Taxation (Post-transition Period) Bill

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The way this Bill has been brought to the House today, less than 24 hours since it was published yesterday, really shows the disrespect the Government have for Parliament and for all of us here today. It is unacceptable that the UK Government are coming so late in the day with these proposals and are blatantly using them as a form of leverage in their negotiations.

The proposals before us today will impact on the daily lives of residents in Northern Ireland and of businesses more widely. I have concerns, not least from what the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has just said, that the clauses being taken out could easily be put back in again—if not by him, then by the Government themselves. We have no certainty over that because of the way they have conducted these negotiations.

As MPs, we do not have adequate time to scrutinise what is in front of us this afternoon. Businesses and stakeholders have also been excluded from the process and they are, of course, those who will feel the impact the most. It is typical of the slapdash, chaotic way the UK Government do things, but I would like very much to put on record my dismay and regret at this shambles. I would also like to say that, while I have huge sympathy for those who have worked on the drafting on the Bill, it would not be the first Bill that has come back with errors and drafting issues because it has been prepared in haste. We have also seen that with some of the financial services statutory instruments that have gone through. I am very concerned that this has been done so hastily that we will not find out what the errors are until the UK Government come back to fix them later.

The Northern Ireland provisions have huge complexity and give significant powers to the Treasury to define in regulations the goods that are “at risk” of being moved into the EU. The Minister confirmed yesterday that we do not know exactly what those at-risk goods are, which causes huge uncertainty for those moving goods in and out of Northern Ireland. As the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) said, that has a chilling effect on businesses that want to transact their business as normal, but just do not know what it is that they are being expected to prepare for.

The letter that we received earlier from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury confirms that changes to the regulations will be made under the negative procedure, so this House will have no ability to further scrutinise them. The same is true of Stormont and it is crucial that we hear Stormont’s views on these regulations and the effect of them.

“Take back control,” this Government said. Well, it seems that most of the control is either going to the Treasury or to officers in HMRC. All these regulations are being put forward in such a way as to remove scrutiny and to remove control. Throughout the letter that we received earlier from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, references were made to the use of the negative procedure and, curiously, to powers that there are no plans for the Government to use. It may not be the plan now to use them, but even the best laid plans gang aft agley, as happens so often and so wildly with this Government. How will the scrutiny work should the Government decide to make these changes? Lots of powers are being hived off, as we can well see. The amendment tabled in my name and the names of my colleagues attempts to redress some of the democratic deficit in the way that the Government are conducting themselves.

The affirmative procedure, as with many procedures in this place, is not perfect by any means, but at the very least this would make the UK Government come to this House to explain the reasons for their actions and to be scrutinised on their thinking, rather than just making changes that will make a real difference to the lives and livelihoods of people across these islands and more widely. Changes should not just go through on the nod.

The withdrawal agreement has the consent mechanism for Stormont, which will kick in only at the end of 2024. The UK Government must explain how their engagement will operate on all the mechanisms between then and now. This matter is horribly complicated and my sympathies are with all those who have to operate under these very difficult circumstances. So much of the uncertainty is also swathed in huge amounts of red tape. The red tape that the Brexiteers claimed they were going to remove will now be wrapped around Northern Ireland.

I received very little by way of reassurance from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in his statement and his responses to Members earlier today. Too much is uncertain, and a lot of it is mince. The derogation in chilled meat, sausages, mince and unfrozen prepared meals is one such aspect. [Laughter.] Keep up, keep up! RTÉ’s Tony Connelly notes that when the as-yet-to-be-determined derogation period expires, supermarkets in Northern Ireland will need to source products locally or from the Republic of Ireland. That may well be good for those producers and good luck to them, but a clear competitive disadvantage is being placed on food exporters in Scotland, Wales and England and that cannot be justified by the Government.

The trusted trader scheme itself is subject to review three and a half years after the Northern Ireland protocol begins, but what mechanisms exist to hold it to account in the meantime to ensure that it is effective and that it does not have a distorting effect, which we suspect that it may do? What is in place now to ensure that there is not a further panic in a couple of months’ time due to a lack of qualified staff to carry out checks for export health certificates? Given the propensity of this Government to hand in their homework late if the dog has not already eaten it, what concrete assurances can they give?

