Finance Bill

Debate between Robert Syms and Nigel Evans

2nd reading
Wednesday 13th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I agree with a lot of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) said. I was in this House for 13 years of Labour Government. Twice a year, we had the autumn statement and Budget, and all taxes were reviewed. In not one of those fiscal statements did they change the arrangement for non-doms. Why? Because it brings in more money. I am therefore shocked at the criticism from those on the Labour Front Bench of their Chancellors when in government. What we have with the Opposition is the politics of the magic money pot. The magic money pot is called non-doms, and the Opposition think that it will pay for everything. It will not; because such people are internationally mobile, they will move. The best things to tax are things that do not move, such as property. People can move, and we will not get sufficient money in as a result.

The Government have done a lot of good things. Putting up the triple lock is the right decision to look after pensioners, but those who pay tax might, because their pension will go up, pay more tax. Putting up the living wage is a good thing, because we want a higher-paid economy, but as lower-paid workers’ pay goes up, they pay more tax. It is one of the features of the modern world that those in the most successful and highest-paid economies tend to pay more tax. Although the overall tax burden, because of the freeze, has gone up, we need to reverse that, and we have started the process in the autumn statement.

The Government have set out a good long-term plan, which is essentially based on increasing the incentives for business to invest. We have a problem in Britain on productivity. One way of getting productivity up is to get pay up and investment in machinery and equipment up. If we can do that, we can pay for the public services that we all want, on both sides of the House, in terms of better education, a better health service and better outcomes. However, that requires getting productivity up. One of the problems since 2008 has been that Britain has struggled with productivity. Whatever we do, whether it involves incentives, higher pay, or credits for research and development, if it gets productivity up, that has to be a good thing.

I welcome an awful lot of what is in the autumn statement, but we should not look at it as one event; it is part of a series of events brought in by the Chancellor that mean that our national debt is falling over the plan. Our yearly deficit looks like it will be in the 3% range rather than the 4% range. Even the trade gap looks like it is improving. Our economic situation does not look too bad, and when we look over the channel to the EU and the eurozone, our problems seem rather less than theirs, with some of those countries going into recession.

I, too, saw today’s GDP figures. I would caution against any flash estimate of GDP. The monthly figures bounce around. I spent six weeks on a Finance Bill Committee during the days of the coalition when every day those on the Labour Front Bench talked about the double-dip recession, which was revised away six months later. The key point is to do the right things for the economy, get productivity up and get the economy growing, and the other things will come right. They will certainly come right when a lot of data is in. Even the three-monthly GDP data is based on something like a quarter of the stats. It is constantly updated over years and months. We should not be too fixated on short-term figures.

One reason I think the economy will grow over the next 12 months is that living standards have gone from falling to rising. That means that ultimately the British consumer ought to come to the rescue of the British economy and get it growing, if the Government can keep a stable economic situation, and pay continues to outstrip inflation, which I am very optimistic about. Brent crude has fallen under $75, which means that gas prices are now barely above where they were before the invasion of Ukraine. That has improved since the autumn statement. Petrol prices are falling again. This morning, the 10-year bonds interest rate was under 4%. That is a sign that the pressure now is to lower interest rates. The overall Government economic policy is not only to balance the books and reduce taxation in terms of national insurance, which will help 29 million people, but to get interest rates down so that, when people come to refix their mortgages, they can do so at a more reasonable rate. Good progress has been made, but we will not be free with one bound; it will take Budgets, statements and steady persistence. That means not giving in to every request for extra spending, however worthy they are individually. I commend those on the Treasury Bench and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has put together a good package, and I look forward to what will happen in March.

Before I sit down, I will pay tribute to a Labour Chancellor, Lord Alistair Darling of Roulanish, who was a very modest but very competent man. He faced what would be anybody’s nightmare in the Treasury, with banks collapsing. I think that history will treat him well for his management of the economy at that very difficult time. He is missed by this House and I am sure the other place will miss him too.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I echo that tribute to Alistair Darling. I was in the House with him for many years. He was a great politician and an excellent Chancellor of the Exchequer.

David Simmonds will make the last Back-Bench contribution. We will then move on to the wind-ups. I anticipate at least one Division.

Coronavirus

Debate between Robert Syms and Nigel Evans

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

The pandemic has been a massive challenge to the British Government. I happen to think that, given the uncertainties that they have faced, the Prime Minister and senior Ministers have done a pretty good job. In terms of the vaccination programme, they have certainly proved to the world that Britain can go alone and do a lot to safeguard its population when it uses its science and its ability to get things done.

When the road map was unveiled, I thought to myself, “At least that stops me voting against the Government again”— until we get to the point when the Government have delayed opening up. I do think that this is a matter of balance and judgment. My view is that most of the senior Ministers who took this decision need a damn good holiday. If we look at the data and at what is happening in the country, the restrictions are totally out of kilter with the sense of the problem.

Let me take the south-west of England. There are 5.6 million people in the south-west of England.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Sir Robert, can you please face the Chair? Your voice is not being picked up by the microphone and Hansard cannot hear you.

[Sir Robert Syms]

There are 5.6 million people in the south-west of England. There are 23 people in hospital. There are two in ICU. In Dorset, where there are nearly 1 million people, we have one person in hospital. Yet there are hundreds of couples who want to get married, businesses that want to be viable, and people who want to get their lives back in order. I just think that the balance is wrong. Most of the population have now been vaccinated. We may not totally break the link with people going into hospital, but there are more than 100,000 beds in the NHS. One per cent. are taken by covid patients. Now it might go up to 2%. We already have experts on TV saying, “In order for the NHS to catch up, we may well have to keep restrictions for longer.” I think that is unacceptable to the British people. As a Conservative, I am perfectly willing to accept restrictions when hundreds and thousands of people are dying and we are dealing with a virus that we do not understand, but we have sort of got to the point where we have won the battle. There will be variants. There will be challenges, but we have to get on with normal life.

The points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) are perfectly right. If it is simply that we need to get second doses in—if that had been explained—we might be a little more relaxed. If we look at the explanatory notes, though, we will see that we have a review of data in two or four weeks’ time, and not necessarily a release date. We need to get people’s freedoms back. We cannot save everybody, but what we have done is save thousands and thousands of lives. Now we need to safeguard employment, safeguard businesses and safeguard people’s personal relationships.

I began by saying that the Government have done a pretty good job and that the vaccine programme is outstanding, but we have to now take the dividend from that to get people back to normal life. When they queued up with their enthusiasm to get that jab in their arm, they thought that that meant that things would get back to normal. They did not expect that they would be in further restrictions which would go on and on and on. I think we should have lifted all restrictions on 21 June. I hope and I pray that, in two weeks’ time, the Government will look at the data again and set people free.