Finance (No. 2) Bill
Nia Griffith Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)
Order. Before I call the next speaker, I should say that I am mindful to call the Minister at 1.15 pm. Hon. Members should therefore bear that in mind when they make their contributions.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I rise to support the proposals in the names of my hon. Friends.
On the one hand, Government Members accuse Labour Members of always wanting to clobber the rich, but on the other they accuse us of not introducing the 50p rate early enough. We had a vibrant economy, but everything changed with the enormous banking crisis in 2008. In response, we had to introduce a deficit reduction plan, part of which was the perfectly logical introduction of the 50p tax rate.
I make no apology for Labour’s firm commitment to the redistribution of wealth through the taxation system. The majority of citizens in western European democracies share that view. The taxation system is not the only redistribution mechanism. Other mechanisms include the minimum wage, which the Labour Government introduced. I hope the Government retain the minimum wage and increase it year on year in line with inflation. It worries me that it is going up by only 1.9% this year, while inflation races ahead. It is important that we have such mechanisms, but taxation is an important mechanism in the redistribution of wealth. The vast majority of people in this country recognise the need for all to contribute to the many public services we enjoy, and the need for some redistribution through the taxation system.
The economic argument that my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) advanced about money going back into local economies is extremely strong. People on the lowest incomes tend to spend money immediately, so it goes immediately back into the local economy and helps the local high street. Local businesses are going bust because people simply do not have the money to spend. They are struggling. They are turning to food banks—they are unable to buy food, never mind Christmas presents, clothes and the rest of it.
Local economies are struggling enormously. We have heard from many wise sources that the Chancellor needs to get his act together on stimulating the economy, and putting the money in the pockets of people who have the lowest incomes, who will then use it immediately in the local economy, is one way of doing so. That is not happening, which is why the Opposition are so angry about the cut in tax from 50% to 45% when there is an enormous squeeze on those on lower incomes.
One of the most insidious changes is the change to tax credits. They are difficult to explain because they have been designed to suit each individual household, which makes it more difficult to speak about them in a more general sense. Nevertheless, let us look at the changes. First, there has been an increase in the tax credit clawback. The whole point of tax credits is that they are an incentive for people to work if they can find it. Many who are on low incomes cannot get more hours, and the maximum amount that many can be paid for the hours they work in a full-time week still qualifies them for tax credit. Any reduction in that tax credit is therefore counter-productive—it does not help people at all.
The child care tax credit has also been reduced. That is another seemingly mad policy. The money is desperately needed to help people to work. The family element of tax credit has been abolished, as has the 50-plus element, and the working tax credit has been frozen. Given current inflation, the proposed cap of 1% on increases in working tax credit and child tax credit is effectively another cut—it is a cut in what lower-income families can buy with the money they have, with the catastrophic effect that all hon. Members see in our local economies and high streets.
In Wales alone, the tax credit measures will suck some £794 million—much-needed money for lower-income families—out of the economy. The whole point of tax credits was that they were calculated on what it was reasonable for a family to live on, which helped those whose earnings did not meet that rate to keep going.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
In communities such as mine and that of my hon. Friend, the poor spend money—they have no saving capability. Does she agree that the measures therefore have a double impact on local shops and economies?
Nia Griffith
My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is the iniquity of the cut from 50% to 45%. Effectively, a cut in one place unfortunately means that people suffer in other places. Those on the highest incomes can afford to cushion themselves and do not need to spend money straight away. Even someone who earns just £10,000 above the £150,000 mark will benefit significantly. Instead of paying £5,000 in tax, they will pay £4,500. They will have a gain after tax of £500. Most people do not see anything like that increase in their income—incomes are frozen. If someone earning £50,000 has even a 1% increase, they will not get that £500 because it would be taxed. With all the different changes that are being imposed on them, families are losing far more—they are losing, on average, £895 per year.
Geraint Davies
My hon. Friend will know that the Government’s alleged strategy is that the private sector will move in and generate growth as the public sector is pulled back. In Wales, there is a higher proportion of public sector employment and, as she has said, £790 million will be taken out of demand, and savings rates among people in work are increasing because of insecurity. The whole concoction is pushing Wales and similar regions into negative growth. Does she agree that we should stimulate growth by giving more money to people who are poor, because they spend it?
Nia Griffith
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We should get more stimulus into the economy and get more people into work doing useful things, such as through infrastructure projects, which he has championed in our local area. It certainly does not help to have more people thrown out of work. It will obviously lower their incomes immediately, but it will also have a direct effect on the local economy.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nia Griffith Excerpts(13 years ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Clark)
I am delighted to answer my hon. Friend’s question. We are looking carefully at the provisions of the treaty and at every aspect of the proposals. We think that this country has a particularly rigorous set of arrangements, and we do not want to see them diluted.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
T4. Companies are telling me that with demand at rock bottom and infrastructure projects failing to get away from the starting blocks, they see little incentive for investment in UK industry. When drawing up the Budget, will the Chancellor consider expanding the scope of enhanced capital allowances to cover a broader range of investment, and therefore encourage companies to invest in the UK rather than take their money elsewhere?
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
I shall take that as a Budget representation, but it is worth pointing out that at the last autumn statement the annual investment allowance was increased tenfold.
Food Banks (Wales)
Nia Griffith Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
We have had a wide-ranging debate in which many extremely important points were made. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) on securing the debate. He reminded us of the strong tradition in Wales of translating our concern for the well-being of each and every member of our communities into reforms in society that enshrine the dignity of the individual by organising our collective wealth for the good of all, whether through the pension reforms of Lloyd George, the creation of the NHS by Aneurin Bevan or the far-reaching reforms of my predecessor, Jim Griffiths. Those things were done precisely so that people would not have to rely on handouts such as those given by food banks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) paid tribute to FareShare Cymru and to the King’s church in her constituency, and made the point that food banks are well run, with proper systems of referral for those in genuine need. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) spoke of her personal experience helping people who are in distressing circumstances. The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) raised the issue of rural poverty and the widespread nature of deprivation. He contrasted the wealth of food produced with the abject failure to distribute wealth and food equitably.
