Multiannual Financial Framework
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Greg Clark
Let me make a bit of progress and then I shall, of course, give way to hon. Members on both sides of the House.
Our opposition to the demands of the Commission is more than a matter of headline figures alone. When we dig down into the detail, there is always something repellent to find. For example, let us consider the EU administration costs. Members may not be aware that the pay of employees within the EU bureaucracy increases automatically each year. There is, however, a sensible provision to set this aside at times of economic crisis yet, unbelievably, the EU Commission is taking the EU Council to court to insist that the EU is not experiencing a time of economic crisis and that pay should rise. This is the same Commission that has attended four ordinary and three emergency European Councils during the past 12 months to agree unprecedented measures to bail out member states which have been unable to fund themselves without help. So while some member states face a crisis of solvency, the institutions of the EU face a crisis of credibility.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his post. I have known him for a long time and he has always been a very good pro-European. One of the elements that determines how much Britain pays towards the EU is VAT. If we increase VAT in this country, it means that we pay more money to the EU. Can he tell us precisely how much more we are paying by virtue of the increase of VAT to 20%?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman may have known me for a long time but he has a faulty memory. It was his Government—he served, I think, as Europe Minister in that Government—who gave away half of our rebate, which caused the increase that we have seen.
Though they are ready to lecture others on fiscal discipline, it is fiscal incontinence that characterises the approach of the European institutions. Administrative costs need to be hammered down to bring them into line with the modern world, yet the response of the Commission’s spokesman has been little short of insolent. The British Government asked the Commission to model cuts of €5 billion, €10 billion and €15 billion to its staffing budget, and the Commission refused. Its spokesman said:
“We declined as it’s a lot of work and a waste of time for our staff who are busy with more urgent matters…we are better educated than national civil servants. We’re high fliers, not burger flippers”.
As the Prime Minister has pointed out, one in every six of the Commission’s employees earns over €100,000 a year. The ordinary working people of this country have run out of patience with the attitude displayed by the Commission. The British public are ready to make sacrifices to put Britain back on its feet, but not to featherbed a self-styled elite and its agenda. We are not rolling back wasteful public spending in this country only to see it re-imposed from Brussels.
Chris Bryant
Is not the truth of the matter that literally the only way in which we can ensure that we end up with a less than inflationary increase is by not announcing that we will use the veto and by ensuring that we negotiate all the way through to the end? It is a child who announces on the first day of negotiations that they are going to use the veto, because then the Commission gets its way.
Chris Leslie
My hon. Friend is entirely right, and that is why the Government do not get it. They need a negotiating strategy to get the best deal for the taxpayer. [Interruption.] The Minister laughs, and the Chancellor is next to him puppeting him along in his hilarity, but I say to the Chancellor that this is an incredibly serious issue. It is about taxpayers’ money, and incredibly large sums of it at that. [Interruption.]
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
This debate comes at a very particular time in the economic situation in Europe. The debate on this multiannual round did not start a week or a year ago; it started three or four years ago, and it is vital that we give a clear message to the European Union, the Commission and the other member states that, however ludicrously pro-European we might be—as is the case with me—we do not believe that the European Union and the Commission should spend more money at a time when every member state is having to make cuts.
Chris Bryant
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not. A lot of people want to take part in the debate. Perhaps he will catch Mr Speaker’s eye later.
Mr Barroso, in his introduction to the original version of the Commission’s suggestions, said:
“The European budget is the instrument for investment in Europe and growth in Europe.”
That is arrogance of the highest degree. It might be one instrument—a tiny part of the equation that is trying to refocus Europe towards a more competitive economy that is able to fight for jobs and added value against countries such as Russia, China and Mexico—but the biggest instruments must surely be the member states, or even the nations and regions within them. For instance, the factor that will make a difference to the resolution of Spain’s problems will almost certainly be the economic future of Catalunya and whether it invests in IT and future industries. It will not be the EU budget.
I am also convinced that, whatever happens to the EU budget, it will not make a dramatic difference to solving the problems in Greece or in Spain. The issues in those two countries are completely different. In Spain, for instance, the sub-prime mortgage market and the way in which houses were constructed along the coast, often for the British ex-pat market, is the single biggest problem that is dragging down the Spanish economy. So I say to Mr Barroso that, although I am ardently pro-European and I believe that the European Union has been one of the great political success stories of the past 100 years, I do not believe that the EU budget is the way to resolve the problems of those countries.
Government Members have been talking today about the small-ticket items in the EU’s expenditure. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury held rather different views from those he holds today when he was a member of the Social Democratic party. When I was a member of the Conservative party, I held exactly the same views on Europe as those I hold today. The sadness is that the Conservative party has abandoned its past.
Greg Clark
May I again correct the faulty recollection of the hon. Gentleman? The reason that I was a member of the David Owen branch of the SDP, rather than the one that went off in a different direction, was precisely because of its position on Europe, and I held the same views then as I do now.
Chris Bryant
As you know, Mr Speaker, I love apologising to Government Members, and I apologise to the Minister. The point I am making is a serious one, however. He referred to some of the small-ticket items in the EU budget, but the big-ticket item is the common agricultural policy. If we do not address that issue in this next round, we will manifestly have failed to deal with the gaping moral and ethical hole at the centre of the European Union.
Chris Bryant
I do not want to give way to lots of people, as that would steal away time from others, but I can never resist the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin).
Harriett Baldwin
On the subject of big-ticket items, will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, when he was Minister for Europe, the previous Government signed up to the euro bail-out mechanism? It was the present Government who had to negotiate us out of that mechanism.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady praises me far too much. I was Minister for Europe for about 2.5 seconds. In those 2.5 seconds, however, the one thing that I argued aggressively with my socialist friends and with my European People’s party friends—with whom her party used to be friends—was that the next multiannual round had to be lower than before and should not have an inflationary increase. I am afraid that the hon. Lady is pitching at the wrong person in this particular round.
I believe that there is a role for the EU budget and it should relate to growth, research and development. There are some things where we can do more together as a continent and add value. Unfortunately, however, those are not the issues that grab the attention of the French, the Germans, the Italians and the Spaniards. That is why we have to, and have always had to, build alliances with other countries, particularly the smaller countries.
Chris Bryant
I saw the hon. Lady attempting to intervene earlier. I will give way to her, but then no more.
Andrea Leadsom
I am grateful. Does the hon. Gentleman agree, then, that in order to be able to negotiate successfully on the big-ticket items as he says, we need a sound basis on which to go forward? Supporting an amendment that would simply trash all negotiations with other EU members, such as calling for a cut that is nigh on impossible, would not be the way to progress any decent negotiation on structural reform in the future.
Chris Bryant
To be honest, I do not agree with the hon. Lady. If I take her back to the last debate I had with her on this issue, I do not think that that is the position she was advocating then. In her heart of hearts, she would prefer Parliament to give a strong single voice today, so that the Government have a negotiating position whereby they can go to Brussels, Strasbourg or wherever and say, “Look, we have the whole of Parliament behind us saying, ‘We’ve got to cut’.” That is why I hope she will vote for the amendment today.
I know that some hon. Members do not like structural funds at all—perhaps this was the issue that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), who has already left the Chamber, wanted to raise—but I believe structural funds have a role to play in trying to make the whole European Union far more competitive in the world economy. That is certainly true for places like the valleys in south Wales. Sometimes the money is not particularly well spent, but if we did not have structural funds and cohesion funds, the danger is that each individual country would end up abusing state aid to protect specific businesses in their own country, thereby undermining countries like our own that choose not to go down that route.
