Finance Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)]

In speaking to new clause 6, which relates to permanent full expensing, I remind the House of the context in which this Finance Bill was published. It followed the Chancellor’s statement on 22 November last year, in which he claimed that he was delivering an “autumn statement for growth”. Members will remember, however, that the same day, the Office for Budget Responsibility confirmed that growth forecasts had been cut by more than half for the coming year, cut again for the year after that, and cut yet again for the year after that. Independent analysts confirmed that even after all the changes that the Government had announced, personal taxes would still rise. They are set to rise by £1,200 per household by 2028-29, with the tax burden on track to be the highest since the second world war.

That was the context in which this Bill was published: flatlining wages, higher taxes, higher mortgage payments and worsening public services—all the product of 14 years of Conservative economic failure. Our country needs change. A critical part of making that change will be to get our country’s growth rate up. We need a plan for growth, to make people across Britain better off, and to ensure sustainable funding for our public services. Labour has been developing our plan for growth by working hand in hand with businesses across the country and across the economy.

We know how highly businesses that are considering investing in the UK rate stability, predictability and a long-term plan. For that reason, we welcome the fact that, as our new clause 6 highlights, the Bill makes full expensing permanent. Permanent full expensing is something we have long called for, as a policy that can support greater business investment and economic growth. Because Labour knows how important stability and predictability are to businesses, the shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), announced last week that Labour is committed to maintaining permanent full expensing in the UK tax system, as well as the annual investment allowance, if we win the next general election. The shadow Chancellor has made this commitment to offer businesses certainty for the years ahead. Businesses considering plant and machinery investment across Britain can be confident that the tax treatment of that investment would not change with a Labour Government.

Of course, there is still a general election to face, so I use this opportunity to invite the Minister to put on the record whether the Conservatives will follow our lead by confirming that should they win the general election, they will maintain permanent full expensing. I am sure many businesses would welcome the certainty that would come from knowing both the main parties are going into the election fully committed to keeping permanent full expensing. I urge the Minister, when he responds, to confirm whether that will be his party’s policy going into the general election.

After all the chopping and changing we have seen in capital allowances in recent years, the Minister needs to make the commitment explicit. As I mentioned during earlier stages of the Bill, the annual investment allowance had been temporarily raised to £1 million when this Parliament began; that temporary basis was extended by the Finance Act 2021, again by the Finance Act 2022, and then made permanent by the Finance (No. 2) Act 2023. Meanwhile, over the course of this Parliament, the super-deduction came and went. Last year, full expensing for expenditure on plant and machinery was introduced on a temporary basis for three years. In this Bill, the Government are finally making it permanent. After so much instability, a commitment from Treasury Ministers at the Dispatch Box that the Conservatives, like Labour, will commit to maintaining permanent full expensing feels like the least they can do.

Our new clause 6 would require the Chancellor to publish not only an assessment of the impact of permanent full expensing, but a consideration of what other policies would support its effectiveness. We believe this is important to ensure that business investment is supported as much as possible. The Opposition have begun to set out what some of our policies would be if we won the next general election. As the shadow Chancellor has set out, if we were in government, we would consider the outcome of technical consultations on whether leased assets can be included in full expensing and on simplifying the UK’s capital allowance regime. I would be grateful if the Minister updated us on the progress of those consultations.

Last week, the shadow Chancellor also made clear the commitment that if Labour wins the next general election, we will ask HMRC to produce simple and comprehensive guidance making clear which assets are eligible for each type of capital allowance. That guidance would give businesses clarity over how their investments will be treated, and businesses will be able to use it as a single point of reference when making investment decisions. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government have considered taking such steps, or making such a commitment?

To give further certainty, the Shadow Chancellor has also said that in government, Labour would explore the greater use of rulings and clearances. Under such an approach, businesses would be able to get a written ruling from HMRC about the tax treatment of potential investments, making clear, for instance, whether they qualify for full expensing or other capital allowances. We know that businesses benefit from other countries’ tax administrators being able to provide such rulings and clearances. As certainty is crucial to encourage investment in Britain, I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed whether the Treasury has asked HMRC to consider the greater use of rulings and clearances for investment, and, if so, what its conclusion has been.

Of course, any policies on expensing or other capital allowances sit under the headline rate of corporation tax. It is hard to conclude anything other than that the Conservative party is rather unclear and confused about its approach to corporation tax rates in the UK. For evidence of that, we need look no further than the current Chancellor: in July 2022, during his leadership bid, he pledged to cut the headline rate of corporation tax from 19% to 15%, yet when he became Chancellor just three months later, one of his first acts was to promise to raise the tax instead from 19% to 25%. It is no wonder that businesses, and indeed Conservative Back Benchers, find it so hard to understand the Conservatives’ policy on corporation tax rates.

