Cathy Jamieson
Main Page: Cathy Jamieson (Labour (Co-op) - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)Department Debates - View all Cathy Jamieson's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Government have previously declared that we are “all in this together”, and I want to develop that theme. I am sure the Exchequer Secretary will be listening intently. They have insisted that those with the broadest shoulders should bear the greatest burden, but in Work and Pensions questions earlier, we heard that some Opposition Members are somewhat sceptical about that claim. Although the Government have also consistently told us that their priority is to cut the deficit by what they describe as “fair and reasonable means”, in politics it is actions, not mere words, that show priorities. The same Government, in tough times and against the backdrop of falling living standards—borrowing up last year, growth continuing to flatline and drastic cuts being made to benefits for hard-working families—have decided to give millionaires a tax cut. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) call out that that is nonsense. I am more than willing to take an intervention from him should he wish to justify the tax cut for millionaires.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
I am delighted to intervene on the hon. Lady. She will be aware that the art of taxation is to extract the maximum amount of money with the minimum amount of hissing. Is she aware of the principle that a lower tax rate can often lead to a higher tax take, and does she think it might apply in this case, thus meaning that millionaires pay more, not less?
Cathy Jamieson
It will be no surprise to the hon. Gentleman that I do not agree with his point.
Cathy Jamieson
I am aware of that point of principle and I will come to it in due course, because it is an issue to consider.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
Before the hon. Lady comes to that principle, she will be aware that the 2012 Red Book confirmed that, according to the Government’s own figures, the change would cost £450 million. At the most basic level, whether we agree with that number or think it is too low, if there is £450 million going spare, it would be better to do something socially productive with it than to give it back to people who are already wealthy.
Cathy Jamieson
I thank the hon. Gentleman. He and I do not always agree on every matter that is discussed in the Chamber, but on this occasion I accept what he says.
We have heard disagreement on the Government Benches with the point that I was making, but the reality is that as of this April, 13,000 people earning more than £1 million a year are receiving a tax cut equivalent to £100,000. Another 254,000 people earning more than £150,000 a year are also seeing their income tax bills go down. At the same time, if we take into account the changes that the Tory-led Government have made to tax, tax credits and benefits, households in the UK will be an average of £891 a year worse off. That is the reality that people face. As I have said in a number of previous debates, that may not seem a lot of money to the millionaires who are getting a tax cut from the Government, or to those on the highest wages, but it is a lot of money for my constituents and, I am sure, for the constituents of other hon. Members. I see some heads nodding on the Government Benches. It is a huge amount for constituents throughout the country, who are being ruthlessly squeezed to pay for the Chancellor’s economic failure.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is indeed a lot of money for many of my constituents and my hon. Friend’s. Is she aware of the figures published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies showing that for a two-earner couple with children, the loss caused by the changes rises to £1,869.09?
Cathy Jamieson
Yes indeed. My hon. Friend makes an important point on which I will comment further in due course.
Cathy Jamieson
Let me answer my hon. Friend’s point because it is important to understand the impact that this Government’s policies are having on families across the country. He makes the important point that a couple with children in such circumstances will face difficulties, and in some instances must make choices about how they will pay for things that we or our children perhaps take for granted. Government Members have simply failed to recognise or respond to, or in many instances acknowledge, that point.
Cathy Jamieson
The hon. Gentleman has probably heard many Opposition Members stand at the Dispatch Box and make our position absolutely clear: if we were in government just now, that is not what we would be doing. There is a whole range of other things—
Cathy Jamieson
I want to finish this point. If the hon. Gentleman can contain his excitement, I am sure he will have the opportunity to develop his arguments at some stage. It is important to recognise that the Government are doing many things that Labour simply would not do. We suggested a whole range of things that the Government could do to get growth back into the economy, and I will mention some of those today. It is important, however—[Interruption.] I hear the Minister from a sedentary position say, “Borrowing more”. Is that an admission that his Government are borrowing more than they set out to do, that they have not got the deficit down as planned, and that they have not brought growth back into the economy as they promised? I would be more than happy if the Minister wished to put something on the record at this point. [Interruption.] He does not, so I will give way to the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones).
Mr Jones
The hon. Lady said that if Labour was in power now it would reverse the decision and reinstate the 50p tax rate, but there will not be a general election for the next two years. If the Labour party is in government in two years’ time, would it then reverse that decision and reinstate the 50p tax rate—yes or no?
Cathy Jamieson
I find it astonishing that Government Members never seem to take any responsibility for what is going on under their watch. Under their watch, the deficit has not come down as much as they promised, borrowing is higher than planned, and the Government have failed to get growth back into the economy.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
The hon. Lady made some important and passionate points about the impact of being worse off every year by £800, which is a big amount of money for many of my constituents. Given that we have just broadly agreed public expenditure figures for the next Parliament, does she feel that if this is a point of principle it is beholden on her to answer the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) about whether a Labour Government would stick to their principles in the next election?
