Oral Answers to Questions
John Bercow Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. The comprehensiveness of answers at the moment is equalled only by their length. They do need to be a little bit shorter.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
When Members of Parliament hand on to their local offices allegations of fraud made by their constituents, will the Secretary of State arrange for the MPs concerned to read the fraud report to ensure that the job has been properly done?
Welfare Reform
John Bercow Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. A great many right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, and there is a well subscribed debate on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill to follow, as a consequence of which brevity in both questions and answers is of the essence.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
As a Back-Bench MP, I receive child benefit. Prior to entering the House, I was even better paid and received child benefit. Was the Secretary of State as surprised as I was to learn that the new Leader of the Opposition would like to restore child benefit to people like me?
Oral Answers to Questions
John Bercow Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
The hon. Gentleman has clearly not adequately studied the small print of all the forecasts. The reality is that by the end of this Parliament we expect to have more people in employment—significant increases in employment as a result of our approach to dealing with the deficit. The previous Government left us with a completely unaffordable deficit; they left this Government and this country in deep financial difficulties. What we had from them was a culture of irresponsibility. We will put this country back on the rails.
Mr Speaker
I call Yvette Cooper. I had thought that the right hon. Lady wanted to come in on this question.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
indicated dissent.
Steve Webb
My hon. Friend raises an important point, not least about ageist attitudes, particularly among employers. One of the worst examples is that it is currently legal to sack somebody for being over 65. We think that that is outrageous. The previous Government talked about it, but we are going to change the law, and that will be part of a cultural change. We need to see longer working lives. Many people want to go on making a contribution, and, like my hon. Friend’s constituent, they are thwarted in their attempts to do so. We need to change that culture and to change attitudes.
Mr Speaker
It is always a pleasure to listen to the Minister. May I just ask him to face the House? It is a very natural temptation to look backwards, but facing the House helps us all.
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the review of housing benefit, but does the Minister accept that it perhaps does not go far enough, inasmuch as it does not examine the role of landlords? Many are milking the system while neither taking steps to control antisocial behaviour by their tenants, nor undertaking appropriate repairs to stop the house—and, indeed, the whole area—falling into decay.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry that we must move on, as there is an important debate to follow that is heavily subscribed—but not before we have heard a point of order from the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane).
Jobs and the Unemployed
John Bercow Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
Capital Gains Tax (Rates)
John Bercow Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Members for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) and for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash), the hon. Members for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) and for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar) on their excellent maiden speeches.
This is a Budget that will define not only the new Government but the kind of country that Britain is to become for a decade, perhaps even a generation. The choices made in this Budget will have an impact on every middle and low-income family, every community and every workplace. They will determine not only our economic destiny, but the very nature of our society. Those choices, presented as economic imperatives, are in reality driven by an ideology which yet again fails to understand that if a state retreats too far, the result is not a big society but a broken society.
I want to concentrate on public services and welfare. Let us be clear: this is a Budget of choice, rather than a Budget in which there is only one choice. The deficit could have been reduced over a longer period, as happened in the aftermath of the IMF loan in the 1970s and that of Black Wednesday in the 1990s. The balance between taxation, spending cuts and growth could have been different, and the overall package of measures could have been progressive rather than regressive.
Much has rightly been made of Liberal Democrat duplicity. I watched closely on Budget day as the Deputy Prime Minister anxiously passed the Red Book to the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), frantically seeking to draw his attention to the tables on pages 66 and 67. The right hon. Gentleman dutifully made a trenchant speech, claiming that this was a progressive Budget and citing the tables as evidence. Within 24 hours, the Institute for Fiscal Studies had made it clear that such claims were as misleading as a typical Liberal Democrat “Focus” leaflet. It confirmed that the overall impact of the Budget measures was regressive and that the poorest would be 2.6% worse off, while the richest would be worse off by only 0.6%. That did not include cuts in benefits and public services, which would widen the gap considerably. I do not see how Liberal Democrats can claim to be progressive when they are willing to vote for this Budget, let alone for VAT increases.
In legitimacy and credibility terms, the Tories have matched the Liberal Democrats in their contempt for the electorate. It seems to have been forgotten that the Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), claimed to have modernised his party. It was no longer the nasty party, no longer indifferent to social and economic inequality. The right hon. Gentleman would govern from the centre ground, and would face down the right-wing ideologues in his party.
