Finance (No. 3) Bill

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

The ongoing implicit taxpayer guarantee for the banks is very significant. Indeed, I understand that the Bank of England has suggested in its financial stability reports that an implied subsidy of about £100 billion each year offers a safety net for the profitability of the banks. Without that taxpayer guarantee, banks’ borrowing costs would be higher, they would not be able to make such great profits and, therefore, their remuneration and bonuses could not be so high. Many bonuses and excessive profits are being made on the back of the taxpayer, but does that encourage the Treasury to take action? It certainly does not.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

At a time when Roger Bootle of Deloitte reports that for the first time for four years in a row the real incomes of real people are falling, does my hon. Friend not think it particularly peculiar that the real incomes of bankers—of all people—are likely to rise?

[Chris Leslie]

My hon. Friend is entirely right, and that is why we have to take a step back and look at the context of today’s debate. The Government are clearly still on the side of the big banks at a time not just when the living standards and wages of ordinary people are being frozen or reduced, but when vital public services are being slashed. Indeed, it is worth reminding ourselves of the consequences of the cuts that the Government are pursuing.

Teaching assistants, youth workers, library staff and lollipop ladies are being made redundant; binmen, street cleaners, environmental health officers and park keepers are disappearing from our neighbourhoods; police detectives, forensic scientists, 999 operatives and police community support officers are no longer affordable in the fight against crime; and hospital cleaners, nurses, paramedics and ward clerks are having their posts eradicated when the NHS needs them more than ever. How dare Ministers say that we are all in this together when they take such a weak and feeble approach to the banks.

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[Chris Leslie]

It is a crying shame that there will not be more publicity for this debate; perhaps the complexity of bank taxation is difficult to report, for whatever reason. If people knew about the Government’s weakness in trying to claw back the money that is owed to the taxpayer and their enthusiasm for cutting public services and raising taxes on ordinary people, they would see that it is a scandal.

[Nic Dakin]

Is it not a further irony that the Government are cutting so far and so fast, for which they have no mandate, while standing back from sorting out the bankers, for which there is an overwhelming mandate in the country?

[Chris Leslie]

Of course, the Liberal Democrats advocated the opposite of that before the general election. Obviously they had good, sound reasons to change their view rapidly over a weekend.

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[Chris Leslie]

It is the inactivity of the Government, as the shareholder, that perplexes me. Ministers laugh with scorn at the idea that they, with the stewardship of the taxpayer’s share, should take any action in regard to the current activity of the banks. If the Minister wishes to intervene on the specific issue of his inactivity as a shareholder I shall be more than happy to give way to him, but he clearly does not wish to say anything at this stage.

[Nic Dakin]

Would my hon. Friend care to speculate on what would be the impact on the British economy if, rather than being spent on bankers’ bonuses, this money were used for lending to small and medium-sized enterprises?

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[Ian Lavery]

I agree 100% with my hon. Friend’s suggestion, but as I have just suffered the wrath of the Chair, I shall not try to respond.

The OBR’s November 2010 forecast showed that the bonus tax brought in revenues of £3.5 billion in 2010-11. We cannot know how much a repeat of the tax would yield in 2011-12, but a cautious assumption by any measure would be about £2 billion. The Labour party’s view is that that estimated sum would go a long way to supporting many projects, such as, first, establishing a youth jobs fund and creating up to 100,000 new youth jobs at a time when youth unemployment is almost 1 million, its highest since records began in 1992-93. That is one thing we could do with the bank tax.

Secondly, we could build 25,000 new homes for low cost home ownership and affordable social rent. This could create tens of thousands of jobs and help create 1,500 construction apprenticeships. It is important to ensure that young people can get on to the property ladder. Thirdly, an additional £200 million could be provided as funding for the regional growth fund bids. Getting more people in work and paying taxes is the best way to bring the deficit down. The Tory-led Government are cutting too deep and too fast, and now the economy has stalled and unemployment is higher.

There is a better way. Instead of giving the banks a tax cut this year, next year or the year after, the Government should repeat Labour’s bank bonus tax and use the money raised to invest in creating more than 100,000 jobs for young people and in construction, and to build 25,000 affordable homes.

The cuts are going too deep and too fast. There is an alternative. If we were still in government we would be halving the deficit steadily over four years, in line with the pledges made by major economies at the G20 last year, not trying to cut it further and faster than any other major economy in the world. Yes, tough choices are required. The deficit cannot be brought down if the economy is not growing strongly and hundreds of thousands of people are being thrown out of work. That is a simple, basic message.