Cathy Jamieson
I can say to the hon. Gentleman that yes, we would stick to principles of fairness and equality, and we would not seek to advantage those who already have the highest incomes at the expense of those on lower incomes. Once again, I repeat what a number of Labour Members have said: at this point we do not know in what shape the economy will be two years from now, and as a responsible Opposition we intend to look in detail at where spend would be best put in the years ahead.
Cathy Jamieson
I want to make progress but I will, of course, give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady; she always covers these issues with great interest. Why is the shadow Chancellor able to commit to following our spending plans, yet will not give any indication of tax rates? Surely that is the second side of the coin.
Cathy Jamieson
I always listen with interest to what the hon. Gentleman has to say, and I know from his contributions in the House and in Public Bill Committees that from time to time he scrutinises the Government fairly thoroughly. There is a difference between saying that the overall spending limit put on by the Government will be our starting point, and accepting their approach in full, which is not what the shadow Chancellor has said, of course. He has made it clear that we would look at that overall spend and see how we could allot resources more fairly.
Despite the fact that the Government tried to make much of fairness in the spending review, let us look at the millionaires who will benefit from the tax cut. First, 643 bankers earn more than £1 million and the combined tax cut will be worth £34.6 million to them—[Interruption.] There is a lot of grumbling and other muttering from a sedentary position by Government Members. If they wish to speak, they will be able to do so later.
My constituents want to know how the Government can justify that tax cut for millionaires at a time when those on middle and low incomes are being squeezed so hard. I can understand why the public are angry and why they do not feel that the Government are acting fairly. They see many people on massive salaries that ordinary people can only dream of and working in the very same banks that were bailed out by the taxpayer now receiving a handout from the coalition. People do find that difficult to understand. That is why our amendment would require the Chancellor to consider the effect that the tax cut will have on the level of bonuses in the financial sector. That is what the taxpayer—ordinary people trying to make ends meet when their living standards are being reduced—wants to know.
Richard Fuller
The hon. Lady makes a good point about the impact on bonuses. Does she welcome the recommendation from the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, which the Prime Minister has accepted, which will change from very short-term bonuses to long-term ones? Would not that mitigate some of the very real concerns that she has mentioned?
Cathy Jamieson
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman recognises the points that I have made. He will, of course, be aware of some of the discussion that took place in Committee on the Finance Bill and the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. It is unfortunate that the Government chose not to accept our amendments to those Bills, and so far we have not seen legislation to enact the change that he mentions. I look forward with interest to further debates on that subject at a later date.
Mr Graham Stuart
The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, but she has mentioned what makes the public angry. I think what makes the public angry is when they see members of a party opposing in principle, and expressing great moral outrage about, the bedroom tax—the spare room subsidy—or the 50p tax rate and then refusing to answer a straightforward question about whether they would reverse one or both of them. It is not good enough, and it is no wonder that the public think politicians are slippery and cannot be trusted.
Cathy Jamieson
The hon. Gentleman started by trying to pay me some sort of compliment, saying that I was making a powerful speech, but I simply do not accept his assertion that what outrages the public is politicians standing up to make passionate speeches on their behalf. The points that I am making are the very ones that have been made by my constituents, by the constituents of my hon. Friends and—I am sure—by many of the hon. Gentleman’s own constituents.
It is not good enough for Government Members simply to sit there and say, “What is the Labour party going to do two years from now?” when they are taking no responsibility whatever for what they are doing at the moment. It is a responsible position for us as the Opposition to say, “We understand that there will be an overall spending limit; that will be our starting point, but that does not mean that we have committed to it as an end point, and it does not mean that we are committed to doing exactly what the Government would do.” I am sure that as we move forward, a number of initiatives will be developed and outlined in greater detail.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that what is going to annoy many of our constituents is that they were told three years ago that all the measures put in place then were for a purpose, that the deficit would be brought down by the end of this Parliament and that we were all in it together, when that has simply not happened?
Cathy Jamieson
Once again, my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. When we heard the spending review announcements last week, many members of the public recognised that this was a spending review brought forward not because it was part of some grand plan by the Government or something that they were always going to do, but because of the Government’s own failures on the economy—their failure to get the deficit down as promised; their failure to deal with borrowing; and, indeed, their failure to get growth back into the economy.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her excellent speech. Further to confirm her point so that everybody gets it, did not the Chancellor promise not to introduce another spending review before the next election, and is not the failure of his economic policies the reason why we needed to have that spending review?
Cathy Jamieson
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Many members of the public will not look at the Chancellor’s spending review as a success—it is not—and they will recognise that this Government have, as we said at the outset, cut too far and too fast, so that we have had all the pain and none of the gain that the Government promised. [Interruption.] Conservative Members can sit and sigh, make all sorts of side interventions, look at the ceiling, look to their feet or whatever else, but the harsh reality is that the constituents we all meet on a day-to-day basis know that their living standards are dropping. They know that the money in their purse does not go as far at the end of the week, because prices are rising at a time when wages have stagnated at best, and are dropping at worst.
