Independent School Fees: VAT

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) for leading the debate. Frankly, this Labour party policy is a viciously cynical ploy to allow Labour to masquerade as class warriors and as the working-class heroes taking on the elite. However, the reality is that they are champagne socialists pretending to be social justice champions. This policy is not about education, outcomes, the welfare of children or supporting the British people: it is about division and removing choice. It will harm educational outcomes and cause hardship. Far from being the class warriors of our age, Labour will become the party that kills off social mobility through this tax on aspiration, personal choice and responsibility, and social mobility.

There are three reasons why the policy is misguided. First, independent schools are positive for the economy. They contribute £16 billion to the economy, support 300,000 jobs contributing £5 billion in tax revenue, and save the taxpayer £4 billion by educating pupils outside the state sector. All of that would be put at risk by this ill- thought-out policy. Secondly, special education schools will be hard hit by this punitive policy. There are 96,000 pupils at SEND schools who are not on an EHCP and, simply put, they will be put at risk by the policy. Where will those children go when these special schools are put out of business? Many specialist schools in the state sector are already over-subscribed. Lastly, this tax on aspiration will simply push many poorer pupils out of good-quality schools, and parental choice will be destroyed.

I feel passionate about this policy. I stand against it because of my own personal educational journey. We will all have personal experiences and views informed by our own education, but mine is apposite. My parents were working-class people; they were migrants who came here with nothing. They themselves had poor educations in Mauritius and Kenya, so they valued the opportunity to give me a good chance at getting educated. I started in a local state school, where the teachers would go on strike every week, outcomes were poor and discipline was bad. However, my parents had a choice. Through scrimping, saving and sacrifice, they got me into a small independent private school. From that school, I got into Cambridge, I practised as a barrister and I made it to Parliament. I would not be here if it were not for their sacrifice and the great small private school that my parents had the choice to send me to.

Economy and Jobs

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con)]

I want to start by congratulating the fantastic hon. Members who have delivered brilliant maiden speeches today: my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon), for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) and for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith). For those of us who are not newly elected, the bar has definitely been raised, and I am definitely feeling the pressure.

I want to start, Mr Deputy Speaker, by telling you about the moment when I think I realised that I was a Conservative. It was in 1992 and I was 12 years old. The UK was in recession. Interest rates were 10%, rising to 12% and even 15% at one time. Those high interest rates had rendered mortgages very expensive and had caused a fall in household income, a fall in consumer spending, a fall in demand, and a sharp decline in confidence. Unemployment was at 10% in 1992. Companies were laying off millions of people. The UK had to leave the exchange rate mechanism and devalue. The reason I remember that time, and one consequence of that recession, was that my father lost his job. He used to work as a timber merchant and was suddenly unemployed, and it took him some years to get back into employment. Our family fell on hard times, as my mother’s salary as a nurse had to be stretched a long way.

People might well say, “That was under a Tory Government. Why on earth would that make you a Conservative?” It was not about who was in charge, but rather the lesson that I learned from that experience and the underlying philosophy. It was the first time that I saw the preciousness of a job. I saw how work was the route out of the devastating ruin of unemployment. I saw how job creators and innovation lifted people out of poverty. I saw that it was not all about handouts and the dole—although that is, of course, vital for those in desperate situations—but more about the pride of self-sufficiency and the dignity of work, no matter how humble, which could be life-saving. For the first time, I saw the intrinsic connection between business and enterprise on the one hand and community and survival on the other. I learned that there was no limit to what can be achieved with hard work, determination and the ladders of opportunity. For me, that is the Conservative philosophy.

The reason I dwell on my family’s experience of almost 30 years ago is that today it is simply remarkable that many more millions of people do not have to live with that crippling insecurity. Thanks to the jobs miracle that we have seen since 2010, 3.8 million more people are in work, 32 million people have enjoyed a tax cut, full-time employment is at a record high, unemployment is at its lowest since the 1970s, income inequality is falling and wages are rising. Millions of people around the country have the opportunity and the peace of mind that they can make ends meet, provide for their families and save for retirement.

Thanks to that jobs revolution, the UK is a place where even someone who is born with nothing can, with hard work, improve their situation over time and build something better to leave their children. I will tell the House why I could never vote for the Labour party or any of the other Opposition parties—it is because every Labour Government has left this country with more unemployment than when it was elected. Every Labour Government has raised taxes for millions of working people. Just as night follows day, every Labour Government costs Britain more.

This Conservative Government understand that growing the economy and reducing inequality are not mutually exclusive goals; they actually work together. Our economy grows best from the middle out, when growth is more widely shared. Our economy has grown by 19% since 2010—faster than the economies of France, Italy or Japan—and as a result we are able to allow significant investment in our services and infrastructure. In Fareham, infrastructure such as junction 10 on the M27 needs vital investment, to enable the delivery of 6,000 new homes and 5,000 new jobs at Welborne garden village. I urge Treasury Ministers to consider the scheme in detail in advance of the March Budget. That transport improvement is desperately needed, as congestion is increasing in the Solent region, slowing down journey times and connectivity and adversely affecting productivity.

This Conservative Government will continue to make an enormous difference to opportunities by bolstering the ladders into the middle class. Levelling up investment in education, increasing the minimum wage and enabling more home ownership will continue to raise standards of living for massive numbers of British people. I am proud that Fareham College—an outstanding further education college—is one of the pilots for the new T-levels, because a focus on technical training will become critical for our workforce and our economy.