I turn now to enforcement. The Prime Minister could not answer the question earlier from the Leader of the Opposition on the existence, or otherwise, of 50,000 customs agents, and the Minister today could not answer the same question from the hon. Member for Oxford East. I want to know a bit more about these customs agents. Where are they? How many of them are there? Will they be prioritised for the big ports in the UK, or will the Government run the risk of leaving the door open to smuggling and tax-dodging via the short straits? As the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) mentioned earlier, there is a risk of criminality as well as just of error.

What assessment have the Government made of the competitiveness of our export businesses with reference to schedule 3 of the Bill? If customs charges now apply, surely it will make it more difficult for people to export as well as to import? This is a general concern that has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) on multiple occasions. It presents an extra hassle for small businesses as well as an extra unanticipated expense for consumers. I give the House a small example. I ordered a necklace some time ago from the United States and when it arrived a huge customs charge was slapped on it. Had I known about it before I had ordered it, I might not have ordered it, given the scale of the charge. Consumers do not know what they will end up with if they order something online. When we see something online, we see what the price of it is and what the postage is, but we do not see that customs charge, which is really not transparent. The earrings that I am wearing today are from a small business based in Slovenia, which was able to send them with no additional charges because we were a member of the European Union. Some 70% of Irish online purchases come from the UK. I want to know from the Minister what the impact of the changes will be on our own businesses that wish to export to the Irish Republic.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

The hon. Lady makes an almost persuasive case about the difficulty of fragmenting a customs union that has been in place for only 40 years or so. How much more difficult would it be to fragment the United Kingdom, a customs union that has been in place for centuries?

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good attempt there, but the issue is really the UK Government and their incompetence in dealing with all these issues, which could well have been anticipated, as well as in taking us out of the large trading bloc on our doorstep from which we have benefited for 40 years and from which our businesses have been able to export their goods. We in Scotland have been able to export our food and drink very easily, very simply and without any barriers. These are barriers that the UK Government wish to put in place—and if they wish to put them in place with an independent Scotland, that is their choice, not ours.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)]

This Government’s economic priority remains the protection of jobs and people’s livelihoods. It is our relentless focus. To that end, we have committed £280 billion this year.

[Andrew Griffith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Many businesses in Arundel and South Downs, such as hospitality, events, beauty and wedding venues, have been hit terribly hard by the pandemic. It is no exaggeration to say that the support he has offered so far has been an absolute lifeline. But as my constituents now find themselves in tier 2, with all the uncertainty and restrictions, will he continue to do what he can to protect the very enterprises this nation will need—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Questions have got to be short and punchy—that is the idea of topicals—to get everybody in.

[Andrew Griffith]

To prosper.

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is right to champion his local businesses, something he knows well from his own experience. I can give him that reassurance. I know it has been a very difficult time for his small and medium-sized companies. They have my assurance that I will keep working hard to support them. He knows, better than most, that they will drive our recovery.

Future of Financial Services

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary is absolutely abreast of the issue and has been for a while, which is why we have a strategy around protecting access to cash. We announced an intention to consult and potentially legislate at Budget. The consultation is outstanding, and I would very much welcome the hon. Lady’s comments, because she is right: although the economy is transitioning in a digital way, we need to protect access to cash for those who need it.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con) [V]]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on becoming the climate change Chancellor. Does he agree that private sector businesses and investors are fundamental to achieving our target of net zero? Only they have the capacity to innovate, to make changes in the supply chain and to generate the prosperity that will make the choices we make as consumers and citizens much easier to accomplish.

[Rishi Sunak]

As my hon. Friend knows well from his own private sector experience, we absolutely need to attract private capital alongside public capital to deliver on all our ambitions. That is why a sovereign bond is so important—it can help to catalyse a domestic private sector industry for corporates and other institutions that issue on the back of a Government issuance. All of that will leverage private sector capital and expertise to build the infrastructure that we need.

Covid-19: Economy Update

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Lady might make disparaging comments about photo opportunities at Wagamama, but that was precisely because that sector employs 2 million people who are disproportionately lower paid, from ethnic minorities, younger and women. It is right that we focus our support on those in the hospitality sector, because they are particularly impacted by the restrictions.