The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) focused on the formula used to distribute money—the rate support grant—to local councils in Wales. My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) emphasised the dire need that many people find themselves in, and the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) did not come up with a solution to the question of how to eliminate the need for people to rely on food banks. That is a matter I would like to return to later.
The dire statistic is that the number of people relying on food banks in Wales has trebled over the past year, rising from just over 10,000 to just under 30,000, with forecasts of 40,000 next year. Across the UK, food bank usage has doubled in the past year from around 125,000 to around 250,000. The growth of food bank usage in Wales is therefore twice that of the UK average.
The Trussell Trust operates 23 food banks across Wales, nine of which have opened in the past year. Four more food banks will open in Wales by Easter this year. In 2011, a total of 11,000 people—7,000 adults and 4,000 children—used a food bank, but in 2012 it was 18,000 adults and 10,000 children. That is a very grim message indeed.
I would like to pay tribute to the excellent work of volunteers who run food banks up and down Wales. Nothing I say in my remarks is intended to criticise their immediate response to a growing need. In my constituency, the Antioch centre and the Elim Church do amazing work. I was with them a couple of weeks before Christmas at the entrance to the Tesco superstore in my constituency, and the response from the public was tremendous from people of all walks of life. The members of Elim Church had lists of items that were suitable for people to purchase for the food bank and to include in their shopping. As they came out the store, people willingly gave the food they had purchased especially for the food bank.
We have to ask why we are seeing this increase in the number of families in need and what the Government can do about it. I want to see us tackle the causes of poverty and hunger, to look at what is wrong with the structure of our society. When it comes to giving aid to developing countries, we have long since learned that it is no good just giving people handouts. That is the whole point of the Fairtrade movement: the customer pays a fair price for goods so that the people who grow or make those goods can receive a wage that enables them to make ends meet, so that they do not have to rely on charity. How much better to have the dignity of being in charge of their own lives and budgets, not having to beg.
The same is true for people in the UK. I want to see the Government take measures that will tackle the causes of poverty. Why has there been an increase in the number of people turning to food banks? Quite simply it is because more and more people are suffering financial hardship. Let us see what can be done about that. We need policies that determine income distribution in this country, and those are very much a matter for the UK Government. While the Welsh Government can try to provide services to mitigate the effects of lack of income, they do not have control over some of the main factors that affect income.
As specialists in the House of Commons Library have pointed out, there has never been an absolute correlation between the amount of money that someone can receive on a benefit and their actual needs. It has always been a bit of a compromise—a bit of political expediency as to what was acceptable. What they are clear about is that there has never been a time when those benefits have not been uprated in line with inflation, whatever the colour of the Government in office. It is has been a tremendous sadness this year that the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill will effectively bring real cuts in people’s income. That is on top of the many additional costs that they have already had to face. We have already discussed the fact that while benefit increases have been limited, there has been rampant inflation, particularly on essential food items, ranging from 17% to 36%, depending on which food items are considered, over the past five years.
There has also been the increase in VAT. VAT is charged on a range of items, including toilet paper and bathroom products that are not luxuries but items that every family needs. While VAT is not put on food, it is on many essential items. That was a valid comment made by colleagues.
People often face the difficulty of delays in receiving benefit, or have it cut off. We have unfortunately seen some disastrous behaviour by Atos and the problems that has caused. When 40% of its decisions go to appeal, there is something very wrong. I ask the Minister to pass on to his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions our very real concerns about that. Benefit changes are one of the key reasons why people end up at a food bank; they account for 40% of the people who go there.
The other major concern is low income. Many people on low incomes are claiming working tax credit. There have been horrendous changes to the working tax credit by the Government, which have left people with much less money. The point of those credits was to top people up so that work would pay. I was shocked to hear the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), say not only that people could do a few hours’ extra work, when we know how difficult it is to find extra work, but that he thought that would compensate for the changes in housing benefit. He did not realise, of course, that for every extra pound earned, a person would lose 65p in entitlement. It is not a matter of equating three hours’ work at the minimum wage to £15 extra in housing benefit. I again ask the Minister for Wales to speak with his DWP colleagues about the worrying effects that those changes in housing benefit will have on many of our constituents.
We have already seen the cutting of the pension credit and the savings credit, cuts in the health in pregnancy grant, and the change from the retail prices index to the consumer prices index. We are asking the Minister to prevail on his colleagues to not simply accept the situation as it is, but look at ways of putting it right. For example, they should rethink the welfare benefits uprating legislation to restore the link between benefits and inflation. As I have said, the bedroom tax and the cuts planned to the working tax credit are both areas we would like him to look into.
We would also like the Government to get a grip on energy companies. We understand that some energy price rises are due to the worldwide energy market. We also know that there are a number of measures that could be taken. There could be a lot of tightening up with the regulator, and the Minister could look at what can be done about energy prices for low-income households. What we want from the Minister now is not simply, “Oh well, it cannot be changed. Nothing else can be done. That is how society is. Prices just go up.” We want an interventionist Government who can devise a redistribution plan that will ensure that we do not have an increase in the number of people going to food banks. In fact, we want a fall in the number doing so in Wales. The Government could then be proud of bringing about a situation in which there was no need for any more food banks in Wales.
Stephen Crabb
That is exactly what it is about. I did some research before the debate this afternoon and looked at the parliamentary record, because I wanted to know what kinds of questions and issues were being raised on food banks by Members of different parties—not only from Wales, but from right across the UK. It might not surprise my hon. Friends to know that I could not find a single reference by a Labour Member of Parliament, before 2010, to food banks.
Stephen Crabb
No, I will not. I may not have been doing my research as fully as I should, but I could not find a single Labour MP who raised food banks as an issue on the Floor of the House of Commons before the coalition Government came into office. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Cardiff West says from a sedentary position that it was not an issue. Well, questions were being asked by my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), as well as a certain individual called Dai Davies, representing the south Wales seat of Blaenau Gwent. He asked a question about food banks during the previous Government, and some Labour Members will recall how viciously that individual was treated by members of the Welsh Labour party in recent years.
