Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Pat Glass Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I want to speak today about tax avoidance and its impact on the UK economy and on the economies of the developing world. In this I follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), who spoke earlier, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). I hope that between us we will be the beginning of a chorus that is so loud that the Chancellor will not be able to ignore it.

I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement today about closing tax loopholes for big companies, but without transparency this will make little difference to a tax avoidance industry that is out of control here and across the globe. This Government and other western Governments around the world are presiding over a global economy in which inequality has reached crisis point, and today’s Budget will not make that any better. Oxfam’s “An Economy For the 1%” report tells us that the richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world combined, that power and privilege are being used to skew the economic system to increase the gap between the richest and the rest, and that a global network of tax havens across the world, including here in the UK and in our Crown dependencies and overseas territories, contributes to the richest being able to hide $7.6 trillion, which is contributing to cuts in public expenditure here and across the world. Here in the UK that means longer NHS waiting lists, teacher shortages and decreasing levels of care for the elderly and frail, and it means that the poorest living in the developing world see every penny of international development funding wiped out by what is, in effect, stolen from them in tax avoidance.

[Meg Hillier]

Does my hon. Friend think it is an interesting contrast that the US chief executive of Google was paid a salary package of bonuses, shares and so on worth about £130 million, and Google’s tax settlement with HMRC for a 10-year period was around the same amount?

[Pat Glass]

Yes, and I doubt whether he even sees the irony. I watched that session of the Select Committee. What I recall is that he could not even tell us what his salary was—it was so large, and it was made up of so many different kinds of dividends and so on, that he had no idea what his salary was.

There are 62 individuals who now have the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people in the world. Those same 62 people have seen their wealth increase by $542 billion since 2010, while the poorest 3.5 billion people have seen their wealth fall by $l trillion over the same period. Those in the poorest 10% of the world’s population have seen their income rise by just $3 a year over five years, whereas 62 of the world’s richest people have seen their income rise by $500 billion over the same period.

As is always the case when we are talking about who is rich or poor, it is women who are at the bottom. Some 53 of the world’s richest people are men, and the countries with the largest inequalities have seen the gender gap widen in terms of not only income, but health, education, labour market participation and representation.

The current system of tax havens, with what has become an industry of tax avoidance across the globe, damages our economy in this country and economies across the world, and it needs to be addressed and closed down. It is absolutely clear that trickle-down economics does not work, except for the richest 1%, in which case it works beautifully for them and their mega-rich pals.

The Government’s view that low taxes for the richest individuals and for companies are somehow good for the rest of us is just plain wrong. If the Googles of this world, and the Vodafones, Starbucks, Amazons and the rest, paid their taxes properly, like the millions of hard-working people who understand that paying taxes is the cost of living in a civilised society, we could wipe out the deficit in the UK, and the poorest across the world could begin to see improvements in their grindingly poor lives.

Channel 4 revealed this year that Barclays, which had signed up to the banking code on taxation and therefore promised not to engage in tax avoidance, actually employed a range of tax avoidance schemes to dodge an estimated half a billion pounds in tax in the UK alone last year. That is the worst kind of hypocrisy.

When the bank’s tax avoidance practices were reported on by Channel 4, Barclays responded that it had

“voluntarily disclosed to HMRC in a spirit of…transparency that it had repurchased some of its debt in a tax efficient manner.”

Will the Chancellor’s announcements today change that? Without transparency in the system, I doubt it. Presumably, Barclays made that declaration fully understanding that its actions would result in fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer teachers and cuts for the poorest and most vulnerable in this country.

Boots the chemist, which earns every penny of its income in the UK, moved its headquarters from Nottingham to Zurich to avoid paying any tax in this country. Quite frankly, that should be illegal. I doubt very much whether, without transparency in the system, anything the Chancellor said today will change that, bring the Boots headquarters back to this country or make Boots pay its tax here.

