Ministerial Code: Breaches
Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord True(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, the undignified whinge in front of television cameras by the former Permanent Secretary at the Home Office certainly shows that he is no Sir Humphrey Appleby. What matters is that the Home Office is arguably the most constipated department in Whitehall, but one of the most important. There is much still to be done to follow up what the noble Lord, Lord Reid, said in May 2006 about the department being “not fit for purpose”. What really matters is that we get on with the reforms and we must welcome the fact that my right honourable friend Priti Patel is a vigorous Home Secretary who is determined, among other things, to root out the deep corruption, demonstrated in Parliamentary Questions I have asked and had answered, in the immigration department of the Home Office.
Lord True
My Lords, I will not follow my noble friend on all his comments. All I will say is that the Home Office has been charged with a vital job, from creating a points-based immigration system to strengthening the police and so on. I have no reason to believe that the Home Office, led by an outstanding ministerial team, will not perform to the highest levels expected of Her Majesty’s Civil Service.
Business of the House
Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord True(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord True
Our proceedings are filmed. He moved the closure on a fundamental question of procedure in this House without any opportunity for anybody to respond when it was clear that other noble Lords, including one noble Lord with extensive experience of presiding over the House of Commons, wished to contribute. I will not talk about repentance, because I saw four or five right reverend Prelates move in to support the principle of a guillotine—they clearly do not like dissent in their pews; they are not quite in the Anglican tradition—but I believe we might see some repentance from the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip and that he will not on this amendment, which allows the House—
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My noble friend referred to the Lords Spiritual. That is quite interesting, because I noted this morning that the learned judge in Scotland in dismissing the case said that this question was not one for the judiciary, but a matter of high politics. I am a little surprised that the Lords Spiritual want to engage so actively in high politics.
Lord True
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his intervention. However, returning to the fundamental point, are we really going to allow the acceptance of the principle of a guillotine to go forward without any dissenting voice being allowed? What the Liberal Democrat—democrat—Chief Whip offered the House was a guillotine of a guillotine. We started off today with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, saying that there will be no developments, no further guillotines and that nothing will happen. We have moved from the presentation of the most draconian guillotine Motion ever seen in this House to a Cross-Bencher who wished to put some points about the principle of the matter being closed down from a sedentary position by the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip—a guillotine of a guillotine. In the long proceedings I anticipate on this there may well be many occasions when it might be apt to intervene. I do not like to see the closure used, but it might be understandable. For my part as a parliamentarian—
Lord Marlesford
After first “Commons” to insert “, and in recognition of the fact that the vote of 17.4 million people in the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union is no longer relevant and may be ignored or further deferred”.
Lord Marlesford
My Lords, my noble friend Lord True asked me to speak to this amendment; it is an interesting amendment to speak to. The amendment relates particularly to the 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit and the effect of this guillotine on them. I point out that fact because, in the past, noble Lords have not always read the amendment. As the amendment says, it comes,
“in recognition of the fact that the vote of 17.4 million people in the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union is no longer relevant and may be ignored or further deferred”.
That is a very depressing situation for those people. They are not following the intricacies of what is happening in your Lordships’ House today. They will be as mystified as some of us are. None the less, all I can say is that a dangerous impression is being given by today’s proceedings and, to some extent, by yesterday’s proceedings in another place: that the view of the people is being ignored through Parliament’s hijacking of what they said. I suggest that that will have an interesting ripple effect if and when an election takes place, not least because the terms of an election have changed—in recent hours, almost.
Not long ago, the movement was for a fresh referendum. At that stage, the discussion was all about what the question in the referendum should be. In fact, the Brexit side worried considerably about whether the question would divide the Brexit vote. This morning, of course, Sir Keir Starmer, on behalf of the Labour Party, gave a clear, unequivocal and, I hope, binding view that, in a general election, the Labour Party would campaign to remain. By doing so, he has succeeded in dividing the remain vote because, in that situation, the remain vote will be divided between the Liberal Democrats, who have always believed in remain, and the Labour Party, which has not always believed in remain. In fact, it has been very difficult to know what it does believe in. Perhaps we ought to look at the backdrop to all this. Why on earth are we in this position at all? I had better declare my own position very clearly, in case it is of interest to anyone: in the referendum I voted, marginally, to leave. If there were to be another vote or referendum, I would vote enthusiastically to leave because of what I believe has been happening in Europe. I would like to remind noble Lords of the backdrop to all our discussions.
