Finance (No. 2) Bill

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Bank of England carries out stress tests on our banking system. In the latest round, the banks came through very strongly—not a single one failed. The tests stress the system to a greater extent than the effect of the last financial crash in 2008, so we can be certain that the measures the Government have put in place, the operation of the independence of the Bank of England and carrying those things through are having the desired effect that he rightly seeks.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

After 2008, a bank levy was needed because there was not much profitability in the banks to enable their assets to be taxed, but as we have improved regulation it is now worth moving to tax their profitability. Does the Minister agree that this is the right time to make this shift in raising revenue?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The Government since 2015, and the coalition Government, oversaw the restoration of the banking sector to a healthy central part of our economy. He is absolutely right. The shift from the bank levy to the taxation of profits which was introduced on 1 January 2016 indicated that the risks themselves were diminishing under our stewardship, and that our banking sector was profitable enough to bring in considerably more tax revenue. Since 2010, under Conservative Chancellors, we have secured more than £44 billion in additional tax—I stress the word “additional”—from the banks, over and above the tax that we would be applying to them were they non-financial businesses.

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[Alex Burghart]

Does the hon. Gentleman regret the fact that his party opposed the bank levy when this Government introduced it in 2011?

[Peter Dowd]

I will come to that in due course as well, if I may. I am beginning to think that my staff have been leaking my notes. I shall have to have words with them.

Last week, in true one nation mode, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), among others, gave the Brexit Front Benchers every opportunity to acquiesce to his reasonable requests. In effect, he tried to give them a “get out of jail” card, but they could not take yes for an answer, and the remnants of the Government’s credibility went down the pan. There is a civil war going on within the Government, and this goes to the heart of the matter. The Government are throwing everything into the mix to try to distract us from the civil war that is going on in the Tory party.

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[Peter Dowd]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes a reasonable point. The Government are so lacking in confidence that they are gerrymandering Public Bill Committees to reflect their control-freakery. We have to ask ourselves how long the Government can treat the House with such disdain. It is the kind of disdain that saw the Government ensure that there was no amendment of the law resolution, which has deliberately restricted the scope of the Bill and effectively limited parliamentary scrutiny and debate. [Interruption.] A Whip says from a sedentary position that that has happened before, but the procedure is used rarely and not in these circumstances. It is the Government’s control-freakery and fear of scrutiny that makes them do such outrageous and virtually unprecedented things.

Perhaps if the Bill set out a bold plan—let us call it a long-term economic plan—to get the economy back on track, we could all put up with the Government’s guileful procedural gymnastics. However, as I said on Second Reading, there is little in the Bill to solve the growing problems facing our economy—from sluggish growth and slow productivity to a lack of investment in our infrastructure and our people. The Government have instead decided to dedicate their efforts to offering the banks another tax break by further limiting the scope of the bank levy, ensuring that from 2020 UK banks will pay the levy only on their UK balance sheets, not their overseas activities. It is the same old Tories looking after the same old interests.

[Alex Burghart]

rose—

[Leo Docherty]

rose—

[Peter Dowd]

I will give way.

[Alex Burghart]

I am very grateful. I want to give the shadow Minister another opportunity to answer the question. Does he regret his party’s decision to vote against the bank levy in 2011?

[Peter Dowd]

I will come to that in a moment. In future, if two hon. Members want to make an intervention at the same time, they should perhaps have a ballot.

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[Peter Dowd]

We discussed this issue last week, but the bottom line is that we are here to talk about the tax policies of the Government, not the Labour party. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman reads “Funding Britain’s Future”, which we call the grey book. As I said to one of his colleagues last week, I am not his research assistant. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority provides the hon. Gentleman with enough money to employ his own research assistant, so he should not need a shadow Minister to do his research for him.

Labour’s position on the bank levy has been clear. We have consistently argued for a higher bank levy and pointed out that the levy, introduced in 2011, would raise substantially less then Labour’s bankers’ bonus tax. In short, we have always stood against the Government’s divisive austerity agenda. That was why we voted against the 2011 Finance Bill, which introduced the bank levy along with cuts to corporation tax and tax giveaways for the most well-off. That was also why we voiced our concern in 2015 over the Government’s cuts to the bank levy and the introduction of a corporation tax surcharge. It is why we will vote against the measures in the Bill.

[Alex Burghart]

Given the hon. Gentleman’s love of punishingly high corporation tax, does he not regret supporting the corporation tax surcharge on banks in 2015, when he was in the House?

