Comprehensive Spending Review

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, we have made choices today. First, we have chosen to seek to reduce debt interest by going faster than the Labour party would have done. I think it is better to spend the money here rather than to give it to our foreign creditors. Secondly, we have chosen to put particular emphasis on trying to reduce the welfare bills. That has enabled us to increase investment in the NHS, schools and early-years provision, which we were discussing earlier. That is true to the values of one-nation conservatism and to the values of this coalition.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to honour the previous Government’s commitment to contribute 0.7% of gross domestic product to international development, but I would like absolute transparency on this. How much of the money that was previously allocated in the Defence and Foreign and Commonwealth Office budgets is now going to be covered by the Department for International Development’s budget?

[Mr Osborne]

Let me make two points. First, there is an increase of almost £4 billion in the DFID budget. Secondly, having a tri-departmental fund for DFID, the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office will help with conflict and supporting post-conflict stabilisation. It will grow from £229 million this year to £309 million in 2014-15—a growth of just short of £100 million. That will help us to avoid having to come into emergency situations, but it is, of course, pretty small given the scale of the increase that I have just announced in DFID’s budget.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I have seen at BAe Warton in my hon. Friend’s constituency a very good example of high-skilled manufacturing. Everything the Government do is designed to support a private sector recovery and to rebalance our economy, so that not all the growth that takes place does so in only one corner of the country.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

After the row at the International Monetary Fund summit at the weekend, has the Chancellor concluded that the renminbi is undervalued, or that the US is under-focused on consumption-led domestic growth?

[Mr Osborne]

I have concluded that it is very sensible for the serving Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day not to comment on the value of currencies.

Proposed Public Expenditure Cuts

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The answer to my hon. Friend is no. Since Labour Members called for a vote on the value added tax rise, we have discovered that actually the shadow Chancellor supports the VAT rise. So he did have ideas; he just did not tell us about them.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

If the recent report from BDO Stoy Hayward, which says that we could be back in recession by Christmas, proves true, how many more billions will the Chancellor take off the most vulnerable in society?

[Mr Osborne]

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the central forecasts produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Bank of England, the OECD and the European Commission. They forecast steady and sustainable growth over the coming period. I take the view—a view shared by quite a number of people who observe the British economy—that if we had not put in place, in the Budget, a credible plan to reduce the budget deficit, this country would be in an economic mess.

Office of Tax Simplification

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

On the appointment process, we will see how we go. We are keen that the OTS should be accountable to Parliament, and I dare say that it will give evidence to my hon. Friend’s Committee. As for the cost, as I said a moment ago, the intention is that the costs will be borne from the existing budgets of HMRC and the Treasury. There will be secondees from the private sector, and we expect them to fund that at their own cost. As regards longevity, the initial appointments are for 12 months. We have set up the OTS for a Parliament, but I hope that it will be a permanent feature of our tax system.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

One of the pieces of tax complexity that Treasury officials will be counselling this body to get rid of swiftly is perhaps one of the most important that has recently been introduced—the patent box, which enables intellectual property developed in this country to be domiciled in this country for tax purposes, not domiciled overseas at a great loss to the British taxpayer. Will the Minister ensure that the new body is not bamboozled by Treasury officials who have opposed that measure for far too long, and will continue to try to get rid of it?

[Mr Gauke]

As I mentioned earlier, the intention of the OTS is to look at the existing stock of tax law, not to examine new proposals for tax law. On the patent box, as we announced in the Budget, the intention is to carry out a consultation on intellectual property and on how the patent box works, how research and development tax credits work, and how the controlled foreign company rules apply in that context. We will be carrying out that consultation in the autumn.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

Sadly, there has been no formal apology. Labour Members are free to offer one during this questions session should they wish to. In fact, with the revised Office for National Statistics forecasts of the last couple of days, we have seen the predicted reduction in the size of the economy go from 6.2% to 6.4%. Even after they have left office, their recession is still getting worse.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Is the UK on the brink of a debt downgrade because the rating agencies have noted that the Government propose to cut capital allowances and therefore stifle investment, or because the agencies do not share the Government’s optimism about Europe’s capacity to buy UK goods in the future?

[Danny Alexander]

No, the hon. Gentleman will know that the rating agencies’ response to the Budget has been positive and ensured that we have a stronger position going forward.

Finance Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

As I have already explained, the Chancellor or the Exchequer set out a business tax package in the Budget that included rate cuts and reductions in allowances that are good for business and growth overall. Amendment 49 proposes that clause 1 be amended to reduce the main rate of corporation tax to 26% for those companies whose tax bill will increase by more than 1% as a result of the reduction in investment allowances. That is a somewhat complex mechanism, but it provides an opportunity to raise the matter of capital allowances.

