The Growth Plan

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Kwasi Kwarteng

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

They will be hundreds of pounds better off. The 1p rate provides a £330 benefit. The energy intervention provides roughly £1,200 a household. People all across our society will benefit from the approach that we are adopting. As my hon. Friend reminded the House, and as the socialists have never understood, we cannot tax our way to prosperity.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is already clear that this desperate bid for an economic bounce after a decade of failure is based not on a plan for growth, but on a wing and a prayer that if the rich get richer, all will be well. It comes at the price of higher borrowing and inflationary pressures that will result in interest rates and mortgage rates going up. As the Chancellor brings in large tax cuts for the already well-off, what is his message to his mortgage-paying constituents and mine who are stuck on high interest rates? I am thinking particularly of those who are mortgage prisoners with standard variable rates that they cannot change, who will see their mortgage payments rise further and faster, with his policies threatening the very home ownership that he says he supports.

Energy Security Strategy

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Kwasi Kwarteng

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Onshore wind is the cheapest power available to us, and the cleanest. Does the Secretary of State accept that bills for families and business will be much higher as a result of his failure to back it?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We have done more than many in driving onshore wind. The hon. Lady will know that we suspended the pot 1 auction and have brought it back, that we have more onshore wind than pretty much any other country in northern Europe, and that we continue aggressively and passionately to promote onshore wind.

Corporate Transparency and Economic Crime

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Kwasi Kwarteng

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement and for our call with the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), this afternoon. The Labour party and the House are united in our support for Ukraine and we take very seriously our role in ensuring that Russia’s unprovoked and unjustifiable aggression fails.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken the world, with huge concern across Parliament and the country about the invasion and the unfolding humanitarian crisis. It is clear, however, that it has taken the Russian invasion of Ukraine to shake the Conservative party into finally taking the action that is required. These steps are imperative, not just for financial transparency but for our national security, and the Government’s action on that to date falls far short of the leadership required. That is why we must urgently take the necessary steps to drag illicit finance out of the shadows and make it clear that the UK will no longer be a home to dirty money.

We therefore support the Government in introducing the emergency legislation in the light of the atrocities that we are seeing in Ukraine. The need for it is clear for all to see, but the Secretary of State will recognise that these steps have been needed for a long time. He will know that Labour and, indeed, some Government Members have been calling for years for the measures that the Government have announced. We were first promised this legislation in 2016, and this draft legislation has in fact been ready since 2018. Although we support the Government’s actions today, the Secretary of State needs to take responsibility for the time and progress lost through Government inaction. I hope we will see that lessons are learned for this Bill and future legislation, because time is of the essence.

The UK would have been in a much stronger position to act with speed and our national security would have been better protected if the register had already been up and running. That is why the Government must move quickly, because the dangers of a lack of transparency, particularly in the current climate, are all too plain to see. If the intention, as stated, is to impede Russian money, the register will need to be operational in the coming weeks to have any effect. I assure the Government of Labour’s full support in moving through the Bill’s stages quickly, and hope in turn that they will act quickly to make the register and other measures a reality.

I wish to press the Secretary of State on some key areas in which the Government must go further to make the measures as effective as they could be, and I do that in the spirit of cross-party support. I welcome his announcement that the economic crime transparency and enforcement Bill, or some aspects of it, will finally be introduced tomorrow and welcome the White Paper reforms to Companies House, but frankly, we have to ask whether a White Paper is all he is bringing forward on Companies House—[Interruption.] We have been promised more before, and the Prime Minister announced that more immediate steps would be taken. Will the Secretary of State confirm when other aspects of the economic crime Bill, such as the reform of Scottish limited partnerships and the power to seize crypto-assets, will come before the House?

Will the Secretary of State confirm that the register of overseas entities will be publicly available and that there will be criminal penalties for non-compliance? Will those criminal penalties apply to those who fail to update the register annually, as well as to those who provide false information? Will he confirm when the register will be up and running? Can he give an update on the Crown dependencies and overseas territories, and will he commit to enacting similar reforms and to the Government taking action if they do not take action?

The freedom of our press will be vital throughout this invasion. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether the Government intend to use Monday’s legislation to tackle strategic lawsuits against public participation, so that journalists are not silenced and can freely report on the financial activity of Russian oligarchs? Finally, will he update the House on the discussions that he is having with the devolved Administrations on these important measures? I look forward to his response.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her points. Clearly, on the time that this has taken, she will remember that in the 2017 to 2019 Parliament, a huge amount of our time was taken up by members of the Labour party and the Opposition parties frustrating Brexit. They absorbed a huge amount of parliamentary time and I am afraid that that was one of the reasons we could not expedite this sort of legislation.

There will be criminal liability for failure to update the register annually and for giving misleading or inaccurate information. We are working with the Crown dependencies to update their transparency; by next year, they will have to have much greater transparency requirements. The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that my Government colleagues and I speak to our counterparts in the devolved Administrations on a very regular basis.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Kwasi Kwarteng

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend will appreciate the excellent statement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer a couple of weeks ago. There was a range of measures totalling £9.1 billion, which included the council tax rebate for bands A to D and a £200 reduction in energy bills, totalling £350 to reduce bills. As I alluded to earlier, there was also an extension of the warm home discount.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State omitted to mention that inflation is now at its highest level for 30 years. Energy costs are spiralling and the private sector has yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels. Does he acknowledge that the Chancellor’s very large rise in national insurance, coming in April, will make a bad situation for British businesses even worse?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am delighted to hear Members from the Opposition parties so bullish about our economy, given that we are the fastest growing economy in the G7! The hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) mentioned Germany; I was very struck by the Bundesbank saying that Germany was facing recession, but we do not hear about that. We are creating more jobs, we have announced record investment and the Government’s plan is working in terms of bouncing back better from the pandemic.

