Oral Answers to Questions
Tommy Sheppard Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
John Glen
My right hon. Friend makes a very sensible point. This is about finding appropriate development in different communities, and a range of factors will obviously be involved. We have worked closely with local authorities to ensure that we get the right package of measures and legislative changes to enable the development she and her constituents aspire to.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Victoria Atkins)
It remains challenging to separate the effects on the UK economy of Brexit and of wider global trends, such as the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, that add pressures on trade, prices and the wider economy. The Government have been working to take advantage of leaving the EU, including through the Edinburgh reforms, new freeports and the opportunity to shape new trading relationships with the rest of the world.
Tommy Sheppard
It is not that difficult, is it? Last week, the Office for Budget Responsibility published its report and, at the bottom of page 46, it says quite clearly that the OBR predicts that Brexit means that the UK economy will shrink by 4% and trade will go down by 15%. Is it not time to get over this denial phase and actually admit that Brexit has caused irreparable harm to the UK economy? Or is the OBR wrong?
Victoria Atkins
If I may, I will gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that the OBR has previously stated that it is too early to reach definitive conclusions. The Government are focused on seizing the opportunities provided by Brexit, including the world’s biggest zero-tariff, zero-quota trade deal. Indeed, Scotland itself will benefit from 71 new trade deals secured with non-EU countries and control of our fishing waters. I hope that the hon. Gentleman also welcomes the £8.6 million invested in Scotland’s festival economy at the Budget last week.
Financial Statement
Tommy Sheppard Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rishi Sunak
I am pleased that, because of the actions of Conservative-led Governments since 2010, the state pension is £2,000 higher today; 700 of that is specifically because of the triple lock. That shows that this Government are on the side of pensioners.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
The Chancellor is proposing to cut the value of state social security payments by at least 4% and putting up tax rates for those on average and below-average incomes, yet he refuses even to countenance asking those who have extreme wealth, or the corporations that are making obscene profits, to pay a little more. Is not the truth, Chancellor, that this is just a plan to increase inequality in the United Kingdom?
Rishi Sunak
We are asking companies—especially large successful companies—to pay more. That was announced last year and legislated for, and it will come into force next year. The corporation tax rate will rise from 19% to 25% to ensure that we do spread the burden fairly in recovering from coronavirus.
Cost of Living Increases
Tommy Sheppard Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
The last few years have been times of great adversity and challenge for people across the globe. In every country in the world, people’s ability to cope with those problems has relied on them having a sense of a common endeavour, a sense, to coin a phrase, that we are all in this together. The problem with Britain today is that there are many people who no longer believe that we are all in this together. The statistics, as we look around us, show that that is the case. This is a country where there is great poverty, but what is worse than the fact that millions of people are working themselves into an early grave through mental illness because they fear they cannot afford to feed their children, is that there are many people in this country for whom the story is the complete opposite.
Last year in Britain, a record number of billionaires were recorded. As I said in this House last week, the most alarming statistic to me is that 171 of the richest people in Britain could afford to cover every single penny the Government have spent in responding to covid—more than £400 billion. They alone could afford to cover that bill and still be the richest people in Britain. The stock exchange has never been higher and the people who own stocks and shares have never been wealthier. Because of the increase in property prices, those who own the biggest and the most properties have done far, far better than those who own a modest home. That is the dreadful story of unequal Britain that we have today—a story of poverty on the one hand and great wealth on the other.
Let us not pretend that we are all in this together, because the truth is that those people at the lower end of the scale, in particular those on fixed and low incomes, are the ones who will disproportionately pay the cost of this crisis. When prices rise, it is the people on fixed and low incomes who are hit disproportionately. When general taxes increase across the board, it is they who are hit. When benefits or state spending is withdrawn, it is those who are already suffering who are asked to suffer even more.
That is the state of Britain today and you would think, Mr Deputy Speaker, that any Government—not just a Tory Government, but any Government—would be concerned about those figures and would want to do something about them. Yet in every respect, the Government’s only response is to either do nothing or demonstrably make things even worse.