In my view, the EU project is proving a tragic example of weakness through strength. The original purpose of bringing peace to a war-torn Europe in the treaty of Rome 1957 was achieved long ago. The successor objective of bringing together for free trade and economic collaboration an enthusiastic group of like-minded democratic European countries to enhance their mutual stability and prosperity was a success for many years. As President de Gaulle famously described it in 1962, the year in which the common agricultural policy was launched, it was meant to be a group of nation states retaining their cultures and their legal, political and national identities and traditions: a “Europe des patries” or “Europe des nations”—I think he used both phrases.
Lord Marlesford
I am afraid I do not agree at all. If the noble and learned Lord is proposing to move the closure of my speech, let him go ahead and do so. I wish to make my own speech, and I do not wish to be told by him what or what not to say. Is that clear? I thank him very much.
At any rate, it was not until Maastricht that we attempted to have in Europe a policy similar to the rights of states; it was spelled out in many pages of Brussels jargon that the EU should not assume powers better exercised at national level. By then it was too late, but since then the Eurocrats have had many happy hours finding exceptions to limit the impact of subsidiarity. The introduction of a single currency without central economic government was always a challenge. The European Central Bank, established in June 1998, has done a fine job, with distinguished and successful presidents who have resisted the pressure to accommodate political priorities of individual euro states. The introduction of European monetary union, with fixed exchange rates in January 1999, paved the way for a smooth final arrival, three years later, of a single currency—the euro—for 300 million people. Since then, the ECB has successfully coped with the difficulties.
The problem of the EU—the problem that has caused all this to happen, from 2016 up to and including today—is that the EU Commission, based in Brussels, has one nationally appointed Commissioner for every country, and every Commissioner is expected to subordinate their national interest to the collective good. The Commission has the sole right to propose new European legislation. It has sought to aggregate to itself more and more power. In theory, the Commission is answerable to the European Council of Ministers representing the national Governments at the head or departmental level. In practice, everything is sorted out behind the scenes by Commission officials in consultation. Many states have been unhappy for a very long time at the way in which the Commission has been behaving. I believe that is the main reason why there has been such an enfeebling of the European Union.
Lord True
I declare an interest as a part-time resident of Italy, as my noble friend knows and the House will know. Does he agree that the points he is making are exemplified by what we have seen lately in Italy, where unelected Commissioners descend and lecture elected Governments about what budget they might be allowed to present? Even more recently, an effective parliamentary coup—something we may get used to this country shortly—has taken place to install an unelected Government.
Lord Marlesford
Yes, indeed. Of course, all that is what caused David Cameron to call a referendum in the first place. One must realise that when we voted to leave the EU, the Commission was outraged. It was also fearful. Once one country had taken such a step, others might follow and the whole edifice could come crashing down. Methodically and skilfully, it set about making the UK’s departure either impossible or too difficult and expensive to pursue. In this it had the collaboration of senior British civil servants, who had been equally shocked by the referendum result. The Commission has repeatedly made it clear that there are no circumstances in which the withdrawal agreement offered to Mrs May in November 2018 and subsequently, as we all know, rejected three times by the House of Commons—by the British Parliament—will be reopened for further negotiation.
The main sticking point has been the land border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. The EU Commission has insisted on a so-called backstop clause in the withdrawal agreement, which—this has been said and cannot be said too often—could mean that the UK would have to remain indefinitely in the EU customs union to avoid a hard border. Absurdly, it is felt by both sides that a hard border of any sort could cause the fighting between the two sides to start again. I simply do not believe that is true. The traumatic effect of the fighting was far too great. The Good Friday agreement, which took place with the help of the Americans, is much safer than people think.
