Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Danny Alexander
Matters relating to the Budget will be revealed by the Chancellor in his Budget statement next Wednesday and not before, as I am sure you would expect, Mr Speaker. I have listened to the hon. Gentleman today, as I listened to him on the “Today” programme yesterday, and there was not a single answer about how Labour would balance the books, and not a single answer about how Labour would invest in public services. I heard yesterday about Labour’s zero-based review, which seems to mean zero savings, zero ideas, zero economic credibility.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
Health services in Chester and west Cheshire are facing increased pressures because of thousands of people fleeing from the Welsh NHS and seeking treatment in England. Will my right hon. Friend guarantee to provide more money for hospitals on the English side of the border, to protect them from the failure of the Labour party in Wales?
Danny Alexander
Clearly, there are issues in the NHS in Wales, but I would caution my hon. Friend about the tone of his question, because health workers in England and in Wales are working as hard as they can to provide the best treatment they can for people on either side of the border. Of course there are failures in terms of funding in Wales and issues that need to be dealt with, but everyone on this side of the House should unite in respect and admiration for our nurses and doctors and the work they do to keep us healthy in this country.
Future Government Spending
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
I am somewhat bemused to follow the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), who seemed to be giving us a public mulling over of his chances of re-election in May. We will leave him to consider that.
We are discussing Government spending and I am sure that Treasury Ministers will have been hard at work this morning trying to find some positive news in the briefing published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. They will have to keep looking, as the report confirms that working people are worse off now than they were in 2010.
“It’s astonishing actually that seven years later incomes are still no higher than they were pre-recession and indeed for working-age households they're still a bit below where they were pre-recession”.
Those are not my words, but those of the IFS director, Paul Johnson, who has already been quoted today. Mr Johnson might well be astonished that after five years of this Government life for working people in Britain is harder, but I am not. In West Dunbartonshire, we know what a Tory Government means: hardship, job cuts and poverty.
This Government have chosen to pursue an austerity plan that has not worked and that has hurt.
Gemma Doyle
No, I will not, because my constituents want me to make these points, not to give more time to Conservative Members.
The plan has not hurt the people with the broadest shoulders. No, this Government thought that they deserved a tax cut.
Gemma Doyle
I have already told the hon. Gentleman that I will not give him and his broad shoulders any more time.
The Government’s plan has hurt my constituents. It has hurt the poorest, the people who have to count every penny to pay the bills every month. What have the Government achieved? Nothing but pain. The Prime Minister promised that he would balance the books by 2015, but he has failed. Instead, borrowing for 2015-16 is set to be £75 billion and the Government will have borrowed more than £200 billion more than they planned in 2010. Their failure to balance the books is fundamentally linked to their failure to tackle the cost of living crisis in this country. How can we expect public finances to improve when Ministers have trapped families all over the UK in working poverty? Low pay, rising housing costs, disastrous benefit reforms, sky-high unemployment and spiralling energy costs are the marks of this five years in office and they are all driving up the cost of social security and driving down living standards.
Gemma Doyle
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It would be naive of us to think that the Government were making life harder for everyone. As he points out, that is simply not the case. The rich are getting richer, bankers’ bonuses are buoyant once again and corporations are lining their pockets at the expense of families in the UK. That is absolutely unacceptable, because when big companies do not pay their taxes, the working man and woman have to pay more. It is clear that five more years of the Tories means a continuation of an economy that rewards only the most privileged while piling on the pressure for millions of families. That unbalanced and extreme approach is only going to lead to deeper spending cuts—cuts that my constituents cannot afford to live with.
The Government want us to return to public spending levels last seen in the 1930s, a time before the NHS even existed.
Gemma Doyle
No, I will not.
Labour Members reject this Government’s failing austerity plan for what it is: unbalanced, unfair and unjust. This election is about saving the NHS and it is about opportunities and jobs for our young people. A Labour Government would take a very different approach to balancing the books, including a bankers’ bonus tax to fund jobs for our young people, a mansion tax to fund an extra 1,000 nurses in Scotland and raising taxes so that the richest pay more.
Gemma Doyle
No, I will not give way.