Companies that are household names in the UK now routinely use a technique called transfer pricing, trading goods and services internally—within a network of the same multinational company’s subsidiaries, each of which is in a different jurisdiction—to avoid paying tax. Without transparency and routine, mandatory reporting, that will not change, even after what we have seen in today’s Budget.

When companies are caught out and their practices are highlighted, as happened recently with Facebook, they simply reach a sweetheart deal with HMRC, paying a tiny, tiny proportion of the tax they owe, while announcing to the world what good citizens they are because they now pay their tax.

Yesterday, Oxfam published a report called “Ending the Era of Tax Havens: Why the UK government must lead the way”, which pointed out that tax havens are at the heart of the inequality crisis, enabling corporations and wealthy individuals to dodge paying their share of tax. Oxfam analysed 200 of the world’s biggest companies and found that nine out of 10 have a presence in at least one tax haven, with corporate investment in those tax havens in 2014 almost four times bigger than it was 10 years ago. Tax avoidance in our largest companies has become routine and obscene, and it is growing.

Tax havens are estimated to cost poor countries at least $170 billion in lost tax revenues every year. They fuel the inequality crisis, leaving poor countries without the funds they need and effectively wiping out the benefits of any international development funding those countries receive. If we are to address that, the Government must require multinational companies to make country-by-country reports publicly available for each country in which they operate. The Government must also support efforts at European and international level to achieve that standard globally. That has not happened in today’s Budget.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I have great sympathy, as I mentioned in my speech, with the point about the avoidance of corporation tax by large corporations. Does the hon. Lady not agree that the real damage is in poor countries, where these corporations get away with paying no corporation tax whatever, while we are, at the same time, giving these countries foreign aid? We need to tackle this issue internationally, through the OECD, the G7 and the G20, which is exactly what the Chancellor has been trying to do.

[Pat Glass]

I agreed with everything the hon. Gentleman said until he said that this is “exactly what the Chancellor has been trying to do”, because unless there is mandatory reporting, and it is transparent, it will not make any difference.

The Government need to ensure that the mechanisms for public country-by-country reporting benefit developing countries as well as the UK. We did not see that in today’s Budget. The Government must require the UK Crown dependencies and overseas territories to set clear timetables for public registries of beneficial ownership. After all, the Prime Minister promised this three years ago at the UK’s G7 summit in Lough Erne and has failed to deliver it, and again it is not in today’s Budget.

We cannot call ourselves decent people and cannot claim to be a decent country if we stand by and allow the inequalities that exist between the rich and the poor to grow. The British people understand the unfairness of the current situation, and they want it to change. They understand that despite opportunities such as today’s Budget to address some of this, the Chancellor has chosen not to do so. This country, and this world, is not short of wealth, and it makes no economic, political or moral sense to allow the current obscene situation to continue. It is wrong that 62 people have more wealth than the poorest 3.5 billion people on this planet, wrong that companies operating in the UK routinely avoid paying the tax they owe, and wrong that the Government and the Chancellor seem content to allow this to continue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Carmichael]

I could not agree more with my fellow Select Committee Chair. That is obviously a priority, but that does not mean that it is not also important to have good schools that are led well by headteachers who are focused on the right culture, standards and quality staff. We should have more academies and make sure that they operate in a well-structured multi-academy trust.

[Pat Glass]

rose—

[Neil Carmichael]

I think I have set the cat among the pigeons. Go for it.

[Pat Glass]

The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that, when we both sat on the Education Committee, we saw no evidence whatsoever—believe me, we looked for it—that academies improved standards more than maintained schools.

[Neil Carmichael]

That was a year ago, when there were fewer academies. Now, 80% of academies are good or outstanding, which is a really impressive signal. We need to make sure that academies join up in multi-academy trusts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Elliott]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. Perhaps he is explaining some of the Treasury’s rationale on this. I do not know whether there has been any co-operation on this, but he does seem to be offering some kind of explanation.

