Oral Answers to Questions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. Friend stands up with a positively lengthy question. As he knows, I share his enthusiasm for escaping certain EU regulations when we leave the EU on 31 January. We are, however, convinced of the need to incentivise the reductions in our transport emissions that I have referred to, which represent a third of the UK’s total CO₂ output.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the Minister think that this green tax, which has increased vehicle duty by 1,000% for many motorhomes—which are used, on average, for 31 days per year and do about 2,000 miles per year—is fair, and will he review it?

[Mr Clarke]

The figure of 1,000% is somewhat misleading. Only motorhomes with the very highest emissions would fall into that category, and the extra VED applies only in the first year. But of course we keep all taxes under review. I am sensitive to the concerns of the industry; clearly, a significant number of jobs are supported by it. As always, we keep these things under a watching brief.

No-deal Brexit: Short Positions against the Pound

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I thank my hon. Friend for those kind remarks. It is clear that that would be the ultimate vote of no confidence in the British economy.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the Minister not find it ironic that the shadow Chancellor should be concerned about the future value of the pound and the impact on speculation, given that he and his party have spread economic gloom and doom, have talked the economy down, and have proposed lunatic economic policies if ever he should get his hands on the levers of power in this country? Does the Minister agree that the real honeypot for speculators is not our leaving the EU but the prospect of a Labour Government?

Spending Round 2019

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I agree wholeheartedly. Let me take this opportunity to thank my hon. Friend for—along with other Conservative colleagues—helping me to focus on the issue of Scottish farmers, which has helped to secure the £160 million. She is also right about the extra £1.2 billion for Scotland. It is a huge amount—a record amount—but, unfortunately, one thing that we can be sure of is that the SNP will waste it.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Notwithstanding the best efforts of some Opposition Members to talk the economy down, I am glad that the Chancellor has been able to make these announcements. I welcome the £400 million for Northern Ireland, which will help us to recruit police officers, reduce waiting lists and give some relief to school budgets. Does he recognise, however, that, if he is to realise his goal of levelling growth across the United Kingdom, much more still needs to be done to ensure that resources are sent to Northern Ireland and other regions of the United Kingdom to ensure that growth is experienced equally across the UK?

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend has made an important point. I thank him for his welcome for the extra £400 million for Northern Ireland, and also for his reference to levelling growth across the country. In my statement, I referred a number of times to the need to ensure that we have growth in every part of our great United Kingdom. That will require infrastructure investment and I hope that, when I set out the infrastructure strategy later this year, he will welcome it for those reasons.

Clydesdale Bank and SMEs

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. The key issue for many of these people, who have been waiting for a very long time—sometimes up to 10 or 11 years and longer—is to make sure they can get access to a mechanism that interrogates the evidence and deals with it swiftly. I was not indicating to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) that we should not say there are not parallels or themes, but I just feel that we have to look at the evidence on a case-by-case basis. I am certain that there is good will in the dispute resolution mechanism to interrogate thoroughly past cases that are unresolved.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

We acknowledge the work that the Government have done to date, and the point the Minister made about the need to strike a balance between banks being able and encouraged to lend and, at the same time, meeting the interests of their customers. Does he agree with me that an equally important balance is that between powerful financial institutions that have all the resources—and sometimes the resources of the state—behind them and small businesses that have been damaged economically by the actions of those banks and very often do not have the resources to fight back? Despite all the measures undertaken, 10 years down the line many are still seeking redress, still finding themselves blocked by the actions of the banks and now, ahead of the historical compensation scheme coming in, finding themselves forced into the courts and perhaps having their cases dealt with before the scheme comes in. Does he not agree that now is the time for an independent financial services tribunal, and for the FCA to make it clear to the banks that, ahead of the historical compensation scheme coming in, no further court action should be taken against individuals?

[John Glen]

I believe the dispute resolution service that has been set up gives the scope to go back over 10 years of disputed cases, and there is a desire to provide quick access. As the right hon. Gentleman points out, some of these cases have been going on for far too long. The situation is that the banks were in a very bad place with respect to the power they wielded over individuals and small businesses. They want to sort this out, and that is why they have engaged constructively in the construction of this dispute resolution service.