Our spending plans would support working people, boost living standards, protect our NHS and support the next generation. We want people in this country to do well, but we are not afraid of asking those with the broadest shoulders to contribute more. If someone has done well for themselves under this Government, the next Government or any Government, they should pay their fair share.
We need to pull together as a society, not drift further apart. We need to return to being a country that works for people, not against them, and that provides public services that families can rely on when they need them most. Unlike this Government, we are taking the important step of ensuring that we can deliver every promise we make. I know from talking to my constituents on the doorstep that they are fed up with being told one thing before an election only for something different to happen afterwards. There is too much of that in politics and it should stop.
The IFS has praised Labour’s approach to our spending commitments. It is a shame that this Government have not been able to make promises that they plan to keep. Our plans are simple: we will make life better for people by increasing the national minimum wage, banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, freezing energy bills, expanding child care and providing a paid job with proper training for young people who are unemployed.
I know from my conversations with people on the doorstep in West Dunbartonshire that they have had enough of the Tory austerity plan. This Government have had five years and they have failed.
Gemma Doyle
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, because I have some time left.
Stephen Mosley
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. The motion, which I am sure she will be supporting, calls for
“sensible reductions in public spending”.
Will she outline what sensible reductions in public spending Labour is planning for her constituency?
Gemma Doyle
My constituents are among the poorest in this country. The point is not to cut spending for the poorest people in this country; it is to support them. The point is that millionaires do not need a tax cut; I do not know why the hon. Gentleman thinks they do, but I certainly think they do not. We need to support people in this country who are trying to get by.
The hon. Gentleman’s Government have failed. The verdict is in: they have had five years and they have failed. We need a change of Government. The Labour party will do things differently, and I hope we get the chance to show that in May, because my constituents cannot suffer another five years of this.
Mr Jackson
No, I will not give way at present.
As we have already heard, the 45p tax rate has raised more income for public services than was ever done by the 50p rate, which was put in place for cynical political reasons. We will not take any lectures from the party that abolished the 10p tax rate for the poorest working families. What sticks in my craw is the moral superiority of the Labour party in this debate. In 2011, 1,200 people in my constituency had been parked on out-of-work benefits—incapacity benefit or invalidity benefit—for more than 10 years during a period of economic growth. Some 5.2 million were parked on out-of-work benefits when the economy was growing quarter by quarter during the 13 years of the Labour Government. We will not take any lectures or moral indignation from the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) and other Labour Members.
The top 1% of taxpayers are paying 25% of income taxes. We have driven up employment levels. More women than ever are working. Some 30.9 million people are working, despite the ludicrous prognostications of people such as David Blanchflower, who told us that 5 million people would be unemployed, and the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), who said that we could not cut expenditure and have growth in private sector jobs—complete and utter nonsense. In my constituency, unemployment has gone down by almost 60% and youth unemployment by almost 66%.
Stephen Mosley
Under the last Government, almost 1 million young people were out of work. Through apprenticeships and job opportunities, those people now have opportunities and hope for the future. They are the people who are benefiting from this Government. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Mr Jackson
I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend has put forward the strong views of his constituents in Chester for the past five years, and I expect him to be handsomely re-elected.
What I find depressing is the pernicious smear and myth that we are going back to the 1930s, when there was no NHS. That is a lie. It is disingenuous to make that point. First, the figures were not even collected until 1956. Secondly, the economy is at least 10 times bigger than it ever was in the 1930s. As I made clear in an earlier intervention, expenditure as a proportion of GDP is more or less the same as it was in 2002—the fifth year of a Labour Government.
I will not dwell on Labour’s record on the economy, other than to say that we had a record decline in manufacturing—that is for the benefit of the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson)—we had disastrous school results, youth unemployment doubled, a quarter of all public expenditure was borrowed by the end of Labour’s rule and there was a structural deficit when the economy was growing. While we are at it, inequality grew between 1997 and 2010. The gap between the poorest 10% and the richest 10% grew wider during the time of the Labour Government.
What a contrast that is to what we have done. We have capped benefits, focused on capital investment, driven up the number of apprenticeships, created 760,000 new jobs, increased the state pension and come up with a properly costed plan for our future. I am proud of the work that this Government have done, given the appalling financial inheritance they were encumbered by in May 2010.
