Downing Street Christmas Parties Investigation

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

The hon. Gentleman says that we “know” certain things, but we do not—they are unproven allegations. That is why we have an investigation, just as investigations take place when other allegations are made every day in police and other affairs. What we will seek to do, through the Cabinet Secretary, is investigate the allegations that the hon. Gentleman and others make.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

Now that the Paymaster General has had the opportunity to hold a gathering of his own, at least when it comes to his thoughts on this matter, will he heed the injunctions of the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) and expand the scope of this investigation to include all alleged instances of “gatherings”—or whatever we might like to call them—related to the Government on government property? Given that the Metropolitan police have, to date, shown a marked reluctance to investigate the allegations about these gatherings, will the Paymaster General confirm that he is not aware of any legal impediment that would stand in the way of the Metropolitan police investigating these matters if they so chose?

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st December 2021 Commons Chamber

The British people need a Government who will tax fairly, spend wisely and, crucially, grow the economy in every region and nation. With the Tories, all we get is low growth, high taxes, and the wrong choices for our country.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this section of our consideration of the Finance Bill. At the outset, may I just say that notwithstanding the valiant efforts of the Minister to try to persuade me otherwise, I will still be pressing amendments 5, 6 and 7 and new clauses 10 and 11 in my name and those of my colleagues?

Before I get to the nub of amendment 5, it is always important to place on record, when dealing with matters such as finance, that we are also dealing with a climate emergency. It is very important that we are using every single resource and every single incentive that we have at our disposal to encourage a move to net zero across the public sector and the private sector, and as quickly as possible.

Amendment 5 would restrict access to the extended temporary increase in the annual investment allowance to businesses that support a transition to net zero. To go back to a previous life, I was once the joint leader of Aberdeenshire Council. I think I am right in saying—I have no objection to being corrected by anyone in the Chamber, or anyone outside the Chamber who happens to be watching this—that we were the first local authority in the UK to introduce a carbon budget and to put it on an equal footing in governance with the capital budget, the revenue budget and the housing revenue allowance budget. It was therefore considered on exactly the same basis, and every single measure we were taking, whether in policy or budgetary terms, was worked through so that the carbon impact was understood and the emissions that resulted from activities were always on a downward trajectory.

That is exactly the sort of net zero philosophy that needs to be baked into the private sector. One way we could do that is by making qualifying for the allowance contingent on companies having taken steps to reduce carbon dioxide in their business model and how they go about their business, but we could also challenge companies on how they will build further on the progress they have made in reducing carbon dioxide. That seems to me a sensible measure and a proportionate approach, and I commend it to colleagues.

I will move on to amendment 6. I do not doubt the good intentions and best endeavours of the Government in trying to address tax evasion at any level, but it was nevertheless extraordinary to hear the Minister suggest that requiring companies to demonstrate their tax compliance would represent an onerous burden on them. This is pretty basic, baseline, default stuff. We should expect businesses to comply with the tax code and to pay their taxes in full and on time to the best of their abilities and not to try to avoid that. People want to see businesses and others succeed, but they also want to know that others are playing by the rules, and that is particularly the case for businesses. We want businesses to do well by competing and being the best that they can be, but we want to see them succeed on the basis of the quality and effectiveness of what they do, rather than by being incentivised perversely not to contribute to the common good and to undercut their more scrupulous competitors.

We often hear from the Government Dispatch Box that there is no such thing as tax revenues without businesses, but we miss the other side of the balance sheet and the other side of the equation: it is much, much harder for businesses to succeed without the high quality of the public goods that they consume, whether that is an educated population, a health service, investment in our infrastructure, the provision of a stable market, law and order and the emergency services—everything else that is fundamental to underpinning the activities of the society we live in. Fundamentally, tax cuts of this kind should be going to businesses that play by the rules and do not undercut their competitors by not playing by the rules. It is important to incentivise and reward that good behaviour, and that is precisely what amendment 6 would do.

We tabled amendment 7 to ensure that smaller businesses with lower levels of qualifying capital expenditure were not disadvantaged in any way by having their annual investment allowance limits restricted. Again, the amendment would ensure that we are playing fair for those who play by the rules.

Moving on to new clauses 10 and 11, it is very important that the measures we have in the Finance Bill or any legislation have the intended effects, that we can see whether they are having those intended effects and that we can quantify that and ensure, so far as is possible, that we are avoiding any adverse, unforeseen consequences. New clause 11 would insist that the Government publish within 12 months an assessment of the size, number and location of companies claiming the increased annual investment allowance; the impact of the reliefs on levels of capital investment, to see that we are getting the desired outcome from that reduction; and the scope of total business investments that are being covered by the relief, to see whether it is helping to drive investment and growth in the economy. That should be a fundamental set of baseline assessments that the Government should wish to undertake. New clause 11 would ensure that happens.

Moving on to new clause 10, and from unforeseen adverse circumstances to entirely foreseeable adverse circumstances, Brexit continues to be a millstone around the neck of businesses and families, and it is important that we understand the continued consequences and ramifications of choices that have either been made freely or, in the case of the area I represent and the people of Scotland, been forced upon us.

A programme I used to like watching on television on a Sunday afternoon was “Bullseye” with Jim Bowen. I do not know if anyone remembers that. His catchphrase at the end when the contestants did not do nearly as well as they had hoped—they had gone for that 101 with six darts and had sadly fallen short—was, “Let’s have a look at what you could have won.” New clause 10 is about having a look at what we could have won. It would ensure that the Government carry out an assessment of how the changes in the annual investment allowance would have affected our GDP had we remained in the European Union and had we left with that future trade and investment partnership in place.

