Fiscal Responsibility and Fairness

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for the action he is taking in government to prevent tax dodging—not long ago it was relatively easy to take advice on that simply by watching the “Daily Politics”. Will he say how much extra revenue Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has been able to collect as a result of action he has already taken to prevent tax dodging?

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, which gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to the excellent people who work for HMRC. They work hard, day in, day out, on behalf of us all, to ensure that we bring in the revenue that is required, and that compliance procedures are in place to ensure that people cannot get away with dodging tax. As a result of the actions we have taken, more than £100 billion of revenue is being collected by the Exchequer that would not otherwise have been collected.

Financial Inclusion

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Nick Hurd (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, I think for the first time. It is also a great pleasure to have secured this debate. My motive for doing so was simple: I have spent six months representing my party on a non-partisan commission that was set up to look at the issue of financial inclusion, by which I mean the ability of our constituents to access the financial products and services that help them to function effectively in society. Those are products and services that many of us take for granted—after all, we live in a country with one of the most sophisticated financial systems in the world—yet the commission’s work raised a real concern that the issue of financial inclusion needs to be given higher priority. I therefore welcome the opportunity to make the case and hear the Government’s response.

The commission took written evidence and held oral evidence sessions around the country, in Liverpool, London, Cardiff and Glasgow, including with people who are or have been financially excluded. In all, representatives of 84 organisations came forward to share their views with us, including big banks, small charities, academics, entrepreneurs, insurance companies and local authorities. There was a wide range of people, but a consistent view that we could and should be doing better as a country to make the financial system work better for everyone, to improve the financial health of the millions of people who are, quite frankly, living on the edge.

The picture that came out of all the evidence is not reassuring. Nearly 2 million adults in the UK do not have a bank account; an estimated 2 million people took out a high-cost loan in 2012 because they were unable to access any other form of credit; and 50% of households in the bottom half of income distribution do not have home contents insurance. There is a price attached to that exclusion. Financially excluded people pay a poverty premium that has been estimated by Save the Children at £1,300 a year. Even more powerful is the picture of financial vulnerability and lack of resilience that came through so strongly from the evidence. Up to almost 9 million people are over-indebted, depending on the definition used; 13 million people do not have enough savings to support them for a month if they experience a 25% cut in income; and 15 million people—31% of the population—report one or more signs of financial distress. That is not the picture of financial health in the UK that I am sure we all want, irrespective of our politics.

At a time when the public are hearing a lot from their politicians about the public finances, the commission argues that the vulnerability of private finances should also be a major political concern, and that the issue of financial inclusion needs to be given higher priority.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate on an important subject. Does he share my concern that because most of the means tests in the welfare system do not consider debt repayments, private indebtedness hits very hard at times when people need additional help?

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

As I said, we are consulting on that matter and have already taken considerable action to deal with intermediaries. I am sure that more will be said about the issue in due course.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Youth unemployment in my constituency has halved under this Government, and the Chief Secretary met some of the young people in new jobs at Anthony Best Dynamics in Bradford on Avon last year. Will he or the Chancellor accept an invitation to accompany me to one of the advanced manufacturing businesses in Chippenham which, with the support of the relevant Government programmes, can extend many more opportunities by creating jobs in 21st-century products in Chippenham?

[Danny Alexander]

I gladly accept the invitation, although time is limited. As my hon. Friend said, through visiting Anthony Best Dynamics I have seen precisely the benefits that apprenticeships can provide for young people wanting to get highly skilled jobs in the technology companies that are creating very high value added for the UK economy. The work that he has done in his constituency to promote businesses taking on apprentices is an example to the entire House.

Tax Avoidance (HSBC)

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I can confirm that the agreement we have signed would not prevent us from receiving the so-called Lagarde list in exactly the way that we have been doing. Also, thanks to the Prime Minister’s leadership at the G8, we will now have an automatic exchange of information with Switzerland from 2017. That is one of the most important steps forward in tackling tax evasion. The answer is—[Interruption.] The shadow Chancellor is again not listening to the answers that he is getting across the Dispatch Box; the problem is that all his questions have been answered. The answer is that our agreement with Switzerland would not prevent us from receiving the Lagarde list.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Should we not design greater resilience into our tax base instead of engaging in endless games of cat and mouse with firms of tax advisers?

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Gentleman asks a good question. There are two approaches. The first involves introducing into our domestic law things like the general anti-abuse rule, which is more of a catch-all and tries to anticipate changes by accountancy firms and others who devise aggressive avoidance schemes. The second approach, which is not to be underestimated, involves the major international agreement on the automatic exchange of people’s tax information between jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the United Kingdom. That agreement has happened only because the Prime Minister put it at the top of the G8 agenda; no previous leader of the G8 had done so. That is why we will have the automatic exchange of information, which will be a revolution in tax transparency.

EU Budget (Surcharge)

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

All 28 countries, and therefore 27 other Finance Ministers, agreed to our plan, and the plan put forward by other member states, to change the rules so that we do not have to pay on 1 December, to enable us to delay payment, to ensure that no interest will be paid during that delay, to ensure that any errors in the accounts will be rectified and that we will be compensated for them next year, and to ensure that this never happens again. We got that coalition of support around the table. The discussions on the rebate, as I am sure the hon. Lady knows, happen between the UK and the European Commission.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

After all the to-ing and fro-ing over who should pay what, would not the best way to thank our European friends be to show them how to make savings in the cost of Brussels so that the costs paid by each country becomes more affordable, both for us and for their shrinking economies?