Let us have a little humility from Labour Members. The reason they have zero credibility with electors on the deficit and the management of the economy is that they do not believe they did anything wrong. That is normal for a party that won 258 seats, even though if we had got the same number of votes, we would have got fewer than 200 seats because of the boundaries. They think, “One more heave. More spending and more borrowing is absolutely fine.”
However, the election of a Labour Government is an existential threat to the health and prospects of the economy and my constituency, and to the mortgages, jobs, pensions, savings and businesses of my constituents. Higher mortgage rates, higher unemployment, higher prices, more debt and borrowing, punishing middle-class earners, punishing aspiring wealth creators, same old class envy, same old spiteful prejudice, same old economic failure, same old Labour—on 7 May, the British people just won’t risk it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Gauke
Very difficult decisions have had to be made to deal with the deficit that we inherited. On the contribution from larger companies, as we have heard, the tax take from large companies through corporation tax has continued to rise and we have continued to take measures to deal with tax avoidance. As I have said, just last week, we announced that we would operate the diverted profits tax, the details of which will be set out tomorrow. That is an example of where the Government are taking tough, practical action to ensure that everybody pays what is required under the law.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend confirm that, as a result of the investment and effort that have been put into tackling tax avoidance and evasion since the general election, a record number of people are being prosecuted, with 2,600 people having been prosecuted in this Parliament alone?
Mr Gauke
Yes, my hon. Friend is correct—we have substantially increased the number of prosecutions in that area. The yield brought in by HMRC as a consequence of its enforcement action has also increased substantially, and in the autumn statement it was announced that that yield is anticipated to be £26 billion in 2014-15—around £9 billion more than when we came to office.
Office for Budget Responsibility (Manifesto Audits)
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mike Thornton
That suggestion certainly has some merit. After the next election, when we have given—
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
It is not true that there are no independent organisations. The IFS and the Institute of Economic Affairs already carry out independent audits. There is no need to give the job to a statutory body, because independent bodies already exist to do it.
Mike Thornton
The IFS costed our proposals in 2010, and that is an eminently sensible approach. It can be argued, however, that the OBR is seen as very successful. I am glad that now all parties, instead of just one, think that it is a useful independent organisation.
We should look to do this after the next general election, when the OBR will have plenty of time and resources to do it properly without having to rush the job and hire people quickly. As we have noticed from what is happening to our IT today, when one tries to rush something and does not do it properly, it does not work properly. I commend the idea and philosophy to the House, but this needs to wait until after the next general election.
amendment of the law
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this year’s Budget debate and a special pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who spoke with such expertise, knowledge and passion about the future of energy-intensive industries. I am delighted to hear that she welcomes the thrust of what the Chancellor is proposing in his Budget. I just wish that all Labour Members had that same attitude, because some forget what it was like four years ago, when this country was on its knees: our families were being squeezed by high unemployment and falling wages; our high streets had been devastated by the biggest dip in consumer spending in a generation; and our young people found they had the will and passion to succeed, but not the opportunities.
What a difference four years can make: unemployment is down across the country—in Chester it has fallen from 3.5% at the time of the last general election to just 2.2% now; our small businesses are reviving—locally, we have seen new business start-ups increase by 300%; and our young people are starting to get their hope back. In Chester, youth unemployment has fallen from 610 in 2009 to just 295 today—it has more than halved. We have seen a record number of apprenticeships, with 870 created in Chester in the past year alone—that is three times as many as were being created under the last Government. People know what they get with a Conservative-led Government: more jobs; great opportunities; and a better future for our country and its people. It is not just in this place that we are helping hard-working people.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
If the hon. Gentleman is so confident that things are so much better under this Government, can he explain why in my constituency the claimant count for over-25s has increased from 185 in May 2010 to 450 the last month and why for young people it has increased from 100 in May 2010 to 145, peaking at 205 last March?
Stephen Mosley
I would hope that the hon. Lady stands up, champions her constituency and goes to employers and investors saying, “Look this is what we have to offer. Come and invest here. Come and create jobs here. Come and employ people here. We want you.” My constituency is great—Chester is great—and I want to sell it the whole time; we have jobs fairs and business fairs, and we get the investment and the jobs— I am proud of that.