The obvious example is an invisible sea border. It is interesting that only today—this is all happening now and is relevant to the legislation—it is suggested that it might be possible to have one island for the purpose of agricultural trade. If we were to have one island for agricultural trade, in my view, and presumably in the view of those who put forward this idea, this does not break the concept or idea of having a Northern Ireland which is part of the UK. I therefore hope very much that this could be extended to all sides. That would be very much better.
Mrs May, who was respected for her fortitude but not admired for her lack of flexibility in negotiating, has landed us in a state where we have to discuss this emergency legislation today. The Conservatives suffered a crushing defeat in the May elections for the European Parliament—the Labour Party even more so. That is why we have had a change of Prime Minister. The Labour Party is in even greater difficulties, largely because its leader, Mr Corbyn—this is totally relevant to the legislation that the House of Commons is in the process of passing—has been unable to make it clear whether he believes in staying or leaving.
I happen to know why that is the case. I read the Morning Star rather regularly. On 18 January this year, an article headed “Communists slam plots to halt Brexit” quoted the Communist Party’s political committee. The general secretary of the Communist Party, Mr Robert Griffiths—in case noble Lords did not know his name—said,
“We may well see Article 50 extended, allowing extra time either to renovate Prime Minister May’s ‘bogus Brexit’ deal or to hold a second referendum in the hope that almost three years of hysterical anti-Brexit scaremongering will reverse the results of the first … In any event, the aim will be the same: to maintain Britain’s subjection to pro-big business EU rules that would obstruct the policies of a future left-led Labour Government”.
Below, there is a lovely advertisement, “Corbyn and the Star”, offering a T-shirt which bears,
“the two great left symbols of our era—Jeremy Corbyn and the Morning Star”.
Council Tax Valuation Bands Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord True
Lord True
My noble friend raises a very important point. He says there will not be a lot of complications. Is he not saying that, once his new post-2000 system comes in, each time the house is sold thereafter there will not be an alteration? That seemed to be the implication of what he said. If this system is to have the logic that I think it might well have, clearly at each point of sale—not, as he said, interestingly, of inheritance or gift—the system must, surely, generate a new council tax, whereas he seemed to be saying the opposite.
Lord Marlesford
Of course it does: it is the actual price paid. If somebody buys a house, they will know the band in which it will be according to what they are paying. Of course it is the case. At present, if there are major alterations made to a house, there will be an assessment made by local government of whether it should move into a different band.
Lord Marlesford
I want to say a word on the retrospection point. Recently, the Chancellor of the Exchequer reduced the rate of capital gains tax from 28% to 20%. That new rate will apply to gains which are realised after, I think, 5 April this year on gains which have already been made which, if the sale of the asset subject to capital gains tax had been made earlier, would have been at 28%. So changes in tax rates do have an element of retrospection.
I do not believe, frankly, that we are going to have a lot of widows who bought a house since the year 2000 finding that they are paying enormous new sums, as my noble friend mentioned. The big increases have probably been in the last five years and it is very unlikely that widows have paid millions of pounds for houses in the last five years or so and therefore suddenly find that they are put on to a new rate. I think it would be perfectly reasonable that they should be put on to a new rate if that were the case.
Lord Marlesford
I do not think that any of us envisage a system in which each time people think the value of their house has gone down they can apply to be put into a new band. That does not apply at the moment and it would not apply under the new system in my Bill. With great respect, that argument is pretty irrelevant.
Lord True
No, but the noble Lord is replacing a system which is based on a consistent set of valuations with individual snapshot valuations, so he is creating potential new anomalies and concerns.