It is the Conservatives who have relentlessly worked to eliminate the deficit and support business and, post Brexit, will pursue free trade. The fact is that if we want to help the poorest in our society we have to enable competitiveness, productivity and business confidence, which spurs private sector investment. Labour just does not understand that. It believes that punishing business is the way to support our poorest—a fundamental misunderstanding of wealth creation and how prosperity is spread. What drives this Government is ensuring that every striving, hard-working, optimistic child in the UK has the same incredible chance that this country gave me. That is the driving force for anyone who calls themselves a Conservative, and it is the driving force that makes Britain great.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Suella Braverman Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we have to think about how to do the annual adjustments—they have to be made only once—if we move to a quarterly system. A lot of very small businesses are already on simplified accounting methods in any case, so perhaps those issues will not apply to that extent. The Minister reminded me that the Government have been trying to expand on those simplified accounting measures to make things easier for small businesses, and so I hope that some of those issues would not arise.

During the debate on my first Finance Bill as a Member of this House, one of my amendments sought to suggest that we move the corporation tax system much closer to the annual accounts that people submit, rather than having lots of different tax adjustments. Such an approach would be much clearer for business and would create big cost savings. With more of these things, perhaps I will eventually get to that dream I had nearly seven years ago, although I am not entirely optimistic about that. To be fair, we should welcome the fact that the Government have relaxed the timetable for businesses whose turnover is less than the VAT threshold. I welcome that and it has been largely welcomed by most small businesses in my constituency, which did have concerns about this.

As we are dealing with corporation tax and as I was talking about amendments I tabled to the first Finance Bill on which I served, let me say that one of my other amendments sought to allow groups to file one corporation tax return for their whole group, rather than having to file one for every individual entity and then making loads of complicated claims about how losses are moved around the group. This Bill contains restrictions on how many of the losses brought forward from previous years can be used, but we are allowing those losses now to be used right across the group, rather than just in the entity that originally made the loss. That is a welcome change.

As we leave the EU and can finally lay to bed all the worries we had about whether we would have to include all EU companies in a group tax return, if we had one, because it would be discriminatory under EU law to include only UK companies, perhaps now is the time to look, as many other countries have, into allowing groups of companies to file one tax return that shows the profit for the whole group and does not have to track every individual transaction between all the companies. That would help us to tackle some tax avoidance schemes that have played on the different treatment of transactions between companies. It would make it easier to comply and help to tackle avoidance so, as we move through the Brexit process, I hope we can look at those issues that we have previously found difficult.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the cut in corporation tax from 19% to 17% in 2020 is only going to be good for the economy—the previous cut produced an increase in revenue from corporation tax—and will set Britain out as a favourable place for business and investment as we enter the next phase of our history through Brexit?

[Nigel Mills]

I absolutely agree: it is important that we continue to send the signal that Britain is a great place to do business and to invest. We want as much international investment here as we can get, so it is absolutely right to have a headline corporation tax rate that is as low as we can have it. I welcome the fact that we are going to get it down to 17%. The previous Chancellor hinted that he might have used 15% to give a sense of direction; perhaps the Government will look into using that in the manifesto we are about to produce.

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[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

I am pleased to speak in support of this Finance Bill on a day when the general election has been announced, giving the British people a real choice to determine the future of our country—a choice between an overspending, overtaxing, profligate Labour Government propped up by SNP subversives and a prudent, fiscally sensible Conservative Government who can continue the achievements that have been secured so far.

I will focus my comments on clauses 1 and 2, relating to income tax. First, though, it is important to put it on the record that the British economy is strong, resilient and robust, which enables it to punch above its weight in the world. Thanks to the decisions of this Government, employment is at a record high. In Fareham, 968 fewer people claim out of work benefits, a drop of 73% since 2010. The budget deficit has been reduced by nearly three quarters, and public sector net borrowing is forecast to fall from 9.9% of GDP in 2010 to 2.6%. In addition, the Bank of England has upgraded its forecasts for growth in 2017. Global businesses such as Google and Nissan are making huge investment decisions in our country. We are seeing expansion in manufacturing, construction and services. So all the predictions that we heard last year about recession, unemployment and stagnation have not been borne out.

While the Bill does not change the income tax thresholds for the 2017-18 financial year, the Government have made sensible changes to income tax in clauses 1 and 2, which should be highlighted. In particular, by raising the tax-free personal allowance threshold to £11,500 this year, we are supporting families, workers and those on lower and middle incomes. This means that the amount that someone can earn tax free will be over 75% higher than it was in 2010. Someone on a salary of £15,000 will pay £800 a year in tax now, compared to £1,700 in 2015. That is a massive boost to those incomes. By taking millions of people out of income tax altogether, we are committing ourselves to supporting people to keep the money that they earn and we are incentivising work.

So why are these lower taxes important? This is a basic principle of economics that the left simply fails to grasp. They just do not seem to get that raising taxes stifles innovation, reduces the incentive to work and kills the desire to get out there and earn a salary.

[Mrs Main]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Of course it is the Conservative party that has increased the thresholds so that people keep more of their own money. The Labour party got rid of the 10% tax rate and brought more people into paying tax than ever before.

