Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Baroness Primarolo and Sheila Gilmore

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the debate, as we have been lacking a challenge up to now and it is always good to be challenged. He makes an argument about the Laffer curve. I am sure he would agree that if tax rates are zero, you do not get anything, and that if tax rates are 100%, you would probably not get anything either. However, the question of where it is right to draw the line in between, in any given economic situation, is surely a matter for debate. You cannot simply say, “Oh, the Laffer curve says we can’t put tax rates up.”

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I remind the Committee that the guidance on conventions and courtesies is quite clear on the language to be used in the Chamber. Hon. Members will know that “you” refers to the Chair as all remarks are made through the Chair. I would therefore be grateful if hon. Members would refer to each other by their constituency names, or as “the hon. Member”, “my hon. Friend” or “the Minister”. They should desist from saying “you”; otherwise, I might feel the need to answer the debate as well, and then we would have disorder. We do not want that, do we, Mr Rees-Mogg?

Public Service Pensions Bill

Debate between Baroness Primarolo and Sheila Gilmore

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) will comment on that point only if it is relevant to the amendments we are considering. I remind hon. Members that we are not yet on Third Reading. The debate is going rather wide of the new clauses and amendments, so perhaps the hon. Lady could return to them.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I am more than happy to do so, Madam Deputy Speaker. Perhaps we will have further debate on that topic.

If amendment 11 were agreed to, considerable and greater power would be available for the Scottish Parliament than the current Scottish Government appear to want. Within the context of the politics at present, I do not think it would be idle speculation to suggest that that might be convenient.

Finance Bill

Debate between Baroness Primarolo and Sheila Gilmore

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. In replying to that intervention, I hope the hon. Lady returns to the subject of the debate, which is fuel duties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cathy Jamieson]

The amendment deals with an unfair situation that I mentioned earlier. People who are already earning considerable amounts, millionaires and others receiving the highest levels of pay, will benefit from the Government’s proposal to reduce their tax rate to 45%. We had a good debate on the subject on Second Reading, but were not able to discuss it in Committee. At that time we wanted the Government to reconsider, and not just because millionaires were set to receive something equivalent to a £40,000 per annum tax cut.

[Sheila Gilmore]

My hon. Friend may be interested to learn something that I myself learnt from a television programme that had no direct connection with economics. It was part of a series about London streets. A banker who was talking about his home in Portland road said that prices there had risen considerably since the taxpayer had bailed out the banks, and that far from suffering from the current financial situation, people seemed to be benefiting.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I must inform the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) that only one Member should be standing on the Floor of the House at any one time. Welcome to the Opposition Benches, Mr Halfon.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Baroness Primarolo and Sheila Gilmore

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Tempted as I am to answer the questions that are being posed about the deficit, I remind the House that the hon. Gentleman is not the only one in this debate currently blaming the Chair for everything, so I would be grateful if we could return to the convention, ensure that our language is correct and, if possible, keep me out of this argument—for now, anyway.

[Sheila Gilmore]

The whole matter is very much one of degree, not either/or. However, one other interesting difference between the Government and Opposition Front Benchers is that the Government frequently argue that high public spending and a big public sector act as a drain on, and kill off, the private sector. In the city of Edinburgh between 1997 and 2007, however, development and building—not just public sector building, but private sector building—flourished. In fact, the Royal Bank of Scotland built a huge corporate headquarters just outside the city during that period. The argument is that if we have a huge public sector, the private sector will shrink and disappear, and that, therefore, if we do the opposite, the private sector will suddenly rise up. I do not yet see, and doubt whether we will see, any great rise in the private sector. Where are the private residential houses and offices being built by the construction industry in my city? They simply are not there. They were at a time when, according to all the arguments that Government Members have put forward, they should not have been. If the public sector is so bad for the private sector, we should have had huge problems.

At this stage in the passage of a Finance Bill there are opportunities to do several things. We heard an interesting exposition of the importance to the film industry of tax reliefs and credits, so why did the Government decide not to go ahead with an equivalent tax credit for the video games industry? The city of Dundee, which is not far from where I live, suffered for many years after what happened to the old industries. It was a city of jam, jute and journalism, and it struggled for a long time, but the relatively recent expansion of the further and higher education sector in the city and the spin-offs in terms of the research and development have been very impressive. They have brought people back to a city that was losing its population, and they have encouraged young people who were educated there to stay there. Industries such as the video games industry, for which Dundee has become justly famous, have done that, yet for no good reason the coalition Government have stopped something that might have allowed the industry to develop and flourish. The opportunity exists in this legislation for the Government to reintroduce that opportunity, and I hope that they will do so.

I was at a briefing earlier today on the Robin Hood tax, a financial transaction tax that many organisations in this country advocate not only because they feel it right that the banks, which did so much to cause the financial crisis, should contribute, but because it is a way of raising funds to deal with poverty and deprivation here and elsewhere. That proposal could be included in the Bill. It is well worked out, and I hope that, even at this stage, the Government will be prepared to consider amending the legislation in order to include such matters.