I ask Government Members this: how could we possibly go back to our constituents and say to teachers, fire officers, police officers and all the rest, “We want to give more money to the European Union, but you’ve got to live with a pay freeze, and you’ve got to live with less money, with 19% cuts year on year to local authority funding for the building of hospitals, homes and so forth.”? I just do not see how I could possibly argue that.
Chris Bryant
I am not giving way, as I know that many other Members want to speak.
I resent the Minister’s answer to my earlier question, as I think he simply misunderstood it. When the Government increased VAT in this country to 20%, it increased the amount of money we would have to pay to—[Interruption.] The Minister has probably been inspired by officials at this point, so he may know the answer.
Greg Clark
I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman, as a former Minister for Europe, did not know the answer—that the tax base is notional, so the levies of VAT make no difference whatever. It is irrelevant.
Chris Bryant
I will explain it all to the Minister later; he is wrong.
There are some specific savings that the EU could and should make. One relates to the ludicrous caravanserai between Brussels and Strasbourg. I merely point out to Conservative Members that it was John Major who negotiated that final agreement in the treaty of Amsterdam; I wish we were able to dismantle it. It costs us £180 million a year, and it is a complete and utter waste of time and money. Similarly, we have to tackle the common agricultural policy.
My final point for Conservative Members is this. If they choose to start their negotiating position first by saying that the veto is going to be used, and secondly by saying that there is a long shopping list of things that they want the EU to deliver—the new Margaret Thatcher, the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), has often referred to a shopping list—the danger is that when they get to the till, they will have to say how they are going to pay. If they have already said that they want to get out of justice and home affairs policy and all sorts of other European Union policies, they will not have a negotiating leg to stand on. If they have already declared that they are going to use the veto, they will end up with a worse, rather than a better position for the United Kingdom and will be paying more money. That is why I, as a good pro-European, will be supporting the amendment.
Mr Bone
There are no two people in the House who disagree more on the European Union than the hon. Gentleman and I. Today, however, we are voting for what the British people want. When I talk to people in Rushden or Wellingborough, they cannot understand why their council services are being cut at the same time as we plan to spend billions more on the European Union.
Cutting away the rest of the rhetoric, hon. Members must decide whether they will vote for a Conservative amendment calling for a real reduction in the budget, or a coalition motion that effectively calls for an increase, because it allows for inflation. I am sure that, secretly, the Prime Minister would like the whole House to vote for the Conservative amendment, because it would strengthen his hand in the negotiations enormously if he could say, “There is a united House of Commons demanding a reduction in the budget.”
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Bryant, you are trying to become a statesman. Calm yourself, man.
Mr Speaker
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman does not think he has to try. Anyway, the Minister must be heard.
Professional Standards in the Banking Industry
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Is not the whole point about having a judge-led inquiry that judges are perfectly used to circumventing—making sure they go round the corners, so that they do not prejudice any criminal investigation? For that matter, all the serious evidence that has appeared in the public domain from phone hacking has come from the civil courts, through the Norwich pharmacal process, or from the judge requiring a statement of truth from all those providing evidence.
Ed Balls
My hon. Friend is right, and I fear that the Attorney-General has just completely destroyed the basis of his own Government’s parliamentary inquiry. We know from experience that when the subject of a public inquiry overlaps with the prospect of criminal charges and trials, only a judge has the legal skills and credibility to conduct that inquiry without crossing the line of what is acceptable. That is what Lord Leveson showed and that is what parliamentary inquiries have been unable to do on phone hacking.
Chris Bryant
The Attorney-General is not right on that issue. It is far more dangerous to have a parliamentary inquiry, because article 9 of the Bill of Rights says that no court can impeach a proceeding in Parliament. Some witnesses who might want to evade justice might, therefore, choose to come to a parliamentary Committee to say things, so that they do not then get sued in court.
Ed Balls
I understand the points made by Members on both sides of the House.
Before I summarise, let me say to the Attorney-General that I have tried to listen very carefully to his contributions. There have been many of them, all have been helpful and constructive and they have helped us to understand the challenges that we face rather better than we had done on the basis of the Chancellor’s contributions in recent days.
Let me say also that, if at any point I misrepresent the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I will always in an honourable way correct the record in this House—not, as we now know, a standard of behaviour that we can expect from the Chancellor in this House.
To summarise, the argument goes as follows. Point one is that the Attorney-General does not believe that it is possible to have a proper, thorough investigation into all the details of the LIBOR market by the end of the year. I understand that; I hear his argument. Our argument is that a judge-led inquiry gives us a better chance of having an investigation into something legally sensitive than a parliamentary inquiry. If one is true and two is true, that means that the Government’s proposal for a parliamentary inquiry by the end of this year is defunct—dead, torpedoed, gone.
That is why, rather than intervening again, the Attorney-General should speak to the Chancellor, call the Prime Minister—wherever he is—and say that they should withdraw these motions, get to the drawing board and come back with a plan that is baked rather than half baked. [Hon. Members: “Plan B!”] Plan B.
Mr Tyrie
I shall not address the second part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, but the first part was absolutely right. I think it essential for us to have cross-party support for any inquiry of whatever type.
Let me now refer to a tiny bit of history. A hundred years ago, partisanship made a mockery of an attempt by a Select Committee to investigate the Marconi scandal. The Conservative Opposition killed any value that that inquiry might have supplied, and as a result Select Committees were written out of the piece for inquiries for nearly 100 years. I think it vital for Parliament that another clash of the Titans—which seems to be going on now—does not leave us in a position in which we, as Parliament, cannot subject this issue to an inquiry of any type.
Chris Bryant
May I raise the issue of the powers that a Select Committee has? One of the things that we have learnt from the Leveson inquiry and the whole phone hacking experience is that the powers of the House of Commons are very, very uncertain. We do not know whether, once we have taken evidence on oath, a perjury case can be brought against anyone who has lied to Parliament, or misled Parliament. We do not know whether we can force someone to come here. However, we do know that courts can do it, which is why we—why I—support a judge-led inquiry.
LIBOR (FSA Investigation)
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
Under the current regime, it is up to the FSA to consider whether there is loss, and it is up to individuals who feel that there has been loss to bring their case forward. As I say, the Government have not been able to come up with a round figure for the total impact on the financial services industry and the economy of what went on, and nor has the FSA. If individuals feel that they have been affected, there are channels available to them.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Is not the truth of the matter that all the political parties were so nervous about financial services business going abroad, because it is so international a business, that we were effectively in thrall to them? Would it not make perfect sense for Mr Diamond, when he appears before the Select Committee, to give evidence on oath?
Mr Osborne
It is entirely up to the Treasury Committee to decide how it wishes to conduct its business.
This Government are introducing far-reaching changes to our regulatory system and the structure of our banking system. It is far from clear that that receives the support of the shadow Chancellor. He has gone out of his way to point out what he thinks are the flaws in the Financial Services Bill, and he has gone out of his way at the Dispatch Box to defend the tripartite system that he designed. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) talks about all-party consensus; let us have all-party consensus on clearing up the mess that the previous Government presided over.
Jobs and Growth
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
I agree with Tony Blair on that and, indeed, on his views on the shadow Chancellor.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
One of the difficulties is that some of the cuts that the Government have made are counter-productive in terms of trying to deliver economic growth. The Chancellor referred to this country’s relationship with India. I think that everybody in this House agrees that we need to do more business with Brazil, India, Russia and China. However, if their businessmen find it impossible to get a visa to get into this country or they encounter massive queues when they arrive at Heathrow because of the enormous cuts to the UK Border Force, they are not going to want to do business with this country. Stop cutting off our nose to spite our face.