The devolution of corporation tax to Northern Ireland has been a live issue for at least eight years, perhaps even longer. I assume that the proposal for a reduction in corporation tax to 17% in the UK, will mean that, with our 12.5% rate in Northern Ireland, we will have a lower overall reduction in our block grant. Some argue that if the UK decides to leave the European Union in the forthcoming referendum there may not be any reduction at all in the Northern Ireland block grant to reflect the fact that our corporation tax is devolved, simply because the Azores ruling does not come into effect. I am interested to hear the debate about that, because it is an issue that we have already raised with the Prime Minister.

One measure that I really welcome for Northern Ireland is the £4 million investment in an air ambulance. I have personally lobbied for that for quite a long time. Northern Ireland is the one region in the United Kingdom that does not have an air ambulance and that support mechanism. I thank the Treasury for that. It will be a great memorial for the family of the late Dr John Hinds who lost his life campaigning for an air ambulance. He was a great motorcycle enthusiast, and his campaign will hopefully now come to fruition. It is also good news for those currently involved in the air ambulance campaign, including my constituent, Mr Rodney Connor, who has been a great campaigner in that respect.

[Pat Glass]

It is really good that there will be an air ambulance supported by Government money in Northern Ireland, but does he not agree that the same should apply to all other regions? In my area, the north-east, the air ambulance service is funded entirely by charity.

[Tom Elliott]

Perhaps we in Northern Ireland have done a better job of lobbying the Government than the north-east has, and it is entirely up to the hon. Lady to take up that challenge. I am proud of what we have done in Northern Ireland and I thank the Government for that.

I also welcome the freeze in fuel duty, which affects Northern Ireland greatly. I know that there has been an argument for some years about the devolution of corporation tax levies in Northern Ireland, but I believe that an equally important duty that we could have devolved to Northern Ireland is that on fuel, for a number of reasons. As we have a land border with another European nation, the Republic of Ireland, a huge amount of fuel is purchased in the Republic and the UK Treasury and Government lose that tax because it is not coming into our economy. The second and more important point is the level of fuel laundering in Northern Ireland in the border regions. The fuel that is laundered is sold at a much cheaper rate, and sometimes even at the same rate, as proper fuel. That is having a huge impact on our vehicles and our economy and also means a huge loss to the Treasury.

I want to see more effort, particularly from HMRC. We received a response to a freedom of information request that showed that in a short period almost 500 fuel filling stations in Northern Ireland were found to be selling illegal fuel. Not one of those filling stations has been named, not one has been charged or convicted of any offence, but if some poor person has bought some of that fuel and is found to be carrying it, they will be fined immediately. There are on-the-spot fines. A huge wrong is being committed and I want the Government to take that up. I have tried earnestly in Northern Ireland to rectify the situation through HMRC, but there appears to be a reluctance to deal with it. Decommissioned laundering stations have been found many times, but they have been operational for many years and it seems that as soon as they are reported, they are decommissioned. HMRC cannot get to the bottom of that. That is one point on which I would appeal and it is why it is important that fuel duty in Northern Ireland has not been increased.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate and genuinely and earnestly thank the Government for their support on the few issues I have described, but I want them to consider the Barnett consequentials to support Northern Ireland and the other regions as they are supporting the English regions.

EU Referendum: Timing

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

With that in mind, Mr Speaker, I will endeavour to be brief.

Interestingly, we are having this debate when no referendum date has been set, the starting gun has not yet gone off and the deal the Prime Minister is negotiating with our partners in the EU is not yet agreed—if it ever will be. I therefore agree with the Minister—I do not think I am going to say that often—that in many respects this debate is somewhat premature.

[Patrick Grady]

The Leader of the Opposition called last Wednesday for the referendum to happen on 23 June. Does the hon. Lady disagree with him?

[Pat Glass]

Now the hon. Gentleman is just trying to get me into trouble. I would never disagree with my leader.

