Finance (No. 2) Bill
Simon Hoare ExcerptsWednesday 2nd February 2022
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Finance Act 2022 View all Finance Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 2 February 2022 - large print - (2 Feb 2022)
James Murray
No, I am going to make some progress.
The truth is that this tax cut is going ahead at a time when bankers’ earnings are on the rise, with investment banks’ profits soaring off the back of a wave of takeovers and mergers caused by the pandemic. The UK arm of Goldman Sachs—a business that the Chancellor will know well—boosted its pay by more than a third last year, Barclays is set to raise bonus payments by more than 25% in its corporate investment bank, and boutique banks in the City are expected to do especially well, as they are exempt from rules that limit bonuses.
These measures show just how out of touch this Government and this Chancellor are: they are championing a tax cut for banks while ignoring calls from the TUC, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors, Labour MPs, some on their own side, and the British public, to abandon their tax cut on working people and their jobs. If Ministers are still refusing to listen, today we are giving their Back Benchers an opportunity to say, “Enough is enough.” They can vote with us tonight to cancel the banking tax cut and make the Government think again.
The national insurance hike is wrong because it threatens people’s financial security. I will now turn to other aspects of the Bill that relate to wider economic security and the threat of economic crime.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Just before the hon. Gentleman leaves the rise in national insurance contributions—a difficult decision for any Government, particularly given the backdrop of a manifesto commitment—surely he would criticise the Government were they to put the ideology of a manifesto front and centre, instead of trying to find a way of ameliorating what would clearly be growing waiting lists and people queuing at all our advice surgeries and offices, complaining that they could not get the treatment they needed, which they were denied during the pandemic. Surely that is the right thing to do for public health and all our citizens.
James Murray
No one denies that the NHS needs more money, but hiding behind the hon. Member’s intervention is the idea that there is no other way to raise the £12 billion that the national insurance rise will raise. It takes some cheek to hear that from Conservative Members, when just yesterday we heard of £8.7 billion being wasted on PPE procurement and £4.3 billion of fraud being written off by the Chancellor—there is the £12 billion. Frankly, the Chancellor should stop wasting money, stop letting criminals get away with fraud, and stop expecting working people to pick up the bill.
Northern Ireland Protocol
Simon Hoare Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con) [V]
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) for instigating the debate. It is nice to see a mainstream debate on the affairs of Northern Ireland taking place on the Floor of the House.
Let us remind ourselves of two things at the start. Lord Frost confirmed to our Committee, the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, just a few weeks ago that he negotiated the protocol, he understood the protocol and he signed off the protocol. How people have interpreted one or two parts of it may be surprising, but it is not legitimate for the Government effectively to say, “This was new, it was an impost, it crept up on us.” This was a negotiated document between the two parties.
Without the protocol, there would still have to be checks. We are talking about the defence, for want of a better phrase, of an internal market and a single market. Those alternative arrangements, as some called them some little while ago, would, according to HM Revenue and Customs, be likely to be as, if not more, complicated and possibly more costly. For those who may be thinking that, if we get rid of the protocol, everything will go back to being normal, that will not happen. We are all in a new normal now.
This is important because there are a lot of concerns, predominantly among the loyalist community, that this is in some way a stepping stone to a united Ireland or a move to a border poll. Everybody, from the Taoiseach to the Prime Minister—at last week’s Liaison Committee, in response to a question from me—to those in Brussels and anywhere else, has to recognise that the integrity of Northern Ireland as an intrinsic and key part of the United Kingdom remains. The protocol does not change that constitutional balance one way or another.
I take the point just made by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson). I have yet to be persuaded that anybody, in their heart of hearts, ever defines their sense of belonging or loyalty by invisible trading arrangements. Citizenship, a sense of belonging and a sense of nationhood are far more powerful and emotive than that.
We should remind ourselves that there are some—there will be none in this House, I know—who refuse to accept the referendum result on the Good Friday agreement itself, and have gone around saying, “Unless we get our way on the protocol and unless it is scrapped”. Let us pause there for a moment to say that there is no majority view in support of the scrapping of the protocol. Nobody by the same token is saying that it is perfect; there is scope for change and improvement. But let us not inadvertently fall into the trap of using this debate on the protocol as a Trojan horse to undermine the Good Friday agreement. Everybody knows that, without that bedrock, there can be no progress in Northern Ireland, and none that we have seen over the past several decades.
Business wants to be engaged. Let me say to the Minister, and I look forward to her summing up: let us have that investment conference. Let us maximise those opportunities. Invest Northern Ireland is dealing with 30 requests at the moment. The business engagement forum needs to be formalised with a set agenda and regular meetings.
Trust is so important here. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex talked about the need for the EU to change. I agree in many respects. We need to see flexibility on goods at risk. We need to see flexibility on the precautionary principle and the differential of how we use laws. It is either illegal unless it is made legal, or legal unless it is made illegal. The benefit of the extensions of the grace periods has illustrated that the single market does not collapse as a result of that. Common sense is required.
I am not here to act as an apologist for the EU, but from all my conversations with them I think the issue is one of trust. They still remain uncertain as to whether Her Majesty’s Government are intent upon implementing a reformed protocol using the offices of the Joint Committee. Without that trust or certainty, there can be no progress. We need to switch our mindset from negotiate or renegotiate, to reform and implement. Let us remind ourselves that the Vice President has no mandate to renegotiate. That would have to be given by the member states and any hope for that would come only if we see that trust rebuilt. I therefore urge the Government to have that joint investment conference, build on the trust and formalise business engagement.
The Select Committee heard today from two witnesses. Let me quote both of them. Aodhán Connolly, from Northern Ireland Retail Consortium said: “The most frustrating thing for business in Northern Ireland is we can see the solutions, we just don’t see the political will to do them.” From the Ulster Farmers’ Union, Victor Chestnutt said: “Solutions are sitting there.” Well, let us not just let them sit there; let us grab them. Let us make them work and let the twin benefits of access to the UK internal market and the European Union’s single market be that blue touch paper that will reignite and light a post-covid Northern Ireland economy where the benefits to business and to citizens can be fully felt.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
To confirm the answer to the question which is being silently asked, there is no mechanism whereby Members can intervene on someone who is speaking virtually. I just ask for patience from hon. Members. Hopefully, we will only have three more days of this arrangement—we all hope.
Economy and Jobs
Simon Hoare Excerpts(5 years ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:
‘but respectfully regrets that the Gracious Speech fails to put an end to a decade of austerity, to invest in the UK’s underfunded public services, or to scrap universal credit; notes the damaging impact that the four-year freeze in working-age benefits has had on families on low income; and calls on the Government to bring forward a plan to reverse the damaging impact austerity has had on communities in the UK, tackle the climate and environmental emergency, and reshape the economy to work for everyone by clamping down on tax avoidance, tackling insecurity in work by extending full employment rights to all workers, ending in-work poverty, and introducing a real living wage.’.
I appreciate that many new Members will want to speak today, so I will seek to be as brief as possible. [Interruption.] I thought that would be appreciated on both sides. We aim to please.
You, Mr Speaker, have been in the House as long as I have, so you will know that the classic approach to a good Queen’s Speech and its subsequent debate combines an assessment of the position of the country—a state of the nation address—with at least some attempt to address the issues facing our people. On both counts, the latest Queen’s Speech and this process is by any stretch of the imagination crushingly disappointing—I believe that the overriding view that will come to be associated with this Government may well be one of disappointment. They appear to have no appreciation of the lives so many of our fellow citizens live or of the often heartrending problems they face.
The Government’s programme in the Queen’s Speech fails to reverse the decade of austerity. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said, austerity is baked into the Government’s economic policies, which fail to tackle insecure work, to end in-work poverty and to introduce a real living wage. Worst of all, the Queen’s Speech fails to address the brutal hardship caused by universal credit, introduced by this Government. We face twin emergencies: first, a climate emergency, an existential threat to our planet that, as we have seen only too well in Australia and Indonesia, is rapidly spiralling beyond control; and, secondly, in this country, a social emergency resulting from a decade of harsh austerity and decline. Last year, the House resolved that we faced a climate emergency. We should also resolve that we face a social emergency.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
If what the right hon. Gentleman says is true—and I very much doubt it—and if his Eeyore approach to what the country thinks is correct, to what does he ascribe the best result for the Conservative party since 1987 just last month?
John McDonnell
I suppose we will have a longer debate at some stage about the outcome of the last general election. I will be straight with the hon. Gentleman: I think the overriding issue was Brexit and that the overriding message was the one the Conservative party put out of “Get Brexit Done”. I ascribe the victory of the Conservative party to that. I cannot be straighter with him than that.
In the last three months in this Chamber, we have had debates on the spending review and the last Queen’s Speech in which hon. Members have highlighted report after report from independent agencies exposing the impact of a decade of austerity. I want to seize on one group as an example—a group dear to all our hearts. If we are to lay any claim to being a compassionate or even a civilised society, surely the most effective test is how we care for our children, and on that count the Government fail appallingly. Surely no Government could ignore organisations such as the Children’s Society and the Child Poverty Action Group, which have reported that more than 4 million of our children are still living in poverty. That means that one child in three is living in poverty in our country in the 21st century. Some 125,000 of those children are homeless and living in temporary accommodation.
