Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means)

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate today. I have been listening to the debate from the start with some interest, and there have certainly been some vigorous contributions. I must say that I was presented with some hope by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) when he spoke to the actual motions. I was nearly aghast, because for me this debate has felt a bit like groundhog day, to be honest.

Twelve months ago, like all of us in this House, I was out there pounding the streets in my constituency, 70% of which had voted to leave the European Union. There had been a Labour MP there for some 90 years. I was there as grown men were breaking down and crying on their doorsteps because everything they believed in had been completely betrayed and abandoned. They had been told that they did not understand what they had voted for, that they had no comprehension of the impact of what they had done, and that as a result, they did not really deserve to have their voices heard. That is why I am here today; it is because of how they felt.

I will now get to the core of the motions. Hon. and right hon. Members have talked in much depth, and I want to talk about the VAT implications, particularly for my retailers, and about motion 4 on the Order Paper. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough made a very detailed interrogation of these regulations, and he was right. This is about ensuring that our high streets, our domestic retailers, can have a balanced playing field as we move forward.

These regulations are needed either way, because we have to accept the fact that we have left the EU and that on 1 January we will have a new relationship, whatever that looks like. My constituents, leave or remain, want a deal. They want to ensure that this is done. There is no denial about that. We want to get this done in the right way. We want that consistency; we want to ensure that traders can carry on. I represent an area that has a significant manufacturing and advanced engineering base. We want to be sure that our manufacturers and engineers can still have access to those markets, that it can be done in the right way and that they know where they are and where they stand.

I completely stand with the Government in their commitment to ensuring that we get there, but, as right hon. and hon. Members have said, it is a historical fact, which we know from previous negotiations such as these, that they go to the eleventh hour, and political bluster and back and forth often characterises them. I am absolutely behind the Government in their attempts to ensure that we get that deal, because my manufacturers and my businesses need it.

Coming back to the point on VAT, which has been raised consistently throughout this debate, we have seen the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, and let us just for a moment remember what we are talking about with these motions. We are talking about real people. We are talking about their livelihoods. We are talking about how they provide for their families.

It might seem quite abstract when we talk about ways and means resolutions and what they mean, because at their heart is the technical and administrative way in which revenue is raised. They are very technical motions, and I do not think they are going to garner a wide audience at five minutes past 5 in the afternoon—although we never know; some of the speeches today have certainly garnered some interest. However, at the core, this is about those individuals we are here to represent, about those families, and about ensuring that businesses, particularly on our high streets—as right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken to these motions have stated—are able to carry on. As we come through this period into next year, it will be vital to ensure that we can have communities that thrive again and that we get beyond this.

The fact is that life is going to move on. We are going to have to go into 2021 and carry on with our lives. We will have to move forward, whatever our nation looks like; I appreciate there are divergent views across the House on how that will look in one way or another, but we must ensure that we can function, that our constituents can carry on with their lives and that business can carry on, and that is what these motions are about. At their heart is the practicality of ensuring that we can raise revenue, that we can follow through those taxes and that our VAT system works.

To pick up a point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) made, we have real potential now, with our VAT freedoms coming back to us, to do some really innovative things. A prime example would be zero VAT on sanitary products; that has been a huge campaign, and I pay tribute to the people involved in it. That is something that we can ensure carries on. Equally, on digital books and services, we can ensure that, in areas such as mine with some of the highest levels of child deprivation, we close the digital gap and ensure that educational opportunities are there.

People might think that these things are minutiae and that they are abstract compared with everyday life, but they are not. They are at its core. We do not hear about them and we do not talk about them often, but they are there and they have an impact on every single one of our communities, from Princes End in my constituency to Aberdeen, Broadland, Harrogate—even Doncaster, Madam Deputy Speaker. They have an impact on everyone.

