Amendment of the Law
Teresa Pearce Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Stephen Williams
These are extraordinarily difficult times, and none of us has ever shied away from the fact that we are in a tight fiscal squeeze or that there is a tight squeeze on family budgets. That is why it is important that we put more of people’s own money back into their pockets through the tax changes that we are introducing.
When the next tax year starts in two weeks’ time, the personal allowance will rise again, to £8,105, lifting 1.1 million people out of taxation altogether and providing a tax cut of £330. Also in two weeks’ time, as well as those tax changes, the largest pension increase for a century will have been delivered by this coalition Government.
Stephen Williams
I cannot give way any more.
In this Budget, our Liberal Democrat priority was to move further and faster towards our goal of £10,000 tax-free pay. Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government are therefore delighted by the confirmation that the rise in the personal allowance of £1,100 will proceed in April 2013. It is the largest rise in the personal allowance for 30 years—that is, in all our working lifetimes. In April 2013, people will be able to earn £9,205 without paying tax, which will lift a further 840,000 people out of tax. Over three years, 2 million British people will have been raised out of income tax. That will help everyone who works part time, the majority of whom are women. The measures will lift young people on the minimum wage out of income tax altogether, and 24 million basic rate taxpayers will be better off to the tune of £546. These changes will allow people to keep more of their own money. They will inject spending power into local economies and they will make work pay.
As the front page of the Liberal Democrat manifesto promised, we have delivered more than £500 into the pockets and purses of Britain as a result of this Budget. It will have been obvious from the fact that my colleagues were waving their Order Papers earlier that we are extremely pleased to have achieved that. Let us contrast it with the last Budget under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), when Labour MPs waved their Order Papers following the abolition of the 10p tax rate. There could not be a greater contrast between the priorities of this coalition Government and those of the last Labour Government.
Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)
My morning newspaper today said that the coalition parties were inviting me to regard this as a Robin Hood Budget. I enjoyed the stories of Robin Hood when I was younger, but I must have missed the bit where Robin goes back to Nottingham castle and says to the sheriff, “You look a bit hard up. Would you like some of your taxes back?” I must have missed the bit, too, where Robin went to the front door of the cottage, cash in hand, while the rest of the merry men went round the back and made off with the tax credits, the child benefit, the VAT and all the rest of it.
This Budget does not deliver what the Liberal Democrats or the Conservatives say it will deliver. The Government will fail on each of the three main tests that they have to meet today. Of course, just a few minutes after the Budget statement, it is impossible to make a comprehensive assessment of it, but I suspect that the detail of the pensioner tax changes will come as a deeply unpleasant surprise to Government Members who were waving their Order Papers so cheerfully earlier on.
Teresa Pearce
It came as a surprise to me to read through the detail of the impact assessment, which says that in 2013-14, 4.41 million people over 65 will be worse off because of the age allowance, and that 230,000 people will be brought into income tax. I wonder whether the Liberal Democrats will be proud of that.
Mr Denham
I am grateful to my hon. Friend: 4.41 people—4.41 million older people—[Interruption.] Government Members may laugh, but they have just cheered a Budget that is going to make more than 4 million pensioners worse off, because they did not understand what they were cheering.
The Budget has three tests. The first is the immediate action needed to create growth and jobs in the economy, to bring in taxes and to reduce the deficit. The second challenge—even if the Government get the first right, painful times cannot be avoided—is to ensure that the burden of the challenges is shared fairly; in other words, whether we get fairness in tough times. Does the Budget really say, “We’re all in it together,” or does it look after those already better placed to get through the next few years more generously than those who struggle hardest?
There is a third challenge for this Budget. The Institute for Fiscal Studies made presentations to MPs this week. It said that the slowing of growth since this Government were elected meant that even by 2016 the economy would be 3.5% lower than it would otherwise have been and perhaps 12% smaller in comparison with the growth rates of 2008. The Resolution Foundation, also drawing on the Office for Budget of Responsibility, calculates that disposable income for low and middle-income households will fall by 8% between 2008 and 2015. What that means is that our economy will have fallen behind, our incomes will be lower and our capacity to fund public services and social security will have been reduced. I hazard a guess that nothing that has happened today will change that grim picture by any significant degree.
The third question, then, that the public will be asking is how, after all this pain, we will pay our way in an increasingly competitive world? If we cannot compete and cannot create wealth by succeeding in global markets, we will never offer new opportunities and hope to those young people whom The Financial Times described on Saturday as “the jinxed generation”. The world economy will have moved on massively and the challenge of building British companies into those that can succeed in ever-tougher global markets will be harder than ever. If we do not lay the foundations for that success now, it will be harder to start later.
