Oral Answers to Questions

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am not very interested in hearing that, which has nothing to do with Government policy, but I am interested in hearing Wes Streeting. I hope the Chancellor will take note: put very briefly, Chancellor, “Stick to your last—your business, not theirs.”

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; that is the nicest thing anyone is likely to say to me today.

The Chancellor rightly extols the benefits of the UK single market, but is not the rank hypocrisy of the Government exposed by listening to the comments of the chief executive of Airbus last night that leaving the European single market would be hugely damaging to the UK economy? We do not have to pick and choose: why will the Chancellor not put a jobs first Brexit at the heart of the Government Brexit strategy and commit to keeping us in the European single market?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman will know that I have been arguing for the last year for a jobs-first, prosperity-first Brexit, which means negotiating the closest possible relationship with the EU after we leave that union, and that is what we intend to do.

Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Wes Streeting Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Lady poses an ingenious question. The simple answer is that the form of the arrangements with the European Union after our exit is the subject of the negotiations. The Government have committed to holding a meaningful vote on the deal. The focus will be on whether the deal is appropriate, not on secondary legislation within this legislation. This Bill is designed to facilitate whatever the will of Parliament ends up being. That is the important point.

The Government have been clear from the outset of the negotiations that, as we implement the decision of the British people to leave the EU at the end of March 2019, we want a deep and special partnership with the European Union and that, as we move towards any future relationship, we should seek to minimise disruption and maximise the opportunities that the process of withdrawal represents. That is in the interests of businesses and individuals in the UK and the EU.

Since triggering article 50, the Government have worked intensively with our European partners to settle the issues in the first phase of the negotiations—namely, a fair deal on citizens’ rights allowing UK and EU citizens to get on with their lives in the country in which they live; a financial settlement that honours the commitments that the UK has undertaken as a member of the European Union, just as we said we would; and an agreement on the island of Ireland that preserves the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom and the stability that has been brought about by the Belfast agreement. We have made great strides in each of those three areas, and I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will welcome the European Council’s agreement last month that sufficient progress had been made on phase 1 and that we should move on to talks about our future partnership.

This development in the negotiations means that we can now look forward to discussing our future customs relationship with the EU. As I reminded the House earlier, the Government have been upfront in setting out their objectives for any such arrangement. The Prime Minister has been clear that, although we are leaving the EU, and therefore its customs union, we are not leaving Europe. So just as the UK will establish an independent international trade policy and look to forge trading relationships with new partners around the world, it is also critical that our future customs arrangements allow us to keep trade between the UK and the EU member states as free and frictionless as possible.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

The Minister keeps on referring to the importance of free and frictionless trade with the European Union, but is it not time for the Government to be a bit clearer with the public that, through our membership of the customs union, we have preferential trade agreements with a further 65 countries right across the world? This is not just about protecting trade with the EU; we also need to protect those existing trading relationships. As far as any future trade deals are concerned, we must recognise that size matters, and that we are better and stronger as part of the European bloc.

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and it is one that I largely agree with. It is important that we maintain the existing arrangements that we have been brought into by virtue of our membership of the European customs union, which is exactly why we are in discussions with those countries to ensure that we have appropriate arrangements in place once we leave the EU and its customs union. Over and above that, there will be opportunities to forge trading relationships with other countries around the world, which we are prohibited from doing at present because of our membership of the EU customs union.

Budget Resolutions

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I think the hon. Gentleman should speak to the leader of his own party, who stood at the Dispatch Box yesterday claiming that it was his policy from his manifesto. The hon. Gentleman needs to go and do some homework.

When Labour came to power in 1997, the average home cost three and a half times the average wage. By the time it slunk out of office in 2010, it was nearly seven times the average wage. As for the neediest in society, Labour cut the number of social homes for rent by more than 420,000 units. That is its track record.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says that we need 300,000 new homes a year to address the housing crisis, so presumably he has just committed to making sure that that many homes are built. Until he addresses the supply side of the housing crisis, he must stop fuelling demand-side pressures, which is what he has done. As the Office for Budget Responsibility has said, the elimination of stamp duty will fuel demand at a time when he is not meeting the supply pressures.

[Sajid Javid]

Where the hon. Gentleman is right is on the need for further planning reform. That is why the Budget follows on from the housing White Paper earlier this year with further reforms, some of which I will come to in a moment. Where he is completely wrong, like the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), is on stamp duty. He should have a conversation with young people buying their first house, who can save up to £5,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers).

The Chancellor set low expectations ahead of this Budget, and he certainly lived up to them. What was most interesting and telling about yesterday’s statement was not any particular measure but what the Chancellor and the independent Office for Budget Responsibility said about the state of our economy. Real wages are lower today than they were when the Tories came to power seven years ago, with disposable income set to fall further. Once we led Europe on economic growth; we are now lagging behind and it is the lowest it has been since the Tories came to office, and has been revised down in every year of the Treasury’s forecast. Productivity has also been revised down every year, as has our business investment next year and in every following year in the forecast.

Even on the Tories’ central test, the whole driver behind the seven years of austerity—the need to deal with the deficit—they have failed on their own terms. They promised to eradicate the deficit by 2015, then by 2016, then 2017, then 2020. Now they cannot even tell us when it is set to be eliminated. Seven years of pain, with absolutely no gain for the public who are paying the price through cuts to our public services. In our constituencies and in our casework, we are seeing the consequences of the Tories’ bad economic management.

Headteachers are grappling with the consequences, and they tell me that they are cutting back on the curriculum, increasing class sizes and increasingly struggling to support their pupils, particularly those with special educational needs. In the national health service, my constituents are waiting longer to get an appointment with their GP and waiting longer to have their operations. And just the other week, a teaching assistant came to see me because two primary schoolchildren in the two schools where she works had thought about taking their own lives. She said that when she referred them to the local child and adolescent mental health services, she was told that they could not see the children because they were full up. These are primary schoolchildren in desperate need of attention, but the resources and the capacity to help them are simply not there.

On policing, we see the extraordinary spectacle of London Tories—led by the Foreign Secretary, the former Mayor of London—crying crocodile tears about police station closures even though they know that the policing cuts that we are facing in London are the direct consequence of the disproportionate cuts that we are being clobbered with by central Government. Since 2010, £600 million has been lost from the Metropolitan police budget, with a further £400 million set to go by 2020-21. As those of us who are still in local government know, the Tories are remarkable anti-cuts campaigners locally, but when it comes to standing up for local government and local services in this place, we do not hear a peep out of Tory Members. Voters should remember that when they go to the polls in the London elections next year.

What was also extraordinary about this Budget was what it said about Brexit. The referendum campaign is over. We do not have to deal with hypotheticals; we are now grappling with the reality. Does it not say everything that there was more money in this Budget to deal with the cost of Brexit than to deal with meeting the needs of our public services? Thank goodness the Chancellor survived yesterday and is still in his post, because we know that the people lining up to replace him—using those “long economicky words” in Cabinet—are the same people who brought us the bus that promised £350 million a week for the NHS. Thank goodness we have Spreadsheet Phil still in place at the Treasury, because the alternatives are far worse.

I say to those on the Treasury Bench today that they have a critical job to do before Christmas if they are to give businesses the certainty that they need about what will happen on exit day in 2019 when we leave the European Union. Jobs are already being lost, and decisions about where to locate jobs and economic activity will be taken in the first quarter of next year, but the Government can currently give those businesses no certainty whatever, even about a deal on transition, let alone about a long-term deal. Members on both sides of the House have a responsibility to ensure that the minority of headbangers in this minority Government do not steer this country on a course that will make us poorer, less well-off and less prepared to weather the economic storms that lie ahead. That responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Chancellor, but it also rests on the shoulders of every Member of this House. The course that we are on at the moment will drive a coach and horses through the future prosperity of this country, and we should not let that happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr). He described Scotland as being at the heart of the Budget, so if one travels as far away as possible from the heart of the Budget, the destination would be the far south-west. Why was the far south-west so ignored in this Budget?

I am disappointed that the Budget did not help us with our key asks. Members may have seen that people were able to play Budget bingo on my Facebook page with Plymouth’s nine key asks. I was hoping to announce a winner for a line, or even for every single ask. On behalf of Plymouth, I was asking for help with social care and the NHS; for support for our armed forces; for a reversal of the cuts to HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark; and for £30 million for our vital upgrade in Plymouth. But I am afraid that there were no winners in the Plymouth Budget bingo this time round. The Government ignore the far south-west at their peril. Ministers have taken our region for granted for far too long. It is now a region full of marginal seats, and if Ministers want to keep drawing their ministerial salaries, they would be wise to listen to both Labour and Conservative MPs for the far south-west, who were so ignored in the preparations for the Budget.

There is widespread awareness in Plymouth that we get a raw deal from the Government. There were plenty of mentions in the Budget of the north, the midlands and Scotland, but very little about the far south-west, despite our having a very clear case for investment: the lowest per-head education spend in the country—£415 per head less than in London; just one third of the public health spending in London—£668 less per head; one third of the transport spending in London; an NHS in crisis and a hospital in a near-constant state of black alert; and a social care system in crisis. This is not because of the hard work of our public servants, who are working their socks off, but because of a lack of funding. The Government could have addressed that in the Budget but chose not to do so.

On transport, our case for investment was compelling, but there was no extra money for our precarious south-west rail link, despite the cross-party campaign. Labour has promised £2.5 billion for our investment fund to upgrade the far south-west train line. The Peninsula Rail Task Force, backed by Conservative councils and MPs, is supported by a Labour Opposition but not a Conservative Government. We asked for £30 million for track straightening so that we could improve our journey times between Plymouth, the far south-west and London. It was to be the start of the process of reducing journey times to London from Plymouth by an hour. There is £55.7 billion for HS2, but the Government could not even deliver the £600,000 we need to complete the study into the work or the £30 million it requires to complete the work next year.

People across the far south-west are asking what they have to do to be listened to by the Government. That is really important. Our transport network in the south-west is a totem for our region. The Minister might be aware that in the last couple of days CrossCountry trains has ended its service from the “heart” of the Budget, in Scotland, down to Exeter in the far south-west, because its trains cannot go through Dawlish when there are storms—they short-circuit, block the track and cut our region off. That is simply unacceptable. No other part of the country would accept this poor deal on transport, and neither should the far south-west.

Plymouth needs better road, rail and air connections. We need Government assistance to help us fund that fast and resilient train line and to back the campaign that I and the Conservative-run Plymouth City Council have announced to extend the M5 from Exeter to Plymouth. On air transport, the Government must be ready to support us in reopening Plymouth city airport.

On defence, there is a key ask as well. I know that Ministers were being lobbied by both Labour and Conservative MPs to stop the cuts to HMS Albion, HMS Bulwark and the Royal Marines. It is unthinkable in the 21st century, with Russia rising as a threat, that we should get rid of our amphibious assault capabilities and the ability to deliver humanitarian assistance.

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is speaking with characteristic passion and clarity, but is not the lesson of the defence cuts over the last seven years that once we have lost a capability it takes a huge amount of time, energy and investment to get it back, and this is a capability we cannot afford to lose?

[Luke Pollard]

I absolutely share that concern, and I know that Government Members do as well.

Many Tory Members were pinning their hopes on extra money in the Budget and on the Chancellor correcting the mistakes he made in his former role as Defence Secretary, but that money has not come. The current Defence Secretary is in Plymouth today learning about the Royal Navy. I wish him well in his endeavour and I hope that after his familiarisation with the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines he will not be supporting cuts to amphibious forces.