Finally, I turn to clause 6 and the banking surcharge. My party was happy to support the increase in corporation tax generally, but people still bear the scars of the 2010 banking crisis. They believe that, in the spirit of fairness, the banks should make a fair contribution, not just to help businesses to grow and develop to make sure that the economy is growing and that they are making the best contribution they can, but to ensure that they are repaying some of the harm caused by the reckless approach to banking in the lead-up to the financial crash. Many people will look askance at the reduction in the surcharge, notwithstanding the increase in the corporation tax rate generally, and will feel that banks are not fulfilling their proper roles as prudent lenders or their social responsibilities but seem to be getting off the hook.

Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I would like to say what a pleasure it has been to listen to the single transferable Whip’s speech that seems to have passed from one end of the Tory Benches to the other, but I am comparatively early in my parliamentary career and I have no wish to be hauled up for misleading the House.

Plenty of criticism can be made of policy, but the bit that everyone on the Government Benches, from the Minister to the Back Benchers, seems to have completely missed is that this debate is about the probity and suitability of the current occupant of No. 10 Downing Street to be there and to continue carrying out his duties as Prime Minister.

When I first started taking an interest in politics, I was a student during the tail-end of John Major’s time in Downing Street. There were scandals aplenty then, like now, from the petty and the embarrassing through to the corruption of cash for questions and the outright duplicity of the arms to Iraq affair. It was hard to imagine that the UK might ever again be led by a Government so chaotic, so lacking in scruple, so willing to bend the truth and so willing to hawk themselves around the broadcasting studios to assert that forwards is backwards and black is white, yet here we are. Although we can all no doubt highlight points along that trajectory where things really started heading for the ground, I do not think any reasonable person could dispute that the present holder of the office of Prime Minister has taken us to this nadir of public trust in Government and politics.

It is all part of a pattern of behaviour. If you want a photo opportunity in a hospital but can’t be bothered to wear a mask, just ignore the instruction to wear one. If you don’t like the Electoral Commission investigating who funds your party, your takeaways or your flat renovations, emasculate the Electoral Commission. You don’t like the fact that people without ready access to ID tend not to vote for your party—try to introduce voter ID. You don’t like the fact that voters in devolved nations don’t elect enough representatives of your party to have any influence—try to bypass devolution. You accidentally create a border in the Irish sea—just pretend it does not exist and tell people that black is white.

This Government clearly think the rules do not apply to them; it is one rule for the Government and another rule for everybody else. It comes from the top, led by a Prime Minister who clearly does not think that there are any rules at all or that if there are, they should not apply to him.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that for all this talk of the levelling-up agenda, when it comes to Scotland it is clear that it is a scorched earth agenda? Whether we are talking about carbon capture in his part of the country or the Valneva contract to deliver 100 million vaccines, which we need right now, this Prime Minister is not capable of doing the very basics and telling the truth.

[Richard Thomson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and she says it very eloquently and succinctly. We have a crisis of confidence in this country. We have a crisis of confidence in the Prime Minister, who is clearly not fit for the job with which he has been entrusted. This is being aided and abetted by the silence and complicity of far too many Conservative Members, and I cannot wait to see which Lobby the Scottish Conservative contingent, in particular, chooses to go through this evening.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Because of that intervention, I am afraid that the final speaker is going to be able to have only two and a half minutes, unless the SNP spokesperson would take a little less.

Value Added Tax (Distance Selling and Miscellaneous Amendments No. 2) Regulations 2021 Customs Tariff (Establishment and Suspension of Import Duty) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 General Committees

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I am grateful for the opportunity to give a single transferrable speech, which will speak to both measures. The Scottish National party will not be opposing the instruments either.

To be charitable, the statutory instruments before us fall under the category of legislation that is dull but necessary. Of course, I would rather they were not necessary at all, both because of the fact that we have left the European Union and the manner in which we have left. I have just come from speaking to the urgent question on the Northern Ireland protocol, where I made the point—to universal indifference—that the best way to remove the current friction in our legal trading relationship between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is to reduce the friction that exists within the relationship between Great Britain and the European Union.

The alternative is what we see before us today: an endless complexity of myriad make-do-and-mend measures, which need to be brought in to try and correct the unforeseeable, the oversights and the inevitable errors that creep in. That approach risks confusing everyone, while satisfying few. The two measures in front of us are necessary, and they have the SNP’s support, even if we wish that they did not have to be discussed here today.

Northern Ireland Protocol: EU Negotiations

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

My right hon. Friend is a former Northern Ireland Minister, so he speaks with authority in this House. He is right that it is of paramount importance, as I am sure all sides would agree, that the Belfast agreement is respected and protected. That is certainly the motivation of Her Majesty’s Government.

It is right to say that the Northern Ireland Executive estimate that, from January to March, about 20% of all EU checks were conducted in respect of Northern Ireland, even though Northern Ireland’s population is just 0.5% of the EU’s as a whole. That speaks for itself.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

Notwithstanding recess dates, it took until 16 November even to get a written statement on this subject, and that turned out to be a copy-and-paste job from Lord Frost’s earlier statement. I am shocked and appalled that it has taken until today for a Minister to come to the House to do Members the courtesy of answering questions on behalf of the Government. I am sick and fed up of hearing excuses for why this Government allow others to hear the business of the Government and their thinking before they come here to explain it. How long can we be expected to tolerate this discourtesy?