Spring Statement

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I can give my right hon. Friend that assurance. I am acutely conscious of the fact that we are committed to building a tunnel under the Thames but we have not yet committed to the link roads that will link that tunnel to the rest of the road network, and of course we absolutely will do so. This is a broader-based review to look at how we replace PFI and EIB funding over the medium term.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome this statement and the news that despite the best and concerted efforts of those who think that by talking the UK economy down they can somehow stop us leaving the EU, it is pleasing that employment is up, job creation is up, and the Government finances are in a better shape. That shows that we do not need the EU as some kind of economic crutch in order to enable us to stand on our own two feet. I also welcome the Barnett consequentials for Northern Ireland.

For the future, what progress has been made on the review of air passenger duty and VAT on the hospitality industry in Northern Ireland? If the Chancellor is going to help subcontractors deal with late payments, will he consider the use of project bank accounts, which have been very successful in Northern Ireland in ensuring that public sector spend on infrastructure projects actually reaches the companies that spend the money?

[Mr Hammond]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. I draw the House’s attention to the fact that one of the features of the jobs growth we have delivered is the regional distribution of it. This is not London-centric jobs growth; it is across the country. Productivity, wages and employment have grown in every region of the UK, which is very welcome.

The APD working group has been established, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, but we are not in a position to take any action in that area until there is a devolved Administration in Stormont. On VAT, as he knows, we are not able to take any action while we are members of or subject to the rules of the European Union, but we will continue to look at these issues.

Leaving the EU: Economic Analysis

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

What the Exchequer Secretary said at the Dispatch Box was right, and these reports deliver on exactly what he said. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman gives me a moment, I will try to explain the answer to his charge. First, he sought a comparison with the baseline, as he termed it. The baseline comparison is there: it is the status quo—it is our arrangement with the EU27 that we have at the moment as a member of the EU. He then suggests that we did not make a comparison of the deal with that, but many Labour Members have said, “We don’t know exactly what the deal is and we want to know what it is now.” We do not know what the deal is because the political declaration—understandably, given that we have a negotiation now to go through—sets out the parameters and the spectrum of potential outcomes. Therefore, in order to fulfil the obligation the Exchequer Secretary made at this Dispatch Box, we have made just that comparison—a comparison of the Chequers arrangement, with a sensitivity around that, with the base case. That is exactly what the Exchequer Secretary said we would come forward with.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

It is probably a gross understatement to say that economic forecasts have a very poor record. Since the referendum, all the forecasts have indicated that we should now be in the midst of a deep economic recession, yet the Government are boasting—and have real-time evidence—that we are riding the crest of the economic wave. In the Minister’s initial response, he said that this document was only about the potential fiscal impacts. He also said that it did not anticipate future policies, that it was based on a hypothetical free trade arrangement, and that some of the effects would be felt only in the long run, which of course is very uncertain. Can he understand why many of us in the House do not believe that it is worth the paper it is written on? This is certainly not the basis on which we should make a judgment on whether to vote for a flawed and deeply damaging deal.

[Mel Stride]

These papers put forward an honest appraisal of the estimated impacts of the different scenarios that we have been discussing this afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman makes a more general point about the inexactitude of economic forecasting, and he is right. We have a whole slew of variables, and we are looking at casting 15 years beyond the end of the implementation period—in other words, to 2034-35—which is quite a challenge. However, that is not the same as saying that we have not taken an honest and robust approach to this task. We have done that, and we have gone further. At the behest of the Treasury Committee, we have said that we will have an expert to go through all the details of the analysis, with access to all the officials across all the Departments involved, and that that information will in turn be made available.