[Suella Fernandes]

I could not agree more. That is the point that I want to make. It is a principle of basic economics. My hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) referred to her A-level economics. She will be familiar with the Laffer curve and basic economics, which say that higher taxes do not necessarily lead to higher tax revenues because they reduce the tax base.

[George Kerevan]

Does this Bill not raise taxes on insurance, and on this, that and the other thing? Is the hon. Lady in favour of the Bill or not?

[Suella Fernandes]

I completely agree. I am not saying no tax rises at all. I am saying that tax rises have to be prudently applied, and this Conservative Government definitely apply that principle, as we are seeing when it comes to income tax. Let us look at why people work. They go to work because they want to preserve the amount of money that is not taxed. It is the post-tax amount, not the pre-tax amount, that we all work for. Increasing the tax rate reduces the amount that people have available for themselves and decreases the amount available to be taxed.

[George Kerevan]

They are paying for the health service.

[Suella Fernandes]

Yes, but let us see what history has shown. When Gordon Brown increased the higher rate of tax, tax revenue fell. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) dropped it again, tax revenues increased. It shows that we need to incentivise people to work and invest in education and training, and incentivise businesses to invest in this country and to employ people, which generates more economic activity and revenue that can be ploughed back into our public services. That is what Opposition Members fail to grasp and Conservative Members see very clearly. That is why under Governments led by Labour we ended up with higher taxes, higher borrowing, higher debt and in a recession that this Government are still tidying up.

To close, I am pleased that this Government are committed to enabling people to keep more of the money they earn so that individuals and businesses can take part in our economy. We can create a fairer Britain, and a country in which we can all prosper and be rewarded for our efforts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Simon Kirby]

We have significantly increased R and D tax credits; and, as a mathematician, I agree with the hon. Lady that maths is always important.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

8. What fiscal steps he is taking to support the development of long-term infrastructure.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

13. What fiscal steps he is taking to support the development of long-term infrastructure.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

We recognise that the need to increase public spending on infrastructure is at the heart of our productivity agenda. That is why, at autumn statement 2016, we committed £23 billion of additional capital to fund new productivity-enhancing economic infrastructure through the national productivity investment fund. Coupled with the commitments made at spending review 2015, that means that between 2016-17 and 2020-21 central Government investment in economic infrastructure will rise by almost 60%, from £14 billion to £22 billion.

[Suella Fernandes]

After a 40-year wait, I am delighted that the Chancellor has announced a £25.7 million investment in the Stubbington bypass—vital infrastructure that will ease the terrible congestion between Fareham and Gosport. I commend my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), for her work. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is a great example of partnership between Hampshire County Council and Solent local enterprise partnership and that it will be the catalyst for a boost in jobs and the creation of growth?

[Mr Hammond]

I think the Stubbington bypass was well worth waiting for. It will indeed support growth and development by improving access to both the M27 and the A27, allowing much needed business investment, creating new jobs, but also enabling the development of 900 new homes. Where we can get transport infrastructure investment to perform its transport function but also to help to open up land for development for new homes, that is a double hit.

Equality: Autumn Statement

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion]

That is a wonderful thing, and what we want is for them to reach their full economic potential, rather than, as happens at the moment, getting paid less than they ought.

The analysis shows that by 2020, individuals in the poorest households will lose most from tax and benefit changes, but in every income group, BME women will lose the greatest proportion of their individual income. Low-income black and Asian women will lose around twice as much money as low-income white men as a result of tax and benefit changes. The Women’s Budget Group has also highlighted analysis showing that disabled people are losing significantly more as a result of those changes than non-disabled people, and disabled women are losing more than disabled men. According to its analysis, disabled men are losing nine times as much income as non-disabled men. Disabled women are losing twice as much income as non-disabled women. By 2020, families with both disabled adults and disabled children will lose more than £5,000 a year as a result of tax and benefit changes, as well as services to the value of nearly £9,000 a year as a result of Government cuts to services. Do Ministers believe that that figure is acceptable and in line with assertions from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor that their party is the champion of equality and fairness? We know that Budgets and policy decisions are simply not gender-neutral.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that she seems to be suggesting having no plan and no sustainability? Does she accept that welfare spending tripled in real terms between 1980-81 and 2014-15? We believe that that is unsustainable and does not balance the books.

[Sarah Champion]

I think I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Does she recognise that there are groups in our society now that are being made poorer by this Government? That is the position that we are in, and that is what the statistics are telling us.

It has been proved that this Government frequently do not recognise gender differentials, and that assumptions are made in policy making that include biases in favour of existing unequal gender relations. Women are particularly vulnerable to being hit harder by Government policies, for a number of reasons. First, social security payments make up a greater share of women’s income than men’s, as women earn less in the labour market. Secondly, women pay less direct tax than men, because they tend to earn less. Women make greater use of public sector care services than men, because they have greater caring responsibilities. Finally, women are hit harder by Government policies, because a higher proportion of women are employed in the public sector. I ask the Minister how those factors were taken into account in the drafting of the most recent autumn statement?

Labour has already committed to a gender audit of financial statements when in government, the aim of which is to make gender equality a significant element in considering and recommending policy options. That would ensure that proposed measures contained no legal, economic, social or cultural constraints to gender-equitable participation and that policies were implemented in a gender-sensitive and equitable manner.