The truth is that on each of those three tests—the immediate future, fairness and laying the foundations for the future—the Chancellor’s speech gave little ground for optimism.
Independent Financial Advisers (Regulation)
Teresa Pearce Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mark Garnier
Absolutely, and I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Treasury Committee for bringing that up.
The £1.7 billion costs being pushed on to the consumer mean that £1.7 billion will be taken out of the savings pool. We simply cannot take that approach if we are trying to encourage people to save and to pay off their debts. That is why the changes are so fundamentally wrong. IFAs will have to bear the brunt of them, especially those with small operations where the requirement to sit exams, recapitalise and install new compliance systems, as well as all the other requirements of RDR, will often be handled by the same individual who is offering advice to the customer. Hector Sants estimated that implementation might mean a loss to the IFA community of 20% of the professionals who work in this arena today. Adair Turner has said that this is an acceptable cost, but I do not agree. It is unacceptable that up to 3,000 professionals according to the FSA’s figures, and more according to other research, will lose their livelihoods. Among those who stay, the cost will be passed on to the consumer, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) has said.
There are many questions to ask. Will the RDR deal with the cowboys? Will a reduction in the number of IFAs encourage a savings culture or detract from it? Is it right that when we are encouraging entrepreneurs to set up new businesses, the outgoing regulator should be bringing about such devastating change to this industry? My constituent Mike Jeacock is typical of the type of IFA who is threatened by the RDR. He runs a high street shop in Stourport-on-Severn and he networks for new business among his mates in the Stourport Workmen’s Club. These are not high-rolling wealth managers prowling family offices in Mayfair. We are talking about people who earn a living honestly servicing the financial interests of people who can afford little but who need financial advice.
The retail distribution review is a significant market intervention, and market interventions, particularly of such a fundamental and far-reaching nature, require overwhelming evidence of consumer detriment and the appropriateness of the solution. In addition, any solution needs to meet cost-benefit requirements. Does the RDR satisfy these tests? It appears to be based on a combination of unfounded assertions, limited and contradictory research and, as regards some of its solutions, little more than a hunch that the outcome will somehow be better than the present system.
It is estimated that up to 10,000 experienced IFAs of good standing will be forced to retire for no valid reason.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
The FSA says that only less competent advisers will not be able to comply with the new qualifications and that the changes will therefore act as a sort of natural selection for the industry. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the opposite might be true because it will be the more successful and long-experienced advisers with well-developed client lists who will not be able to comply or who will choose not to, and that we will therefore lose their experience from the industry?
Mark Garnier
Yes, I agree entirely. It is absolutely the case that the harder-working and more successful IFAs simply will not have time to take the exams and start dealing with the dead hand of regulation from the FSA.
With up 10,000 experienced IFAs of good standing potentially being forced to retire for no valid reason, it is estimated that as many as 3 million existing clients, many of whom will be elderly, will lose access to their trusted adviser as of 1 January 2013. I fear that without the FSA looking again at grandfathering the experienced through the process of implementation and without a rethink about commissions, independent financial advice will become the preserve of the wealthy only.
Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill
Teresa Pearce Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about clause 1 of this Bill today. In 2005, the child trust funds were launched in an attempt to build financial education and encourage habitual saving. The scheme was progressive in that it gave additional financial help to those who needed it most, with larger sums given to children from low-income families, children with no families—those in care—and disabled children.
The Government’s decision to introduce this Bill to phase out and then stop all Government payments to child trust funds is short-sighted and unfair. It is short-sighted because it scraps a popular scheme that encourages young people to save, without putting a replacement mechanism in its place. It is unfair because it is part of a package of measures contained in the comprehensive spending review that asks children and families—and children with no families—to play a bigger role in reducing the deficit than the banks and large corporations.
Ministers have failed to say what they would put in place of child trust funds to encourage families, and low-income families in particular, to save specifically for their children’s future. In answer to a written question on 20 October asking what the Department for Work and Pensions is doing to encourage saving among low-income families, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb) cited a number of general initiatives to encourage adults to save for later life, but failed to mention any plans to encourage parents and children—and children without parents—to put money aside to help with the transition to adulthood.
At the moment, it seems inevitable that the winding down of child trust funds will reverse recent efforts to increase the financial literacy of young people in this country. Financial knowledge and education in this country are at a worryingly low level. The savings ratio, which measures what proportion of earnings people in Britain are putting aside as savings, recently fell to the lowest level in seven quarters. That is no doubt linked to the recession, with wage freezes reducing household income while the cost of living continues to rise. With more strain being placed on family budgets and people having to dip into their savings, families need more help, not less, to put money away for their children’s future.