As part of a package to improve the UK’s competitiveness, it was announced that from April 2012 there would be reductions in the rates of writing-down allowances for plant and machinery and a reduction in the annual investment allowance. The Government will reduce the main rate of corporation tax to 26% that year—2012—and by that reduction, alongside changes to allowances, we will achieve the results that the amendment seeks. Furthermore, by not implementing the changes to allowances for two years, but reducing corporation tax rates next year, we are giving companies a full year to benefit from the reductions in rates, alongside current levels of allowances. Further reductions in the main rate of corporation tax follow in later years and capital allowances remain broadly in line with average rates of economic depreciation. To answer the shadow Minister’s questions, no changes are made to the so-called investment allowances in this Finance Bill and none is planned for the next financial year.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Why does the Minister believe that, if the Budget begins to work and we see businesses begin to pull the country out of recession, that is the right time for the Government to take away the incentive for further investment in business growth? That seems paradoxical to us all and to damage the very prospects of the recovery that he claims he wants to aid.

[Mr Gauke]

As I said a moment ago, the changes to capital allowances will take effect from 2012, and we believe that there is a substantial benefit for the UK economy in reducing the corporation tax rate. Indeed, it is a direction of travel that our predecessors followed when they reduced the rate from 30% to 28%, but we do not think that that went far enough. The point was raised in earlier debates that the UK has lost its competitive advantage in having a relatively low rate of corporation tax, as a number of other countries have cut their corporation tax rates much further than we have over the last 13 years. We believe that the lower rate sends a very clear signal that Britain is open for business and it is a demonstration of the direction of travel in which we are going. Assessment of the impact of Budget measures on investment over the next few years suggests an increase in investment of £13 billion.

The Budget thus provides a set of proposals and a set of reforms to corporation tax that will encourage further investment. As I say, it is a sign that Britain is open for business and a sign to investors and businesses throughout the world that the UK is a good place in which to do business. We believe that the package as a whole is well balanced and that it will aid a private sector recovery, partly funded through reforms to capital allowances and partly through the bank levy, as we debated earlier. Legislation is not required for the changes in capital allowances in this Finance Bill or indeed in next year’s, but we have set out a clear sense of direction that has been welcomed by business groups as a whole. We therefore urge the shadow Minister not to press the rather complicated amendment 49. It will not make any difference, because we will legislate to this effect in any event—without the complicated mechanism in the amendment. I urge him to withdraw it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

I am grateful, Mr Benton, that you have seen fit to allow a stand part debate on this important clause, especially at a time when every measure in the Finance Bill and the Budget as enacted needs sufficient scrutiny to ensure that the general public can have confidence in the fact that any revenue forgone is forgone for a good purpose. At a time when our public services are threatened and look set to be cut so significantly, it is very important that, if this country is to give away potential yield through changes such as the corporation tax, this is done for the right reasons.

It is important to note that we want a healthy economy and for our companies, by and large, to be profitable and doing well. I do not, of course, want to revisit in too much detail our debate on the banking sector, but I point out that it is necessary to have an environment in which our companies can be competitive on a global scale, and to ensure that they can succeed. While we want companies to be profitable, we also want them to reinvest a lot of those profits, so that they can improve the capital stock, improve the ingenuity and enterprising innovation that goes on within such companies, and have a longer-term profitability trajectory. It is for those reasons that I am perplexed by the drastic reduction in capital allowances, to just £25,000. Manufacturing companies—the institutions that produce the actual goods we can sell and export abroad—may well be disadvantaged relative to other sectors of the economy.

[Barry Gardiner]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the predicated growth, contained in the Government’s figures, of the private sector generation of income into the Treasury over the next five years, and does he believe that that is compatible with the reduction in capital allowances that has been announced? In particular, would he care to comment on the timing of that reduction at precisely the moment when—if the Chancellor’s figures were to work out—the economy would be about to see the largest part of its expansion?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

Indeed that is the case. I know that my hon. Friend has done a great deal of work on some of the analysis of these points. There are arguments to be made for reducing corporation tax to boost competitiveness, but clearly that is a way of encouraging profit-taking and, in turn, the removal of money from companies in the form of dividends. That, of course, benefits us all in some ways, because we are all members of pension funds and so on. However, if it is indeed the Government’s particular choice at this point in time, as we are coming out of a recession, to try to encourage companies to focus on their long-term profitability, might it not be a better strategy, in some respects, to retain some of those capital allowances to ensure that we can fix our banks such that they are able to supply much-needed credit to small companies, in particular, and to the wider industries across the board?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend rightly talks about the need for companies to pay dividends and the benefits of that for all of us in society, in particular pension fund holders. Does he appreciate that the portfolio of shares that our pension funds all hold can also increase in value by incentivising companies to reinvest in themselves? That happens by the increase in value of the company through the increased investment that it has made in itself. Is that not a more efficient way of doing things than paying out dividends, which may simply go into private pockets for consumption?