[Peter Dowd]

No matter how many times Government Members ask rather tangential questions, I will not be drawn down that particular avenue, much as I would love to have that debate with the hon. Gentleman. The bottom line is that we have always stood against this Government introducing austerity measures at the same time as giving banks a tax cut. That is what it comes down to.

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[Peter Dowd]

Yes, because the sector returned to profitability after a Labour Government supported it throughout. That is why the sector has returned to profitability. Ultimately, if a Labour Government had not gone in and supported the sector, there would have been no banks, no profits and no tax whatsoever. I remind the hon. Gentleman of that one.

[Alex Burghart]

I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s potted Marxist history of the past 10 years. There seems to be a little bit of history that he has forgotten, which is of course the lax and inappropriate regulatory regime that the Labour party introduced under Ed Balls. That regime contributed to the terrible state in which our banking sector was left after 2008. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to remind the Committee and his party of that.

[Peter Dowd]

First, we did not regulate the banks in the United States, where it all started. I ask the hon. Gentleman—I have said this a number of times—to go and look at “Freeing Britain to Compete,” the document produced by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) for the shadow Cabinet in, surprisingly, August 2007.

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[Peter Dowd]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman goes back and reads Hansard when it is printed to see exactly what I said.

Once we can see the true costs of the Government’s policies, we can grasp the extent of the choices they have been making and how they have favoured a small, wealthy group over the many citizens of this country time and again. Let us look at the example of children’s services. Only a week before the Budget, the chief executive of Action for Children, Sir Tony Hawkhead, described the “devastating cost” of cuts to children’s services, which he said have been left on a “dangerous and unstable” footing. These prevention and protection services are vital to provide proper care for our nation’s children, and the banking levy could help with that, yet we have seen deep cuts of 55% of funding for local government and a gap of £2 billion in funding by 2020.

There is widespread talk and reports of local councils having to seek permission from the Government to raise council tax to cover the costs, in effect, of cuts to the bank levy—this money may have been available for children. So cuts to bankers and council tax up seems to be what we are being told today. As these services have been decimated over the past seven years, we have seen a doubling of serious child protection cases and twice the number of children put into care protection plans. Last year, 70,000 children were placed into care. The support for foster care, adoption and Sure Start children’s centres has all been reduced. Youth centres are closing and parenting classes are being axed. Short breaks for disabled children, provided by local councils to give their parents a little respite from full-time care, are being taken away and are under strain.

Taken together, those cuts mean that some of the most vulnerable children in our country are paying the price for seven years of failing economic strategy. When are the Government going to change their strategy? It is still shocking to see the Government put the needs of others ahead of those of our youngest citizens, who are picking up the bill for austerity

[Alex Burghart]

Will the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that, as we have reduced the rate of corporation tax, so revenues have increased and there is now more money to spend on public services than there would otherwise have been? Does he not acknowledge that there is a real risk that, if his party were to increase corporation tax rates, there would be less money coming in, and cuts to public services and so on would be on his party’s head?

[Peter Dowd]

In short, no. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has made no link whatsoever between the rate of corporation tax and tax take. This is one of these myths that have been presented to the House time after time, which in the main we have tried to ignore, but at some point we have say that it is complete and utter claptrap, not to put too fine a point on it.

The banking surcharge, supposedly introduced to compensate the taxpayer for this levy loss, will not come close to making good the difference. The Chancellor still has a choice though: he could reverse the cut to the bank levy and end the crisis in our children’s services instead.

It is increasingly clear that the oldest political party has run out of steam.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Alex Burghart Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

The hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty) might not like the answer that I gave to his question, but I have referred him to the documentation. If the hon. Lady is incapable of going to the internet and looking up the facts and figures, it is not for me to do that for her. The bottom line is that there is nothing in the Bill for public sector workers, who head into the new year with their wages continuing to fall and the cap sticking.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Dowd]

No; I am going to make some progress. Public sector wages are now at their lowest level as against private sector pay for 20 years. Nor is there anything to address the botched roll-out of universal credit, which will cause real suffering to families this Christmas. Similarly, the Bill contains no measures to redress the disproportionate effect of austerity on women, and particularly on black and minority ethnic women. Instead, the Bill proposes a stamp duty cut that will, according to OBR analysis, increase house prices; and it fails to introduce measures to encourage the building of affordable homes to address the housing crisis.

