Finance Bill

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Roger Mullin

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Finance Bill because it fails to address the real economic needs of the country, continues to deepen the social divide between those who have and those who have not, restricts the financial discretion of the Scottish Government over its resources, fails to tackle the iniquity of the Scottish Police and Fire and Rescue Services being unable to reclaim VAT, creates unintended consequences for small challenger banks and building societies whose capital comes from retained profits, removes the exemption from the climate change levy of renewable energy resources and, in combination with welfare changes announced in the Summer Budget 2015 and inheritance tax changes, takes from people on low and middle incomes and gives to the very richest.”

I am proud to lead for the Opposition. I felt sorry, in many ways, for the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), as she sat there amidst the gathered masses of five Labour Members, which have now declined to three. I noticed that the Minister managed to attract 12 interventions, only one of which was from Labour.

[Shabana Mahmood]

You should have paid more attention to what I was saying.

[Roger Mullin]

Paying attention? That would be a good idea for the Labour party. You mentioned quality. If you stopped chuntering and listened, you might get a bit of quality.

We are going to do something that the Labour party has refused to do, which is to test the Finance Bill. The hon. Lady spent the first 12 minutes of her speech talking about other things because she said that there was nothing of any great substance in the Bill. I am going to try something rather unusual and talk about what is in the Bill.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I hesitate to be mean-spirited to the hon. Gentleman, but it is obvious from his remarks that he was not listening to my lengthy remarks in which I set out not that there is nothing of any substance in the Finance Bill, but that there are measures in the Bill that we support and measures that we have further questions about. That is different from the Budget, which contains measures on which we have a very real difference of opinion with the Government. We will test those when they come before the House in delegated legislation Committees.

[Roger Mullin]

So that, no doubt, explains why you could not think up a reasoned amendment.