By next year’s Budget, I ask those on the Treasury Bench please to initiate the following campaigns and proposals: to fund our train line properly; to respect our armed forces and the threats they face by not cutting our amphibious capabilities; to address the school funding shortages in the far south-west, which have seen subjects lost, teaching assistants sacked and people with special educational needs suffer the most; to address our crisis in the NHS and fund social care properly—considering how big an issue social care was in Plymouth and across the country at the general election, its absence from the Budget is telling; to cut tuition fees; to raise the minimum wage; and, importantly, to give hope to the 8,000 WASPI women in Plymouth who are looking for support from this Government.

The Budget did not name-check the south-west; neither did it name-check south-west MPs and their successful campaigns—we need those name-checks. The far south-west needs to be taken seriously by the Government, and I encourage them to listen to the campaigns raised by Labour MPs and Conservative MPs to fund us properly. The message from the Budget is clear, and Plymouth deserves better.

Budget Resolutions

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

First, I can say to the hon. Lady—I am pleased to serve with her on the Treasury Committee—that educational standards have actually improved dramatically in this country during the past seven years. I do not recognise her figures. The Secretary of State for Education announced an extra £1.3 billion for schools in July, and this Government are spending more on schools than any previous Government. If the hon. Lady is really concerned, she will want to deal with the debt that this Government are still paying off, given that we spend almost as much as our schools budget on paying debt interest.

The Chancellor announced a number of new tax measures. I was pleased that he said that our tax system can help to protect our environment. That is an important signal to send to those who are particularly concerned about the environment and to the next generation.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I welcome the exemption on the vehicle excise duty supplement for new zero-emission-capable taxis, so I thank the Chancellor for listening to representations. Through the right hon. Lady, may I urge the Chancellor to bring forward that measure so that it will kick in earlier than April 2019, because many such vehicles will be on the road from next month and we will want drivers to be able to take advantage of these new zero-emission-capable and environmentally friendly taxis?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I just say, because the hon. Gentleman will want to make a separate speech, that if Members make interventions, they should please make them short?

Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) on securing this debate. She brings great expertise and authority on these matters, not least from her time on the Public Accounts Committee.

The most important point for the House to focus on this afternoon is that this is absolutely not a party political issue. Although the right hon. Lady raised some criticisms of this Government, she also raised criticisms of the Government of which she was a member. In my judgment, the only plausible criticism that can be made of the current Government is that they need to speed up some of the initiatives they have already implemented. They have not done so in respect of the overseas territories because, obviously, we would rather those havens took action themselves—to be fair, to some extent they have already started to do so.

On the actions taken by the Government, David Cameron and George Osborne led the international effort at the G8 to clamp down on such matters, particularly tax avoidance and evasion. The UK introduced publicly accessible registers of people with significant control, abolished bearer or anonymous shares and, importantly, introduced unexplained wealth orders. The anti-bribery law, work on which first started under John Major in Paris in 1995, was finally introduced in this country by David Cameron in 2011, after 13 years of Labour government.

On this Government’s record, let us be clear that they have been taking action and have raised an immense amount of extra tax as a result. However, the time has come—this is my third debate on this issue—to insist on the same levels of openness and transparency for the overseas territories as we have in this country. The territories gain hugely from their relationship with the United Kingdom and, as the Government made clear in 2012,

“As a matter of constitutional law the UK Parliament has unlimited power to legislate for the Territories.”

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman will know from his considerable expertise on international development that the abuse of such offshore schemes not only harms British taxpayers but disadvantages some of the world’s poorest people. That is why the Government must act to introduce greater transparency in Crown dependencies and overseas territories.

[Mr Mitchell]

I am coming on to precisely that point.

Like many Members, I have been visited by senior Ministers of almost all the overseas territories, and the position of the territories is best summed up by the prayer of St Augustine: “Oh Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.” The territories put two specific arguments. I call the first the Dutch Antilles argument, which is that if the territories have open registers, the hot money will head off to the Dutch Antilles. There is momentum around the world, thanks to David Cameron and George Osborne, to attack such ills and unfairnesses. Havens that embrace an open register will get an advantage from being at the front of opening up to billions of pounds of legitimate business.

The second argument—in a way, this is the one we have to address head-on—is that the territories’ private registers are already available to lawmakers and regulators, such as HMRC. The territories proudly say that they will turn round inquiries from HMRC within a matter of hours, which is good, but it completely misses the point, as the recent release of information shows. Registers must be open to the media, to journalists, to non-governmental organisations and to those who can join up the dots. The regulatory authorities, with the best will in the world, are not in that business. Narrow questions, drawn from regulatory authorities, simply do not begin to suffice.

Autumn Adjournment

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.

I start by giving the apologies of the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who was intending to lead this debate. As the business has been rather squeezed, he has had to get back to his constituency to attend an urgent function tonight, so I will lead this debate on behalf of the Backbench Business Committee. I will first touch on some local issues that affect my constituency and constituents before discussing some rather more parliamentary and international issues that urgently need to be raised before the House goes into recess.

The first issue—I have raised this matter a number occasions in such debates—is the lack of step-free access at Stanmore station and Canons Park station. Both stations are on the Jubilee line and are in my constituency. There is no way of getting to the normal roadway from the station platforms, except via steep staircases or alternatively, at Stanmore station, through an almost inaccessible car park route. There may be good news on the horizon: the Department for Transport is conducting a consultation about disabled access at stations, although, as everyone will be aware, Jubilee line trains are matters for the Mayor of London. I am assured by the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), that, given the failure of successive Mayors of London to remedy the situation, he is prepared to intervene if enough residents from my constituency respond to the consultation asking him to do so.

Work continues after my Adjournment debate on the scandal of the sale of the public asset of the Hive stadium to Barnet football club. There has been a succession of freedom of information requests to Harrow Council to itemise exactly how the scandal arose and to Camden Council to see how it is getting on with claiming the money back that it should have received as a result of the sale of the public asset at a vastly reduced rate.

I turn to police funding and activity in Harrow. There are concerns about the police station closures that the Mayor of London is intent on introducing. These closures will have a dramatic effect on the level of policing and the police presence in Harrow and many other boroughs right across London. It is quite clear that the Government have to stump up more money for the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism duties. They have to review the policing budget, so that the next year’s budget includes a three-year settlement for police funding at the requisite level, given that London is the capital city. I would like the Mayor of London to spend some of the £2.3 billion of unallocated reserves on policing, where the people of London want to see it actually spent.

I am working on two proposed free schools in my constituency. The Mariposa Primary School has been resisted like billy-o by the local authority but has the support of parents and many other people who want to see it brought into operation. The Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency have supported the proposal, but there is opposition from Harrow Council.

I am also supporting the Hujjat free school, which would be the first state-sponsored primary school for Muslim children in the borough of Harrow, and it is definitely well needed. I have been working with the sponsors for some time, and I am hopeful that we will have a site for it and that the school will be blessed with council and Department for Education approval in the immediate future.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Perhaps I could use this opportunity to place on record the concerns I have about schools in my constituency, particularly John Bramston Primary School and Ilford County High School, which are both in desperate need of refurbishment. Like the hon. Gentleman, I also want to see a free school application succeed—in this case, from the trust running Avanti Court Hindu Primary School, which wants to develop a secondary school. There is pressure across London, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way so that I could put those parochial wishes from my neck of the woods on the record.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and he gives me the opportunity to make it clear that the first state-sponsored Hindu primary school and, indeed, the first state-sponsored Hindu secondary school are in my constituency. I wish him well with that application.

There are two other local issues I want to raise, and they follow on from the debate we have just had. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of unauthorised houses in multiple occupation in my borough. That is becoming a running sore, and it requires stringent Government action, and it requires local authorities to carry out their duties.

Equally, we still have the problem of casual labourers touting for work on Honeypot Lane outside B&Q and Selco. One solution I have suggested is that, as police station closures are going ahead and there would be no police presence on the ground in my constituency, the police could site an operation in B&Q or Selco. They could use their equipment there, and they could come and go, which would disperse the labourers at one fell swoop.

Let me mention two or three things in Parliament before I sit down and allow colleagues to have their chance. First, I was pleased, on behalf of the all-party parliamentary group for British Hindus, to hold a very well-attended Diwali celebration on the Terrace. A number of right hon. and hon. Members were present, and there was huge representation from across the Hindu community. The celebrations have been going on for some time; the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) led them originally, and he bequeathed it to me to continue their wonderful progress. When we celebrate people’s religions, it is particularly pertinent.

May I draw hon. Members’ attention to the fact that, last week, we beat the other place at bridge? Our team delivered a stunning blow for the House of Commons, and I was pleased to captain it. This year—finally—I managed to get a second actual Member of Parliament to join me on the team. They were from the SNP, which shows that we are truly becoming an all-party group. I invite Members from the other parties to come and join us so that, next time, we rub home our advantage against the Lords.

I was pleased to welcome Elmira Akhundova MP, who has just launched her triple-volumed biography of Heydar Aliyev, the former President of Azerbaijan. I would recommend this multitudinous-paged biography as a right riveting good read for anyone who wishes to read it. It does, of course, raise an issue that remains unresolved—the plight of the internally displaced persons who continue to suffer as a result of the illegal occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions in the dispute with Armenia.

I sponsored early-day motion 483 on the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in human rights abuses in Iran. One of the things that continues to blight relations between the UK and Iran is that despite the attempts we are making to normalise those relations, human rights abuses continue in that country.

We have debated the plight of the Rohingya Muslims, but Rohingya Hindus have also fled in fear of their lives and are now in Bangladesh. The Government of Bangladesh have decided to introduce a voluntary sterilisation programme for the Rohingyas in their camps because of the exploding birth rate. This has been widely reported in the press in the UK and on the Indian subcontinent. I think that there is a sinister position on this, because what starts as something voluntary can very rapidly become compulsory. People who literally flee in fear of their lives may go down this route because they fear that they will not get help or assistance. I hope that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will actively take up this issue.

We are celebrating the centenary of the Balfour declaration because of a historic decision by the British Government that I warmly applaud. The relationships between the United Kingdom and Israel grow ever stronger. This week Prime Minister Netanyahu visited this country—something that is very well worth celebrating. We also had the centenary celebration by the Board of Deputies of British Jews in Speaker’s House. I and many other right hon. and hon. Members attended that function, which was graced by speeches by those from all political parties, demonstrating the support that there is from Members right across the House. When we are trying to combat the rise of anti-Semitism in this country, it is vital that Members on both sides of the House and from all parties speak out about that scourge.

[Wes Streeting]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in allowing me to put a number of things on the record. I was not able to make it to the well-attended debate in Westminster Hall on the Balfour declaration, but I strongly support what he says. I was delighted to attend the Board of Deputies’ reception in Speaker’s House as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on British Jews. This country can be proud of the role that it has played in the creation of the state of Israel. We must now, along with the Israelis, the Palestinians and many others, turn our face firmly to the future and make sure that the future for Israel is a two-state solution that ensures a secure and viable Palestinian state alongside a secure state of Israel.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I trust that he will lean on his party leadership to make sure that they echo his views, because occasionally they do not appear to do so.

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, the other Deputy Speakers and Mr Speaker. I thank the brilliant staff of the House of Commons for the service we have had, and wish them a good short break. I wish my staff who work in my parliamentary office an opportunity to get on with work while I will not be here.

Lakshmi Kaul used to work in my office and has now gone off to work for the Confederation of Indian Industry: I wish her all the best in her new endeavours. I congratulate her on raising more than £14,000 towards the Nainika Tikoo Memorial Foundation and being nominated for a JustGiving award. For those colleagues who do not know, her daughter tragically died of an allergy, and she has spent a lot of time since raising awareness of this dreadful problem that confronts parents and children alike. It is a tribute to her that she has got on with doing that, so that other parents do not have to go through what she has had to go through.