The Bill includes plans to continue with the Government’s 2015 bank levy cut. It goes further, as the Minister seemed proudly to proclaim, by exempting all foreign banks from the levy and ensuring that from 2021, all banks will only have to pay the levy based on their UK balance sheets.

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[Dr Johnson]

I certainly will. As a children’s doctor, I have seen a dramatic increase in the number of young people who are admitted to hospital because they have taken an overdose or self-harmed. When I was a very junior doctor, a senior house officer, a young person would be admitted on a Friday—it was usually on a Friday—who had been in such severe mental distress that he or she had taken an overdose or self-harmed in some other way. Now it is normal to see children—sometimes several—admitted to the ward every day with similar symptoms. This investment cannot come soon enough to ensure that every one of those young people is given the best possible care. As my hon. Friend said, we must ensure that it is translated into care that makes people feel better.

We must bear in mind that care is not just provided by frontline staff. People often say that we need to get rid of managers and administration, but we should not forget that secretarial support for clinicians is particularly important. None of us wants letters to be sent by secretaries weeks after they were dictated, which is something that I have experienced during my clinical career.

We need to measure outcomes. It is important for us to know how many patients we have treated, how effective their treatments were, and how long people are waiting so that we know how best to direct the funds that we have to the areas that will make the greatest difference to our constituents. We also need to avoid spending large amounts on recording and measuring so that we can spend it on treating and diagnosing.

With the advent of GP at Hand, digital taxation and online access to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, more and more of our life has entered the online world, so I welcome the Government’s investment in technology of £500 million to ensure that our economy is fit for the future. They have invested in artificial intelligence and 5G, for instance.

[Alex Burghart]

Given my hon. Friend’s experience of the NHS, I should be interested to hear how that £500 million investment in future technologies could benefit the health service in the future.

[Dr Johnson]

I shall give an example from my constituency. United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust is considering setting up a body to look at how best to deliver rural care, examining ideas such as using Skype to have consultations with people who might otherwise have to travel a long distance. There are also the possibilities of using telemedicine to monitor patients’ blood pressure, for example, while they are in the community. In such ways, we can ensure that we deliver the best possible care using very modern technology.

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[Dr Johnson]

It certainly does sound horrific. Spending money might sound lovely now, but we would be spending the money of our children, and it is they who would suffer for it.

[Alex Burghart]

We were asked earlier to look things up on the internet, so I looked up something about universal credit. It turns out that £2 billion has been set aside for universal credit but, according to the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the £1.5 billion set aside by the Chancellor in the Budget represents only £1 in £10 that needs to be put in, therefore creating a £13.5 billion black hole. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is unacceptable?

[Dr Johnson]

I do, and that is why I will be supporting the Finance Bill today. It is good for my constituents and it will ensure that we have an economy that is fit for the future.

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[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Matthew Taylor has clearly stated that banning zero-hours contracts is completely the wrong thing to do. The Conservative party wants everybody to have good work in a decent job with secure working conditions, which is why we commissioned Matthew Taylor to carry out his report. As my hon. Friend, a fellow member of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, says, this is an incredibly important issue. The Taylor report is a detailed piece of work that looks at the rights of employees, the self-employed and workers to make sure that everybody’s rights are protected, because no business should be afraid of treating people well and giving people a decent job. That is what this Government are doing.

[Alex Burghart]

My hon. Friend is being extraordinarily generous with her time. Like her, I enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), although I did not agree with all of it. He says that there is nothing in the Bill for low-paid workers. Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to remind him that there is a tax cut for 31 million workers, from which low-paid workers will benefit.

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He reminds us that, in fact, there are a lot of measures in the Bill that will help low-paid workers in our country. He mentions the tax cut and how people are being taken out of tax, but what he did not say is that the increase in the personal allowance next year will mean that, in 2018-19, a typical taxpayer will pay at least £1,075 less tax than in 2010-11.

I should explain to Labour Members that taking someone out of tax is the same as giving them a pay rise, because they get to keep more of their money. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bootle is laughing—perhaps he would like to intervene.

Paradise Papers

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the trust arrangements for those who become deemed domiciled as a consequence of this Government deciding to put an end to permanent non-dom status—something that his party never did in its 13 years in office—he will know that all is not quite as the Labour party presents it. Any funds coming out of such trusts will, when they are remitted, fall due to tax by the deemed domiciled individual exactly as they would for any other UK citizen.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Is it not the case that, with the Criminal Finances Act 2017, the Government have created a new criminal offence for firms that do not stop staff facilitating tax evasion?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is just another example of the 35 additional measures the Government are taking between now and the end of this Parliament to ensure we clamp down on tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance.