Mr Osborne
There have been queues at Heathrow for far too many years, and of course those queues need to be addressed—[Interruption.] There have been queues for years. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need a visa regime that offers support to enterprising individuals—entrepreneurs, people who can bring real skills and value to this country—to come here, and that is precisely what the visa changes we have made will allow. But I have to say that we can have a visa regime that allows in the brightest and the best only if we can command public confidence that we are in control of our borders and that we have a cap on immigration numbers. Remarkably, not only has the Labour party set itself against a cap on benefits, which it will come to regret, but it has opposed the cap on immigration, and that is a huge mistake.
Let me discuss the progress we are making. As the Governor of the Bank of England reminded us, we inherited the largest budget deficit in peacetime but two years into this Government, we have cut the deficit by more than a quarter. In 2010, the state consumed 48% of national income in this country. Today, it consumes 43%. We took office when Britain’s market interest rates were the same as Spain’s. Two years later, our market rates are the lowest in our history and Spain’s are more than 6%. That is the practical benefit our fiscal credibility has brought.
When we came to office, manufacturing had been withering for years, but after two years this country is exporting more cars than it imports for the first time since 1976—the last time a Labour Government bankrupted this country and went begging to the IMF. Today—as Government Members have mentioned, but, strikingly, Opposition Members have not—we hear that when faced with the choice of which plant to invest in General Motors has chosen Ellesmere Port, in the county that I represent, Cheshire, as the site of their future. That is a successful industrial strategy at work, with Ministers, management, employees and employers working together to secure investment.
The chairman of Vauxhall has just said that the Government have put a strategy in place to attract inward investment and support manufacturing, which all helps to make the UK a great place to build cars.
Business and the Economy
Chris Bryant Excerpts(11 years, 12 months ago)
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Vince Cable
That is a reserve power. When the Bill comes before the House, we will discuss precisely how the mechanism operates. We are committed to back-up powers. Voluntary mechanisms are desirable, and ideally we should not need such powers, but we will take them if necessary.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State think that the powers will be sufficient to deal with a situation in south Wales in which Tesco has tried to prevent a smaller operator from opening a local ice cream parlour because it, too, sells ice cream? This is not only about dealing with suppliers, but about the whole product chain and ensuring that there is a level playing field for smaller operators.
Vince Cable
That is the type of case that needs to be investigated; clearly, I do not know the facts behind that particular case. I do not want to take this as an opportunity to have go at Tesco; of course, its highly competitive retailing has been of great benefit to millions of customers, and we should not lose sight of that.
This intervention is designed to promote healthy competition, but it also speaks to a wider agenda that has emerged from this crisis, which is for business to be not only confident to expand and invest, but responsible too. That is the motivating factor behind one key element in the enterprise and regulatory reform Bill: our proposals to address directors’ remuneration, where the link between performance and reward has been weakened in recent years. We have a responsibility to make sure that shareholders of UK-quoted companies have sufficient information and power to challenge boards. Under the current regime, companies can all too easily ignore shareholders, and that is why we intend to give shareholders binding votes on directors’ pay.
We published detailed proposals in January and our consultation has just come to a close. We are now considering the responses and working carefully with stakeholders on the details. When we have finalised and published them, legislative measures will be introduced by Government amendment at the Committee stage of the Bill. Shareholders have shown admirable spirit in challenging boards. The so-called shareholder spring is a positive development. They are right to challenge boards; after all, it is their money. Our measures will give them the tools to maintain this challenge and, I hope, to reverse a trend that Labour was far too relaxed about.
Nowhere was Labour more relaxed, and with such disastrous consequences, as in relation to the excesses of the banking sector. We have been persuaded that it will be possible for the banking sector to perform its proper role in channelling savings towards productive business only if there is structural reform separating the so-called casinos from real, traditional banking. The banking reform Bill will boost the resilience of the UK banking sector, making it easier and less costly to wind down banks that get into trouble and curtailing the implicit Government guarantees from which the banking sector benefits. As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), we intend to achieve this by mandating the ring-fencing of essential banking services from riskier wholesale and investment activities, as recommended by the Independent Commission on Banking chaired by Sir John Vickers.
The Government have given a clear commitment to legislate by the end of this Parliament, and banks will be expected to implement a ring fence as soon as practically possible thereafter. Implementation of the banking reforms will proceed in stages, with the final, non-structural changes fully completed by the beginning of 2019. This is another historic reform, and one where we lead the world.
IMF
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Mr Osborne
To be fair, probably most Labour MPs, in their quieter moments, support the IMF and think it is perfectly sensible that, when other countries add their resources, Britain should do so. The most remarkable thing is that the shadow Chancellor led the Labour party into voting against the implementation of the London G20 deal. Because of the change of Government, we introduced the statutory instrument that gave effect to the London G20 deal, yet the shadow Chancellor led the Opposition against it.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Notwithstanding the mandate the Chancellor already has, would not our voters expect a separate vote on this loan in this House, so that all Members can take a view? The Leader of the House, who is sitting next to the Chancellor, is shaking his head; he knows perfectly well that he is going to prorogue Parliament a full week early. Members have plenty of time to stay here and vote on the matter. Is it not more important that we vote?
Mr Osborne
There have been two votes in this Parliament, in the past 18 months, on precisely the question of how much headroom the House of Commons gives the Chancellor of the day to make loans to the IMF. There have already been two votes.
Finance (No. 4) Bill
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Owen Smith
I am not going to indulge in this procedural nonsense much longer, because frankly the country is interested in the substance of the debate. However, if the Exchequer Secretary wants to intervene on me one more time, he can take the opportunity that the Prime Minister eschewed earlier today and correct the misleading comments that he made about the 50p rate, which he said raised no money. We know that it did raise money. We know that page 52 of the Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs report makes clear how much money it raised and how much it would have raised in future. If the Exchequer Secretary wants to intervene on that point he can, but as for our amendment, drafted on the Clerk’s advice, we are confident in it, we are happy about it and we will debate the substance rather than the nonsense.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour from Pontypridd for giving way. He will know that my constituents, like his, find it inconceivable that the Government should be trying to reduce the tax rate from 50p to 45p at this time. Will he confirm that literally the only people in this House who can even table an amendment to put it back to 50p are Ministers of the Crown? That is what they should be doing today, rather than hiding behind the procedure of this House.
Owen Smith
I am grateful to my hon. Friend because he reiterates the point that I have made. The Government are the only body in this House who can choose to raise taxation.
Owen Smith
The 50p rate was introduced, as I said earlier, when we were in the depths of the biggest global recession—[Interruption.] I add the word global, unless Government Members are still suggesting that the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the US was the fault of the Labour Government. Among the many risible claims of the present Government, that is right up there with “expansionary fiscal contraction”. While we are still asking the poor to pay the price for that global recession and piling misery upon misery on them, with VAT changes, increased job insecurity and wage stagnation, cutting the 50p rate is fundamentally the wrong thing to do.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend the shadow Minister has referred to several things that are uncertain, but has it not already become clear that two things are absolutely certain? The first is that the Prime Minister gave us a pork pie earlier when he was talking about how much the 50p rate would raise. Secondly, the only reason there have been so many cock-ups in the Budget and the Finance Bill is that the Government have had to try to justify to the public their cut to the 50p rate. The whole mistake of the Budget hangs on that one initial mistake in cutting the 50p rate.
Owen Smith
I grateful for that intervention. I am not sure whether the pork pie was served at ambient temperature, but it was certainly a pork pie.
Elizabeth Truss
Yes, and perhaps some Opposition Front-Bench Members should move to France, where they might find that such policies are more conducive to their way of thinking.
