Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Rachel Hopkins

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

One of the many ways we have tackled access to dental care is to ensure that those dentists who have a contract to conduct NHS work are using them to the top of their licence. We are encouraging dentists to do that through the new patient premium and a higher rate paid for units of dental activity. There is so much more to the plan. Labour keeps trying to claim credit for our plan, but the truth is that our plan promises 2.5 million appointments while its plan promises a miserly 700,000.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

It is imperative that we tackle the scourge of mental ill health in children and young people. Labour will ensure access to mental health support in every school and establish an open-access mental health hub in every community, paid for by charging VAT on private school fees. Why will the Government not adopt that plan?

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Rachel Hopkins

2nd reading
Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend the work that she and her Committee have done on the issue of simplification. The Committee had a very productive session with the soon to be former members of the office. What we want to do, which I will expand on a little later, is to put simplification at the heart of policymaking. So I have set my officials three objectives: making tax fairer, simpler and supportive of growth; and, for every single decision that we make, having explanations of how we will meet those three objectives. But we must acknowledge that, sometimes, there is a tension between the wish to make tax fairer and the wish to make tax simpler. The taper rate that I just described is an example of that. I appreciate that, for businesses with profits between £50,000 and £250,000 profits, their accountants will have to work out which tapering rate is available to them. But we do that precisely because we want to be fair to those businesses. I will expand on the important point that she raised later in my speech.

The Government have committed not only to supporting the growth of established businesses but to providing a boost to start-ups and young companies. That is why the Bill increases the amount of seed enterprise investment scheme funding that companies can raise over their lifetime from £150,000 to £250,000. It simplifies the process to grant options under the enterprise management incentive scheme, and it doubles the amount of share options that qualifying companies can issue to employees under the company share option plan to £60,000. Those changes intend to provide a boost to young companies by widening access to the schemes and increasing the funding limits, encouraging additional investment and further supporting growth of those companies.

We recognise how important research and development is to drive innovation and economic growth, including in our thriving life sciences sector, which employs more than a quarter of a million people and had a combined turnover of more than £90 billion in 2021. To encourage research and development, the Bill legislates for reforms to the R&D tax reliefs system previously announced by the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor. They include changes to support modern research methods by expanding the scope of qualifying expenditure for R&D reliefs to include data and cloud computing costs, and a range of measures to reduce error and fraud to ensure that our tax reliefs are well targeted and offer value for money.

By encouraging more businesses to invest in R&D, this Government are helping them to create the technologies, products and services that will advance living standards. I am pleased that, when they were announced, the chief executive of the Bioindustry Association Steve Bates OBE said of the measures:

“Modernising R&D tax reliefs to include data and cloud computing is essential for life science firms discovering and developing life-changing therapies for patients”.

We recognise the enormous contribution to our culture and economy made by theatres, orchestras and museums, as well as our vibrant film, gaming and media businesses. The Bill will extend for another two years the current 45% and 50% rates of tax relief for theatres, orchestras and museums, which will continue to offset ongoing pressures and boost investment in our cultural sectors.

The Bill will support the Chancellor’s ambitious plans relating to employment. To achieve the dynamic economy we all want, we cannot afford to waste anyone’s potential. We need to remove the barriers that stop people from working. No one should be pushed out of the workforce for tax reasons.

The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Surgeons and others have told us about the disincentive to continue working in healthcare because of tax charges on their pensions, and the NHS is our biggest employer, so to make sure that they and other professions are not deterred from working, the Bill will increase the pensions annual allowance to £60,000. The Bill will also remove the lifetime allowance charge to incentivise our most experienced and productive workers across our economy to stay in work for longer. As Dr Vishal Sharma, chair of the British Medical Association pensions committee, said:

“The scrapping of the lifetime allowance will be potentially transformative for the NHS as senior doctors will no longer be forced to retire early and can continue to work within the NHS, providing vital patient care.”