Finance Bill

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Bim Afolami]

My hon. Friend is expert in these matters and knows about them in immense detail, having served in the European Parliament. When both serving on the Finance Bill Committee and during this debate, I have been struck by the keenness of this Government to be fair at the same time as promoting competitiveness. Fairness and competitiveness together are what make Britain the best place in the world to do business.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

It is an honour and a privilege to be speaking during the Report stage of the Finance Bill. You will know, Mr Speaker, although some Opposition Members might have forgotten, that I am the MP for Brentwood and Ongar. Today is a great day in the history of Brentwood, because “Woman’s Hour” has announced that it is the best place in the UK for women to live and work. That is something for us all to celebrate. Underpinning that achievement is the fact that Brentwood is a fantastic place to work and do business, and our sense of business acumen is itself underpinned by hard-headed pragmatism. When I bring my constituents complex pieces of legislation, including Finance Bills, they always ask me two things. They ask me whether the legislation is fair, and if they are going to get a good deal out of it. The measures that we are discussing are indeed fair, and I believe that taxpayers in my constituency will get a good deal from them.

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[Anna Soubry]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, although I would be intrigued to find out, perhaps after the debate, why Brentwood—I nearly said “of all places”, but I am sure that it is a wonderful place—was judged to be so favourable for women. But we are getting away from the Finance Bill and the important points that he is making about the economy. Does he agree that it is critical in any tax system that the balance is right? Yes, taxpayers need to pay the right and proper amount, but we know that if we start to be too onerous, people will exploit loopholes, meaning that tax revenues will begin to drop. Does he agree that it is under this Conservative Government that we have begun to get that balance absolutely right? People do not resent paying their taxes and revenues are rising because we have a good and fair system.

[Alex Burghart]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. She can rest assured that she is always welcome in Brentwood. There will always be a place next to me in the teashop where we can sit down to discuss exactly why Brentwood is such a wonderful place for women to work, raise their families and be part of the community.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct that we have to get the balance right if we are to maximise the tax take for the Treasury, and it is only through that tax take that we will be able to fund our world-class public services. An attempt to do anything more would undoubtedly mean that less would be available for our police services, health service and education system. Our constituents—our citizens—would then all suffer, so it is absolutely essential that we get the balance right. I do not believe that we do that if we actively discourage successful, wealthy business people from bringing their money here so that they can invest in our country. As my right hon. Friend points out, it is by getting the balance right that the Treasury, under the great guidance of my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary and his predecessors, has managed to bring in an extra £160 billion since 2010 and to narrow the tax gap to an historically low level. That is a great achievement.

[Robert Jenrick]

I would like to put this into perspective so that our constituents can appreciate our achievements on the tax gap. Our tax gap is 6%, but the gap is 34% in Italy. If the European Union wants to tackle any tax gaps, it should look at other European countries. The tax gap in the United States is 19%, so a 6% tax gap here represents a huge achievement by this Government.

[Alex Burghart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing those figures to the House. Our extraordinarily impressive figure illustrates the achievements of successive Conservative Chancellors in their work to improve the situation that they inherited in 2010.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) raised an extremely important point about timing. Do we really want a review to kick in just as the Brexit process is reaching its climax? With all due respect to Opposition Members, I do not think that they have really thought about that.

This has been my first Finance Bill and I have enjoyed everything about it immensely. I have even enjoyed the speeches made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd). I have enjoyed his panache, his dapper dress sense and his ties, which make me feel slightly underdressed. In Committee, he enlightened us with his knowledge of Plutarch and made reference to the Beatles. I believe that he referred to Plutarch’s discussion of Pyrrhus’s victory over the Romans, which led to Pyrrhus saying, “One more such victory and we are lost.” Were new clause 1 to be agreed to, it would be a pyrrhic victory of great consequence. It would put billions of pounds of Treasury revenue at risk, which would in turn put our public services at risk. That would make my constituents very angry.

I know that the hon. Member for Bootle is fond of the Beatles, as am I. We have already had a comic turn from one Essex MP today. The House might recall that, once upon a time, John Lennon was asked why the Beatles were the greatest band in the world. He said it was because Paul McCartney was the greatest singer-songwriter in the world and because George Harrison was the greatest guitarist in the world. The interviewer said, “What about Ringo? Isn’t he the greatest drummer in the world?” Mr Lennon replied, “He’s not even the greatest drummer in the Beatles.”