Tax Avoidance and Evasion (Isle of Man)

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I was not actually aware of those comments, but I can say that, from the Government’s perspective, we are certainly not in the business of advocating the locking-up of any journalists.

The second point the right hon. Lady raised was that we were “tinkering at the edges”—I think that was the expression she used—in clamping down on avoidance. Nothing could be further from the facts of the matter. Since 2010, we have brought in £160 billion, as I said, and £2.8 billion of that was from clamping down on those who have sought to hide wealth in overseas jurisdictions. We have one of the lowest tax gaps in the world, and the lowest in our history. She will probably know that if we were to have today the level of tax gap that we saw under the previous Labour Government, we would be about £45 billion worse off as a consequence. That is important money that we need in our Exchequer for the purposes of employing doctors, nurses, teachers and members of the police force, and of keeping our hospitals and all those vital public services that are the hallmark of a civilised society.

The right hon. Lady referred to the Duchy of Lancaster and transparency. The Duchy does of course publish its accounts—it lays them before this House, in fact. There has been no suggestion that I am aware of that any of the Duchy’s activities or investments have been improper or illegal. Of course, the Queen voluntarily pays tax on all the earnings from the Duchy of Lancaster.

The right hon. Lady referred specifically to Bright-House. She is correct in her assertions that it has been fined by the FCA for the kinds of activities that she mentioned. However, those investments were, I understand, primarily made in 2005 under the previous Labour Government rather than under this Government. I believe that the amount invested as at today’s date is something in the order of £3,000 in total.

The right hon. Lady asked why HMRC allowed the Isle of Man situation to happen in respect of VAT and aircraft. Let us see what the investigation yields rather than perhaps jumping to a series of conclusions currently based on—from what I have seen, at least—a couple of television programmes. However, there may well be something there, and we will get to the bottom of it in due course.

The right hon. Lady asked about the sharing agreement in place between the Isle of Man and the United Kingdom in respect of VAT. She is right that there are at the moment ongoing discussions on a new formula. She referred to an automatic uplift in the Isle of Man’s share under that formula—it is a 4.5% uplift—and suggested that it may be overly generous. It will not be in the long run; once all the surveys and research have been carried out, in the event that it is found to be more generous than it should have been, there will be a clawback mechanism within the arrangement. In terms of transparency, once the formula is concluded it will be available within the public domain. On her assertion that this is a one-way subsidy from the United Kingdom to the Isle of Man with regard to VAT, I should say that there have been years when quite the reverse has been the case and there has in fact been a transfer from the Isle of Man to the United Kingdom from which we, and indeed her constituents, have benefited.

The right hon. Lady made a clarion call for us to tackle avoidance schemes and those who enable them. I confess that the Finance Bill that went through this House very recently was not the most entertaining of Bills; it ran to about 775 pages and was highly technical. However, I point her to the provisions within it for ensuring that those who enable tax avoidance will now be subject to sanction and penalty.

I hope that I have covered the majority, at least, of the points that the right hon. Lady raised. I again recognise the sterling work on this issue that she has done over many years, and pay tribute to her for it. I conclude, Mr Speaker, by wishing you a very—

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mel Stride]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman—how could I refuse?

--- Later in debate ---

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman; I will now be kinder to him if he is in front of the Treasury Committee.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) raised the long-standing issue of overseas territories and Crown dependencies being required to introduce a public register of beneficial ownership. Will the Minister address that point? Is there not an opportunity in the forthcoming Budget, as Oxfam has called for, to introduce public, country-by-country reporting for all multinational companies operating in the UK? Those are two practical measures on transparency that this Government could take leadership on.

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman raises two important points, and I will certainly take to the bank his offer to go easy on me when I appear before the Select Committee. His first point was about whether we should create registers of overseas interests in the public domain. What matters is that we give HMRC the tools to do the job. I file a tax return every year, and I have a last will and testament. They are not in the public domain, but HMRC is entitled to look at my tax return and ask me questions about it. What matters is the information available to the relevant tax authorities, and that is why the common reporting standard that we have introduced —in fact, a year earlier than the OECD suggested was required—is so important. Information is transferred between more than 100 countries to make sure that HMRC has the tools to do the job.

Country-by-country reporting is another important issue. Our view is that it is best met on a multilateral basis, so that all countries get involved at the same time. We continue to work with our European partners and others through the OECD in that endeavour.

Finally, for a second time, which is even more delightful than the first, may I wish you, Mr Speaker, and everybody in the House—all the staff, and all who make this extraordinary and wonderful institution work so well—a very happy and productive recess?

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the important role of financial services and insurance in the Scottish economy as a subset of the broader point that the internal market works extremely well for Scotland and is very important to Scotland’s exports. It would clearly be catastrophic for the financial and insurance services sector if businesses based in Scotland were no longer able to operate across the border into England.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

If I understand this correctly, we have Scottish National party members who understand the benefits of the European single market, but not the UK single market, and we have fanatics in the Conservative party who extol the benefits of the UK single market but who would happily drive a coach and horses through the European single market. Perhaps, in his characteristic fashion, the Chancellor can set out a slightly more grown up position and tell us how he will protect both in the interests of the British economy.

[Mr Hammond]

The Government’s position is very clear: the benefits of the UK internal market are absolutely clear to all of us and we will not allow it to be compromised. In our negotiations with the European Union, we hope and expect to agree a deal that will allow British businesses to continue to enjoy the benefits of access to the European marketplace and European companies to continue to enjoy the benefits of access to the UK market.

Finance Bill

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend is an experienced Member and he has hit the nail on the head.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Our party’s policy was clearly stated in our manifesto—it was to abolish all tuition fees. That is a damn sight better than the position we have seen this week, whereby the Chancellor has had to ask for 250-word submissions from his Back Benchers on ideas for student finance. They are the Government, but the Opposition have a clearer policy than the people running the country.

[Peter Dowd]

They make it up as they go along.

May I jog the Financial Secretary’s memory? He forgot to mention the £1.7 trillion national debt, which, as it happens, has grown by more than £2 billion since he sat down at around 7 o’clock last Wednesday.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

Again, I am sure that the Financial Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, but the Treasury’s estimate of an extra £1.6 billion is, I think, robust. The hon. Lady ought to be aware that in the seven years the Government have been in power, we have introduced significant measures to clamp down on aggressive tax avoidance and evasion, and the Finance Bill continues those measures. We have managed to reduce the tax gap and are collecting more of the revenue that we should collect. Again, that record is better than that of the hon. Lady’s party in office.

[Wes Streeting]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that the Government have tried to take measures to tackle multinational tax avoidance, but they have not been very successful, have they? When the diverted profits tax was announced, it was hailed as the so-called Google tax. That was all well and good, except for the fact that Google did not end up paying very much, did it?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on an important point. There are measures that we can take here in the United Kingdom to raise more money from multinational corporations, and we have taken some of them, but to do a proper job we have to take measures in accordance with international partners. That is why I am pleased that the Government have been leading a lot of the work on the OECD’s base erosion project to come up with international definitions of profits and international agreements on how to tax those profits. Individual countries are not able to take those steps by themselves.

[Wes Streeting]

rose—

[Stella Creasy]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

Age before beauty.

[Wes Streeting]

Imagine lacking both!

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that we need more international co-operation if we are to curb the excesses of multinational corporations’ power. Does he therefore share my sadness that we are currently driving a coach and horses through the most sophisticated political and economic alliance in the history of the world—the European Union—which gives us that global power and the leadership to tackle those global excesses?

[Mr Harper]

First, I am clearly not going to get in the way of the sophisticated political alliance between the hon. Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and for Ilford North. On the EU, I was on the same side of the argument as the hon. Gentleman—I campaigned for remain—but I am also a democrat. The country made a different choice and everyone in the House needs to support the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, as we did yesterday, to ensure that we have a smooth exit from the EU. However, that does not mean that we should stop co-operating with our international partners. Even when we have left the European Union, I want to work closely with colleagues in Europe on finance, security and trade matters. We can work well with our neighbours, and we can also work with our international partners outside the European Union. Indeed, if we are to deal with global multinationals, we will have to deal with the United States and other countries where those multinationals are headquartered if we are to make progress.

Ways and Means

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

Yes, I do, but the problem is that local authority budgets are under tremendous pressure, so they are going for the cheapest price. If somebody goes to them and says, “I can get rid of your waste for less”, what are they going to do? One council in Wales was trucking its waste up to the north-east. Can someone tell me, if the operator was paying the proper amount of landfill tax, how that could be economically viable? It cannot be. The onus is on local authorities to start asking questions about who they are contracting with.

There is also an issue with the individuals who can now operate licences. It does not take a genius to look at some operators who get involved in the industry and ask, “What is their experience? Where is the money suddenly coming from to set up a business?” This is fraud, but it is also an environmental concern.

Scotland has huge great policies about zero landfill waste and things like that, but the reason for that is very simple: the waste is coming over the border. Operators in Scotland are avoiding the cost of having to dispose of waste and of separating it at source, which the Scottish Government pride themselves on, by taking it to the north-east of England or anywhere else where things are cheaper. Parts of the UK are becoming Scotland’s rubbish tip because the Scottish Government have no control over where Scotland’s waste is going. There is some evidence that we may be making money through the landfill tax that is paid when it comes over the border, but I suggest that quite a lot of landfill tax is not being paid. That is the problem, and there are things that need to be done.

What the Minister would find if he spoke to the industry is that, behind closed doors, everyone knows that this is going on. It is no great secret. If he is going to come back with regulations later in September, I want them to be robust, because I have a niggling feeling that the policy people at HMRC see the problem as one that will go away of its own accord. In 15 or 20 years’ time, when we are no longer using landfill, we may not have large-scale problems, but we will have lost millions if not billions of pounds in the meantime and, as the hon. Member for Newark said earlier, many communities will have been blighted by unscrupulous operators. I ask the Minister to talk to the Minister for Security, because this is not just about waste, but about the cost to society as a whole.

When I asked the Minister whether the regulations would be published, I was not being provocative; I just want to see what they are and know what the process will be. The industry and others who have been involved should be able to react to them before they come into force. One simple thing that could stop a lot of fraud would be the ignition test, for example, so if the Minister lets me know when the regulations are coming up, I would be happy to meet him or even make some suggestions about the proposals.

I now want to change the subject entirely and talk about air travel. The resolutions include a commitment to look at air passenger duty. We have been promised reform for a long time—I looked it up this morning, and this matter has been raised at least since 2011. I do not want to be accused of raising problems relating to Scotland this afternoon, but air passenger duty is of great concern to the north-east due to the Scottish Government’s new air departure tax. That decision is entirely up to them as part of the devolution settlement, but the new tax will reduce air passenger duty in 2018, which will have an impact on regional airports such as Newcastle. As I say, that is no criticism of the Scottish Government, because they have the devolved responsibilities and can do that, but if they abolish air passenger duty altogether, that could have a devastating impact on those airports. Members from Northern Ireland have also made representations because the same situation applies there to Belfast International, Dublin City and City of Derry airports due to differential rates in the Republic of Ireland.

Why does that matter? The north-east of England is the poorest region in the UK with, sadly, the highest unemployment. Newcastle airport has been a success, for which I give credit to the local authorities that own it and their private sector partners. It sustains some 7,800 jobs, 3,200 of which are directly at the airport, but the knock-on effect throughout the region is also important. The airport brings some £57 million of tourism a year to the north-east, sustaining some 1,750 jobs.

London has four airports, so the economic impact of each is possibly not as great as the impact of an airport in a region such as mine. Regional airports provide connectivity for people who want to travel not only for leisure but for business—some £173 million of exports go through Newcastle airport each year, nearly £150 million of which go through just one airline. The Emirates flight from Newcastle to Dubai moves goods not just into the middle east but into the far east and Asia. The airport is important not only in carrying people but in supporting the region’s businesses.

