Finance Bill

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

The Government are borrowing £150 billion more. That is the cost of the Government’s failed economic policies. The reality is that with more people out of work claiming benefits and fewer people in work paying taxes, Government borrowing is higher and not lower.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, but there is a little problem with her maths. She is accusing Her Majesty’s Government of spending £150 billion more and then wants to spend umpteen billions on top of that on a VAT cut. There is absolutely no sense in that.

[Rachel Reeves]

We have seen that this Government’s plan has failed, as unemployment remains far too high, with a million young people out of work. It has failed, and the economy is back in recession—we are one of only two countries in the G20 that are in recession—and the Government are borrowing more. In fact, in the first two quarters of this financial year, the Government are borrowing £4 billion more than they were last year. Their plan has failed and it is time to try an alternative that gets the economy moving again and that gets people back to work and paying taxes so that the economy can grow and the deficit can be brought down sustainably.

We have proposed a bank bonus tax because we think that it is right that those people with the broadest shoulders should pay a little more. On the day that Bob Diamond has resigned after taking £100 million of bonuses in just a few years, would it not have been far better tonight if we had supported the bank bonus tax and used that money to fund a programme of youth jobs to get our economy working again?

We could have used the Budget and the Government could have used the Finance Bill properly to accelerate infrastructure investment to help the struggling construction industry and to create much needed jobs in our economy. Instead, we have a Bill that will go down in history as a monument to this Government’s incompetence, complacency and inability to grasp that what the current economic situation demands is a Government who stand up for ordinary working people. The Bill fails on fairness and asks millions to pay more so that millionaires can pay less. It fails to address the real challenges that this country faces—a recession made in Downing street and a Government with no plan to get us out of it.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

Government Members would do well to look to Churchill rather than to their current leaders when deciding how to vote today.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rachel Reeves]

I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Winston Churchill, a very great man, took us back on to the gold standard as Chancellor. If we were to follow every proposal of Winston Churchill’s as Chancellor, we would find it very difficult to run the economy.

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. His constituents have had a hard time in the past few days. Older people will be hit by the changes to pensioners’ tax allowances, and of course the pasty industry in Cornwall and the south-west will be hit hard, so there is a double hit for his region.

We need to remember the situation that most pensioners face. They do not have ways of making up for a loss of income by going out and finding work. That is what it means to be retired. They are therefore particularly vulnerable to rises in the cost of living and to unanticipated changes in their financial circumstances. The Office of Tax Simplification report notes that the current age-related allowance was

“introduced to reflect potentially higher costs of living of older people.”

That was why Winston Churchill introduced it in 1925. As the OTS has stated:

“Older people can struggle to meet living costs. They are often on a fixed income once they have retired, or perhaps on a declining income in real terms where flat annuities have been purchased”.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

Between 1997 and 2007 this country’s debt ratio fell from 42.5% to 36% of GDP, so the debt burden fell; in 2007, our debt-to-GDP ratio was lower than when we came to power in 1997.

What hope did the Chief Secretary and the Chancellor offer in this Budget for the future of our economy? The answer is precious little. The Government’s own Office for Budget Responsibility predicts another year of low growth ahead; it predicts just 0.8% growth in 2012, followed by 2% growth in 2013. That is well below what was promised when the Government took office. According to this morning’s forecasts from the Ernst and Young ITEM—Independent Treasury Economic Model—club, even those dire outlooks now seem optimistic. Ernst and Young predicts just 0.4% growth for 2012, followed by 1.5% growth the year after. Meanwhile, on any prediction, including the Government’s, we will still have at least 2 million unemployed people by the end of this Parliament.

Even those figures conceal deeper failures and more disturbing trends. Some may remember the Chancellor’s promise of a new economic model for Britain, based on lower levels of borrowing, and higher levels of saving and investment. In reality, the promised renaissance of business investment has been repeatedly postponed. An 8% increase in investment was promised for 2011, but investment actually fell by 2%. A further 10% increase was predicted for this year, but an increase of less than 1% is now forecast. The role of investment in driving growth for future years has been significantly revised down, too. Ernst and Young said this morning that business spending

“has picked up nicely in the US”

but that UK plcs remain “extremely reluctant” to invest. It continues:

“Consequently, the economy is bleeding cash into company coffers at an alarming rate…This haemorrhage is sapping the strength of the economy, keeping it on the critical list.”

They are not my words, but those of the Ernst and Young ITEM club.

Meanwhile, figures from the OBR reveal that the Government have increasingly become reliant on household consumption for their growth forecasts. That consumption is not being financed by growth in real disposable incomes, which, as I said, have stagnated and which the OBR confirms are set to stagnate for at least another two years. The household consumption growth is being funded by a fall in savings every year from now until 2016 and by a rise in total personal debt of almost 50% over the next few years; it will reach a staggering total of £2.12 trillion by the end of this Parliament.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

If the hon. Lady is so doubtful about an increase in consumption leading to economic growth, why does she advocate a cut in VAT, which would serve only one purpose: to increase consumption growth?

[Rachel Reeves]

The point I am making is that the consumption growth forecast for this Parliament is being funded by increased indebtedness. A VAT reduction would boost the spending power of households without their having to take on extra debt. With incomes stagnating and, in many cases, falling, many families are resorting to taking on more debt because they cannot afford to make ends meet—that is the point I am making. That is why a reduction in VAT would help put money into the pockets of ordinary families, who are struggling so much with rising gas, electricity, train, bus and petrol prices.

Taxation Freedom Day Bill

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Friday 25th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree, though, that there would be costs associated with the legislation, the statutory instrument, and civil servants’ time. I wonder why hon. Members want more legislation when presumably they really want less legislation and less money spent on civil servants and so on.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady has converted me. I always thought that Palmerston was right when he said that the House of Commons would eventually run out of things to legislate on. It is a thoroughly good idea that we should run out of things to legislate on and not legislate for everything we feel like. For once, I have been converted by a Labour Front Bencher.

[Rachel Reeves]

I am not sure whether to celebrate that, but this does seem to me to be a strange thing to want to have a piece of legislation on.