Food banks were very much an issue under the previous Government. However, the conspiracy of silence that existed around food banks extended beyond this place to Jobcentre Plus, because one thing that Labour Ministers refused to do was allow Jobcentre Plus advisers to signpost people facing particular financial need to use food banks. That is something that we changed. In 2011, we altered the guidance to allow Jobcentre Plus advisers to refer people and advertise the services of food banks. Among the underlying causes and reasons for the expansion in the use of food banks in recent years, one reason is that, in contrast to the previous Labour Government, we see them, up front and unashamedly, as a good thing, and we encourage people who are facing points of financial crisis in their lives to use them.
The hon. Member for Cardiff West mentioned a “cost of living crisis”. He used that phrase several times, and it was picked up by other hon. Members as the reason for the expansion in the use of food banks. Of course, that is true. People use food banks because they face a financial crisis at that time. I have met people who use them for a whole variety of reasons: some are young, homeless people; some are struggling with addictions, and they are spending money as a result of addictive behaviours that they are seeking to address; and some are victims of domestic violence who find that they have to flee their family home—they are fleeing an abusive relationship and need that extra support. People use the resources for a variety of different reasons.
I do not want to spend too much time picking holes in the remarks made by the hon. Member for Cardiff West, but he did say, slightly patronisingly, that he suspected that the Minister would stand up and say that he has visited a food bank. Well, I have actually. In fact, I served as a trustee on a charity that ran food banks. The charity set up its food bank in 2008, and its services have expanded. It now provides not only food but a basic bank of clothing, because as hon. Members have rightly said, people face a whole range of financial needs. As well as that, it runs an annual toy appeal to ensure that the poorest families in Pembrokeshire, in my constituency, are able to have a Christmas for their children.
The charity was founded by some of the Churches, and I know that the hon. Members for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), among others, have mentioned different Churches and faith-based organisations that are behind the creation of food banks in their constituencies. I would like to pay my own tribute on the record to the volunteers and people who work in those organisations, because they are doing a fantastic job. When I speak to them, the last thing they want is to be dragged into a party political football match. This issue is bigger and more important than that. We could have had a sensible debate this afternoon about the social needs in Wales, and the role that charities and third sector organisations can play. It is really disappointing that the debate was reduced to a party political argument, when it could have been so different.
Stephen Crabb
My hon. Friend expresses himself extremely well, as ever.
Let us look at the context for Wales. The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) mentioned the underlying economic context for Wales. It is true that Wales has suffered from low wages, but it is not true that wages continue to decline relative to the rest of the UK. If we look at the most recent wage data for Wales, the increase is sharper than for the UK average. That is only a small set of data, but it gives us reason for optimism that we can, over time, close the wage gap and see more families in Wales taking home more real-terms pay from their jobs.
Nia Griffith
Will the Minister explain how his policies will raise incomes in Wales? What will he do to ensure that the poorest people in Wales have better job opportunities and better pay for what they do?
Stephen Crabb
Every single day of the week at the Wales Office, we focus on the economic challenges facing Wales. Every week in the Wales Office we are thinking about how we work with the Welsh Government to bring in new investment in infrastructure and new inward investors, and see better, higher-quality jobs created in Wales that will provide higher real-terms wages.
Household debt was only mentioned briefly in the debate, but it is one of the key reasons why, in recent years, the number of people using food banks has increased. Over the past 10 years, and perhaps going back even further than that, there was an explosion of personal indebtedness, fuelled by the consumer credit boom, which was encouraged—egged on—by the policies of previous Labour Governments. Household indebtedness has started to fall in the past two years, but there is still a long way to go to see people with sustainable debt levels in their lives. That is one reason why some of the organisations that are at the forefront of setting up food banks are also at the forefront of tackling the debt culture. Some of the same organisations run debt advice counselling services alongside their food banks. The Government take seriously the challenge of payday loans and doorstep lenders, and we are taking real action to change the regulatory framework in which such people operate.
Fuel poverty has been mentioned by more than one colleague as a real challenge for Wales, and I absolutely recognise that point. We continue to support people in Wales through the winter fuel payments. The hon. Member for Arfon asked me to follow up on a specific request to see whether there is a way of facilitating, earlier in the season, cold weather and winter fuel payments, because that is when people have the opportunity to buy fuel at a cheaper rate. I shall certainly follow that up with my hon. Friends in the relevant Department.
To close the debate, I am sure that we will come back to this issue as MPs in Wales, and I hope, on that occasion, that we can have a more rounded, more thorough debate on some of the real issues affecting society in Wales.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nia Griffith Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I certainly commend John Kay for the clarity of his review, and we are taking steps, both in Europe and domestically, to implement his recommendations.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
14. What the level of public sector net borrowing was in (a) the first seven months of 2012-13 and (b) the equivalent period in 2011-12.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)
According to the Office for National Statistics, public sector net borrowing for the first seven months of 2012-13 was £73.3 billion, excluding the transfer of the Royal Mail pension assets. Public sector net borrowing for the equivalent period in 2011-12 was £68.3 billion.
Nia Griffith
Will the Minister explain to the many families in my constituency, who are very angry at an autumn statement that has left them with less money to spend in the local economy, why borrowing has been revised up by more than £200 billion compared with the Chancellor’s plans two years ago? What will it take for him to realise that we need jobs and growth before we can get the deficit down?
Sajid Javid
I think that the hon. Lady submitted that question before the autumn statement, not expecting the Office for Budget Responsibility to confirm that the deficit is going to keep on falling. She risks becoming, like her friend the shadow Chancellor, an economic arsonist. He has created an economic inferno but is more interested in throwing stones at the firefighters. What her constituents want to know is that the deficit is coming down, and it is down by a quarter. That is creating jobs and confidence, and that is what this country needs.
UK and Welsh Governments (Finance)
Nia Griffith Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Stephen Crabb
Tempted though I might be to be drawn into discussing what might be in the final statement, I will not do so. On what the Holtham report said about the financial position of Wales, the hon. Gentleman mentioned his party’s belief. There are a lot of beliefs about the position. Big assumptions are made in the report about Wales’s funding situation. Not all of those beliefs and assumptions are shared by the UK Government.