At the 2015 general election the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, said that he would not allow regional airports such as Newcastle to be at a disadvantage if Scotland were to reduce the rate of APD. We all know what happened to a lot of David Cameron’s promises, so I will not hold the present Minister to that one, but it is important that the issue is addressed.

The Government could use APD more imaginatively. Obviously it was introduced for environmental reasons, but we all know that it is now a big cash cow for the Exchequer. If we had differential rates to try to encourage airlines to relocate to regional airports, it might help to reduce the overcapacity at airports in London and the south-east. It would also be a cheap way of regenerating regions such as the north-east.

The present rate of APD puts Newcastle airport at a disadvantage because, unlike London Heathrow, we have a relatively small number of business travellers. If we wanted to think creatively, we could introduce an incentive. I understand from the media that the new metro Mayor of Tees Valley made an election pledge to nationalise, reopen or somehow expand Teesside airport, which is a little ambitious. He may find that that election promise is difficult to translate into action. Again, if the APD rate goes down in Scotland and Newcastle airport is affected, trying to get any new flights to a place like Teesside will be virtually impossible. The issue is important to the north-east, and it is not just about passenger travel and tourism flights; it is about the broader economy. Our regional universities need access to international students, and a region where jobs have not boomed would be severely affected if the airport’s passengers leaked to Scotland.

Let me turn to small business and some of the issues raised earlier. I am not opposed to the use of new technology or to recognising that we have to change the way we do things. My party made mistakes when it was in Government by closing a lot of DWP offices and going directly to doing things by phone, which made it difficult for people to have interaction, and we are in danger of making the same mistake on tax offices.

A constituent who came to see me last year runs a one-person business. If she had a problem with her tax, she would drive to Durham tax office and meet somebody she knew, and they would explain the situation to her. I am not saying we should keep tax offices open just for that one person, but if we are going to go into the digital age—I have no problem with that, as it might be easier for some businesses—we need to ensure that we have either telephone access or dedicated processes whereby people can at least get assistance. I believe it was the right hon. Member for Loughborough who mentioned webchats, which are a way of doing this and are used by a lot of service providers. That needs to happen before any roll-out of the changes, because there is nothing more frustrating than not being able to get through. My constituent told me that when she eventually did get through, she got through to three different people. I do not know whether this could be done, but perhaps we could use a case-management approach, with individuals taking control of certain areas. People might think personal relationships between small businesses and their tax inspectors would be hostile, but in my experience they are not. If the relationship works well, it helps the business in terms of how it operates and it helps how HMRC can collect.

I now wish to discuss HMRC’s priorities. HMRC comes in for a lot of criticism, but it has a huge task to do. Even so, I sometimes wonder whether it gets its priorities wrong and I wish to give an example from my constituency. I have just spoken about the lack of enthusiasm for cracking down on landfill tax fraud, but an overzealous approach is taken to some small businesses. I have written to the Chancellor about a constituent of mine, Mr Marshall, who runs a bathroom business in Chester-le-Street. I have not yet received a reply, even though I have written twice—obviously, the Chancellor has been very busy. This is an example of where HMRC uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Mr Marshall and his family—it is a family business—have a showroom, where people can order and pay for a bathroom, and then they will organise everything that needs to be done. They do not employ anyone—they fit bathrooms, but they do not employ the plumbers, electricians and so on. Mr Marshall subcontracts the work to plumbers and electricians, and the client then pays them, as is common in the industry.

Last year, Mr Marshall had a visit from HMRC, which said that he is now responsible for the VAT payable by those individuals, even though he does not directly employ them, because they are small businesspeople. He freely admits to me that he does not use the same person every time; it depends on who is available. He is now being hit with a tax bill for some £24,000, which to a small, well-respected business is a little harsh. As I say, I have written to the Chancellor twice without receiving a reply. HMRC will not discuss this because it is under its veil of secrecy, as it always is, but I want to know why one person has taken it upon himself to deem that the VAT liability of these individuals—if there is one—should fall on someone who is procuring a service. If that is the case, and if I was regularly employing someone to do some work on my behalf and they went above the VAT threshold, would HMRC suggest that I, as the person employing them, should pay their VAT?

I would like the Minister to look at that case. As I said, I have tried writing to the Chancellor, without success. I am happy to email him the details and copies of the letters I have. I was going to say that such cases give HMRC a bad name, but that is not hard to do. No one likes to pay taxes, but the point is the disproportionality between a family business—this is not a multinational corporation—and the Googles of this world and the landfill operators that completely ignore the actual tax situation without any grievance falling upon them from HMRC. It is about proportionality in some of the enforcement. The new Chair of the Treasury Committee might want to look at how HMRC deals with small businesses. It is not only about the forms, but about what is facing my constituent. The process is time-consuming, but it can cause anxiety if someone suddenly has to find such an amount of money.

There is another issue I want to raise—I have moved on from rubbish; I am going to speak about cosmetic surgery. I tabled a parliamentary question a couple of weeks ago about the Government’s proposals for collecting VAT for cosmetic surgery. I have looked at the issue and got into the subject. I will not hasten to go through the whole issue of the regulation of cosmetic surgery, but it is another area I am pursuing.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Declare your interest.

[Mr Jones]

I think even the best plastic surgeon would struggle with me.

The question is whether VAT is payable on cosmetic procedures. The problem is that such procedures vary from facelifts and tummy tucks to boob jobs, fillers and that side of the industry. I came to the issue through a constituent. I will not talk about the regulation, because that does not apply to the taxation of cosmetic surgery, but I want some clarity from the Government on the rules about whether cosmetic surgery should be VAT-registered.

There is an organisation called the Hospital Group. In a previous life, it went into administration owing the taxman nearly £9 million in VAT because there was an argument about whether VAT should be levied on the surgical procedures. The bill started at £17 million and went down to £9 million before, lo and behold, the director folded the company. HMRC is left with £9 million that it has not recovered. That company owes money and tax to quite a few other organisations, including councils.

This is an interesting issue, because while people would not pay VAT on a medical procedure, these are not medical procedures. I am not for one minute suggesting that women who have had mastectomies should pay VAT if they need reconstructive surgery, but if a procedure is purely for cosmetic reasons, it should be VAT-chargeable, as I read the regulations, but HMRC does not seem to be enforcing that. There is an argument, which I have heard from the new owners of the Hospital Group, that these are medical procedures, as people are having them because of mental health issues. If that is the case, evidence needs to be provided.

Given the amount of money that the industry generates, I wonder whether the Government are losing revenue. In the one case that I know of, the Revenue is owed £9 million, although it is never going to get that because the company has gone into liquidation. How many similar cases are there? We should consider whether VAT is chargeable on not just surgery but other aspects of the cosmetic surgery industry—things such as fillers and other products that enhance one’s aesthetic beauty, on which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) will be able to enlighten me. If VAT is not being charged, we must consider that, because this is a huge industry in this country. As I said, there are regulation issues for some organisations that need to be addressed, but my parliamentary question was whether there were any proposals to look at the tax aspects of this issue, and the answer was that there were not. Will the Minister let me know what the regulations are and how they are being enforced? It could be that the Revenue is losing out on quite a large amount of money.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) talked about the general treatment of tax avoidance, and he obviously hit a raw nerve with some Conservative Members with his accusation that they were the party of tax avoiders. It is in all our interests to ensure that people pay their tax. We all moan about the level of tax that we pay, but ordinary people have no way of influencing what tax they pay—the money comes off their salaries or wages through pay-as-you-earn. What grates with and hurts them is that they see hard-working people paying their tax—there are no clever schemes for them to lower their tax bill—while large corporations and others use mechanisms to generate huge profits but not pay tax. They see sporting individuals and others using mechanisms such as the film schemes that were deliberately set up so that people could avoid their tax liabilities. To be fair to the Government, they have cracked down on some schemes, but that is what irks a lot of people. They have also had austerity and the wage freeze for the past seven years, and they see the injustice of that. We need fairness and to ensure that people pay the tax that others are entitled to expect. Look at the earnings of some of the BBC’s stars, which were published a few weeks ago. The idea that some people want to reduce their tax bill when their initial wages are paid for by taxation is just amazing.

Finally, I just want to—[Interruption.] If the Minister wants more, I can give him more. I am trying to be helpful. I have been very helpful to him and tried to work with his Department, because there are occasions on which we can co-operate to get things done. Making sure that everyone pays their tax and that the system is fair is in the public interest. The Minister was right when he said that we cannot have public services or anything else if people do not pay the right levels of taxation. The system has to be fair.

There is another issue that I think HMRC is already on to, but on which it might want to take a more proactive stance because it relates to organised crime. You might think I am strange, Madam Deputy Speaker, going from rubbish to airports to cosmetic surgery, but I am now going to talk about puppy farming. I met the Dogs Trust yesterday, which has produced a very good report—I do not know whether the Minister’s Department has seen it, but it should read it, as this is another area in which organised crime is getting involved in cruel practices—and it concerns not only breeding dogs in this country but importing them. Now the importations are from Poland and Lithuania, and the Dogs Trust study is of both cases.

There are some horrendous cases, and not just as concerns the cruelty of the trade. If honourable colleagues or the Minister would like to look at it, the report is called “Puppy Smuggling: A Tragedy Ignored”, and it is an investigation into the pet travel scheme. It is quite clear from talking to the trust and the local police that this is another new way of making lots of money without paying any tax. It is a cash business, Madam Deputy Speaker. A lot of these pups are advertised on the internet and the process involves cash transactions. It has been described by one HMRC official as the new cocaine or drugs angle for some types of organised crime, as large amounts of money can be made.

Again, this is a question of co-operation between HMRC and other agencies, for example when local authorities are in charge of enforcement. I give credit to the Government for making changes to the puppy farming regulations, but we are now seeing the importation of these animals from abroad, and we need action at the port and to ensure that when sales take place, the correct amount of tax is paid. If we want to stop the trade, one way of doing so would be to use the tax system, because large amounts are being produced in cash, and if HMRC can use the system to ask where the cash is coming from, the focus is suddenly on that question.

This example demonstrates the innovative way in which organised crime works. It will look for the easiest way of making untraceable cash—landfill tax was one, and now, tragically, as some of the stories in this report are terrible, so is the trade in pups, which should not be bred in such a way or kept in such conditions. As the Bill goes through the House, the Government might want to consider this matter.

Again, this comes back to enforcement and attitudes. I am not criticising individuals at HMRC, as I say, because they have a difficult job, but we need an attitude in favour of enforcement and, on occasion, we must consider how that happens through HMRC and how it is linked with the police and other enforcement agencies. One thing that is quite clear in the examples that the Dogs Trust has highlighted concerning the scandal of puppy farming and importation, as well as what has happened with landfill tax, is that these things are not just HMRC’s responsibility. There are other agencies. Durham police have very effectively come together with others to limit and crack down on these individuals, so I ask the Minister to consider taking a cross-government approach to some of these issues, if we can. On that point, I shall conclude my remarks.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who gave a very comprehensive speech. I personally felt that there were some areas of the Ways and Means resolutions to which he did not do justice, but I am sure we will get a chance to return to those on another occasion.

“A revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching”—

those were the words of William Beveridge 75 years ago in his landmark report that paved the way for the modern welfare state. There is no doubt that we live in a similarly revolutionary moment. We are still in the long tail of the biggest economic crash since the great depression and the consequences that follow. We are on the brink of leaving the most sophisticated political and economic alliance in the history of the world, with consequences for our economy, a wide breadth of public policy and our citizens. We are also at the beginnings of an industrial revolution of a pace and scale that the world has never seen. Against that backdrop, the resolutions we are debating and the summer Finance Bill firmly fall into the category of patching.

