Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Gareth Davies

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

T2. The Fife whisky festival took place in Cupar earlier this month, and was a great success. The industry welcomes the freeze in alcohol duty, but notes that it is only for six months. When will the Government provide the longer term consistency that the industry needs?

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Gareth Davies)]

Our support for the Scotch Whisky Association is long-standing, and it was a pleasure to meet its representatives recently. We have frozen or cut duty for Scottish whisky in fiscal events going back many years. We are representing the Scotch Whisky Association in trade agreements, and that support will endure long into the future.

National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Gareth Davies

2nd reading
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I accept the measure helps other people, but the reality is that we have seen an increase, on average, of 40p a litre. As other hon. Members have said, there has been a 5p a litre increase in the last week. A 5p reduction is helpful, but it does not go far enough to support those who really need it.

Frankly, lowering the basic rate of income tax is the biggest wheeze of all. Paul Johnson of the IFS said in The Times this morning that we are experiencing “fiscal drag.” The freezing of income tax, which the Chancellor previously announced, means that, even as people’s wages increase, they will pay more tax, and the reduction is not happening yet. All the Chancellor has said is that he will do it at an unspecified time before the next election.

The reduction will help those on low incomes the least. It is a tiny reduction and, overall, the tax cuts announced yesterday are worth only a quarter of what is being increased. Arguably, it is not workers who benefit from the cut but people, such as landlords, with unearned income from investments. People who are wealthy enough to get their income from savings and property will pay less tax, while the least well off continue to pay more and more. This is driving another wedge between unearned and earned incomes. I tabled a further amendment with my hon. Friend the Member for Bath to require reporting on the impact.

The Chancellor repeatedly spoke about hard-working families—that was his catchphrase of choice—but those hard-working families are not being helped. They are seeing their energy bills go up and the price of food to feed their children skyrocket, and working parents are being pushed into higher tax brackets by the choice to freeze the thresholds. They pay ever more tax. My final amendment addresses unearned income.

This spring statement is a huge missed opportunity. I would have liked to see a packed Chamber debating legislation that actually makes a difference to people, but I think we would all accept that this is not that Chamber and not that Bill. There are so many steps the Government could have taken today but did not. We had an Opposition day debate at the start of this week on pensioner poverty, which we know is increasing year on year. The Minister in that debate said he was sure the Chancellor would have been listening to Opposition Members calling for more support for pensioners and suggesting some of the ways in which that could be done—you were in the Chair at the time, Madam Deputy Speaker. Clearly, the Chancellor was not listening, because pensioners were not mentioned at all yesterday. There was very little for pensioners who do not drive or own their house—or for those who do own their house but are not planning any energy-efficient home improvements.

[Gareth Davies]

I point out to the hon. Lady that 200,000 fewer pensioners are in absolute poverty now than were in 2010. I just put that on the record.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for putting that on the record, but we are looking at 1.3 million additional people, some of whom I am sure will be pensioners, going into absolute poverty in the next year. Our state pension is set to have a real-terms cut. Inflation is at 6.2% and is expected to go up to 8% in April, yet pensions are going up by only 3.1%. That was what the triple lock was designed to deal with; it was there to keep pensions in line with and up to the cost of living. As I have said many times in this Chamber, the state pension is not just about pensioners now; it is about ensuring that people in the longer term know that they have a state pension that they can look forward to, and that matters for younger generations, too.

This Government say that they oppose loneliness, but, as always, actions speak louder than words and the measures are leaving older people on their own, in the dark and the cold. There are very good reasons why some people cannot work. There is nothing at all for those receiving social security, who are also suffering the real-terms cut to incomes and are also struggling to pay their rent, because of the freeze to housing allowance—even the National Residential Landlords Association has called that out as being catastrophic. Frankly, it is more expensive to be poor. People on benefits are being unfairly punished by a system that is set up to make them fail. They are worrying about money, making ends meet and debts, and living in unsuitable housing that costs more to heat. These are not the conditions that set someone up to apply for jobs, to succeed in interviews or to move on to a better place in their lives. We know, as we have heard the evidence, that the benefits system can cause serious harm, damaging people’s mental health, sometimes to the extent that they take their own lives. This is not a system that helps people—often it harms them. We know that our economy is stronger when those who are able to work do so, but our system does not help people do that and it must be more compassionate. It must also receive sufficient funding so that those receiving benefits are not pushed further and further towards the edge.