[Chris Leslie]

That is a moot point and I would not go to the wall to argue against reducing corporation tax in this way. All I am suggesting is that there are other strategies that I do not feel that the Government have properly explored. We ought to be focused on growth and on how business can contribute to it. Let us not forget that we have such a deficit situation in this country not because of so-called excessive public service consumption but because tax receipts have been so depressed. That has partly been caused by the credit crunch and the lack of credit available, which provoked the private sector investment strike that has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett).

Finance Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful for that intervention. I am sure that my hon. Friend will have the chance to raise that point either in Committee or on the Floor of the House when the Bill is considered.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Has the Chief Secretary analysed the impact of the Budget measures on women? If not, will he commit to doing so?

[Danny Alexander]

I can confirm that we have carried out an analysis of the Budget across the income distribution to evaluate its fairness. We have also conducted an analysis of the impact on child poverty, which is the most important aspect. We have ensured that, even in the toughest Budget since the second world war, there will be no impact on measured child poverty—something that could not always be said of the previous Government’s Budgets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Alexander]

I am going to press on.

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Danny Alexander]

I have given way already to the hon. Gentleman.

Let me turn to the first of the measures in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Byrne]

That news was somehow absent from the Chief Secretary’s remarks. He and the Chancellor may now think that everything is fine. I know whose verdict I would rely on, and it is not the Chancellor’s.

I do not want to depress the House unduly and I have a little bit of good news—

[Barry Gardiner]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the real point is that if we should slip back into a double-dip recession, the coalition’s efforts will be null and void, because they will not have been able to address the deficit as a proportion of GDP?

[Mr Byrne]

That is precisely right and I will have more to say on that in a moment.

I promised a ray of good news among all the bad news and depressed expectations from the business community. A command paper was sneaked out last week. It had barely a press notice—it ran to a grand total of six lines—and there was no written ministerial statement with it. What could justify such secrecy? All is revealed on page 52 of the public expenditure survey, published last week, wherein we discover that Departments under Labour’s management underspent their budgets last year by £5 billion. Anyone would think that the Government wanted to keep that news secret. In a knee-jerk response yesterday, they decided to cover it up by announcing another £1.5 billion of spending cuts instead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend says it is a shame that that is no longer the case. I know that when he was a Back Bencher two Parliaments ago he was an assiduous Member, perhaps with the sad anorak tendency of those on the Finance Bill Committee.

[Barry Gardiner]

He used to take notes.

[Mr Jones]

He did. We are now to have all stages on the Floor of the House, which I greatly welcome. I look forward to exploring the Bill in depth in the next few weeks, as I am sure many other Labour Members do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

Yes, we have been asked directly whether this came suddenly as a shock. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) has just raised the very clear point that the actual size of the deficit was smaller than projected. No, this is a coalition deal, as we all know, by the push-me, pull-me coalition. We obviously have two leaders who can hardly be told apart in terms of political objectives, and we have some very unhappy individuals, such as the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). When he made his speech trying to justify this in the House last week, he looked very uncomfortable. I feel for him; all I would say is that if he feels so unhappy, he should come and join us.

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend is making a tremendous speech and I hope he goes on making it for a good deal longer. He talked about the impact of VAT on small businesses, but does he agree that one of the most damaging effects on those businesses in his part of the world will come from the loss of One NorthEast? The very support that businesses in his area require is going to be lost.

[Mr Jones]

Yes, another myth that people have been peddling is that development agencies like One NorthEast were somehow profiting and spending. I will tell anyone what One NorthEast did in my constituency. It helped out a perfectly viable business in the middle of the recession, which could not get a £2 million loan that it needed to be underwritten. When One NorthEast stepped in, 20 extra jobs were created in that small business and another 50 were safeguarded.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

As a member of the Sacriston workmen's club, I have to concur with my hon. Friend. As he knows, following the smoking ban, the change in the way people access alcohol and supermarket price cutting, many such clubs in the north-east of England have been struggling. Many have closed, sadly, in my constituency. We hear a lot about rural pubs, but we hear very little about the Club and Institute Union movement. In many places, including his constituency and mine, those clubs are the centre of the community. Once they have gone, they will not be replaced. The VAT increase will be a severe blow for them at this difficult time, when they are struggling already.

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend has been most generous in giving way. Before he moves on from VAT, has he had the opportunity to consider the costs to businesses of reprogramming their tills for the change in VAT? My understanding is that many of the large supermarket chains find that that process costs them millions of pounds. That is a real cost to the economy that does not seem to be factored in.