We have yet another statement and yet another rattle of the sabre on article 16. Of course, the deployment of article 16 would simply invite an equal and opposite response from the European Union, and it would simply reconvene existing discussions in another forum. Whether or not Conservative Members want to hear it, the best way to eliminate friction from east-west trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain is for Great Britain to come back into closer alignment with the single market and customs union. Will the Paymaster General assure the House that, whatever discussions lie ahead, the Government will not in any circumstances allow Northern Ireland to become subject to the same trade friction between north and south as they have allowed to creep into the relationship between Great Britain and the European Union?

[Michael Ellis]

The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong; the reality of the matter is that a written ministerial statement is informing the House, and it was laid yesterday. He makes a point about business. I think I am right in saying that in today’s Financial Times there is a report that Marks & Spencer says that the proposals by the EU would not cut red tape. It is important to bear in mind that negotiations are in progress; it is not the right forum, at this stage in delicate negotiations, to try to do that in this honourable House. What is right is that Lord Frost continues his discussions with vice-president Šefčovič, and that is exactly what he is doing.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Richard Thomson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I find it disappointing when people talk about cuts when actually there is significant investment—record amounts—going into the NHS. This Budget highlighted not just £5 billion for the diagnostic centres the Department of Health and Social Care will be operating around the country, but £9 billion for covid support, and the hon. Gentleman will know that £36 billion was put into the NHS before that—a significant sum. So it is dangerous when people talk inappropriately about cuts. There are not any cuts; this is investment going into the NHS.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

One concern many have about the national insurance increase is that there is an understanding about how much that will raise but no understanding whatsoever about how much will eventually make it through the NHS to social care in England. I am sorry to say that leads many of us to think the Government might not have much of a plan for how they are going to use it first in the NHS and then to benefit service users in the social care sector. Will the Minister have another go at helping those of us with that mindset to understand?

[Lucy Frazer]

The Government have been very clear that the money will first go to the NHS; there is a significant number of backlogs that we need to tackle and it is important that people can get to see their GP so therefore it is essential that that £13 billion is right now going to the NHS. But we have been clear about this: we are the first Government to tackle the issue of social care—the first Government to put it on the table and put in a plan to raise the money to tackle the social care issue.

As I said at the outset, a number of cities were devasted by the second world war, and I return to my analogy. In London, £65 million is going from the first round of the levelling-up fund to local infrastructure projects to improve everyday life; in Liverpool and the wider north-west, that figure stands at £232 million; separately, in Bristol and the west of England, we are providing £540 million over five years to transform local transport networks.

At the same time, we will never forget our responsibility to strengthen the public finances. The tax changes in this Bill will allow us to achieve all these things, and for those reasons I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), whose speech was punctuated throughout by the sound of many nails being hit on the head.

The Budget and this Bill needed to address three key issues: the cost of living crisis; the supply crisis with the resulting inflationary crunch from that; and of course the environmental crisis. With regret, I have to say there is little cheer in the Budget or the Bill for anyone other than a bank shareholder or those who profit from the lack of urgency from this Government to tackle financial criminality and the lack of financial transparency as London rapidly gains the unenviable reputation of the washing machine for the dirty money of the world.

Let me deal first with the cost of living. Many Members have spoken at length, in the Budget debate and today, about the Conservatives having broken their manifesto pledge on increasing national insurance. We all know by now—I hope it is incontestable—that that increase hits the lowest earners the hardest. It bakes in generational and geographical inequalities, which will be a feature of our social and economic outlook for many years to come.

I intervened on the Financial Secretary to the Treasury—she was gracious enough to accept that intervention—to try to get some clarity on how the money raised by that increase will make its way through to the social care sector. We all understand that it will go into the health service, and we all appreciate that it can do much good in dealing with the crisis there, but I am sorry to say that until some answers start to be forthcoming about what impact it will have in the social care sector—and, importantly, how—the UK Government will be left looking very much as if they lack a plan.

The UK Government have barely even started to get to grips with the nature of the whole-system problems that we are facing in health and social care, and the need to integrate them. That was the case even before the covid crisis. We require a whole-system approach to many of the problems that we are seeing in health services, and I get absolutely no sense that the UK Government have thought that through. They are doing what they have routinely criticised many other Governments for doing and focusing on the inputs without having any reasonable or intelligent focus on the outputs.

It is not just direct taxes that affect the cost of living crisis; indirect taxes have a massive impact too. My colleagues and I have called for a continuation of the VAT reduction for hospitality. It seems unconscionable and unexplainable that that should be withdrawn in the early part of next year. It is often said that a banker is somebody who will offer you an umbrella when it is not raining and then take it back the instant that some dark clouds appear on the horizon, and many hospitality businesses will feel that that analogy applies to them with the VAT reduction. With lower footfall and cash flow, they did not get the chance to benefit throughout this year, and just as they come into what will be a crucial summer season for many of them, that financial boost is to be taken away. I strongly urge the Government to reconsider that and to allow those businesses to trade their way back to health.

Of course, VAT is intended to be a tax on non-essential goods, yet it is still levied on a wide range of goods that we simply cannot do without, such as domestic energy. It is a tax that can influence behaviour, but it can also be used to stimulate growth and the kind of recovery we need.

I would like to pick up one anomaly in the way that VAT is applied currently, and that relates to school uniforms. I have to say that I was not a particularly enthusiastic wearer of the school uniform when I was at school, unless I had to wear it when I was representing the school, in which case I did not have any quarrel with it. Nevertheless, I accept the arguments on the importance of school uniforms. They are an enormous leveller. The uniform instils a sense of pride and belonging, and it means that everybody is the same. It can also be a boost to household incomes not to have to compete when it comes to the clothes that children wear to school.

