Finance Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, in 2010 the coalition Government came into being in the face of a financial crisis and succeeded over the next five years in stabilising the economy and the country’s finances—significantly reducing the structural deficit—but they did so on the basis that we were all in it together and that the greatest burden should fall on the broadest shoulders. In his opening speech a few moments ago, the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, gave the impression that that continues but that is the wrong word to use in this case, because the policy that we are all in it together and that the broadest shoulders should continue to carry the greatest burden is one that the Conservatives in their Budget and in this Finance Bill and various other related Bills have made a point of moving away from in an extremely distinctive manner.

It is absolutely true that we need to continue to eliminate the structural deficit. That is a responsible action to take so that we do not pass those burdens on to the next generation. But this Government are seeking to cut in the region of £50 billion more than necessary from public spending over the next five years in their goal to move from eliminating a structural deficit to building a significant surplus—a surplus that is not required by the financial conditions that we live in today. They have departed from the principle that we are all in it together.

I looked at the distributional analysis, which finally came out rather late—in June, I believe. It is a document that should have come with the Budget. It is interesting because the principles under which it is put together have changed. Indeed, I hope that the Treasury might engage with us at some point to explain further those changes and their implications. But what is absolutely fascinating about the distributional analysis is that it focuses almost exclusively on the benefits delivered by the coalition and gives virtually no sense to the change that was introduced, marked and signalled by the first Budget and embedded, in part, in this Finance Bill.

It is clear from looking at the distributional analysis that by 2017-18 those in the wealthiest quintiles will have had no proportionate loss in the welfare benefits that they receive. Presumably that is because harsh reductions in welfare are being introduced for the lowest quintiles in the Budget and the related legislation that has been presented to us, but it is difficult to tease that out because of the way in which the distributional analysis glosses over the difference created in this past year. I have noticed that in his various responses to Questions in this House, the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, also talks as if the coalition period was the marked umbrella, and barely pays attention to the change of direction which his Government have so proudly heralded in shifting away from placing the burden on those broadest shoulders and beginning the process of pushing it back on to the weakest shoulders.

To be honest, when we were in coalition, Conservatives did argue that we should not be putting so much on the wealthy, and that the burden ought to be falling on those at the bottom of the scale because they were benefit recipients. I would very much appreciate at some point hearing from the Treasury how it has made those changes from its perspective. Until then, we are dependent on the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, reported, has identified so clearly the huge burden of tax credit cuts that fall on the working poor and are not offset by the changes in the living wage or childcare. So we have moved away from “We are all in it together” and it is particularly the working poor, young people and those with disabilities who suffer the most.

Of course, I welcome some of the key pillars of this Finance Bill. The increase in the personal allowance—a long-standing Liberal Democrat policy—is captured in the Bill and obviously we are very pleased to see that there. We are supporters of the new living wage, although it is inappropriate to call it a living wage because it is not a wage on which anyone could live; it is a new minimum wage. An increase in the minimum wage is welcome, although I hope at some point we will hear from the Government how they intend to cope with the consequences for, for example, local authorities or the care home sector or others which will struggle to pay that minimum wage; that is not an argument for discarding it but we need to understand how on earth those costs are going to be properly absorbed in the current climate. We are also pleased, obviously, with the restrictions on pension tax relief, which is an important measure in the Bill. It is beyond us, however—and I echo the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, in this—why the inheritance tax cut is being introduced at this time, when such a burden is being placed on the working poor. Surely that timing almost adds insult to injury.

We do not accept that reductions in the bank levy have been necessary: the banks are brilliant lobbyists, and this is good evidence that they have been successful. I am spending two other days this week working on the Bank of England and Financial Services Bill, which has further roll-backs of the various measures that were imposed on the banks in response to their behaviour that generated the financial crisis—not just the original crisis, but consequential crises such as LIBOR, various money-laundering and PPI. The bank levy, therefore, has to be looked on in the light of effective lobbying by the banking industry and not as a necessary measure to sustain the financial services industry in this country. Moreover, I do not understand why it is the right time to raise the higher-rate tax threshold, when we are placing so many burdens on those at the bottom of the scale, the young, and the disabled.



The Minister talked about productivity, which is obviously his area of special interest. Productivity is going to be absolutely key to our future, so I fully recognise the importance of the comments that he made. However, this Finance Bill, and the other actions of the Treasury, once again fail to recognise the difference between capital and revenue: they are rolled together again. I know that it is a conviction of the Chancellor that one should not make distinctions between capital and revenue, but I completely fail to understand the arguments that are meant to support it. There is such an infrastructure deficit after generations of neglect in this country—I think everyone in this House would agree that that was true, in area after area, whether rail, road, broadband, energy generation or, in particular, housing—that we are generations behind where we should be on both infrastructure renewal and infrastructure building. Under such a circumstance, when the British Government can borrow at the lowest rates they have seen for generations, this should be the opportunity to accelerate investment into that sector. It should be distinguished from revenue in the management of the fiscal framework, and this Bill does not succeed in doing that. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some argument as to why that has not happened, because I fail to see one. It is a lost opportunity and passes on to the next generation the burden of making that infrastructure catch up.