In the time I have today, I will: specifically address the patching provisions in the Ways and Means resolutions; talk about the issues that are not addressed by the summer Budget and the Ways and Means resolutions; and touch on areas of Government policy that run completely contrary to our national economic interest. Ultimately, the patching measures in the Ways and Means resolutions are pretty small and fairly inconsequential given the wider economic impact of Government policy if that policy continues on the course that the Government have set out.

I turn first to the issue of patching. We heard from the new Chair of the Treasury Committee, who I am absolutely delighted has been elected. I have no doubt that she will fill the enormous shoes of her predecessor. As I have been re-elected to the Committee from this side of the House, I very much look forward to working with her and other cross-party colleagues. As both she and the Minister set out today, the Treasury Committee raised a number of concerns following our evidence gathering. We listened to a wide range of evidence from tax specialists, representatives of small and medium-sized businesses and, indeed, those businesses themselves on the consequences for them of pursuing the Making Tax Digital policy as it was originally conceived.

As other hon. and right hon. Members have said, there is no doubt that there are many benefits for the Revenue and potentially for businesses against the wider backdrop and the move to digitalisation. But there was a serious concern for small and medium-sized businesses in particular about the impact, which—granted—could be unintended. None the less, it would be red tape and bureaucracy for small and medium-sized enterprises that cannot really afford the extra burden. It should be the intention of the Government in any case when pursuing policy to try to implement it in a way that is not burdensome for SMEs or large corporations. We should seek to legislate and regulate effectively, which does not necessarily always mean heavily.

There was a concern that the timing of Making Tax Digital, as it was originally conceived, would have created an unnecessary and unwarranted burden on SMEs. There are more than 5,000 SMEs in my constituency alone. Since being elected to the House two years ago, I have made it my mission to speak up in their interests. I was therefore pleased, during the summer Budget and when listening to the Minister this afternoon, to see that the concerns expressed by the Treasury Committee have been taken on board, that the deadline has been moved back and that there is still some degree of flexibility about when mandatory provisions will kick in. None the less, Ministers ought to take into account some further cautionary notes, particularly following the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), the shadow Chief Secretary.

As the implementation timeline stands, we will be looking to implement Making Tax Digital for SMEs in spring 2019—an auspicious year because it happens to coincide with our departure from the European Union. If that departure is smooth, perhaps the Making Tax Digital process can be equally smooth, but I have yet to see any evidence that it will be, be that in Government position papers, the reaction in the Cabinet to different Government position papers, the reaction of colleagues on both sides of the House to the Government’s position, the reaction of all 27 EU member states to what the Government have put forward or the reaction of the European Commission. As far as I can see, there is currently no hope of a smooth exit from the European Union; in fact, we are in danger of crashing out of the European Union. If that is the case, and we are not able to provide stability and certainty to businesses at least over a transitional period while we exit the European Union, we will be adding Making Tax Digital on top of the new customs and border checks and the new compliance and regulatory regimes that businesses will be wresting with—if those are, indeed, in place by that time. Ministers need to keep an eye on wider events and to think about Making Tax Digital in that context. I hope that is something the Minister will reflect on.

There was an interesting exchange between my hon. Friend on the Labour Front Bench and Government Back Benchers over tax avoidance and non-doms. No one pretends the issue is easy. There is a booming business in tax avoidance; indeed, individuals and corporations pay huge sums to very clever accountants to minimise their tax liability. Of course, much of that is perfectly legal, but that does not make it right or ethical. What is often missed in the debate about tax avoidance, particularly when we listen to the protests of people who face a larger tax liability, is that, in the aftermath of the financial crash, with everything we have seen in terms of the impact of austerity on public service provision, the burden of taxation and wage stagnation—I will come to those wider, structural economic problems shortly—there is sometimes a real sense of detachment among those who have benefited enormously from the current economic order and those who have been at the sharp end.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend also think that there is a mindset in some parts of the Government—perhaps not on the Treasury Bench today—that the trickle-down effect of encouraging wealthy individuals from abroad to come to settle in London will boost the economy? In fact, it sometimes fosters corruption in those people’s countries, and it also takes away flats and other valuable assets in the capital, which local people can then never hope to gain access to.

[Wes Streeting]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. This idea of trickle-down economics must surely be discredited now: it does not work. People are rather ill aware of the extent to which the benefits of economic growth have been unevenly distributed and disproportionately enjoyed by those at the very top. I do not have a great deal of time for special pleading by wealthy individuals and corporations about being asked to pay their fair share of tax, because not everyone is feeling the pinch, and it is entirely reasonable to look at what we can do to tighten loopholes in terms of tax avoidance.

That brings me to the specifics of Government policy. We have had some remarkable rhetoric from those on the Treasury Bench, even over the two years I have been a Member of Parliament. The former Prime Minister, David Cameron, lauded his global leadership on tax avoidance, but the rhetoric is rather divorced from the reality. Even with the measures set out today, there are still means available to non-doms that enable them to enjoy tax exemptions and concessions for many years that are not available to the average UK citizen. Let me give one example: non-doms are able to keep their assets out of the scope of tax if they are held in an overseas trust that was created before they were deemed as domicile. That strikes me as rather unfair and as fairly easy to solve. That is just one example, but there are lots on which Government could clamp down further. The political rhetoric is there, but I do not think the political will is being delivered by policy.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend contrast that clamp-down on non-doms and the tax reduction policies with the clamp-down on people with disabilities? Work capability assessments of their employment and support allowance and personal independence payments are reducing their benefits from day one.

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. She will already have seen in her casework as a new Member the impact of changes to Government welfare policy on some of the most disadvantaged people in our society.

If politics in this country and across the western world tells us anything at the moment, it is that large numbers of people feel completely left behind by the economic order and are expressing their frustration through the ballot box in a variety of ways, whether that be by voting to leave the European Union because they see it as central to a global economic order that has left them behind, or by electing Donald Trump because of his promises to the central rust belt of America, which I think he will struggle to deliver. I will talk in my concluding remarks about what the current economic order means for politics and why Government really do need to listen to the voice of the people.

It is interesting to note the enormous complacency among Government Members. Sure, they occupy the Treasury Bench and Downing Street, and Government Departments are staffed by Conservative Ministers enacting, by and large, Government policies, with the very expensive assistance of the Democratic Unionist party. However, the Conservatives lost their majority at the election, and the tragedy for Conservative colleagues who lost their seats is that the Government have not actually listened to the message of the people.

Of course, our side has some humility about the fact that we did not win the election either. Lots of new hon. Members who have been elected to this House rightly celebrate their achievements and those of their party activists, but we know that we have further to go to earn the trust of the British people. Looking at the Government’s policies, we know that we have a responsibility to earn that trust to deal with the economic malaise and entrenched economic inequality that is affecting our citizens and those in many other economies. I welcome the Government’s rhetoric on tax avoidance and taking on non-doms, but I just do not see it reflected substantially enough in Government policy. I strongly support the criticism set out by the shadow Chief Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle.

There is a sad irony in the point that a number of right hon. and hon. Members have made about the provisions for retrospective changes to tax arrangements. It seems that the provisions for non-dom arrangements in particular rule out retrospective changes. The Government are saying clearly, “If you have a trust overseas before the rules kick in, don’t worry: we’re not going to touch that money.” Of course, the nature of so many of those trusts is that they are family trusts that are passed down and inherited. In effect, the Government are acknowledging that those trusts exist and that there is an unfairness, and they are setting out to do something about it hereafter, but they are not applying retrospective changes to non-doms in the same way that other measures will affect many others retrospectively.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that wealthy individuals are found wanting when, as usually happens, a secret deal is done with HMRC to pay a certain amount to cover the liability? That is not open to many of my constituents, who are not able to argue when they have a pay-as-you-earn problem. Does he think it is fair that such deals are agreed by HMRC? They should be published if we are going to get fairness into the system.

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. We should be putting an end to sweetheart deals. We certainly should not, as he says, allow them to take place behind closed doors without the appropriate levels of transparency; such transparency means that we at least know what is being done. What makes me angry, and what makes the individual taxpayers and the businesses that I represent angry, is the fact that we know—particularly if we have been self-employed or run a business—that if we are late with our tax return or our payment of tax due, we will be subject to fines and penalties, which will continue to accrue as long as we delay payment. However, not only can wealthy individuals and corporations pay long after they are supposed to, but they get to determine their own rate of tax. That is outrageous.

The Government have, even during the short time for which I have been a Member of this place, introduced measures to try to deal with tax avoidance by individuals and corporations, but those measures always fall short. Let us take the diverted profits tax—the so-called Google tax. Google barely paid a penny. That illustrates the gulf between the rhetoric we hear from those on the Treasury Bench and the reality of the impact of policy on the tax liability of wealthy individuals and corporations, who can effectively determine their own tax rate. People see that hypocrisy at the heart of the system, and I do not think that the measures proposed by the Government today or previously do enough to allay the concerns that people are expressing.

[Mr Jones]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Does he think that part of the problem is the operation of HMRC and its arm’s-length relationship with the Treasury? He speaks eloquently about people’s disillusionment with politicians and their ability to affect things. Does he agree that it is perhaps now time for Treasury Ministers to have more direct control over the operational decisions of HMRC?

[Wes Streeting]

I certainly feel that HMRC is insufficiently accountable to taxpayers and citizens, and I think there are two routes to redressing the problem. One is, as my hon. Friend suggests, for Ministers to take a far tighter grip on what is going on at HMRC, to rein the Department in and make sure that its conduct is in line with the expectations of the people we are sent here to represent. The other, as my hon. Friend the shadow Chief Secretary suggested, is to make sure that HMRC is resourced effectively so that it can implement public policy as intended.

Hon. and right hon. Members who have tax offices in their constituencies complain all the time about the loss of jobs in their constituency. They are fighting for their constituents, as they should do and as we all do. However, the closure of HMRC tax offices and the loss of HMRC jobs should be a concern not just for them, but for all of us. If we do not have the tax inspectors out there in the field clamping down on tax evasion, which is illegal, identifying areas of tax avoidance and, ideally, making recommendations to Government about improvements to the system, we will continue to have repeated debates in this place about how we clamp down on illegal tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance.

Another way in which we can improve the scrutiny of HMRC is through the Treasury Committee. There is provision for a sub-committee of the Treasury Committee to look in detail at HMRC’s work, and when the Committee meets we ought to consider that. The question is always about time and resources. We are lucky to have on the Committee a hard-working and dedicated team of Clerks, who produce reports and briefing packs at a rate of knots on some of the most complicated areas of public policy. Of course, we have a heavy agenda because of the issues facing our financial system, in particular, which have preoccupied the Committee in its work. I think it is fair to say that our new Chair and Members have ambitions to look across the breadth of economic policy and Government spending policy. From our constituents’ experiences on the phone to HMRC—if they are able to get through—right through to our issues about the resourcing of HMRC, there is a serious and significant piece of work to be done on HMRC’s performance, the adequacy of its resourcing, the scope of its powers and its focus as a public body acting in the interest of all taxpayers.

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend raises a good point about staff. The problem we have had in all Departments during the years of austerity is that the easy target is to get rid of so-called civil servant pen pushers. The actual effect of that is starkly focused in the case of HMRC, because when we start to get rid of staff whose job is to collect tax, not only do we lose those individuals’ expertise and their years of experience, but it costs the taxpayer, in that staff are no longer available to enforce the tax regulations. I have highlighted the issue of landfill tax fraud, for example. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should look at this as a case of “invest to save”? In other words, if they invested in civil servants to do something, the Government would be able to prove that they were getting more in revenue than it was costing to employ those civil servants.