That process, which is often referred to as gender auditing or gender budgeting, now takes place in more than 40 countries around the world. It was originally inspired by the early experiences of countries such as Australia and then given further momentum by the United Nations commitment to gender budgeting in the Beijing platform for action.

I wish to draw the House’s attention to two particular examples of best practice, in Sweden and Spain. Gender impact assessment is a relatively common instrument to support the gender mainstreaming of policy implementation in Sweden. It is strongly embedded and is carried out by different levels of government, from local to national. In national Government offices, gender impact assessments are most regularly performed when drawing up documents such as Government Bills and terms of reference for inquiry committees. The implementation of those assessments is conducted in the framework of the Swedish Government’s gender mainstreaming strategy.

In Spain, gender impact assessments have been required by law in the Basque country since 2005, in the framework of the Equal Opportunities between Women and Men Act. Since 2007, gender impact assessment reports have been issued on more than 500 decrees and laws. After seven years, gender impact assessment is a consolidated practice that is strongly embedded in the Basque regional government.

Those are just two examples to demonstrate that, when it comes to mainstreaming equalities into economic and wider policy, the Conservative party is light years behind some of our European colleagues.

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[Sarah Champion]

I ask the hon. and learned Lady to think how much better we would do if we actively audited what we were doing.

Legal and international obligations on the Government mean that they need to protect and advance women’s economic equality. The Equality Act 2010, which was introduced by Labour, enshrined in law the public sector equality duty, requiring public authorities to have due regard to a number of equality considerations when exercising their functions. Labour enshrined in section 149 of that Act the provision that any public body must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to “eliminate discrimination” and “advance equality of opportunity” for those with protected characteristics, which include gender and ethnicity.

The case of Bracking and others v. the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is one of the leading cases on the application of section 149 of the Equality Act. The principles outlined in the judgment were recently summarised by Mr Justice Gilbart in Moore and another v. the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and crucially include the following: that the relevant duty is on the Minister, or other decision maker, personally; that a Minister must assess the risk and extent of any adverse impact and the ways in which such risk may be eliminated before the adoption of a proposed policy, and not simply as a “rearguard action” following a concluded decision; and that the duty of due regard under the statute requires public authorities to be properly informed before taking a decision. If the relevant material is not available, there will be a duty to acquire it, and that will frequently mean that some further consideration with appropriate groups is required.

Specifically, I ask the Minister to outline how the most recent autumn statement, as well as policy announcements since her party came to Government, comply with section 149 of the Equality Act and the requirements outlined by Mr Justice Gilbart. Assumptions and reassurances will not suffice, and the public demand to see how the autumn statement and Government policies comply with relevant sections of the Equality Act and with case law. I ask the Minister to kindly make that information available through the House of Commons Library at the earliest possible opportunity.

We should not have to hold the Government’s feet to the fire to ensure that their policies are not disproportionately impacting one particular group and reversing progress on economic equality. Sadly, previous words from the Conservative party do not fill us with much hope. On 19 November 2012, the then Prime Minister spoke at the Confederation of British Industry’s annual conference. He announced that Government Departments would no longer be required to carry out equality impact assessments. He referred to equality impact assessments as “reams of bureaucratic nonsense” and “tick-box stuff”. Do the current Prime Minister and Chancellor agree with that analysis?

[Suella Fernandes]

The hon. Lady talks about progress, but what does she think about the fact that the gender pay gap has narrowed to a record level, and has been virtually eliminated for women under the age of 40? We have more women-led businesses than ever before. Should she not acknowledge that progress?

[Sarah Champion]

I have to say that it pains me that it is a woman Member who is asking that. Should I go back to my constituents and ask them to be grateful that it will only take another 60 years before they have parity of pay?

If the Government are set to continue their contemptuous attitude on equality impact assessments, will the Minster explain how else they have managed to show that due regard has been given to the impact of the autumn statement on those with protected characteristics?

The Government know how to conduct a proper audit of their policies on women and those with protected characteristics. The Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Women’s Budget Group, among many others, have outlined suggested methodologies very clearly. We have to ask why, in the light of the availability of those methodologies, the Government continue to be so evasive. Labour Members will not let go of this point. We will continue to commission and publish our own analysis at every future Budget and spring statement for as long as it takes the Government to do their duty. The question is how long the Government will continue to stick their head in the sand regarding the impact of their policies on women, disabled people and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Will things change when the impact figure rises from 86% to 89%? Perhaps it will be 95%, or perhaps we have to reach 100% before the Government carry out an audit.

The situation has become increasingly embarrassing, as the Government continue to let women down time and time again. The Treasury refuses to send a Minister to appear before the Women and Equalities Committee to answer questions on the gender impact of the autumn statement. The Government have provided insubstantial data, and last year they voted down an Opposition motion on publishing a cumulative gender impact assessment of their policies. In their amendment to today’s motion, the Government point to their distributional analysis, which provides no overall analysis of the impact of the measures announced in the autumn statement on women, black and minority ethnic people or disabled people.

A few days before the autumn statement, the Women and Equalities Committee published a report criticising the Government for their lack of clarity both on how the 2015 spending review affected women, black and minority ethnic people and disabled people, and on how the equalities impact assessment had been undertaken. The Chair of the Committee, the highly regarded Conservative MP, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), said:

“Without the information we have asked for or ministerial evidence it’s not been possible to form a view of the Government’s work under the public sector equality duty. Promotion of transparency is a central aim of the Public Sector Equality Duty requirements.”