Let me illustrate that in two ways. First, we have had a big debate about rising energy prices. Probably the most bizarre thing, which was alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), is that when energy prices rise, Government income rises from taxes on the production and taxes on the consumption of that energy. The Government are facing a huge windfall in energy taxation and at the very least—the very least—we would expect them to say, “Let’s put this back into the pockets of the people we’re asking to pay these bills”.
Tommy Sheppard
If the hon. Member is going to confirm that that is the Government’s intention, I will gladly give way.
Jerome Mayhew
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for giving way, but did he hear the Chief Secretary to the Treasury say that VAT is charged at 5% on energy and, if households are not spending on other things that are taxed at 20%, the net income for the Treasury is likely to be negative?
Tommy Sheppard
Forgive me, but I think that most people will find that argument rather perverse: 5% on someone’s electricity bill is still 5%, and if it doubles or trebles, that is two or three times more than the Government were taking before.
Tommy Sheppard
If the hon. Member does not mind, I would like to continue.
What the Government ought to be doing is recognising that we are coming towards a crisis in the cost of living, particularly with the fuel bills coming in April. They ought to make sure that the energy cap remains in place and does not rise. They ought to provide support for energy supply companies to be able to deliver that. They ought to make sure that the people who have already faced an increase in their bills are given a one-off payment to enable them to get through the rest of this year. But instead of doing that, they do nothing. Tax is another example of where the Government go out of their way, it seems, to make things worse.
When I talk about tax, it is worth bearing in mind that benefits are also part of the tax system. If the Government choose to withdraw benefits from people, the effect is exactly the same as if they were to increase taxes on their wage bill. That is why the cut of £20 a week to the 6 million poorest households in Britain is so iniquitous and so immoral. It would be at any time, but to do it in the middle of a cost of living crisis is beyond imagination. Of course that ought to be reversed, and of course the Government ought to do more to try to help those who are on fixed and low incomes, particularly those living on meagre state benefits. The fact is that, if the Government do not uprate in the next 12 months the level of benefits paid to those people who desperately need them, with rampant inflation, the real value of those incomes is going to go down even further, and the people who can least afford it are going to be the ones who will pay the most.
Of course, the increase in tax that the Government are proposing—the national insurance increase—is a tax increase that everyone will pay, and the proportion they will pay is exactly the same, no matter how rich or how poor they are. I have heard Ministers on the radio talk about this as a progressive tax. It is the farthest we can get from a progressive tax. It is fundamentally regressive. The reason it is being brought in is that this Government, who have to increase revenues because of the economic crisis, do not want to ask the very richest or the very wealthiest in our society to pay a bit more. If they had any morality to them, in a situation where they knew they needed to raise income through taxation, they would first consider taxing those who have the most and taxing accumulated wealth, before they levied a tax on people on poor and fixed incomes.
I think there are many Government Members who can see that this is not a good situation and that the Government’s response is quite abysmal. By the way, I do not know how much of this is by design, or how much of it is turbocharged by the fact that the current Administration are in complete inertia and paralysis; they are unable to do something because they are so scandal-ridden at this point in time. I accept that the lockdown crisis the Government have makes it harder for them to govern, but either way this Government’s honeymoon is long over—the veneer is disappearing. Those people in the red wall seats in the north of England who were conned into believing that this Government—this Tory Government—would stand up for their interests are going to see over the next 12 months things laid out very clearly for them. That is why, of course, there are a lot of nervous people on the Government Back Benches, and there are going to be a lot of problems for the Government in the 12 months ahead.
Let me turn, in my final remarks, to the situation in Scotland. I was going to congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), but he is no longer in his place. He brought into the debate the question of Scottish independence. He introduced it—it is not an SNP obsession. If we look at the text of the motion, the words “referendum” and “independence” do not appear in it. That is not just because we are capable of talking about many other things: it is because this debate, by itself, makes the case for independence. We do not need to write it down—it is self-evident.