School uniforms are often compulsory, yet we still charge VAT on them, at the full 20% rate, for children over the age of 14, and even for children who are under that age yet have grown beyond the size that HMRC stipulates for certain school uniform items. That is hitting hard-working families really hard in the pocket at a time when a whole range of other factors are conspiring to squeeze their incomes. I do not believe that that can be right.

The British Educational Suppliers Association estimates that the cost of waiving VAT on school uniform items in Scotland would be about £1 million. To do it right across the whole UK would not cost a great deal more than £10 million. That is not a sum that is going to trouble the Treasury unduly. Some Conservative Members might not even get out of bed for a consultancy if they were earning less than that. Nevertheless, removing 20% VAT on what are essential purchases in anyone’s estimation could really make a big difference to individual families. We will look to return to that in Committee. I hope the Government will listen very carefully on that because it could benefit family incomes the length and breadth of the UK.

There have been many other hits to household finances in recent times. There is the removal of the £20 universal credit uplift. There is a Government commitment to a real living wage which seems to be at a rate running one year in arrears. No sooner do the Government expect plaudits and hurrahs for hitting the target, than a month later the rate is revised and the Government wait another 11 months to play catch-up. We are also seeing the removal of the pensions triple lock. All those matters will conspire to squeeze family incomes at a time when families can least afford it.

In the remainder of my contribution, I would like to concentrate on the impact of the failure to get to grips with the supply and environmental crises, particularly in the north-east of Scotland. An enormous series of problems is being caused by shortages of labour. That applies in the haulage sector and, in particular, in the food and drink, hospitality and agriculture sectors. We have seen crops rotting in the field because there are not enough people to harvest them. We are seeing a crisis in the pig industry. There simply are not enough skilled abattoir workers and butchers to deal with the throughput from that industry, which is leading to a looming animal welfare and human crisis.

I have heard many Conservatives say, “Why can’t you just hire local workers?” Well, frankly, you cannot just hire that sort of skilled, dedicated and experienced labour. We cannot just wave a magic wand and magic it up out of nowhere. However unskilled and unspecialised the Government might consider many of those positions, they really do need to act and act swiftly. This is not even a financial measure; it is simply about making sure all parts of the UK have an immigration policy that is appropriate for their economic and social needs. If the UK Government are not prepared to do that themselves, they should devolve it to the devolved Administrations to decide for themselves. I have absolutely no doubt that the devolved Administrations could make much better and much more enlightened and productive choices than the UK Government have shown themselves capable of making so far.

Finally, there is the environmental crisis. Let me be very clear about this: there can be no transition to net zero in the UK without the skills, human capital, knowledge and the expertise of the north-east of Scotland, particularly the contribution of the constituents I represent. COP26 made many important steps forward. Despite that, we are still seeing an almost complete mis-match and failure to engage the clutch plate when it comes to aligning Government rhetoric with actual tangible Government action in this Bill.

The Government have already failed to match the £0.5 billion commitment from the Scottish Government to net zero transition work in the north-east of Scotland for Aberdeen city, Aberdeenshire and Moray. They have also, completely and inexplicably, failed to proceed with the Acorn carbon capture and underground storage project just north of my constituency in Peterhead. An enormous percentage of the potential carbon capture storage is just offshore from Peterhead. It was the most advanced project. It is the only one that can repurpose existing infrastructure. It is the one that can come online most quickly. It is the one that can accept imports of carbon dioxide from other parts of the UK that are as yet not up and running and do not have the ability to sequestrate their own carbon. I am thinking particularly of the clusters in south Wales and around the Solent. It is an absolutely inexplicable decision, which seems to have been taken purely for partisan political reasons and the benefit of playing the politics of the pork barrel in parts of the north of England.

In conclusion, the Bill fails to get to grips with the key challenges that we knew we were facing heading into the Budget. We can only hope that it improves as it goes through Committee and on Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Helen Whately)]

It is a pleasure to close this debate on behalf of the Government. In a moment I will address many of the points raised in the debate, but I want to begin by reminding the House of the announcements made by the Chancellor in the Budget: more investment in infrastructure, innovation and skills; business rates cut by £7 billion, including the 50% business rates discount for the retail, hospital and leisure sectors; a cut in the universal credit taper; a £500 increase in work allowances; and an increase in the national living wage, rewarding people for their hard work. Those are announcements that the Finance Bill builds upon.

Let me remind the House what the Bill is designed to achieve. First, it will deliver a stronger economy for the British people by encouraging businesses to invest in the UK’s future growth and prosperity. Secondly, it will help to deliver stronger public finances. Thirdly, it will improve our ability to tackle economic crime, tax avoidance and tax evasion. Finally, it will contribute to a simpler and more sustainable tax system, in turn supporting businesses and consumers.

A stronger economy and a strong, dynamic business environment go hand in hand. As a Government, we will always do everything that we reasonably can to encourage business investment. The previous Finance Bill delivered the super deduction, the biggest business tax cut in modern British history, and extended the annual investment allowance, to the end of this year, at its higher level of £1 million. Now is not the time to remove tax breaks on investment. That is why the Bill extends the £1 million level again until the end of March 2023, encouraging businesses to bring forward investment—because this is a Government who back business. It is also why the Bill will make our creative tax reliefs more generous by extending the relief for museums and galleries for another two years and doubling the reliefs for theatres, orchestras, museums and galleries until April 2023.