To return to the new clause, the bankers earning £1 million or more a year will benefit from the combined tax cut at a cost of at least £34.6 million. As I said earlier, we can understand why the public are angry and why they do not feel that this Government are acting fairly. Given some of today’s comments, I suspect that many of the people watching this debate will gain the impression that the Government are not listening to them, that they have no understanding of the issues they face and that, sadly, in many instances, if not all, they do not actually care.
Our new clause is a relatively mild-mannered amendment—one of the sort that we proposed regularly in the Finance Bill Committee, asking the Government to look at the impact of the policies that they are introducing. In this particular instance, the new clause asks the Chancellor to consider the effect that his tax cut will have on the level of bonuses in the financial sector. There 30 million taxpayers in the UK—30 million people who go out to work every day and have to pay their way—yet they realise that the Chancellor has decided to cut taxes for the richest among them. There is no getting away from that. That tells you everything you need to know, Mr Speaker, about this Tory-led coalition. Never mind the rhetoric of “We’re all in it together”, and never mind the risible attempts to paint themselves as the party of fairness as they tried to do in the spending review, because when it comes down to it, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are effectively topping up bank bonuses with a further tax cut. That is the reality of what is happening.
Labour Members believe that there is a better way. We have consistently said that we would use a tax on those massive bonuses to fund a jobs guarantee for every young person who has been out of work for a year or more. We would do that because the trends in long-term employment remain extremely worrying.
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)
How much money does the hon. Lady expect to raise through a tax on bank bonuses, and how does she think it could be spent on the projects on which she wants to spend it?
Cathy Jamieson
We have consistently said that we would seek to use the tax specifically to provide a jobs guarantee for every young person who has been out of work for a year or more. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, and indeed most Members in all parts of the House, will have met—or received e-mails, letters or telephone calls from—young people who are absolutely desperate to be given that first start, to walk through the doorway, to show what they can do, to use their skills and to learn more. Sadly, as we have heard, the guarantees provided under the Work programme have not met expectations, so it is important for us to think about what we could do. In March this year—
Cathy Jamieson
I want to finish what I am saying. In March this year, 167,000 adults had been out of work for more than two years. The figure has increased by 97% since 2012, and by 216% since 2011. We believe that the way to get people back into work is to tax the very richest. I am sure that Members in all parts of the House would agree—
Cathy Jamieson
I want to finish what I am saying, and I want to make progress. I think that I have been reasonably generous with my time so far.
I am sure that Members in all parts of the House would agree that returning people to work is the best way of reducing the benefits bill and getting the economy moving again. However, the facts speak for themselves, showing that the Government prioritise those at the top and leave everyone else to struggle. Let me return to what my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) said earlier.
Cathy Jamieson
No; I really do want to put this on the record. As my hon. Friend said, a two-earner couple with children are losing an average of £1,869 while a millionaire receives a tax cut. Would the hon. Gentleman care to explain to a two-earner couple with children in his constituency why that is fair?
Kwasi Kwarteng
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I did not catch the answer to my earlier question. How much money in a fiscal year does the hon. Lady expect to raise from the bank bonus tax?
Cathy Jamieson
I note that the hon. Gentleman showed no inclination to explain to that two-earner couple with children in his constituency why it is right for a millionaire to receive a tax cut at a time when they are set to lose a significant amount of money.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
I wonder whether my hon. Friend remembers two things. She may remember that, an hour before the beginning of the debate, we witnessed a lamentable performance by Ministers who failed to answer question after question about the Work programme, which is one of the worst and least successful programmes for the unemployed that we have seen for years; and I am sure that she remembers the future jobs fund, which was hugely successful in my constituency and returned hundreds of people to work. I think constantly about the people—nearly 1,000, including 195 young people—who have been unemployed for more than a year, and I fervently wish that we still had the future jobs fund, which was not only a successful programme but returned more than it cost.
Cathy Jamieson
My hon. Friend is right to mention the success of the future jobs fund. I still believe that, as we said at the time, the Government made a huge error in abolishing the future jobs fund. As I know from my own constituency, it gave young people an opportunity to get into the habit of going to work and learning skills, and gave the voluntary sector, the social economy, the third sector, call it what you like, an opportunity—
Cathy Jamieson
No. I am going to finish what I am saying, because I want to make clear the extent to which people are losing out. The future jobs fund gave opportunities to many young people and it was short-sighted of the Government to scrap it. It seemed to me that the Government did so simply because it was brought in by the previous Government. However, following questions in the House and elsewhere, we know that the Work programme has not delivered for many young people in our constituencies.