Let me be clear about the certainty we would offer if we won the next general election. As the shadow Chancellor has set out, we believe the current rate of 25% strikes the right balance between what our public finances need and, as the lowest rate in the G7, keeping our corporation tax competitive in the global economy. That is why we are pledging to cap the headline rate of corporation tax at its current rate of 25% for the whole of the next Parliament. We would take action if tax changes in other advanced economies threaten to undermine UK competitiveness. That choice provides predictability and has a clear rationale. That is the pro-business choice and the pro-growth choice. The promise to cap corporation tax at 25% is clear from us. Again, to offer businesses as much certainty as possible, will the Conservatives follow our lead and also pledge, today, to cap corporation tax at 25% for the next Parliament?

These commitments—to cap corporation tax, to maintain permanent full expensing and to keep the annual investment allowance—will all form part of the road map that we would publish in the first six months of a Labour Government, setting out our tax plans for businesses for the whole of that Parliament. That would put stability, predictability and a long-term plan at the heart of our approach. To give businesses as much certainty as possible, I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed whether a corporation tax cap at 25% and keeping full expensing in place will be in the Conservative party manifesto too.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I was interested in what the shadow Minister was saying about what would happen if other countries changed their corporation tax. As he will know, Mr Trump, the former President, has said that he would cut US corporation tax, potentially from 21% to 15%. Given such examples, does the hon. Gentleman anticipate that a Labour Government would look to cut the headline rate of corporation tax, as we would be looking at a significant tax cut by the world’s largest economy?

[James Murray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As we have made clear, we would take action if tax changes in other advanced economies threatened to undermine UK competitiveness, but the headline commitment from us is to cap corporation tax at 25% for the duration of the next Parliament. I recall that in earlier consideration in this debate, he and I had an exchange about permanent full expensing, so I hope he will welcome our commitment to maintaining permanent full expensing if we are in government. Perhaps he will put pressure on his Front-Bench colleagues to join us today in making that a cross-party commitment from the House.

New clause 7 focuses on the multipliers used to calculate higher rates of air passenger duty. As we have discussed at earlier stages of the consideration of this Bill, clause 24 makes no changes to band A rates, while in band B, the reduced, standard and higher rates will increase by £1, £3 and £7 respectively. In band C, the reduced, standard and higher rates will rise by £1, £2 and £6 respectively. In each of those three bands, which cover international travel to a range of destinations, a simple principle is followed: if the duty for passengers on economy flights goes up, the duty for those flying business class and by private jet goes up too. In the domestic band, however, which covers flights within the UK, that simple principle of fairness does not apply. Instead, under the Bill, for domestic UK flights, the reduced rate of APD rises by 50p and the standard rate rises by £1, yet the higher rate is unchanged. Let me be clear what this means in plain English: from 1 April, passengers flying economy and business class within the UK will see their taxes rise, whereas passengers taking exactly the same flights by private jet will enjoy a tax freeze. Although the changes kick in on 1 April, this is no April fools’ day joke, although the Prime Minister may be laughing; it is the result of a hidden loophole that that the Conservatives have introduced. We discussed this matter in Committee, when the Exchequer Secretary tried to provide an explanation for this unfairness. He said that APD rates are

“uprated by a forecast of RPI and those rates are then rounded to the nearest pound.”

As for the different rates I highlighted in Committee, he said:

“It largely depends on how they”—

the rates—

are rounded to the nearest pound; the actual rate is determined by whether the figure is rounded down or up.”––[Official Report, Finance Public Bill Committee, 16 January 2024; c. 34-35.]

I know that the Exchequer Secretary always tries to give me a straight answer—let me put it on the record that I genuinely appreciate his efforts to do so—but I fear that his explanation in Committee may have been unintentionally misleading or, at the very least, only partial. Since that Committee stage, the House of Commons Library has given me information confirming that it does not tell the full picture to say that the duty rates are, as the Minister claimed,

“uprated by a forecast of RPI and those rates are then rounded to the nearest pound.”––[Official Report, Finance Public Bill Committee, 16 January 2024; c. 34.]