If people want to see how things might be done differently or a different set of instincts, aspirations, attitudes and character at work, they can look north of the border and at what the Scottish Government have tried to do within the competence that they have available. The discretionary housing payment is ameliorating the bedroom tax. The child payments, already introduced and doubling in April, will mitigate some of the attacks on the very poorest in our community. Income tax increases for those who can afford to pay more, which the Conservatives claim make Scotland the most taxed part of the United Kingdom, in fact make Scotland the fairest taxed part of the United Kingdom.
Hannah Bardell
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point about independence. Does he agree that the real fear on the Government Benches and in the establishment at the heart of Westminster is that when Scotland becomes independent the other nations of the UK will look north, see what we do with the full powers of independence and will want change for themselves, away from the corrupt, scandalous bunch running things here?
Tommy Sheppard
Indeed I do, but in closing I want to point to the monstrous deceit in this argument. It is a fact of life that no matter what the Scottish Government try to do in terms of the Scottish economy, they live with the reality that it is a regional economy of the United Kingdom, not the economy of an independent country. Therefore, for example, the decisions that we make on income taxation are very limited, because the Scottish Government have no authority or power over the movement of capital or labour within our borders. If it was an independent country, those things would be very different. I am afraid to say that that is compounded by Labour party Front Benchers. When they criticise the SNP Scottish Government, they basically think of a number and double it, without any regard to the actual powers, authority or legal status of that Government to deliver on the cost of living crisis.
The Scottish Government are doing some very good things, but those are only an illustration of what could be done if we had the full powers of a normal independent country. That argument has already become much more attractive to people in Scotland. Opinion is divided about whether we should have another referendum. I know that Conservative Members say that should never happen—
Tommy Sheppard
If it is on that point, I will, but I see that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, want me to finish.
Robin Millar
To the point about opinion being divided, I refer the hon. Gentleman to a survey on 25 November from north of the border in which 13 different policy options were presented. He is correct that the economy and jobs are important, as they came third in that ranking. The issue of independence—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Interventions must be brief. We have a lot of Members who wish to speak and I will have to put a time limit on almost immediately.
Tommy Sheppard
I conclude by saying that it is a complete deceit to criticise the Scottish Government for not doing something that the House actively prevents them from doing. The simple way to test the truth of that is to let Scotland become an independent country, which is what people voted for at the last election in Scotland. Let them have that choice and, when it comes, we will put before the people a complete proposition that will answer all the questions that the hon. Member for Moray wants and many more. I believe they will choose a different way, an alternative way, of running their economy than what we get from this Tory Government.
Several hon. Members rose—
Household Energy Bills: VAT
Tommy Sheppard Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
The last two years have been brutal and miserable for millions of people in this country, but not everyone has had a bad pandemic. Last year the number of millionaires in Britain increased by 10% and the number of billionaires increased by 15%. In fact, The Sunday Times estimates that, between them, the 171 billionaires in the United Kingdom are worth £600 billion, which is enough for them by themselves to fund every single pound of Government covid support over the last two years and still be the richest people in the country.
Jacob Young
I take on board what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I am confused, because the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) signalled that the SNP will be supporting today’s motion, yet this is a tax cut for the very millionaires the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) is talking about.
Tommy Sheppard
I am not sure of the relevance of that intervention. I was describing the manifest economic injustice apparent in our country, and that is the context against which we need to examine rising energy prices.
It might be thought that any Government would want to do something about the extremes of wealth and poverty in Britain, but in fact this Government are making it worse. Last autumn they chose to cut the household income of the 6 million poorest families in the United Kingdom by £1,000 a year—that was a political choice. They are now preparing to introduce tax increases this April, and tax is always a political choice. One could choose to make the wealthiest pay more or one could choose to tax accumulated wealth and capital, but no. This Government are increasing taxes for average and low earners in order to avoid increasing tax for the wealthiest people in the land, for whom tax is at a historically low level. That is the moral tapestry against which we should judge this.