The effects on our children of living in poverty are well documented by the Children’s Society. Those children are more likely to be in poor health, to experience mental health problems, and to have a low sense of wellbeing. They underachieve at school, and experience stigma and bullying. The shocking statistic, though, is that 70% of children living in poverty are in households in which someone is in work. The Children’s Society describes that experience as being hit by a perfect storm of low wages, insecure jobs and benefit cuts. The result is remarkable: this Government have achieved the historic distinction of being the first modern Government to break the link between securing work and being lifted out of poverty.
The Chancellor boasted recently that wage rises were at record levels compared with those of the last 10 years. That is a bizarre boast. Wage rises are at a 10-year record high because his Government have kept wage growth so low for the last decade. Average real wages are still lower than they were before the financial crisis. [Interruption.] The Chancellor, from a sedentary position, has again used the slogan “Labour’s crisis”. Let me try to find a quotation for him. George Osborne said:
“did Gordon Brown cause the sub-prime crisis in America? No.”
He went on to say that “broadly speaking”, the Labour Government
“did what was necessary in a very difficult situation.”
The Chancellor, again from a sedentary position, refers to the deficit. Let me quote again. In 2007, George Osborne said:
“Today, I can confirm for the first time that a Conservative Government will adopt these spending totals.”
He was referring to the spending totals of a Labour Government, by implication. Let me caution the Chancellor, because we might want to examine his role at Deutsche Bank, where he was selling collateralised debt obligations, described by others as the weapon of mass destruction that caused the crisis.
As I was saying, average real wages are still lower than they were before the financial crisis. The Resolution Foundation has described the last decade as the worst for wage growth since Napoleonic times. The recent increase in the minimum wage. announced with such a fanfare by the Government, reneges on their minimal commitment that it would be £9 an hour by this year. It certainly is not. The UK is the only major developed country in which wages fell at the same time as the economy grew after the financial crisis.
The Government seem to believe that the answer to low pay is raising national insurance and tax thresholds. When tax thresholds are raised, the highest gainers are largely the highest earners, and raising them and national insurance contributions is the least effective way of tackling poverty. According to the IFS, only 3% of the gains from raising the national insurance threshold would go to the poorest 20% in our society. A £3 billion cut in the national insurance contributions of employees and self-employed people—which, at one stage, was promised by the Prime Minister—would raise the incomes of that group by 0.1%, which pales into insignificance in comparison with the losses endured from benefit and tax credit cuts since 2010. It is also worth bearing it in mind that, while the heaviest burden of austerity has been forced on the poorest in our society, this Government have given away £70 billion of tax cuts to the corporations and the rich.
We have also heard Ministers refer to the so-called jobs miracle. Of course we all welcome increased employment, but when we look behind the global figures we find nearly 4 million people in insecure work with no guaranteed hours and 900,000 people on zero-hours contracts. Britain has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the developed world. A FTSE 100 chief executive will be paid more in three days than the average worker’s annual wage. Surely no Member of this House can think that that is right, can they? The gender pay gap is 17.3% and there is now an inter-generational pay gap of over 20%. There is an 8% pay gap for black workers, and if you are disabled the pay gap is 15%. There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech that will address any of this. There is nothing that will address the grotesque levels of inequality in our society and at work, certainly on the scale that is needed.
Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill
Simon Hoare ExcerptsTuesday 4th June 2019
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 View all Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 4 June 2019 - (4 Jun 2019)
Philip Davies
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I know that we have three hours allocated for consideration, but I do not intend to detain the House for so long, Members will be relieved to learn. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] That is one of the most popular things I have ever said in the Chamber. There is some important Back-Bench business to come and I am sure that we want to get on—
Philip Davies
That changes things. We are in business now. I do not, however, intend to detain the House for long, and I do not intend to press any of the new clauses or amendments to a Division as they are probing in nature. One of the points that I always make is that we should properly scrutinise legislation that comes before the House. Even when we have a Bill with a worthy title it is always important that we scrutinise the detail, because these are important matters. They are important for the circuses, and for the animals. They are clearly at the forefront of what the legislation is intended to protect, and therefore it is important to check that we are doing everything right.
The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) has also tabled some amendments, but I will concentrate on those I have tabled. In passing, I will say that some of the points he makes are worthy of consideration and I hope that the Minister will do so, even if he is not prepared to accept the amendments today. I hope that in the other place some proper scrutiny will be given, so I do not expect that we will have a ding-dong on these issues tonight.
I am a great admirer of the Minister and not just because of his time in Parliament: we used to work together at Asda many moons ago. Obviously, he was much more senior than I was, and far better at his job—that will not come as any surprise to anyone. We worked on projects together in our time at Asda, and he has taken his common-sense approach there into his ministerial responsibilities. It is great to see him in his place, and all I ask of him—he is a reasonable man—is that he goes away after the debate and considers all the new clauses and amendments to see whether the Government want to have another look at them when the Bill reaches the other place.
New clause 1 addresses the meaning of the term “wild animal”, and would add a more detailed definition to the Bill. The wording I have used mirrors that in the Wild Animals in Travelling Circuses (Scotland) Act 2018, and will thereby enable consistency around the UK. Simply falling into line with the law in Scotland has advantages in and of itself—as a Unionist, I think it is good and always a positive when we have the same laws in England and Wales as we have in Scotland—but more importantly it would provide more clarity to what is otherwise a rather vague description of a wild animal.
The Bill currently states simply that a
“‘wild animal’ means an animal of a kind which is not commonly domesticated in Great Britain”,
but the new clause delves deeper into what that actually means. Specifically, it would add an explanation of what a domesticated animal is, by stating that an animal
“is domesticated if the behaviour, life cycle or physiology…has been altered as a result of the breeding or living conditions of multiple generations of animals of that kind being under human control.”
It can reasonably be argued that many of the animals that currently reside in the two circuses to which the Bill will be relevant fit into that definition of a domesticated animal. Given that some of the animals are from the seventh generation of their line to be born into the circus environment, their very nature and general behaviour will be much altered compared with their native wild counterparts. Thus, the term “domesticated” would be made relevant to the specific animals, which should be at the forefront of our minds. That point often seems to be lost in debates on this subject.
For the specific animals we are talking about that are currently in these circuses, it would be more unkind to release them into what many would assume to be their natural habitat, because generations of living under human supervision will have left them without the traditional instincts and abilities necessary to survive in the wild. We describe these animals as wild when they quite clearly could not survive in the wild, and to that extent they are not wild animals. They do not have the traditional instincts and abilities required for them to survive in a habitat that is different from what they are currently accustomed to. They have no knowledge of anything different.
The whole point of new clause 1 is to get into the Bill a more sensible definition that applies to the particular animals involved. It seems to me to be bizarre that on the one hand we are talking about wild animals and on the other hand we are passing legislation for animals that could not be released into the wild. It is crazy. We want to stop genuinely wild animals being used in circuses—I certainly do; I have no objection to that at all—but the specific animals that are currently relevant are not really wild animals any more.
Like new clause 1, new clause 2 mirrors the provisions of the 2018 Act. If the House agrees to new clause 2, that will provide consistency in the law throughout the UK and more clarity on the definitions of relevant key terms. The Bill currently describes the definition of a circus operator and an officer, but new clause 2 would also define a travelling circus, which is a key part of the legislation, and the fact that it is not currently covered in the Bill, despite the title suggesting that it applies specifically to the circus industry, is not only concerning but leads to a lot of potential loopholes. Many forms of entertainment involve animal participation at their heart and I have heard people discussing their wish to use this legislation as a Trojan horse to affect other industries in which animals are trained.
Many forms of entertainment involve at their heart the participation of animals that have been trained and bred for a particular purpose. For example, I am very keen on the horse-racing industry. I am pretty sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that at this point I should refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am not sure whether there is anything relevant in there, but there may well be, so I do so just to be safe rather than sorry. The racing industry has animals that are trained for entertainment and that are bred for that purpose. I might add that they are particularly well looked after, as animal welfare is at the heart of everything that the racing industry does. Throughout the country we have zoos and falconry, and even the more obscure alpaca walking experiences.
My concern is that the Bill does not seem to provide a clear enough definition that separates the circus industry, which the title suggests it is specifically targeted at. As I referred to earlier, this issue has been dealt with in Scotland. New clause 2 would provide the clarity that the Bill needs to ensure that it will not blur any lines and to make sure that the legislation will not be used as a Trojan horse to affect other industries—including those I have mentioned, the greyhound industry and whatever else it might be—because other people might have some of those industries in their sights. I hope the Minister will reflect on these points and go away and look at the merits of the relevant legislation in Scotland to see whether we might wish to mirror it in England and Wales.
Amendment 1 would leave out subsection (5) of clause 1. In effect, it is consequential on new clauses 1 and 2, and would remove the current set of definitions of key terms to replace it with those that I want to introduce in new clause 2. Rather than anything more substantial, it would just tidy up after the other changes.