In fact, my understanding is that the Minister’s statement applied only to the reduced rates of air passenger duty. Those are indeed adjusted each year in line with forecast RPI and rounded to the nearest pound. However, the standard and higher rates are not calculated by separate reference to RPI; rather, they are generally set as multipliers of their respective reduced rates. For instance, the standard and higher rates in band B are set as 2.2 and 6.6 times the band B reduced rate respectively, rounded in both cases to the nearest pound.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller]

Can my right hon. Friend tell me if I have got this right? In the commentary ahead of the Budget, we talk about wiggle room and the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast and about £5 billion or £10 billion here and there, but I think I heard him say that this matter was completely out of the control of the those on the Treasury Bench and this Parliament; that the Governor of the Bank of England could unilaterally decide to crystallise losses on whichever extent of bonds he wished to, and then put that loss into the calculations of the Chancellor of the day; and that the Chancellor would then have to work around that in order to work out what the fiscal expenditure, public expenditure and taxation would be. Is that actually the case? It sounds mightily undemocratic to me.

[John Redwood]

That is an interesting point of debate, but my understanding of the constitutional position is that it is not as bad as my hon. Friend is suggesting because all the bonds were acquired with the express permission of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Bank of England’s website says that the bond portfolio is held on behalf of the Treasury. Successive Chancellors of the Exchequer—beginning with the Labour Chancellor who first undertook quantitative easing and carried on by successive Conservative Chancellors—all signed an agreement with the Bank to say that they would indemnify against loss. So, given that the Government and this Parliament empowered the purchase of the bonds and now take responsibility for any losses on them, it seems perfectly reasonable for there to be a proper conversation about whether we want to take the losses.

I see nothing wrong with us here challenging the idea that, uniquely among the big quantitative easing programmes, it is the Bank of England that not only insists on selling the bonds at big losses but gets reimbursed. The ECB does not sell them in the market at big losses. The Federal Reserve Board sells them in the market at big losses but gets no money back; it simply puts on its balance sheet that it has lost a lot of money and takes the view that, as it is a central bank, it does not really matter if it loses a lot of money, because central banks create money and it is therefore not like a normal commercial business. So I hope that Ministers will look at this as part of the general assessment that is being invited by these new clauses.

I hope also that Ministers will look at the expenditure items in the overall accounts covered by new clause 4 on the public finances, because there has been a marked decline in public sector productivity in the years 2020 to 2023. It was quite without precedent in my experience of following public finances over the years, and this very sharp decline represents at least a £30 billion loss to our system, in that it now costs at least £30 billion a year more to run the group of public services covered by these figures than it did before the collapse in productivity. On top of that, there has also been the need for much bigger sums to cover inflation. This is not the inflation figure; this is the real loss figure from the productivity.

We are all sympathetic to the difficulties that lockdown and the transition out of lockdown caused, and there was bound to be disruption. Our public services were badly affected by that, as children could not go to school and hospitals were disrupted by covid, but that is now some time behind us and it seems perplexing that we cannot get those public services back to 2019 levels of productivity. I hear comment that maybe artificial intelligence will do it and that there needs to be a big investment in computers. Well, that should be on top. All that I am saying to the Government is that we can surely get back to 2019 productivity levels using techniques from 2019, which was very much pre-artificial intelligence and before the latest round of computerisation. Again, this is a big area that needs to be looked at as part of any review of the public finances.

The third area, which is also very large and very much in the news today, is that even more people in our country do not feel they can go back to work and that they need help at home because they are no longer able to work. The Government are working on some important programmes, through the Department for Work and Pensions, to show people that through a combination of part-time flexible working and working at home with proper support and training, and maybe with additional financial support to help them, they could go back to work for part of the time and make a contribution. We desperately need them, and I think their lives would be more rewarding. They would also be better off because we now have a benefits system that means it is always better to work. This should be a cross-party matter, because it is a problem that our nation as a whole faces. We can enrich those people’s lives, help to reduce the burden on the taxpayer and improve the net income of those concerned. Again, this involves many billions.

My point in making these three simple points apparent to the House is that there are very large sums of money indeed involved in bond losses and productivity, which we need to review because that would help in the formation of the next Budget. It would create more headroom, both for the tax cuts that we need if we are to promote growth, and for improved public service provision in the areas where the shoe is still pinching. I trust that will be part of any review that might emerge from these new clauses, or from the spirit of these new clauses. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is thinking about this, as we will have a Budget hard on the heels of this Finance Bill, which came out of the autumn statement. In these conditions of recovery, and given the need for faster growth, I welcome having more than one Budget a year, and the fact that we may have three fiscal events quite close to each other, if all goes well. They must promote growth and reduce taxes, and this is a good start.

I welcome new clause 5, but can we please have more? Can we please look at the headroom that I think I have helped to identify?