[Seema Malhotra]

The Secretary of State did not answer the question, because he knows that this is a high-tax Government because they have created a low-growth economy. May I also raise his recent claim that fraud is not something that affects people day to day? Fraud is estimated to cost the British economy as much as £52 billion a year, so will he accept that he has got this wrong? Will he apologise to the 4.6 million people who are victims of fraud each year, and tell the House today what steps he will take to do better?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I will tell the hon. Lady exactly what steps I will take to do better. I will constantly and always fight against Labour’s socialism, its windfall tax, its inability to plan ahead and its total lack of remorse for the fact that it destroyed manufacturing jobs in the time it was in government.

Subsidy Control Bill

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Kwasi Kwarteng

2nd reading
Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

I have given way to the right hon. Lady already and I hope she will not mind if I continue my remarks.

Will the Secretary of State clarify whether it is the Government’s intention that First Ministers, or public interest groups, be considered interested parties for the purposes of being able to bring forward a challenge to a subsidy decision—if so, why will the Government not put that in the Bill?—or will a challenge have to be made via the Secretary of State?

This is not where the devolution challenges end. Perhaps the Secretary of State could clarify his remarks on Northern Ireland, because, as I understand it, under article 10 of the Northern Ireland protocol, EU state aid rules must apply to subsidies that affect trade between Northern Ireland and the EU. This affects not only subsidies granted in Northern Ireland but subsidies granted throughout the UK. There is a risk—unless the Secretary of State wants to correct me—that article 10, taken alongside the new subsidy regime, could cause legal or practical difficulties, particularly if the UK and EU disagree on what affects EU-Northern Ireland trade.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I thought that I could not have been clearer on this precise point in my opening speech. I repeat: it is clearly no longer necessary for Northern Ireland to be subject to the EU state aid regime, and that is precisely why we proposed a change to the Northern Ireland protocol in order to bring all subsidies within scope of the domestic regime.

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the Secretary of State. Indeed, I did hear those comments in his opening remarks. I was seeking to clarify the issue because I do not think it is clear across the House, and it is important that it is tested and made clear in the course of the passage of the Bill.

Crucially, what is the Government’s intention if the Bill does not receive legislative consent from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as has been requested?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Kwasi Kwarteng

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

What the timeframe is for bringing forward the legislative proposals on employment announced in the December 2019 Queen’s Speech.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to say here in the House that the Government do intend to bring forward the employment Bill when parliamentary time allows.

[Seema Malhotra [V]]

The TUC estimates that 3.6 million people—one worker in nine—were in insecure work ahead of the coronavirus outbreak, leaving them exposed to massive drops in income or unsafe working conditions. It was bad then, and it is worse now. The Government have driven the author of their own Taylor review to say in quite extraordinary terms that the Government have lost their “enthusiasm” for enforcing workers’ rights. With no employment Bill yet on the horizon, is that not the plain truth for all to see? Whose side are the Government on?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I will take no lessons from the hon. Lady about workers’ rights and what this Government have done over many years to protect workers’ rights. The national living wage is higher than it has ever been in this country’s history. We have taken thousands of people out of tax, and I am not going to take any lectures from her.

Tax Credits

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Kwasi Kwarteng

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should ask what will happen to the 4,500 working families in his constituency who are set to see an average cut in their household income of more than £1,300. What impact will that have on whether they can keep their home, put food on the table or afford clothes for their children? I suspect that he will have a lot to answer for in his constituency.

A million single parents who are in work are set to be £1,000 a year worse off and 1.5 million married women will be £600 poorer.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Seema Malhotra]

I will in a moment.

These cuts will also hit the self-employed who are on tax credits. Since 2010, self-employment has grown at twice the rate of overall employment. We know that, on average, self-employed people earn 40% to 50% less than those who are in regular employment.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Seema Malhotra]

I will in a moment.

This weekend, The Observer included the case of somebody in Manchester who is self-employed. He expects his tax credits to be reduced to virtually nothing from next April. I hope that in his response, the Exchequer Secretary will be straight about what these changes mean for the self-employed.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I thank my constituency neighbour for giving way. We have heard an impressive array of statistics, but does the hon. Lady have one proposal for reducing the deficit?

[Seema Malhotra]

That is absolutely incredible. We have answered that point in the media and in articles, and I do not need to keep going over that ground. The hon. Gentleman might want to respond to the 3,000 families in his constituency who will be hit by these changes, and say how he will reply to institutions that have done hard research into these matters. The Government have chosen to carry out no impact assessment for what has been described as an “array of statistics”. This debate is about people’s lives, and the hon. Gentleman should stand up for his constituents, just as Labour Members will do when voting in the Lobby tonight—[Interruption.]