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There will be a cost not only to large businesses but to small businesses. That brings me neatly on to the British Retail Consortium, which has grave concerns about the VAT increase. It recently said that it could cost up to 163,000 jobs and affect some £3.6 billion of spending. Again, in many communities those jobs are vital. This is on top of the very difficult economic climate that businesses are facing. In my constituency, retail-led development is a catalyst for regeneration. If, for example, the new Tesco in Stanley does not go ahead because of these proposals, it will have a knock-on effect on the regeneration of an entire town.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Albus Dumbledore in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” said:

“You see, Harry, it is not our abilities in life, but our choices that tell us who we really are.”

When my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) rose in this Chamber as Chancellor at 12.32 pm on Wednesday 24 March, he could look back on a year in which global recession had not turned into depression, in which unemployment, although too high, was less than had been predicated a year earlier when the recession began, and in which the United Kingdom was now infinitesimally but incrementally moving from recession to GDP growth. He faced tough choices: how to bring borrowing down without strangling growth, and how to reduce the deficit without crippling front-line public services and punishing the most vulnerable people in our country. Those choices were not easy, but they were necessary.

When the current Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), rose in this Chamber at 12.33 pm on Tuesday 22 June, he did so against the background of a further quarter of small but positive growth and a report from the Office for Budget Responsibility that predicated £30 billion less public sector borrowing. Despite that improved situation, however, he said that he did not face any choice. He said:

“This is the unavoidable Budget.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 166.]

No; this is the Budget of Tory masochistic fantasy. Right-wingers are delighted with what they see, in this Finance Bill, as the arms of the state being rolled back. They are delighted by the thought of 600,000 jobs being cut from the public sector. They are salivating at the thought of spending less on welfare at the very time when they cast 600,000 more people into the welfare net. Where is the sense in that? Oh yes, this is a Finance Bill of choice for the Tories, and in life it is

“our choices that tell us who we really are.”

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

Is it not ironic that one of the main beneficiaries of this particular Budget will be our banks, which are among the biggest payers of corporation tax in the country? The Government have chosen not to tax bankers’ bonuses this year, despite clear public outrage at the level of bonuses that are still being paid.

[Barry Gardiner]

Not only has my hon. Friend made a perfectly apposite point, but she has made it better than I could ever possibly do. I can only agree with her.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

If my hon. Friend is going to be so complimentary to those who intervene, how can I resist? Will he explain his perception that this is a Budget of choices? Is he going to refer to the analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, according to which it is a Budget of choices and the Government made the wrong choices, or is this entirely his own analysis?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has made some damning comments about the regressive nature of this Finance Bill.

Should it be passed in the House of Commons, the Bill will be unavoidable in its own way. Consider the carer, middle-aged herself but looking after her ageing, frail parents. She will not be able to avoid seeing her carer’s allowance cut by £90 a year over the next five years. Consider the family of five living in Brent, already struggling to find the difference between what the landlord insists is a fair market rent and their housing benefit payments each month. They will not be able to avoid eviction as the Finance Bill cuts housing benefit. Consider the severely disabled sufferer from Crohn’s disease. She will not be able to avoid losing £300 a year as the Bill cuts support year on year.

Consider the young couple starting their life together, moving into and trying to furnish their flat. They will face the costs of conveyancing solicitors, new fridge, new washing machine, new carpets, new sofa, new telly. This is certainly the unavoidable Finance Bill for them, with an extra 2.5% on every item. It is the unavoidable Finance Bill for the poor, for the disabled, for those on housing benefit, and for carers. A clear choice has been made by the Conservatives to cut an extra £40 billion on top of the £78 billion announced already.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I would like to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he realises why all these very sad cases are unavoidable. It is because we have a national debt of £1 trillion. I was looking at what that means. If every pound were a second, that would be 31,546 years and we would all be sitting here for a very long time.

[Barry Gardiner]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds to that intervention and resumes his speech, I remind him that he is perfectly entitled to talk about vulnerability if he so wishes, but he must relate it to the matters within the Bill and he has an extensive choice from which to select.

[Barry Gardiner]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am tempted to take up the length of time that the hon. Lady mentioned, but I fear that the House needs to come to a close. A clear choice has been made by the Conservatives to cut an extra £40 billion on top of the £78 billion announced in March. They have made a clear choice to cut £11 billion out of tax credits and benefits. A clear choice has been made by the Liberal Democrats not just to drop the VAT bombshell that they warned of, but to act as navigators and pathfinders for the Conservatives to deliver it perfectly targeted. That regressive tax does the most damage to the poorest. It is regressive, not progressive.