A number of Opposition Members spoke about the taxation of banks. I should like to put everyone straight on that. As the Bill explains, the surcharge will be set at 3% from 2023, which means that the combined tax rate on banks’ profits will increase—I emphasise that: the tax rate will increase—from 27% to 28%. [Interruption.] There seems to be some problem with doing maths. Opposition Members are shouting at me, but it is a simple fact: the rate will go up from 27% to 28%. Banks will be paying more tax. It may be convenient for Opposition Members to suggest something different—they like the rhetoric—but it is simply not true.

[Richard Thomson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Helen Whately]

I should be delighted to give way to the hon. Member.

[Richard Thomson]

As the Minister is so good at maths, can she tell us what the tax rate would be if the surcharge was not being reduced?

[Helen Whately]

The answer to that question is 33%, but the fact is that the rate is going up, from 27% to 28%. That is an increase in tax; it really is quite simple maths.

While supporting investment and competitiveness in our key industries, we must also continue to fund our crucial public services and strengthen our public finances. To keep this Government on the path of discipline and responsibility, the new charter for budget responsibility sets out two key fiscal rules. First, underlying public sector net debt, excluding the impact of the Bank of England, must, as a percentage of GDP, be falling. Secondly, in normal times the state should only borrow to invest.

That is the context for the introduction of the health and social care levy, which we have already voted on, and the 1.25% increase to tax rates on dividend income, delivered through this Bill. This funding is to provide a new long-term funding stream for health and social care, raising more than £12 billion a year over the spending review period, of which £5 billion is earmarked for social care—that picks up on the question from the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson). I would be delighted to tell him more about the plans involved in that, but I would be digressing too much from the context of the Bill and that is probably one for another occasion. However, what I will say to Opposition Members who want to scrap that extra funding is that they have no other plan to finance getting down the NHS backlog or social care reform, other than through borrowing—they would pass the cost on to future generations. The Government are taking a responsible, fair and progressive way to raise revenue. Additional and higher-rate taxpayers are expected to contribute more than three quarters of the revenue from this increase in 2022-23. Those with the broadest shoulders will pay more.

A number of hon. Members asked about the funding of net zero. Taking a step back for a moment, let me say that the net zero strategy sets out our path to net zero by 2050. Overall, we have earmarked £30 billion-worth of investment in net zero, but that is a long-term investment. Net zero funding in this spending review and Budget specifically includes £1.3 billion of energy innovation funding, £1.4 billion of public sector decarbonisation funding, £1.8 billion to help low-income households to transition to net zero, £620 million extra for the transition to electric vehicles and up to £1.7 billion for large-scale nuclear energy. So, as hon. Members can see, there is funding for net zero in the spending review and Budget. In addition, the revised Green Book means that all policy objectives need to align with net zero.

Let me turn to measures in the Bill that tackle economic crime, and tax avoidance and evasion. The Government are committed to making the UK a hostile place for illicit finance and economic crime, helping to protect our security and prosperity. In recent years, we have taken a series of steps to combat economic crime, including the creation of a new National Economic Crime Centre to co-ordinate the law enforcement response, as well as passing the Criminal Finances Act 2017, which introduced new powers for enforcement authorities to investigate cash believed to be derived from criminal proceeds. The Bill builds on those steps by introducing the new economic crime levy, which will help fund further action on money laundering, including the ambitious reforms that the Government announced in the 2019 economic crime plan, and help safeguard the UK’s global reputation as a safe and transparent place to conduct business. It is a proportionate measure, which will be paid by entities that are regulated for anti-money laundering purposes.

We are also taking action through the Bill to clamp down on promoters of tax avoidance schemes. In response to the question from the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), we are giving HMRC new powers: to freeze and secure a promoter’s assets; to introduce a new penalty on UK entities who support offshore promoters; to petition the courts to close down companies or partnerships that promote avoidance schemes; and to share more information on promoters to support taxpayers to steer clear of such schemes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I know that my hon. Friend has paid close attention to this issue, which obviously has a particular impact on his constituency. He will know that the current Dartford crossing is one of the most congested pinch points in the entire strategic road network, which is why the Thames crossing development is part of the Department for Transport’s plans. We also recognise that it needs to be brought about in a way that maximises the benefits and mitigates the cost to local communities and businesses. The commitment does include an obligation to create tens of thousands of new jobs. I understand that National Highways has recently launched a consultation, in which I know my hon. Friend and his communities will be engaged.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

In reforming domestic air passenger duty, the Chancellor could have done something really clever; he could have incentivised the use of low-carbon forms of transport domestically, and in areas where those do not exist, mitigated the impact with a best alternative. Instead, he has done something that is making travel relatively more expensive for those low-carbon alternatives. How on earth, in the week of COP26, is this contributing to the Government’s net zero efforts?

[Rishi Sunak]

As has been pointed out about three times today, alongside the cut in domestic air passenger duty, we introduced a new ultra-long-haul band with a higher rate. The net effect on carbon emissions of those two things is at least a wash, and one independent forecaster said that it would actually reduce carbon emissions. That comes alongside significant investment of £180 million to incentivise sustainable aviation fuel, and billions more for electric transportation for consumers.

Budget Resolutions

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

Owing to the extensive trailing that went on in the press beforehand, this Budget contained far fewer surprises than it properly ought to have had. At the outset, I want to take a moment to salute the bravery of the Treasury spin doctor who allowed the Chancellor to be pictured wearing a pair of flip flops in the Evening Standard the day before delivering a Budget. If we had had rather more flip flops in the Budget than we had in the Evening Standard, we might be having a different discussion and one in which I could be more favourable towards it.

