future pensioners can benefit from the wonderful opportunities from emerging businesses in the tech and life sciences sector.

Non-domestic Energy Support

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is a stalwart champion of the steel sector, which I know is so important to him and his constituents. I absolutely agree with him. Of course, we are aware of the differing levels of support. In fact, with schemes such as this, it is difficult to make a comparison internationally because of the variations. On the additional discounted support for energy and trade-intensive industries that we have announced today, international comparators were a factor in considering the greater generosity of that support. Obviously, in the long term, what we need is secure energy supplies so that we can have choice and secure energy. That is the most important thing in the long run, but across Government we want to see what we can do to support the steel sector.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

In the long term, we need to reduce the reliance of energy-intensive industries such as steel on fossil fuels, and for that we need further investment in innovation. On 17 November, the Chancellor committed to write to me about whether the Government would earmark the £200 million contributed by steel producers and now returned to the UK Government from the EU research fund for coal and steel to set up a UK steel innovation fund. Will the Minister now tell me what the Government’s policy is and when I can expect that letter?

Autumn Statement

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I am happy to do that. My hon. Friend is quite right to raise those issues. We are doing a lot of short-term things, including help with energy bills as well as business rates. As we move to a new business rates system, we are freezing the levels at which business rates can increase and introducing a 75% discount next year for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses. Fundamentally, as a Conservative Government, we know that we cannot flourish as an economy without flourishing small businesses, and we will back them to the hilt.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Chancellor mentioned innovation, and a modern steel industry is vital to our future prosperity, so will he earmark the £200 million originally contributed in good faith by steel producers and now returned to the UK Government from the EU research fund for coal and steel to set up a UK steel innovation fund to develop the steel technologies that we need to drive growth and work towards net zero?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I will happily look into that issue and write to the hon. Member. She will know that one of the growth industries that I identified was advanced manufacturing. There is much that we can do to ensure that the steel industry is competitive in this country, and we want it to have a bright future.

The Growth Plan

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have a dynamic population of highly skilled people. Our job in Government is to empower people to grow, to achieve and to thrive in the ways he suggests.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

During the last 12 years of Tory Government, public services have been cut to the bone, and they now face rampant inflation and an escalation of costs. Following his announcement, what reassurances can the Chancellor give that there will be no real-terms cuts to the budgets of our public services?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am not going to make any statement about a budget this morning.

Cost of Living Crisis: Wales

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I will focus today on the structural issues that face Wales, and ask what the UK Government do for Wales in policy terms. I very much believe in being part of the United Kingdom—I believe that together we are stronger—but we can use that power in ways that can be influential and really benefit every single person.

In the last 12 years, we have seen a massive growth in inequality in this country. We have seen the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; we see that in the millionaire lists and in the people turning up at food banks. So what do we need? We need a tax policy that is redistributive, whereby those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden. What have the Government done? Well, they have put in some immediate support for the time being, but it is a stop-gap; it is not changing the system or the way we redistribute our money. They did that because Labour said, “Look, come on, you need to have a windfall tax. You need to get that money and redistribute it from the oil and gas companies, and make sure it goes into the pockets of people who are facing those enormous bills.”

Let us look at some of the taxation policies that we have had from this Government. There has been the raising of the threshold at which people pay income tax. In principle, that sounds a very good thing, but it is not the most effective way of using that money, because everybody benefits, up the whole scale; it wastes quite a lot of money on people at the top of the scale. By contrast, if we put in targeted support at the bottom, as tax credits were designed to do, we can get a lot more value for our money through redistribution and achieving equality.

What about VAT? One of the things we suggested could have been done this year was taking VAT off energy bills. Back in 2008, Labour reduced VAT from 17.5% to 15%, but now it is obviously up at 20%. VAT is also a very regressive tax, because everyone pays it; it is not a way to redistribute wealth.