At this time of increased international competition and great movements of people and capital around the world, and with new economies rising such as in India and China, according to the World Economic Forum Britain is 94th in the world in respect of the effect and extent of our taxation. One factor in that is the top rate of tax under the previous Government, and another is the extremely long tax code, which is a result of their meddling with our tax system over many years.
The UK is 11% less productive than the G7 average, and our skills base is lower than that of the US, France and Germany. If we are to become competitive again and improve our productivity and skills, we need incentives for people in this country to work and to invest in their skills, and we need to rebalance the tax system away from income tax and taxes on work such as national insurance, which the previous Government increased. We also need to reform our education and welfare systems and take the 2 million lowest earners out of tax, in order to give everybody more incentive to work. We must also merge our income tax and national insurance system to make things simpler for employers. We need to get rid of the previous Government’s flagship 50p tax rate as well, as it has done so much damage to people in this country who are seeking to work, to invest and to be part of building our future economy.
The Government have made it clear that we want shareholders to have proper control over executive pay in their companies, and that must happen. People must be rewarded in line with the skills they use, the risks they take and the income they generate. We need incentives for people to set up businesses, and to create and produce more. We also need to look outside Britain and see what the rest of the world is doing. We need to move away from the myopic approach that it does not matter what is going on elsewhere. If our country takes that approach, we will not succeed.
Chris Bryant
I had not intended to speak in this debate, but the previous—[Interruption.] I am grateful for all the waves from Government Members. The contribution of the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) has prompted me to speak, however.
First, I want to talk about what my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) referred to as the constitutional shenanigans. For many centuries, it has been a convention in this House that only a Minister of the Crown can lay a charge or an amendment to a Finance Bill that increases or changes a charge and thereby adds a duty to the people of this country, but that is a mistake. The myth that we have a Budget needs to be exploded, too. We do not have a Budget. What we have is a speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, followed by a Finance Bill and some Ways and Means resolutions. In addition, we have a separate process whereby Supply is granted. That system does not result in our properly evaluating whether we are raising money properly and fairly and whether we are spending it properly. I know many of these processes have existed for a very long time, but they lead to profound confusion in most ordinary voters’ minds about how we in this House conduct our business.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman therefore join Members on my side of the House in applauding the Government for establishing the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is conducting independent forecasting and analysis of the Budget, and for putting far more information than before in the Red Book about the distributional impact of tax changes on the people of this country?
Chris Bryant
Broadly speaking, yes, I do, just as I supported making the Bank of England independent at a time when the Conservative party was opposed to doing so. However, my point remains that this House does not really vote properly through the expenditure of the Government; we do not, in any sense, analyse it line by line. We also do not match expenditure with the raising of taxes, unlike nearly every other legislature in the world. Most countries that have based their system on ours have now amended their processes and have better processes than we do for budgetary matters.
Mark Field
I entirely associate myself with the comments made, because the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I hope that most Government Members would also agree with what is being said. He might also point out that it is probably difficult, given that we have a deficit of £126 billion, to match that expenditure with tax, and going down that route might well lead to the significant reduction in the deficit that many Government Members very much support.
Chris Bryant
I do not entirely disagree with the hon. Gentleman. However, if the Government want to take the country with them as they are taking through enormous cuts, it is important that they have a process in Parliament that people can understand. We simply do not have that, which is one reason why people are so angry about some of the cuts that are happening.
Mark Reckless
I commend the hon. Gentleman on what he says and associate myself fully with his remarks. May I ask whether the Opposition Front-Bench team would support amendments to Standing Orders to put our tax and spend process on the proper basis that he describes?
Chris Bryant
That is way above my pay grade. I am just speaking for myself in this regard, and I hope that hon. Members will take my comments in that sense, but I have made this argument for a very long time and tried to do the same when I was Deputy Leader of the House.
I just say to the hon. Member for South West Norfolk that my constituents do not particularly want very high rates of tax, either for themselves or for wealthy people. There is no sense of bitterness and a determination to grind the wealthy down among my constituents, many of whom have very noble aspirations to be wealthy themselves. They hope one day to be paying higher rates of tax, so the point for them today is not about whether a 50p rate of tax is ever the right thing; it is about whether that is the right thing now. I say to her that my constituents feel that the past few years have been very tough, not just the Conservative years, but the last two years of the Labour Government, because of the global financial crisis. People such as my constituents have suffered the most in that time and they do not see people in the City of London suffering—the sales of champagne have still been pretty good—but they do feel themselves suffering. In that situation, it is all the more incumbent on us to think very hard before lessening the tax rate for the wealthiest.
Chris Bryant
I will give way to the hon. Member for South West Norfolk, because I referred to her directly.
Elizabeth Truss
The point that the hon. Gentleman makes is a political one. Is not the crucial issue here the economics and what will actually benefit his constituents? Should he not be considering the issues of whether they will have jobs, whether new businesses will flourish and whether people will aspire to work harder? Rather than the political presentation, should he not be considering the economic case?
Chris Bryant
I will deal with the economic case, but this is where I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Lady ideologically. I do not think we can put economics and politics into separate boxes; the one drives the other. If we want a happier country, where people prosper because they feel that the whole of society is engaged in the same endeavour, we have to make sure that it feels as if everyone has equally got their—I am going to get my metaphors all mixed up—shoulder to the grindstone. I say to Government Members that in my constituency it does not feel that that is the case at the moment. It feels as if the poor are having a very rough time, and there is very little prospect of changing that. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd said that 2,700 unemployed people in his constituency were going for 200 jobs. The statistics are even worse just up the road in my constituency. It is not a question of someone getting on their bike and going somewhere else to find a job, which is why the politics matter. I am talking not about party politics, but about the sense of whether we are genuinely all in this together.
Alun Cairns
The hon. Gentleman has made a powerful point in comparing the incomes of people in his constituency with those of some in the City of London. But in order to raise the wealth and prosperity of people in his constituency and in every other constituency across the UK, particularly those in the north, Wales and Scotland, do we not need to attract investors and to attract the best brains in the world? That 50% rate is extremely important in respect of providing investment to his constituency, my constituency and others of hon. Members across this House.
Chris Bryant
I do not want a 50p rate to last for ever and I accept that the City of London plays a very important role in the whole UK economy, but I tell the hon. Gentleman that I feel anxious that this country’s economy depends far too much on what happens in London and the south-east. My fear about the way in which this policy has been developed in the past few months is that the Government intend to increase that dependency, rather than undermine it. I know that there are logical arguments to say that we should have different pay rates for public sector jobs in different parts of the country—
Chris Bryant
Just one moment. However, I say to Government Members that if they do that, they will further exacerbate the gap between peripheral parts of the economy—places such as the Rhondda and the Vale of Glamorgan—and the south-east of England and London. That will undermine the very competitiveness that the hon. Member for South West Norfolk is trying to advance.
I also disagree with the move that the Government are making because, politically, it sanctions the process of avoiding paying tax, in which some wealthy people have engaged. I have not been in this place for that long—just for 11 years—but in that time I have heard an awful lot of Chancellors say, “The solution to this is to close a tax loophole.” However many times we try to close these loopholes, wealthy people will still employ accountants to try to minimise how much tax they pay. I would prefer to live in a country where the vast majority of wealthy people said, “You know what, I am a wealthy person and I want to contribute my fair share. However easily I can legally avoid paying tax, I actually want to pay my fair contribution.”
Chris Bryant
If hon. Members bear with me, I will give way. I have already promised to give way to the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), so I will do so in a moment. I just say that the message coming out of this is, “Frankly Mr Wealthy Person or Mrs Wealthy Person, if you have not got an accountant and you are not trying to minimise how much tax you are paying, you are pretty daft.” That is a bad place for us to be in ethically.