I go back to the fact that individuals and families are losing out in our constituencies. Not only will a two-earner couple with children lose on average £1,869, while a millionaire gets a tax cut, but a single parent who works and has tried to do the right thing in getting into employment and holding down a job, as well as meeting their caring responsibilities, will lose £1,226. At the same time, the millionaire banker about whom we talked earlier will see his tax bill cut. Two earners without children who are a couple will lose £672.
Those are remarkable figures. As I said earlier, they sum up the coalition’s warped sense of priorities. They are looking after those at the top, while making everyone else pay the price for their economic failure.
Cathy Jamieson
I will in a moment.
No wonder that people think that there is one rule for the richest and another for the rest. No wonder people are questioning why the Government believe that the way to motivate people on low incomes is to pay them less, and the way to motivate people on high incomes is to pay them more. In these challenging economic times, surely we should focus on supporting those who need it most. New clause 8 asks the Government to look at the issue again. We are asking them to undertake a proper assessment of the impact of the cut, as well as an analysis of how much the Treasury would gain if the additional rate were returned to 50% in 2014-15. That is not an unreasonable request. I hope that, on this occasion, the Government will accept the new clause and report back in due course, although I suspect that that may not be the case.
I outlined earlier why the Opposition think that the Chancellor’s logic is rather odd. He claims to find tax avoidance morally repugnant and to want to crack down on it, but this tax cut simply rewards the wealthiest. He appears to justify it on the ground that the behavioural response to the 50p rate was more avoidance. There seems to be a rather strange logic here. Instead of cracking down on the avoidance, he is rewarding it. Surely those are not the values that we want in the Government: one rule for the richest and another for the rest of us.
It is not what the Government used to say, before their façade of fairness began to slip. The Prime Minister no less said:
“I have been very clear—we have all been very clear—that we have to do this in a way that is fair so that the broadest backs bear the biggest burden.
That is why we haven’t changed… the 50p tax rate.”
However, the Government are giving those with the broadest backs a tax cut, while people on lower incomes are shouldering the bigger burden. I heard Government Members supporting what the Prime Minister said. It is a pity that they now seem to have gone back on that.
Cathy Jamieson
If the hon. Gentleman can contain himself for a few more moments, I would like to quote the Chancellor. I am sure he will want to hear what his own Chancellor said. Indeed, he may even have been at his party’s conference when the Chancellor said this:
“We could not even think of abolishing the 50p rate on the rich while at the same time I am asking many of our public sector workers to accept a pay freeze to protect their jobs. I think we can all agree that would be grossly unfair.”
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that would be grossly unfair?
Kwasi Kwarteng
The hon. Lady will know that I have always consistently argued for lower tax rates across the board, so that is my answer to her point. I am also perplexed as to why she will not give an answer to my earlier question about the amount of money she hoped to raise from a bankers bonus tax, given that that is such a key element of her party’s fiscal plans.
Cathy Jamieson
Once again, it is rather strange that the hon. Gentleman does not seek to give any comfort to his own constituents or give any explanation of his own policies. We have put forward the idea of the bankers bonus tax to get young people back into employment, and I also think the general public would like those bonuses to be less than they have been over the past few years.
I want to go back to the point the Chancellor made. He said at his party conference that he would not
“think of abolishing the 50p rate on the rich while at the same time…asking many of our public sector workers to accept a pay freeze”.
I do not often agree with the Chancellor, but I do think he was right then—and that he is absolutely wrong now.
In the interests of balance, however, I should also quote what is perhaps my favourite of these interventions. It was made by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury—the Lib Dem Chief Secretary. He summed things up quite neatly when he said:
“People who think that the priority for this Government should be reducing the tax burden on the very wealthiest are living in cloud cuckoo land.”
So in the words of the Government’s own Chief Secretary to the Treasury, this is a decision from cloud cuckoo land. I think that many members of the public would agree with that.
No doubt Government Members will protest and say that the higher rate was not raising any money—
Cathy Jamieson
No, I want to move on. I have been very generous in taking interventions, and it is important that I now move on to make the many points I have not yet had the opportunity to put on the record.
As I have said, no doubt Government Members will protest and say that the higher rate was not raising any money due to tax avoidance, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said:
“By giving out £3 billion to well-off people who pay 50p tax…the Government is banking on a very, very uncertain amount of people changing their behaviour and paying more tax as a result of the fact that you’re taxing them—”
Cathy Jamieson
I want at least to get to the end of that quote—that would be quite nice. I would like other Members to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate; indeed, I am sure the hon. Gentleman is gearing himself up for that as we speak.
Just in case anyone missed that IFS quote, let me make clear what it said:
“By giving out £3 billion to well-off people who pay 50p tax…the Government is banking on a very, very uncertain amount of people changing their behaviour and paying more tax as a result of the fact that you’re taxing them…There is a lot of uncertainty, a lot of risk on this estimate.”
