National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

Debate between Shaun Bailey and Jacob Young

2nd reading
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

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

It is, actually, a pleasure to follow the considered and well thought out speech of the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). I agreed with some of the principal points that he made, particularly the need for this to be an ongoing discussion. We cannot allow what has been suggested today to be the full stop at the end of the sentence; we must allow the debate to carry on so that we can have those broad discussions. I share his concerns, which are also articulated in my own communities, about the plight and the difficulties that pensioners face. People on limited incomes make up a large proportion of my constituents, and also of the communities that I live in and have been brought up in.

Coming in at this point of a debate means that we have already had intensive discussion of the facts and the figures and what the OBR and the IFS have said, and I do not wish to regurgitate all the things that hon. and right hon. Members have said. None the less, we are facing an unprecedented situation. Broadly speaking, the interventions made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor yesterday were welcome. As we have discussed, the balancing of the national insurance personal thresholds will enable, to a degree, a tax cut for hard-working people in this country. The levelling up—for want of a better expression—of those rates forms part of a broader package.

The hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray), who is back in his place, talked about a one-off windfall tax. He strikes me as someone who will go very far on the Labour Front Bench, so I do not want to stunt his political career by agreeing with what he said. None the less, he does make an interesting point about a windfall tax. I have listened intently to the debate about this. My concern about a windfall tax, which might perhaps improve or be slightly better than what is being proposed today, is the broader unintended consequences that it might bring, such as that tax being passed on to consumers. Many many hon. and right hon. Members throughout the Chamber have picked up on that point today. We are dealing with multinational corporations, many of which have complex tax structures and people who are paid very well to avoid and to dodge tax, often using international laws. The one-off nature of what is being proposed, therefore, makes it very difficult to build a legislative framework that would operate in a way that would enable us to derive the benefit.

I do not disagree with Opposition Members about energy companies making exorbitant profits, because we see the figures. The point I come back to, though, is allowing any measure actually to be deliverable. That was a point I made when I intervened on my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury at the start of the debate. It is about operational delivery—it is not just a slogan; it is about reality. It is about ensuring that people on the ground, who either derive the benefit or face the impact of what we decide in this place, can actually see that. My concern with what Labour is proposing is that, while on paper there are some interesting proposals, in reality, I question whether some of it can be delivered. My concern is the unintended consequence of my constituents bearing the brunt of increased prices as a result of those proposals.

[Jacob Young]

One of the oil and gas companies whose name is batted around the Chamber is BP. BP is investing millions of pounds in Teesside in its new carbon, capture and storage facility, Net Zero Teesside, alongside Hydrogen Teesside, which is a hydrogen production facility. Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that these are energy sources of the future, and that the investment we are seeing right now is important in building our future energy security? If we were to go down the route that Labour is proposing, it is feasible that many energy companies would pull out of their investment in green technologies of the future, which we are so desperate to see.

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend has been endowed with some form of clairvoyance today; it is almost as if has seen the second part of the point that I was about to make. He is absolutely right. We have to take a two-pronged approach. The fact is that these companies are investing, particularly in areas such as his. They are vital stakeholders in the future sustainability of energy in this country, so we cannot just take a pull-the-rug approach, or treat them completely as the bad guys. Yes, of course, exorbitant profits are being made. I acknowledged that in the first part of my speech; I am not denying that. The focus of what the Government and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has done is to try to put the burden on those the broader shoulders, and that is the point that I am trying to drive home. My hon. Friend is right, though, that we must ensure that we encourage these organisations to continue to invest not only in the sustainability of our energy market, but in ensuring that we get the jobs and skills we need for people to realise the ambitions that we put forward in the spring statement yesterday. He is, of course, absolutely right in his intervention, and I thank him for it.

I was very pleased yesterday to see the letter sent by my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Business Secretary to the petroleum companies, saying that the cost benefits as a result of the fuel duty reduction—I am sure there will be chunterings and arguments that it was not enough—should be reflected on the forecourt. That was the right thing to do.

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary is on the Front Bench, may I also say that I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to a value for money committee, which is being set up? I know she will respond more broadly on HMRC’s implementation of some of these NI measures, but it is vital that we ensure value for money and delivery on the ground for constituents —never more so than with the Bill we are debating today.

I should say that I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee, and value for money is our raison d’être. I am concerned that we often put things in place without thinking about how they are reflected on the ground and what value for money actually means there. For my constituents, particularly the most vulnerable, this is about ensuring, as right hon. and hon. Members have said, that they can buy their school uniform and meet the additional costs they will face as a result of where we are now.

When we talk about the changes in the NI threshold rates, I think particularly of the many sole traders and small businesspeople in my constituency who will have to navigate this change, building systems and putting them in place. It is therefore right that the Government have sought, rather than bringing in this change straight away, to delay it to July to allow that process to be embedded. I make a plea to my right hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary to ensure that HMRC has the systems to do that, because there have been times when I have not been impressed with HMRC and the way it has implemented such things. It is vital that the Treasury get a grip on that, to ensure that we can unleash the full benefit of what this measure is intended to do. In my very short time here, compared with many others in this place, I have learned that, whatever our political objectives and political will on particular measures, delivery on the ground can be very different and can sometimes mar them. The plea I hope she takes away from my comments is to ensure that this measure can be realised and benefit our constituents more broadly.

As I said at the start of my contribution, this is about a broader range of packages. Touching on what the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said, this Bill cannot be the end of the conversation; it must be the beginning.

[Jacob Young]

Yesterday, the Chancellor published his tax plan, which sets a course for the first income tax cut in many, many years—I am not sure how many—for working people across the country. Does my hon. Friend welcome those steps, which give tax certainty to both constituents and employers?

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; it is the certainty in that plan that allows us to move forward. That is the point I want to drill down on, and he has articulated it much more eruditely than me—it is obviously the fantastic focus he has, being a Teessider. Publishing a plan that sets a clear roadmap, as our right hon. Friend the Chancellor did yesterday, is vital so that we know where we are going and the fiscal interventions we will have to make to help people. That is what people are looking for.