We talk about the importance of these resolutions and why we must get them through, and that is about ensuring that ultimately, as we move forward, we can operate a tax system that is efficient and that can carry on and that, as we look forward to 2021, as life goes on beyond these debates that have plagued us now for four and a half years and as we finally respect the decision that was taken by 70% of my constituents in 2016, we can do so in an efficient way that works for everyone. I will be supporting these resolutions today, and I commend my right hon. Friend the Minister for bringing them forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Member makes a fair point, but I would point him back to the political declaration, which sat alongside the withdrawal agreement, within which there were clear commitments from the European Union to agree an ambitious free trade agreement. He must accept, as commentators on that side of the fence—on the Opposition Benches—have also said, that it is clear the European Union has been difficult in these negotiations, and more difficult than perhaps many had anticipated. It is clearly in the European Union’s interests and their constituents’ interests to agree a free trade deal without this kind of last-minute drama.

[Shaun Bailey]

On that point, I am sure my hon. Friend will, like me, have seen in the press German car manufacturers begging the German Government and saying, “We’ve got to get this done. The European Union has got to get it done.” Equally, French fishermen have been doing the same with President Macron. Surely our European cousins and partners get this—that it is a bilateral thing that the European Union needs to do—but why do the Opposition seem not to get that? Perhaps he could enlighten me.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Of course, the European Union is negotiating in its interests and is obviously trying to protect its interests in that negotiation, but one thing the European Union has done much better than we have on this side of the channel is negotiate with one voice. In this place, we have not—we absolutely have not—and that has undermined the UK’s negotiating position. If the Opposition think that the European Union does not hear what this place says, that is clearly a naive position. If the Opposition think that the European Union does not hear what this place says, that is clearly a naive position. I would argue, at this very late stage, that we work together, cross-party, to try to bring about a situation where we can get the free trade agreement that we all know is possible and can be delivered within the timescale we have left.

Taxation (Post-transition Period) Bill

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. It has certainly been a wide-ranging and interesting one, on both sides of the House.

Trade is among the most efficient ways to ensure that peace can be maintained between the communities in Northern Ireland as a whole, and to maintain the prosperity of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. I believe that this Bill secures that. In creating the legal framework for customs, VAT and excise charges, the Bill will make a real and positive impact on trade in both Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, including in my communities in Wednesbury, Oldbury and Tipton. It will have a sizeable effect, given that 10% of England’s exports are to other parts of the United Kingdom, and particularly to Northern Ireland, with Northern Ireland external purchases from Great Britain coming in at around £14 billion. In specifying that customs charges will apply to certain goods only if they are at risk of moving into the EU, the Bill provides greater certainty and will ensure that our businesses can have the brighter future that they are looking for. Equally, the Bill will ensure that businesses across the United Kingdom can benefit from a continual flow of goods between the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and that Northern Ireland exports and imports do not have to suffer from barriers to trade.

It is quite right that our red line in this Bill has been the ability to set our own customs laws and excise duties. We are going to see the benefit of that in January, with the streamlining of some 6,000 tariff lines and the removal of tariffs on some £30 billion of imports entering supply chains, particularly within manufacturing, which is a key industry for areas like mine in the Black Country. We are going to do that while ensuring that there is no hard border on the island of Ireland, that we maintain the peace that has been built there over generations, and that we maintain the integrity of the communities within Northern Ireland.

Let me turn to the technicalities of the Bill. My hon. Friends the Members for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) and for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) touched on the tax element, particularly VAT. As we have heard, schedule 3 finally ensures that our high street retailers can have the level playing field that they desperately need. As I touched on in my contribution yesterday, this has been a horrendous year for our high street retailers, with all the uncertainty and difficulties that they have come through, so ensuring that they are on a level playing field with online retailers and are able to obtain those benefits—and, equally, ensuring that the tax revenue that we have lost out on so far can be put into our vital public services, which have stepped up to protect us and our constituents during this time—is absolutely crucial. I welcome that part of the Bill.

I am extremely conscious of time, so I will round off my comments. Ministers have been given quite a degree of discretion under the words in the Bill, both in some of the definitions, and in some of the abilities that they will have. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) touched yesterday on the point that Ministers have to realise the potential of what they can do through this Bill. I implore my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench to realise the potential in some of the abilities and powers that they have in this Bill, and to ensure that they get this right as we move forward—because we will move forward into 2021, and we have to ensure that, as we implement these measures, we do the best by all traders and all businesses operating within our United Kingdom.