“We will not have to raise VAT to deliver our promises”,

said the Deputy Prime Minister before the election. Indeed not—the Liberal Democrats will have to raise VAT to deliver the Tories’ promises. What an apology for a fig leaf.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

With regard to my hon. Friend's list of all the people who will not be able to avoid paying the increase in VAT, is he aware that many community halls in my constituency and across the country will also be forced to pay it as they are not able to claim exemption from VAT owing to the arrangements that they face?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. That is a real problem for clubs and small businesses that are not able to reclaim VAT back. It is yet another tax on business.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend share my astonishment that Members on the Government Front Bench seem to be ignorant of the fact that VAT has to be paid by charities?

[Barry Gardiner]

Not in the slightest. Why should I be surprised? It is what I would expect of Government Front Benchers.

The Child Poverty Action Group has passed its judgment on this “unavoidable” Finance Bill:

“This is a disappointing budget for child poverty and increases the risk of the government failing to meet its 2020 goal of ending child poverty.”

It says:

“The increase in VAT is a regressive measure which will impact hardest on poor families.”

Robert Caro, the great biographer, once wrote:

“It is said that power corrupts: what is more true is that power reveals.”

With the Liberal Democrats, power has certainly revealed. No longer can anyone be excused for thinking that the Lib Dems are progressive and principled. They are regressive, ruthless and prepared to sell out any policy for a whiff of office.

In the course of debate over the past week, Government Members have repeatedly asked Labour Members what we would do. They have suggested that they have taken the unavoidable and necessary action, whereas we would have taken none at all. So I refer them to the Red Book in March, where my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor set out the swiftest and most straightforward deficit reduction plan that then existed in the G7.

The plan proposed: £3.5 billion of savings by freezing public sector pay—but that of the better paid, rather than of the poorest public sector workers; £1 billion of savings from public sector pensions; £18 billion of savings to capital spending; £11 billion of savings from Whitehall reform; £19 billion in new tax rises; £14 billion of savings from reduced benefit payments as unemployment came down; and £5 billion of savings from programme cuts.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Mr Randall) is chuntering from a sedentary position and trying to intervene on my hon. Friend. Does my hon. Friend agree that the people who are going to be affected by the VAT increase will be those in the retail trade, in which I understand the right hon. Gentleman has an interest?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct. I believe that the point may have been made earlier. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman continues, may I gently say to the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Mr Randall) that we do not need sedentary interventions from him and we do not want to get into a general debate about the merits or otherwise of Randalls as a department store, interesting though that may be?

[Barry Gardiner]

Mr Speaker, I will forgo that offer, tempting though it may be. However, I will try to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who is entirely correct to say that retailers will also suffer from this measure. Large retail operations, such as supermarkets, will particularly suffer because they have huge costs to meet in changing their tills over to cope with the VAT changes.

We made our choices too. They were hard choices, but they were not regressive choices, and they protected the poorest and the vulnerable. We chose to raise duty on cider to the same level as that on other alcohol. The Liberal Democrats opposed that choice in March—in fact, it was the only choice that they opposed then. Their choice is to reverse that duty in this Finance Bill, to put 8% less duty on cider and to increase VAT by 2.5%; scrumpy today, child poverty tomorrow is the Liberal Democrats’ great rallying cry for the 21st century. This is their tax priority for the new politics of collaboration. Albus Dumbledore was right: it is not our abilities in life but our choices that tell us who we really are. My choice is to oppose this pernicious Bill.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)]

I am delighted to open this day of the Budget debate and I want particularly to do three things in this speech. One is to argue why the Budget strategy—what used to be called the Budget judgment—is an essential and correct response to the balance of risks that the economy faces. The second is to address the question that always arises at this stage of the business cycle, which is from where the jobs are likely to come during the recovery. The third is to outline why, like all other recoveries from deep recessions, we will build a new economy. Indeed, a large part of the answer as to where the jobs will come from are the new low-carbon industries which represent our third industrial revolution. In five years’ time, the outlines of a sustainable and resilient economy will be clear, thanks in part to the route map that we begin to sketch out in the Budget—the carbon price floor, the green investment bank and the green deal.

Let me start with the point about the balance of risks, and pick up where we left off in the last debate, when the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) was disparaging me for the “Greek defence” as he put it. This determines the timing of measures to cut the budget deficit. The last time that we debated these issues, the right hon. Gentleman accused me of performing a U-turn on whether there should be cuts in this year. I conceded that we in the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition had changed our minds. I also pointed out that we had done so on the basis of events in international capital markets, which have dramatically raised the risks of our being engulfed in a firestorm. If that were to occur we would not be looking at a proactive plan decided by Government, but at a forced reaction to market pressure, which would be unplanned, unconsidered and deeply damaging.