Amendment 2 states:
“An inspector may require that the owner of a wild animal may not destroy the animal unless with the permission of a qualified veterinarian.”
As I said at the start, as I see it the whole purpose of this Bill—the motivation behind it—is to protect the animals. We must not do anything that will have a negative impact on animals—we often see unforeseen and unintended consequences of legislation—so it is important to make it clear that the owner of the so-called wild animals covered by the legislation may not destroy an animal without a vet’s permission. We cannot have a situation in which the animals cannot be used in a circus and are therefore put down. That would be completely unacceptable. I am not suggesting for a minute that that is the intention of the people who own the animals—absolutely not, and quite the reverse. I am not casting any aspersions on them at all, but it is important to have this safeguard in the Bill to make sure that we nail it down and prevent that from happening.
Amendment 2 would add to the list of powers that the inspector of travelling circuses will have. It would ensure that animals that will no longer be able to participate in any aspect of circus life will not be put down as a result of the legislation coming into force. As I said, that is not to suggest that the owners of the animals are likely to be so callous. The point is that if people suggest, as it seems they have, that what the circus owners do to these animals is cruel, why would those people, who have pressed for the legislation because they think that circus owners are cruel to the animals, then trust the circus owners to look after the animals when they are no longer able to use them in their circuses? Either these circus owners are cruel to the animals and therefore cannot be trusted to care particularly well for them in retirement, or they are not cruel, in which case I am not entirely sure why we are going down this route in the first place.
It seems to me that the argument that the Minister may well have is that, well, these people look after their animals really well. I think he has made it clear in the past—he will correct me if I am wrong—that there has never been any question about the welfare of the animals in these circuses. I am happy to be corrected by anybody, but as far as I am aware no one has suggested at any point that there has been any problem with the welfare of the animals. If there were problems, there are rules to deal with them. This is not about the welfare of these animals; no one has a question about that as far as I can see. It is about the principle of whether the animals should be used for this purpose, even though they have been bred and trained for it—they cannot be untrained obviously. They will not be used for any other purpose, and they will not be released into the wild, so what will be done with them? They will just live a life in retirement. My amendment is about making sure that they are able to enjoy a long and fulfilled retirement.
Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill (Third sitting)
Simon Hoare Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 1, page 2, line 3, at end insert—
“‘travelling circus’ means a company or group of entertainers which (i) travels, whether regularly or irregularly, from place to place for the purpose of giving performances, displays or exhibitions, and (ii) as part of which animals may be kept or introduced (whether for the purpose of performance, exhibition, display or otherwise).”
This amendment would ensure the inclusion of circuses which tour venues other than a traditional circus tent, or which use animals for exhibition or display away from the circus site, or which do not regularly travel.
It is good to see hon. Members back in their places for another fun sitting. I am not sure this sitting will be as exciting as yesterday’s second evidence session, but I will try to make it as enjoyable as I can for everyone involved. This is an important piece of legislation to free the 19 wild animals currently used for human entertainment in British circuses.
The Opposition’s amendment 1 would insert into the Bill a clear definition of “travelling circus”. It is necessary to have legislative certainty about what a travelling circus is to ensure that there are no loopholes or “get out of jail free” cards for people who use wild animals for our entertainment.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern about Mr Jolly’s evidence yesterday, which—no pun intended—slightly let the cat out of the bag? He said, “We don’t have to be in a tent. We could go to a county show. We could do exactly as we do at the moment and we wouldn’t fall under the auspices of this Bill.” The hon. Gentleman makes a key point, and I urge the Minister to consider a broader definition.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who makes a good point. The narrow scope of the Bill means that we need to ensure that the circus element is tightly drawn and understood. A good point was made in the evidence session about the other environments in which wild animals can be displayed, but, although I am a fan of broadbrush interpretations and including as much animal welfare as we can, I fear that that might slip slightly outside the scope of the Bill. However, I echo the hon. Gentleman’s request for the Minister to respond to the points that were raised in evidence yesterday.
It was obvious that the Government were not prepared for the level of cross-party concern that was raised on Second Reading that the Bill was missing a definition of a travelling circus, which was also raised a number of times by the organisations that we took evidence from yesterday. Our amendment seeks to use established wording, which will be familiar to people who have looked at other pieces of legislation that ban wild animals in circuses.
The Minister has a number of options. I think we have established that having a definition of a travelling circus would be beneficial. That definition can sit either in the Bill—in primary legislation—or in the guidance that accompanies it. There are merits to both options. If the definition sat in the Bill, it would be clear, it would have good legal standing and there would be legal certainty about it. Putting it in the guidance, however, would give us greater flexibility and perhaps allow us to include some of the environments that the hon. Member for North Dorset mentioned.
There are advantages to both approaches, and it would be worth the Minister reflecting on how the definition should be drawn. My preference is for a clear definition in the legislation. However, I know that the Minister has strong thoughts on this matter, and I would like to hear his views before deciding whether to press the amendment to a vote.
David Rutley
I need to update the Committee on an important point raised by the hon. Member for Bristol East. Everything is okay with Anne, who was rehomed at Longleat zoo, which is licensed under the Zoo Licensing Act 1981. Anne was recently moved to a new purpose-built enclosure. She is not currently housed with other elephants but she does have other animals for company, so she is in a much better place. I thank the hon. Lady for raising the issue and I apologise for not providing that update previously. I hope I have made up ground there.
I will move on to the Bill, unless there are concerns about other animals. I will try my best to find out, though perhaps not quite as speedily.
David Rutley
My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset—soon to be right hon. no doubt—shows his age by mentioning Tarka the otter. Or is it timely?
Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill (Second sitting)
Simon Hoare ExcerptsTuesday 21st May 2019
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 View all Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 21 May 2019 - (21 May 2019)
Luke Pollard
Q
Peter Jolly: From the animal welfare side of it, our animals do the very minimum performing in a day. For the majority of the day they are outside grazing. Myself and Carol—
Carol MacManus: Spoil our animals.
Peter Jolly: They are grazing animals—hoofed animals—so for the majority of the day, apart from maybe one or two hours, they are outside grazing. Their veterinary care is top, because our licence requires us to keep records on a daily basis. Four times a day, for every single animal, we have to record the weather, the environment, what food they have had and what we have done with them, such as if we walk them from the paddock to the big top. There are no welfare problems at all.
Carol MacManus: We did a survey while we were doing the tours of the circus in 2010—I know that is a while back now—that 10,000 people filled in, and 84% was positive. Some of them did not even realise what the survey was and just ticked all the boxes because they weren’t really reading it. You say that an overwhelming majority want to ban animals in circuses, but the majority of those people are against us having animals in any form of entertainment. Slowly but surely you will find that they try to ban everything.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Q
Peter Jolly: Do you mean animals or what are classified as wild animals?
Simon Hoare
The animals that would be covered by the Bill, were it to become an Act.
Peter Jolly: Camels, zebra, reindeer, an Indian cow, a fox, two raccoons and a macaw.
Carol MacManus: And I have one zebra, two camels and two reindeer that I believe are questionable anyway.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Q
Carol MacManus: Because they are not really wild in this country—only if they are owned by a circus.
Simon Hoare
Q
Peter Jolly: It is not just the entertainment in the ring. We have children coming to the circus who have never seen, smelled or touched a camel. I have a fox that is now 15 years old that I hand-reared from three or four days old. The only foxes that children see are on the side of the road, dead. They do not see these animals. Safari parks and zoos are very good in their own way, but not everybody can afford to go to a zoo or safari park, because they are very expensive.
Simon Hoare
Mr Jolly, I quite specifically did not mention zoos or safari parks, because I think you can construct a perfectly—the question I asked was whether, with access to internet and television—
Peter Jolly: It is not the same. You cannot smell an animal on the internet or on the television.
Simon Hoare
Having smelled camels, I think I would prefer not to have to smell them.
Carol MacManus: Are you saying we smell?
Simon Hoare
Not you, Ms McManus, but camels are not known for their—you do not find them on the Estée Lauder counter, do you?
Carol MacManus: No.
Simon Hoare
Q
Peter Jolly: Yes.
Carol MacManus: Why not?
Simon Hoare
Q
Peter Jolly: My service is a family service. It is family orientated, so we deal with a lot of children. They do not get to see these things. Why should we deprive those children of contact with live animals? They are not wild animals; they are live animals. As Carol said, our animals, in our eyes, are exotic, not wild animals.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
Q
Carol MacManus: But we do not have any elephants.
Sir Oliver Heald
It is unnatural to their way of life.
Carol MacManus: No, it is not.
Peter Jolly: My camels load themselves when it is time to go to the next place. We do not have to lead them like a horse or anything; they get into the trailer themselves.
Sir Oliver Heald
Q
Peter Jolly: We treat it like one. We lead it the same and treat it the same.
Carol MacManus: None of our animals shows any sign of stress at all when they are travelling. In fact, some stress tests have been done on lions, which are wild animals. I am sure that Mr Lacey will tell you about that later, because I do not know the ins and outs of it, but proper stress tests have been performed.