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

I rise because it is dreadful to hear this wrong story being perpetuated in the House of Commons. It is a myth that that conversation ever took place, in my opinion—people can check it now on Google. We have in Birmingham a fine comedian called Jasper Carrott who once told that story as a joke. Such is the way that Google works these days that when someone tells a joke like that, it finds its way on to a website somewhere and a myth is perpetuated. We are hearing that story told again in the House of Commons today. I am concerned that it will be recorded inappropriately, so I hope that my hon. Friend will consider that.

[Alex Burghart]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am sure that when the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) responds, he will ensure that his words are directly relevant to new clause 1. This is an important issue and I am sure that Members would not want people to think that we were treating it light-heartedly. We should be taking it very seriously.

[Alex Burghart]

You are quite right, Madam Deputy Speaker. I assure you that my comment was directly relevant to the Bill, but my peroration was cruelly interrupted by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes). He has now set the record straight but, in the process, destroyed one of the great anecdotes about the Beatles. I was going on to say that new clause 1 is not even the best amendment that the Opposition have put up.

The Minister made it clear in Committee that with

“regard to a review of the legislation, as stated in the tax information and impact note published in December 2016, HMRC will monitor the effects of the provisions through information collected in tax returns. I therefore urge the Opposition not to press new clause 3.” ––[Official Report, Finance Public Bill Committee, 19 October 2017; c. 97.]

A form of review is therefore already under way. This Bill is fair and will get a good deal for all our constituents.

[Eddie Hughes]

My hon. Friend is making a great speech. Another vital factor that we must consider is the element of trust, which will come up repeatedly as we discuss further amendments. It is important that taxpayers can trust this Government to ensure that we collect the maximum amount of tax and then deploy that tax appropriately to provide excellent public services. My hon. Friend suggests that it is important that the Bill is fair, but it is also important that it is trustworthy and that the people watching this debate on telly at home—millions of them—have faith that the Government are firm, fair and trustworthy.

[Alex Burghart]

I thank my hon. Friend for that wonderful speech. He is of course entirely right that these measures are fair. They get a good deal for the British taxpayer and will help to underpin future investment in our fine public services.

[Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)]

Clarifying non-dom status is absolutely the right thing to do, but it is also crucial to ensure that our tax regime is fair. We have heard from other Members that non-dom status contributes £9 billion. My constituency—this is also relevant to the constituency of the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman)—has seen a lot of mergers and acquisitions activity, and it is important that this country’s tax regime is clear, simple and straightforward, with people encouraged. The Wood Group and Amec merger will create a FTSE 100 company that will be headquartered in Aberdeen, and Baker Hughes and GE, another huge oil company, has a lot of influence on the UK’s continental shelf. Does my hon. Friend agree that unless we keep this country’s tax regime attractive to inward investment and non-doms, we could lose some of that investment, which would damage my constituency and that of the hon. Member for Aberdeen North?

[Alex Burghart]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is crucial, perhaps now more than ever, that this country is entirely open to money, to investment and to good business practice from around the world. It is incumbent on the Government to ensure that they create an environment that will bring jobs and investment into his constituency and mine, and indeed into all parts of our country. I also want to voice my wholehearted support for Government amendment 17—a fine amendment if ever there was one—which sets the Treasury record straight, as ever it should be.

[Mel Stride]

I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) for his interesting and informative contribution. Alas, I am going to have to disappoint him and say that I will urge the House to reject new clause 1, but I thank him most sincerely for the generosity with which he gave way to the wave upon wave of Government Members who wanted to challenge him—it was a veritable intervention-fest. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) mentioned the “The Morecambe & Wise Show” but in the hon. Gentleman’s case, I was reminded more of the 1980s show “Game for a Laugh”—[Interruption.] Perhaps that was unkind, but we had some fun along the way.

Finance Bill

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 11th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

Again, that goes to the heart of the issue. The Government are trying to focus on a particular moment in time, rather than taking into account the fact that a person might be out of employment for a long time.