Over the past 12 months the two Governments have together been exploring the issues in detail. The hon. Member for Arfon went into a little detail about the Barnett formula, and its weakness. I caution him about claiming that the current system always delivers an unfair outcome for Wales. The spending settlement for Wales in the 2010 spending review was fair in a difficult economic climate. It represented a 7.5% reduction in the Welsh Government’s resource budget—an average cut of less than 2% a year. We recognise that there are challenges in that, but it is significantly less than the 3% a year cut that the Welsh Government had previously planned for. In addition, the Government have provided almost an additional £500 million since the spending review for the Welsh Government to use in any way they want.
In our programme for government we recognised the concerns expressed by the Holtham commission, but our priority was and is to stabilise the public finances. Plaid Cymru’s perspective may differ from the Government’s, in not recognising the necessity of the UK fiscal framework, but that is the context in which we are operating. Reform of the Barnett formula cannot take place in the current environment. It should be borne in mind that comprehensive reform, as my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) so eloquently said, would have huge implications not just for Wales but for all parts of the United Kingdom. That is why the intergovernmental talks between the UK and Welsh Governments have not looked at replacing the Barnett formula, or at the pros and cons of alternative systems.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Will the Minister explain something to me? The economic forecast given to us in 2010 does not seem to be holding up. We seem to be in a no-growth situation. Is there therefore a case for revising the view of when the Barnett formula should be reconsidered, given that we now face perhaps another five years of double-dip recession?
Stephen Crabb
I have yet to see any economist forecasting five years of double-dip recession. I always enjoy listening to the hon. Lady, but given the zero progress that her party’s Government made on the issues, I am not sure we should take guidance from her on this subject.
Business and the Economy
Nia Griffith Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Let me start with a few words on the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill, of which I am a keen supporter. I was a supporter of the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). I have been concerned about the delays in legislating, so I am pleased to see the Bill in the Queen’s Speech and hope that it will not be too long before we see it going through the legislative process.
I am concerned, however, as is the Farmers Union of Wales, that the Bill should have real powers. I want it to include the power to fine retailers for unfair practices. The Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills has also recommended that that power should be on the face of the Bill and should not be dependent on the Secretary of State tabling additional orders. I am also concerned that third parties, such as the National Farmers Union or the Farmers Union of Wales, should be able to report issues to the adjudicator. Those organisations are in a better position than individual farmers to see what is happening across the industry, and they are often better equipped than a hard-pressed farmer to raise an issue. There is already a new groceries supply code of practice, introduced by Labour in August 2009, but now, in the Bill, we want more powers. It would be a missed opportunity if the Bill did not include the power to fine transgressors and the power to investigate complaints made by a third party.
Turning to parental leave, Members will remember that it was the Labour Government who first introduced paternity leave, giving fathers the opportunity to share in the excitement and responsibility that a new baby brings. I welcome the proposal in the Queen’s Speech to allow a more flexible approach which lets parents decide how to divide up parental leave between them.
That measure will help families, but let us remember how hard families have been hit by this Government: there was the abolition of the health in pregnancy grant and the child trust fund, the closure of Sure Start centres, cuts in child care support, and the shockingly harsh changes to the tax credit system. It is families with children who will suffer from those changes—low-income families who are trying to do the right thing by going out to work. Now, if they cannot get extra hours, they could be better off on benefits. There are also the bungled proposals on child benefit; the Chancellor seems not to have worked out the effects on one-income and two-income families. The flexibility in parental leave is a very small step towards helping families compared with the many hits that families are taking from this Government.
Turning to the regulatory reform Bill, it is easy to shout about cutting red tape but much more difficult to do it. It came as no surprise to hear the Secretary of State say today that that would be a matter for secondary legislation. We all want to lighten the burden on business, stop unnecessary form-filling, and get rid of excessive admin and box-ticking, but we do not want any erosion of workers’ rights. When we left government in 2010, the UK was considered one of the best places to do business—the best in Europe and the fourth best in the world. Our legislation on workers’ rights was no barrier to business. There was a high turnout of Labour MPs at a recent debate on a statutory instrument on employment tribunals; they came to oppose changing the qualifying period from one to two years. We shall need to scrutinise very carefully what the Government propose in their regulatory reform Bill to make sure that they do not sneak in anything that undermines workers’ rights.
The Government must stop using rhetoric about red tape as a substitute for stimulating growth in the economy. “One in, one out” seems to have gone completely by the board. What we really need is a growth strategy. We need a clear industrial policy that creates the right conditions for companies such as Tata to continue to invest in the UK. That means much better mitigation measures for the high carbon floor price—a unilateral tax, imposed by the Government, with no equivalent in competitor European countries. The mitigation measures are too little, too late.
We need a better deal on energy prices and a coherent energy policy to secure energy for the future, action to get banks lending to businesses, and a much fairer deal on tax. Cutting tax for the most highly paid while clawing back money from low and middle-income households, who are already hit proportionately harder by rocketing prices and the VAT hike, is not just unfair and heartless; it is economic madness, because those people would spend the money immediately, putting it back into the local economy and stimulating local business. At the moment, they are not able to do that; they do not have the money. They are cutting back, so local businesses are suffering and going under. Week by week, we see more of our local businesses folding.
The Government are doing nothing to improve consumer confidence. Far from stimulating growth, they seem deliberately to be doing the opposite. We saw that with the feed-in tariffs fiasco and more recently with the caravan tax, which stifles growth, puts an extra burden on manufacturers and holiday parks, and risks job losses in coastal and rural areas, where there is very little alternative employment.
We need a strategy to get people back to work and to give our young people work. The Welsh Government have that strategy in the form of the Welsh jobs growth fund. The idea is similar to the one that was behind the future jobs fund. We have not heard similar ideas from Government Members. We have not seen a realisation that to pay back the deficit, we need to create wealth. We should do that first, because then we will be in a position to pay back. We need a hub for business in the UK. Again, we see the Welsh Government, where they can, enabling businesses, including some of our fantastically innovative new technological industries, to expand. We need a lot more help for that sort of thing from the UK Government.
In the Queen’s Speech, there are lots of little bits of legislation, but nothing that will deal with the real problems that people face in this country—nothing that will really get our economy going again.