I know that Government Members will from time to time quote the IFS and will, from time to time, doubt its figures. Just in case they do not accept what the IFS has said, let us look at what the Office for Budget Responsibility has said about this issue. It said that any decrease in tax avoidance from the reduced rate would be “highly uncertain”. A written answer from the Exchequer Secretary in the summer of 2012 stated that in 2010-11 70% of people earning over £250,000 were paying more than 40% in tax and 80% of people earning between £500,000 and £10 million were paying the 50p rate. Each and every one of those people is now in line for the tax cut.
Cathy Jamieson
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, whom I feel sure will explain to me what the Government intend to do about tax avoidance and how they will stop this issue emerging?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
As it happens, I was going to say something different, which will not surprise the House particularly. I was going to say that history tells us that cutting taxes raises more money, and that is probably a better bet to working out what will happen than fishing around for convenient forecasts. In 1979 and 1988 tax rates were cut and revenue went up, and that is a pretty good basis for doing this again.
Cathy Jamieson
I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s contribution in our future debates about the possibility of a mansion tax and a reduction to a 10p rate. I always listen with interest to what he has to say, but on this occasion I have to say to him that the first year of the new rate is not a real basis for estimating the revenue raised, or likely to be raised, by the 50p rate.
The Government should be tackling tax avoidance. We all want to see that, and we will be debating it more when we discuss later clauses.
Cathy Jamieson
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, as I know he takes this issue very seriously.
Richard Fuller
I wish to take the hon. Lady back to the impact of the bankers bonus tax on getting young people back to work, because I do not think she had the numbers to hand. May I just indulge you with some statistics, in order to help the Opposition, Mr Speaker? Last year, the bankers’ bonus total was £5.2 billion. There are 61,000 young people who have been out of work for more than a year. Much of that £5.2 billion would have been paid to taxpayers who are not UK-resident—they will work for a UK bank but not be resident here—but let us assume that it is all paid to UK residents. An increase in the rate from 45% to 50%, as the Opposition are proposing, would yield £260 million a year—the equivalent of £4,500 per young person out of work. Is the basis of her argument that £4,500 is enough to employ a young person who has been out of work for more than a year?
Cathy Jamieson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his information; I gave way to him because I know he takes these issues seriously. As with a range of other issues, we would have to look—if the bankers bonus tax was brought in—at the circumstances at the time and how best to get young people into employment. Other hon. Members will have heard me speak about this issue before, but I can tell the House that we believe young people and those who have been out of work for two years ought to accept that there will be a compulsory jobs guarantee. From speaking to a number of small businesses and some of the larger ones, I know they believe that a range of things could be done to encourage them, as local companies and national companies, to take on young people and get them into employment.
Where the Government have done things that we think are helpful, for example, in relation to national insurance contributions, we have supported them. As has been said, we do not accept that the move away from the future jobs fund was the correct thing to do.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady not recognise the fatuousness of her argument that this money could somehow be ring-fenced for the less well-off, which has been exposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller)? The same applies to the next set of amendments on the mansion tax and the 10p tax rate—the figures are not well-researched. The proposition might be attractive to the public at large, but the comparison is fatuous and has been ably exposed by my hon. Friend.
Cathy Jamieson
I do not think that my constituents in Kilmarnock and Loudoun who are out of work and desperate to get jobs—including the 400 or so people across East Ayrshire and into neighbouring Lanarkshire who lost their jobs as a result of the collapse of Scottish Coal, the people who lost their jobs when Diageo moved out of the town of Kilmarnock and closed the historic bottling plant, which bottled Johnnie Walker whisky, and all the people who are out of work as a result of the squeeze on small local businesses—would believe that it is fatuous to suggest that a tax cut for millionaires is the wrong priority when cuts have also been made to working tax credit and when other things could be done to support people into work.
Barbara Keeley
I want to follow up on the points made by the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) about the future jobs fund and to hark back to an impact analysis of the fund done for the Department for Work and Pensions, which found that society gained £7,750 per participant through wages, increased tax receipts and reduced benefit payments. Participants were calculated to have gained £4,000 and employers to have gained £6,850, with the cost to the Exchequer calculated at £3,100 a job. The figures the hon. Gentleman cited would cover the cost. Even better, two years after the start of their time with the fund, those former jobseekers were much less likely to go back to being on benefits. Is that not something we should be re-exploring?
Cathy Jamieson
My hon. Friend has made her point extremely succinctly and has put on the record why we feel that the future jobs fund was not only important but a successful initiative. I say again to Government Members who think that the proposal has no impact on the lives of ordinary people that all those who went through the future jobs fund programmes and who worked on them say that the fund was a valuable way of getting young people back into work. People in my area would certainly have liked it to continue.
Let me come back to the points about the new clause. As I said, the Government should be tackling tax avoidance—we will debate that further later—but that does not mean that we should compensate the wealthiest at the expense of those on middle and low incomes. I would have hoped, in the light of everything the Government proclaimed around the time of the spending review about fairness and ensuring that growth came back into the economy, that even at this stage they might have dropped the plan for a millionaires tax cut. That is a forlorn hope, however.