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the plight of those in the events and exhibition industry. I am very sympathetic to that. Those businesses with business premises will receive business rates relief if they are in those categories. Indeed, the categories for the tier 2 grants that we have announced today will include hospitality, leisure and accommodation, under the Valuation Office Agency codes. Exhibition and events spaces are typically included in that, so they will be included in the calculation of the grant value provided to local authorities.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Business leaders I speak to, both in Arundel and South Downs and nationally, recognise that tailoring our response to the circumstances is a strength, not a weakness. They also know that there are no easy choices, but the worst of all worlds would be a blunt national circuit break, which would cost rather than save jobs.

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on his last point. We are lucky to benefit from the considerable business experience that he brings to this place. He is right that, in business as in public policy, it is right that we evolve and adapt to the circumstances. That is what we have done today, but it is right that we do it in a targeted, tiered way, not with the blunt national instrument that, as he rightly says, would unnecessarily cause hardship and cost jobs.

Covid-19 Economic Support Package

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I will take one last intervention. I am aware that there are many who want to speak in this debate.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

The hon. Lady makes important points about the difficulties faced by so many people in the economy. Will she explain how they will be helped by closing down the entire economy? It is the madhouse of fixing the windows or knocking the whole house down.

[Anneliese Dodds]

Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman does not appear to be aware that the windows are already broken and that, in a quarter of this country, we see those businesses having been subject to additional restrictions. None of them has moved out of that, aside from in Luton, which appears, sadly, to be in a difficult situation again now.

We see the Government’s own expert advisers saying that they are likely to be forced into a position where additional restrictions have to be applied in the future, when they will be less effective, because by that point infection will have been spread further across this country. So the question is whether action is taken decisively when it can be most effective or whether we push this back, the costs increase, business confidence continues to erode, people continue to lose their jobs and businesses continue to go to the wall. That is the question this Government need to answer.

If we are to avoid the bleakest of winters, this Government have to get a grip. We need a national reset. For that to work, we need an economic package that acknowledges reality and gets ahead of the problems we face; a wage support scheme that works properly; a safety net worthy of the name; and financial support that goes hand in hand with the imposition of extra restrictions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

The debate following this will address test and trace. It is worth bearing in mind that more than £12 billion has been invested in our test and trace capacity. Testing capacity has increased from simply 10,000 a day at the start of this crisis to close to 300,000 today, on its way up to half a million, and ours now ranks as one of the most comprehensive testing regimes anywhere in Europe.

[Andrew Griffith]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, faced with a choice between a national blunt instrument that would wreak enormous economic damage, and something that is more finely calibrated region by region based on the science, there is no choice to make?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is a blunt instrument. It would cause needless damage to parts of our country where virus rates are low.

Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow so many of my colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow), but that is as nothing compared with my enormous pleasure at seeing the empty Labour Benches, which is the perfect visual metaphor for the party’s absence of a policy on Europe.

Let me turn to the motion and talk about the economy. This week, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted that covid-19 could, and probably will, cause the biggest slump in the UK economy for 300 years. In these difficult times, we need to provide business with as much certainty as possible and do everything we can to help the Scottish economy bounce back after the effects of the pandemic. That includes the enormous generosity of the UK Exchequer, which has stretched to largesse of £13 billion across the job retention scheme, bounce-back loans, kick-start, the VAT cut and eat out to help out, funded by the most successful economic union in history.

But more than anything else, Scotland needs an economy that is confident and outward looking. Although I personally have no doubts about the individual commitment of SNP Members to parliamentary democracy, it is a matter of great concern that the activists behind the anti-English, xenophobic and illegal demonstrations say that they took their inspiration from senior SNP figures.

The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) himself has been reported as having tweeted an image, with an expletive, to the effect that Scotland was shut and that visitors should perform a less polite version of going away. He has slunk away from the debate; perhaps the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) will tell us the truth about whether any of those involved in setting up those illegal roadblocks were members of his party. Will he give the House a commitment that, if that does turn out to be the case, anyone involved will be expelled?

As a direct result of the SNP’s delay in condemning that behaviour at the border, businesses in the tourism sector, one of the largest parts of the Scottish economy, are receiving cancellations of bookings over concerns about whether Scotland will be open and welcoming to them. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber has returned to his place, but I have to say that, at a time when nationalism globally is on the rise, that is not a good look for his party at all. SNP Members claim to be worried about adding to the costs of covid-19, but they themselves are compounding the damage to the Scottish economy.

