Finance Bill

Debate between Wes Streeting and David Burrowes

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I rise to address amendments 180 to 182 and new clause 19, tabled in my name and those of my hon. and right hon. Friends. As a relatively new Member, I want to place on the record my enormous thanks to the staff of the Public Bill Office, who over the course of the summer assisted in the production of not only these amendments, but more than 30 amendments to the Higher Education and Research Bill. I have been busy, but I have been keeping them busy. As a new Member, I have perhaps been slightly more demanding, so I am grateful for their time and support.

As the Minister acknowledged in her opening remarks, amendments 180 to 182 arose from concerns reflected right across the Treasury Committee about the nature of appointments to the most senior offices and the dismissal of post holders. The Office of Tax Simplification has an important public duty. Many of us want the tax code to be simplified, but we know that constraints are inevitable because the tax system is as complicated as life and will therefore always have a degree of complexity. However, we also know—particularly those of us with a large number of small and medium-sized businesses in our constituencies—that the more complicated the tax code, the more complicated it is for businesses to understand what it is they should and should not be paying. Companies with the means to get a great deal of expensive advice on how to make enormous savings are at a great advantage.

During the course of yesterday’s Finance Bill debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) spoke about the widespread practice of aggressive tax avoidance by multinational corporations. If the tax code were simpler and clearer, that sort of aggressive avoidance would be harder. That is why there is such parliamentary interest in the work of the OTS and a determination to ensure that Government appointments to the most senior posts have an appropriate degree of parliamentary oversight—primarily, but not exclusively, through the Treasury Committee.

I welcome the Minister’s constructive approach and the agreement she made with the Chair of the Treasury Committee, the right hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), who does a sterling job of batting for all members of the Committee and on behalf of both sides of the House. This is a good example of how the Government and the Select Committee system can work together effectively to reach the right outcome. I do not intend to press amendments 180 to 182 to a vote this afternoon, because we have received sufficient assurances from the Minister and I look forward to that process continuing under successive Governments.

Turning to new clause 19, even newer Members of the House are familiar with the regular display and theatre of the Budget. In this modern age, there is an inevitable degree of briefing, counter-briefing and misleading in the run-up to the event in order to misdirect the Opposition and to enable the Government to be fleet of foot on the day and to save the best headlines for the Budget. On the day itself, we have the routine announcements about the business that needs to be conducted in any Budget and then, of course, we get the inevitable rabbit out of the hat. Once the smoke has cleared and the mirrors have been packed away, the real analysis begins of the consequences of each Budget item for the people whom we are sent here to represent. Even members of Select Committees or Bill Committees, who follow the scrutiny of Bills closely, know that trying to penetrate the real impact of a Finance Bill or any fiscal event is a significant challenge.

I must say that that challenge has been made more difficult by the decision of the previous Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), to move away from his commendable practice of publishing alongside the Budget the distributional analysis of the impact of tax, welfare and public spending changes. The first question that all hon. Members face when presented with a Budget is about the impact on our constituents. Those of us who are committed to social justice are more interested in the impact on the poorer household than the wealthier household. In fact, the right hon. Member for Tatton described the analysis as the

“most comprehensive and robust assessment available”.

That is why it was so disappointing that he decided to abandon that practice following the general election. The move was condemned at the time by a wide range of anti-poverty charities as a serious mistake. We could spend a lot of time debating why the previous Chancellor chose to abandon that practice at that particular moment, and we could have our usual exchanges about the priorities of Conservative Governments and Labour Governments, but with the appointment of a new Prime Minister and a new Chancellor I hope that we can instead debate the merits of the principle which we believe any Government, whatever their priorities and political shade, should follow.

The Chair of the Treasury Committee wrote to the Chancellor to express concern that at last year’s summer Budget the Treasury

“replaced its previously excellent budget distributional analysis series with a manifestly deficient substitute.”

Since her elevation, the Prime Minister has made great fanfare of the commitment she made outside No. 10 Downing Street to lead a Government who work

“not for a privileged few, but for every one of us.”