The decision to create that tax cut goes to the heart of the coalition’s political vision and beliefs—and by that I mean both sides of the coalition. We face a period of national upheaval at a time when resources are stretched. The Government criticise the Opposition when we take responsible decisions to think about the way forward while failing to explain their positions. At a time when resources are stretched, when people up and down the country are working harder and harder than ever before for less in their pockets and when public services are being cut so drastically, it is even more crucial that our Government should be a uniting force rather than a dividing one. In that context, I must ask again why on earth this is the time for a tax cut for the richest.
The Government try to talk a good game, but as I said at the outset, reality does not match their rhetoric. They do not seem to understand the need for a one nation approach to politics and they are not able to encourage a sense of national mission, no matter how much they talk about being “all in it together”. This Government will go down in history as the most divisive.
Mr Graham Stuart
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who is being most generous in giving way. She said earlier that this matter is about action, not words, and has just said that it is about reality, not rhetoric. She is making an impassioned speech, but will she explain why she did not vote against the 50p tax rate and why, in addition, she is not committed to reversing the measure? Why, after the faux outrage over the spare room subsidy, is she not committed to reversing that either? People outside will think that this has a stench of hypocrisy about it.
Cathy Jamieson
The reality for my constituents and those of Labour Members is that they want to know why the Government made the change in the first place. They want to see action taken in the future, but there are two years until the general election—we will lay out how we intend to take things forward in good time for that—and I respectfully suggest to Government Members that we do not know exactly what sort of mess we will be left with. We see no responsibility taken by the Government for the situation that the economy is in at the moment and what has happened on their watch—
Cathy Jamieson
I hear yet again that tired mantra from Conservative Members, as if, somehow, Labour created the global financial crisis—
Sheila Gilmore
We have been asked that question over and over again. Had we been asked it two years ago, and had we based our answers on the projections that we were given by the Government, that answer would be very different from the one we would have to give now. That might well be the case in two years’ time.
Cathy Jamieson
My hon. Friend speaks words of wisdom. I have repeatedly said today, and it has been said by others, that while we have accepted that, come 2015 if we are in government, we will have to take as a starting point the overall spending plans that have been laid out, that does not mean that we would have made the same choices or that we would make the same choices in the future.
Andrew Gwynne
I would not expect my hon. Friend to set out our tax policies two years before a general election, but is it not important to emphasise that there is a question of priorities here? The issue is that the Government have chosen to clobber some of the lowest-paid workers in my constituency and in hers with a council tax increase caused by their changes to council tax benefit?
Cathy Jamieson
My hon. Friend speaks with great passion on behalf of his constituents and he is correct to identify the fact that we need, in difficult times, to talk the language of priorities. That is why on previous occasions—from the Dispatch Box and elsewhere—I have asked the Government why they believe that it is fair to give the tax cut to the richest and, on top of that, to give those very same people the winter fuel allowance even if they happen to be pensioner millionaires. To me, that does not seem to be fair and reasonable, and I am sure it does not to my hon. Friend either.
Even where a council tax freeze has been put in place, people are seeing local services that they rely on being cut to the bone. They are not able to access educational opportunities, leisure opportunities, support via social services, library services, the arts and culture. It is all very well having a freeze, but in a range of areas people feel that they are not necessarily getting the services in return.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but the situation is even worse than that for 2.4 million low-paid families, who are losing some, if not all, of their council tax benefit. That is an in-work benefit, paid not just to people who are out of work. Those families will, for the first time, be getting a tax increase, because they will have to pay council tax.
Cathy Jamieson
Once again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. He is a powerful advocate for his constituents and those on the lowest incomes. He is correct to identify the fact that, despite the rhetoric, the Government have, across the piece, consistently attacked the living standards of those in work and on low incomes. I need only refer again to tax credits, particularly for those working part-time hours. The Government seem to think it fairly straightforward for them simply to get additional hours of work, but we know that in many industries, it is not that easy; it is not possible to get the requisite number of hours. Many people who were, to use the Government’s mantra, doing the right thing—taking up employment, for however few hours and however low the wages, rather than doing nothing or sitting at home on benefits—found their working tax credits cuts. As my hon. Friend correctly says, that was compounded by changes to housing benefit, which mean that many of them are even worse off.
Let us look at the impact. I said that this Government will go down in history as a Government who divided; of the richest who are receiving a tax cut, 85% are estimated to be men, and about 70% of the revenue raised from direct tax and benefit changes will come from women. Some 52% of those benefiting are based in London and the south-east. I do not for a moment mean to suggest that there are not people there on extremely low incomes; of course there are, and many of my hon. Friends will no doubt wish to make that point. However, long-term unemployment, including in the north and Scotland, is on the rise.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is being incredibly generous in giving way. She is right to emphasise the impact on low-income families, but the tax changes are also hitting moderate and middle-income families. She will be aware that the measures involve lowering the higher rate tax threshold to £41,450. Why is it that those on the lowest incomes and middle incomes are being clobbered, whereas those on the highest incomes are getting a tax cut?