I have a small question on the road fund. It is unusual for the British Government to hypothecate taxes to a particular spending commitment. In this case, VED is being hypothecated to road infrastructure. Will the Minister tell us which areas are now going to lose investment as a consequence of that hypothecation? The cake is not expanding: it is just being given to one particular party, so it would be helpful to understand how all that is put together. That being said, I am glad to hear of his ongoing commitment to ultra-low-emission vehicles. It is an area in which the UK can be an absolute leader. We need it not just because of our own environment, but because it offers great potential for jobs in the future. We are becoming leaders in the R&D in this area, and there is a very significant opportunity to be snatched and taken—if the Government continue their commitment to it, which began under the coalition.

The Government referred to the training levy. It is absolutely apparent that we must increase skills within the UK. It is the major reason that any business would give for our failure to achieve productivity on a par with our competitors, whether in the European Union or looking further afield. I see the advantages of the training levy, but how are we going to tackle the need for training within SMEs? I can understand the reluctance not to put a levy on small and medium-sized businesses that may not be able to bear it, but they have to become significant providers of apprenticeships and training. The Government need to tell us why they have not used this Bill to enhance that potential. There is an increase in the national insurance employment allowance, but I do not think anybody believes that that alone is sufficient to generate the levels of training that we need in the SME sector.

I disagree with the Minister that removing the climate change levy exemption for renewable energy is a minor factor. This is about the green economy, which again is fundamental to our future. We moved, over a five-year period, from being laggards in the green economy to creating the basis for some of the leading green industries across the globe, generating significant numbers of jobs. The decision to remove that exemption seems to me to be part of a much broader anti-green strategy, as is the decision not to implement zero-carbon homes. We have had example after example where green measures have been watered down, apparently for ideological reasons, because the numbers we are talking about in terms of the overall government budget are absolutely minimal. The green industries are taking that to heart and understand very clearly that they are getting the message from this Government that, instead of this being a place where a green future is being encouraged and underpinned, it is going to be, at the very best, treated with indifference.

SMEs are absolutely crucial to our future. Many in this House can testify to the fact that small and medium-sized businesses provide something like 90% of the jobs in this country, are a leading provider of exports and are absolutely critical as the backbone of the UK. So why have the Government chosen to reduce corporation tax, which is paid by very few SMEs? To the extent that it is paid, it is a very small part of their expenditure. It is the large corporations that benefit from the cuts in corporation tax, and surely that is exactly the wrong decision. This would have been an opportunity to provide support to small businesses, particularly around training but also to enable them to achieve the kind of growth and scale-up which we need for our future. Frankly, when we are already one of the countries with the lowest corporation tax in the OECD, using this opportunity to bring it down so that we will be the country with the absolute lowest rate of corporation tax seems simply wrong as a priority. It does not bring a whole lot of benefit and is targeted on exactly the wrong part of business. Having that money flowing into small businesses and providing them with support would be far more beneficial. However, I recognise that the Government are helping small businesses by keeping the annual investment allowance at £200,000, which surely is good news.

The Minister talked about tackling tax evasion. Who could complain about that? However, I suspect there is much more work to be done as we try and get a grip on the new digital economy, and the Bill goes only a very small way in trying to grasp that nettle. I recognise that this is a complex issue and a great deal of work needs to be done in this area, but this new focus on tax evasion and enforcement of tax payment comes when we have just heard that HMRC has agreed to something like a 30% reduction in its spending over the remainder of this Parliament. We are already in a situation where again and again HMRC does not seem to have the manpower necessary to enforce tax law. It certainly does not have the manpower necessary to respond to the endless queries from the many individual and small business payers that need to speak with it to get their affairs in order. A further cut at this point just seems, again, entirely inappropriate. Is the Minister able to give us some assurance that the resources will be available for the extensive programme to deal with tax evasion that he has talked about today?

I finish by referring to the Charter for Fiscal Responsibility—the tax lock, as the Minister described it. As I said in discussion on the then National Insurance Contributions Bill, it seems extraordinary that a Government make a pledge that they will carry out a policy but then so distrust themselves that they decide that they have to capture it in legislation. That is a very dangerous precedent.

I have raised this issue before. One reason that we ended up with a financial crisis to which it was so difficult for the Government to respond was because of real arrogance in the Treasury. We had a Labour Government, a Gordon Brown Government, who had decided that boom and bust were over. I have always said that I do not think that Alistair Darling would for five minutes have agreed to the public spending that Labour committed to had he ever thought that an economic cycle could impact the country, never mind an external shock.

That same arrogance seems to be back here. The Government are once again deliberately tying their hands. I know that they say that if growth drops to 1%, they can step away from the constraints that they have put themselves in, but that is too late. The Minister will tell me if it is different, but I am certain, looking back, that nobody forecast the financial crisis. When a crisis comes, the need to be able to respond is immediate; it cannot be embedded in a forecast for a five-year period. Governments have to have that freedom and flexibility to act, and act quickly.

We must never get ourselves into a situation where we are in a car, we can see the crash coming but we cannot veer out of the way. That is exactly where this Government are putting themselves. It comes from that utter conviction that things will never go wrong. Well, they do go wrong. It is essential that Governments recognise that. Not to be able to use VAT, which is a tax that can be used very rapidly if necessary to remedy a problem, strikes me as significant.

There is a lot that is unsatisfactory in the Bill. There is nothing much that this House will be able to do about the exact clauses, as we take no votes on money Bills, but I am glad to say that many aspects are not part of a money Bill, and I hope that we will be able to tackle those when they come before this House.