But it is not just in this place that Conservatives are doing a good job: up and down the country, in town halls and city halls, our councillors are freezing council tax, and in some cases cutting it, while protecting front-line services. My local Conservative-run Cheshire West and Chester council is doing all it can to help my constituents, and it is freezing council tax for the next two years. Over the five years of this Parliament, council tax payers in Chester will have seen just a 1.65% rise in their council tax bill, which of course compares massively favourably with what happened under the previous Government, when council tax bills more than doubled. This means that band D council tax payers in Chester are £131 a year better off. It is this Government who have given my local council the funds to freeze council tax. My council knows that it has to do more than always look to central Government for more money and that the way to improve local services is to make them more efficient. That is why it is now sharing its back-room services with other local authorities. A recent deal with Labour-run Wirral borough council will see council tax payers in West Cheshire and Wirral saving some £69 million. Management costs have been cut by 33%, saving tax payers £3.2 million. At the same time the council is improving local services, as can been seen in its fostering and adoption services. Working with two more Labour councils, Halton and Knowsley, it is sharing expertise, experience and costs to improve the services offered to children. Adoption figures are now the best in the north-west, with the time taken to place children half the national average.
By making local services more efficient, the council is making them more effective as well. It is using the savings to keep taxes low and to invest in our residents and in Chester's future. Work is currently progressing on a new £37.5 million theatre, replacing the old Gateway theatre that was shamefully closed by Labour in 2007. I was therefore delighted to hear the additional support that the Chancellor announced for regional theatre in his Budget on Wednesday. Cheshire West and Chester will be knocking on his door.
I was also delighted to hear about the new £20 million to support our cathedrals in this anniversary year of the start of the first world war. Chester cathedral stands at the heart of our beautiful city. It was recently voted by American readers of USA Today the fifth prettiest city in Europe. The cathedral also hosts memorials, and has a memorial garden, to the soldiers of the Cheshire Regiment, 8,420 of whom died serving our country between 1914 and 1918.
On 5 April, the new tourist attraction Cathedral at Height will open, allowing people to climb to the top of the cathedral tower to see the panoramic views across the city and the inside of the cathedral. The cathedral has massive plans to boost the Chester visitor offering, and it will be keen to explore the opportunities that this new money provides.
As we reflect on the Chancellor’s Budget, let us look at the reality for my constituents. A four-year transformation of our country’s economy has delivered more jobs, better services and a council tax freeze. Every step of the way, Labour has opposed our long-term economic plan that is making all that possible. What a clear choice for the people of Britain. They can have more borrowing, more taxes and more debt from the Labour party, or more pounds in their pockets with the Conservatives. Bring on the election!
Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
Appointments to the MPC should always be made on merit and—[Interruption.] Diversity is, of course, always an important consideration. Factors in decisions on appointing external members to the MPC include looking at career training and background as well as ethnicity and gender. [Interruption.] The Government would like to see more women on the MPC and will encourage them to apply. [Interruption.] It is also worth noting that four women have already been part of the MPC.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
Following on from the previous question, how will the Government be encouraging more women to apply for jobs on the MPC?
Sajid Javid
Whenever there is a vacancy on the MPC, the Government look at encouraging women to apply and will often invite women to apply to ensure that we can make our best efforts to increase diversity.
Banking
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Leslie
My hon. Friend is right to speak of the anger that his constituents feel. While many of his constituents and mine are struggling with the cost of living crisis, what has been the Chancellor’s response to the concerns about, and the evidence of, excessive pay? Does the Chancellor regret the millionaires’ tax cut or missing another year of the bankers’ bonus tax? Does he reflect on the outrage among the public, which my hon. Friend has expressed, who want leadership in tackling such brazen rewards? No; the response of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to oppose even the most basic transparency, which would let shareholders know about bankers who are paid more than £1 million, and to oppose any action in the UK to tackle the excessive bonus culture.