Let me deal with the motion by discussing each of its parts, and I start with the premise that no case has been made for holding an early referendum. May I remind this House that we have been debating the UK’s place in Europe on and off for more than 40 years? I voted in the last referendum. It was 43 years ago, so we are hardly rushing at this.

[Mr Dodds]

If the hon. Lady will not make any comment in support of her party leader here at Westminster, what has she to say to the Labour leader in Wales, the First Minister, who has come out strongly against a 23 June date?

[Pat Glass]

He has given his opinion, and of course we will listen respectfully to those arguments, as I am sure the Government will. We know that while all this goes on, uncertainty and instability is created in our businesses and in our economy. We are already seeing the damage done to business confidence in the UK, inward investment and the economy by the uncertainty and the potential risks that lie with an EU referendum and exit. Those uncertainties and risks increase the longer they go on. That is not good for our country, for our economy and for regions such as mine, where hundreds of thousands of jobs depend directly and indirectly on our membership of the EU.

[Stephen Gethins]

I appeal to the hon. Lady, because she and I are going to be on the same side in this referendum, that we have a positive case and that we should put forward the positive case. The words about “uncertainty” have no place in this referendum, and I hope she will put forward some positive arguments, too.

[Pat Glass]

I, too, hope that we will be able to make a positive case for remaining, but there are clearly risks to business of delay, and they get greater the longer the delay goes on. There are very good arguments to support the view that, as soon as the Government’s European renegotiations are complete, they should get on with having the referendum and ending the uncertainty, which is bad for the whole UK—for jobs, growth, investment and working people.

The motion says that a

“needlessly premature date risks contaminating the result”.

In what way would a referendum five months from now contaminate the result? If there is evidence that holding the referendum on a specific date, whether in June 2016, September 2016 or April 2017, would in any way contaminate the result or lead to greater or lesser risk of electoral fraud, let us see it. I have not seen any such evidence, so I can only assume that what is meant by that statement is that a shorter campaign is more likely to lead to a remain vote. Given that we have had more than 40 years of hearing one side of the argument, are we really being told that the leave campaign arguments are so lacking in substance that four months of campaigning from the other side will devastate its arguments and campaign?

The motion goes on to say that

“a subject as fundamental as EU membership should be decisively settled after a full and comprehensive debate”.

I absolutely agree, but I say again that we have already had 40 years of debating the UK’s place in Europe, so this is not a surprise and it is not happening quickly. It has been 40 years in the making.

[Mr Jenkin]

The hon. Lady’s party set up the Electoral Commission when it introduced the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, presumably, so that the commission would give advice that the Government would generally accept. The Electoral Commission argues that there should be a six-month period between the regulations and the referendum date, but the Government are set to ignore that. Like her, I am enthusiastic to get on with this, but what consideration has she and her party given to the designation being compressed with the referendum period? Has her party expressed a view on that matter, or does she believe that she and I should discuss it, with a view to when this referendum should be?

[Pat Glass]

The hon. Gentleman has made that point several times, and in many respects I think this is down to those campaigns. This is not a surprise, so they need to get on and get designated. What is the delay? Why are they delaying? They need to get on and do it.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is a colleague from the north-east, so she knows as well as I do how important the EU is to jobs in our region. Another important European date is almost upon us; the Government have to make an application within the next three or four weeks for EU solidarity funds to help flood victims across our country. Does she agree that the Government should perhaps concentrate on that date first?

[Pat Glass]

Yes, I do. In areas such as my hon. Friend’s and my own, which have been dominated by flooding, that is a big issue.

[Lady Hermon]

The hon. Lady will of course be aware that the Northern Ireland Labour party intends to run candidates in the Assembly election, whether or not her party leader agrees. Is she aware of any objections from her colleagues in the Northern Ireland Labour party to the possibility of an early EU referendum in June? Has she heard of any complaints from them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

I thank the hon. Lady for the intervention, but those are internal matters and do not really relate to today’s motion.