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. The irony of some of the swingeing cuts of the past seven years is that although on a scorecard the cuts to civil service jobs represent significant savings, when we look at the roles and responsibilities of some of those civil servants, it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that cutting the number of tax inspectors may well mean that the Government will lose on tax yields and will lose revenue. There is a cost saving on the one hand, but on the other hand there is a direct cost to the Government in lost income.

I had the same experience in local government. Before I was elected to the House, I was the deputy leader of the London Borough of Redbridge. There is a continuing debate in local authorities about, for example, enforcement officers. There are huge pressures on local government budgets, and staff job losses can represent some of the biggest savings because staff are the biggest cost. If a council cuts its pool of parking enforcement officers, that will certainly help it to balance the budget when it comes to the budget council meeting, but it can end up losing revenue if enforcement officers are not out slapping penalties on cars. In addition to the loss of revenue, there are also worse outcomes for citizens, because such a policy encourages the bad practices that make our communities in the case of parking, or our society in terms of effective tax revenues, a lot worse off.

I hope that Ministers will turn to some of these issues when the Budget is next before us, because as well as being pretty thin on substance, the summer Budget did not deliver against the challenges of the time. At the opening of my speech, I quoted William Beveridge’s words about this being “a time for revolutions”. I have been struck by the interim report of the IPPR commission on economic justice, which has been launched today. In a succinct and effective way, the IPPR has summed up a number of the issues involving the great central planks of Government economic policy that have caused me great frustration, but it has also captured the sense of injustice felt by many of our constituents.

We could go on about this ad nauseam: I have sat in the Chamber many times listening to Conservative Members talking about their economic record, but I could spend much of the time available to me this afternoon cataloguing the broken promises of Conservative Chancellors. In fact, we could spend quite a lot of time talking about the broken promises of just one Conservative Chancellor. Our SNP colleague, the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), is new to the House and was not here to listen to George Osborne’s commitments, so I had better tell him about them. We were told in 2010 that the Conservatives would eliminate the structural deficit in one term, and they attacked the Labour party for lacking ambition and for not having a serious economic policy when we promised merely to halve the deficit over the course of a Parliament.

[Mr Jones]

Does my hon. Friend also remember that not only did George Osborne’s first Budget in 2010 help crash the economy, but the economically incompetent and hamfisted way in which the cuts were made—for example, cutting budgets in-year meant that it cost councils and others more to lay people off than it saved through redundancies—sucked demand out of the economy just at the time it was turning round?

[Wes Streeting]

That was one of my greatest frustrations as a Labour party member, looking in on debates in the House during the 2010-15 Parliament. We could be proud of Labour’s record in government from 1997 to the financial crash. There was unprecedented growth; we ran a budget surplus for four years—that has happened in only seven of the past 58 years; we lifted half a million children and more than 900,000 pensioners out of poverty, and we rebuilt public services. Yet we were told after the 2010 general election that Labour presided over reckless spending, but George Osborne was the shadow Chancellor who, up to the crash, committed to match Labour spending pound for pound.

How on earth in 2010 to 2015 we allowed revisionist history to take hold of Labour’s economic record will continue to confound me, but we must take that on. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham said, when we left office, the economy was growing and the initial impact of the early Osborne Budgets was to choke growth, scare away investment and suck money out of the economy through the cuts that were imposed. That did not make economic sense or even enable the then Chancellor to deliver his promises.

[Mr Jones]

Does my hon. Friend also agree that not only did what he describe happen, but if we had followed the Conservative party’s policy of deregulation of the banking and financial sector—the Conservatives never called for more regulation; they wanted less—and if we had accepted the suggestion of David Cameron and George Osborne at the time of the Northern Rock crisis to let it crash, we would have been in a much worse situation than we were?

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree. I am proud of the contribution that UK financial services make—not just the City of London, but other economic centres, for example, in Edinburgh and Leeds.

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

Manchester.

[Wes Streeting]

And Manchester, as my hon. Friend says.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Glasgow.

[Wes Streeting]

Of course, we cannot forget Glasgow. We have several powerful financial centres in the UK. They can contribute enormously to our revenues as well as creating jobs and making the UK an attractive place to do business. However, we should never forget that the crash was a banking crisis, and the thought of politicians—not just the UK Government of the day, but Governments throughout the world—was not that they had spent too much or invested too much in schools, hospitals, teachers, dinner ladies, nurses and doctors, but that the regulatory regime that oversaw financial services was inadequate for the practices of the time. A corrosive greed took hold on Wall Street and in the City and the vast majority of people paid the price.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. He mentioned powerful financial centres, including Glasgow and Edinburgh. Does he agree with my colleagues and me that the Government’s reckless approach to Brexit is deeply damaging and will cause grave effects in cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh?

[Wes Streeting]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman. I shall come to his point, in the context of the motions and the extent to which they are insufficient to deal with the structural economic problems and the economic outlook faced by the country.

[Ruth George]

rose—

[Wes Streeting]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman gives way again, I must tell him that I have been paying careful attention to what he is saying, and while I accept his explanation that he is about to discuss the motions, there are 48 of them on the Order Paper, so a fairly wide field of matters is under discussion. The hon. Gentleman has been dealing with subjects that are not relevant to the motions. He has been on his feet for 31 minutes, and I have given him quite a lot of leeway, but I am sure he will appreciate that, while it is interesting to consider the economic history of the last decade or so—and we are all fascinated —he really ought to speak to some of the motions, of which there are many before us this afternoon.

[Wes Streeting]

Of course, Madam Deputy Speaker, my entire speech relates directly to the Ways and Means motions, but what I will do with the time that I have left is be careful to ensure that my critique is centrally about the extent to which the motions fail to address the structural challenges facing our economy. I will now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George).

[Ruth George]

The Finance Bill proposes to extend the reliefs available to people with non-domiciled tax status, who are some of the wealthiest people in the country. [Interruption.] Motion 13 does that. It contrasts with the actions taken in 2012, when the then Chancellor set up the business investment relief scheme, which itself contrasted with a VAT increase that not only dampened down the economy but caused the tax burden to fall disproportionately on the shoulders of those with lower incomes while reliefs were given to the very wealthy.

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. Let me make two points about what she has said. In the Budget and the Ways and Means motions, and in previous Budgets and resolutions, the Government have chosen to pursue particular regressive forms of taxation. There is no doubt that VAT is a regressive form of taxation, in that it is paid by everyone, both individuals and businesses, regardless of income. If I went into a shop and bought an item that was subject to VAT, I would pay the same rate as someone with a much lower income buying the same item.

If a Government’s objective is to increase their tax revenues—and, of course, we understand why that would be an objective, given the context of the Budget and the revenue-generation measures in the Ways and Means motions—they should pursue revenue generators that are based on progressive taxation, and ensure that those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden. We have heard those words, or a variation of those words, many times from the Treasury Bench, from successive Chancellors and in successive Budgets, but, as I have said previously, the rhetoric fails to match the reality.

As my hon. Friend has referred again to the issue of non-doms, let me again highlight the extent to which the motions fall short of what is required. Of course we welcome the Government’s measures on non-doms, but I have already criticised them for not addressing, in the Ways and Means motions, the ability of non-doms to keep their assets out of scope if they are held in an overseas trust that was created before they were deemed to be domiciled. We may also want to consider the issue of definition, because the definition of who can be deemed to be in that category seems misleading. It does give the impression that a UK-born non-dom will be deemed if they are now UK-resident, but, inexplicably, it only covers those whose parents were not non-doms, letting non-doms off the hook if their parents were also non-doms. That is very common.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is something archaic in people being able to pass down their tax advantages to their children in that way? The average taxpayer on pay-as-you-earn has no chance of having access to such measures, and they certainly cannot pass on their status to their children or get any advantage for their children in the tax system.

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, and I am proud to be a member of the Labour party, because it is inherent in the founding principles of our party that we are here to represent the interests of labour. It should be a principle in the approach to taxation and funding our public services that a hard day’s work should result in a fair day’s pay and that the wealth people earn through hard work should be rewarded. There are many people covered under the Ways and Means resolutions we are discussing—particularly those on inheritance and people who enjoy non-dom status—who through chance or luck or birth have found themselves wealthy. It was not through hard work; they have just been lucky.

I understand the parental instinct that means parents or grandparents want to hand on assets of value, both financial and sentimental, to their successors. I understand that even more as someone who might benefit in the future—although, given my family background and the rising cost of social care, probably not in the way that many high-profile politicians have experienced in recent years. However, there is a problem in that people feel that the link between hard work and the rewards of hard work, and prosperity, have been loosened and weakened. Meanwhile, there are plenty of people out there who through luck, chance or circumstance have accumulated vast amounts of wealth and are seemingly untouchable by the tax collectors.

That situation is deeply regrettable, because it has a corrosive impact on the public finances and our ability to fund public services that benefit everyone, and it is also having a corrosive impact on politics itself. People feel that we gather in this place and work in the interests of a privileged few who have sharp elbows and access to Ministers and the corridors of power, while the vast majority of people, many of whom might have never even thought to email their MP, do not feel that they have a voice, and instead always feel that they are at the sharp end of things. We hear Ministers talking about the tough choices facing the Government, and of course they do face tough choices—if we had won the election we would have faced tough choices; we make no bones about that. However, tough times require fair choices: we should be operating fairly in the best of times, but when times are particularly tough we have to have social and economic justice at the heart of our programme.

[Mr Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the privileged individuals are also the ones who will have choices come Brexit? If the Government get Brexit wrong for the economy of this country, the average person will not be able to move their wealth or savings offshore, so they will be the ones who suffer. The people my hon. Friend is referring to, however, will be able to move their capital anywhere in the world.

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend’s critique is absolutely right once again. I hope the Minister will respond in detail to the points we are raising about the technical aspects of the Ways and Means resolutions, because I think we have given them a forensic examination and a serious and substantial critique, and the Government ought to respond to that.

I want to pick up on the issue of tax avoidance in Northern Ireland and the provisions in the Finance Bill in this area. The Government seem to be using the Bill to introduce measures that will loosen the definition of a Northern Ireland employer for SMEs, which will basically enable people to establish a business in Northern Ireland and claim the lower rate. Opposition Front Benchers have argued that this will lead to brass-plating, with companies setting up a nominal office in the Northern Ireland jurisdiction to take advantage of lower taxes. My hon. Friend the Member for Bootle, the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, described that situation as an onshore tax haven. We should not be in the business of allowing such a practice.

Forgive my cynicism, but it seems that since the Government lost their majority, they have lost a hell of a lot of revenue in potential tax receipts and in Government expenditure going to Northern Ireland. I am sure that is merely coincidental and has nothing to do with the Democratic Unionist party deal, but in cash terms—that is, the outlay on infrastructure and public services—most UK taxpayers saw the deal between the Conservatives and the DUP as being expensive enough. By the way, I do not begrudge the people of Northern Ireland the investment in infrastructure, education and health that they need. In fact, I do not begrudge them one penny. I do, however, begrudge the unfairness of Northern Ireland being given preferential treatment over England, Wales and Scotland for no other reason than that the Prime Minister took a gamble. She has paid a heavy personal political price for that, but I am less bothered about that. I am really bothered about the fact that the taxpayers we represent in England, Wales and Scotland are paying a heavy financial price for the Government bribing the DUP into a deal.

