Finance Bill

Debate between Richard Graham and Shabana Mahmood

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I do not want to get into a tit-for-tat debate with the hon. Gentleman, but the SNP did not support our reasoned amendment last night. In my opinion, the measured and sensible way to take the Finance Bill forward, as we have done with previous Finance Bills in the previous Parliament, is to scrutinise it in detail. There are more opportunities with Finance Bills because we have Committee of the Whole House as well as the Public Bill Committee, and we shall press important measures in the Bill to a vote when we reach the latter stages of the Bill’s passage; but given that there are very important measures that we do support, it is important that we signal that by allowing the Bill a Second Reading.

One issue to which we will return in Committee of the Whole House is bank taxation. The Government will decrease the rate of the bank levy from January 2016 and will at the same time introduce a surcharge on profits of banks over a threshold of £25 million, which represents a switch from a tax on balance sheets to a tax on profits. Those measures are contained in clauses 16 and 17.

We will debate those in detail in Committee of the whole House in September, when we will seek to increase transparency regarding revenues from the banking sector. We will also push the Government for further details about the impact that these measures will have on the diversity of the financial sector, including any disproportionate impact on building societies. That is one of the things that people have been warning about since the measures in the Bill were unveiled.

As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has highlighted, by 2021 there will have been 13 tax rates in 10 years as the bank levy is gradually reduced from 0.21% to 0.1% by January 2021. This measure will cost £1.8 billion from 2021 onwards. Because from 2021 UK banks will be taxed on liabilities in the UK and not worldwide, that represents a fairly significant giveaway that it is important to test further in Committee. In contrast to what is happening to the bank levy, the 8% corporation tax surcharge, in effect, on bank profits from January 2016 raises £1.3 billion. There are a number of questions on the rationale for moving to this form of taxation for banks, as well as on the original intention of the bank levy and whether that will continue to be met in the new regime. It is important that hon. Members have the chance to test this further in Committee. The Minister will know that the bank levy was designed to discourage risky leverage, but whether it has been successful in doing so is a matter for some debate. Moving to a system of having a tax on profits possibly introduces a risk that there may be some discouragement from declaring UK profits. It will be important to analyse what risk that might pose in the banking sector.

There is a particular problem with regard to challenger banks, which were not subject to the bank levy but will fall within the new surcharge. Challenger banks are important for the overall health of the financial sector, because we need them to challenge the dominance of the big four or five banks. The Government will say, rightly, that the £25 million threshold is partly designed to prevent too much of the impact from being felt by challenger banks. Nevertheless, the Government will also be aware that a lot of the commentary since publication of the proposals has focused on the genuine concerns of challenger banks, which are worried that despite the £25 million threshold, they will still be disproportionately affected, with a significant impact on consumer choice as well. We will need to look at those issues further.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am grateful for the shadow Minister’s confirmation that she and her party support much of what is in the Bill. Will she confirm that she agrees with its general direction, which is fundamentally towards an economy characterised by higher wages, lower taxes and less welfare?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I will shortly turn to insurance premium tax, which is a very significant tax-raising measure that the Government have not been quite as keen to trumpet as other measures in the Bill. As I said at the beginning of my speech—I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber—it is significant that most of the very contentious changes in the Budget, particularly in respect of working tax credits, are not in the Bill but will be made in delegated legislation Committees. I dispute the Government’s characterisation of these measures, because I believe that they will leave working people worse off. That is not necessarily directly relevant to all aspects of the Bill, but it is relevant to the overall package of measures introduced in the Budget.

There is serious concern about the impact that the 8% surcharge will have on building societies. Of the six main building societies—Nationwide, Yorkshire, Coventry, Skipton, Leeds and Principality—only Nationwide currently pays the bank levy. Based on the most up-to-date profit figures from 2014-15, it is estimated that the building societies will pay about £126 million a year through the corporation tax surcharge, equating to about £630 million up to 2020. The building societies point out that the primary way in which they build their capital is through retained profit, so a tax on profit has a disproportionate effect on them. Moreover, they do not have shareholders, unlike public limited companies, so this is, in effect, a tax on the customers who own them—retail savers and mortgage borrowers. It will be important for the Government to explain their thinking on building societies and what analysis there is of how these changes will play out for them in practice.

