Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anthony Browne and Andrew Griffith

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

I am glad that the hon. Lady’s constituents, among many others, will benefit both from our mortgage interest support and from there being almost double the number of mortgage products on the market now than in October 2022. I repeat the comment of my colleague, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury: if the hon. Lady is so worried about her constituents, what better way of helping them with the cost of living than to do away with the Mayor’s ULEZ tax?

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

In the UK, homebuyers are overwhelmingly dependent on short-term fixed rate mortgages of just two, three or five years, which means that in times of rising interest rates, as we have at the moment, they are hard hit by massively increasing mortgage bills. In most other countries, homebuyers have long-term fixed rate mortgages of 10 or 20 years, or of the entire length of the mortgage. Does my hon. Friend agree that the regulators should ensure a level playing field between short-term and long-term mortgages to give homebuyers a free choice of the sort of mortgage they want, so they can choose to have greater protection against rate rises if they want?

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend has great knowledge of these matters. It was a privilege to work with him and the sector on how we can offer consumers and homebuyers more choice. That choice includes the opportunity of long-term fixed-rate mortgages, and my officials and I continue to work on how we can reduce frictions and barriers to those mortgages.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Anthony Browne and Andrew Griffith

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne]

Does the Minister agree that the 80% of employees who work for the private sector make a valuable contribution to the wellbeing of the country as well? Does he agree that they would have a right to feel annoyed at the idea that there should be an especially punitive regime just for private sector workers, which the public sector workers do not get punished by?

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend makes exactly the point that I was making, and does so extremely well. It is wrong for us in this House to seek to assign to ourselves the ability to judge the virtuous nature of people’s activity. I am sure that an accountant in the private sector works as diligently as an accountant seeking to drive value for money and the best medical outcomes in the NHS. With the greatest respect, I think that the hon. Member for Aberdeen North goes a little too far in seeking to “unbake” the wonderful cake of our mixed economy health system, which involves contributions from the private sector, private forensic laboratories and private diagnostic machines, and the wonderful work of our clinicians, and administrative, ancillary and domiciliary staff, who are mostly in the public sector. As I have said, her approach is the wrong basis on which this House should proceed.

Clauses 18 to 23 will reform pension tax thresholds to remove the current disincentives for highly experienced individuals to remain in the labour market or even to return to the workforce to build up their retirement savings. Currently, there are limits placed on the amount of tax-relieved pension savings individuals can make each year and an additional second restriction that applies to the total. That is an unusual feature of the tax system, where almost every other allowance is on an annual basis. The Government listened to stakeholders from across the public and private sectors, who have said that the annual and lifetime allowances can influence the timing of retirement and act as a barrier to remaining in the workforce.

The changes made by these clauses will increase the annual allowance from £40,000 to £60,000 and remove the lifetime allowance charge from 6 April 2023. The changes will ensure that pensions tax does not act as a barrier to staying in or returning to work, and will eliminate the chilling impact that the mere fear of triggering an extra tax charge has, even for those who are not immediately subject to falling foul of the cap. Much as the opposition parties may not wish to hear this, these changes command support across the economy. The Guild of Air Traffic Control Officers told us that pension taxation risks causing its members to reject tasks essential for the safe and efficient operation of air traffic control in the United Kingdom.

Dr Vishal Sharma of the British Medical Association has said that this is

“an incredibly important step forward”.

He said that the abolition of the lifetime allowance will mean that

“senior doctors will no longer be forced”—

his words—

“to retire early and can continue to work within the NHS, providing vital patient care.”

The Forces Pension Society said that this is a positive development and that it had been lobbying for it for several years. It said that these changes will help keep our streets safe. Marc Jones, chairman of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, confirmed that, as it relates to the police, they

“will be a game changer for thousands who love their jobs and do not want to retire.”

To support those who have left the labour market to return and build up their retirement savings, these clauses will also increase the money purchase annual allowance from £4,000 to £10,000 from April 2023. This will enable more individuals who have previously retired to return to the workforce and to continue to build their savings. In line with these headline reforms, there are also technical changes. They increase the minimum tapered annual allowance from £4,000 to £10,000 and the adjusted income level required for the annual tapered annual allowance to apply to an individual from £240,000 to £260,000.

Silicon Valley Bank

Debate between Anthony Browne and Andrew Griffith

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

I cannot speak for the due diligence that was done for HSBC, but it has got itself comfortable with it. We should also understand the relative scale of HSBC, which is an extraordinarily well-regulated, global and diverse bank. My understanding is that if we add all of the important clients of Silicon Valley Bank UK, which we had in the front of our mind as we sought to act over the weekend—if I may say so, we make no apology for acting in haste, because haste was absolutely the required procedure in this particular case—they would in their entirety be less than 1% of the overall client base of HSBC. With respect, I do not think that was the case in the examples to which the right hon. Member referred.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The sighs of relief across South Cambridgeshire this morning were so loud that they were almost deafening. Dozens of my technology companies, which had been in contact with me over the weekend, thought they were going to be wiped out this morning, but they can now operate as normal because of the decisive action by the Government. I very much congratulate the Minister, the Bank of England and the Treasury on that action.

