Public Service Pensions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That answer will doubtless wing its way to Mrs Bone in a matter of minutes.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

I congratulate the Chief Secretary on his statement. May I also ask him to continue to negotiate and engage positively with the trade unions in the weeks and months ahead?

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman can certainly ask that and I certainly will do so. The Government are setting out this new offer, which is conditional on agreement being reached. The Government will continue to work very hard to achieve that agreement, both in the scheme-specific discussions and in the central process, which we will also continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman misses two important facts. First, the most recent figures—within the past week—for personal insolvencies showed a welcome fall. Secondly, household debt reached a record level under the previous Government. As I said in response to the first question today, we are introducing a Financial Policy Committee to assess overall levels of private debt, including business debt, in the economy so that we do not allow dangerous unsustainable levels to grow. That will now be a judgment for the Financial Policy Committee and it will have the tools to do something about it.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

T5. Can my right hon. Friend update the House on what discussions he has had about the likelihood of a further bail-out of the Greek economy and whether he has made any assessment of the UK’s likely contribution?

[Mr Osborne]

The answer is that we have not had discussions about a second Greek bail-out and we have not been asked to make a contribution. The question for Greece is whether it lives up to the commitments that it has entered into. There is currently an International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank team in Athens assessing Greece’s progress against the plan that it committed to, and we should await the results of that assessment.

Amendment of the Law

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Last year’s emergency Budget and the comprehensive spending review laid the foundations for rescuing our economy and restoring our public finances to balance. Now reform is needed to steer our country to prosperity, and at the heart of the reforms that are necessary is the knowledge that less interference and regulation from central Government is the natural precursor of growth and efficiency. It is essential that we make it as easy as possible for our firms to succeed, expand, and employ more people, and it is imperative that we send a clear message that this coalition Government are on the side of innovators and entrepreneurs.

I am fortunate to represent Chester, which is a successful, popular and thriving constituency. However, like most places, we could do better. I am in the enviable position of watching companies queue up to move in and invest, but our problem is that we have nowhere for them to move into. For years after the millennium, we had a planning moratorium that was designed to discourage investment in Chester and Cheshire and direct it towards Merseyside or Greater Manchester instead. I have no problem with encouraging investment in our metropolitan city centres—indeed, I welcome it—but that must be done by making them more attractive to investors, rather than simply stopping investment in other areas and hoping it will spontaneously start up elsewhere. The two-pronged approach announced by the Chancellor on Wednesday will help to solve both problems.

First, enterprise zones will create areas that are more attractive to investors, developers and those who wish to start up companies. I am delighted to note that Liverpool Waters has been selected on Merseyside. That will create jobs and investment, which will help people in the whole sub-region, including my own city of Chester. Unlike many Members over the past few days, I am not going to call for an enterprise zone in my own constituency, but I wholeheartedly support Cheshire West and Chester council’s proposal for one in neighbouring Ellesmere Port. A manufacturing-based enterprise zone there would complement the existing manufacturing industry—including Vauxhall and Shell—and because workers no longer live next door to the factories in which they work, it would create jobs for people in Chester as well.

Secondly, Chester will benefit from the relaxation of planning regulations. Planning is rightly considered to be a sensitive issue in Chester. Ours is a small historic city with a heritage and archaeology that make new development in the city centre very difficult. We are also tightly surrounded by green belt. All Members will be aware of the difficulties caused by proposed green belt development. However, that does not mean that we should have a planning system that places even more hurdles in the way of investors, developers and wealth creators. Reforms involving streamlining, fast-tracking, removing bureaucracy and time-limiting are long overdue, and they will have one simple consequence: they will facilitate growth.

I also welcome the Chancellor’s announcement that the Government will consult on the potential benefits of merging income tax and national insurance. It does not make sense that people’s earnings are subject to two separate taxes that are deducted directly from income. Let us not sit here and pretend that there is one pot of money that goes towards paying the state pension or unemployment benefits, and a completely different pot for general Government expenditure. Income tax and national insurance are contributors to the same kitty. Of course we must take great care to ensure that there is no unfair impact on those of state pension age whose earnings are not currently subject to national insurance deductions, but if the system can be simplified, it should be simplified.

Those of us who have run businesses are all too aware of the burden that the current system places on business owners, especially owners of small businesses that do not have the advantage of large payroll departments. It was obvious from the cheers on the Government side of the House on Wednesday that many of my colleagues had had such experiences, but as we cheered, the blank looks on the Opposition Benches told a different story. It dawned on me that many Opposition Members had very little idea of the difficulties involved in running a small business. They seemed unaware of the impact of this unnecessary complication on businesses up and down the country.

We should be doing all that we can to reduce the burden of bureaucracy on businesses and to help them to invest their time, energy and money in growth, ingenuity and development. That is what this proposal will help to deliver. If we want to stimulate our economy and help business and private enterprise to grow, we need to cut costs, cut regulations and cut bureaucracy.

Last week the Chancellor said:

“We want the words:

‘made in Britain, created in Britain, designed in Britain, invented in Britain’ to drive our nation forward.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 966.]

Only a simplification of regulations will allow such an overhaul of our economy, and I believe the measures outlined in the Budget are the first steps towards achieving that goal.

While the cuts in public services have been directly caused by the disastrous economic legacy of the last Government, these cuts in bureaucracy, waste and red tape are entirely our own, and will provide the foundations needed to help our economy to grow for decades to come.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The first thing that I would say to my hon. Friend is that, of all the schemes that we inherited, this was the one that we thought had the most chance of improvement and was worth investing in. The other schemes had almost no take-up, but this one did. We were able to provide some additional money for it in the Budget, in the form of £200 million to support additional lending. We are also introducing changes to the way the schemes work, so that there will be a limit of 20 business days that all major lenders taking part in the enterprise finance guarantee scheme will have to comply with, so that people are not left on the hook waiting for an answer.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

11. What steps he has taken to encourage saving since the June 2010 Budget; and if he will make a statement.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

The Government want to build a savings culture based on the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility, and we are committed to creating conditions for higher saving. We have already announced a number of measures, including the annual financial health check and an end to the effective requirement to purchase an annuity with tax relief pension savings at the age of 75. We will also increase the amount that can be paid into ISAs each year in line with inflation from April 2011.

[Stephen Mosley]

Recent research from Which? has highlighted the fact that savers are missing out on £12 billion a year by keeping their money in accounts that pay extremely low rates of interest. Would my hon. Friend consider encouraging banks to print the interest rate on bank statements in the same way that credit card companies have to print the rate that they charge on their statements, in order to help savers to identify whether they are getting a good deal from their bank account?

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We need to ensure that savers have the information that they need to enable them to shop around and find the best possible deal. ISA providers have already agreed to disclose interest rates on their statements, and the Financial Services Authority is consulting on extending that duty to other savings accounts.