Richard Harrington
I apologise for stopping the hon. Gentleman in mid-flow on two occasions, but I would like to ask him whether he accepts that for people in business, who are creating wealth and—we hope—employing a lot of people and investing money, a very high personal income tax rate is a disincentive to doing that. Does he accept that however public-spirited business people are—in my experience, most people do take the view that he put forward and they are prepared to pay a reasonable rate of tax; they do not try to avoid paying every penny and they want to contribute to society—a high tax rate is a disincentive and would lead to a lot of people saying, “I am just not going to do the extra and employ more people”?
Chris Bryant
Broadly speaking, of course I agree with the hon. Gentleman; a very high tax rate could act as a disincentive to many people and, as the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) was intimating, could make this country uncompetitive compared with other countries. However, I just ask two questions in return, the first of which is: what counts as a “very high” tax rate? That is a judgment call; it is about our rate relative to that of others and whether we have the balance right. My second question is: given that, when is the right time to change? I just say to hon. Members that now is not the time, because this country will gird our economic loins and start seeing economic growth only if everybody does genuinely feel we are all in it together. This move undermines that precise point.
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech and some serious points. He talks about the relativity of the level at which we set income tax, but of course we must not forget that it is not just 50p because there is national insurance on top, taking one over the 60p mark to 62p. Some of the things we need to look at are the behavioural changes we saw when income was moved to avoid the 50p rate when it was first brought in, and the disparity between corporation tax and capital gains tax. When income is taxed at 62% but capital gains and corporation tax rates are much lower, those very wealthy individuals who are creating wealth have options to move money around, so there will be behavioural change as we go up the income tax scale and create that differential.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Broadly speaking, I agree with elements of what he said. For example, it is a mistake, as hon. Members have said, to seek to tax people solely via their income because that is not the sole determinant of wealth and therefore of what one should put into the national pot. Similarly, I am quite critical of those in my constituency who say, “Mrs Jones down the road—she’s never paid tax.” Nobody never pays tax because everybody pays VAT in some shape or form; everybody makes some kind of contribution. My fundamental point is that now is not the right time to change the top rate. We are living in austere times and if the country is to gird its economic loins, we need everyone to be on the same side, but this measure is relatively divisive.
Chris Bryant
I am not going to give way to the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) again—[Interruption.] No, he gestures that his intervention would be short but the last one went on for ever, so I am going to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) instead.
Alison McGovern
May I draw my hon. Friend back to his remark about the ethics of this issue? The ethics of whether people feel as though we are all making a contribution turn very much on what is happening around this rate of tax. Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said:
“The truth is we still do not know the true effect of the 50p rate on revenues.”
Does not this make it extremely difficult to make the right political and ethical choice at this time?
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, I think she must have been reading my notes, which were very close to her face, because they say that it is completely uncertain how much this will cost. That is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd said, at the nub of this. The Government have no idea how much this is going to cost them or how much would have been raised had we continued with the 50p rate of tax for another five years. That rate has not been in place long enough for us genuinely to see how it has affected people’s behaviour. Sometimes, when a new rate of tax is brought in it has a sudden impact that then evaporates two or three years later. There is absolutely no certainty and I say to Government Members, who I am sure are going to march loyally through the Lobby with the Exchequer Secretary this afternoon not because he is persuasive but because they believe in this—[Interruption.] He may be persuasive, but I do not think he is going to persuade me. I say to them that I think this will end up being a divisive measure.
Andrea Leadsom
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I want to draw his attention and that of the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) to a point about ethics. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Government intend to increase the tax take from the wealthiest in this country? Where ethics are concerned, it is appalling that people have deliberately used a company to buy a multi-million pound house simply to avoid paying stamp duty. Does he accept that taking measures to ensure that people pay what is a reasonable and acceptable level of tax is a better method than trying to enforce something that is very easily avoidable for many people?
Chris Bryant
Well, I am really impressed by the hon. Lady. I can understand how my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South read my notes but not how the hon. Lady managed to read them from over there. I was going to come to exactly the point she makes but not quite in the same way. Yes, there is an ethical clash about whether this is the right time to introduce this measure for political and economic reasons, but my concern is that because the Chancellor had, I think, personally decided that he was going to cut the 50p rate to 45p, so many other elements of the Budget had to follow that change. A prime example is the fact that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor wanted to be able to say that the rich would pay five times more tax after the Budget than before—I think that is, broadly speaking, the point that the hon. Lady is making. I am not opposed to some of the measures that will increase the amount of tax paid by people who have wealth in a variety of circumstances, but I think that some of the measures in the Budget and the Finance Bill ended up there only to try to shore up that argument, and I do not think that due diligence was done around them.
Let me take one example—I note the look in your eye, Mr Hoyle, and I shall bring my remarks to a close very soon. I think that the measure about capping the tax relief available for people giving money to charities is in the Budget solely so that the Government can argue that the rich will pay more. It is not based on fact or research. There might be perfectly good things we could do on whether charities outside this country that are not covered by the Charity Commission should be removed from the system or on whether greater powers should be given to the commission, but I think that the only reason that the measure was in the Budget was so that the Government could say that tax has increased. This has left the Chancellor and the Prime Minister somewhat double-faced—I shall not say two-faced, because obviously I could not. On the one hand they are saying that the top rate of tax should go down and the rich should not pay so much and, on the other, they are saying that the rich should pay more.
I hope that I have persuaded all the hon. Members on the Government side to change their mind. I see that I have persuaded the reckless Member over there, the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), to support the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I do not think it is necessary for me to speak to amendment 1 because my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) and others have, in their interventions, destroyed the Opposition’s argument. I recall that the TaxPayers Alliance organised a wonderful celebratory dinner not long ago, in the Guildhall I think, at which the guest of honour was none other than Dr Laffer of the Laffer curve. I am delighted that the Treasury is now paying more attention to the principles behind the Laffer curve, which, in my view, are well represented in the argument for reducing the top rate of tax back to 40%, rather than 45%. I hope that in due course my hon. Friend the Minister will explain why someone like me should not be tempted to vote for amendment 1 on the basis that it would reduce the level to 40%.
Jonathan Edwards
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for confirming that we are more efficient than the official Opposition.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman knows that I am very fond of him, so may I give him a tip? It is not to believe what he reads in newspapers, not to believe what he reads by Guido Fawkes—most hon. Members would agree with that—and not to listen to Liberal Democrats, who will support and vote for the cut from 50p to 45p, but to focus his anger on the Government, who are introducing this change.
Jonathan Edwards
I am grateful for that intervention. I am coming to that. Unfortunately, the papers did not report Labour’s shameless record on some of these issues.
Monday’s Second Reading saw Members from both sides continuing to trade a barrage of figures to explain why the additional rate should be cut or remain as it is. I thought the contribution from the hon. Member for Pontypridd on Monday night was excellent in explaining the political and economic value of the 50p rate. It is clear that there is no agreement over the mechanics of the issue, and given that Labour’s agreement to the 50p rate in the first place was based on revenue-raising rather than principle, that is a very important fact.
The Treasury should therefore instigate a report on the income-shifting and avoidance measures used to lower the amount of tax paid under the additional rate, and on possible revenue from a 50% and a 45% rate, taking into consideration the outlying factors that always impact heavily on the first year of any tax innovation. Such a report would clarify the situation and allow the House to make a considered judgment one way or the other in the next Finance Bill. As always, the majority of people pay the tax that they should, but there are some who will always try to avoid as much as possible.
The artificial shock of the Chancellor at the scale of tax avoidance suggests that he takes Members of this House for fools. Although I accept the argument for a relationship between a lower taxation rate and economic growth and perhaps larger revenues, I find that argument counter-intuitive for income tax rates on this occasion. The majority of those who seek to avoid paying income tax at 50% will, I suspect, also seek to avoid paying it at 45%—and, as the Government contend over the 50% rate, they will have the resources to avoid doing so.