Business Banking Fraud

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Wragg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. In his remarks in previous debates he has shown his personal experience, and he speaks for many on the issue. With the passage of time, the issues that are exposed only multiply rather than diminish. I have spoken before at length about my constituent Mr Eric Topping, who lost hundreds of thousands of pounds, including his home and retirement savings, when his profitable building company was forced into liquidation by the Royal Bank of Scotland. For every constituent like him, there are a thousand more SME owners across the country who were similarly victims of the widespread malpractice across the entire banking sector, and today we speak for them collectively.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that what makes it even more difficult for people is that those banks have been financed by taxpayers? They are using taxpayers’ money to fight these legal cases when they know that they have done wrong but that their victims do not have the resources to take them all the way through the courts.

Public Sector Pay

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Our programme of spending £23 billion on schools capital will continue. This is about finding efficiencies in our central Government budgets. I know the Labour party does not understand value for money, but that is what we are doing, so that we can put more money into schools and teachers’ pay.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The Minister will be aware that an aspect of our confidence and supply discussions with the Government involved raising the pay cap; we welcome the statement that she has made. However, given the fact that there is no Assembly functioning in Northern Ireland, what discussions has she had with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to ensure that the money is made available from departmental budgets and, secondly, that the decision is made to award these payments to teachers and nurses?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As usual, the money for this pay will be allocated through the Barnett formula, but the money is coming from the central DFE budget.

Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

He has. We are grateful to him.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

When we had the referendum result, and given the bitterness that existed during the referendum, I had absolutely no doubt that, despite the overwhelming vote, we were going to see guerrilla warfare conducted against the will of the people of the United Kingdom. We have seen it over the past year and a half—fall-outs in this place and fall-outs in TV studios, newspapers and so on. The amendments to this Bill fall into one of those two categories. People will give a whole variety of reasons, but, basically, they want to move amendments to this Bill to keep us in the institutions of the EU, which has bound us for so many years and from which people voted to be free. On the other side, there are those who wish to remain true to the vote of the people and make sure that everything is done to deliver on the promises that were made during the referendum.

Unfortunately, Northern Ireland, which has featured in nearly every speech here tonight, has been caught in the crossfire of that guerrilla warfare between those who wish to keep us in the EU and those who wish to honour the result of the referendum. The Northern Ireland border, the Good Friday agreement and the peace in Northern Ireland have been thrown around willy-nilly. To be quite frank, the people of Northern Ireland feel abused in this whole process. I have heard people in this place talk about the Belfast agreement as if it were their bedtime reading. They probably do not even know what the document looks like.

It has been suggested that if we do not abide by those who wish to keep us in the customs union and the single market, we will have a hard border in Northern Ireland, which will affect the peace. I do not know what this hard border will look like, but I can tell Members one thing: if they think that a couple of border posts along the main road at Newry, the main road into Londonderry and the main road into Enniskillen will represent a hard border that will somehow protect the EU from the incursion of goods that they do not want, then they do not even understand what it means. It could be that they think that a hard border means a minefield around the border with watchtowers so that no lorries can sneak across the 300 or so roads, or that people cannot build sheds in the middle of field where they put goods in one side in Northern Ireland and they come out the other side in the Irish Republic. It is a ridiculous suggestion, yet it is thrown at us all the time.

We heard the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) talk about the impact on the border and that the World Trade Organisation would insist on the provisions because it would have to protect trade. The Irish Republic currently brings in goods from the rest of the world. Does it stop every container that comes in? No, it does not. Does it stop 10% of the containers? No, it does not. It does not even stop 1%. In fact, Gambia stops more trade coming through its borders than the Irish Republic stops. The idea that, somehow or other, every good that comes into the EU via Northern Ireland and then the Republic will have to be stopped does not even match with common-day practice.

When it comes to collecting taxes, 13,000 lorries a year cross the border carrying drink to other parts of the United Kingdom. There is duty to be collected on that, but not one of them is stopped because the duty is collected electronically through pre-notification and trusted trader status. We can protect the border and meet WTO rules without having all the kinds of paraphernalia suggested here tonight.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right; there seem to be an awful lot of people who do not really understand what goes on at the border now. Why would anyone who supports Northern Ireland even think of voting against new clause 37 tonight? The new clause clearly puts it out there that we want Northern Ireland to be treated the same way as the rest of the United Kingdom, so in voting against it, people would actually be supporting the Republic of Ireland.