This measure in particular really does trouble me. We have already had constituents writing to us about the cash outlay to Northern Ireland, and it seems that a lot of hidden benefits are now being given to it, including adjustments to the tax regime. That will not be good for maintaining a strong and cohesive United Kingdom—it does not play well with our constituents in England, Wales and Scotland when they see one part of the United Kingdom being given preferential treatment over the others. I am sorry to disappoint Scottish National party Members present today, but I am a strong Unionist. I strongly support the United Kingdom, but it has to be a partnership of equals. The way in which the Government are now treating Northern Ireland is particularly uneven, as we can see in the Ways and Means resolutions before us this afternoon. I am very disappointed by that.

Resolution 13 allows provisions to be made to expand the scope of business investment relief, which allows non-doms to remit funds to the UK tax-free if they are investing in certain categories of UK business. We have a serious structural problem in our economy when it comes to investment. As I have said, we have one of the world’s largest financial sectors, yet we have a lower rate of investment than most of our major competitors. Public and private investment accounts for about 5% of our GDP, which is below the average for developed economies, and that figure has been falling not only under this Government but for the past 30 years. That is a structural economic problem that we need to deal with. Corporate investment has fallen below the rate of depreciation, which means that our capital stock is falling, and investment in research and development is now lower than that of our major competitors.

There are a lot of causes of that, including the way in which the banking system is insufficiently focused on business lending. That has been picked up by the Treasury Committee and by Members throughout the House in recent years. Also, private equity markets are increasingly focusing on short-term returns, which is not leading to the kind of investment that we wish to see. If the Ways and Means resolutions had set out provisions to stimulate, support or benefit business investment in general terms, I would certainly have supported them. It seems, however, that resolution 13 is not about business investment in the broadest sense but about a special category of business investment that benefits non-doms. I do not understand how this measure sits with the rhetoric from the Minister about other Ways and Means resolutions that are meant to target non-doms.

The shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and other colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench will well remember that during the general election, which caught everyone unawares, including Ministers, a raft of Government measures in a wide range of Bills were dropped in the wash-up process. I was closely involved in the Higher Education and Research Bill and saw the consequences for that Bill. It was interesting that the changes to the business investment scheme in the March Budget resolutions were withdrawn in the wash-up process. The Government knew that there was no way we would have allowed the measure through and that we would have been prepared to talk it out—something we never hope to do, because we want to engage constructively with the Government, but only so long as they enable time for appropriate and thorough scrutiny of policy. That measure seemed particularly unfair. If the Government are serious about stimulating business investment and attracting foreign investment, I think there are better ways to do it than with a measure that benefits a particular category of individual. I am not sure it will generate the increased business investment that Ministers want, and it seems particularly unfair.

I understand the pressures around business taxation—it is sometimes all too tempting to turn to corporation tax as the answer to every public policy spending commitment one wishes to make—but whenever we suggest modest increases in corporation taxation, the Government’s reaction is to attack Labour as anti-business. It is important to remember that under Labour we had some of the most competitive corporation tax rates in the OECD and that we have maintained that commitment in every election manifesto since in order to keep the UK competitive, but I come back to the basic issue of fairness and making sure that people pay their fair share.

[Mr Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s fixation with corporation tax being as low as possible, and the belief that somehow that will give us a competitive advantage, is blown out of the water by the very successful economies, such as Germany and others, that have corporation tax rates a lot higher than those in the UK?

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree—again—with my hon. Friend. It is almost as if he wrote my speech. I only wish I could have written his. I have learned a great deal this afternoon about landfill taxation policy and its importance, and I look forward to studying his speech later as we prepare to grill Ministers on the Treasury Committee.

I turn to resolution 4, relating to clause 14 of the pre-election Finance Bill, which introduced amendments to tighten the income tax treatment of termination payments. I made a point early in my remarks about the sense of unfairness and injustice that people feel about the way the rules are rigged. Many people fear, particularly in the current political and economic climate, and in the context of the Brexit process, that attempts will be made to erode workers’ rights. I was particularly concerned to learn, therefore, when I studied resolution 4, that the measure narrowed the scope of tax relief on redundancy and termination payments, removed any exemption for payments in lieu of notice, enshrined it in statute that injury to feelings—a main aspect of compensation in discrimination cases—was excluded from the tax-free scope of payments for injuries, and gave the Treasury the power to vary the tax-free amount.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is perhaps a return to the nasty party, in the sense that this measure will mean that people who may have suffered discrimination as a result of being LGBT or a woman may now be taxed on the compensation they received after being dismissed? That is a real indictment of what is meant to be a modern Conservative party.

[Wes Streeting]

Absolutely. I welcome my hon. Friend to the Chamber. I am unsure whether it is a return to the nasty party or more of a doubling down on being the nasty party. Indeed, I am unsure for how many more debates we can see the nastiness of the Conservative party reflected in public policy. On this or any other measure, if the Government’s intention is to clamp down on the abuse of a particular tax measure, provision, break or exemption, we will welcome that where the problem is genuine, but the Opposition believe that this measure targets termination payments more widely. It therefore follows that there is an obvious concern that workers who are losing their jobs are seen by the Government as a source of increased revenue.

What an outrage it is if the Government are seeking a power to reduce the £30,000 tax-free amount for termination payments without the requirement for primary legislation. That runs contrary to assurances that the Government had abandoned their plans to reduce that exemption, which was consulted on in 2015. Those of us who were in the 2015 Parliament will remember that one of the first measures with which we were confronted was the Bill that became the Trade Union Act 2016, which was an appalling attack on the rights of people at work. The Government consulted on this proposal then, but dropped their plans because they were strongly resisted both by the people and by the organisations that champion the rights of and protections for ordinary working people. Now, early on in the 2017 Parliament, the plans are back, but buried in these motions, with the Government presumably hoping that we would not notice. I bet the Government did not count on such scrutiny of their Ways and Means measures.

[Ruth George]

Many workers are obviously losing their jobs as a result of the continued austerity programme. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is ironic that those who are losing their jobs at HMRC due to the rationalisation may well be hit by this increase in taxation on their compensation when they could be helping us to increase our tax revenue from those who should be taxed?

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who brings to the House enormous expertise and experience from her work championing the rights of working people at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, as part of the trade union movement. We should listen carefully to what she has to say.

On behalf of their members—ordinary working people—trade unions made it clear when the Government consulted that the measure should not be pursued. I think everyone in the Opposition thought that the Government had listened and dropped the provision, but we now see motion 4 on the Order Paper, and it is not fair to workers. We might have thought that the Government would learn from the embarrassing debacle over the summer about what happens when they try to clamp down on people’s access to justice and fair treatment. The Government have form here, and I am disappointed and only too sorry that they do not seem to have learned their lesson or listened to people.

I want to begin to draw my remarks to a close by—

[Hon. Members]

More!

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We cannot have such expressions from around the Chamber. The hon. Gentleman has only spoken for one hour and five minutes. There are 48 motions, and I dare say that he still has more to say. As long as he sticks rigorously to speaking about the 48 motions, it is perfectly in order for him to go on speaking. However, now that he has surpassed the time taken by the previous speaker, I am sure that the incentive for him to speak for much longer is not great.

[Wes Streeting]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I can assure you and hon. Members on both sides of the House that my intention is certainly not to surpass the speaking time of my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham. My intention is merely to make sure that Government economic policy and the Ways and Means motions are given a thorough and forensic examination.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, revolutionary times call for a revolutionary response. What we see in today’s provisions is tinkering around the edges. Although the Whips’ briefings often give Conservative Members the ammunition—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

There aren’t any.

[Wes Streeting]

There is no one here—even Conservative Members have given up defending the Government’s Ways and Means motions. We have the poor Minister, his Whip and his poor Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Chamber, but there we are. I thank everyone else for paying attention this afternoon. The serious point is that the Ways and Means motions do not actually address the fundamental structural weaknesses in our economy.

I will now draw heavily from today’s report by the Institute for Public Policy Research, which I commend to the House and which I hope people will read. The fact is that the UK has the most geographically unbalanced economy in Europe. Although I am proud to be a London and Essex MP, I understand why colleagues from other regions and nations of the UK want a more balanced approach to regional economic and infrastructure investment, which is in the interests not only of their constituents but of my constituents. If we are to build a stronger, more resilient, more prosperous and fairer economy, it has to be one that is fairly balanced across the UK.

As Conservative Members tell us, we have a high employment rate and unemployment has been kept low, which I acknowledge and welcome, but Ministers and Conservative Members must have some humility about the fact that the high employment rate has been accompanied by an increasingly insecure and casualised labour market. Fifteen per cent. of the workforce are now self-employed, and many of those self-employed people will be hit by the Ways and Means motions, particularly those relating to Making Tax Digital.

We welcome self-employment. I have been self-employed, and I admire people who pluck up the courage to take the plunge and the risk of starting their own business, but there are many people who are not self-employed in the conventional sense—the sense that is to be encouraged and welcomed—but are in enforced self-employment, driven either by businesses seeking to duck their employer responsibilities or, worse still, by a punitive welfare regime in which people seek to declare themselves as self-employed so that they do not lose their tax credits while they scramble to find a real job. That is not properly understood.

Of course, there is also an unequal distribution of economic wealth. Between 1979 and 2012, only 10% of overall income growth went to the bottom half of the income distribution; almost 40% went to the richest tenth of households. Small wonder that we see this outcry from significant parts of our population, concentrated in certain parts of the country in particular, who are not just angry about the injustice they feel but are completely aware that it is a genuine injustice. It is not just a feeling of resentment—an irrational emotional response—as they are being left behind.

Let us be honest about the fact that we have, as the IPPR says,

“both world-leading businesses and world-lagging productivity.”

We have a lower rate of investment than most of our major competitors, as I have already said. Yes, we have a trade surplus in services, but our overall current account deficit as a percentage of GDP is the largest of all the G7 countries. The extent of manufacturing in our economy should make Ministers blush.

In the past seven years, the Government have been far too reliant on monetary policy levers. They have been over-reliant on quantitative easing, over-reliant on extremely low interest rates and over-reliant on growth that is fuelled by record consumer spending and consumer debt. We are building a new debt crisis in this country—it is a consumer debt crisis, and it is here. All it will take is a marginal interest rate increase for people to be unable to service their debt, and they are barely able to service that as it is. There are real questions to be answered about irresponsible lending, and the Treasury Committee needs to examine that.

These structural weaknesses in our economy ought to be at the forefront of the motions, but they are not. That would be irresponsible in the best of times, but let us look at what we face down the track. We are going to see deeper globalisation, and a shift of economic power to the south and to the east, with a requirement on us to become far more competitive, particularly in seizing opportunities in the service economy. We face enormous and fundamental technological change. The rate of such change is now vastly outstripping the rate at which regulators, government and businesses are able to respond to it. I am not someone who sees the rise of the robots as the beginning of human serfdom in the age of the machine; as with globalisation, there are huge opportunities here to deal with enormous inequality and with big issues facing the planet, such as climate change. Automation presents huge possibilities, but let us learn the lesson from globalisation. This is not something that we can slow or stop; it is happening, and it is a process. We must make sure that this new industrial revolution, the fourth one, works in the interests of everyone, rather than a select few. Otherwise, we will end up back where we are with Brexit, which is the biggest risk facing our country.

When we think about what could happen in the next couple of years as the UK leaves the EU or comes crashing out, we see that the idea that these Ways and Means motions would make any bit of difference is fanciful—it is not serious. When we look at policy coming from the Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, we see that it is insufficient to meet the challenges of the time. Worse, it seems that far from pursuing policies that will address these big challenges, the Government are pursuing an approach that would make things even worse, relegating the economy to a second-order issue. As George Osborne said from the Government Back Benches after he left office as Chancellor, in a debate about our relationship with the EU,

“the Government have chosen…not to make the economy the priority”.—[Official Report, 1 February 2017; Vol. 620, c. 1034.]