Cathy Jamieson
Once again, my hon. Friend makes an important point, particularly in relation to many middle-income earners. The issue of the lowering of the threshold at which the higher rate of tax is paid has perhaps not had as much air time as some other topics, or other cuts that the Government are making, but the reality is that it affects many who would not see themselves as particularly well off, who have worked hard over the years and been promoted in a company or in the public sector, and who are trying to do the right thing for their family, and are feeling the squeeze.
To go back to the point about who will suffer most as a result of the Government’s policies, I emphasise that I know that in many places in London and the south-east, employment is not at the level that it is elsewhere, and incomes are being squeezed, but it is interesting to note the geographic spread.
Perhaps we should not be surprised to see the Tories operating in this way. I recall, on first entering this place, attending a debate on cutting and abolishing child trust funds. I was surprised that the Government thought that was the correct thing to do at that stage. They were once again attacking those who were trying to do the right thing and support their children and families. Under their approach, it is women and families— the very people they say they want to protect—who consistently suffer. The rhetoric and the reality are two very different things. We should perhaps not have been surprised by the Government’s proposals. It is an age-old Tory mantra that the poor—those on the lowest incomes—are expected to work harder; otherwise, they will be made poorer. At the same time, the rich will work harder only if we make them richer. In this instance, there seems to be one rule for the very richest and another for everyone else. This is arguably the same old out-of-touch Tories—this time, sadly, aided and abetted by the Liberal Democrats.
I always like to try to end on a positive note, however, and I come back to the point that the new clause is a relatively mild-mannered proposal. It seeks nothing more than that the Government should use their good offices to gather the necessary information to make an assessment of the impact of the changes and to produce a report. That does not seem an unreasonable request. Indeed, when the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury was in opposition, he regularly requested such reports and no doubt regularly tabled amendments and new clauses to that effect. He is nodding his head. I hope that he will remember those days, and remember why it is so important to have such reports and assessments. I hope that he will show that he is not only a listening Minister but a Minister who is prepared to act, and that he will accept new clause 8.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) has waxed lyrical at some considerable length about the iniquity of the Government’s seeking to reduce the higher rate of tax, but the question that kept occurring to me was this: if she and her colleagues felt so strongly about this, why were the Labour Government quite happy to keep a maximum higher rate of tax of 40% for their entire 13 years in office?
Cathy Jamieson
I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with interest. I wonder what he would say in response to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which has pointed out that the rise in receipts may be due to wealthier people trying to avoid the 50p tax rate. It says:
“Receipts in April will have been boosted by high income individuals shifting income such as bonuses and special dividends from 2012-13 to 2013-14 in anticipation of the fall in the top rate of income tax from 50 per cent to 45 per cent.”
Is he suggesting that the right way to deal with people avoiding paying their tax is to reward them with a tax cut?
Sir Edward Leigh
It is not a question of rewarding them. The truth is that the more complicated the tax system, the more it is the case that the only people who suffer are middle-income groups, often people in employment on pay-as-you-earn. The rich—the millionaires; let us talk about the group that the hon. Lady is always going on about—will always, through their expert accountants’ advice, seek to avoid paying tax, quite rightly, as it is perfectly legal and proper, and largely they will be successful. The people she is talking about—the millionaires—are precisely the sort of people who have income streams that are very mobile around the world. They are often foreign nationals. Does she honestly think that if we go on piling more and more tax on to these people they will just sit around doing nothing? Of course not; they will seek to avoid paying tax. It is a question not of rewarding avoidance but of accepting the facts of life. She might think it unfortunate—I do not—but we need these risk-takers, entrepreneurs and wealth creators in this country. Unfortunately we are in a highly competitive situation with other countries, particularly Ireland and other low-tax countries. Unless we attract these people here we will not create jobs and investment in the private sector.
We can go back to our comfort zone; we can lie in the warm bath of our own prejudices and dislike millionaires. We would probably all like to be millionaires. None of us are millionaires, unfortunately; we chose to go into public service and we are not going to become millionaires. We can have a pitch at millionaires and think that in doing so we are making ourselves popular with the rest of the population, but unfortunately they will not sit tight; they will simply leave and take that entrepreneurship and job creation away. That is what Tony Blair recognised and that is what we should recognise.
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend takes a sceptical view of the Opposition, and events may well turn out to justify it. I want to take a more charitable view, however—although perhaps it is, in fact, a different form of scepticism or cynicism. My view is that they are not really serious about the 50p rate at all; much though they talk about it, they will not, in truth, pursue this policy because they know it is so damaging and that it does not do anything to raise revenue. That is why, despite repeated questions earlier, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, who does like to be straightforward with the House, refused to say whether Labour would support a 50p rate after the next general election. She makes the argument that Labour will have to delay and wait to see what the state of the economy is, but given that we know this does not raise any substantial amount of revenue, it cannot be dependent on the state of the public finances; instead, it is a matter of political calculation. I hope my hon. Friend is wrong and that the Opposition are trying to edge away from a position that they saw as populist but which, in truth, is economically incoherent.