I believe that the people of the UK are easily capable of absorbing the issues and making a decision after five months of a comprehensive campaign. As has been said, we have six weeks of the campaign in general elections, with three weeks of the short campaign, yet we are still able to come to a decision. If the referendum is held in late June, we will have had at least 16 weeks of the campaign, in which people can listen to both sides of the case, weigh the arguments and the risks, and make a decision.

The motion talks about

“the recommendations of the Electoral Commission on best practice for referendums”.

The Electoral Commission has said that the referendum date should be separate from a day on which other polls are taking place. Labour agreed with that and succeeded in pressuring the Government to amend the European Union Referendum Bill to stop the holding of the referendum on 5 May 2016. However, the Electoral Commission also said that the final Act, following the amendments made,

“provides a good basis for the delivery of a well-run referendum and the effective regulation of referendum campaigners.”

The bottom line is that if the referendum is held on 23 June or 30 June, that would be more than a month and a half after the 5 May elections. I, for one, believe that the people of the UK are perfectly capable of making an important decision in late June, a month and a half after local elections. To suggest otherwise is patronising and disrespectful.

[Alex Salmond]

The legislation also specifies a 10-week campaign period. Therefore, if the referendum was held on 23 June, the campaign period, with all the attendant regulations, would take place in the middle of the Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and London elections. How can that possibly be a good thing?

[Pat Glass]

That argument has been well rehearsed in the House and it has been very clearly agreed on all sides that people can do two things at the same time.

I want an early referendum, so that this country’s businesses, workers and people can get on with their lives in a safer, stronger and more prosperous union with our partners in the EU. Labour believes that the UK is better off in Europe and it is campaigning to stay in. The European Union brings us jobs, growth and investment. It protects UK workers, the UK environment and consumers and helps to keep us safe in an increasingly unsafe world; leaving would put all that at risk.

I want to finish by reminding the House why the EU was established in the first place. Up until 1945, we in western Europe committed genocide on one another every 30 years. Families such as mine and those of other Members fought and died in those wars. Although I appreciate that the EU is not the only reason why we settle our differences around a negotiating table rather than on a battlefield, it does remain one of the main reasons. In a world in which we are facing Russian expansionism, global terrorism and global criminality, we in the UK are safer as well as stronger and more prosperous as part of the EU, which is why Labour is campaigning to remain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Unfortunately, the Chancellor’s excitement is of no interest to the Chair. What is of interest is pithiness and progress, and everybody ought to be able to grasp that point.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

T8. The Chancellor is a leading member of the Cabinet’s economic Sub-Committee that is considering airport expansion. The outcomes of that Committee are vital to growth in the north, and we were promised a response to it by Christmas. When can we expect that response?

[Mr Osborne]

I completely understand the hon. Lady’s interest in this subject, and the matter arouses a lot of interest across the House and the country. I am afraid she will have to be patient and wait for the Government’s response to that important report.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestion. He is right that more can be done through working with business and learning from their suggestions.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

17. How can the Minister claim there is no cost of living crisis when average full-time wages are down by £2,000 a year, when huge and increasing numbers of workers are dependent on state benefits to make ends meet, and when the gap between chief execs’ salaries and the people who work for them is growing all the time?

Women and the Cost of Living

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is quite right, and I was coming on to say that our deficit is not some airy-fairy statistic; it is the debt that is growing from it that is the biggest threat to our children and grandchildren. If we do not sort it out in our lifetime, it will wreck their future. That matters not just to loving mums, but to loving dads and loving grandparents. The Opposition must stop making light of it. It is real; it is there; it has to be dealt with.

Unemployment rose by 29% for women under Labour. Now there are more women in employment than ever before. The unemployment rate for women has fallen to 7%. At all levels we are helping women to build and develop successful businesses. The Women’s Business Council, set up in 2012, is taking many different actions, including providing business grants and mentors to female entrepreneurs. We are promoting business to girls in school and providing student enterprise loans. In the boardroom, under this Government female representation has risen from 12.2% to 17.3% in three years. We have a long way to go, but it is real progress in what women want.