This Budget proves that that was all a charade. Instead we have the same old Tories, driven by a “leave it to the market” dogma, cavalier about social disintegration and contemptuous of the public sector. As throughout history, they seek to divide and rule, reversing new Labour’s economic prosperity and social justice paradigm and disregarding the link between public sector investment and private sector growth. They stigmatise the public sector and its work force as the primary cause of our economic problems, while irresponsible bankers and markets without ethics hardly get a mention. This narrative emanates from politicians and commentators who mainly use private education and health care, whose personal wealth guarantees their quality of life, and who are out of touch with the daily realities of most people in this country.
Let us consider the public servants who make a difference on a typical day in my constituency and those of every other Member: children’s centre staff and nursery nurses; teachers, classroom assistants and support staff; head teachers; police officers and police community support officers; prison and probation officers; doctors, nurses and ancillary staff; district nurses, home carers and mobile wardens; social workers, youth workers and Connexions staff; area co-ordinators and leisure staff. I could go on and on. Yes, and managers and administrators too; after all, effective organisations in the public as well as the private sector need good management and sound administration. There are also the construction companies, contractors and suppliers, providing a range of goods and services to public agencies. The public sector civilises our society, helps people to fulfil their potential, and protects those who are sick and vulnerable.
I do not deny the need for reform and cuts. In government, we should have devolved more to local government and local communities. The remuneration of public service executives should be transparent, and some roles can no longer be justified when tested against other priorities. However, cutting 25% to 30% of the public sector in only five years will both destroy our social fabric and slow the pace of economic growth. This coalition believes that as the state retreats, enterprise will flourish and the “big society” will fill the gap left by public services. That is fantasy politics and fantasy economics. The private sector will struggle to expand while the economy is fragile, which is why these cuts are too fast and too deep. Also, 1.2 million private sector jobs are dependent on the public sector, and 40% of public expenditure is spent in the private sector. The agents of the so-called big society—voluntary groups and community networks—will have their grants cut by local councils reduced to fulfilling only statutory duties.
The Secretary of State claims to champion the family, but he now wants people to break up their families and give up their homes in the pursuit of work. I thought his party was committed to a balanced, not a “get on your bike”, economy. He was at pains to say, however, that people would not have to go up north; heaven forbid!
Our opponents can attempt to rewrite history but they cannot change history. We are proud of the decisions we took to save Northern Rock, recapitalise the banks and boost the economy with a significant fiscal stimulus. We protected savers and home owners and intervened to save jobs and businesses. Our approach, in conjunction with that of our global partners, ensured recession did not lead to depression. Prior to the credit crunch, we delivered an unprecedented 11 years of economic growth, with people on low and middle incomes seeing major advances in their standard of living. We lifted hundreds of thousands of children and pensioners out of poverty, and public services were fixed and then transformed.
This Budget fails the tests of fairness and economic recovery. The Lib Dems have made their choice. It is Labour that is now left with the duty to fight for the interests of the—
Danny Alexander
I will not; I must press on.
The previous Government abolished the 10p rate of income tax. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
It is for the Chief Secretary to decide. He is not giving way at the moment.
Danny Alexander
That is not fairness. We have taken nearly 1 million people out of income tax altogether. That is fairness. The previous Government left an open door for the highest earners to exploit the gap between the rate of capital gains tax and the top rates of income tax, costing the taxpayer £1 billion a year. That is not fairness either. We have raised capital gains tax for higher rate taxpayers, and only higher rate taxpayers, by 10%. That is fairness.
Mr Speaker
Order. [Interruption.] Order. There is extensive gesticulation from some very senior and experienced Members, and no little sedentary chuntering from Ministers on the Front Bench, who now occupy senior and important positions.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That provision may be made in relation to the rates at which capital gains tax is charged.
The Speaker put forthwith the Questions necessary to dispose of the motions made in the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Standing Order No. 51(3)).
2. Value added tax (rate and supplementary charge)
Question put,
That provision be made for and in connection with increasing the standard rate of value added tax.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Bercow Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. May I congratulate the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) on her ingenuity? I mean that genuinely. However, we will now focus specifically on people who are not associated with or linked to, but resident in, Wales.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
Can the Minister assure me that the Government are doing their utmost to protect existing jobs in small companies, for example by encouraging Departments not to take peremptory action on, say, unpaid tax or regulation matters?
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
Will the Minister say what help to get off benefits and into work will be available for young people between the future jobs fund ending, which he said would happen in a couple of months, and the Government’s new single Work programme, which he said would not be available until March 2011?