I would dearly love to have a debate with the Government about the means by which we achieve social justice and about whether it is a good thing in and of itself, but I certainly agree with the Chairman of the Treasury Committee that a

“high level of transparency about the effects of tax and welfare policy on households across the income distribution would seem to be a logical, perhaps essential starting point.”

That is what motivated the tabling of new clause 19.

It is important that all Governments are clear and transparent about a Budget’s effects to enable proper parliamentary and public scrutiny of decisions—as happens in the Chamber, in Select Committees and in conversations around kitchen tables up and down the country. Knowing that the analysis is being produced and seeing it form as the Budget is prepared helps to concentrate the minds of Ministers and civil servants. It asks the question and gives the Chancellor, before he or she stands at the Dispatch Box to announce their Budget, an opportunity to reflect on the Budget in its entirety.

Successive Governments and Chancellors have once or twice fallen foul of public opinion by realising that the Budget as a whole is not necessarily as great as they thought it was when each part was being considered. Having the analysis in place as the Budget is prepared will not only aid public and parliamentary scrutiny, but enable Ministers to make the right judgment about how Budgets should be balanced. The Opposition believe, particularly when difficult judgments are to be made about tax and welfare changes and public spending, that the books should never be balanced on the backs of the poorest. I hope that we can find agreement in that area with the new Chancellor and Prime Minister, particularly given her stated aims, but whoever occupies the highest offices of this land, we can surely agree that parliamentary scrutiny is vital.

We should also agree that, as the Treasury has the evidence to hand and we are not asking it to do additional work—the analysis already exists—simply requesting that it be put in the public domain is not too much to ask. I welcome the fact that this afternoon the Minister has left the door open and says that this area will be considered by Ministers. On that basis, I accept that Ministers, the Chancellor and the Treasury will consider it. I assure the Minister and the Chancellor that we will return to this issue, through the Select Committee and at future fiscal events, if a change is not made. On the basis that the Government have an open mind and open ears on this issue, I am prepared not to press new clause 19 to a vote.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this stage of our consideration of the Finance Bill. I was interested to hear the carefully constructed arguments of the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). Let me pick up on the point he made about wanting to see social justice from this and future Budgets, and to see it at the heart of the Government’s agenda, as was made clear on the steps of No. 10 by the new Prime Minister. He also talked about the impact on the poorest households, which is the focus of new clauses 2 and 3 and the reviews that they propose. As ever, it was also interesting to hear from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris), and to listen to his thesis on post-factual analysis, be it on the Labour leadership contest or on this Bill. He mentioned roads, so perhaps he should come down to Enfield and give us a post-factual analysis of the cycle lanes that are planned in my borough to see whether we should continue with that expensive proposal, given the need for best value.

Let me return to the matters at hand. First, I wish to speak to new clause 2, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). Sadly, the latter cannot be here as she is leading her Health Committee on a visit, although she would want to be here to support this new clause. I hope and expect that across the House there is support for the principles of wanting to carry out a proper review of the impact of the duty regime, particularly in relation to high-strength cider, although I very much welcome the Minister’s comments. She will know all too clearly from her previous role in public health of the impact of alcohol and high-strength alcohol in particular, including cider, on the poorest and those most in need of our attention. I welcome the hint that a wider, more coherent view of the relationship between alcohol duties and harm could be taken, which was mooted by the previous Prime Minister but seemed to get kicked into the long grass—it has never returned. The Minister will be well aware of the permutations and the different interests across Government in relation to that review and its final outcome. The previous Prime Minister was talking about minimum alcohol pricing in terms of when not if, but this has now gone back to an if. I look forward in future Budgets and future consideration to a wider review and factual analysis of the relationships to harm and the impact on behaviour, particularly among the poorest.

New clause 2 hones in on an area that is about not just health harms, although that is the core of the argument, but an anomaly in our treatment of cider and of beer.