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine a Government not making the economy the priority? As I have said throughout this debate, that would be inexcusable in the best of times, but it is absolutely outrageous in the worst of times.

In conclusion, I hope that the Government not only take on board the detailed critique that has been made of their Ways and Means motions, but reflect on the structural weaknesses in our economy, the challenges that lie ahead and how they can meet them. Let us think about the biggest political event this country has seen in post-war history: the decision to leave the EU. We know that the referendum was lost because of a coalition of voters. I accept that there were a lot of committed Eurosceptics who always wanted out come what may, but the referendum was won thanks to the votes of millions of people who simply felt left behind, who felt unheard and who wanted to send a clear message. They are the people who have been at the sharp end of globalisation; they are the victims of economic inequality and social injustice. When we campaigned in areas where people turned out in droves to vote leave and we told people they may be voting to make themselves poorer, time and again we heard the same reply: “Things cannot get worse than this.” The thing I fear more than anything else about the economic outlook in this Parliament is that things can, and indeed may well, get worse. It would be a tragedy if the very people whose voices cried out to demand change, and who expect that change, were once again the ones who bore the brunt of short-term economic thinking, and of a politics and economics that works in the interests of the privileged few.

I did my democratic duty in honouring the referendum by voting to trigger article 50. What I will not do during this Parliament is pretend that I think the right decision has been made or that the warnings we gave will not come to pass. It is my responsibility, and the responsibility of us all, to protect the interests of our nation and our constituents. If we want to deal with what we are seeing across western democracies—the consequences of people abandoning their faith in mainstream politics—and we want to see off that trend and process, the only way to change course is to change our country. There is no shortcut to achieving change. It has to be meaningful, serious and a lot better than the measures the Government have presented this afternoon.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Following the point of order made by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) earlier today about the establishment of Select Committees, it has come to my attention that every party has a list of names of members of Select Committees. Will you and Mr Speaker use your good offices to encourage the Government to table a motion tonight with those names—if there are any gaps, they can be filled at a later time—so that the Committees of this House can scrutinise this Government as swiftly as possible, hopefully starting next Monday?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

The debate has been engaging and I thank all Members for their contributions. I will touch briefly on the points that have been raised. As I said in my opening speech, there will of course be further opportunities to debate the principles behind the Finance Bill, not least on Second Reading next week.

The measures to be included in the Finance Bill have been consulted upon widely and scrutinised by the public, key stakeholders, tax professionals and, to some extent, the House. The shadow Chief Secretary, the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), said that the Bill was being rushed through. I remind him that we have already debated the Second Reading of a Bill which, substantially, contained nearly all the measures that we will debate in the weeks and months ahead.

The Bill will raise some £16 billion over the next five years, but, far from what the hon. Members for Bootle and for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) would have us believe, much of that revenue will be raised from large multinational corporations—and, yes, from non-domiciled individuals. On the issue of the taxation of non-domiciled individuals, let me make it clear that we are abolishing permanent non-dom status. It is this Government who have presented proposals, consulted on them widely, and delivered a fair and balanced package. During the debate I heard Opposition Members criticise offshore trusts. Let me be clear again: if funds are taken out of trusts, they will be taxed in the normal way. In recent years, we have reached important international agreements on the automatic exchange of information to ensure that we can effectively monitor those movements.

Overall, we have developed a balanced policy that promotes fairness in the tax system and, importantly, protects vital revenues for our public services. Those non-doms bring in about £9 billion per year in tax revenues, which is up from £8 billion about a decade ago. We expect, in addition to those revenues, to raise a further £1.5 billion over the next five years as a direct result of this Finance Bill.

The Bill introduces important changes in corporation tax, implementing rules agreed internationally and recommended by the OECD. They will ensure that big companies pay corporation tax when they make large profits, no matter what their past losses might have been, and will prevent them from using artificial borrowing to avoid the tax that they owe. I remind the House that those matters have been the subject over some years of intense international work—international work that the Government have been instrumental in driving forward. These changes represent real results, which Labour Members never seemed to get around to when they were in office.

The hon. Member for Bootle also criticised measures relating to termination payments. The £30,000 tax-free allowance will still be available and statutory redundancy will be tax-free. However, we must face the fact that, while it may be a particularly easy argument to prosecute that we are somehow beating up those who are losing their jobs, the reality is that that situation is being used as a vehicle for tax avoidance, and when the Government find tax avoidance, we will clamp down on it.

Let me now deal with the points raised by the hon. Member for Bootle about the Government’s record on tax avoidance and evasion, and the work of HMRC. He suggested that somehow HMRC was not doing enough. I remind the House that in 2016-17, HMRC brought in £574.9 billion in tax revenue, and that was the seventh record year in a row. It generated £29.9 billion of compliance revenue in one year, and in 2016-17 it prosecuted 886 criminals for tax avoidance and evasion, more than double the number six years ago. The hon. Member for Oxford East criticised our commitments to HMRC. Since 2010 we have invested £1.8 billion in HMRC for the purpose of clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion, and we have brought in £160 billion by clamping down on avoidance since that date.

Members have rightly made much of the need to narrow the tax gap. The Government are committed to that as well, but many have failed to recognise that the gap now stands at 6.5%. That is one of the lowest figures in the world, and it is lower than the figure that applied every year in which Labour was in office. We can pride ourselves on having one of the most robust and transparent tax gap estimates in the world, with the methodology scrutinised by the International Monetary Fund and the National Audit Office.

The hon. Member for Bootle suggested that Labour would do more than any other party to tackle the tax gap, but let us judge Labour on its record. The latest tax gap is 6.5%. In 2004-05, after two terms of a Labour Government, it was around 9%. That is not a record to shout about. The tax gap for corporation tax in particular is 7.6%, but a decade earlier, under Labour, it was around double that figure. For large businesses, the tax gap for corporation tax we that inherited was 11.1%; now it has almost halved to 5.8%. And let us look at the receipts: onshore corporation tax revenues last year hit a record of around £50 billion. In 2004-05, after two terms of a Labour Government, they were almost £20 billion lower.

I want now to turn to some of the other contributions to the debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) made some very pertinent points, and I congratulate her on her election to her new position as Chairman of the Treasury Committee—I look forward in due course to appearing before her, with a mixture of excitement and some trepidation, I have to say. I also thank her for her comments about Making Tax Digital. The work of her Committee’s predecessor certainly informed my previous judgment on that matter. She made some important points about the UK being truly open for business. I also subscribe to those points, and the Government are determined to ensure that that remains the case. She made important points on certainty and stability in our tax regime, too, and she will have noted the answer I gave to the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) in respect of retrospective legislation.

When I was listening to the speech made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), I thought for a moment that I was in a dream where she was not a member of the SNP, but a Conservative—a fellow traveller. She is always welcome on this side of the House. She welcomed the measures for tax deduction of employee legal costs and for electric vehicle charging point tax reductions. She also welcomed our measures on petroleum revenue tax and to clamp down on enablers of aggressive tax avoidance, as well as the changes we have made to the MTD regime. The hon. Lady raised some points about VAT refunds for museums, and I will be happy to look into them and come back to her in due course.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) made some important points on MTD. I can say to him that the Government will certainly consult very widely as we go forward with this approach.

As for the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who has a flicker of a smirk about his face on the Back Bench there, what can I say? He started his speech by telling us he was going to speak rubbish, and I think it is fair to say that he amply met his objective, not in terms of the content of what he said—he was as eloquent and erudite as always—but in terms of his apparent inability to speak to the matters in question, because of course landfill tax, important though it is, will not form part of the current Bill. He then mentioned APD, for which I was grateful, because that is in the Bill, but I fail to see how I could get puppies in by any possible stretch of the imagination.

The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) gave a thoughtful speech, although I have to say that there were limited areas of agreement between us. I was pleased that he welcomed our changes to MTD. He stressed the importance of the wealthiest paying their share of tax. He is right, but he will know that the top 1% of earners in this country pay 27% of all tax, that the most wealthy 3,000 pay as much tax as the poorest 9 million, and that income inequality is at its lowest level for 30 years.

[Wes Streeting]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mel Stride]

I will not on this occasion, as I have very little time—I apologise.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned non-dom trusts. I have made it clear that funds remitted out of non-dom trusts will be taxable. He also, however, flirted with the idea of politicians getting directly involved in the tax affairs of individuals, which would be a dangerous road to go down. I do not want politicians interfering in people’s tax affairs; I want to protect tax confidentiality. He also talked about the resourcing of HMRC which, as I have said, has received £1.8 billion since 2010, and is bringing in record levels by clamping down on tax avoidance.

The hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) mentioned termination payments and said that she hoped we would not be reducing the £30,000 allowance. That is certainly not our intention at present, and if there were any move to change the figure, it would have to be the subject of a statutory instrument subject to the affirmative procedure, meaning that it would come back to the House for approval or otherwise.

The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) made the point that we need to raise money to pay for public services—he is absolutely right. That is why we are clamping down on tax avoidance and pursuing our policies. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) also mentioned termination payments, and I refer him to my earlier remarks about that. He talked about business investment relief, which will be available and made more flexible for those who have non-domiciled status. That should not be criticised. This is money coming into our country to invest in businesses, in British jobs, in wealth creation and in creating the taxes that, in turn, will fund the public services on which we all depend.

While we consider the action being taken in this Finance Bill, let us not forget what we inherited from the Labour party and the important actions that we have taken. Foreigners did not pay capital gains tax when they sold houses in the UK, but we stopped that in April 2015. Private equity managers could pay minimal rates of tax on their performance fees, but we stopped that in the summer Budget of 2015. Thousands of the richest homeowners did not pay stamp duty, but we stopped that in 2013. On corporation tax, banks did not pay tax on all their profits, but we stopped that in December 2011. Investment companies could cut their tax bill by flipping the currency that their accounts were in; we stopped that in 2011. On income and inheritance tax, people avoided paying tax by calling the salary from their own company a loan; we stopped that in 2013. Non-doms could avoid paying UK tax by splitting their employment contracts; we stopped that in 2014. Hedge fund managers could use partnerships to avoid paying tax on their income; we stopped that in 2014. People could claim inheritance tax relief twice on some assets; we stopped that in 2013. On the economy more generally, and perhaps most importantly of all, the Labour party wanted us to go on bankrupting Britain, but we stopped that in 2010.

That record on tax avoidance and fairness shows that this Government have delivered, and we will continue to deliver with this Bill. Opposition Members have accused the Government of using smoke and mirrors, but the record shows that it is they who talk tough but take little action. The upcoming Finance Bill continues our work to deliver a fair and competitive tax system. It implements measures that will raise £16 billion for our public services. It clamps down on avoidance and evasion, and addresses the challenges that the Labour party chose to duck. I commend the motions to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That—

(a) provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made amending Part 3 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, and

(b) (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made taking effect in a future year amending Chapter 6 of that Part (taxable benefits: cars etc).

The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Questions necessary to dispose of the remaining Ways and Means motions (Standing Order No. 51(3)).

2. Pensions advice

Resolved,

That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made for an employment-related exemption from income tax in connection with pensions-related advice or information.

3. Income tax treatment of certain legal expenses etc

Resolved,

That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made about—

(a) the deductions from earnings that are allowed under section 346 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003,

(b) the exceptions from the application of Chapter 3 of Part 6 of that Act provided for in sections 409 and 410 of that Act, and

(c) the payments that are deductible payments for the purposes of Part 8 of that Act by virtue of section 558 of that Act.

4. Termination payments etc

Question put,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made taking effect in a future year about the tax treatment of payments or benefits received in connection with the termination of an employment or a change in the duties in, or earnings from, an employment.