When I last made that point, the right hon. Gentleman said that there had been no change in circumstance that justified a change in judgment. So I looked up the figures for the key public finance borrowing interest rate: the 10-year bond yield for each of the afflicted economies and for our own. The 10-year bond yield determines the cost at which we finance our own borrowing, but it also sets the tone for interest rates in the rest of the economy. The 10-year yield for the Greek Government on the day the election was called in this country, 6 April, was a little less than 7%; it was 6.98%. It had hovered at or around that level for most of the early part of the year, yet during the general election campaign the Greek bond yield began lurching upwards, reaching a peak of more than 12% the day after our general election.

The right hon. Gentleman mocked my Greek defence and said that the circumstances were so different that we could not possibly be affected. I merely remind him that our Budget deficit is the second highest in the EU and currently higher than that of Greece. It is true of course that Greece has substantially higher public debt to national income ratios than we do, but that is not as consoling a thought as the right hon. Gentleman appears to think. Contagion does not work like that. It is, by definition, irrational and sees similarities even where a cooler mind sees differences.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Did the right hon. Gentleman have the opportunity to watch and listen to the eminent Japanese economist on “Newsnight” last night, who explained, on precisely this point, that were Britain to be paralleled with Greece, the bond rates in Britain would not be showing a four point spread at the moment and would not be being bought so avidly by British companies and consumers?

[Chris Huhne]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about the circumstances, but markets travel on expectations. The expectations of what was going on in this country were very clear during the general election campaign: the hon. Gentleman and his friends were about to lose the election. It is precisely the case with the contagion in southern Europe that it spread quickly from Greece to Spain and to Italy. Italy, of course, has a very high public debt to GDP ratio and is clearly in a different category from ourselves. But that is not the case for Spain—one of the most substantial economies in Europe—where the central Government to GDP ratio is actually much smaller than ours. The debt to GDP ratio in Spain was 33% as against 60% in the UK at the beginning of this process. That is the problem that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North and his friends have to answer. It was absolutely clear from the rise in bond yields across southern Europe that we were in the firing line and it would have been completely irresponsible for us not to remove ourselves from it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

rose—

[Barry Gardiner]

rose—

[Mark Lazarowicz]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Huhne]

I certainly do not believe that we can rely on achieving the sort of comprehensive approach that I am talking about merely through introducing pay-as-you-save measures. The reality is that there will have to be cross-subsidy, as there already is, but particularly to the fuel poor and to those in homes that are hard to heat and which need solid-wall insulation and so forth. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman will have to wait for the final proposals in the Bill, but I very much agree that we need a comprehensive set of proposals to deal with the whole of the residential housing sector. Those proposals must cover homes owned by owner-occupiers but also the private rental sector, where many of the worst offenders when it comes to energy inefficiency are to be found. I hope that that is what he will see.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful once again to the right hon. Gentleman. I welcome the measures that he is outlining and we will want to study them carefully, but I am troubled by his suggestion that one element of the coalition agreement was a decision that green taxes should rise as a proportion of the revenues into the Exchequer. I have heard him make the argument, from this side of the House, that green taxes should be used to change behaviour but not as long-term revenue streams on which the Exchequer can depend. I agree with that, but will he explain why that element of the coalition agreement is now seen to fund resource into the future?

[Chris Huhne]

The hon. Gentleman knows, as I do, that the two points that he makes are not as mutually contradictory as he suggests. There is a long history in this country of applying so-called “sin taxes” to alcohol and tobacco, and they have had the very desirable effect of helping to get people off smoking and of cutting their drinking. The success of those taxes is not perhaps as great as many hon. Members on both sides of the House would like, yet I am assured by the latest Red Book documents that the Treasury continues to raise a very substantial amount of money from both tobacco and drink excises.

The reality is that, while green taxes will change behaviour, the responsiveness of behaviour is such that revenue will continue to be raised for a very substantial period. I have to say that, in the present circumstances, that point is likely to commend itself to the Treasury, which always used to follow the motto of Colbert, the finance minister of Louis XIV, who said that the art of taxation lay in plucking the maximum number of feathers from the goose with the minimum amount of hissing. In that context, green taxes certainly are a very justifiable way to pluck the maximum number of feathers.

I shall give way once more, to the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), and then I shall wind up and let the debate make progress.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Today, let us spare a thought for the Liberal Democrats. In April, the great cause célèbre—the only amendment they fought for in Labour’s Budget—was deferring the rise in the rate of duty on cider until June. Today, they achieved that ambition; duty was reduced from 10% to just 2%. In April, Liberal Democrat spokespeople loudly claimed to have stopped the wicked Labour Government from raising a few million pounds from west country cider farmers. Today, they sit, quisling apologists, for a Budget containing the most savage cuts and devastating tax increases in a generation.

On 8 April, the Deputy Prime Minister accused the Conservatives of wanting to raise VAT to plug a black hole in their financial plans. He boasted:

“We will not have to raise VAT to deliver to our promises. The Conservatives will. Let me repeat that: our plans do not require a rise in VAT”.