Women and men are working parents. We have just had a debate on child care, and our policies to support the cost of child care through tax breaks, as well as a raft of measures to encourage new childminders to professionalise the nursery work force and to give parents the confidence that they are getting quality child care as well as helping with the cost of it, are vital.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Lady aware that the Education Committee’s recent report found that since 2010 more than 30% of child care centres in this country no longer have children in them?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I was not in the Education Committee, but I am absolutely passionate about child care for the very young and the support that we provide to them. As chair of the all-party group on Sure Start children centres, I can tell the hon. Lady that in our year-long inquiry into best practice in Sure Start centres, there was no evidence of wholesale closures. In fact, there is a real focus on improving the outcomes for families and children. I assure her of that. I urge her to read our report.

I also urge all parties to get behind the 1001 critical days manifesto, which looks at what more we can do to support the earliest relationships in families. It is through creating those secure early bonds that we go on to help families to build and develop the emotional resilience that they need to be secure and happy adults. That does not affect only women, but with one in 10 women suffering post-natal depression, and with so much family breakdown as a result of poor early relationships, I urge all colleagues to get behind our manifesto, which was launched by me, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). It is a truly cross-party manifesto, and I urge all hon. Members to look at it. We should all call for support in the earliest years. That would really support women.

However, women are not just parents and they are not just in business; they are also carers pretty much all the time. Most of the caring in this country falls to women. Women look after the elderly, the young and the disabled. They are also very often the volunteers. They do the brilliant work in food banks and in all the charities. I chair the charities PIP UK, the Parent Infant Partnerships UK; NorPIP, the Northamptonshire Parent Infant Partnership; and OxPIP, the Oxford Parent Infant Project. They provide help for post-natally depressed women, and in those charities it is largely women who volunteer. So many women come to my surgeries to talk about their caring responsibilities. Our policy to combine health and social care for the elderly is incredibly welcome to many as it means that their elderly relatives will have a greater chance of longer independent living, and our policy to introduce personal independence payments for disabled adults and children is welcome to many families who recognise the independence it gives them in making those choices.

Above all, our education reforms will give children a real chance in life. Between 2000 and 2009, under Labour, England fell from seventh place to 25th in international school performance in reading, from eighth to 28th in maths and from fourth to 16th in science. Those things—the future of our children—matter desperately to women and men, but very much to women. It is a priority for our Government, as are our 250,000 new apprenticeships and our superb new university technical colleges, ensuring that children are supported in their future choices.

Then, of course, there are women as pensioners. Our pensions system is complicated and serves women badly. On average, women get £40 less in state pension than men and are much more likely to live in poverty, so they welcome our new single-tier pension. It will disproportionately benefit women, ensuring that those who took time out to raise a family do not suffer in their retirement as a result.

In conclusion, women have so much to offer and so many needs. I want to highlight a few other things the Government are doing for women, such as our determination to tackle female genital mutilation, to build and support rape crisis centres, to support refuges for victims of domestic violence and to tackle human trafficking. All these, and many more, deeply held aspirations and needs of women are being addressed and sorted by this Government. I am incredibly proud of our focus on being the future for women in our society. I hope that the Opposition will come to recognise that it is this Government who are helping women to achieve their dreams and that, in order to achieve the equality we are all striving for, they have to stop seeing women as victims.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of fiscal policy on family incomes.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

10. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of fiscal policy on family incomes.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)]

The Government have published distribution analysis for all our fiscal policies at each fiscal event, and we are the first Government to do so. The most recent assessment was at the 2013 spending review, and the analysis showed that the richest 20% of households continue to make the greatest contribution to reducing the deficit, both in cash terms and as a percentage of their income.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

As the hon. Lady has already heard, all millionaires will be paying a higher tax rate under this Government than they did for the whole 13 years that the Labour party was in power. She should also welcome the tax cut we provided for the lowest income families, 25 million people, with 2.7 million taken out of taxation altogether. I note that the Labour party has recently talked about reintroducing the 10p tax rate, which they abolished. Well, I have news for it: all those people are now paying a 0% tax rate on that income.