SNP Members talk about a power grab from Edinburgh to London. I have much sympathy for the position of a people feeling disenfranchised by decisions taken in a capital hundreds of miles away, but that is why I celebrate the 2016 referendum verdict and am keen to put it into practice with as much haste as possible. Powers held today in Brussels, over which the right hon. Member has no influence, are being returned to Westminster and to the devolved Assembly. Scotland will have over 100 additional powers that it does not currently enjoy. Talk about an erosion of the powers of the Scottish Parliament is fallacious given that that Parliament did not exist until 1999. and our membership of the European Union far predates that.

It is not too late. It is never too late for the SNP to turn around, to be on the side of democracy and to join us on the Government side of the House, seizing back our independence, seizing back control and making a success of global Britain in the world.

Stamp Duty Land Tax (Temporary Relief) Bill

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden]

I heard someone say, “We need to build more houses” and that is absolutely correct. But of course, we support anything that stimulates the housing market and jobs in the supply chain thereafter.

Eight hundred thousand fewer people under the age of 45 own their own home today. This Government have been in power since 2010. Home ownership is at its lowest level in a generation. The Prime Minister has repeatedly pledged to “level up” the country. But the benefits of this cut will be concentrated in London and the south-east.

Estate agent Savills identified the local authorities that will see the biggest fall in tax receipts as a result of the change. Wandsworth, Bromley and Wiltshire will see falls of £40 million, £35 million and £29 million respectively. Rightmove estimates that the average saving in the north-east will be just £646, compared with £15,000 in London. Once again, the Government seem to be prioritising the needs of London and the south-east over those of the rest of the country.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dan Carden]

I will not because I want to make some progress. I know I am taking up a lot of the time in this debate.

The Government should be taking action to remedy the housing crisis, as part of a wider plan to solve the economic crisis, but as the Bill stands, we cannot be confident that it will do much at all for first-time buyers, never mind the millions facing a housing emergency. It may remove a disincentive to move house and temporarily increase transaction volumes, but of course house sales are currently depressed for other reasons, such as the difficulty of getting a mortgage, people not thinking that their job is secure and huge uncertainty about future house prices.

That is why we propose an amendment to help us to understand the full impact of this cut in stamp duty across the sector. It is a straightforward amendment, which will ensure that we get a clearer picture of how that stamp duty holiday will work for different groups. If the Government believe in transparency in policy making, they have nothing to fear by backing the amendment.

A change as significant as this should not be introduced without a mechanism for assessing how it works and who benefits most. When it comes to the housing sector, Government should be focused on the almost 5 million people in housing need across Britain today. We are in the midst of a housing emergency—an emergency created by decades of underinvestment in affordable social housing. The impacts are stark and have been exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic, with many people forced to shield and isolate in wholly inappropriate living conditions. The Government should bring forward emergency legislation to provide protection for those who get into arrears as a result of loss of income during the covid-19 crisis. They should change the law to prevent no-fault evictions and change the law on arrears so that people in the rented sector—both social and private tenants—are given breathing space without the threat of eviction if they are unable to pay rent as a result of the crisis. Instead, millions fear the lifting of the ban on evictions on 23 August. Labour’s priority is in investment in social housing, not more support for second home owners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Western]

I thank the hon. Member—I would perhaps describe him as a friend—for that point. Yes, it is the purchaser who pays, but the person who is selling will probably be buying too, such is the chain of sales in the sector. I therefore do not see it as a one-off benefit. It will be a benefit throughout the chain.

I fear that this move is not in tune with the wider public mood. Actually, they want to see more support for those on lower incomes. Perhaps the £1.3 billion that would have been yielded could have been used to better purpose.

Looking at the relative inequality of the past decade, it seems we have not learned from the last economic crisis. That is underlined by figures from the Resolution Foundation, which show the change in median household wealth between 2008 and 2018. The average household saw a loss in wealth of 2% in the west midlands, 12% in the north-east and 13% in the east midlands, while in London the average household gained 78%.

For me, there is an issue with the second homes sector. Previously, a second home owner or buy-to-let landlord would have paid an additional 3% stamp duty surcharge, which would translate into a figure of 8%, rather than 5%. These changes mean that anyone looking to buy a second home at between £250,000 and £500,000 will pay just 3%. Coming back to a point that was made earlier, we need to know the scale of the issue. What proportion of transactions are for second properties? In the last 12 months, 34% of all purchases were made by second home owners. That has to be a concern, because it affects the market to the detriment of first-time buyers.