I do not wish to detain the Committee. This has been an extraordinarily interesting debate. I have esteemed my noble friend for decades, not just in recent times. He has one of the most innovative and illuminating minds we have seen, both as a commentator and as a parliamentarian. My respect for him is absolutely enormous. However, I do not think that this is a practical or sensible way to proceed. I have tried to deal with this extremely kindly. I have not troubled the Committee with some of the range of anomalies, although some of them have come up in the debate. We are not debating the issue of higher bands—although we could on another occasion—or the property thing. We are debating the Bill which is before us. My noble friend dismissed the idea that there might be administrative costs and anomalies. He was not too worried about that, but I have to be and I stand by it. Many local authorities are making massive savings in personnel. We have taken £35 million out of a budget of under £200 million. We are taking another £25 million out of it. This is what is expected of us by the country. With respect to my noble friend and my friends on the Front Bench, one must be careful about adding new burdens to local authorities, particularly when they come up with these kinds of anomalies.
I will study Hansard very carefully, but, with respect, I do not think that my noble friend properly addressed the points put by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about parallel registers, the two bands, the issues of inheritance, gift inter vivos, disguised nominee ownership and IT requirements. Retrospectivity was perfectly skewered by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. There is a tremendous amount here which needs to be clarified.
There is also a fundamental point, which I know that many people may not agree with or have forgotten. Council tax is supposed to be a tax levied to pay for council services. It was not created to be a tax on wealth or property. We can have one of those if we want. We have inheritance tax and graded stamp duty. There have been proposals for a mansion tax. Others have proposed a wealth tax. At one time, Mr Healey was going to build an office with staff to do that. Council tax is intended to be a tax which raises—
Council Tax Valuation Bands Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord True
Lord Marlesford
I am so sorry. It is rather fortunate that the date of 2000 was the date when the full Land Registry started, because that is basically before the big explosion in prices. Therefore, there would, in practical terms, be a very limited element of retrospection.
Lord True
I should explain retrospection, since my noble friend Lord Marlesford is on the point—and my noble friend on the Front Bench made the same point. What is proposed, if it is going to look back to anybody who bought a house before 2000, is to tax people on their past choices and on potentially capricious values. I do not think that that is a very fair way in which to proceed. In that sense, it is retrospective but, obviously, it would come into force and go forward.
Lord Marlesford
The point that I was trying to make on that is that, for many people already on the register, there would probably be very little difference in bands, because they would have bought their property before the big explosion. To be honest, I think that the people who had just bought a property at a huge price would be among those who I would be content to pay a much higher tax. So, yes, of course it would apply. Indeed, from now on until this measure comes into force, which I hope that it will, people will be able to say to themselves, “Well, if this comes into force, it will do so on the price that I am paying now”. Therefore, people can take it into account. I do not feel that the oligarch who bought a £20 million house in Smith Square with his jacuzzi and swimming pool can really have an enormous amount to complain about if he pays £42,000 rather than £3,000 in council tax. I think that he will be very pleased to be living in this country, with all the benefits that go with it, compared to his own country, perhaps, and pleased to pay that small ticket.
Most of these points need to be dealt with in Committee, but I would just say to my noble friend Lord True that yes, indeed, prices of houses are registered when ownership is transferred—and, indeed, death is a transfer. The valuation made in that case is, of course, made by a valuer. But the number of dwellings transferred at death are very few compared to those transferred by market transactions, so a valuation is required then. That value is often argued about with the capital taxes office, and all the rest.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord True
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has identified a problem that many of us would recognise. The extremely good system of council tax needs updating. She proposes in her amendment that the Secretary of State commissions an inquiry and produces some proposals. I have to some extent anticipated this because I have produced a scheme for dealing with this problem. The problem is—as the noble Baroness described—that it is not acceptable in today’s world that the most expensive property pays only three times the amount of the humblest and cheapest property. The very fact that there is a differential between band A and band H shows that the principle of taxing according to value is accepted. I say that because I know the views of my noble friend Lord True on property taxes. I am not particularly keen on any taxes but council tax was a very elegant and successful successor to the poll tax, which was a political disaster. I believe that we need to update it in a way that is not unduly retrospective and most of all that does not require the great bureaucracy of a revaluation. Since the old days of the rates people have always worried about the huge task that a revaluation would involve. That is why my proposals are somewhat different.