The Committee, numerous organisations and, indeed, the Opposition have all made it clear that the distributional analysis produced by the Government is inadequate for judging compliance with the Equality Acts. The evasiveness must stop. Women and those with protected characteristics up down the country deserve and expect better. Various Ministers have refused to accept the analysis produced by the House of Commons Library that is cited in the motion. If the Minister disagrees with independent House of Commons analysis, will he say whether the Government would be willing to produce their own and make it available to colleagues? It is simply not good enough for the Government to criticise the Library analysis without producing their own.

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[Suella Fernandes]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Government are helping women at work by introducing shared parental leave, flexible working hours and 30 hours of free childcare? Those have been pioneered by this Government, putting women first in the workplace.

[Mr Gauke]

Indeed. My hon. Friend makes an important point. I will deal with those measures in a moment.

It is worth pointing out that the impressive employment numbers are accompanied by rising living standards, which last year grew at their fastest rate in 14 years and currently stand at their highest-ever level. The benefits of this affect people across our society, but the House should note the evidence of particular benefits for women and people from black and minority ethnic groups. The number of women in work has increased by over 1.2 million since 2010. Indeed, the rate went up more in the previous Parliament than in the previous three Parliaments combined. That comes as the gender pay gap falls to the lowest on record, more women are on the boards or leading businesses than ever before, and there are no longer any all-male boards in the FTSE 100.

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[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

The Opposition motion is an attempt to attack the Government’s record on equality in relation to gender and race. I am saddened by it—saddened but unsurprised, because it is unoriginal, it is typical and it is an unfounded attack.

I would ask the Opposition to change the record. They need to dump their 1980s retro-socialism and face the facts. The Conservative party that I have been elected to represent, as a woman and as a member of an ethnic minority, bears no resemblance to the picture they are trying to paint in the motion, in philosophy or policy—in fact, quite the contrary.

I am proud that on this side of the House, our values of fairness, meritocracy and service inform our policies—our values of aspiration. We say it does not matter where you start in life. It does not matter what your parents did. It does not matter where you come from. You can rise up, by using the ladder that the Conservatives provide—not handouts and not dependency. The key to that is working, because that produces confidence. It engenders teamwork. It creates responsibility. We believe in the individual, not the state. We believe that taxation stifles enterprise, instead of empowering. That is what this autumn statement depicts, and that is what this Government’s track record reflects.

Labour’s default position of increasing taxation, of spending more, is unsustainable; it is not prudent and it is disempowering to women, ethnic minorities and disabled people. If we want to keep and empower women in work, and to empower ethnic minorities and disabled people, we need a strong economy. We get a strong economy by managing the books and the finances prudently. This recent autumn statement set out by the Chancellor is a real reflection of how we do that, with the commitment to raising the tax-free personal allowance to £12,500; raising the national living wage from £7.20 to £7.50 in April; aligning national insurance thresholds for employees and employers; rolling out 30 hours of tax-free childcare; and introducing shared parental leave and flexible working.

Those are all conditions that empower women, and when the conditions are right, we get the results, and the results speak for themselves. Granted, there is more to do, but the gender pay gap is the lowest on record, with more women-led businesses than ever, contributing £80 billion to the economy per year. There are no all-male boards in the FTSE top companies. Britain has been voted the best country in Europe for women to set up a business. Those are the facts.

This is a Government who create the conditions to help make work pay, to strengthen our economy in a sustainable and prudent way. In doing so, we are all empowered. We are all empowered—as women, as ethnic people, as disabled people, as people from disadvantage. It does not matter what your background is; you can achieve your potential, with no limit on your aspiration. That is why I shall vote against the Opposition motion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

I will take that as a representation and make sure that my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary is aware of it. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we are already setting out an ambitious programme for road spending over this Parliament. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made announcements last week about putting in more funding to improve our road network across the country. I am happy to look at the case that the hon. Gentleman raises.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

I recently visited ASV Global in Portchester, an innovator in unmanned and autonomous marine technologies. In just six years, ASV has designed 70 new products, which it has delivered to 10 countries and 40 customers. What further support for research and development is available to companies such as ASV to boost job creation and wealth?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

We have done two things. Within the £23 billion that I announced last week to raise the UK’s productivity game is a significant increase in public R and D investment. We also said—we will do this before the Budget—that we would carry out a review of the way that tax support for privately funded R and D works, with the objective of ensuring that the UK is the most attractive place in Europe to do private R and D work. I will report at Budget 2017.

Oral Answers to Questions

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Just so that the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely clear, it is quite wrong to suggest that my Department does not have any figures—it does, but I am just not giving them to him.

As for the document that the right hon. Gentleman spent such a lot of time yesterday rather unsuccessfully trying to tout around the media, it was published by mistake, but all the figures in the document have already been published elsewhere. All of them are in the public domain.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

T2. Kevin Lancaster and Simon Davis started their business, Aqua Cooling, from scratch in Fareham in 2000, and it now generates £1.7 million in profit and is a leading industrial cooling firm. Last week, the Institute of Physics awarded Aqua Cooling its business innovation award for its innovate application of physics to generate jobs and profit. Will the Chancellor join me in congratulating Aqua Cooling and outline what the Government are doing to support research and development, so that other self-starters like Kevin and Simon can grow their businesses?