We see a running theme of this Government in this Bill and so many of their other actions: they are removing powers from Parliament and giving them to Ministers. But other elements have been tacked on to the clause that are seemingly unconnected to the stated aims about payments in lieu of notice. It is clear that the Government are laying the ground so that workers who have already lost their jobs should pay tax on more of their termination payments. Is that the message that the Government are now sending to the likes of the BAE workers? Is it the message they want to send to the victims of redundancy? There can be no other explanation for this clause. It gives the Treasury powers through delegated legislation to raise or lower the tax-free threshold.

Changes to the tax-free allowance for termination payments were first mooted by the Office of Tax Simplification in 2013 when it cited such payments as an employee benefit that would merit further study. I find it rather peculiar that a payment to an employee who has just lost their job is considered as an employee benefit—how bizarre. It is as though a termination payment were some sort of added extra and a huge inconvenience for employers, when in fact that worker has just lost their job and this may well be the last payslip they receive for a long time. The Government have promised not to reduce the threshold, so it comes as a bitter pill that the Bill will allow them to do just that.

If there is no intention to reduce the threshold, Conservative Members should have no hesitation in voting for amendment 2, which would allow the threshold only to be increased through delegated legislation, removing the power to decrease the amount. I wait with bated breath for the Minister to keep the Government’s word and accept our amendment.

In the previous debate, the Minister went to great lengths to claim that the Government’s plans to give themselves the power to water down the tax-free threshold on termination payments, and to exclude injury to feelings from tax-free compensation payments, had nothing to do with attacks on those who have just lost their jobs. No, instead that is apparently part of some ambitious strategy that the Government have to tackle tax avoidance.

The Minister is so concerned about tax avoidance that he has claimed that

“when the Government find tax avoidance, we will clamp down on it.”—[Official Report, 6 September 2017; Vol. 628, c. 253.]

Such a bold assertion makes me wonder if the Minister has even read his own Finance Bill. Has he read clause 15, which we will debate later, through which his Government are loosening the rules to allow more non-doms to receive tax breaks if they use money from offshore tax havens to invest in the UK?

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that clause 15 will bring more money into this country, which is presumably a good thing, and something we can all agree on?

[Peter Dowd]

We will deal with that a little later. The hon. Gentleman may want to pay attention to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), who will expose that fallacy.

Finance Bill

Alex Burghart Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

A number of measures in the Bill will be very broadly supported by my constituents as they uphold some of the values that Members have raised, such as the importance of fairness in our economy. My constituents believe in hard work and fair play, and many measures in the Bill support those values. In particular, we intend to get more money out of non-doms and will raise money for the Exchequer so that we can put it into our prized public services.

That issue matters very much to me. For many years I worked at the Centre for Social Justice, an independent think-tank that was established to alleviate poverty and to look at its root causes. One thing we saw time and again was that where there are workless households, there is despair. That despair rubs off on children, diminishes parents’ mental health, and gradually eliminates people’s ability to get back into work—it gets them trapped in a vicious cycle.

That is why it is so important that this Government over the past seven years have built a recovery around work. We now have record employment in this country. That has become a phrase that we just knock off, but we fail to realise the human value of the fact that we now have more people in work than ever before. I know we are political opponents, but I would appreciate it if just once I could hear an Opposition Member welcome the fact that we have the lowest unemployment in our history. I will happily take an intervention if someone wants to welcome it now.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

We say that all the time. We always welcome it, but we just wish it was possible for the debate to include a consideration of the situation in a huge number of households where people are in work, as child poverty rates are rising and households are in poverty. Why does the Conservative party say nothing about that phenomenon, which is a huge part of life in Britain today?

[Alex Burghart]

I listened to the opening remarks in today’s debate and I did not hear anyone from the Opposition welcoming record employment, so I am glad to hear the hon. Gentleman do so now. If I gave him the opportunity, I am sure that he would also want to welcome the fact that inequality is decreasing and that a whole generation will benefit from growing up in households with work. It is a gift that keeps on giving. The number of children in workless households has decreased by a third since 2010, and the number of households in which no one has ever worked has fallen by 40% since the previous Labour Government were in office. In fact, we are nearly back at the all-time low that was reached under the Major Government. The gift of work enables families to get on with their lives and enables children to grow up in a home where they have the example of people in work. Those opportunities cannot be taken lightly.

I am pleased that the Government on whose Benches I sit continue to feed the economy, but we are not doing that by spending money that we do not have or by borrowing money from future generations. Instead, we are spending and living within our means. I am extremely pleased to see that essential value embodied in the Bill, which is why I shall be supporting it tonight.