My amendment 76, which would require a review, neatly coincides with the Opposition’s amendment, so I assume that when my amendment is pressed to a vote they will join us in the Lobby. After all, they have already signed up to my amendment 7, which, I shall explain for the benefit of the Committee, is consequential on the additional rate changes relating to dividend and trust payments, the transferring of retirement benefits to a non-additional rate tax payer and the notional tax credit attached to some capital payments. We look forward to dividing on amendment 76 at the appropriate time.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) and, of course, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who should take heart from the fact that although our initial reaction on the Government Benches perhaps disproves the adage that everybody goes crazy about a sharp-dressed man, we agreed with some of the points he made, which were valid. I will cover in my speech some of the points on which I perhaps do not agree with him.
Karl MᶜCartney
Not on purpose.
We were told during the dying days of the previous Labour Government that the 50p tax rate was always intended to be a temporary measure. That remark came from very near the top level, as it was made by the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling). Many of us suspect, however, that at the top of that economically discredited Labour Government, the then Prime Minister, who is now much missed in his absence, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), had a more political plan, perhaps with three prongs. First, the 50p tax rate was a bone to throw to the Opposition’s political masters who run the unions. It said, “Look how we are clobbering those who earn—or should I say ‘are paid’—slightly more than you.” Secondly, it was part of the Labour party's scorched-earth policy, a desperate act up there with the protectionist decision of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath further to increase the indebtedness of our armed forces’ budgets by ensuring the most watertight contract, despite the fact that Whitehall lawyers are not renowned for their prowess in closing legal loopholes, for two new aircraft carriers, which funnily enough were not to be built in English or Conservative Members’ constituencies.
Karl MᶜCartney
Later, I will be as generous as the hon. Gentleman was if hon. Members will let me get through some of my speech. I certainly will not speak for as long as he did.
Mr Gauke
The hon. Gentleman is right that the assessment of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, signed off by the Office for Budget Responsibility, is very similar to that of the Mirrlees review, which looked at evidence from the 1970s and the 1980s. Given that the big behavioural impact owes much to the mobility of international labour at that end of the scale—the highest earning individuals in the world are very mobile—and given that the mobility of labour has clearly increased, particularly in that sector, since the 1980s, it would appear that the hon. Gentleman is making a case to suggest that the elasticity we are using is too low, not too high, so he might like to have a conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless).
Chris Bryant
On a point of order, Mr Hood. You may not be aware of it, but the media are reporting that, contrary to what was announced to the House yesterday afternoon, Abu Qatada might have been arrested by the Home Office illegally because it had not consulted the European Court of Human Rights on the last available date to—
The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)
Order. I have heard enough of the hon. Member’s contribution to give him a ruling. That is not a point of order for me. He can request that the Government make a statement to the House on the media or television report to which he refers, and if the Government agree, they can do so. As I said, it is not a point of order for me to deal with in this debate.
Mr Stuart
My hon. Friend is quite right. That is why the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) has a fair point. Some people will be able to afford permanent housing, thereby further pressurising the housing market in areas where such housing is limited. Static caravan parks have been a perfect arrangement, because they allow both the local community and people from outside to benefit. They have meant that the local worker who is looking for a house—often someone who works at a caravan park—has been better able to find a house.
Chris Bryant
I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that in some cases people will not be making choices but will have absolutely no choice. In my mother’s case when everything had gone wrong in her life and the only money she had was the money she was going to spend on a static home, the difference between £30,000 and £36,000 would have been the difference between homelessness and having a home.
Women in the Church of England
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on taking up the baton after our colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), was unable to start the debate today. She has done it admirably. I think I am the only ordained person in the Church of England speaking today, unless anyone is hiding something from us. The Second Church Estates Commissioner, the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) sounded remarkably ordained as he delivered his final intonations.
I remember going to Ripon College Cuddesdon in the 1980s. I arrived in 1983. The year before, there had been one woman in training at Cuddesdon, which was generally known as the bishop-making college. In the year I arrived, there were 13 women. It was the first time that the college had had to make real accommodation for women. Cuddesdon was a strange place, with 72 people living in the same space: eating, drinking, worshipping and studying. It was very intense, and I think it was difficult for many women. Frankly, they were given a hell of a time by some of the men. I have to confess that, in some regards, I think that was because some of the men were gay and did not want women intruding in their world. That is not true of the vast majority of gay men in the Church, who are supportive of women’s ordination and ministry, but it was certainly true at the time. Indeed, the Church was going through a difficult period because it did not know what to do about inclusive—or not inclusive—language. Should it refer to “all men” or “all men and women”, especially in the creed and much of the liturgy? Some of us ostentatiously refused to say just the word “men”. In retrospect, some of that feels a little childish, but the role of women was hardly respected or honoured at all in the Church, and there was a real conflict for many women. There still is in many parts of the Church, where the role model for a woman is as a virgin and a mother at the same time. Not many will be able to achieve that.
In the Church hierarchy, which had the vicar and curate, both of them men at the time, few women were allowed to be lay readers, and some churches refused to allow them to give communion. It felt as though women were fine for making cups of tea, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North mentioned. They were fine for ironing the linen for the altar and for mending the cassocks, the albs and the humeral veils and so on. They were even fine for polishing the silver, and obviously for arranging the flowers, but when it came to the serious business of running the Church, that had to be reserved for men. I know that this has changed in many places, but it feels as though the work is not yet complete. As people were talking about the time that the change is taking, I was reminded of Longfellow’s brief poem:
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.”
In other words, I think we will get there, but it is taking a long time. It feels as though those who are not prepared to step outside the Church because they are frightened are none the less trying to die in the ditch of dilatoriness. They are just trying to delay, making it far more difficult for the Church to embrace its historic mission.
There is a sad history of some people in the Church, including senior leaders, not understanding how grossly offensive they have been at times. Graham Leonard, the former Bishop of London, said that a woman was no more ordainable than a potato. That was a man who was meant to be providing spiritual leadership, not just to the men in his diocese but to everybody else as well.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I once asked Graham Leonard why he did not oppose the ordination of women as deacons, although he opposed their ordination as priests and bishops. I asked, “Does it come down to the fact that you believe women were ordained as deacons before, but not as priests or bishops?” He said yes. That is a plain example of the historical negative, let alone his other remarks.
Chris Bryant
Yes. It rather reminds me of Cardinal Martini—a fine name—who was asked in 1998 or 1999 whether there would ever be women priests in the Roman Catholic Church. He said, “Not in this millennium.” Obviously, the millennium was about to come to an end, so I hope that he was anticipating change swiftly, and not within 1,000 years.
Senior clerics have sometimes not realised what bruises their supposedly theological utterings have inflicted on many women in the Church who have felt seriously called to work for God, but have not been allowed to due to some flippant remark by a bishop or an archbishop. When it seems to be solely about manoeuvring and whether there are two votes above two thirds in each of the three houses, it feels as if humanity has been lost and it has become a political game rather than anything else. That is when the Church loses adherents, members and the passionate, loving support of those who want to be there with it.
A key argument that many people advance against the ordination of women, particularly as bishops, relates to the fact that Jesus supposedly chose no female disciples. We do not actually know that. If asked how many disciples there were, most people would probably say 12, but we have no idea how many there were. In Luke 10, Jesus sends out 70 in pairs, but the chapter does not say whether they were men or women. It says that there was a large crowd, and that the group was in addition to others that he had already sent out.