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)]

I think that all Treasury Ministers would be delighted to congratulate Aqua Cooling on the innovation award it has won. As has been said, the Government have committed to supporting research and development in British businesses, providing one of the most generous R and D tax credit schemes in the world to UK small business. I am delighted to say that it was claimed by more than 18,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in 2014-15.

Savings (Government Contributions) Bill

Suella Braverman Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I hesitate to detain the House by repeating much of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) in his thoughtful speech, but I particularly wanted to speak in support of the Help to Save scheme, which seems to be the Cinderella scheme in today’s debate.

Rare is the politician who understands the difference between profit and loss and the balance sheet. That is normally left to dull accountants like me. We spend a great deal of time in the House talking about people’s differential profit-and-loss accounts—the difference in earnings, and whether some members of society earn far too much in comparison with others—and we do a fair amount in trying to close that gap. However, we often fail to recognise that the solution to those inequalities in society, and the solution to the problem of poverty more generally, are first multi-generational and secondly as much about the balance sheet—the asset share that those people may have for the future—as about how much they happen to earn at the moment. Anything that enables people with low incomes, who may be on benefits or the like but who are certainly at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, to start to get the idea of saving and, in particular, investing the money saved in assets can only be applauded.

One of our problems in this country is that the collective balance sheet—the assets held both privately and publicly—is concentrated in far too few hands. Over the last 20 or so years there has been a diminution in the number of people who own shares or, indeed, have any asset base, even ownership of their houses. We need to reverse that, but sadly it has been far too low on Ministers’ agendas. A good example is the sell-off of the Post Office. The retail tranche of sales—the shares that were to be sold to members of the public in small lots—was scaled back, while the tranche that was being sold to large institutions such as Goldman Sachs was inflated. It seemed insane that a Liberal Democrat Secretary of State, in particular, would do that. There was a lost opportunity to spread what was known back in the 1980s, in the heyday of a certain politician, as the “ownership society”. The former Member of Parliament for Richmond, Yorks, William Hague, said that we should be a share-owning, property-owning society, and should roll back the frontiers of the state to enable that to happen.

I am keen for Help to Save to be promoted, because it allows people with very low incomes, or no incomes at all, to start thinking about their own asset bases and start saving for the future. However, I should like the Minister to consider a couple of issues. First, I do not understand why there is a cap on the amount that can be contributed. If someone earning a very low wage is able to contribute £20 a week or £20 a month year in, year out, why should we seek to limit that? Why should we not allow such people to build up a fund which they could use in the future, possibly passing it on to their children, who might then decide to do the same? Secondly, £50 seems a rather small amount to me, particularly for someone who is starting to build up an amount and getting into the spirit of saving. Thirdly, especially in the current interest-rate environment, requiring people to hold their savings in cash strikes me as self-defeating. Allowing them to go to their banks and buy, for instance, shares in Marks & Spencer or Royal Bank of Scotland—when, hopefully, they become available—would give them the idea that they could benefit from the country’s asset base.

It is worth noting that, when it comes to the lump sums that people want to accumulate over their lives, their aspirations are often quite modest. Many years ago a great friend of mine who works in television was devising a new quiz show, and wanted to establish what prize money he should offer so that he could deal with the show’s finances. A survey was conducted, and people in the United Kingdom were asked what amount constituted “change your life money”. In this age of the lottery, my friend thought that the answer would be hundreds of thousands of pounds, but in fact it was just over £6,000. That is what the vast bulk of British people thought was “change your life money” which would give them the chance to start to build for the future.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

The Money Advice Service recently found that 21 million families had less than £500 in savings. What does my hon. Friend think about the lack of financial literacy and money management skills among people who do not have the techniques and the basic understanding that would enable them to manage their personal finances?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend has touched on an interesting issue. What she has said reflects one of the observations made by the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). Over the past three or four decades people have, perhaps, been infantilised in respect of the financial choices that they make, and politicians in the House of Commons may have sought to make their choices for them. Personally, I would like the opportunity to decide between a lifetime ISA, a pension and a normal ISA, for instance, but then I am a chartered accountant of moderate skill—deeply moderate; I resigned on the day I qualified for exactly that reason—but I recognise that plenty of people feel confused and are unable to do so. We have taken the power away from them over the years, and we must start to reverse that. We must either put choice back into their hands, or educate them so that they can make those choices in the future. The financial world is becoming ever more complicated, and if people are to do well out of it—particularly those on lower incomes—they will need to have that kind of knowledge.

Another reason why people should take an interest in acquiring assets rather than the mere ins and outs of their monthly incomes is the fact that a number have missed out, recently in particular, on what could have been a big upswing in their wealth. Brexit has seen a massive rise in the stock market, and anyone who has had stocks and shares over the last couple of months will have done extremely well. Similarly, the housing market has risen prodigiously over the last three or four years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The position of the UK Government on corporation tax and the impact on developing countries is very clear. We believe in taxing the profits of economic activity that occur here, and that is as far as it goes. Over the last six years, we have consistently helped to build up tax capacity in developing countries and provided support to their revenue authorities so that they might be better able to collect the taxes that are due. The international system is moving towards helping those countries as well.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

T3. I congratulate the Chancellor on his appointment and ask that when he looks through his in-tray, he pick up the recent report from the all-party group on financial education for young people. I chaired the inquiry that produced the report, which concluded that while it was a positive step that financial education was included in the national curriculum, delivery was still too patchy, meaning that millions of children were ill-equipped to deal with money when they left school. Will my right hon. Friend commit to making that issue a priority?