These changes will help to incentivise highly skilled and experienced individuals to remain in the labour market, which will help to grow the economy while increasing the knowledge and experience of the UK’s labour force.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Can the Minister confirm whether the Government have made any assessment of the number of doctors who will stay in the NHS specifically because of the measure, which will cost more than £1 billion a year?

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady must not confine herself merely to the medical profession. I think the chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners said this will be a game changer—

[Rachel Hopkins]

rose—

[Victoria Atkins]

Just give me a moment—I am galloping up to the jump. He said it would be a game changer in terms of policing. We know that education leaders have welcomed the changes, as have others, including air traffic controllers.

The hon. Lady asked a specific question about doctors. I am happy to be able to help her, using statistics produced by the Department of Health and Social Care. They suggest that, in 2023-24, around 22,000 senior NHS clinicians would have been expected to exceed the former £40,000 annual allowance—she must not forget that point—and around 31,000 clinicians would have reached at least 75% of the abolished lifetime allowance. I am happy to reiterate that we are introducing the change precisely because of the challenges we know our NHS, which we all love, faces at the moment, with waiting lists and so on, and because we can make the changes next week, in the new financial year.

I know the hon. Lady will recall that, the day after the Chancellor delivered the Budget, someone eminent in the medical profession appeared on television and said that they had already started receiving phone calls from doctors about how they could come back into the workforce or increase their hours. I know this is a point of disagreement between us and the hon. Lady’s party, but we are determined to encourage doctors and clinicians to remain in the NHS, working for all our constituents.

We are also determined to spread prosperity everywhere. One of the most exciting parts of the Budget was the creation of 12 new investment zones, helping to spread the benefits of economic growth around the UK. The Bill will deliver important aspects of that ambition. It will ensure that investment zones have access to a single five-year tax offer in specific sites, matching that in freeports, consisting of enhanced rates of capital allowances, structures and building allowances, full relief from stamp duty land tax, business rates and a reduced rate of employer national insurance contributions.

Importantly, investment zones will also uphold the UK’s high environmental standards and meet our international commitments. We require that proposals demonstrate how they support the UK reaching net zero by 2050 and our new long-term targets to protect and enhance the natural environment, and how they are resilient to the effects of climate change.

The Bill will also deliver on commitments made at previous fiscal events, including important ones to deliver on our freedom to set our own course outside the European Union. Among those opportunities is a major review of the alcohol duty system, as mentioned by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). We have worked closely with industry on that over the last two years.

Now that the UK is able to diverge from inherited EU laws, we can implement a system that is a better fit with our national priorities, encourages growth and innovation, aligns with public health goals and is fairer for hard-working producers. The Bill simplifies the regime and moves to a progressive tax structure, where products are taxed according to their strengths. It also legislates for two reliefs: draught relief and a new small producer relief, which will support a wider range of small businesses to grow and provides recognition of the vital role that pubs and other on-trade venues play in our communities.

Thanks to the Windsor framework, the Government can implement these reforms in Northern Ireland, including the ability to tax alcohol by strength, and to introduce draught and small producer relief. We will set out more detail about how that will work in the coming weeks.

Prison Officers: Pension Age

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Rachel Hopkins

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Victoria Atkins]

I am conscious that I have only 4 minutes, so I will continue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey has already made the point that we have tried to make change on this before. When the Prison Officers Association membership were balloted eight years ago, they did not accept the package to retire at the lower age of 65 with heavily subsidised additional contributions to the scheme. Although POA members rejected the offer, the Prison Governors Association accepted it and as a result some manager grade staff now have a lower pension age. Another offer was made in 2017, in which prison officers would have incurred no cost to access a pension at the age of 65, but again this was rejected by a union ballot union.

[Rachel Hopkins]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

I will finish, if I may, because I want to deal with the points about security and I must finish at 5.48 pm in order to give my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey time to respond.

Any lowering of the pension age for prison officers would invariably mean that their pension contributions would have to increase. Prison officers’ pension contributions are less than half those of schemes for firefighters or police officers.