Mrs Latham
Q
Carol MacManus: I think they quite like it, actually. Our zebra doesn’t like it if he does not perform; if, for any reason, he does not perform, he gets stressed. He knows when the music is on. He stands waiting at his door for the young lad to take him across to the ring to work with me—there is only one handler who handles him. He likes performing. When I had my old zebras, they used to free-range around the site. They would always be in the big top, where the shade was, or wandering round the site.
Simon Hoare
Q
Peter Jolly: I was talking about fumes.
Simon Hoare
You did speak about noise as well. Unless your audience is made up of children who subscribe to the Trappist way of life, they will make some noise. All I have to do is take my jacket off the hook and my dogs know that we are going for a walk —animals will always respond to those sorts of things.
Ms MacManus, your submission to us is dismissive of ethics, if I can put it that way. I can understand why you make that argument, but I want to ask whether you accept two things. First, do you accept that one rotten apple will spoil the barrel? In your sector, poor behaviour has shone a spotlight on the whole issue, which means that the good, the bad and the ugly get hit in exactly the same way.
Secondly, I do not say this to draw a direct comparison, but I am pretty certain that the family who were fourth generation bull or bear-baiters would have said, “But we’ve always done this; it is our way of life”, because that is what they would have known. Things change when perception and attitudes change. This almost goes back to my first question: do you accept that, just because one can, that does not necessarily mean that one should, and that in the general national consciousness the time of having wild/exotic animals in a circus for entertainment or educational purposes has reached its sell-by date, has passed and is a bit old hat, and that people want to move on because our ranking of animals has changed and is evolving?
Carol MacManus: No.
Peter Jolly: The majority of people still want to see circuses. You are talking about a handful of people who hit the media, Facebook and all that, who are whipping up this hysteria. When we go to a village or a small town, everybody wants to come and see the circus, which contradicts that. We would be out of business if we didn’t have the general public coming to visit us.
Simon Hoare
That’s a fair market counter-argument that you put.
Carol MacManus: And we have moved with the times and we do make improvements—everybody makes improvements all the time.
Peter Jolly: Just having the licensing scheme is moving forward. That was a move forward.
Carol MacManus: Anybody here should read that before they make their decision, because the review on our reports speaks volumes.
Alex Chalk
Q
Peter Jolly: We might not want to use them, but what we are saying is that if they can be kept according to the proper methods and welfare, you should be allowed them. You should not be allowed them if you cannot meet the stringent welfare standards.
Sandy Martin
But—
Martin Lacey: Just one second. First, we are looking at facts. I have noticed that we are now talking about ethics, which is probably a circus’s strongest point. The way that a child’s eyes open when they sees those animals—no book or picture could ever do that for children. Given what you see when they come close to the animals, ethics is one of our strongest points in circuses, and not just because the animals are well taken care of.
The picture painted is that man and beast were never together. That is not true. It is only in the last 30 years that a picture has been painted that it is very bad that people and animals are together.
If we are talking about ethics, it is a very fine line. Ethically, we love our animals. Ethics is built on religion, and if you really go back and you believe in religion—Noah’s ark; that was a myth, or not a myth—you are talking about animals and people together, and saving animals. If we are talking about ethics, how can people save animals if you do not want people to be involved with animals?
They paint the picture that it is Disney in the wild. It is not Disney. I do not know if anybody has visited the wild, but there are some beautiful places—Kenya is very beautiful. I was in Botswana 10 years ago and there were rhinos. There are no more rhinos in Botswana. As long as the World Wildlife Fund keeps taking lots and lots of money and every time an animal becomes extinct, people such as myself and my family and well run circuses—you asked whether I believe in circuses; no, I believe in well run circuses, not all circuses—are the ones who will have the future gene pools for these animals.
Ethics is completely on the circus side, if we are talking about the ethics of animal ownership. Let us go to what you were just talking about—when there were shows with small people and bearded ladies. If we are talking about ethics and slavery, does that mean every person who owns a dog or cat does cannot have an animal anymore? It has gone a little bit too far. That is where you have a fine line of animal rights and animal welfare, and people have to find a fine balance. If you do not have your feet on the floor, this thing will go out of the window and we have become a real big show when it comes to ethics and animal rights. The local cat that kills a mouse will be in front of a jury for murdering a mouse. That is how far it goes. That is where ethics is really on the circus side.
Simon Hoare
Q
“pay their taxes and obey every animal welfare law. Their ethics of running a business and keeping families together is very high. This is how they treat their animals too. I would like to suggest that government would not ban them if they were a Muslim family.”
What do you mean by that?
Rona Brown: Can you say the last bit again?
Simon Hoare
This is in your written evidence:
“I would like to suggest that government would not ban them if they were a Muslim family.”
What do you mean by that?
Rona Brown: I need to find it. I have printed mine up in big letters.
Simon Hoare
This is at the bottom of the first paragraph on what is our page 3, which begins:
“The two circuses are family circuses”.
I can hand you my copy if that is easier.
Rona Brown: That is very kind of you. Is it this one,
“Animals have no concept of demeaning”?
Simon Hoare
No, no, it is the reference to the Government not doing this
“if they were a Muslim family.”
I think I have highlighted the extract. I was not certain of the point you were seeking to make.
Rona Brown: I am sorry, I cannot—
Simon Hoare
You are on the right page.
Rona Brown: Is it this one, which you have highlighted?
Simon Hoare
No, no, just above.
Rona Brown: I am sorry, I do know it off by heart. Is it this paragraph,
“The two circuses are family circuses, the Jolly’s are a Christian family, they keep their family together and keep within the law”?
Simon Hoare
Yes, it is the last sentence of that paragraph—the segue, of course, is the reference to Christian family at the start.
Rona Brown: “I would like to suggest that government would not ban them if they were a Muslim family”?
Simon Hoare
Yes. I wonder what you meant by that.
Rona Brown: Well, I meant by that that it seems to me that you have to be— I am a Christian and I feel that Christians are having a bad time at the moment. All other religions are looked upon as needing to be protected, whereas Christian families are ignored. I feel that this is—
Simon Hoare
Q
Mr Lacey, could I turn to your evidence? Again, I must confess that I did not find it terribly compelling. If I take you to page 4, it states:
“We protect only what we know. Animals in the circus serve as ambassadors for their wild counterparts more personally and emotionally than any documentary on TV, thus the circus indirectly makes a contribution to conservation by showing how wonderful animals are and why humans should preserve them in the wild.”
I was not certain about the link between seeing animals up close in a circus and preserving them in the wild. You talked about natural behaviour and about how you are not seeking to make animals perform or entertain. If you look at page 11, that might be you in costume, in some purple sequinned garb.
Martin Lacey: Can I have a look at that?
Simon Hoare
Q
Martin Lacey: That just shows to me how much you do not know about animals. Lions and tigers were together 200 years ago; there were Indian lions. There is proof that lions and tigers were together.
Simon Hoare
Q
Martin Lacey: First of all, this is based on trust. All that training is not done behind closed doors: if you had a live link right now, you could see my lions. They are all in outside areas. A lion on top of a tiger—if you go in the outside cage and you see them in a big outside area, they play. It is only a matter of you being able to do that with a command. They stretch on the back of a lion, and it shows a trust between the person, the animal, and the tiger. It is actually very beautiful. You have probably never seen that; you have seen the photo, of course, but you cannot see the whole movement. It is actually very beautiful to see this trust between them. In fact, that movement is so beautiful that my lion works also with tigers. They jump in the swimming pool—lions do not really like water, and they have a face like they do not really want to be in there. They actually think they are tigers.
Simon Hoare
Q
Martin Lacey: You have to understand that we live in a changing world. That is in Russia. Russians have a completely different aspect on ways of training animals, and therefore when you work with people around the world—I was over in Moscow, for example, and I went to talk to them about animal welfare. When I was in Moscow, I saw people sat on the floor in the ice, waiting for bread. I thought to myself, “Why am I going over there talking about these animals when I see the animals are very warm, with nice big coats on them?” I saw their training.
Each country is very different. Because we have become very global, you have a photo like this. For example, my public do not want to see a lion jump through a hoop of fire. The hoop of fire is no problem; every police dog does that, because it is a sign of trust. It is not what I want to see nowadays.
Wild Animals in Circuses (No.2) Bill (First sitting)
Simon Hoare ExcerptsTuesday 21st May 2019
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 View all Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 21 May 2019 - (21 May 2019)
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)
Q
Dr Ros Clubb: From the RSPCA’s perspective, we did not agree with the introduction of licensing because we do not believe that the needs of animals can be met in a travelling circus. We were not in favour of that, and we do not think that deals with the situation at hand. The constant travelling, the temporary enclosures and the restrictions they place on the environment and husbandry you can provide for those wild animals are not suitable. When you look at the standards in the circus regulations, you see that they are very different from, for example, those for licensed zoos. An animal in a circus is treated very differently from the same animal in a zoo, and we do not think that is good enough.
