Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between William Bain and Sheila Gilmore

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

rose—

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between William Bain and Sheila Gilmore

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bain]

I would not endorse that policy because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, that figure includes the transfer of between 200,000 and 250,000 college staff from the public sector to the private sector. I am not going to endorse that figure; he knows that it is not accurate.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Would my hon. Friend like to refer the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) to recent articles—including some in The Guardian, which he would probably discount—that show not only that those jobs were transferred from the public sector to the private sector but that the Government are counting unpaid work in the total of new jobs being created?

[Mr Bain]

Yes indeed, I have seen that report, and it was scandalous. I was somewhat perplexed by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) when he said that people who were in part-time work were satisfied with that situation. The truth is that, as the TUC has established, 3.2 million people in this country are stuck in involuntary part-time work because of weak demand, low growth and low investment in the low-productivity economy that is being presided over by this Government.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between William Bain and Sheila Gilmore

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The altruism of the high-paid is remarkable. If they are not paying tax because of successful avoidance measures, their delight at the rate reduction requires some explanation. Perhaps they agree with the Chancellor’s statement that they will pay more tax as a result; if so, their delight is clearly because they are ready to pay more tax than they were previously.

[Mr Bain]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend has had an opportunity to consider what the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said this afternoon—that there is a one in three chance that the Treasury will recoup only 30% of the £2.9 billion in the Red Book that relates to behavioural changes and to people moving from the 50p to the 45p rate. Does not that bear out her point?

[Sheila Gilmore]

It definitely does.

Of course, that may not have been what people were cheering. They may have been cheering in relief at not having to do tiresome tax avoidance planning all the time. If the HMRC’s calculations are correct, high-paid employees are a bit like highway robbers who are holding a musket up to the rest of us and saying, “If you tax us, we are going to take our ball away and not play any more.”