Finance (No. 4) Bill
Nia Griffith Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
It regularly seems to be my lot to follow the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field). Perhaps that is appropriate in some respects, as he represents a constituency at the other end of the spectrum from mine. He made a typically thoughtful speech, although he set out a couple of priorities that I would not share, and that he would not expect me to share—namely, supporting the banking industry, for example through the tax system.
However, one thing that I take issue with is the hon. Gentleman’s assertion about the rights of people in employment in this country compared with those elsewhere. When I speak to employers, as I am sure we all do in our constituencies, one of the questions I often ask is: “To what extent do employment laws have on impact on you? Do you feel they put you at a disadvantage?” Sometimes they will say, “Yes, they do,” but at the margin, if at all. If I ask employers to list their hierarchy of concerns, they put employment rights very low down, while concerns about our macro-economic direction and the way the economy is being run are very much at the top.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that what employers dislike is duplication of the various forms they have to fill in? The vast majority of employers are supportive of clear employment law, which helps both employees and employers.
Mr Howarth
My hon. Friend is precisely right. I worked in industry on the shop floor prior to the introduction of health and safety legislation. On another occasion—this is not the appropriate time—I might, if I get the opportunity, describe the conditions in which people worked in a lot of factories in those times. Often they were almost Dickensian.
Julian Sturdy
I hope that some of the hon. Gentleman’s friends might support me in Copmanthorpe—you never know. He is right that many rural garages in my constituency and throughout north Yorkshire are struggling. Independent forecourts are struggling even more than the supermarket chains. Fuel prices have gone up, but that is due to the higher oil prices, which have escalated dramatically over the past two years. As I said, if we had not stopped the previous Government’s tax increases on fuel in the past 18 months, fuel prices would have been 9p to 11p higher than they are. The impact on rural areas and hard-working families across the country would have been huge.
Nia Griffith
Has the hon. Gentleman asked the Chief Secretary why a rebate seems to be available in some parts of the highlands and islands of Scotland, but not in Yorkshire or Wales?
Julian Sturdy
Obviously, as a north Yorkshire MP who represents a rural constituency, I understand the impact of fuel prices on rural areas and economies, and the Government must consider that. However, as I said, the Government have to consider the wider impact when they make such decisions. They would like to do many things, and I would like them to do a lot of things—I would like the 3p rise not to come in in August, and I hope that it will be kept under review if oil prices continue to rise—but they have to take a balanced view.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I rise to say a few of the things I was unable to say just before the recess because my speech was limited to about three minutes. I shall make up for it this evening.
It is important to put the Budget in context. No Budget can be considered without the context in which it is to be carried out. My major concern is that it does not address the problems we are facing. Of course, we have a deficit and we need to reduce it, but we can do that only if we make money, and there seems to be no strategy to get the economy going. The Government do not even seem to know where to feed money into the economy, and seem to be wasting money by giving it away in the wrong places and not using it to do things that would stimulate the economy.
Let us look at what has happened to date. Since the emergency Budget of 2010, and subsequent measures, the Government have already planned to take a huge amount out of the economy, much of it from people on low or modest incomes—the very people who by necessity have immediate spending on the essentials of life simply to keep their families fed and warm. What seems to have happened in the Budget is that we are seeing money given away to those at the top end of the scale, and there is no guarantee at all about what they will do with their money. They could choose to do all manner of things with it and it may never come back into our economy. The money may go abroad or be stashed away somewhere, but it will not immediately feed back into the economy. The Budget proposals present a serious problem from an economic and a fairness point of view.
Bob Stewart
Does the hon. Lady agree that, from the point of view of fairness, it is a really good thing to increase the tax threshold for those people who pay little tax? That was well done in this Budget, and it will be better next year. Surely that will help the lowest-paid in our society.
Nia Griffith
The difficulty with raising the personal tax allowance is, first, that those on very low incomes—those who will have their disability living allowance or housing benefit cut—do not even pay tax. Secondly, those much higher up the scale will benefit from the increased personal allowance. It is often dual-income families, quite high up the scale, who benefit from the personal allowance being pushed up. It is a very expensive way of helping people who are in the position that the hon. Gentleman sets out.
Although people criticised the tax credit system, the whole point of it was that it maximised the amount of benefit that went to the people who really needed it. The irony is that when we were in government, we were often accused of introducing stealth taxes, but look at the amount of indirect taxation now. What people have supposedly been given back through the direct taxation system—that is, through their personal allowance—has already been taken off them through the 20% VAT rate. That is the type of “stealth tax”—the same goes for fuel and so forth—that people resent. They are actually saying that they are paying more tax than before. Even the increased personal allowance will not make up the difference.
The Government propose making a very expensive move that is not properly targeted, and that is worrying, because the money will not feed back into the economy as quickly as it would if it were targeted at those who really need it and would want to spend it straight away. The first problem is that the money is going to the wrong place.
Secondly, we seem to have no growth strategy at all. We are lucky that some of our manufacturers are able to export because they are selling to markets in countries where there are stimulus packages, or strategies to stimulate growth. The fact remains that if we were relying solely on the home market, our manufacturing would be in a dire condition.
With growth flatlining and unemployment rising, the Government, far from bringing the deficit down, are facing the fact that they will have to borrow an additional £150 billion simply to pay people who are out of work. What is the point of that, when we could be paying them to do constructive things such as build council houses or schools? Through employment in manufacturing, they could be learning skills that they could use later. That would keep the skills base going. One of the big problems when there is mass unemployment and a massive drop in the number of people in an industry, whether it is coal mining or building, is that we lose a generation of skills.
People do not want to sit about doing nothing. The overwhelming majority of people whom I meet who cannot find a job are very frustrated at not being able to find work. They are looking for anything and everything. It is often older workers in their 50s and early 60s who particularly suffer. They feel that time and again, they turn up for an interview only to be told that they are too old and cannot be taken on. We want the opportunity for all people—young and old—to get back to work.
Let me give an example of the type of money being taken out of the economy, so that we can see the real problem. In Wales alone, some £6.3 billion will be taken out of the economy over the next three years. We are talking about a very small population of not even 3 million people. The money is coming directly out of the Welsh economy. It is coming from the VAT increase, the loss of jobs in the public sector, and, significantly, most of all, from cuts to the tax credit system and to a wide range of allowances, including the disability living allowance, housing benefit, and council tax benefit. It is coming from a whole range of moneys that were put in to help people who struggle to pay particular bills—people who really could not make ends meet without the money.