Daniella Dos Santos: I would second that. I do not think there is any way we can meet the welfare needs of wild animals in a travelling circus situation. They have very particular welfare needs and, by the nature of a circus, where they are constantly moving, the spaces they are provided with have to be smaller and more portable. Therefore, you are not going to meet their needs. Because of the requirements of performing and so on, their day-to-day routines are not going to be adhered to. Therefore, that may impact on their diet and so on. We would say their needs cannot be met under any circumstances.
Nicola O'Brien: We would say something very similar. I do not have anything to add on that.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Q
Nicola O'Brien: When we reviewed this a few years ago, there were two establishments in the UK that had been classed as circuses by their local authority. They had a theme park set-up and did not have an attached zoo, but they did have a sea lion show. They were deemed by the local authority to be circuses because they did not meet the Zoo Licensing Act 1981 requirements on numbers of animals and on animals being out on display all the time. I believe one of them has closed down; I am not sure of the current legal situation of the other location, but it has not changed, grown or added to its animal collection, so we believe it would still not meet the requirements of the Zoo Licensing Act. That is, to our knowledge, the only one in England.
Dr Ros Clubb: That is also my understanding of the situation.
Simon Hoare
Q
Daniella Dos Santos: My feeling would be that they would not come under this Bill, because ultimately those animals would have a permanent place to call home with appropriate facilities and appropriate housing, and with their environmental needs met. The travelling they do would be to go from the home environment to a display and back again, rather than being constantly on the move.
Simon Hoare
Q
Daniella Dos Santos: I believe so, yes.
Simon Hoare
Q
Dr Ros Clubb: From our perspective, we would like to see a couple of additional powers. We have talked about one already in terms of extending powers to constables as well as appointed inspectors.
Simon Hoare
Q
Dr Ros Clubb: Yes. We would also like the power to seize an animal—that has been specifically excluded from the powers—so that if there is an issue, there is an opportunity to remove the animal from the situation rather than leave it there while an offence is being committed. We would also like to see more powers for the court to deprive someone of ownership of an animal, if it decides to do so.
Simon Hoare
Q
Dr Ros Clubb: We would envisage that to be rarely used, but we think the powers should be there. There are powers under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 to seize animals that are kept without licence, which would cover the larger, more dangerous creatures. We have worked with organisations to remove animals of a zoo-type nature and board them, obviously looking at the provisions and whether the welfare of the animal will be at a reasonable level if we remove it.
The Chair
Can I ask everyone to speak up? This is a dreadful room for acoustics. It would be really helpful. I am certainly struggling at this end of the table. I am sure everyone must be having the same problem.
The Chair
I was leaning forward to make sure that I could hear everything. My apologies for the room. The microphones are at their maximum, so there is nothing else I can do except ask people to speak up. A lady at the back has also indicated that she cannot hear, so it is not just me.
If Members have one or two questions that they want to run together, I am more than happy for them to do so. You do not have to limit yourself to one. Equally, if you want to come back later with another question, I am happy with that.
Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill
Simon Hoare ExcerptsTuesday 7th May 2019
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 View all Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and to take part in this debate. Times change, and when they do we have to change the rules and regulations to reflect mindsets. To some in this House, it might seem like only yesterday that films such as “The Greatest Show on Earth”, with Dorothy Lamour and Charlton Heston, were great hits because they had the romance and excitement of circus life.
If we fast-forward to just a few weeks ago, as a father I made probably the worst decision I have ever made in my life when I decided to take my three daughters to see the remake of “Dumbo”. My eldest daughter, Imogen, just about managed to survive with some degree of stoicism. My middle daughter, Jessica, cried five times during the film. My youngest daughter, Laura, had to be taken out of the cinema by me, so upset had she become by the film. I have to say I was rather relieved because I, too, was finding the film rather upsetting. The question they asked at the rescue centre afterwards—also known as Pizza Express Dorchester—was, “Why? Why would you have an elephant in a circus? Why would you treat an elephant like that?” I think that just shows the change in our society.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
Everyone in the Chamber is completely committed to the welfare of animals, including me, but will my hon. Friend think about what he is saying? If he is saying that an animal does not belong in a circus—I accept that that is what the vast majority of people believe is right—does he think that animals in other contexts should be where they are? Does an animal belong in a zoo? Does a horse belong on a racecourse? Does a greyhound belong in a greyhound stadium? He has to look at the implications and precedent that legislation sets.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I think I can help, because what the hon. Gentleman asks would broaden the debate outside the scope of circuses. The Bill is about circus animals. It is not about breeding programmes in zoos or different things. The hon. Gentleman is comparing horses and dogs to a circus, but the Bill is about wild animals in circuses. I would like to keep the debate contained to the subject before us.
Simon Hoare
If I may, I will reply briefly and within order to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) raised. Representing Romford, he would be a very brave man to suggest that greyhound racing should be stopped. He makes a valid point. I can well remember being taken as a young boy to Barry zoo, which Vale of Glamorgan Council eventually closed because it was so fiendishly awful and the treatment of its animals was so bad. Standards have to reflect the very highest standards of animal welfare.
Those days have gone. When circuses were at their most popular and wild animals were in use, circuses could say, “We are doing some sort of education as well.” However, the likes of David Attenborough and co have changed that. We can be educated in our own homes about wild animals in their natural habitats and we can get more information and education in that way. Those people do that important job in a much better way.
I can remember as a boy being taken—my mother is still not entirely sure why—to Gerry Cottle and Billy Smart’s circus when it performed in Cardiff. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) nodding almost with reminiscence at those names. We never left those circuses elevated by joy; we left with a terrible feeling of sadness. There was something alien, wrong and outdated about it, even in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It just goes to show that sometimes this place needs to find ways of moving far more quickly to better reflect changes in mindset.
I was pleased and proud to be a co-sponsor when my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) brought forward a Bill on this issue in February 2016. I am delighted to see him in his place. I remember, as on similar occasions, that it was opposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope). I have to say that anything opposed by him usually seems a good thing in my book.
I am delighted by this Bill. I am grateful that Ministers are bringing it forward. I know that the numbers we are talking about are low, but I view the Bill as a sender of a message and an articulation of a set of values. It is also an insurance policy. Were there to be a European renaissance of wild animals performing in circuses, through this legislation the message would go out from the House and across our parties that such circuses would not be welcome in the UK.
Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993
Simon Hoare Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Elizabeth Truss
I was very glad to visit a successful business in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I know that he is very committed to the development of business in his area. It is important that money spent is raised locally as far as possible. As a Government, we have rebalanced from central Government giving money to local government to more of that money being kept locally, whether through business rates retention or council tax. That is an important principle. However, we did recognise in the Budget that local authorities were under pressure. That is why we put in an extra £650 million, which can particularly be spent on adult social care and children’s social care where there is pressure. Of course, we will look at that balance in the spending review.
At the moment, we have a complicated landscape in the support offered to business. When there is a complicated landscape, it can sometimes be the big businesses that know how to work the system that end up getting the money. We need to move to a system where we have lower taxes and it is clearer and simpler to see where the support is. Of course, we are also investing in the infrastructure that helps business to succeed, whether it is local roads, fibre or rail. Ahead of the spending review, I am making visits around the country to hear from people on the ground to understand what the public’s priorities for public spending are. It can sometimes be easy in Whitehall to listen to the big lobby groups— the big organisations that have an operation here in Westminster—but I want to hear what people in Coventry and other places around the country think about what their priorities are. I have done a few of these sessions so far, and the topics that come up tend to be education, local roads, the NHS—for which we have already put in additional money—and police. We need very much to keep in mind what the public want to see our money spent on rather than just listening to the big organisations.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I am delighted to hear my right hon. Friend mention education. May I press her to consider the fact that in our rural areas the funding per pupil is still not as it should be by comparison with urban schools? We have a huge number of Victorian schools, such as that which I visited earlier in the week in Motcombe in my constituency, where the maintenance of the buildings costs far more. We are therefore looking, in the comprehensive spending review, for a long-term increase in new money to deliver the first-class education to grow the entrepreneurs who will return the investment that we put into their education while they were at school.
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend makes a very good point about education funding and how important young people having a good education is to the future of the economy. In this year’s spending review, we are looking not just at how investment in physical infrastructure like bridges and roads improves our economy, but at human capital—where we need to put in extra money to make sure that children and young people leave school, university or an apprenticeship with the skills that will help them to get a good job and to live a successful and fruitful life. That is very important. In the past, Governments have been more interested in spending money on things that are sexy and new—the big new pieces of infrastructure—and maintenance has sometimes taken a back seat, but it is very important to make sure that all the existing assets we have, whether roads or schools, are fit for purpose. In the zero-based capital review, we are looking at the balance between maintenance and new infrastructure investment.
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend has obviously been reading Labour’s “Funding Britain’s Future” document, in which we picked up on that particular point. The hon. Member for Redditch mentioned tax cuts. Try telling that to people who have had 15% and 16% rises in their council tax, because the Government have shunted that on to the people. They are still taxpayers. Try mentioning to them that they have fantastic local services, when increases to their council tax do not even cover social care bills.