The Government need to take serious action, because standing aside and doing nothing about the cost of living crisis would be to abdicate government. Of course there should be a cut in VAT on energy bills. In fact, consider what it means not to do that. It means that families the length and breadth of the land will face the misery of higher gas and electricity bills and, at the same time, the Government will profit from that misery by bringing in more money from the tax levied on those bills. That is immoral, and of course this proposal should be supported.
Two other things are required. First, the energy cap must be maintained and the Government must take action to make sure energy suppliers are capable of delivering on it. Secondly, as a matter of priority, the Government need to make a heating and energy payment to low-income families that will allow them to deal with the increases that have already happened.
I would hope that these are reasonable asks of the Government of the United Kingdom, but I do not doubt what is going to happen. I know those asks will be ignored, and I know this Government think their 80-seat majority makes them impervious to reason and logic, so they will continue as they wish. That is why, in Scotland, people will be looking again at whether we have to forever be hitched to this Government—whether we have to go along with them and these policies, which benefit the well-off at the expense of the poorer—or whether it is time to take matters into our own hands and, through the political agency of being an independent country, be able to deliver things in a better way, and build an energy supply system and an economy based on fairness and community solidarity.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip
Tommy Sheppard Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Blackford
What I am reflecting on is the behaviour of the Prime Minister that puts Members in the House of Lords, when the House of Lords Appointments Commission has ruled against their appointment. I have given the opportunity to anyone on the Tory Benches who wishes to rise to defend the actions of putting Tory donors in the Lords. It is £3 million for a peerage in the House of Lords. What a price to be able to undermine our democracy!
Tommy Sheppard
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. As no Government Member wishes to intervene on him, I wonder whether he might agree with me on this: is it not somewhat ironic that SNP Members demonstrate more probity and more respect for the rule of democracy than does the current Prime Minister, and is this not yet another compelling reason why Scotland should be an independent country, so that we can have a system of governance that is fair, democratic and transparent?
Ian Blackford
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Of course, he is absolutely correct. We are speaking about the House of Lords. The House of Lords is the second largest parliamentary Chamber in the world. The only Chamber that is bigger is the Communist Congress. My goodness, what an advert for democracy! The fact is that these unelected Lords have a say over our democracy. The juxtaposition—the point that is made by my hon. Friend—is an important one. Today, we are discussing the behaviour of the Prime Minister and why he should be sanctioned. Yet in Scotland, just seven months ago, the people of our country were given the right to have a say in their Government. Crucially, they were given a right to have a say on the future of our country as an independent country, because the SNP made it very clear in that election that it was about a mandate for an independence referendum. Indeed, the Conservatives made it clear that a vote for the Conservatives was a vote to stop Scottish independence, and what happened?
We are talking about democracy and respecting democracy, so let us tell the Conservatives a few harsh truths. In the four elections that we have fought in the Scottish Parliament that we have won, we have increased our vote at every election. We received just short of 48% of the popular vote at that last election. That is a higher share of the vote than any party has had in any election in the United Kingdom for the past 50 years. On the topic of respecting democracy, of respecting the people’s sovereignty, then Boris Johnson must recognise that the Scottish Parliament, where there is a majority for Scottish independence, has the right to call that referendum.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tommy Sheppard Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Kemi Badenoch)
My hon. Friend is right to raise this important issue. The Treasury recognises the role that enterprise zones play in our economy. This is an area specifically of interest to me and I will be delighted to meet him to discuss it further.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP) [V]
Steve Barclay
First, the approach of the United Kingdom Government to these Scottish payments is exactly the same as applied recently in Wales. To further reinforce the point that I made a moment ago, while decisions on whether to exempt these payments are reserved, the Scottish Government will keep all the income tax receipts from these payments, so if they wish NHS and care workers to receive £500 net of tax, which is what they say is their wish, they can simply increase the value of the payments going to them. That is the point of substance. That is the point they do not want to engage on.