[Andrew Griffith]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about rewarding behaviour that was going to happen anyway, but does he accept that the identical criticism could be levelled at a scrappage scheme, which I believe he has advocated?

[Matt Western]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but he will know that the automotive sector has been frustrated for many months. Many buyers in the automotive sector are holding off because they do not know whether they should be buying a petrol car, a diesel car, an electric vehicle, a hybrid or whatever. A lot of people have held off changing their vehicle because of the huge changes brought about by the transition in that sector. That is why it is important to the automotive manufacturing sector that we help buyers change their vehicle. All that is happening at the moment is that the purchasing decision is being stalled ever longer. It is not the same in the housing sector.

This £1.3 billion could have been used to fund local authorities, which are seeing a financial hit of £1.2 billion as a result of covid, and to help them through these difficult times.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded that first-time buyers may be worse off as a result of these proposals. The stamp duty threshold for first-time buyers is currently £300,000, whereas the average price of a property is just £208,000 across the country. That means that most are unlikely to gain from the hike in the threshold from £300,000 to £500,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow not only my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) but so many of my colleagues who were elected for the first time in December 2019.

I warmly welcome the scrapping of stamp duty for purchases of up to £500,000. With average house prices of about £450,000 in Arundel and South Downs, that will help some but not all my constituents directly. However, everyone will benefit from the resulting boost to the economy—the construction industry, painters, decorators, plumbers, electricians, brick makers, timber merchants, furniture and removal companies, and my hard-hit local garden centres, growers and landscape designers—and, because the supply chain stretches across the whole country, the whole Union will benefit.

The measure is temporary, but after such an excellent debate and such warm words from our colleagues, I wonder whether I can tempt the Minister to settle on this particular piece of fiscal real estate more permanently. In fact, we could make it an early down payment on the vital work to come of simplifying the tax system that he has inherited—a system that, despite the honourable and herculean endeavours of HMRC, is essentially broken.

According to the World Bank index, the UK is a creditable eighth in the world for the competitiveness of our tax rates, but a rather less competitive 27th for ease of understanding and paying taxes. That is no surprise with a tax code that now runs to more than 10 million words. Along with my Front-Bench colleagues, we have an excellent Chancellor with a sharp intellect and a ferocious work ethic, but it would take him a whole year to read it—by which time it would be Budget time and, like Sisyphus, he would have to start all over again.

What better time is there to start a crusade for fairer, flatter and simpler taxes, and I note the comments made by my hon. Friends the Members for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore)? What better place to start than a tax that does for housing transactions what the window tax did for windows? It is wrong to think of stamp duty as a modest percentage of the price: although the purchase price of a property can be spread over 20 or 25 years, stamp duty has to be paid in a lump sum up front, so it is much more like a deposit, which is the biggest hurdle for generation rent. At a time when interest rates are at all-time lows, it is about not affordability but access to up-front capital. In that sense, we can think of stamp duty as a tax on social mobility. If someone has capital, or their family does, they can quickly pass go, but if their bank of mum and dad—or perhaps just mum or just dad—happens to be empty, getting on or moving up the ladder is much harder.

It is not as if the housing market was working perfectly, even without the Bill. Prices are out of reach for first-time buyers while empty-nesters are penalised for downsizing. Planning permissions are already in place for more than a million homes—all that the nation will ever need—but those homes are not getting built. Labour tax raids on pension savings destroyed confidence and channelled savings instead into buy-to-let. The planning system incentivised developers to build homes in exactly the wrong places, because that is where the arbitrage is the greatest. Intervention is heaped on intervention, so that, like a teenager’s carpet, we can no longer see the original pattern. I shall return to that subject on behalf of my constituents in West Grinstead, Adversane and Henfield, whose lives are being blighted by the prospect of inappropriate and unsustainable developments.

Finally, let us remember that the rate of tax is a floor, not a ceiling. If the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden), the shadow Chancellor or any of their supporters wish personally to pay more, that is a right that we on the Government Benches would never seek to deny them. I know that the Minister would be happy to let them know the details for where to send the cheque. Now is a time to be bold and decisive and to act fast. The Bill and the measure in it fully meet that objective, and I am proud to support it.