The Chief Secretary has bragged about the so-called Tory jobs miracle. However, she made no mention in the speech of the fact that it is built on insecure work, low pay and regional disparities. We have nearly 4 million people in insecure work and nearly 3 million people working under 15 hours a week across the UK. Workers in the north-east earn around £200 less than those in London, reifying the regional imbalance.
Simon Hoare
I hate to shoot the hon. Gentleman’s unicorn just as he has started to ride it, but 90% of new jobs created are full-time jobs. This is a total myth that his party keeps peddling. It belies the hard work, initiative and enterprise of the British people. Is it not time to stop misleading?
Peter Dowd
Try telling that to the 3 million people in insecure work. It is okay hon. Members jumping up and being outraged at the facts. The facts are stubborn, I completely grant them that. We are not living in the halcyon world that the hon. Member thinks we are living in. There are 3 million people living in insecure work. That is not acceptable in a modern society. The Chief Secretary has done nothing to help headteachers who having to close schools early or the 87 people a day dying while they are waiting for social care, or to assist the nurses, doctors, police officers, social workers, road sweepers, fire fighters, security services staff, civil servants or the back-office staff who keep all those services running day in, day out and night in, night out. Those are the so-called vested interests the Chief Secretary refers to in her regular speeches.
The Chief Secretary recently visited Felixstowe, Walsall and Tadcaster—commiserations to the people of Felixstowe, Walsall and Tadcaster. She said that people want
“the local roads fixed and not to have to sit in a traffic jam.”
Well, the Government are in a big jam at the moment. She went on:
“They want a less crowded commute into work. They want the basics sorted.”
This is after nine years of Tory Government! Where has she been? Did she really have to ask that question? A report today highlights that there are 2 million potholes out there with a £10 billion backlog of repairs under the Tories. No wonder people are sitting in traffic jams—they cannot get through the road for potholes. That is the reality under the Tories. Anyone with a scintilla of awareness already knows the answer to that. The good people of north Lincolnshire were certainly aware of it when I was in Crowle on Saturday, campaigning to rid them of their useless Tory council with the excellent Labour candidates. They want the Transport Secretary to do his job, and they want the Chief Secretary to do hers.
What about productivity—another abysmal failure of Tory economic policy? Productivity remains weaker than in most other advanced economies. The fact is that the Government have failed to prepare the UK economy for the future. Britain’s infrastructure ranks behind that of Germany, France, the USA and Japan in terms of quality, and its rate of public investment is among the lowest in the OECD.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
Simon Hoare
I mean the shadow Chief Secretary. [Laughter.] Of, course, it is a pleasure to follow the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is a greater pleasure to follow her shadow, the emphasis being on the word “shadow”—it is sort of me and my shadow. I call him a friend; I think we get on pretty well when we have a gossip in the Tea Room. He is known for his great sense of humour, and it was deployed beautifully in his speech, which started as a serious attempt and then descended into some sort of 1890s music hall act slightly on its way out—rather like the Labour party and its economic manifesto. I am sorry he did not talk about the need to ring-fence anything in the Budget for the re-education of Treasury officials, which the little red book and Chairman Mao will doubtless be planning the curriculum for even as I speak.
I rise to make a few points to the Treasury Bench. This is a key time in our national economic affairs. The challenge/opportunity of Brexit, including the need for a deal to ensure an orderly withdrawal from the EU, will provide a fundamental foundation for maintaining economic growth and jobs, as my right hon. Friend referenced. From those jobs, of course, come the taxes that pay for the nurses, the doctors, the teachers, the roads and any other project the Government wish to support. We are approaching, if we have not already arrived at, that opportunity which comes with having fiscal headroom and permits choices to be made.
In the last few years—let us be frank—it has been economic management by necessity. We have been trying to deal with the task that we were bequeathed, not by choice, but which the electorate trusted the Conservative party to resolve. Treasury Ministers past and present deserve the nation’s thanks for facing into those difficult decisions. It is all too often characterised, sometimes by the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and his colleagues, as an ideological pursuit by the Conservative party that in some way engenders jollity and laughter. I believe that all politicians enter public office and service to improve lives and the lot of our constituents. More and more of our constituents, as they get older, look to public services, and it should always be a matter of pride for a Conservative Government with a sound record of economic stewardship to deliver quality public services as efficiently as possible.
The end of the legacy of the crash and everything that flowed from it now provides that opportunity for choices. I would characterise those choices as needing the striking of a balance that is both sensitive and sophisticated. With my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor at the helm of the Treasury, I think we have both those characteristics, although I will not say which of them is sensitive and which is sophisticated—probably they will meld into the two. That is important, though, because we now have an opportunity to choose.
My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and I are very much children of the 1980s—our views and thoughts were shaped by the economic miracle that Mrs Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe worked—but we must appreciate that times have moved on. I am very struck by the fact that people in an earning bracket such that 25 or 30 years ago they would have looked to private health provision and education now look to and use state provision. I applaud that. I used the NHS. I had an operation at Dorchester last week, and I use my local education service—we have three girls in our local primary school. It is important to bear that in mind.
My right hon. Friend is right to point to the need for competitive taxation, whereby we can take people out of tax such that they have more money to spend, and it is absolutely right that our policies focus on those on the lowest incomes, but it is also right, in a fair and equitable society, that those who can should shoulder the burden, in a competitive way, to make sure we can deliver those services that people are looking for. I think it is too easy a prescription merely to say that we must pursue an agenda of tax cuts, as if British society had not evolved since 1985, 1986 or 1987. That is where the balance needs to be struck. It may be the balance between a liberal Tory and a more Thatcherite Tory—I do not know—but it needs to be struck.
As other Members have pointed out, as a result of a period of austerity we are now in a period in which the fiscal headroom allows for additional investment. The spring statement was helpful, and what my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary has said about an average increase of 1.2% in departmental expenditure was also welcome. However, we would be foolish to ignore the fact that we are now having to claw our way back from a period in which spending has been—albeit quite justifiably —capped.
Any Member whose constituency contains a prison will notice that the fabric of the prison estate has deteriorated. Some people might say that that is a good thing because we are talking about prisoners, but I am inclined to think that if we are serious about bringing people back into society—the redemption strategy—we need to provide a satisfactory prison environment.
In an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, I mentioned schools and the need for the long-term provision of new money in the comprehensive spending review. It is great that we are offering the widest and deepest range of free-at-the-point-of-use educational opportunities in our country, and when T-levels come on stream, it will become even wider and even deeper, but it is folly to suggest that we can continue to provide that, and can make the necessary investment to deliver a happy, educated, productive next generation, with the fiscal envelope currently enjoyed by the Department for Education.
Matt Rodda
The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting and thoughtful speech. Has he considered the Government’s policy of placing additional pension demands on schools in an unfunded way? If so, what does he think of it?
Simon Hoare
In an intervention on the shadow Chief Secretary, the hon. Gentleman referred to something that I am sure we have all heard from headteachers in our constituencies. Whether we are talking about national insurance, about pensions or about the demands of special educational needs, although increased DFE expenditure is going into most of our schools, it is nowhere near enough. We are asking schools to do more for more pupils with not quite as much money as they need. That is why I make the distinction. I welcome the increase, but new money is required, particularly as the range and the choice become wider and deeper.
I challenge anyone who represents a rural constituency, as I do, not to share my views on rural schools. I was delighted when the Chief Secretary took my point about the needs of maintenance. The costs of heating and running a whole estate of Victorian primary schools are greater than those in new build, perhaps in an urban setting, although that is not to say that there are no Victorian schools in urban settings. Such schools do not provide a good learning environment. Last month, I visited Motcombe primary school in my constituency. In a small classroom, one child is effectively being fried against a not particularly adequate heater, because the school does not have enough money to replace the heating system.
We must make a balanced judgment: we must aim to take those at the lowest end of the earning spectrum out of taxation, while also investing properly. We must strike that sensitive and sophisticated balance. My right hon. Friend was absolutely right: it is not just the big and sexy that we must consider, but schemes for local roads such as the C13 and the A350 in my constituency, and support for those who wish to remedy the rural broadband and mobile blackspots, which could become engines of economic growth and entrepreneurialism.
That takes me to my closing point, to which the hon. Member for Bootle alluded. Some of our recent debates appear to have pitted my party against the Government. I am sorry—I meant to say “against business”. [Laughter.] That was not a Freudian slip—or perhaps it was.
Business is the engine that generates the tax that delivers the services. We cannot have a hostile viewpoint; we cannot have a hostile environment for UK business to flourish. Without a flourishing business sector, without the freeing up of the entrepreneurial spirit that underpins the British character, the proceeds of growth—
Simon Hoare
I am drawing to a conclusion.
We all want to see the proceeds of growth and the investment in our public services that is required.
Finance (No. 3) Bill
Simon Hoare ExcerptsTuesday 8th January 2019
(6 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Finance Act 2019 View all Finance Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 8 January 2019 - (8 Jan 2019)
Peter Dowd
I rise to speak to new clause 1 in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and other Members.