Cathy Jamieson
I am intrigued by the amount of advice being given to the Labour party by those on the Government Benches. Given that the Minister said he wanted to be in charitable mode, to return to the new clause, will he not concede that there is an argument for looking at the matter more thoroughly and having this review in order, as the Treasury Committee concluded in its report on the 2012 Budget, to discover what the actual impact of reducing the rate would be?
Mr Gauke
I am not persuaded by that argument. I hoped the hon. Lady would take that opportunity to provide some clarity on the Labour party’s position, but she did not do so. We do not need another review. We have evaluated the impact of the 50p rate. It was an economic failure. It failed to raise revenue. It in effect put up a “closed for business” sign over the UK economy. It was about politics, not economics.
I urge the Opposition to withdraw the new clause, and I hope they will also return to their approach of a few years ago. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough pointed out, when Tony Blair was in charge he was making pledges not to increase the top rate of income tax. That at least demonstrated a sense of where the UK needed to be and its place in the world, but that has, I am afraid, been long forgotten by the Labour party which just drifts ever leftwards.
Cathy Jamieson
Following the Minister’s example, I will be brief. We have had a useful debate containing some impassioned speeches, not least those from my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) and from the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who, interestingly, sought to give advice to the Labour party. My hon. Friend gave an interesting critique of Laffer curve economics but related it, importantly, to what happens in the real world. He spoke with a great deal of passion and experience from his time working in the financial services sector. He was absolutely right to say that not everyone working in the banks was wrong, and many people working on the front line are trying to change things and to clear up the problems. These people did not adopt the principles that got the banks into such difficulty.
Earlier, I read out a couple of quotes from various hon. Members about cutting the top rate, but, to keep a balance across the coalition, let me cite one that I missed from the president of the Lib Dems. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) has said:
“Cutting the top rate was a stupid thing to do. It probably raised up to £3bn a year. We should pledge to restore the 50p rate at the next election. It’s not enough to be fair, you have to be seen to be fair.”
That has been one of the threads running through this afternoon’s debate. [Interruption.]
Again, I hear Government Members muttering from a sedentary position about what the Labour party is going to do. I outlined this earlier, but I will state it again: we will, of course, set out our manifesto in due course, in time for the general election—that is absolutely the correct thing to do—but we will not make false promises. We will not make promises that we will not be able to keep. Let me remind the House of that quote from the Prime Minister:
“I have been very clear—we have all been very clear—that we have to do this in a way that is fair so that the broadest backs bear the biggest burden.
That is why we haven’t changed… the 50p tax rate.”
As I outlined, that particular pledge was not kept and those with the broadest backs do not appear to be carrying the biggest burden.
The Minister said that he wanted to be charitable and to understand why we tabled the new clause, and I know from Finance Bill Committees that he does at least reflect on things. He rarely gives in to temptation to resist the advice he is given to reject all amendments and new clauses, but he does at least give the appearance of reflecting. In this case, I cannot understand why he will not accept a mild-mannered proposal that simply seeks to have a review of the impact of this measure and to bring forward further information for the interest of hon. Members across the House. That is a reasonable and sensible thing to do, and I know that the Minister, certainly in opposition, has regularly argued for this type of review. We have heard nothing from him today to explain why, suddenly—[Interruption.] Given the side conversation that is going on, I am sure that the Minister never got any of those reviews into the legislation at that time, but I say to him that there is a first time for everything. He could, even at this late stage, decide it was the correct thing to do to allow the review to go ahead and ensure that the House had further information.
I do not want to repeat all the points made earlier, as that would not be helpful at this stage. However, I simply remind the House that it is not only Opposition Members who are claiming or suggesting that there are concerns about this measure. To go back to the IFS, it stated:
“By giving out £3 billion to well-off people who pay 50p tax…the Government is banking on a very, very uncertain amount of people changing their behaviour”.
Much of the Government’s argument has been predicated on the notion that people will change their behaviour, but I have heard nothing from the Government that suggests to me that behaviour would be changed in such a way that there would suddenly be a huge influx of resource into the Treasury. The IFS went on to say:
“There is a lot of uncertainty, a lot of risk on this estimate.”
Cathy Jamieson
I am coming to a conclusion.
Let me finish by quoting the Office for Budget Responsibility, which stated:
“This is a judgement based on not even a full year’s data based in terms of how people have responded to the 50p rate, in particular in terms of those self assessment tax-payers.”
I have heard nothing from the Government that convinces me that we do not need to look at this issue in more detail. I am disappointed that they have not accepted the new clause and I therefore want to press it to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.