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Simon Kirby)]

I know that my hon. Friend takes a keen interest in this interesting and increasingly complex matter. It is very important that people have the skills they need to help them to navigate financial matters, which is why in 2014 the coalition Government made financial education part of the national curriculum in English schools. That said, I am quite happy to concede that there is more work to be done.

The Economy and Work

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I would like to concentrate my remarks on the help to save scheme—or should I call it the reinvigorated savings gateway? It is welcome that the Government have recognised the importance of saving and particularly of matched saving—one of the best ways of encouraging people to save. Analysis by StepChange shows that 44% of people on low incomes have a lower chance of getting into debt if they have savings of about £1,000—that is half a million people who would be prevented from falling into debt.

However, I have a few issues with the design of the scheme. For example, two years is a very long time in which to have to save regularly. Some 14 million people experienced at least one income shock in the past 12 months —that might be because of a job loss, a cut in hours, illness or a new baby. If money is withdrawn, people will lose the bonus they feel they have already gained. People on low incomes know they are going to experience some income shocks, and that could discourage them from saving.

We all know that it is good to save and that it is very worthy, and we all start things with good intentions. For example, when we join a gym, we intend to go every week—of course would do—but imagine if we had a two-year contract saying we had to go every week. Crucially, therefore, there should be some measures in the Government’s proposals to allow for irregular savings, where people cannot afford to put money into the scheme one month—after all, we have all missed the odd week at the gym. Things do crop up, and we should allow a couple of withdrawals.

We also need to look at the behavioural economics of people in relation to the scheme. People may need some encouragement and some incentives to join—for example, prize draws. We all know that people spend the odd pound on a lottery ticket in the hope of winning something, and encouraging people to save by offering them the incentive of a prize would be important.

I would like to say a quick word about financial education, which is really important. I am pleased that academisation has been taken out of the Queen’s Speech. However, there is a lack of financial education in the curriculum, and it should start earlier. My experience is that primary education is really important. I had a great scheme with a great tutor, Vernon Fuller, who ran a wonderful course for primary students over 10 years ago. I would love to see how they are getting on now.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady join me in congratulating the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people, which this week launched its report, of which I was the chair, calling for more Government support for financial education for primary school children, because children form their money habits at the age of seven?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I will indeed. I read that report with interest, as financial education has always been an interest of mine, but I have to say that it is not a silver bullet.

All efforts need to be made to keep people out of the hands of the payday lenders and the rent-to-own sector. We need to make sure that support is given to alternative providers of finance such as Fair for You, and that they have a level playing field. For example, real-time data from everyone, including the banks, must be available to new market entrants so that they can make fair assessments of lending. We must also make sure that those data are accurate, as I have had reports of data from various companies being quite inaccurate.

Talking of fairness and level playing fields, I support the calls for transitional arrangements to help the women who have been adversely affected by the mishandled increasing of the state pension age. Perhaps I should declare an interest in this as a woman who was born in the 1950s. I urge the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), to revisit this unfairness during the passage of the pensions Bill.

I welcome the savings scheme, but I would like it to be designed to reflect the real lives of people on a low income: the real life that has bumps in the road on quite a few occasions; the real life where sometimes buying a new pair of shoes or going out for the day with the family is more important than putting money away for a rainy day. I hope that the Government will recognise this in the design of the scheme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my colleague on the International Development Committee—the Chair of the Committee—the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg).

To have a strong economy, we need a strong society. That is why I welcome the many references in the Gracious Speech to improving life chances, especially for the young and disadvantaged. The Children and Social Work Bill and the prisons and courts reform Bill are particularly welcome in helping to give a second chance to those who, in so many cases, never had a first chance.

Last week, the review of prison education by Dame Sally Coates, “Unlocking Potential”, proposed that to improve the life chances of prisoners, a holistic vision of education is needed for them, including family and relationship learning and practical advice on parenting and financial skills. It is heartening to note that the Government have agreed to implement the review in full.

Another excellent report that has also just been published is Lord Laming’s “In Care, Out of Trouble”, in which he says:

“Remedial work and rehabilitation are essential but prevention is so much more rewarding and fruitful for the young person and wider society.”

He says that good parenting “creates the solid foundation” to give the child the best start, and that the “essential ingredients” are security and stability. He says that

“in this context…young children develop self confidence, trust, personal and social values and optimism. Loss, neglect or trauma at this early stage in life often result in profound and enduring consequences.”

That is why the commitment in the Gracious Speech to

“increase life chances for the most disadvantaged”

by tackling

“poverty and the causes of deprivation, including family instability”

is so welcome.

Addressing this challenge is urgent. The needs are widespread, and not just for those at risk of entering the care or criminal justice systems. Years of evidence-based research by the Centre for Social Justice has shown it is demonstrably the case that growing up in a family where relationships are dysfunctional, chaotic or insecure is not only a key driver of poverty in itself, but a driver of other causes of poverty such as addiction, mental health problems, behavioural problems, poor educational attainment, worklessness, depression and debt. Teachers and mental health charity workers in my constituency tell me that disturbingly increasing levels of poor mental health among children, including very young children, frequently result from insecure family relationships.