[Mr Osborne]

We want to achieve reform in Europe. The hon. Gentleman mentions Brussels, and I suggest that they could make a start by staying there and not going to Strasbourg.

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The Government, including me, did inadvertently give the wrong information, but the explanation provided by the permanent secretary at the HMRC was accepted by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), as a fair explanation of what happened.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

The Treasury’s infrastructure fund is paying for increased transport capacity in enterprise zones, through roads and rail services, unlocking large new housing developments. Is the Chief Secretary prepared to use the fund also to pay for the internet and communications infrastructure that those homes and businesses will desperately need?

[Danny Alexander]

The support we are offering to enterprise zones includes access to high-speed broadband, and my hon. Friend will also know that a significant part of our infrastructure plan is precisely to invest in and ensure that high-speed broadband is available in the vast majority of homes in this country. That is certainly something we will turn our minds to again in the autumn statement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Britain is better off because we are rescuing this country from the economic mess in which the Opposition left us. There is a complete fantasy in the Labour party, demonstrated again in the past hour, that one can have an economic policy that destroys the banks, destroys business and destroys the public finances but somehow helps the people of the country in the process. As we learned to our cost under the previous Labour Government, that is not the case. They wrecked the economy and we are recovering it.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Last Friday, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary saw the world-class robotics engineers of Anthony Best Dynamics in Bradford-on-Avon. What is he doing to create the conditions in which such successful manufacturers can continue to grow right where they are?

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

There are strict criteria that towns have to meet in order to be included in the list. If other towns want to be considered, they need to supply the relevant evidence. The criteria include the pump price threshold, the cost of transporting fuel and the population density. If the hon. Lady’s constituents would like to submit evidence to the European Commission, they are welcome to do so.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Motorists in my constituency are relieved to have had fuel duty frozen, but they want the Government to go further. Now that pump prices have fallen from their peak levels, how does what the Government have achieved with fuel duty rates compare with a policy of a fair fuel stabiliser?

[Nicky Morgan]

The point made by the hon. Gentleman, which his constituents will appreciate, is that freezing fuel duty has enabled people to spend more money on themselves and their families in other ways. He needs to understand that fuel duty cuts and freezes since Budget 2011 have had to be fully funded through tax rises or spending cuts elsewhere. Any further action needs to be considered in the context of the wider public finances.

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

We know that the Chancellor is keen to cut high marginal rates of tax. Does he appreciate that an advantage of the further increase in the personal allowance for which the Liberal Democrats are calling is that it would almost entirely scrap the effective 30% marginal tax rate faced by those who are aged over 65 and whose incomes amount to no more than the national average?

[Danny Alexander]

May I first take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend, and my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), on recently becoming parents? He is quite right to suggest that further increases in the personal allowance would benefit all parts of the population. The Chancellor will make announcements in the Budget in March and, as a party, we will be campaigning for further increases in the personal allowance, precisely to ensure that the benefits are spread as widely as possible.

Pub Companies

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am well aware of the importance of crowdfunding, and the hon. Gentleman might have followed the progress of the business bank, which is now actively engaged in, and supporting, crowdfunding, certainly through the peer-to-peer lending streams. I am aware of the issues with the regulation. Some incumbents, understandably, want their industry regulated, but we need to balance that against the fact that new companies coming into the industry might be less enthusiastic about regulation. Incumbents such as Funding Circle have made a very good case for sensible, moderate regulation.

Let me move on. As I said, we have had four Select Committee investigations into whether the tied model is at the root of the unfairness in the relationship. We have received an enormous amount of correspondence, quite apart from that received from the various action groups, from tenants about problems in their relationships with pub companies and from MPs. The response I have had in the past 10 to 15 minutes shows how widespread such concerns are.

Although pub-owning companies can and sometimes do treat their tenants well, the overall sense from those representations is that the tie arrangements with the pub-owning companies are unfair and that a lack of transparency causes a severe imbalance of negotiating power. That is the essence of the problem. There is an issue about what exactly we should do about it, which is what we are consulting on, but there is no doubt about the problems.

It has also been very clear from the discussions led by the Select Committee over the years that the problem is not so much the tied business model but the unfairness with which it operates. There is quite a lot of debate about the evidence on the speed of closures and how they operate in the tied sector and the non-tied sector. My understanding is that there has been a fairly steady rate of decline, from some 70,000 pubs in 1980 to 50,000 today. Depressingly, that is something in the order of 18 a week net. That decline has continued even after some of the big changes that have taken place in the industry—from the beer orders to pub company consolidation. I know that there is a debate among campaigners about whether tied pubs are more likely to close than pubs that are free of tie, but the evidence I have seen goes both ways. This is not fundamentally an argument about pub closures; it is essentially about the unfairness of and inequalities in the relationship.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend is right to broaden his critique beyond the tie itself, important though that is. In my constituency, the landlord of a pub in Melksham complains that Punch is in breach of its own code of practice and of the framework of the British pub industry. He asks where else he can go under the current arrangements, without statutory regulation, when he finds that he gets no joy from the self-regulatory system on a range of issues from dilapidation surveys to meetings that are not minuted.

[Vince Cable]

As I said earlier, there were more than 1,000 individual responses to the consultation. Many described very similar stories to the one that my hon. Friend has just mentioned.