Finance Bill

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting & Report: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 2nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It was Mahatma Gandhi, a hero to many Leicester residents, who famously said that the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. When it comes to ensuring that vulnerable children are fed and looked after, our Government should be ashamed of themselves.

According to the Government’s own Social Mobility Commission, 600,000 more children are living in relative poverty now than in 2012. That is projected to increase further because of benefit changes and, of course, the coronavirus pandemic. In 2018, the number of children living in relative poverty rose by 100,000 to 4.2 million, or around 30% of all children. That appalling figure reflects the Government’s failure on the fundamental principle of governance: to provide for the most basic needs of our citizens.

As of February 2020, around 14 million people were in poverty in the UK. The virus may not discriminate, but our economic and social system certainly does. Children from African, Asian and minority ethnic families are nearly twice as likely to be in poverty than children in white British families. Leicester East is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse places in the UK and has high levels of both child poverty and in-work poverty—we suffer from a perfect storm which enables the virus to have its impact.

Like many of our residents, I am deeply concerned about the recent increase in coronavirus cases in our city and the economic impact of the necessary lockdown extension. I am particularly worried about the impact that the pandemic will have on those Leicester children who are already living in conditions of unacceptable hardship. Over one in three children—42%—in Leicester East live in poverty. Nearly 6,000 households—around 14%—in Leicester East are in fuel poverty. As of April last year, the average weekly income for full-time employees in Leicester East was £420. That is £130 less than the east midlands average and £160 less than the UK average. The proportion of people claiming unemployment benefits in my constituency is also higher than the regional and national level. Do this Government believe that my constituents are somehow worth less than others? It is unacceptable that they have allowed such rank regional inequality to fester.

The worst thing about these shocking figures is that they reflect our local reality before the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic. We do not yet know the full impact of the unprecedented economic disruption caused by the virus. With widespread job losses, it is certain that it will have exacerbated hardship across Leicester and the UK. I have been helping countless local businesses and employees to stay afloat and access funding, despite the Government’s prohibitively strict guidelines. At a national and local level, we see companies such as British Airways take huge amounts of taxpayers’ money through the job retention scheme and then fire vast swathes of their workforce while imposing worse terms of employment. Too many Leicester residents have started to receive threats of redundancy at a time when the protection of workers must be prioritised. With Leicester required to maintain lockdown measures, it will be necessary for economic support to be extended and expanded. It is crucial that families in Leicester East have the material basis to stay safe and stay alive during the continued lockdown.

The Government’s callousness is demonstrated by the fact that benefit sanctions have been resumed at a time when we face an unprecedented period of economic hardship. For people forced to endure severe levels of hardship and such insecurity, it is impossible to comply, at times, with the Government’s guidance on self-isolation and social distancing. It is a moral imperative and in the public interest of everyone in our community that the basic needs of all residents are met. The cruelty of this Government over the last decade has transformed the Department for Work and Pensions into a symbol of fear. The coronavirus pandemic has further demonstrated the need for universal welfare support that will be there to help and support people, not punish and police them.

Even before the coronavirus hit, the Government had presided over a decade in which they cut essential services for the people of Leicester East while providing tax cuts for the wealthy, in which they allowed poverty and homelessness to rise in my constituency and across the country, and in which they sought to sow divisions as they facilitated the transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest. The Government must act now to prevent the further impoverishment of working people and their families during the pandemic. They must start treating the widespread poverty of our children as the national scandal that it is. This virus has demonstrated that we have a moral duty to ensure that everyone in Leicester and across the country is protected. That means that, after the crisis, we can no longer live in a society that is defined by extreme inequality and in which it is commonplace for our children to go to bed hungry.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the passion of the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe). Our thoughts are with her and her constituents at this difficult time. It is a particular pleasure, if I may say so, to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson). He made us wait for his maiden contribution because of the difficult circumstances that we are in, but we are absolutely delighted that it was worth the wait. Workington has gained an important and well respected voice in this House.