No wonder that, when the Prime Minister was asked during the election campaign for his favourite political joke, he replied in just two words: “Nick Clegg.” The Liberal Democrats have now delivered the tax bombshell for their Conservative masters, precisely targeted at the poor, who spend a far greater proportion of their income on VAT-able items.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

Would the hon. Gentleman like to look at the tables on pages 67 and 68 of the Red Book, which disprove the point that he has just made?

[Barry Gardiner]

I should be very happy to look at the pages of the Red Book in due course, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to challenge the fact, which I have just stated, that the poor spend a greater proportion of their incomes on VATable items, I am sure that he will find not only that he is wrong, but that he is out of sync with other Liberal Democrats—his leader, in fact, and his deputy leader—who have said exactly the same as I have. No wonder that the Liberal leader had to write to his MPs today to insist that he had not sold out on his party’s promise to protect those who are on average incomes.

I simply refer those hon. Members to “Liberal Democrat Voice”, published on 8 April, in which the Liberal leader said:

“So if you’re on an ordinary income, you have a choice. If you want your taxes to rise: vote Labour or Conservative. If you want your taxes to fall: choose the Liberal Democrats.”

The smugness is breathtaking, but nowhere near as breathtaking as the G-forces exerted by the speed of the U-turn that he has performed. His talk of progressive cuts certainly did not go down well in Sheffield, Hallam, where the axing of the Labour Government’s £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters has denied his constituency of the manufacturing future and new jobs that local people so badly wanted and that he once said that he believed in.

As the Social Liberal Forum reminded the Deputy Prime Minister in an open letter last week:

“The Liberal Democrats did not sign up to the Conservative formula of cutting £4 for every £1 raised in additional revenue and it would be impossible to pursue such a policy without adversely hurting the most vulnerable in society. With this in mind, it seems incomprehensible that we could be contemplating a rise in VAT at this stage. As the Liberal Democrats pointed out before the election, a VAT rise to 20% would cost every person in the country an average of £389, disproportionately hurting the least well-off who would be least able to afford it.”

That is Liberal Democrats talking. Frankly, we expect the Conservative party to attack the poorest in society. It was rather refreshing to be told a week last Thursday, by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), that

“Those in greatest need ultimately bear the burden of paying off the debt”.—[Official Report, 10 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 450.]

At least he got it right.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is unfortunate that the Deputy Prime Minister is not listening to the comments about Sheffield Forgemasters, and I assume that he was not listening to the Prime Minister’s remarks yesterday, when he made disparaging comments about the shareholders of Sheffield Forgemasters and the financial engineering associated with the deal, which has been through the most robust critique by the Treasury. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when the Deputy Prime Minister returns to Sheffield, it would be appropriate for him to apologise on behalf of the Prime Minister for those comments?

[Barry Gardiner]

I entirely endorse my hon. Friend’s remarks. The only thing that I find more smug than the comments that have been made was the fact that, during the entirety of oral questions to the Deputy Prime Minister, he refused to answer any of the questions that he would have found difficult to answer. One wonders why they are called oral questions to the Deputy Prime Minister if he is not going to bother to answer them.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

How does my hon. Friend feel that the Budget will impact on the poorest of his constituents in Brent? The impact will be felt by the poorest people across the country, but does he agree that, with this Budget, we have finally seen the Liberal Democrats for what they are: the real wolves in sheep’s clothing?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is very clear that the Liberal Democrats vary not just what they say from doorstep to doorstep, but what they say before the election from what they do after the election, and many of us have bitter experience of that.

Today, it was interesting to hear the Chancellor say that council taxes will be frozen. I thought to myself, “Yes, I’ve heard that mantra before.” My hon. Friend prompts me. That is exactly what the Liberal Democrats promised in the run-up to the 2006 local elections in Brent. Strangely, after that local election, they went into a coalition with the Conservatives, who had promised not just a freeze on council tax but a reduction in council tax. When they got into power, what did they do? They raised council tax for three years in a row.

Moreover, before the election, the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), was photographed with the elderly—I have a copy of it here—and appeared on a leaflet that said, “Free Personal Care for the elderly say Lib Dems”, but when they got into office on Brent council, they raised the personal care charges from £5 an hour to £16.50 an hour.

When the Chancellor talked today about how the Government would freeze council tax, I thought, “Yes, I know how they will manage to do that.” All the charges that councils make people, such as elderly residents in Brent, pay will be bumped up. The increase will be imposed not on council tax, but on those who have the very least ability to pay—the most vulnerable people in our community.