The Chancellor’s response to public concern was to travel to Brussels in September last year to oppose Europe-wide moves to limit bonus payouts to no more than 100% of salary levels for those who are on £400,000 or more, unless there is approval from shareholders. The Chancellor continues to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees to fight that new EU rule tooth and nail, even though it has only just come into force.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that under this Government, bonuses have more than halved?
Chris Leslie
I do not know where the hon. Gentleman was at the beginning of my speech, but City analysts are predicting that the bonus round for 2013 will see an increase of 44%. I do not know whether he thinks that that is acceptable or whether many of his constituents are receiving increases in their pay of 44%, but I would bet that they are not.
National Infrastructure Plan
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Danny Alexander
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. The attraction of private sector investment alongside Government investment is one of the principal objectives of the national infrastructure plan. That is why I am so pleased today to welcome the commitment of £25 billion-worth of additional investment from British insurance companies in British infrastructure. It is precisely that sort of investment that will ensure that all of the projects are delivered.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
I welcome the £15 billion of inward investment in infrastructure since 2010 that is detailed in the report. Does that not show, despite the best efforts of the Labour party to talk down our economy, that when foreign investors look at the UK, they see a country that is on the up and that has a bright future?
Danny Alexander
That is absolutely right. I am very grateful to the shadow Chief Secretary for giving us the opportunity to have this conversation in the House today and to demonstrate the paucity of his policies. If my hon. Friend is interested in foreign investment in infrastructure, there is a very good table in the document that has been published today, I think on page 87, which sets out a range of projects in this country that have been funded by overseas investment.
Interest Rate Swap Derivatives
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Guto Bebb
That concern has certainly been raised, but I keep receiving assurances from the banks that that is not the case. I want to take those assurances at face value and would still recommend that anybody who has been sold one of these products should undoubtedly go and talk to their banks. If the banks are unsympathetic, they should come and talk to their MPs, because we can and should intervene.
Stephen Mosley
Is it not the case that some customers do not know that they have been sold swap agreements? Some people have been sold hidden swaps and do not know about it. Does my hon. Friend not think that the banks have a duty to inform customers themselves if they sign people up to such agreements?
Guto Bebb
I am grateful for that intervention. I will come to hidden swaps later—“embedded swaps” is the technical term; “hidden swaps” is a fairer way of describing them—because they are a big issue and we need to address them.
The setting up of the redress scheme was the reason why we called this debate. It has taken months to reach an agreement to ensure consistency across the 11 banks involved. Originally we were told that Christmas was the deadline for completion. However, at this point in time there are 30,000 businesses in the cohort—I think that that figure is an underestimate, because of embedded swaps, for example, and the way the sophistication test works—so frankly the Christmas target will not be met.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. One of the many things we share in common, apart from both being west midlands MPs, is that by the official measure I was also homeless as a child. I agree with his assessment that the best way out of poverty is through work and a growing economy.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
Another excellent way out of poverty is giving children from disadvantaged backgrounds the best education possible. How many children are benefiting from the £2.5 billion that has been put into the pupil premium, which will, in the long term, boost their educational chances and their chances of obtaining work?
Mr Osborne
I hope this is not our last encounter across the Dispatch Box, because we are enjoying this. We are enjoying the fact that the shadow Chancellor simply does not admit to the mistakes he made, not only in office but in opposition. He is increasingly like Monty Python’s black knight defending that bridge. When unemployment falls, he says that it is but a scratch; when business confidence rises, he says, “I’ve had worse”; the recovery—it is just a flesh wound. The limbs are falling off his economic argument, and it would be a comedy if it were not for the fact that Labour’s economic policies were a tragedy for this country.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
T6. Next week, along with the university of Chester riverside innovation centre, I am organising a small business fair in Chester to try to encourage people to set up their own small businesses. Will my right hon. Friend the Chancellor tell us what the Government are doing to encourage people to set up their own businesses and create jobs in addition to the 1.3 million that have already been created in the private sector?
Mr Osborne
There is a record number of business start-ups in this country at the moment, and I congratulate the business community and people in Chester who want to set up their own business. We are doing everything we can to support them. The new employment allowance will help many hundreds of businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Together, as Cheshire MPs, we can of course make a broader argument that Cheshire is a great place to invent.