[Suella Fernandes]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the recently announced change to the measurement of life chances—from one based on an arbitrary relative income to one that takes into account worklessness in households and educational attainment—reflects the multifaceted nature of poverty and achievement?

[Fiona Bruce]

I do indeed. I also think that we should include family instability in that statutory footing.

Yesterday, Relate published a report on couple relationship distress in the UK. It states:

“Good quality, couple, family and social relationships are the basis of a thriving society…central to our health and wellbeing…poor quality relationships have far-reaching consequences. Inter-parental relationships have…been recognised…as a major determinant of children’s life chances.”

However, Relate’s analysis estimates that almost one in five of adult couple relationships in the UK could be characterised as a distressed relationship, meaning one with a severe level of relationship problems that has a clinically significant negative effect on a partner’s wellbeing. The figure for partners with children under 16 is even higher. Encouragingly, however, Relate also says:

“A broad range of relationship support services are effective at improving relationship quality.”

I hope Ministers will read the report and note its recommendation that we need to

“expand access to a spectrum of support for good quality relationships, overcoming barriers of accessibility, availability, and affordability to ensure that anyone who needs it can benefit from support.”

I look forward to the publication of the Government’s life chances strategy. I hope that it recognises that poverty of relationships is a severe limiter of life chances, and that substantially increased support for stronger family relationships is needed in every local community. It is important to provide somewhere in every locality where people can go for such support and advice, at any stage in their family life—whether they are starting a family, bringing up toddlers or teenagers, coping with supporting an elderly parent, or simply a couple going through a rocky patch.

The troubled families initiative has been successful in providing intervention and support at a crisis stage. Let us learn from that, but provide support much earlier, when families feel they need help. Let us normalise asking for help and providing it. There cannot be a family in the land that would not benefit.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

I must confess I thought the Queen’s Speech was fairly awful. It was not awful in its individual proposals on things such as prison reform or bus regulation, all of which have some merit. It was certainly not awful because of the delivery of it by Her Majesty the Queen, who even sounded reasonably excited by the news of a forthcoming state visit from the Colombians—something we can all get behind. It was awful because it lacked any sense of big thinking and any grand design for the state of our nation. As a constituency MP I see so many challenges and so many things I want to change that listening to the modest list of measures we heard last week only left me frustrated.

What makes me so impatient about those shortcomings is that I believe that with better leadership and a better Government, we could do so much better. We are a country where the divide between the very affluent and everyone else is too great, and where owning a home, having a decent job and being able to have a good family life are increasingly unattainable for too many people. Eight years after the financial crisis, our economy is still too dependent on the financial services sector, house prices and consumer spending, and is still too reliant on London and the south-east. There are obscene levels of extreme poverty and destitution, and homelessness is almost back to 1980s levels.

We have an ageing population, but core public services such the NHS and social care simply do not have enough money. Our welfare system is not fit for purpose; it gives too little support to many people while creating welfare dependency in a small group of others. We have chronic skills shortages in several major industries; that in turn fuels record immigration levels. Our lack of any kind of industrial policy has left several key sectors such as steel facing the abyss.

Some parts of our economy are overtaxed, particularly through the outdated business rates system, and other parts do not pay the tax they should. I could go on, because nothing in this Queen’s Speech made me feel as if our Government are considering these problems; in fact, nothing in it made me feel that the Government have a desire to do anything more than try to hold the Conservative party together over the next 12 months.

[Suella Fernandes]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s criticism of the Queen’s Speech. Does he share the same opinion about Labour’s future as that written by a member of his party, which said that Labour lacks credibility on the economy?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the extra time, and I will come on to those wider criticisms.

In some respects the Queen’s Speech was frankly dishonest. Whatever one’s view of the necessity of austerity, or the success of the Government’s deficit reduction programme, it is simply not true to say that public services are being reformed to help the hardest to reach—they are being reformed to remove them from the hardest to reach. It is also not true to say some of the deepest social problems in society are being tackled when some—homelessness, for example—are clearly getting worse. In Greater Manchester, one of the most dynamic parts of England, as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) has said, an entire community of people are now living in tents in Manchester city centre. That is not what success looks like. I am all for measuring life chances better, but we do not need a new set of indicators to understand that taking money from people who have serious disabilities—as the Government have repeatedly tried to do—will make their lives harder, not better.

If I were writing the Queen’s Speech, I would ask for it to include three things. First—this was echoed by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White)—we need a formal industrial strategy in the UK that is focused on making British industry as globally competitive as it can be. Secondly, we need a royal commission on the welfare state, to consider what will be required in an age of rapid technological change and digital self-employment. Thirdly, we need serious democratic reform, so that future Queen’s Speeches are much better than this one.

The tail-end of the Queen’s Speech contained a miserly reference to the supremacy of the Commons. If the Government do not want to lose so much legislation in the Lords, they should try to make better legislation. I do not believe the Lords to be the hotbed of democratic socialism that Ministers seek to portray. This Queen’s Speech was not a programme to transform our nation or tackle our biggest problems. It was all filler and no killer—a pick ‘n’ mix of pet projects; a holding card until the next Conservative leadership contest reveals that party’s true direction. Britain deserves a legislative programme that engages our public, ignites our economy, and inspires our future. Britain deserves a lot better than this.