I start with the table as it is, which is bands A to H. Band A starts at up to £40,000, as was done in the original April 1991 proposals. The highest band H starts at £320,000, which is today a meaningless figure in terms of property values after inflation. I am suggesting that there should be new bands. They would still be called A to H and there would be a greater rate of progression than one to three. I have set this out in my Bill. My Private Member’s Bill has been lucky enough—I came seventh in the ballot out of 42 or 43 Private Members’ Bills—to get a Second Reading date, which is Friday 11 September this year. I hope that some of your Lordships may be kind enough to come to that occasion and to speak on it.
Basically I am proposing that there be a considerably greater rate of progression between band A and band H. Equally, I have set bands that are much more in accordance with today’s values. Band A will go up to £250,000 instead of £40,000, band B will be £250,000 to £500,000, band C £500,000 to £1 million, band D £1 million to £2 million, band E £2 million to £5 million, band F £5 million to £10 million, band G £10 million to £20 million and band H will be more than £20 million. These valuations are relevant to today’s prices.
Originally the Government put a rate of six for band A. They did this for arithmetical reasons so as not to have fractions. They made band H 18—three times band A. I also start band A at six and therefore under my scheme there will be no change in the tax paid from the present time up to the value of £250,000. Thereafter I go up to eight instead of seven. That is a 33% increase for properties between £250,000 and £500,000 as opposed to a 17% increase. In other words, taking it nationally, band A—give or take £100 —is £1,000 a year. So band A is currently £1,000 and band H is currently £3,000, give or take a differential for different local authorities.
So I would be having about £1,300 as opposed to about £1,200 for my band B. But when it gets up to the higher figures and the top level—say band G, where it is £10 million—there would be a considerably greater progression. Instead of being only 2.5 times, it would be 16.7 times. And when it gets to the astronomical figures, even by today’s values, of £20 million, band H would be 42 times as much as band A. So band A would still pay £1,000 and band B would be paying £1,300; it would then go up progressively, but more rapidly as it gets higher. For example, for band F, which is £5 million to £10 million, it would be eight times—and then it goes up to 16 times followed by 42 times. So there is a considerable progression at the top.
The great thing about my idea is that, instead of having a valuation, you take the values or the actual prices paid for the properties. All the properties are on the land registry, which came into full operation on 1 April 2000. It will apply to half of all the dwellings in England, using the actual values paid—and I should amend the Bill so that it applies only to England and not to Scotland and Wales. The other properties will migrate to the new system as and when they change hands. So there would be two bands operating side by side; there will be the present bands A to H, which go up three times, and the new bands A to H, which go up 42 times.
Nobody will be on the new bands unless that is the known price that they have paid. Even if it is a very expensive house, it is very unlikely that back in 2000 it would have been anything like as expensive, so there is a natural evening out so that it does not appear vigorous and savage when first introduced. The other properties will migrate as and when they change hands, whether that is by sale, gift, inheritance or anything else.
It is a neat system, because it would require no valuations at all. I think that it would come into force in a way that people would find fair and acceptable. We have to do something, and this is my suggestion for something.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I was referred to by my noble friend and although I was not going to speak on this amendment—I have made only one speech in the course of this Bill—I was provoked to speak by what was said by the noble Baroness opposite. I am afraid that I am not going to follow my noble friend in trailing a great speech on 11 September, but I look forward to participating in that debate. I think that he is too wise an old bird to assume that he really knows everything about the council tax—but, if he wants to hear it, I shall be there on 11 September.
I was provoked by the noble Baroness opposite, who was quite open in what she said—that she wants more money and more tax. She said, “We need more income”. It was cloaked in the marvellous language of equity, but it was actually the true language of the party opposite. Does my noble friend on the Front Bench agree that, having been seen off on the mansion tax by the British people not very long ago, the noble Baroness is leading the charge to get back at the British people by other means, behind the front doors of their homes?