People say, “All right, but there were only 12 apostles. We must know that.” Again, it is difficult. In Romans 16:7, St Paul refers to two apostles, Andronicus and Junia. There is only one instance in the whole of classical history where Junia is a man, and I suspect that it is not this one. Those two people, probably husband and wife, were in prison with Paul, and he described them as apostles.
Likewise, in Matthew 10, Jesus appoints 12 apostles and sends them out. I suspect that there were 12 in Matthew’s account in particular because he wanted to say that they were going to the lost sheep of Israel; it is about the 12 tribes of Israel as much as anything else. However, if hearty adherents of the Church were asked to name the 12 apostles, I bet that most would not be able to. It is also difficult to be precise about who the apostles were. The gospel of St John names Nathaniel, who is not included in Matthew, Mark or Luke. Mark and Matthew both name Thaddeus, who does not appear in Luke. Instead, Luke names Jude the son of James, often referred to as Jude the obscure—as opposed to Jude the extremely not obscure: Iscariot—yet Jude the obscure is one of the apostles most frequently cited.
My only point about all that quibbling is that I do not think the whole decision whether women should be bishops can rest on the idea that Jesus supposedly called only men. He undoubtedly had many women followers, who certainly considered themselves disciples. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North referred to the scene in the garden on Easter Sunday morning, where it was a woman who first experienced the resurrection, and women undoubtedly played a significant role in the early Church.
People sometimes have too light an understanding of the Bible and use it flippantly. I remember, many years ago, somebody complaining to me in a letter that we kept producing new Bibles. He said, “King James wrote the Bible in the 17th century, and I don’t see why we have to keep on translating it.” King James was an interesting person, but I do not think that he wrote the Bible.
People often refer to the story in Genesis. Genesis does not tell a creation story; it tells at least two stories. In the first, in Genesis 1:27, man and woman are created at the same time:
“So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”
It is absolutely, point-blank clear that it was all done in one fell swoop.
Genesis 2 gives a completely different story. Interestingly, God decides that man is on his own, so He first decides to give him the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky, then creates woman out of man’s rib, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North said. I do not think that anyone thought when those stories were initially recounted that someone would be standing in Parliament today saying, “You cannot ordain women bishops because God decided it,” and that that was a historically accurate version of events. I leave aside the tiny point that in the Bible, Adam and Eve had two sons. How that could lead to the rest of humanity, I do not understand.
Interestingly, of course, in nearly all the Old Testament creation narrative, the word used for the Holy Spirit is “ruach”, a feminine word. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is clearly female. In many interpretations in the later history of spirituality, beautifully recounted in Rowan Williams’s splendid first book “The Wound of Knowledge”, the spirit is female. The overlay of history has often made spirituality seem extremely masculine—martyrs and all the rest of it, and an authority structure left in the hands of men—but the spiritual insights of women in our history have been every bit as significant as those of men. Our own country gave us Dame Julian of Norwich, although a lot of people think that Julian of Norwich was a man. Her spiritual insights are profound, and one need not look far, to Teresa of Avila and many others around the world, to see the same thing.
The hon. Member for Banbury, who should at least be right hon. by now—it must be imminent; I feel grace falling upon him—asked whether the Church of England can do it alone. For a start, it is not doing it alone. Other Churches have had women as bishops and in prominent roles for many decades, particularly some Lutheran Churches, to which we are allied. In addition, as has been said, every single diocese in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America now has women priests, and ECUSA has had a woman primate—“primate” is always an odd word in the Anglican communion. Canada, New Zealand, Australia and even the Anglican communion in Cuba have had women suffragan bishops. We are not on our own.
Secondly, I thought that one of the fundamental teachings of the Anglican and Catholic Churches and, for that matter, the whole Orthodox communion, is that the sacrament does not depend on the person. That is to say that even if the person who is giving communion, who has stood up and recited, “who, in the same night that He was betrayed, took bread” and all the rest of it, is a filthy, evil, horrible and nasty person—indeed, many of them in the history of the Christian Church have been so—that does not mean that the sacrament does not work. That is absolutely essential. Anyone who believes that the personality of an ordained woman somehow means that the sacrament that she presents does not work is living in theological cloud cuckoo land.
When I was at theological college, I remember clearly that Michael Ramsey, perhaps one of the greatest archbishops, was asked a question by a high Church Anglican trainee ordinand at St Stephen’s house in Oxford—the very high Church college. What should someone in a poor parish do if they had just bought an expensive new altar carpet costing several thousands of pounds, and some consecrated communion wine was spilt over it? I think the high Anglican lad thought that the correct answer would be that since the wine had been consecrated, the carpet would have to be burned. Michael Ramsey said, “Well, first of all, why a church in a poor parish would buy an expensive carpet, I do not understand. Secondly, and much more importantly, I am sure that if God knows how to get into it, He knows how to get back out of it.” I am absolutely sure that if we were to make a mistake with the consecration of woman bishops, God would none the less somehow know how to make sure that we were all still receiving valid sacraments through them.
Sir Peter Bottomley
The reverend, learned hon. Gentleman could have reminded us about number 26 of the articles of religion, which says that things done by evil men can still be sacramental. It refers to evil men, but not to evil women.
Chris Bryant
Several articles need a little bit of reform. When I was a curate, my cassock had 28 buttons, and I did not do them all up for that very reason, but I have always been a little heterodox. I feel a bit disturbed when the hon. Gentleman refers to me as reverend; I think that is over.
The Church of England surely offers something different. Plenty of other Churches do not have women bishops or allow women to perform a full ministry, but I believe that the Church of England developed not just because of Henry VIII’s licentiousness, but because it had something genuine to offer—a middle ground between Protestantism and Catholicism, and a belief that the rational can inform the spiritual and that disciplinary autonomy in this country was important if there was to be a mission to everyone in this country, regardless of whatever the Pope might say, do or insist upon from over the seas. That was an important mission, and I think it survives today. I have a terrible fear that some people want the Church of England to become a sect and not be a Church at all, and I hope that that will be put behind us.
A bishop has to be the centre of unity in the diocese. That is why all the proposals, including those from the two archbishops, have completely misunderstood the theology of episcopacy. If someone is not the centre of unity, surely they cannot be the bishop. Any proposal that parishes should be able to opt out of a bishop because the bishop is a woman is not only fundamentally offensive and demeaning to the ministry of women—we should either do it or not do it—but will simply create a new style of wholly inappropriate schism in the Church. We were wrong to have flying bishops, and we would be wrong to advance similar proposals.
I hope that when the bishops meet, soon, they do not make any changes at all—certainly no changes of substance. I also hope that the Government will not shilly-shally about providing time for us to get on with it. The Ecclesiastical Committee should not have to wait until October. I am sure that it will take just one day. Why can it not meet in July, during the Olympics, or whenever?
Tony Baldry
We will make all speed, but the reason is simply that various pieces of legislative drafting have to be done. General Synod does not meet until mid-July, and the House rises quite early this year because of the Olympics, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that the work will be done with all possible speed.
Chris Bryant
It did not sound like it. I have enormous respect for the hon. Gentleman—he has said some sensible things on the matter and I know that he is on the side of the angels—but please do not use all that language; just get on with it.
In the end, the only words on the issue that matter to me are in Galatians 3:28, which I am sure all the people down the other end of the Chamber could repeat verbatim with me, but we might be using different translations of the Bible, so let us not try:
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
James Duddridge
I do not think that it is a Government Bill in that sense, so I would not expect it to be mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. However, I am not privy to that speech.
I shall turn to the specific points that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North made so ably in picking up this brief. She drew comparisons with the Labour electoral college. I genuinely hope that she is wrong in that comparison, given the problems that there have been.