Let me turn to the national income insurance hike, which hit people who are working, but did not tax unearned income . Again, that is not a helpful way of taxing people. That is not to say that we do not need money; of course we need money for the health service and the care service, but the way we raise it matters. Our cost of living crisis goes back to some of those fundamentals.

I will move on now to the Department for Work and Pensions. We all know that the transition to universal credit has produced all sorts of anomalies and difficulties. The five-week wait has put families into debt. We are not against the idea of reform or of trying to simplify the benefits system, but I wish this Government would get away from demonising people who have to claim benefits.

Who benefits from the DWP? Well, pensioners take the bulk of the money from the DWP. Then, of course, there are people who are working—lots of people have to rely on top-ups, even though they are working—so they are not in any way to be demonised. Then there are genuinely disabled people, and then there are people who have to claim money to help with their housing costs. Why are we in that situation? It is because we have got rid of so much social housing at low rents, so we now find that lots of public money goes straight into the pockets of landlords. Those eyewatering figures do not go to the people who have to make the claims; they go to the landlords. Until the Government get a grip and have a massive housebuilding programme, we are obviously going to be wasting money in that way and leaving families in often unsuitable accommodation. We need to sort out what is being done with benefits and the tax system.

Let me move on to what has gone on over the last 12 years with public sector pay. If we squeeze and squeeze, is it any wonder that we now have a crisis when inflation suddenly picks up but wages have been on hold for years? We have an incoherent policy; the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) threw out a figure of 7%, but the minute he became Chancellor he changed his mind. We cannot have a half-baked system. We have to talk in the round about having a proper public sector pay policy. The problems have been stacking up; they have not suddenly arisen. This Government have not handled the economy or the redistribution of wealth well.

I turn to my favourite topic: energy policy. If we had invested in all the renewables that we should have done over the last 12 years, we would not be so dependent on imported oil and gas. What is this nonsense where, yet again, in the energy security strategy for 2022, the Government are pussyfooting around when it comes to wind farms in England? Luckily, we have a sensible policy in Wales.

It was disappointing to hear the Minster, at the Welsh Affairs Committee, not fully understand the implications of the National Grid situation. I hope he now understands the need for massive investment right across Wales, and between Wales and England, so that we can benefit from being the United Kingdom and all share our energy pools. We really need a strategy for energy and investment, on a wholescale basis, and not leave it to a private company to see whether they fancy it or not. We need a strategy that supports innovation, such as we have seen in the tidal lagoon, which is now being supported by Labour-run Swansea City Council, rather than having had help from the UK Government.

I will finish with a point about dealing with rural areas. As we know, rural areas have particular difficulties in that they have a limited choice of fuel that they can use to heat their homes. Many are dependent on oil, for example, and have seen prices rocket, with no help available. Then there are the massive mileage costs that people in rural areas clock up when they have to go to the shops or to work, or to take the children somewhere; and the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) asked whether there could be some support to help people in those areas through sensible, centrally thought-through policies that could redistribute and help areas with massive inequalities.

On that note, I will leave other colleagues to tell the terrible and heartbreaking stories that we have all heard recently. I ask the Minister: when he is thinking about which candidate he supports in the Conservative leadership contest, will he put to them the questions of how we change the structure to have an equal and fairer society?

NHS Pensions and Staffing

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

I thank the hon. Gentleman.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Dr Poulter]

Will the hon. Lady first allow me to reply to the previous intervention?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on making those points; he is absolutely right to make them, and I am grateful to all his DUP colleagues who have turned out this evening to support the debate. It is very much appreciated, because as he rightly highlighted, this issue affects all healthcare professionals in all parts of the United Kingdom. We need to see changes to the punitive pension regime.

I will give way just one more time for now, if Members will forgive me, because I know that a lot of people want to speak in the debate.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate, and I implore the Minister to listen, because although health is devolved to the four nations, retention is a central issue that we are all affected by. I will let the hon. Member get on with his speech.