Balancing the Public Finances

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans]

I admire the hon. Gentleman, as he knows; I know his constituency well. I believe that we said there was a rush to pay off the deficit; the former Prime Minister and the previous Chancellor started an unnecessary rush to pay off the debt. We said it needed to be slower. We were concerned about high unemployment and a double-dip recession. But for monetary policy, that might have happened.

After six years of austerity, the deficit this year will be higher than it was for 80% of the time in the 60 years before the financial crash, while debt is now at its highest level as a proportion of national income since 1965-66. Is it any wonder that when the Tories tell the electorate “Trust us to pay off the deficit”, voters respond by taking their majority away? The Conservative party just do not get it. The electorate told them time and again that they wanted change, but they were given business as usual. Nearly 10 years after the financial crash of 2008, its legacy still weighs heavy on confidence and growth. By its very nature, it rocked financial institutions in this country. Suddenly, phrases such as “safe as houses” or “money in the bank” became laughable clichés. As the Labour Government rushed to bail out the banks and bring about a stimulus that was one of the largest in peace time, the Tories nodded their approval. It was not until much later that, for political purposes, they brought words such as “deficit denial” or “the age of austerity” into the political lexicon.

Sustained austerity has in the main been bad for the British economy. As the deficit fell from 10% to 3.5%, around a percentage point has been reduced from demand each year. The labour market has been unable to return productivity growth to anything resembling pre-crash levels. In June, the British Chambers of Commerce released its second quarterly economic forecast for this year, and the predictions do not make good reading. It forecast that, for the next few years, economic growth would underperform its historical average, falling to 1.3% next year and rising to only 1.5% in 2019. It also predicted that inflation would rise to a five-year high of 3.4% towards the end of the year. Interest rates are also expected to rise by 0.5% in the first quartile of 2018—much earlier than initially predicted. At the same time, there is a tax gap of £36 billion between expected and actual receipts in 2016. We can talk about tinkering with tax levels, but it means very little if we do not collect taxes effectively in the first place.

The Government have still not given any clarity on their plans for the post-Brexit world. The Government’s main tool to address inherent weakness in our economy has been monetary policy. Constraints on how low interest rates could go meant that the Bank of England had to buy gilts—so-called quantitative easing. That move, together with the cut in interest rates to their lowest possible level, has probably kept the lid on high unemployment, but it is only papering over the cracks. Listening to some of the speeches about how sunny the economic outlook is over the years during my time in the House, it has to be asked why people are not cracking open the champagne and singing, “Happy days are here again”? The reason is simple; people feel more anxious than ever, they view innovative technology with suspicion and they fear that jobs will be automated or lost. GDP can be a measure of the health of the Government’s spending, but it can never be a measure of people’s happiness, concerns, or worries.

Productivity has not recovered, and as a consequence, real wages are below what they were a decade ago—something no one alive has ever experienced before. The facts are stark. There is a 16% shortfall in the UK’s productive capacity. Monetary policy can only stabilise demand around the economy’s potential, it cannot increase it. Boosting long-term prosperity is firmly the job of the Government’s structural or supply-side policies—something that has been sorely lacking from the Tories over the past seven years.

Government policies influence investment in education and skills, capacity for research and development, the regulatory environment in which business operates, the flexibility of the labour market and—above all, in the light of Brexit—its openness to trade and investment. In the Queen’s Speech, the Prime Minister said that her Government would work to attract investment in infrastructure, so as to support economic growth. She also spoke of plans to spread prosperity and opportunity across the country.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to welcome record employment in our country?

[Chris Evans]

I admire the hon. Gentleman for the mischief he is trying to cause me. Of course, I will always welcome people being in jobs, but I am concerned about the inherent weakness in the economy, which is the lack of investment and the lack of an industrial strategy over the past seven years.

Economy and Jobs

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Well, we are only one quarter into this year. I do not want to get techy, but the first quarter data are always subject to the largest revision, so let us wait and see. The OBR maintains its forecast for economic growth of 2% this year.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

rose—

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke). I will then make a bit of progress.

[Alex Burghart]

The Chancellor went to school in my constituency and will be aware that my constituents are concerned that we maintain our excellent record on job creation. What would be the impact on job creation of a sizeable hike in corporation tax—say to 26%?

[Mr Hammond]

As I have already said, it is clear that reducing the corporation tax rate has led to a flow of investment and the creation of millions of new jobs, which I welcome. That is the way forward for this country, not the obsolete 1970s policies of the Labour party.