The Chancellor posed the question whether we want to be a country where in every crisis people ask, “What are the Government going to do about it?” To put it bluntly, that is the wrong question entirely. The question that we should be asking, particularly of this Chancellor and this Prime Minister, is “How can we stop them making it worse?” Across a range of issues, of which I will concentrate on three—the cost of living, supply and the environment—the Budget is doing nowhere near as much as it should to tackle the crises that we face.

It is a Budget that appears to be marked by short-termism, with a conceit that it is boosting working family incomes, while still imposing levies. I am careful about treading into the friendly fire that has been exchanged, but there is certainly no arguing with the fact that, even with the reduction in the taper rate, anyone who earns an additional £1 will still lose more than if they were paying the higher rate of income tax on it. That is a marginal rate, if you like, but there is also a very high marginal rate of tax on some of the youngest and lowest earners in society, which this Budget does nothing to tackle in the face of the worst cost-of-living crisis in memory.

I know that we have all been busy gathering external reaction from our various electronic devices as best we can, but I draw hon. Members’ attention to an IFS finding:

“Over the next 5 years real household disposable income is expected to grow by 0.8% per year, well below the historical average.”

The director of the IFS, Paul Johnson, has said:

“This is actually awful. Yet more years of real incomes barely growing. High inflation, rising taxes, poor growth keeping living standards virtually stagnant for another half a decade”.

The Chancellor spoke about the importance of the first 1,000 days of a child’s life. I heartily concur, which makes it all the more extraordinary that in each year of a child’s first 1,000 days on this earth, the Government will potentially be taking £1,000 away from its family by withdrawing the universal credit uplift. In Scotland, that will mean 20,000 children drawn into poverty and thousands more drawn into hardship, undermining the impact of the Scottish Government’s Scottish child payment to families. Those who are earning at the taper will still lose out to a far greater extent for every additional £1 than any objective analysis would suggest they should.

The costs of energy are soaring, the triple lock on pensions has been removed and—lest we forget—we have seen a 1% hike in national insurance, which breaks a Conservative party manifesto commitment and will bake in geographical and generational inequalities for many years to come, but it has all been made many, many times worse by the rising inflationary pressures as Brexit shortages begin to bite. We are seeing what I believe is the most concerted attack on living standards and hard-working, hard-pressed families.

The rising growth that the Chancellor has been relying on reflects a hoped-for return to trend, rather than anything beneficial that has been happening in the Budget, but it is a return to a trend that was very sluggish before covid and is even more so as Brexit continues to bite. On covid, we clearly could not do a great deal to prevent the impact as it hit us, but Brexit is an entirely self-inflicted wound. That has not acted as an existential shock to the economy, stimulating new ways of doing things and jolting the Government into action to counteract the immediate damage. The Chancellor or the Government could have announced measures, and not necessarily even fiscal or economic measures; simply allowing more immigration to fill the shortages that we are seeing in certain sectors would have been hugely beneficial in counteracting the adverse impacts that we are seeing in our supply crisis.

The Chancellor has announced measures to increase R&D funding, which may or may not compensate—we will find out when we delve into the figures—for loss of access to European funding streams for research and innovation, but investment in research and development is a marathon rather than a sprint. The UK’s R&D spending of 1.7% of GDP is still languishing well below the OECD average of 2.5%, while Germany is way out in front with 3.2%. It remains to be seen whether or not the modest changes that the Chancellor has announced—even if they were not announced with a huge amount of modesty—will close that gap.

As I have said, we are seeing significant labour shortages, especially in the haulage and agriculture sectors. Of particular concern to me, as a Member representing a rural constituency, is the fact that an animal and potentially human welfare crisis is looming in the pig industry because there are not enough butchers and abattoir workers to deal with the capacity issues. While this Government may not class those jobs as being particularly highly skilled, they are certainly in high demand at present, and it is in no one’s interest for the demand to be as high as it is now. We are also seeing significant shortages in shops, and I do not think that anyone could reasonably be convinced by the Chancellor’s plea in mitigation that they are a result of “global inflation”. We have already seen a CO₂ crisis; it seems that we have far too much CO₂ where we do not want it and not enough where we do want it. As supply chains continue to be stretched to breaking point, this is a crisis that can only worsen and lead us into a winter of discontent.

The most pressing crisis of all is the environmental crisis. The Scottish Government are set to invest more than half a billion pounds in a “just transition fund” to benefit the north-east of Scotland, and have challenged the UK Government to match that, but I am sorry to say that nothing I have seen in the Budget so far suggests that the UK Government are doing so. In fact, what they have done this week is scupper the Acorn project in Peterhead for carbon capture and underground storage, which was the only scheme in the mix that was scalable and deliverable, using an existing infrastructure, and which could have benefited clusters in south Wales and around the Solent because of its ability to accept imports of carbon dioxide. The contrast is striking, and my constituents will see it very clearly: the UK Government roll out the pork barrel for the north-east of England, while sticking two fingers up to the north-east of Scotland.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

What has happened with the Acorn project is doubly galling, given that Scotland’s carbon assets have already been taken and now this carbon-capture asset is not being placed in Scotland, after all that has been taken from it over the decades.

[Richard Thomson]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. There has been £350 billion from the North sea since oil began to be extracted, and when it comes to dealing with the environmental consequences of fossil fuel use, we are potentially not even going to be in the pole position that we ought to be in, and will not be able to take full advantage of our geological, geographical, sectoral and intellectual advantages in that field.