Do the Government want this country to be one where destitution becomes normal? As I have said, the estimate is that 1.3 million people will move into absolute poverty as a result of the current cost of living crisis. The only support offered yesterday for those on the lowest incomes was the boost to the household support fund, via local authorities. That is no substitution for having a proper support system that stops people falling into poverty in the first place. As happens with pension credit, people do not always come forward for the support they need, so I echo the suggestion that anyone facing hardship contacts their local authority so that they can get support that may be available to them.

The Government could have cut VAT to 17.25%, which is what my party would propose to do. That measure would help everyone. Cutting VAT will shield our constituents from the worst of the increased costs, put money back in their pocket, and help those on middle and low incomes the most. With an economy that is struggling, because of a variety of factors, we need people to be out in our economy; we need people on our high streets, buying things that are made in our factories and marketed on our streets. A cut to VAT would give an immediate boost to every household, but it also helps us in the long term. That is what a meaningful policy would look like.

Pension Schemes Bill [Lords]

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Gareth Davies

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 16th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his endorsement of my remarks. I hope the Minister will comment on this in winding up.

Open and closed schemes are on a continuum. A scheme opens, it matures, it becomes closed, it reaches the absolute end of the range of maturity, and the risk profile varies with that maturity. However, parts of the consultation document do not seem to recognise this, which is concerning. There is an understandable desire from employers and employees for this to be clarified. There is real concern that the regulator wants open schemes to be considered as if they were on the brink of forced closure, but that means effectively crystallising their investment structure into a closed structure and preventing them from acting as they need to, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. So I ask the Minister to recommit to the House that this will not happen, otherwise our concerns will remain, and Baroness Bowles and her colleagues in the Lords will continue to press the Government on this when amendments return to the other place.

There is a huge risk to getting this wrong. Members highlighted on Second Reading the issue of railway pensions. Their campaigning has been very important in raising the potential impact of this Bill on defined-benefit schemes. I also want to highlight the charitable sector and many large charities that rely on DB schemes: Oxfam, Age UK, Cancer Research, the National Trust and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, to name but a few. My amendment 6 would require the Government to carry out an economic impact assessment on the effect of changes to DB schemes on that important sector. We have already heard that open schemes will end up with deficits of £120 billion to £160 billion if they are treated in the same way as closed schemes.

6.15 pm

We are in the midst of a pandemic and huge economic shocks, the impact of which we cannot fully predict at this time. Is now the time to saddle companies and charities with that extra debt, and for what purpose? What of individual savers themselves? Can we reasonably expect people potentially to double their personal contributions? Surely a more likely outcome from that requirement is that people will simply cease to contribute, and that will apply further pressure to the viability of that scheme.

There is a real danger that as a result of the deficits, charities—some of which I have mentioned—will go bust, and that is not a policy that any Government should be promoting, particularly given the support that the Government have put into the sector during the course of the pandemic. That would surely be a bad policy at any time. As I said earlier, I am encouraged by the Minister’s statements in Committee, and I thank him for recommitting to those in his intervention, but I hope he appreciates that we urgently need further reassurances. I do not see why such provision could not be made in the Bill, as indeed it was when it came from the other place. It would make sure that the regulator was acting in a sensible way. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

My first contribution when taking on the role of DWP spokesperson for my party was on ensuring the triple lock for the state pension. In that debate, I highlighted the need to ensure a sustainable state pension, particularly given the intergenerational divide emerging for young people in this country. We should not, through this Bill, be potentially driving more people into reliance on the state pension by making personal pension provision unaffordable for individuals or institutions.

[Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate today, as it was on Second Reading and in Committee. I would like specifically to address amendment 16 to clause 124. Let me start by saying how great it is that we have cross-party support for policies that push forward our efforts on climate change. We should all be very proud of the fact that we are one of the first major countries to legislate to become a net zero country by 2050. I have long talked about the influence and power of financial services and financial markets to move things forward, but sadly I cannot support amendment 16. I will set out three reasons. The first is the unintended consequences, the second concerns divestment and the third relates to focus.

First, amendment 16 is well-meaning, but it would have unintended consequences. I fear fund managers would be limited in what they were able to invest in. I say that because of the limited environmental, social and corporate governance data in certain asset classes in certain markets around the world. If we look at emerging markets, private equity or in small-cap companies, ESG data is sporadic at best. It is getting better all the time, but at this point in time the market is not mature enough for the amendment to apply for managers. I fear that managers would be limited, and that would result in sub-optimal investments and mean that they could not fulfil their fiduciary responsibility.