James Duddridge
I am genuinely sympathetic and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, I am always nice.
On the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury, he used his own words to repeat the underlying point that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North made: if there is a scintilla of deviation from what originally went through the General Synod, it might be slightly more challenging to get things through Parliament. A number of people involved in the process—the Synod, the bishops and the laity—will listen very carefully to the words he has chosen today and the words the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North chose. They will reflect very carefully on that because it is my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury, as the Second Church Estates Commissioner, who will take the Measure through. My hon. Friend has been in detailed discussions with everyone about the subject, whether they are a reactionary, as he mentioned, or they are on the other side of the argument. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North said that my hon. Friend will be held to account because parliamentary questions will be tabled to the Second Church Estates Commissioner. That is pretty much a polite parliamentary threat—his card is marked.
I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West failed to give up making interventions for Lent, although I am somewhat surprised he did it so early. I hope that he has more success later. He raised a number of very interesting points. He will have to invite me to his library because it must be incredibly extensive if he has such a detailed knowledge on the subject.
I will not predict when the first woman bishop of the Church of England will be appointed. However, I was interested to note that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury was firm in his view that it could be as early as 2014. I, too, hope to attend such an event; it would be a great privilege.
The hon. Member for Rhondda was very entertaining in his speech. I think we would agree that my biblical knowledge is not as good as his. However, I think I can go out on a limb—although it does not say so in my briefing—and say that the King James Bible was not written by King James. We do have some commonality. His speeches are always amusing, but I was worried when he mentioned Cardinal Martini because I thought we might have a seedy “any place, any time, any where” joke. I am glad that he steered us clear of such things. I think my local priest who took me through Sunday school and the confirmation process would be somewhat shocked to know that I am responding on this matter for the Government. If I had known when I was 14 that I would be responding—
James Duddridge
As the hon. Lady said, I would have paid an awful lot more attention.
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Rhondda for not probing me on a number of deeply theological questions because that may be a slight chink in my armour. Given I have a young family, on Sundays, I occasionally do things other than attend church. He gave us a very interesting tour de force on the apostles and, at times, I found that I was engaging in the debate and listening, which is always an unwise thing to do as a Minister and will no doubt worry the civil servants. He will have to explain to me at some point his rebellious streak. He is always very entertaining in the House of Commons, but not doing up one of his 28 buttons is not as rebellious as he has been on a number of other things.
James Duddridge
The hon. Gentleman has been provoked. I apologise; it was probably unwise.
Chris Bryant
It is not an unknown fact that a lot of clergy in the Church of England do not subscribe to all the articles of religion that we are meant to sign up to when we are ordained. In fact, on the night before I was ordained, when I had to give my oath of allegiance, the bishop who ordained me said, “It’s all right; I crossed my fingers as well.”
James Duddridge
I note that with interest. It was fascinating to understand the issues surrounding training, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned in some detail. I look forward to finding out more. In conclusion, I genuinely wish the General Synod and the Church every success in their endeavours to sort out this very sensitive issue. I will follow the progress of the matter very carefully.
Remuneration of EU Staff
Chris Bryant Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Miss Chloe Smith
I thank colleagues on both sides of the House for an interesting and consensual exchange of views. The British Parliament has clearly said today that it believes that the Commission’s proposals to increase EU staff pay are unacceptable, and that they serve only to demonstrate how out of touch the institution is with the domestic challenges that we face. This shows how important it is to act in our national interest, financially and politically.
I shall do my best to respond to the questions that have been raised in the debate. If I leave out any details, I shall attempt to furnish colleagues with that information in other ways if they so wish. I shall respond first to some of the political points that have been made. It was suggested that the Prime Minister’s actions in looking after our national financial interests could have left the UK isolated in Europe, but it is clear to most Members that he has stood up for the UK’s national interests. Indeed, even President Sarkozy said last week at the Anglo-French summit that he might have acted in the same way. In contrast, the former Prime Minister gave up a large slice of our rebate, leaving us £2 billion a year worse off, as has been ably pointed out.
Several hon. Members have asked what action the Government will take to deliver on our tough stance. In the ongoing review of the staff regulations, we are seeking to deliver savings in a number of ways: first, by cutting the package of allowances for EU staff, especially the 16% expatriation allowance; secondly, by improving the affordability of EU pensions, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley) will be pleased to hear; and thirdly, by adjusting the system for EU staff pay so that we can avoid higher pay in future. That adjustment involves a complicated method with which some colleagues will be familiar.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Minister has just nodded towards the hon. Member with the wonderful tie, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley)—
Chris Bryant
I think that his tie and mine are from the same shop. In fact, I know they are. The hon. Gentleman read out a long list of places where he thought there should be either no representation or minimal representation, including Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea has a high level of representation because it has the second largest rain forest in the world, and it is essential to climate change work. If the EU is to perform its work effectively, it needs representation there, and I hope that the Minister will not succumb to easy attacks.
Miss Smith
Nor will I succumb to interventions that could take us far beyond the scope of today’s debate. I know, however, that the hon. Gentleman will be particularly pleased to hear that the lobby that we have put in place to give effect to our tough stance has already had an effect. For example, the Commission, having been put under pressure, is preparing to reduce European Union staff levels by 5% between 2014 and 2020.
Returning to the actions taken in the past year to deliver the agenda for EU administrative spending, and to what we are doing on staff regulations reform, I can tell the House that the UK has been a signatory to two joint letters calling on the Commission to deliver “significant” savings in EU administrative spending over the next multi-annual financial framework. One was signed by 17 member states, and it represents a strong blocking minority, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash)—who has moved from his place—will be happy to note. He will be pleased to know that we intend to hold that strong blocking minority together as we press for more specific changes to the way in which the EU institutions work.
I refer hon. Members to two more letters, one of which is dated 20 February 2012 and deals with a plan for growth in Europe. It has been signed by 12 European Union leaders, and it talks about the effort that we must all make to put our national and international finances on a sustainable footing. In the second, dated 18 December 2010, our Prime Minister and those of four other countries state that the challenge to the European Union is not to spend more but to spend better.
A number of questions were asked about the cost of court cases. The costs of the 2009 court case were met from existing Council budgets, as per normal standards. However, it is clearly not ideal to deal with these matters through court cases. Clearly we need to seek deeper reform, and that is what we are endeavouring to do. I was asked whether we should distinguish between high and low-earning EU staff. Other hon. Members have spoken eloquently about this today, notably in respect of the judiciary. EU officials fall into the category of highly paid officials, and we therefore think that they are a legitimate target for key financial savings.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone asked whether the Government were taking a blocking minority on the 2010 EU budget discharge. I am afraid he is still not in his place to hear my answer, but I shall be happy to discuss it with him later. At ECOFIN today, the UK voted against that; it was not, in technical terms, a blocking minority.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) asked how the Commission could possibly not invoke this course of action, and said that the economic situation was patently a crisis. I know that he will welcome my agreeing with him on that. There is patently an economic crisis, and highly paid officials cannot be immune from that. I know that he will appreciate being reminded that the Delphic oracle talked about “nothing in excess”. I believe that that applies to EU salaries, and the House has eloquently agreed with me today.
Our debate today sends a clear signal that the Commission must take the challenge of modernising its institutions far more seriously and, most important, it must work harder to deliver efficiency savings in administration. Stopping an unjustified hike in EU staff pay is an obvious and good place to start, and our debate today sends a clear signal that we stand behind the principle outlined in the court case brought against the Commission for refusing to take action on the 2011 salary adjustment. Disputing higher staff pay in 2011 was not only the right thing to do; it also highlighted the fact that the current process is defunct and cannot adapt properly to difficult economic circumstances.