This afternoon we have heard a blizzard of spending commitments, un-baselined, some of them doubtless reheating previous announcements. Together with the new fiscal rules, it put me in mind of another Chancellor who for a long time coveted the role of the gentleman next door, and of his desire to mark his own homework. We are told that today’s announcements will be Barnettised, but experience leads me to say that I need to wait, and that the Scottish Government and people in Scotland would be also be wise to wait and see what actually does come through to the Scottish Government.

This Government have demonstrated eloquently, today and in the days leading up to it, that they have no interest in working with the Scottish Government, or working with the grain of Scottish opinion to respect the democratic choices of the Scottish people. Scotland can do better than this, and shall do better, with independence.

Working People’s Finances: Government Policy

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this timely debate, as we surely head towards a cold Tory winter of discontent, of high prices, shortages and rising unemployment. I am privileged to represent a constituency in the north-east of Scotland, which is generally regarded as a prosperous area. It has certainly suffered from the oil and gas downturn over the past few years. It is still to benefit from the transition to renewable energy technologies that we all fervently hope to see, and it has certainly borne the brunt of the austerity agenda we have experienced in recent years. My constituency is a mix of urban and rural, taking in a slice of the north of the city of Aberdeen and extending out into the rural countryside, with its mix of small towns and villages. Although the economic statistics might show that it has one of the highest levels of gross value added in Scotland, never mind the UK and never mind Europe, that hides the reality of the experience for far too many who live there. Someone who went to the go-to data set of the Scottish index of multiple deprivation and looked at Aberdeenshire might pick out a handful of streets that would show a concentrated amount of deprivation, but that misses out important parts of the picture. It misses the individual stories hidden within, because the reality is that there is a significant amount of rural deprivation and a range of intersecting factors that contribute to that.

As I know myself, living in a small community, there is the perennial issue of trying to find childcare. The Scottish Government are tackling that with their 1,140 hours of free childcare, which it is no exaggeration to say will be an absolute game-changer for many in Scotland with young families.

There are the additional costs of heating, particularly for those who live off the grid. People who get their energy for heating and cooking from heating oil do not get the opportunity to shop around on MoneySuperMarket.com for the best suppliers. There is a limited number of suppliers and they have to buy in bulk. Despite some of the many laudable community initiatives that have come through the community planning system to try to take the edge off that for people, it is still an additional expense of rurality.

There are transport costs. Not everybody lives near a public transport link, so there is the added cost of having to run a car to get to work, get about and access public services when public transport is not always an option.

People have been hard-pressed by austerity for a number of years. It is easy for those who have never lived in such an environment or who have never experienced scarcity or shortage in any significant way themselves to fully understand how expensive it can be to be short of money. People buy what they can afford, not what lasts best. They pay more for their energy, particularly if they are, as many colleagues have said, trapped on a prepayment meter, with everything that goes with that. Access to credit and financial services is much harder and is often more expensive when it is available.

Deprivation also hits those who at one point might have been seen as doing well—we could call them, as some have, the precariat. A significant number of people right across Scotland and the UK are probably no more than a missed pay cheque or a significant household expense away from serious financial difficulties. Let me cite the example of a citizens advice bureau that is not in my constituency—it is in the neighbouring constituency to the south, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine—but covers areas of my constituency and I do not believe it is atypical. This citizens advice bureau is located in Westhill—in what would, on the surface, look like a prosperous set of communities there and roundabout—but it has one of the highest rates of people coming through its doors in search of debt advice.

Right across the north-east of Scotland, the use of food banks is common; not a community is unserved and, as we have heard, demand is, as in other areas, heading in only one direction, and sadly it is not down.

For me, tackling poverty means many things, but above all it means treating people as citizens, with dignity, and enabling them to participate fully in society on their own terms, shorn of the shame of being left without. What does it say of the UK Government that they have made a set of policy choices, particularly over the past fortnight, that seek to make it harder for families and individuals to provide that dignity for themselves and to participate as they might wish in wider society?

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the people in my constituency of Swansea West and elsewhere who voted in good faith for Brexit—for more money, more control and more jobs—have seen a sort of Brexit dividend, which is basically rising food prices, because of food barriers and a falling currency, and national insurance going up and universal credit going down? Does he think that the poorest should get an injection of money to make up for that, rather than being hammered?

[Richard Thomson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a succinct and powerful point about how people voted in good faith for something that has turned out to be a fiction and a fantasy. I would always argue for more money to help those who are most in need—there is also an economic benefit to that in the boosting of consumption—but one of the first steps we could take is not to take money away. If the hon. Gentleman waits patiently, he may hear that I have more to say on that later in my speech, but he makes a powerful point.

In the Minister’s response to the opening speech of the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), he spoke of the need to make tough choices. It is that macho rhetoric—fine, easy words that fall a great deal harder on those on whom those choices impact than they do on the perennial Conservative and Unionist party’s self-conceit of being a party of low taxation, which it seldom ever lives up to in office in any meaningful way.

Those tough choices come with very long-standing consequences: they impact on people’s children; they impact on family life and well-being; they impact on a person’s health; they impact on their self-esteem; they impact on their opportunities; and they impact on life chances, and they do so across generations.

In the past fortnight alone, we have seen the triple lock gone, removing the link between earnings and pensions. We have seen the end of furlough. We have seen the £1,040 cut to universal credit. We have seen a breaking of the manifesto promise not to increase national insurance, in a move that will hit the youngest and the poorest the hardest and that will embed generational and geographical inequalities and bake them into our social and economic reality for generations to come. As has been said, this has all been exacerbated by Brexit, with the shortages of products that that will bring, allied to an accompanying increase in prices.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Does my hon. Friend feel that, after a decade of austerity, after all the hits from Brexit, and after covid, this is the worst possible time to be taking money away from people?