[Pat Glass]

The Times leads this morning on yet another banking scandal that has cost savers in this country billions of pounds. At the same time, bonuses in the financial sector have risen by 90% and ordinary families are really struggling. It is simply not working, so when will the Government step in and do something about the regular obscenities in the banking industry?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady should look up the facts. Bank bonuses reached their peak when the shadow Chancellor was City Minister; today they are almost one seventh of what they were at that time. The hon. Lady should welcome the measures we have taken to help working families. They have helped reduce interest rates and keep mortgage rates low, meaning that the average family with the average mortgage are paying £2,000 less per year than they did under the previous Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I shall certainly do that. One of the bright spots in the north-east is its exporting of manufacturing goods, particularly in areas of high technology. Exports in specialised manufacturing were up 24% in the last year and power-generating machinery was up 20%. I shall certainly visit some of the businesses in the north-east, including in Northumberland, to encourage them to do more.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Despite what the Minister says, the north-east’s unemployment is the highest in the country and continues to rise, with youth unemployment having reached dangerously high levels in constituencies such as mine. When will he introduce those recommendations in the economic review targeted at helping young people in the north-east?

[Greg Clark]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s support for the economic review and its proposals. She will know that under the city deal that we negotiated with Newcastle, which is already being implemented, sites are being prepared for new businesses to move in, creating valuable jobs. I hope that she will maintain that support for the proposals as we implement them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked—

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

1. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on fiscal incentives to encourage the construction of affordable housing.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)]

The Chancellor is at the G20 meeting in Mexico, so I have been asked to reply.

On 6 September, the Government announced an ambitious package to boost housing supply, including an additional 15,000 new homes for affordable rent and bringing 5,000 empty homes back into use. We will also help a further 16,500 first-time buyers get back on the housing ladder through Firstbuy. The package includes a £10 billion debt guarantee, which will enable housing associations to benefit from the Government’s hard-earned fiscal credibility.

[Pat Glass]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but we have lost 120,000 construction jobs since 2010 and we are building 100,000 fewer affordable homes than even this Government tell us we need each year. When the Minister reflects on the choices he had before him, does he still believe that slashing the affordable housing grant by 60% at the same time as giving a massive tax cut to millionaires was the right thing to do?

[Danny Alexander]

In fact, the decision we made to move to a new affordable rent model to get more homes for the money available to us—the auction was over-subscribed, with 170,000 properties in the affordable sector being built under that model—was a good use of very limited resources, and a much more efficient use of them than the previous Government achieved.

Budget (North-East)

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) on securing the debate, which has allowed so many hon. Members from the north-east to talk about the impact of the Government and the Budget on our region. It is disappointing that we have such a poor turnout among Government Members—one Tory MP and one Liberal Democrat MP. That is less than 50%. It is amazing to hear them speaking with one voice—“We are all Tories now”—and to hear the Liberal Democrat MP defending the 50p tax rate, the granny tax and tax cuts for the rich. Either the Liberal Democrat hon. Members have Stockholm syndrome, or they have no principles and never did. I think that we would all say yes to that.

The Prime Minister, before the 2010 election, talked a lot about the need to rebalance the economy from the south to the north and for the north-east to be less reliant on public sector jobs. However, if we have seen any rebalancing of the economy at all, it has been from the north to the south. Public spending cuts have had a massive impact on jobs in the north-east in particular. The north-east now has the highest unemployment rate of all the northern regions at 10.8% and has received higher than average cuts to local government grants and services. In my constituency, unemployment has doubled since 2010. The hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) said that unemployment has fallen in the region. I do not know what he defines as the north-east region, but it certainly does not cover the area that I represent. Youth unemployment in my constituency is now dangerously high, and the Minister needs to be aware of that.