In conclusion, I repeat that the most important factor in getting the deficit down is what happens to jobs and growth in the economy. That is why last year, as the economy started growing again and unemployment was falling, the deficit came in more than £20 billion lower than expected. That changed as the economy stopped growing at the end of last year and unemployment is higher. Stop the tax cuts to the banks, invest in the future of our young people, invest in this nation, invest in jobs and growth and adopt the Labour example of the bonus tax on banks.

[Nic Dakin]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), who gave a comprehensive account of why we should support the very precise amendment on the bank levy.

A banker writing in the 1920s wrote:

“April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire”,

and went on to talk about the present month as “depraved May”. I quote T. S. Eliot—

[Stephen Pound]

He was a bank clerk, not a banker.

[Nic Dakin]

I quote T. S. Eliot to remind us that bankers have played good parts in the world of culture, finance and many other things, and to remind us through his words of the pain of growth and rebirth. Economic growth is a difficult business. That is the business that we should be in, and we should make sure that bankers play their part in that.

Bankers were not always about bonuses, and conversations about banks were not always about bonuses. Sadly, since the credit crunch and the global financial crisis, more attention has been focused on how great the anomaly is. We have heard the telephone-number salaries quoted and compared with the situation of people in our constituencies who are doing their best to bring their families up to be aspirational and to move forward in their lives.

[Helen Goodman]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the criteria for awarding bonuses are strange? Is it not ironic that at a time when the clearing banks are closing branches in our constituencies, bankers are taking huge bonuses?

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She draws attention to the fact that people see banks closing and services becoming less available and more remote at the same time as large bonuses are being given out, with no apparent transparency and no clear criteria.

The Bill delivers a tax benefit for banks—a bonus for banks, rather than for UK plc—in the form of the £2.5 billion bank levy, which should be compared with the £3.5 billion bank bonus last year, and with £100 million being given back through cuts in corporation tax. At a time when the banks should be putting more in to atone for the situation we are in and to help the engine of the economy, the Government are allowing them to take more out. That does not seem fair to me, and it does not seem fair to the people I represent.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an absolute disgrace not only that those involved directly in the big five banks are earning such bonuses, but that those who have earned a lot of money from the misery that has been caused over the past few years are also doing so, including those companies that offer advice, such as Goldman Sachs, whose average bonus is about £270,000 per individual?

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend draws attention to another interesting area where we would wish the Government to apply their imagination and attention to try to get more money back for the taxpayer so that it can be invested in the economy, in public services and in growth, the engines that would drive us forward. This is a no-mandate Government. A year ago there was clearly no mandate for what they are doing. They are taking their approach to bankers’ bonuses even though there is a clear mandate from the population—one of the few that exists—for cracking on, getting on top of bankers’ bonuses and ensuring that they play their part in reinvigorating the British economy. Where there is a mandate, the Government fail to act and give a dividend to bankers instead of a tax. There is no mandate for the things the Government are doing, such as the NHS reorganisation.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My hon. Friend seems to have skated over the point that the majority of the banks are actually state owned, or have a majority state shareholding. Surely it is incumbent on the Government to intervene, either by appointing their own directors or sending directives to the banks on how they should behave, rather than pretending that it is nothing to do with them even though the banks are already publicly owned.

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention about intervention. More intervention is needed from the Government, who have a stake in the banks. In fact, it is taxpayers and the public we serve who have that stake in the banks. He is quite right that the Government should be exercised about how they get the benefit back to the British people.

[Mr Love]

Have the Government not failed lamentably? If we look at Project Merlin, where they intervened with the banks on bonuses and on lending to small businesses, we can see the bonuses that are likely to be given this year and the fact that the Government have failed lamentably to deliver finance for small businesses in this country. They simply are not working.

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend for that observation. Project Merlin’s record is a sorry tale so far. We see a failure to deliver on bankers’ bonuses and a failure to reinvest the taxation from them in the economy. He is right that the record on lending to small and medium-sized enterprises is woeful. Small and medium-sized enterprises, as I think all Members recognise, are the lifeblood and the engine of our economy, and he is completely right to underline that point.

[Stephen Pound]

My hon. Friend refers to taxation arising from bankers’ bonuses flowing back into the economy. Would that that were so. Does he not agree that the ingenuity, skill and—I dare say—avarice of the average banker is best demonstrated by their ability to defer tax liability, so that the money, rather than coming back, tends to fructify in their pockets?