I have also had questions about whether this is a sign that all the reforms of the financial system in the wake of the global financial crisis have failed or are failing. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that this is not a sign of the reforms failing, but a sign that they are working, and that without the reforms we would not be able to do a rescue in this way? Can he also confirm that the reforms that are coming through—the Edinburgh reforms—will not make future collapses more likely, or future rescues more difficult?

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend knows a great deal about the sector, and it is due to past reforms that we were able to take this decisive action. Parliament has given—in extremis, and with the agreement of the Bank of England, the PRA, the FCA and the Treasury—sweeping powers to enable this sort of transaction to happen at great pace. Let me be clear that it is the shareholders and creditors of the bank, not depositors or the taxpayer, who have lost. In the system that we have, that is the right outcome, and I am pleased we were able to achieve it.

The Edinburgh reforms are designed to give this country the ability to continue to grow and to be internationally competitive with other markets, while adhering to the highest quality regulatory standards, and with the UK at the absolute cornerstone of organisations such as the Financial Stability Board. They will not put any more jeopardy into the financial system. Indeed, having good healthy businesses that grow and are profitable is the best way to avoid jeopardy.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Anthony Browne and Andrew Griffith

Report stage
Wednesday 7th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

I will repeat my previous point, and the hon. Lady will have her chance to speak later. It is the objective of the Government, in the course of the transition that my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) talked about, to protect the vulnerable and ensure that protection of access to cash. The hon. Lady’s statistic is right, but I reiterate that more than 95% of people today live within 2,000 metres of a free cashpoint, and I hope she recognises that.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I want to follow up on some of the comments from my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). Cash is being used far less than it was previously. That is good and convenient for many people. I fully support the Government’s moves and the ambition across this House to ensure that we have access to free cash, but there is no point in people having access to free cash if they cannot spend it on essential items. I just flag that many retail outlets no longer accept cash. It is not just parking; there are cashless bars and so on. That is fine, but there is a scenario where outlets that sell essential items such as food shops and chemists might at some point be required to accept cash, because if they do not accept cash, lots of people will be excluded.

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend makes another important point, and I fear we are in danger of previewing the debate that we shall have this afternoon. When we talk about access to cash, we are not just talking about withdrawals; we are also talking about the deposits that are so vital. If our small businesses in particular are to continue to take cash, they need to be able to deposit that securely, safely and conveniently.

Health and Social Care Levy Bill

Debate between Anthony Browne and Andrew Griffith

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) for her remarks.

My constituency has a disproportionately older demographic—those who live there are 50% more likely to be over 65 than the national average—but I want to lay to rest the misperception on both sides of the House that social care is simply about the older generation. More than one in three people in the system is under the age of 65, and because younger adults are in the system for longer, spend on them is proportionately greater, so this is not just about a battle of the generations.

I pay tribute to the millions of unpaid carers in society who for years have been papering over the cracks in the system and the capricious nature of continuing healthcare assessments. I have personal experience of some of that as for many years my father was my mother’s unpaid carer and had to deal with that at the sharp end. For that reason, I celebrate the fact that this is a nettle grasped. It is not necessarily the whole solution but it is the start of a package of measures that moves forward a debate that has been stalled for too long. That is one reason why we should all come to the House and use our voice and platform on the hard issues that we face in society.

I applaud the Government on their selection of national insurance, which is the tax with the broadest reach. It is progressive, and that is why so many of our European neighbours have chosen to fund their social systems through similar measures. It is a chimera to think that there is another way—perhaps Opposition Members have been taking medicinal hallucinogenics—because the national insurance take is more than 10 times that of capital gains tax and inheritance tax combined. No mythical tax on wealth will give us anything like what we need to take this issue seriously—and we should take it seriously.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is the height of political cynicism for Opposition parties to campaign repeatedly to increase taxes to spend money on health and social care and then, when the Government introduce such measures, oppose them? Does he think that they should commit themselves to scrapping the health and social care levy once it is introduced?

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend, as ever, makes an important point. We should be on a quest for consensus, and it would be useful to hear more from Opposition Members in the wind-ups.

I pay tribute to the many dedicated workers in care homes across my constituency as well as their residents—from Barlavington Manor in the north to Valerie Manor in the south and from Villa Adastra in the east to Westergate House in the west. They are just four of the 28 care homes in my constituency providing fantastic quality care. It would be lovely to see more resources pumped into them as well as their staff.

Let me conclude broadly where I started. This is a down payment on a process of reform in our healthcare systems, building on the innovation that we have seen. However, a health and social care system cannot be managed permanently on an exceptions basis. We need reorganisation, better data and better decision making to build the high-quality health and social care system that both sides of the House want to see.