I am speaking today in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and of new clause 30, which requests that the Treasury review the level of air passenger duty. I am doing so on behalf of the 645 individual constituents from Arundel and South Downs who have signed the parliamentary petition on support for the aviation industry. They work for firms such as British Airways, Virgin and TUI, and in the extended Gatwick supply chain in West Sussex. As we know, aviation has taken the full force of the economic impact of the covid-19 crisis; it has been devastated by border closures and the calamitous drop in passenger demand. Going into the pandemic, our aviation sector was world-leading in terms of growth, jobs and competitiveness, but that is now at real risk. Research from the International Air Transport Association shows that the UK will be the worst revenue-hit country in Europe, facing a £29 billion revenue loss and with more than 660,000 jobs at risk. There are many aspects of this crisis that my right hon. Friend the Minister cannot help with, and I shall raise those another day, but one practical thing that he could do is to remove or mitigate the headwind of air passenger duty and help hard-pressed families to return to the air.

I know that the Financial Secretary does not share this affliction, but some falsely believe that air passenger duty is an environmental measure. That is manifestly not the case. It is levied on passenger numbers, so that an inefficient empty plane pays less than an efficient full one. It bears no relation to how modern an aircraft is or to the fuel efficiency with which it is being flown. Also, it does not take into account the fact that, to the extent that it disincentivises flight, the alternative for many passengers may be a long and polluting car journey. This is particularly true of domestic aviation. In any case, aviation accounts for barely 2% of human-induced global emissions, and in February this year, UK aviation committed to being net carbon zero by 2050. That is the first national net zero aviation commitment anywhere in the world.

This is a sector on the verge of exciting and disruptive change. We are at the dawn of what is called the third era of aviation, which will bring quieter and cleaner transport to the skies. Electrification will have as profound an impact as the replacement of the piston engine by gas turbines. British businesses such as Rolls-Royce are leaders in this field, providing engines to the first generation of all-electric planes, which are being certified for use by the Federal Aviation Administration right now. Air passenger duty is not a large source of revenue for the Treasury. At the best of times, before this crisis, it was expected to account for just 0.5% of all receipts, but with our busiest airport, Heathrow, reporting flights at just 3% of their normal levels in April, the revenue from APD this year and next will in any case be paltry. I conclude by humbly putting the proposition to the Minister that he may never again have such an affordable opportunity to help a vital British industry, to enhance his own formidable reputation on the Government Benches, to strengthen the Union by supporting domestic flights and to simplify the tax system than he does in accepting new clause 30.

Public Health England Review: Covid-19 Disparities

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question. He raises an interesting point. We are aware that some of the risk factors associated with poorer outcomes are more prevalent in certain groups of the population, and that does include people with learning disabilities, so he is right to raise that, and I will speak to my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care on that issue again.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

All lives matter. They matter now and they mattered in March and April, when many of my constituents could not get a test when they needed one. Will the Minister talk to her colleagues about changing the attitude of Public Health England towards working with the private sector to mobilise testing capacity?

[Kemi Badenoch]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need all hands on deck on this issue, and we definitely do not want silo working where people believe that only the public sector will be able to help sort the issue. We want them to be working hand in hand with the private sector. For other key workers—in supermarkets, heavy goods vehicle drivers and so on—we have seen that the private sector has done a fantastic job in helping us weather this crisis, and I would like to see more of that happening within the health space.

Covid-19: Economic Package

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am very sorry to hear about the potential job losses in the hon. Member’s constituency. To me, every job lost during this period is heartbreaking, which is why I am doing my absolute utmost to provide the support that I can to protect as many as possible. I have said that clearly I cannot—and nor could any of us—save every single job or business, but the loans, the cash grants and the job retention scheme will all play a vital role in saving many millions of jobs and businesses, particularly in the automotive supply chain. The hon. Member is right that that is an important part of our economy, and it deserves our support to ensure that it can be a strong part of our recovery.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con) [V]]

The generous and unprecedented schemes that my right hon. Friend has put in place are doing a tremendous job, protecting thousands of employees, small businesses and the self-employed in my constituency. Many in West Sussex work in aviation, so in addition to heartily welcoming today’s extension of the excellent job retention scheme, may I ask him at least to consider temporarily suspending air passenger duty as well as testing passengers on arrival as an alternative to the 14-day quarantine, to help this vital sector of the economy?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support and for the advice he has provided to me, with his extensive experience of business and of his constituency. He knows that I care deeply about the aviation sector. My right hon. Friends the Transport Secretary and the Foreign Secretary are considering the issues he raised. In particular, the Government have been clear that further detail on the quarantine measures will be outlined in due course, but I will pass on his suggestion.