Support for Self-employed and Freelance Workers
Tommy Sheppard Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
Gary Thomson is a taxi driver in Edinburgh—one of many in the city. He has been driving for years, and until last year he worked for a private company and paid his taxes and national insurance every month. A year ago, Gary realised his lifetime ambition of setting up and started working for himself. He invested his savings and went into the unknown. It was working up until the virus struck, when demand for taxis pretty much disappeared overnight.
When Gary tried to apply for support, he was told he had not been self-employed for long enough and was excluded, even though he had been paying his taxes continuously over the qualifying period. That is unfair.
Sarah Lachhab is a tour guide in Edinburgh—one of thousands of workers in that industry in the hospitality sector. She has been running her own business for more than three years, but up until the beginning of 2019 she did not make enough from it to pay the rent, so she had some other bar jobs in the hospitality sector. When Sarah applied for support, she was told that because most of her earnings had not come from self-employment over the past three years, she too would be excluded from the self-employment income support scheme. Of course, because by then she was doing okay as a self-employed worker, she had given up the other payroll jobs. That meant she was excluded from the coronavirus job retention scheme as well. She fell between the two stools, and that is unfair.
Georgina Allison is an architect in Edinburgh. She has been self-employed for a while, but three years ago she took time off to look after a newborn child. Because her earnings were very little in that year, it brought the average of the three years for which the calculation was made much lower than it would have been otherwise. I have asked HMRC to disregard maternity periods and childcare in making the calculation, but it has refused to do so. That is not only unfair; it is blatant discrimination against female self-employed workers in this country.
All of those things need to be fixed, and it is possible to fix them. For six long months, dozens of MPs—or perhaps hundreds of MPs—on behalf of tens of thousands of constituents, have been arguing with HMRC and the Treasury to try to get something done for the people they represent. I think we have all been stunned at the degree of intransigence we have met.
We are constantly invited to applaud the schemes that have been set up. There is talk about how many people they have helped and how much money has been spent on them. I acknowledge that—I will sign anything you want to say how great it is—but that is not an excuse or a rationale for refusing to fix problems that are manifestly there in the system. In fact, the very scale of the schemes and the amount that has been spent on them make it bewildering that for a very small proportion more, the Treasury would not plug all the gaps that are clearly there. When we come to remember these schemes, I fear that they will be remembered not for their largesse and generosity, but for the parsimony and unfairness that has led to many millions of people being treated unfairly in this country.
It is not good enough for the Treasury to refuse to answer questions, to refuse to take meetings, to sit there and pretend that it does not understand what is happening. There is no reason for that, so I appeal to the Minister and her colleagues: please open your minds, open your ears and meet with us so that we can discuss the things that need to happen to put these schemes right.
Coronavirus: Employment Support
Tommy Sheppard Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
The very essence of the hospitality industry is to provide social contact. Does the Minister understand the real anger of many in that industry that the Government have given advice to their customers but not to them? If the Government believe premises should close, they should say so, and they should accept the consequences of paying people whose idleness is enforced because of a contribution to a public health emergency. What is so hard to understand is that the system for doing that is staring the Government in the face. It already exists. It is called Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. That is a system for taking money out of wage packets every month and giving it to the Government; now, it should be put into reverse to put money into the pockets of those employees.
John Glen
The hon. Gentleman is right to express the deep frustration of people in that sector, and I am sure his words resonate across the House. We have put in resources for 2,000 people from HMRC to take calls for bespoke solutions to deal with some of those issues. He is right that there is also an issue in terms of access to insurance. I was on a conference call with the insurance industry to clarify that where insurance has been taken out, that will be effective. However, he is perfectly right that more work needs to be done, and I have been very clear that more will be forthcoming imminently.