In opening for the Opposition today, I shall start with a few general comments on the Bill before moving on to my substantive remarks on child poverty and equality. First, I must mention the new schedule the Government have tabled, at this late stage, on intangible fixed assets. It is yet another example of the Government’s absolute contempt for parliamentary processes—a result of their desperation to cling to power. Although the Chancellor announced this proposal at the Budget, the introduction of this detailed schedule at this stage of the Bill guarantees that Members are denied the opportunity to scrutinise it properly. It circumvents the Public Bill Committee process, which was created to ensure that technical measures such as this one receive forensic and detailed analysis. This is no way for any Government to conduct legislation. With that in mind, perhaps the Minister could explain why this measure has been included at the final stage of this Bill, denying Members the opportunity to properly scrutinise it. Is it a deliberate decision to once again circumvent parliamentary process? Will he consider withdrawing the schedule and including it in the next Finance Bill later this year, ensuring that it receives the proper parliamentary scrutiny it actually warrants?
It appears that Ministers are hellbent on starting this new year in the same fashion that they ended the last—by treating Members of this House as a peripheral part of the law-making process, bypassing parliamentary processes and breaking long-established conventions. The vast majority of Members in this House are fed up to the back teeth with the Government’s attempts to avoid parliamentary scrutiny.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Given the heinousness of the charges that the shadow Minister has laid against Her Majesty’s Government, I presume that this is further grist to his party’s mill for a no-confidence vote. When will that be tabled and debated in this place?
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend is right. The economy thereafter, with the help of the Liberal Democrats, started to go down the pan. To this day, we have not recovered, and the Government’s own figures indicate that this will go on for many more years. We will have more of the same, and it is not working. When will they learn the lesson? They seem to be incapable. Even the IMF recognises the failure of austerity and has called for increased public spending to offset the negative economic effects of Brexit.
Simon Hoare
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for this fascinating tour de force on the period since 2010. If the Labour party in government was doing so fantastically well, growth was going so well and its economic management was prized highly by the electorate, why did it lose the general election in 2010 and then in 2015? If all was going so well, why did it lose?
Peter Dowd
I am sure the House would be delighted to hear my psephological analysis of the general election, but we are talking about the Finance Bill. You are very generous, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I do not think even you would be sufficiently generous as to hear my psephological comments.
Vicky Ford
I thank my hon. Friend for that precise contribution. I cannot understand why the Labour party has voted against increases to the level at which people start to pay tax, because helping people to keep more of their earnings in their own pockets is fundamental to increasing house ownership and to building a fairer economy.
Simon Hoare
I trust that my hon. Friend’s question was not a rhetorical one, but perhaps I can try to answer it. As far as socialism is concerned, it is absolutely fine until Labour Members have run out of other people’s money to spend. That is why they are opposed to these things.
Vicky Ford
I thank my hon. Friend for that point.
I also want to talk about fairness. Yes, it is true that the provision also increases the rate at which people start to pay a slightly higher rate of tax, but the biggest impact is on those on the lowest level of tax. That is why the tax gap—the difference between the highest and lowest levels of income—has actually fallen. The ratio of the average income of the top fifth to that of the bottom fifth of households has fallen, after taking into account all benefits and taxes.
Helen Whately
I think I should conclude my remarks, as I am aware that I have been speaking for a while.
New clauses 1 and 5, which call for reviews on specific aspects, have been advocated in a way that suggests that one side of the House cares more about poverty, for instance, than the other, but that is not the case at all. Members on the Conversative Benches care very deeply about poverty and equality within society.
What really matters is the track record of governing parties in these areas. I would raise these questions with the House. Which party in government oversaw an increase in unemployment from 5% to 8%? Which party left office with nearly 4 million workless households? Which party left office with rising absolute poverty? All of us know that it was Labour.
In contrast, under this Government, we have more than 3 million more people in work, the lowest unemployment since the 1970s, 600,000 fewer children living in workless households, falling absolute poverty and rising wages. When it comes down to it, this is what matters—getting right those policies that improve people’s lives, reduce inequality, reduce poverty and make life better for everybody. That is what we should all be backing.
Simon Hoare
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately).
I rise to oppose new clause 1, and I do so for these reasons. If any Members were so inclined, they should please come and visit my constituency of North Dorset. If they visited North Dorset, they could easily be forgiven for thinking that everything in the garden was rosy. There are pretty villages, attractive market towns, lush fields, healthy-looking cattle grazing and a strong local economy where unemployment is virtually zero. If Polly Toynbee or the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) were to arrive in North Dorset and say to me, “Simon, would you take me to your most deprived ward?” I could not, because I do not have one, but I know that I have pockets of deprivation and of poverty in each village and market town in my constituency.
One of the big challenges facing any suite of financial policies is recognising that poverty manifests itself in various ways and guises, but right the way across our nation. It is, I would suggest, far easier to identify large pockets of urban deprivation and poverty. The real public policy challenge is also to recognise and address those of rural poverty, often in sparsely populated areas where the instinct—maybe it is part of the rural community DNA—is slightly to shy away from asking the state, either local or national, for support and to demonstrate a strong sense of resilience and smaller communities trying to work together, although that is no excuse for any Government to shy away from focusing like an Exocet on trying to deliver policies that help to address rural poverty.
I am motivated by this every day. I know the figures move around, but the average national salary for the UK is in the region of £24,000 or £24,500 per annum, as I understand it. In North Dorset, when I was first elected in 2015, the figure was £16,500 and it has just risen to about £18,000, but rural jobs always pay less, if people are in the agricultural sector, food production or the hospitality trade. In those rural areas we do not have those big, high-paying employers. That is why we should always focus on trying to deliver support.
Laura Smith
I find myself agreeing with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about rural poverty. I am an MP in Cheshire, and our local food bank expresses real concern about the rise in the number of people who live in rural areas having to access the food bank. He is right about pride, and another relevant group is elderly people, who often will not access help and support, so it is important to mention rural poverty.
Simon Hoare
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am not entirely sure whether her support of me or my support of her has damaged her career more than it has damaged mine. We will leave our respective Whips to adjudicate on that. Nevertheless, she is absolutely right, and she is absolutely right to highlight that often incredibly annoying sense of pride when a retired person comes to an advice surgery. I say, “Look, we can try to help you to get this, that and the other,” and they say, “No, I don’t want to, Mr Hoare. I don’t think it is right. I have never asked the state for anything.” There is some locked-up pride among some of our retired citizens and we must forever say to them that the state in all its manifestations is there to provide. The second duty of the state, after keeping the country safe, is to provide that safety net that delivers self-respect and the opportunity for people to live with some semblance of dignity and happiness, particularly in their later lives.
Those in later life are a group that is often hard to reach. They will never be contacted through the digital economy; they need to be outreached to. I make the point again—I know the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) will agree with me—that one of the great challenges in sparsely populated rural areas is that outreach is often harder, because there is not that dense concentration such that at almost every door one knocks on in an area one would say “Yes, this is the area that requires most attention.”
Vicky Ford
I thank my hon. Friend for painting this clear picture of rural poverty, but pockets of poverty occur in urban constituencies such as mine, too. Does he agree that poverty is about not only how much someone earns but the cost of living? That is why it is so important that we focus not just on the relative poverty measures that the Labour party focuses on, but on reducing absolute poverty, which is the measure that this Government have succeeded in dealing with.
Simon Hoare
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to pinpoint the cost of living. Opposition spokesmen sometimes dispute this, but it is more expensive to live in a rural area. It is more expensive to heat one’s home. Travel costs are higher, usually in the absence of public transport, meaning that the running of a car is not a luxury but a necessity if one is to access even the most basic of public or retail services.
Simon Hoare
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not, because I want to refer to the speech by the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). I hope that he will not think it is untoward for me to say this, but the passion with which he delivered his speech was powerful and incredibly compelling. He struck on a point that I was going to make and on which I had jotted down a note or two, and it is a point I have been making in recent speeches around the place. I often admire the Labour party—
Simon Hoare
There is always a “but”, though. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury says that my career has definitely gone now. I did not even know that I had a career, so that is going to be interesting.
There is usually no embarrassment on the Labour side at talking with passion about the burning injustices that we see in all our constituencies and having a clear determination to do something about them. There is no inhibition at all on the Labour side. On my side—I say this as somebody who has been a member of our party since 1985—I occasionally find that we get slightly inhibited about talking from the heart. Other Members have referred to this. We can bandy the statistics about—relative or absolute, percentage this versus percentage that, up, down, more in this, fewer than the other—but it does not matter, because if someone is poor, the statistics do not affect them: they are poor. They want to know that their elected representatives, locally, in this place and those in Whitehall are doing their damnedest to make their life just a little better.
I make this plea to my colleagues on the Treasury Bench: we on the Conservative Benches do not talk enough about the whys of politics. We talk a lot about the whats, but we do not say why. We find homelessness gut-wrenchingly upsetting. We find the closing down of hope, aspiration and life expectancy intensely moving, and we burn with the desire to help. It certainly motivates me every morning to get out of bed and to do my best for my constituents in whatever way I can by supporting policies that I fundamentally believe have the power to make our local economy, and therefore my constituents’ lives, better. If anybody in this House is not motivated by that fundamental political passion to stir up the soul to go and do something about it, I say to them with the greatest of respect that they should not be here. That, I think, must be our principal function. Members from both sides of the House want to arrive at a place where aspiration, hope and opportunity are available for as great a number of our citizens as we can possibly facilitate.