Last week, I was invited to the Brent Teachers Association meeting to debate the future of education in the borough with the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central. As she had promised in her election literature an extra £2.5 billion towards education and smaller class sizes, but subsequently approved a £1.88 million cut to the borough’s education area-based grant, I was looking forward to that debate. However, I understand that, half an hour before the start of it, her office phoned to indicate that she was indisposed and could not attend. If I had been in her position, I would have been indisposed and unable to attend, too. To cut one’s education department in the borough, having promised such a vast increase in the education spending, is typical of how the Liberal Democrats have proceeded around the country, and we now see that what they do in national government is absolutely no different. The disillusion of those who believed the Liberal Democrat promises before the election can be only further deepened by the Budget statement that they have heard today.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Barry Gardiner]

No, I am moving on from the Liberal Democrats. [Interruption.] We have got to go for the Tories now. Go on, I will give way to the hon. Lady.

[Jo Swinson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for rethinking and giving way. I am listening to what he is saying with great care, but I wonder whether he is going to tell us—I am yet to hear about this from any Labour politician—where he would like any of the £44 billion of cuts that the Labour Government decided were required to fall.

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Lady has been a Member for a number of years. She will remember the answer that she and her colleagues gave when they sat on the Opposition Benches and Labour Members asked them exactly that sort of question: “You’re in government. It is you who provide the answers and we who ask the questions.”

People were told, “Vote blue, go green.” Vote blue, go green? Go green with frustration? Go green with fury? Where was that—did I miss it? Was there anything in the Budget about going green? I heard a mention of an investigation into whether there should be a per-passenger or per-plane duty, but that hardly constitutes vote blue, go green. There are many things that a really progressive Government could be doing to improve the way in which the environment is treated in this country.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there are a great many such things—fairness in transmission charges to the grid, for example, and access to the fossil fuel levy—so perhaps he will explain why, over 13 years, his party did not do them either.

[Hon. Members]

Answer.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am happy to give an answer to the hon. Gentleman. We introduced the first legislation on climate change anywhere in the world. We put in place carbon budgets and feed-in tariffs. We ensured that we set a reduction target for 2050 of not just 50% but at least 80%, with interim budgets that can be examined every year, so that Parliament can hold the Government to account. The Labour Government achieved substantial things on the environment, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we did not do enough. I often spoke from the Government Benches to ask my own Ministers to go further. In addition, the system of renewables obligation certificates is a good deal more generous in Scotland than in England. However, does the Budget address the environment? Not one whit; we heard only a mention of an investigation into duty for planes rather than passengers.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

If the hon. Gentleman reads page 57 of the Red Book, he will see that it states:

“Legislation will be in the Finance Bill introduced in the autumn for an enhanced capital allowance for zero-carbon goods vehicles.”

If that is not a green element, I do not know what is.

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Lady is new to the House and might not have had the opportunity to read earlier Red Books. The previous Government were also doing quite a bit on zero-carbon vehicles.

The Budget is a dreadful missed opportunity. It should have ensured that we can resolve the problems with our public finances and pull the country through the recession. It should have achieved that in a staged and phased way. The Government tried to paint a dichotomy between those who appreciated that this had to be done—that this was the inevitable Budget—and, as they put it, those on the other side who said, “No, no. Hold back.” However, it was never like that. Labour Members said that this must be done, but more progressively and slowly. We said that we must not jeopardise the recovery now by taking a macho posture that goes too far, that chokes off recovery and that will ultimately be self-defeating.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

I am about to conclude my remarks.

If the Opposition’s policies had been followed, we could have pulled the country through the recession and reduced the structural deficit to half its present level, as has been shown by today’s predictions and forecasts. However, the Government have decided to go for machismo over prudence—they will pay the price for it.

Financial Services Regulation

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend makes a very good observation. Let me make a broader observation, if I may. She has enormous experience of the financial services. There are Members on the Opposition Benches with real experience as well, including the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), who used to work in the Bank of England. I would like that experience to be brought to bear in the process over the next year. We have decided not to resolve the issues in the Treasury, in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and in No. 10 Downing street, as we could have done. We have decided to have an open commission to which all Members can contribute and with which they can all engage. I think that is a better way to make policy.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Has the Chancellor taken the opportunity to review the Official Report of the Committee stages of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 when the FSA was being set up? If so, does he recall that the constant cry from the Conservative Benches in those days was for lighter-touch regulation? Will he take the opportunity to say unequivocally to the City that, as far as his party is concerned, the era of lighter-touch regulation is over?

[Mr Osborne]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) was clear about the risks of creating the tripartite system when he was the shadow Chancellor who opposed that legislation. When it comes to light-touch regulation, let me quote what the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, said in 2006:

“I will be honest with you, many who advised me, including not a few newspapers, favoured a regulatory crackdown. I believe that we were right not to go down that road”.

I am afraid that the regulatory approach taken by the Labour Government when they were in office completely failed, and we will learn the lessons of their mistakes.