Child trust funds have an important role to play in helping young people engage with financial institutions early in their lives and to develop saving as a habit. The funds also provide young people with a level of financial independence and therefore responsibility. It is particularly important for children from low-income families, where such a significant financial asset accessed at age 18 can help with social mobility. Studies show that young adults with a small amount of capital at the beginning of adulthood had a significant advantage 10 years later over those who did not.
Child trust funds are a good way of reaching families who otherwise may not save. Stopping the child trust fund scheme will only increase the chance that social mobility will remain static. Parents with financial knowledge and greater means will likely continue to put money aside for their children’s future and instil in their children the value of saving. The children of parents who lack these resources, or children with no parents, will fall behind. The Government say that child trust funds have not been successful, but as no recipient has yet reached the age of 18, I do not understand how that can be judged.
HMRC statistics show that 10,841 vouchers were issued in my constituency and more than 8,000 child trust funds were opened by parents or guardians, with the remaining ones opened by the Revenue on the child’s behalf. So the initial take-up rate has been positive. The most important point that needs to be made in this debate is that the Government are not proposing to stop Government payments to child trust funds in order to reallocate the money for children elsewhere. The funding is simply being cut, with the relatively modest cost of child trust funds—£320 million this financial year—going towards reducing the deficit. Thus, a valuable scheme to help young people is to be sacrificed in the name of short-term expediency.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury says that the eradication of the deficit is the Government’s “top priority”. However, if this is the Government’s main priority, they would do better to look at the state of the UK tax system where the top five retail banks stand to cut around £19 billion from their tax bills in the future because of huge losses during the economic downturn, despite being saved by the UK Government through an £850 billion bail-out.
The tax payments that those banks are expected to contribute to the Government are nowhere near the expectations of most people in the UK. Banks are not being told to bear their fair share of the deficit burden that was run up because of their reckless behaviour. Instead, it is children and families, and children with no families who are being asked to bear the brunt of the cuts through the scrapping of schemes such as the child trust fund. The Chancellor used the word “fair” 24 times during his statement last Wednesday, but in reality his spending review takes more money away from children to help reduce the deficit than from the banks responsible for it.
On a personal note, as I stand here this evening, my youngest daughter is in hospital in Dartford, in labour with her first baby. She was born in 1979 under a Tory Government, and my granddaughter will be born in 2010, also under a Tory Government. The previous Tory Government came for my daughter’s school milk, but at least she was five when they took it from her. From my granddaughter, however, they are taking away the child trust fund when she has just been born, and the health in pregnancy provisions before she is even born. It seems that the priorities of the Tory party are always the same.
Comprehensive Spending Review
Teresa Pearce Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is right. This country is spending £120 million a day on debt interest. So all the pet projects that Labour has suddenly discovered—[Interruption.] Well, the truth is that the previous Labour Government inherited a golden economic legacy from the Conservatives, but we have been left the worst economic inheritance that any peacetime Government in this country have ever faced. Unfortunately, we have to deal with it, but we are doing that as two parties working together to clean up the mess that one party created. The goal that I have in sight is a more prosperous, sustainable economy and a public finance situation that is deliverable and affordable for the people of Harlow.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
The Chancellor has told us that we can expect 490,000 public sector jobs to go in the next five years, while PricewaterhouseCoopers has made an expert estimate that another 500,000 private sector jobs will go. How does putting out of work 1 million people, who will no longer pay tax and will add to the jobseeker’s allowance and housing benefit budgets, cut the deficit and add to growth?
Mr Osborne
I shall make a couple of observations. First, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility—the hon. Lady is, after all, quoting its forecast, so I presume that she would accept its whole forecast—has predicted that unemployment will fall and that more private sector jobs will be created. Secondly, she must accept—even the deficit deniers in the Labour party must accept it, and they admitted it during the general election—that there would have been a reduction in the public sector head count if there had been a Labour Government. I do not know whether the hon. Lady agrees with that—she can shake her head, nod or whatever—but that is the truth. We have had to make some decisions, but there is a high turnover in the public sector anyway, so we hope that much of this can be accommodated by posts not being filled. There will be redundancies—I think the Labour party has accepted that there would have been redundancies under its plan—but we are going to do everything we can to deal with that situation and help those people to find work. In the end, however, the current size of the budget deficit means that we have to deal with this situation, or many, many more jobs would be at risk. Let us remember that this Government came into office with unemployment rising, and that is what we have had to deal with.