As was mentioned, many of the people affected by the housing benefit changes will either find themselves homeless or simply have to use money that they would normally use for food and heating to pay the rent.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem is that people in that situation have not realised that they are going to be short of money to pay their rent? As they try desperately to keep up with rent payments while their benefit payments are going down, they will find themselves in an awful position, facing debt and having to move home as well.
Nia Griffith
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The frightening thing is that we have not seen anything yet. The cuts in the public sector jobs are just beginning to bite, but the cuts in the tax credit system and in the housing benefit system are loaded towards the next two or three years. The worst thing happening this year was the terrible cut in tax credits on 6 April, with some of the least well-off people losing £4,000 per year because they cannot get extra hours. We know perfectly well that getting extra hours is extremely difficult.
By contrast, our Chancellor lowered the number of hours from 30 to 27 at one point, after the 2008 economic crisis, in order to help people who could not claim working tax credit because they could not get enough hours. We made the reverse decision because we recognised that people were desperate for hours. I met many people who were desperate for any sort of work.
The Government’s policy is very damaging but, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the vast majority of cuts are still to come. The effect on Wales of the tax credit cuts is that £17 million went last year, £148 million will go next year, £188 million the following year, £219 million the following year and £222 million the year after that. Each year the savings are greater, and with every saving there is a bigger cut in people’s income. The same is happening with housing benefit and all the reforms to the universal credit that are coming in.
Those cuts represent a tragedy for each individual family, but more importantly for the whole economy, that is money being taken out of the economy. In other words, it is money that people do not have to spend and therefore money that is not circulating. That will have a devastating effect on our high streets where we are already seeing many well known retailers closing shops. We are lucky in Wales that we had a rescuer for Peacocks. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) has its headquarters in his patch and it has been taken over. None the less, more than half the stores are closing, including two in my own town. That is just one example. I could list dozens of retailers, as I am sure all hon. Members could, in towns up and down the UK, each of which tells the same story: nobody has any money to spend.
It is vital that we consider which way round we should be working in order to get money back into the economy, rather than taking it out. We start with the situation in which money is being dragged out of the economy. What do we do to try and stimulate the economy? We could create jobs. One of the things that Labour suggested is a repeat of the bankers’ bonus tax. We could use the money to create jobs for young people and to stimulate the housing industry and other building projects, such as schools or roads. If we did that, we would be repeating a tax which raised a lot more than this Government seem to be prepared to raise from their banker friends. Their present tax proposals would raise a limited amount from the bankers. Believe me, on the doorsteps people say that they still want to see the banks paying their fair share to put right the problems that they put us into in the first place.
We are lucky in Wales that we have a Labour Welsh Government. Welsh Government Ministers are implementing policies specifically to create jobs. We have spoken about creating jobs through a bankers’ bonus tax. The Welsh Government are creating 4,000 jobs with the limited finances that they have. It is specifically a young person’s jobs programme, with an emphasis on the private sector because we recognise that a much greater emphasis on the private sector is needed. We recognise that we are too dependent on the public sector.
Anne Marie Morris
May I take it, therefore, that the hon. Lady welcomes the new scheme in this Budget that will enable young people to apply for loans to start up businesses, in the same way as they can to go to university?
Nia Griffith
I certainly applaud measures to give young people the opportunity to take out loans to start up businesses, but even people with immense experience are finding it incredibly difficult to do that. There is just not the right climate at the moment to start a business. I would like to see more stimulus for the economy so that people who want to establish start-ups have a viable chance of making a success of them. At the moment, it is terribly difficult for anybody to sell anything to anyone or to persuade anyone to part with their money, which is the essence of getting a business going.
In Wales, we are trying to create jobs for young people; we are also investing money in infrastructure projects, again within the limitations of the Welsh budget. The Welsh Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science is providing grants and loans to companies to help them to expand and get their businesses going, because we are having so much difficulty with the banks. For example, in my constituency, Tallent Automotive has received money to keep workers in work, which people are very pleased about, and EBS Automation, a very enterprising engineering firm, has received money to expand, which means new jobs for young people in a high-skilled field. Those are the sorts of programme that I would like to see from the UK Government. What the Welsh Government can do affects only a small part of the economy in Wales. I would like to see the same kind of stimulus across the UK. First and foremost, my concern is about the lack of a coherent growth strategy.
Consumer confidence remains low. Many people fear that they may lose their job or have their hours cut. People have been hit hard by rising prices, which have been compounded by the VAT rise. Obviously, people on low and modest incomes have little spare income to put by, so their money goes straight back into the local economy. That contrasts with the money given away to millionaires at the top, who do not have to do anything with it immediately and do not know what they will do with it. They know that there is no benefit to them from putting it back into the local economy.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
What does the hon. Lady say to the 810,000 people in the eastern region who are better off because their tax allowance has been altered? Those are low-paid working people who have had a stimulus and are spending the money locally as a result of the measures in the Budget.
Nia Griffith
If the hon. Gentleman had been listening earlier, he would have heard me explain that those people have already lost that money through the VAT increase. That is a stealth tax and a regressive tax, which always affects the least well-off the most. Many of the people who will get a little more in their pay packet because they will pay a little less tax when the personal allowance goes up will find that because of other taxes that have been implemented, they have lost that money already. Sadly, those people will not do so well.
The personal allowance helps people nearly all the way up the income scale, particularly those in two-income families. Frankly, although it is an expensive measure, it is not a well targeted one. As I mentioned, I would have liked to keep the tax credits system, which helped those who really needed it and took account of people’s different circumstances because it was based on the household income.
There is nothing to incentivise people to put their money back into the local economy and nothing to encourage people to unlock their savings and help the economy. We had the car scrappage scheme, so that people who were planning to buy a car that would last them for the next 10 or 12 years would bring the purchase forward by a year or two to take part in the scheme. We did the same thing with the replacement of boilers. Those schemes were introduced specifically to get the economy going. What have this Government done? They have thrown out of the window the one such scheme that they did have, which was the solar panels scheme, under which people were unlocking £10,000, £15,000 or £20,000 of their savings and spending it immediately in the local economy. Even if the panels were not made locally, all the fitting work to install the solar panels was done by skilled plumbers and craftsmen, so the money went directly into the local economy.