I can tell the Minister that despite a lack of growth in the economy generally since 2007, there have been some areas of real growth in the north-east. I visit companies in my constituency all the time, and there has been something of a renaissance in engineering and manufacturing, but at the high-level specialist bespoke end of the market. In those areas, manufacturers have told me that what they needed from the Budget was more highly skilled toolmakers and specialist engineers, to enable them to take on more of the work that is out there. The Government failed to deliver that in the Budget.

Chemical companies in my constituency have also told me that they have full order books but need more highly skilled chemical engineers to take on more of the work that is out there. The Government’s shabby excuse for an apprenticeship programme will not deliver the skills that those companies need. The Government again failed to deliver on that in the Budget. Other companies—good companies with good products—are struggling.

[Ian Swales]

Does the hon. Lady agree that nothing done three weeks ago will deliver a chemical engineer to a company tomorrow and that the previous Government’s failure to deliver the skills agenda over the past 10 years is the problem for manufacturers and engineers in the north-east?

[Pat Glass]

The Budget is a good opportunity and a good place to start, but if this is going to be done, now is the time to start. Did we see that? No, we did not.

Good companies with good products are struggling to get investment. They tell me that, despite the Government’s rhetoric, banks are refusing to invest in good companies that would give a good return. Banks still prefer to spend our money in the speculative markets, risking it, because that brings high rewards and gives bankers bonuses. The Government failed to do anything about that in the Budget.

I am on the doorstep all the time, knocking on doors. When people open their doors, I do not have to say anything: they tell me that the message from the Budget is that the Government are giving tax cuts to millionaires at the expense of pensioners. The Government do nothing and have been a disaster for the north-east region. If they cannot do something about that now, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead said, they need to move over and allow a Government who are interested in the regions to take over.

The Economy

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I will come on to talk about the impact in Macclesfield, and no doubt in Dover too. Apprenticeships have been a phenomenal step forward.

A crucial priority for us now is getting to grips with reshaping the life chances of millions of young people and helping to improve the long-term economic prospects of the United Kingdom. There is clearly a lot to do. A recent survey of 3,000 parents with children aged 11 and under found that the top career aspirations for their children were: first, being a sports star; secondly, being a pop star; and thirdly, being an actor or actress. Going into business did not even feature in the top 10. More worryingly, those aspirations are increasingly reflected in the subject choices in school, with business-related subjects lagging far behind in the popularity stakes.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the Government’s policy of putting a hierarchy of subjects into their English baccalaureate, so that classical Judaism comes above subjects such as business studies and IT, will help that situation?

[David Rutley]

It is good to hear from those on the rowdy Bench again.

[Pat Glass]

I was not rowdy; I listened.

[David Rutley]

It is good to hear that, and the hon. Lady makes an important point. Of course vocational skills are important and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) was saying, the Government have taken important steps on vocational training. But it is also important to raise academic standards across the board in education, which is why it is vital that the English baccalaureate is being put in place.

To return to the theme that I was discussing, it is vital that employers get confidence in the education being given to our young people; in a recent survey, 70% said that not enough business awareness was demonstrated by school leavers. In June an Ofsted report on business education went further, saying that students taking part in business-related education often had

“only vague ideas about the economy, interest rates and their impact”.

That is clearly concerning and it will be an important spur to addressing business-related subjects in the much-needed national curriculum review in the months and years ahead.

The focus on business education needs to be improved in universities as well. Management, economics and accounting were much less popular than media studies and sociology in 2010, and the growth in media studies—15% over the past five years—continues to outstrip the growth in both management science and economics, the figures for which were 5% and 12% respectively. At a time when companies are crying out for commercial talent, it is troubling that the upcoming generation is not demonstrating an interest in business education, which is clearly growing in other countries.

So how can we begin to address those long-standing trends? Much can be done back at school. That same Ofsted report highlighted the fact that more than a third of schools failed to provide sufficient opportunities for students to engage directly with businesses.