We also want to make sure that the economy is buoyant. Why? Because warm words butter no parsnips. The emotional speeches may salve our consciences, but we need the economic policies that deliver the taxes and pay for the safety net below which, I am determined, none of my constituents should, or will, ever fall on my watch. We need to be ever vigilant to make sure that our economic policies are delivering that growth.
Martin Whitfield
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I say with the greatest respect that he is making a very good speech for the two new clauses. The knowledge gained from reviewing policy implementation feeds into the decisions that go forward, so, at this stage, I invite him to support the two new clauses.
Simon Hoare
The hon. Gentleman is—what’s the phrase?—pushing his luck on that. I think that the divide here will be on the theoretical and the practical. I am always conscious that we can go to any Minister’s office, or any Department, or any local council, and find gathering dust, spiders and dead flies on many a window sill reports, reviews and assessments of this, that and the other, and they have a pretty short shelf life. I would much prefer to spend Government time focusing on delivering those policies of hope and growth.
Simon Hoare
The hon. Lady has winked at me in such a beguiling way that of course I will give way to her.
Laura Smith
I would just like to put it on the record that I absolutely did not.
Laura Smith
It was just a northern smile; that was all.
Does the hon. Gentleman not see that he has massively contradicted himself? His speech, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) has said, would indicate that he should really be supporting these new clauses, and yet, when pushed on it, he is not. Does he not agree that that is why people in the outside world become frustrated with politicians who are very good at speaking in one way, but who act in another?
Simon Hoare
It was all going so well, wasn’t it? I agree with the hon. Lady that many people become incredibly frustrated when a Minister of any political persuasion delivers a speech that makes them think, “Something good is going to flow from this”, but then very little has actually happened when they come to think about it.
I would prefer to do the doing rather than the reviewing. I do not need a whole series of reviews to tell me that there are poor, deprived people who live in North Dorset. I do not need tables of statistics to tell me that I am going to hold the Government to account to ensure that policies are delivered to provide support for those who need it, to encourage a ladder of expectation and aspiration for those who wish to scale it, and to put policies in place to ensure that we remain a civilised and humane society. I do not need a whole bookcase of learned treatises to tell me this. It was strange that the hon. Member for Gedling made exactly that point—that he did not need a whole load of statistics and reviews—when that is actually what new clauses 1 and 5 are calling for.
I do not need these pieces of paper to tell me that it is the first duty of a Government of any colour—even if it were the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) sitting on the Government Benches and my right hon. Friend the Minister sitting on the Opposition side—to try to ensure that the economy grows and that opportunities are presented.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
As well as not needing to do these reviews, does my hon. Friend agree that we should be looking at our track record—at what has actually happened when it comes to getting the deficit and the debt down? Surely that is what people will be looking at. What gives them the most comfort that we will be able to deliver on our promises in the future is that we have delivered on them in the past.
Simon Hoare
My hon. Friend is right, but I think people will look at it differently. I think that most people in this country come to an evaluation of an Administration, irrespective of which party happens to be in power, based on whether they and their family group feel more secure, more prosperous and more confident about their opportunities, and on whether they can see that the opportunities for the next generation of their family are going to be deeper and wider than those presented to them when they were making their first choices.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
If I may say so, my hon. Friend is making the speech of his life. In a finance debate, it is particularly good to hear a speech about burning injustices, and I agree with him that this is the right place to be having this debate. In turn, does he agree with me that employment is at the base of dealing with all those injustices?
Simon Hoare
My hon. Friend is right. I think that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) slightly misheard my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans said precisely what the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich said, which was that although the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich was in a tight or low-income household, it was a house of work.
Simon Hoare
Of course, but let me just finish this point with my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis).
Where did we all learn that it was normal and expected to get out of bed in the morning, have a bit of a wash and a tidy-up, get ourselves to school and then on to work, and all the rest of it? It was from our parents. Growing up in Cardiff, I can remember large council estates where worklessness was endemic, and where the welfare state had not been that support, safety net or springboard, but had instead become a way of life for too many people. If that is the case, how on earth can we expect anybody to learn the work ethic?
I chaired the all-party parliamentary group for multiple sclerosis, which two years ago held an inquiry into people with MS who were in work and wanted to stay in work. Without reducing employability to a utilitarian argument, for people to feel that, even with a painful degenerative condition, they could still play an active, productive role in their family’s life, in the life of their community and thereby in the life of the economy nationally, had a huge impact on their mental health. I therefore entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury, who speaks with great passion on this issue.
An understanding of employment and the benefits that flow from it has to be rehearsed again and again by Treasury Ministers and other Ministers. We take this for granted, possibly because it is in our DNA and possibly because it is the only thing that we have ever known, but we must be conscious that there are others in our country who have not. We should be advocates, apostles, evangelisers and any other word one could think of in shouting from the rafters the strong benefits of employment.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that not only has employment benefited but, since 2010, this Government have delivered a reduction of 661,000 in the number of children living in workless households—so over half a million young people are now growing up in a home where they are getting those lessons on the importance of work—and have also reduced the number of children living in absolute poverty by 200,000?
Simon Hoare
My hon. Friend helps me and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury by amplifying the point.
I said earlier that I was born and brought up in Cardiff. One of my abiding memories was of my late grandmother, who was born in 1908, and what motivated her throughout the whole of her life. She was the daughter of Irish immigrants. When she was at school—a Catholic primary school called St Patrick’s in Grangetown —a teacher brought a child to the front of the class, theatrically held their nose, and said, “Boy, go home, you smell.”
I can remember, in different circumstances in the 1970s, my Catholic primary school in Cardiff called St Mary’s. It was the school that my mother had gone to as well. It drew from a mixed economic demographic. There was a family with three children—I can see them now. If I sound emotional on this point, it is because I am. I am emotional because I can remember—although this may sound entirely preposterous and pompous—how I felt as an eight or nine-year-old, as I was, seeing this family. The mother always looked underfed. The father always looked harassed to death. The children, one of whom was in my class, had a colour of poverty. They had a smell of poverty. Poverty has a smell about it. It has a posture about it. It says, “We are beaten.” At the age of eight, nine or 10, I can remember looking at my classmate and thinking, “What can I do?” I realised that I could do nothing apart from provide a bit of friendship and support, and I did it as best I could, as I am sure that anybody would.
But that impotence of an eight-year-old has disappeared, and I can now stand here as a 49-year-old—[Interruption.] Yes, only 49—I know. I have had a hard life—that is what I tell my wife, anyway. I burn with the sense of injustice that the hon. Member for Gedling expressed. We are all in a position in this place where we are not impotent—we can actually do something about this. If I thought that Her Majesty’s Government were not as committed as I am on this issue, I would be in the Lobby with Opposition Members, but I do not think that. I think that the strategy of the Finance Bill is right. Our values and our principles must shine through. I urge Treasury Ministers and other Ministers to talk a little more about the why of what we are doing in our politics and a little less about the percentages and statistics.
Kirsty Blackman
I want to talk about a few issues, many of which have been brought up during the debate. The first is the subject of new clauses 1 and 5, both of which I support, and the way in which they have been written. I stress to the Government, and particularly to the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), that the reason why the new clauses call for reviews is that we have no amendment of the law resolution, which means that we cannot put forward more robust amendments that ask the Government to do things. If we could have tabled more robust amendments, we would have done so, and I am sure that the Labour party would have done so as well. The Government have chosen to hamstring us and, as I have said before, when Conservative Members are sitting on the Opposition Benches, they will regret this behaviour. The fact that they chose not to move an amendment of the law motion makes it much more difficult for us to table any substantive amendments, but we are doing our best.
The things that we have managed to do during these Finance Bill debates are unparalleled in the Scottish National party’s history. We have managed to have two substantive amendments accepted to the Bill. I had two amendments accepted to the previous Finance Bill, but they were particularly minor. These ones are much more substantive and call for reviews. One of those amendments fits nicely in this section of our proceedings, as it relates to the public health effects of gambling. I am pleased that that amendment continues to be in the Bill, and I look forward to the Minister bringing forward that review in the next six months, as we have called for him to do.
There are various reasons why a Government can choose to change or introduce taxes. They can choose to have a tax to raise funds for the Government. They can choose to have a tax relief to encourage positive behaviour, or a tax to discourage negative behaviour. They can choose to have a tax to do one of the things that the Opposition and the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) have been keen to talk about. They can choose their priorities. They can choose to have a tax system that aims to reduce child poverty, reduce inequality and increase life expectancy, and we are asking for that to be the Government’s focus when they are setting taxes.
The Government should be looking at the life chances of the citizens who live on these islands and doing what they can to improve those life chances. That is the most important thing—it is why these reviews are being asked for. Whether or not the taxes that the Government have set are appropriate, we are asking for a change of focus and a change of priority, and I think the hon. Member for North Dorset was agreeing with that.