The Government completely messed that scheme up and destroyed the industry’s confidence by incompetently changing the rules before the consultation was finished. They did not scale the scheme down in a sensible way, as the industry had asked. People in the industry accepted that the tariff would change over time, but they could not stomach being treated like idiots. The Government just said, “We’re going to change all this,” even though people had invested a lot of money. Some people had spent £3,000 on a course learning how to convert from being an ordinary central heating plumber to a solar panel installer. Some firms had expanded for the purpose, and firms in my constituency are laying people off because of the ridiculous changes.
What other scheme do the Government have in mind to get people to unlock their savings for an excellent investment that is environmentally friendly and provides local jobs? We have not seen such a scheme in the Budget. We have made some suggestions, but it seems that the Chancellor has ignored them. For example, we suggested a cut in VAT on repairs and improvements to houses. With the construction industry on its knees, that would have enabled plumbers, carpenters, electricians, plasterers and so on to find extra work, and people would have been encouraged to take on home improvements. What did the Chancellor do? The exact reverse. He slapped additional VAT on alterations to listed buildings.
Mr George Howarth
I fully support my hon. Friend’s point about a cut in VAT on home repairs. Does she accept that because of the high level of VAT, many repairs are now being undertaken in the black economy? If we could bring VAT down to a level that people could afford, that might have a positive effect on revenue.
Nia Griffith
That is extremely worrying, because there is not much point in having VAT on anything if it is not collected. Groups in my constituency that want to do up listed buildings, such the Cwrt farm project, with which I have been involved, and the Llanelli Railway Goods Shed Trust, which I chair, care for all manner of buildings in the town. The fact that they will have to pay much more VAT means that they will spend the same amount of money—the amount that they have raised, or that individuals have available to give them—but have less work done. Less of that money will be spent on wages for local people, so less money will be circulating in the local economy. Rather than finding ways of stimulating the amount of work being done, the Government seem to be trying to close everything down and provide fewer and fewer opportunities for anybody to make money.
Practically everywhere I have gone in Llanelli over the past four weeks, I have met people struck by the fact that pensioners are being punished and millionaires are getting away with a tax break. That has incensed everybody from all walks of life.
Charlie Elphicke
Can the hon. Lady tell the House exactly how many pensioners in her constituency who earn more than £10,000 a year will be affected?
Nia Griffith
I can certainly tell the hon. Gentleman that over the whole country, 4.4 million pensioners who earn between £10,000 and £29,000 will be affected, including a huge number in my constituency.
People are incensed—not just pensioners but their friends and relatives. They say, “This is how it’s been since the 1920s, and the change came from nowhere.” Older people like to plan; they tend to be careful and like to know what will happen. In a Budget that was leaked and leaked, this change was just pulled out of a hat like some dreadful spotted rabbit. People were appalled, given all the emphasis that had been put on other measures that might be in the Budget.
Pensioners have to face that on top of losing their winter fuel allowance, which was a universal benefit and very useful for all manner of pensioners. We are talking about pensioners who have put by a little money and made some provision for their old age. They feel aggrieved because they have tried to do the right thing. They have been hit by the VAT rises. They have been lucky that it has been a mild winter this year, but they all tell me, “Look at my electricity and gas bills.” What are the Government doing to control energy prices? Absolutely nothing. Prices have gone through the roof even though the weather has been milder than last year, and pensioners are struggling to pay those bills. Then there is the fiasco at the petrol pumps. People had already been hit by mid-March with very high petrol and diesel prices, when suddenly the Government inflamed the situation by telling everyone to rush out and panic buy. Of course, everyone now faces even higher, inflated prices at the petrol pump.
Pensioners have been hit time and again. For those on a fixed income when interest rates are low, the rampant inflation that we have experienced is particularly hurtful. Again, pensioners have been badly affected. All in all, there is a feeling that the Budget takes from the wrong people. It takes from people who spend their money locally, tend to be careful with their money, and have saved. They spend a certain amount on their grandchildren, but they will have less money to do that—all to fund the cut in the 50p tax rate for those who earn more than £150,000. For some people who earn millions, it will mean that they are not just hundreds but thousands and tens of thousands of pounds better off. That is extremely unfair.
The people I meet ask why that is happening and why we are not all in it together. They ask why the 50p rate is not kept so that there is a fairer distribution of taxes across society.
Mr Stewart Jackson
I must remind the hon. Lady about the deficit. The previous Labour Government ran a structural and a cyclical deficit before the financial crisis. Between 2000 and 2010, they increased public expenditure in real terms by 53%, yet managed to double youth unemployment. The hon. Lady extols the virtue of Keynesian economics and growth management, but we have to deal with the deficit, and that is why we must make such difficult decisions.
Nia Griffith
The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that, until 2008, we were reducing the national debt. Obviously, when a world crisis occurs, a stimulus must be provided. By the time we left government in 2010, the economy was beginning to pick up. It has flatlined since. We gave the Government the opportunity on a plate to try to get things going, but they squandered it and have put us back behind the starting posts. We are now in a truly difficult situation because getting things going again will be much harder.
The Budget has the wrong priorities. We do not seem to be getting the economy going and we are not putting money where it needs to go. Instead, we seem to be giving it away frivolously and stupidly. The money that is used for tax cuts for the wealthy should be put into stimulating the economy so that everybody can have a share of the wealth.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to have this opportunity to speak in favour of the Finance Bill, which shows the wisdom of the Government on the key point of reducing the deficit. That was what the Government came into office to do. They set out a course to do that, and they are following it bravely and boldly. It is the essential part of the policy the Government are pursuing.
Nia Griffith
Why, therefore, has £150 billion had to be borrowed, and how can the hon. Gentleman measure that as a success?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Very simply, because £150 billion extra has not got to be borrowed. Forecasts of what may happen are fundamentally unreliable. In a large economy, no efforts to forecast a small percentage of growth that there may or may not be have been successful. In the history of economic forecasts both in this country and across the world, there is one thing of which we can always be certain: that they are wrong and that the outcome will be different. This extra £150 billion that is proposed is based on a theoretical level of growth that was never going to be achieved, and that was never able to be achieved.