The next key issue that we will return to in Committee relates to the climate change levy. Clause 45 removes the climate change levy exemption for renewable source electricity generated on or after 1 August 2015. I am afraid that this is another example of the Government undermining investor confidence in renewable energy. They have already tried to halt the development of the cheapest form of clean energy by pulling the plug on onshore wind, and this continues that trend. It would be fair to say that since taking office they have put placating their Back Benchers’ more strident views about renewable energy generation above the jobs and investment that would be created across our economy if we were genuinely able to move towards a low-carbon economy.

We will particularly seek to push the Government on a suggestion by the Chartered Institute of Taxation that they produce a road map, as they have done previously on aspects of taxation policy—in particular, corporation tax policy—setting out their plans for the future of environmental taxes to help the renewable energy industry, and business more generally, to take long-term investment decisions. That could be an important way for the Government to set out their intentions for the life of this Parliament and for us to test whether they mean it with regard to charting a course towards a low-carbon economy for our country.

Insurance premium tax, as I said in response to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), is a significant revenue-raising measure. Clause 43 increases the standard rate of the tax from 6% to 9.5% with effect from 1 November 2015, raising £1.6 billion. There are very important questions about the distributional impact that that will have and whether those on middle and low incomes will bear the brunt of the increases. It is interesting that the Chancellor did not focus on the very significant revenue-raising measures in his Budget. Indeed, the rhetoric and narrative that he has been pursuing suggests that it is a Budget of giveaways. He will not be surprised that we will not let him get away with that characterisation.

Insurance premium tax has been described as a stealth tax. Ministers will be aware that several industry figures have warned that increasing it could prompt policyholders to buy less cover, possibly exacerbating problems caused by under-insurance, particularly with regard to car insurance. Again, we will wish to test those areas further in Committee when we will look carefully at any analysis by Government of the possible impact on under-insurance. The AA has said that insurance premium tax on the average car insurance policy is equivalent to a fuel duty increase of almost 2p per litre, so either way drivers are being hit in their pockets. I would be grateful if the Minister commented on the measure’s overall distributional income, what conversations the Government have already had with the insurance industry and what this means for future changes to fuel duty.

As I have said, we support other measures in the Bill, particularly the so-called tax lock both for income tax at the basic, higher and additional rates, and for VAT. I remind Treasury Ministers that, back in 2009, the current Chancellor was very critical about Chancellors passing laws to ensure that they fulfil the promises they make in general election campaigns, and I think that that criticism applies just as much to him now. However, we support the principle of the lock. We have pledged not to raise VAT, national insurance or the basic and higher rates of income tax, so we welcome those measures.

Tax Avoidance

Debate between Richard Graham and Shabana Mahmood

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I entirely agree with him, and it is something I shall come to later.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for giving way; she has been generous in taking interventions.

I think that everyone in the House agrees that every company should pay the tax it owes. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) is right that it is not encouraging for companies that pay the right amount of tax when others do not, but Labour first talked about introducing a general anti-abuse rule in 1997. It has taken 16 years and this Government to introduce one. Does she not agree that it is this Government who are implementing steps to prevent serious avoidance?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I shall deal with the substantive thrust of that intervention when I come to the general anti-abuse rule later.

In the context of what has been happening on the Government’s watch in revelations to tax avoidance, we have now had the shocking revelations about HSBC. We now learn that the Government were handed information about malpractice at HSBC, and that one of their first acts was to make the then boss of the bank, Stephen Green, a lord and then a trade Minister. Richard Brooks, a former HMRC tax inspector and BBC reporter, has said that the Treasury and HMRC

“knew that there was a mass of evidence of tax evasion at the heart of HSBC”

in 2011, but that they

“simply washed their hands of it”—

a damning indictment, if ever there was one.

The consequences are clear. More than 1,100 individuals were identified as allegedly guilty of tax avoidance or evasion, but we are led to believe that in only one case was there sufficient evidence to prosecute. In November 2012, a senior HMRC official told The Times that the Government had adopted “a selective prosecution policy” towards cases related to HSBC. Later that month, HMRC told the Public Accounts Committee that another dozen criminal prosecutions were to follow. However, there have been none since. It seems that HMRC adopted a deliberate strategy to minimise the number of prosecutions, rather than pursue them, which explains why just £135 million has been recouped, which contrasts unfavourably with France, for example, which has prosecuted more cases and raised more money on the basis of fewer account files being handed over.