[Dr Poulter]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support, and she is absolutely right to highlight that this issue affects all of the United Kingdom.

This year in particular, due to certain factors related to inflation, we are facing a real challenge that is created by the pension penalties that exist under the current legislation. That needs to be looked at urgently, or we will see a reduction in the NHS workforce at the very time we can least afford it, while we are tackling the covid crisis.

“Scheme pays”, which is effectively a loan against a pension, is often suggested by the Government as a way for doctors to pay their pension tax bills. However, it attracts an interest rate of CPI plus 2.4%. So in the current climate, with inflation being at over 9%, “scheme pays” is prohibitively expensive and can result in a significant reduction in the total value of the pension, particularly for younger NHS workers in their 30s and 40s. Many doctors and nurses are left with little option but to pay the tax from their post-tax income instead, take out bank loans or, in some cases, increase the size of their mortgages. As I shall explain later, due to rising inflation, senior workers are being billed thousands of pounds in tax for pseudo growth in their pensions which never materialises as inflation continues to rise.

What is the impact on the NHS? The NHS is at a care and staffing precipice. GP workforce numbers are falling, while hospital consultant numbers are not increasing rapidly enough to keep up with demand. Many staff are also feeling burned out and demoralised due to workload and rising instances of abuse. In addition, the secondary care backlog in our hospitals for both urgent and elective operations, as well as for cancer care, is at an unprecedented level, with 6.48 million people currently waiting for treatment. Return referrals to GPs have also seen an 87% increase and a care backlog for general practice, with 401,115 patients waiting for treatment as of November 2021. Those circumstances, coupled with low levels of hospital beds, mean that staff and patients alike are feeling the impact.

We can all agree that the NHS needs more staff. England would need the equivalent of an additional 46,300 full-time doctors simply to put the NHS on an equivalent standard to today’s OECD EU average of 3.7 doctors per 1,000 people. However, as of March 2022, over 100,000 posts in secondary care are vacant, more than 8,000 of which are medical posts. The NHS needs to keep the staff it has simply to keep the current level of service running. In the year between June 2021 and May 2022, the NHS lost 323 GP partners and 462 salaried and locum GPs. That means the number of fully qualified GPs decreased by a net 785 full-time equivalent GPs in just under one year.

That trend is exacerbated by the fact that despite there being 1,737 fewer fully qualified GPs today than there were in 2015, each practice has on average over 2,000 more patients than in 2015. So, there are fewer GPs but each with more patients to care for, and many more patients now have complex care needs to manage.

Pension rules are making it financially unviable for some senior doctors and nurses to either stay in the NHS or work the number of hours they would like to. By tackling the NHS pension crisis through amending the Finance Act 2004 and introducing a tax unregistered scheme for those senior NHS workers, we could help to keep those much-needed doctors and other frontline clinical staff in the NHS for longer, and we would be supporting patients to get the care they need. Without those changes to the pension rules, more staff will leave and the care backlog together with waiting times are likely to continue to rise.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

2. Whether his Department is taking steps to reduce Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs paperwork for alcohol exporters.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Frazer)]

The 2025 UK border strategy sets out the Government’s vision for the UK border to be the most effective in the world. We are investing £180 million to build a UK single trade window, which will streamline how traders share information with the Government, making it as straightforward as possible for business to comply with customs requirements.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

We all understand the need to protect revenue and to prevent fraud, but some alcohol exporting companies find that their exports are being hindered by HMRC’s refusal to accept standard invoicing as proof of tax paid. HMRC, in requiring additional letters of confirmation, is therefore causing companies considerable hindrance to their exports. Will the Minister agree to meet me to find a way forward that can both protect revenue and facilitate exports?

[Lucy Frazer]

I would be very happy to meet the hon. Member and look at the specific issues that she has raised, but I reassure her that HMRC is currently in a programme to ensure that traders have to fill in fewer forms and that forms are prepopulated, so that customs can be streamlined for the trader.