Amendment of the Law
Nia Griffith Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Time is short, so I shall not repeat what my hon. Friends have said about the disgraceful robbing of pensioners to pay for a tax cut for the rich or the terrifying lack of a growth strategy to help the unemployed, or about how Government Members have avoided saying that raising the personal allowance is costing a lot of money, much of which will benefit those higher up the pay scales, whereas tax credits, which they are cutting, target money much more effectively on lower-income households.
I will therefore turn straight to my concern about the imposition of VAT on approved alterations to listed buildings, which unfortunately the right hon. Member for the historic city of Bath (Mr Foster) left until last in his speech, which meant that he ran out of time. On Friday, together with other members of the Llanelli Railway Goods Shed Trust, I met the team of architects that will conduct a feasibility study on ways to bring that historic listed building back into use and give it a new lease of life, while on Saturday I joined the Friends of Cwrt Farm to help clear ivy off the walls of that historic building. Both groups are worried about the potential VAT changes, which will affect the preservation of our historic buildings. They are concerned about the change in the Budget—described by the Chancellor as just closing a loophole—to abolish zero rated VAT on approved alterations to listed buildings and instead make such alterations subject to the full VAT rate of 20%.
I contrast that with the zero rating on new build. So much for this Government’s pretence at being the greenest Government yet. It would be much greener to encourage alterations to listed buildings, to make them practical to use in the 21st century. Furthermore, far from stimulating the economy, the change is likely to discourage people from undertaking such work. Having to pay VAT at 20% will mean less money for the alterations and therefore less work for local builders who undertake the work, and we all know about the difficulties faced by the construction industry at the moment. Labour is calling for a cut to 5% in VAT on all household repairs precisely to stimulate the construction sector and provide more work for builders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians and so on.
I am glad to see the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in his place, as I am still very concerned that his Government are not succeeding in making banks do anything like enough to help business. In my constituency, I know businesses that have been subject to sudden changes in the terms and conditions of their loans, which they simply cannot cope with and which could easily send them under. My constituent Mr Alun Richards has encountered considerable difficulties with Lloyds bank. In particular, he has raised with me the issue of banks foreclosing on businesses and selling off the assets at way below market value. This is not acceptable to business customers, nor should it be acceptable to Lloyds bank’s shareholders. Last July, the firm acting as administrators for Lloyds sold one of Mr Richards’s assets—Mansel house in Swansea—for £125,000. The same property is now on the market for more than £300,000, whereas the local economic circumstances have not changed at all. That raises serious questions about such practices, especially as Mr Richards can cite many similar cases that merit investigation and changes to the law.
This Government need to get their act together on bank lending, getting the economy going, providing jobs for our young who are unemployed and thinking about fairness sensibly and properly. They should rewrite the Budget completely.
Living Standards
Nia Griffith Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Rachel Reeves
I thank the hon. Gentleman for saying that I am a good Opposition politician; I hope, in due course, to be a good Government politician, so that we can put into practice measures to help families, pensioners and businesses facing the squeeze. But it is this Government’s mistakes and wrong-headed policies, which are callous, incompetent and unfair, that are penalising families trying to do the right thing. As I said to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), I would like child benefit kept as a universal benefit to help all families with the cost of bringing up a family. At the very least, however, the Govt must address the anomaly.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this devastating cut in tax credits, which will take £800 million away from families in Wales alone, is not only a tragedy for each family but economic madness, because these are the very families who have to put the money immediately back into the local economy? That money will be sucked out of the local economy, resulting in fewer opportunities for growth and economic recovery.
Rachel Reeves
My hon. Friend is right. Government Members would do well to listen to her point. We also know that because of the changes to working tax credits, many families will be in the crazy situation whereby they would be better off on benefits than in work, as the Government’s own figures show.
Fuel Prices
Nia Griffith Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that immediate action is required to stimulate economic growth, and that we need a Government who will respond to what is happening?
Robert Flello
Indeed. Every aspect of what we do is affected by the price of fuel, whether at the pumps, domestically, or at the heavy duty pumps that the haulage industry and other industries use. All sorts of other issues then come into play. For example, hauliers will be looking to ensure that their vehicles are running as efficiently as possible, yet on the European stage there is the possibility of a reduction in the height of trailers to 4 metres, which will have a negative impact on our haulage industry in the United Kingdom, exacerbate the problem of the price of fuel and increase the need for a cut in the fuel duty.
As has been said, a temporary VAT cut would be absolutely the right thing to do to secure an immediate impact for the domestic motorist, but something different is needed for the haulage industry in the longer term. A VAT cut would obviously have a wash-through effect, but we need a more serious change and a restructuring of the way the fuel costs of the industry and associated industries are met.
Other factors that impact on the haulage industry, such as London’s low emissions zone, also have a knock-on effect. I wish that Mayor Boris would respond to my letters and agree to meet to discuss the impact on the haulage and haulage recovery industries. It has a direct impact on fuel efficiency and keeping traffic moving on London’s streets if vehicles that should be on the streets helping to recover other vehicles and keep traffic flowing are prohibited from doing so. That will of course become a greater concern in the run-up to the Olympics.
Indeed, other aspects of the price of fuel will affect the membership organisations—I will not name them—that come out when their members break down by the side of the road, and those organisations’ costs are passed on to their members through the running costs of the yellow or orange vehicles that assist people at the roadside. That industry will also be hit by Green Flag’s terrible announcement that it is devastating the number of contractors who work for it. Some of them will unfortunately end up unemployed.
Nia Griffith
Does my hon. Friend recognise the real danger to haulage companies from foreign competition because of the price differentials?
Robert Flello
My hon. Friend makes her point well.
In the 20 seconds remaining, I wish to make two points. First, instead of cutting the top tax rate of 50p for high earners, we should be helping motorists. Secondly, we should be looking at ways of taxing the speculators and the people who are making a profit from the ordinary motorist and make them pay instead.