[Richard Thomson]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I was deficient—I should have said what a magnificent speech she made earlier on, encapsulating as it did what it really means to be without and to be in search of that dignity. She is absolutely correct in what she says: this is absolutely the worst time to be taking away that support. It is almost like the Chancellor has gone out to the pub for a round of drinks. He has carried the drinks away from the bar—it was a very complicated order—and staggered across the floor with a big tray, and when he is about one yard from the table, he drops the whole lot, and leaves it smashed on the floor. It is the same with the economy, having carried it thus far. It is inept to say the least.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Thomson]

I will give way with great pleasure. The hon. Gentleman has been waiting some considerable amount of time, so I cannot wait to hear what he has to say.

[Douglas Ross]

I always wait a long time to hear from the hon. Gentleman. He is speaking about the worst possible decision at the worst possible time. As we face a global energy crisis, does he not agree that it is the worst possible decision to allow the Greens into a coalition Government in Scotland, and does he agree that it will affect my Moray constituents and his Gordon constituents if they get their way and have the oil industry transition or die and shut down in the next 10 years?

[Richard Thomson]

That is surprising for a gentleman who has served in both Parliaments. I would have expected him to be quite au fait with the constitutional settlement. There is no decision that can ever be taken in Holyrood that would bring about the situation that he describes. [Interruption.] When I am on my feet, the hon. Gentleman needs to be in his seat, as I believe he said last week to somebody more senior than either of us for the moment. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government have managed, through this deal with the Greens, to invest money in the energy transition. There is actually money on the table—money that has not been put on the table by the UK Government despite their big words. They are delivering infrastructure for my constituents, with investment in roads and the examination of possible future investment in rail. I am certain that the benefits will fall through to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and to Moray as well, even though I have absolutely no doubt that he will find the worst possible angle that he can try to put on it for his election leaflets when he is next up for election.

We have a UK Government who speak the language of levelling up, while simultaneously grinding down on those who work the hardest and those who have the least. I personally would much rather that we judge their efforts on the fairness that they exhibit in their approach to Government and the equality of opportunity that can be offered to all regardless of means or background to deliver the improved outcomes that we all strive for.

If we want to build back better and build back fairer, Scotland quite clearly needs to be well away from the baleful influence of Conservatives in this place and from the continued rule of Westminster Conservative Governments.

Levelling-up Agenda

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I too congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on securing this important and timely debate.

The last time I spoke in Westminster Hall was on the similar topic of transport funding in the north of England. I thought, “I can’t resist getting involved in this and sticking my oar in.” I made a couple of points that I hoped were helpful to Members, based on our experience in Scotland over many decades when it comes to getting money out of the UK Government. I said that they could play with the formulas in the Treasury Green Book all they liked but if the Prime Minister, when he was Mayor of London, claimed that £1 spent in Croydon was worth more than £1 spent in Strathclyde, it could be taken that he also meant that £1 spent in Croydon was worth more than one spent in Merseyside, Teesside, Tyneside or Humberside. Clearly, levelling up is not in this Prime Minister’s DNA.

We should scrutinise closely how his Administration carry that agenda forward. We should not be the least bit surprised that when we looked specifically at the £1 billion allocated from the towns deal, we saw that 39 of 45 places that benefit happened to be represented by Conservative MPs. Imagine that.

In Scotland, we do not have metro Mayors, but for a time I was co-leader of Aberdeenshire council, and on behalf of that local authority, I put pen to paper on what amounted to, in total, a £750 million city region deal between Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen city. That brought the Scottish Government and the UK Government together; it brought the public and private sectors together, and it got local government involved. It treated everyone fairly, as equals, and it is bringing significant benefits. We got that to diversify the economy and to bring prosperity to some parts of the north-east of Scotland that needed it, as well as to home in on some of the areas where we felt we had a comparative advantage, but we did it, in stark contrast to the UK Government’s levelling-up agenda, by respecting the spheres and the tiers of Governments at all levels.

Since then, we have seen the power grab of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and the way that the UK Government have tried to bypass devolved Government. It is a disgrace, but it is very clear to see why that happened. The UK Government want to direct money not where it will do the most levelling up in a lot of cases, but where they think it can do the most political good for the Conservative party.

We can see exactly why that is in Scotland. The Conservatives know that they cannot win an election. In fact, they came within about 0.2% of seeing the Scottish National party being re-elected as a Government and being sacked as the official Opposition. Knowing that they cannot win an election in Scotland, they instead seek to bypass the established spheres and tiers of Government, undermining the only national Government that is directly elected and accountable to voters in Scotland. I think that is a terrible shame because there was an opportunity to work together, to respect the spheres and tiers of Government, to look in the round at the powers that the Scottish Government have and to give them the borrowing powers they need to invest in the long-term infrastructure and societal change that we need to level up.

In north-east Scotland, the Conservatives have complained long and loud about local funding. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). He lives in a tier 1 area. Aberdeen city has been put in tier 2 and Aberdeenshire has been put into the lowest tier possible. These are the areas that have been punished and penalised most through Brexit and have received the very least through the levelling-up agenda so far. Added to the loss of the EU funding that they could have expected, this simply rubs salt in the wound.

It is now clear beyond doubt, viewed from where I represent, that this Government have absolutely no intention of building a fair recovery. Giving the Scottish Government the powers they need to build back better and to build back recovery through an independence referendum is clearly the only way to enable us to build back better and build back fairer.