[Sammy Wilson]

That is the whole point of new clause 37. First, it would deliver on the promises made by the Government; it puts those promises into law. Secondly, it would avoid the break-up of the United Kingdom and the kind of nonsense that we are going to hear from the Scottish National party—that we can redefine the United Kingdom to exclude Northern Ireland when it comes to trade issues. Of course, that would be against the Belfast agreement, because the Belfast agreement does not actually say a great deal about borders, but it says a lot about the integrity of the United Kingdom—that it cannot be changed by diktat from the EU or by demands from Dublin. It can only be changed with the will of the people of Northern Ireland. Yet the suggested backstop arrangement is at the behest of the EU, which seems to disregard the most important part of the Belfast agreement and has destabilised Northern Ireland as a result.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is of course right that the constitutional status of Northern Ireland has not been in dispute for a very long time and is underlined by the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. People have only started talking about the constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland as a result of Brexit. That is the only thing that has now started to trigger any discussion around the break-up of the United Kingdom, and I am afraid that his party has helped that process.

[Sammy Wilson]

That is the point that I am making—that this red herring has been thrown into the debate to try to persuade people like me and Government Members to stay within the customs union and the single market. It is a red herring because, as I have said, it is not essential to have a hard border to protect trade between the United Kingdom outside the EU and the Irish Republic inside the EU. Other methods are currently used. We have a fiscal border, a regulatory border and a currency border. We do not need checks at the moment, so why would that change once we leave the EU?

The third thing about new clause 37 is that it would actually strengthen the Prime Minister’s hand. When she goes into negotiations, Barnier and Co. will still be badgering her and insisting that there has to be a different regime of regulation, law and EU interference in Northern Ireland. It will strengthen the Prime Minister’s hand to be able to say that the Parliament of the United Kingdom has said in law, “We will not and cannot change the status of Northern Ireland. We cannot have separate customs arrangements for Northern Ireland and the law says that.”

New clause 37 would also protect Northern Ireland from being cut off from its biggest market. The Irish Republic is not our biggest market. The whole EU is not our biggest market. Over 60% of the produce of Northern Ireland comes to Great Britain. Ironically, if the Government in Dublin were thinking with their head, they would recognise that the Barnier formula for the border is also detrimental to the Irish Republic, because it would mean having a border down the Irish sea, cutting the Irish Republic off from its biggest market. Over 50% of its agricultural products come here, yet it is concerned about the paltry border that counts for 1.6% of its trade. People just fail to understand why this should be the case and why the Government of the Republic should take that view.

The Prime Minister has an opportunity. New clause 37 would strengthen her hand in the negotiations coming up to October. She still has the opportunity to tell the EU, “If you want our money, give us a fair deal. We’ll prepare for a no deal if we can’t get a good deal. The balance of trade rests with us. If you want access to our markets, make sure that we get access to your markets.” That should be the approach. Get the handbag out, do a bit of swinging and get a good deal.

Spring Statement

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, I can. I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that since we reduced the rate of corporate tax to 19%, the yield—the amount of tax we raise for our public services, our hospitals and schools—has gone up 54%. It is clear that being one of the most competitive tax jurisdictions in the G20 is one of the determining factors in many investment decisions coming to the UK, creating the jobs and prosperity we need for the future.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The Chancellor is right to talk up the UK economy when there is good news, because there are plenty in this House who will recklessly talk it down. There was, however, one gap in today’s statement. He promised an inquiry, in time for the autumn Budget, into air passenger duty and VAT on the hospitality industry. When will he make an announcement on when that inquiry will start and on the terms of it?

[Mr Hammond]

I have laid a written ministerial statement today that sets out the reviews and consultations, and that is among them. If the right hon. Gentleman looks at that after this statement he will see that it is there.