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Clearly, the amendment aims to provoke a review of how we best ensure that bankers’ bonuses are taxed efficiently and effectively, rather than ineffectively, as the Government are currently, which is always a danger unless we are vigilant, as my hon. Friend suggests.

[Helen Goodman]

I shall of course vote for the amendment this evening, but it does raise the question of whether it ought to be the Chancellor who reviews the bank levy or, because of the serious problems in the way in which the Government have handled it, the Public Accounts Committee.

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[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting and valid point, but amendment 9 proposes specifically that:

“The Chancellor shall review the bank levy and publish a report, before 31 December 2011, on—

(a) the Government’s analysis behind the rate and threshold chosen for the bank levy;

(b) the adequacy of the bank levy in the context of other reforms to the wider banking system; and

(c) the total tax revenues expected from banks across all categories of taxation in each year from 2011-12 to 2016-17.’.”

That is what we are debating today, although my hon. Friend makes a good point.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the mandate, presumably if Labour had got 3% or 4% more in the vote and a majority of 60 or 70 seats on 35%, he would have considered that to be a mandate to do whatever Labour wanted to do?

[The Temporary Chair (Mr James Gray)]

Order. That has absolutely nothing to do with the amendment we are discussing.

[Nic Dakin]

Thank you, Mr Gray, although I think that the hon. Gentleman was reminding me of the part in my speech in which I referred to mandates, as it was important to reiterate that the Government have no mandate for the NHS reorganisation, for police cuts, for the VAT rise, for abolishing the future jobs fund or for trebling tuition fees, and they certainly have no mandate for cutting too fast and too deep. However, they do have a mandate for listening to the amendment we are considering today on the bank levy. There absolutely is a mandate for the bank levy.

[Mr Ward]

This point has occurred so many times, so can we pick this one off? The figure of £3.9 million is certainly bigger than £2.5 million, but £3.9 million for one year is surely smaller than £2.5 billion for four years. How on earth can this be a cut in the banking levy?

[Nic Dakin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We are arguing that because of the fragility of the recovery, it is time to repeat the bank bonus tax. The Government should make their decisions now when they are not constrained. The decision now should be to repeat the bank bonus tax and increase the bank levy year on year, rather than leaving it static. That is what this review of the bank levy would allow us to establish, and that would produce an additional income, he will be pleased to hear, of at least £2 billion in each year of this Administration. That additional £2 billion could be used by the Government on behalf of the British people, the taxpayers and, indeed, the shareholders of these companies.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Would my hon. Friend be surprised to hear that the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) was in Westminster Hall this morning, alongside many other Members, seeking additional funding for ESOL—English for speakers of other languages—training? My hon. Friend is giving a solution that would allow the Government to provide that additional funding, which would produce growth in the economy, rather than the shrinkage we are seeing promoted by the coalition Government.

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The review of the bank levy, which is at the heart of the amendment, would allow the Government to look at the sorts of things that that money could be spent on. It could be used for a youth jobs fund, for putting £25 million into new homes or for providing the regional growth fund with an additional £200 million. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) has already explored those issues in some detail.

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[Mr Love]

Yes, the future jobs fund was the very vehicle to provide a job, training or relevant work experience so that our kids did not have to sit on the sidelines without a future, getting demoralised and not being in a position to take up the job opportunities that will be available when the economy turns round. It is a dereliction of duty on the part of the Government not to address that issue.

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is giving a cogent and coherent analysis of the amendment before us. Does he not agree that the review suggested in the amendment represents a real opportunity to find the money needed to invest in young people and their job opportunities? It is not too late for the Government to address this error.

[Mr Love]

Absolutely. The merit of the amendment is that it would give Parliament, and particularly the Government, the opportunity to review the operation of the levy, as well as providing the banking sector with other opportunities to make a contribution to sorting out some of the deep-seated economic problems in our country. I hope that the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition will be sympathetic to our arguments and speak up where it matters, to try to get the Government to recognise that there is an alternative that would be good for the economy and good for our society.

A second issue is house construction. In my local authority area we have the fourth worst housing stress in the country. Things are difficult, and they are going to get significantly worse. I mentioned earlier the Government’s incoherent construction policy, with its homes bonus that is not a bonus, and its planning system that is so riddled with inconsistency and lack of certainty that major construction is now off the agenda. It is a system that allows local considerations to dominate and outweigh much-needed construction in different parts of the country. I can see only a bleak future for public and private housing construction—but our proposal provides one small, modest way in which the Government could improve the situation.