Tackling Short-term and Long-term Cost of Living Increases

Debate between Edward Miliband and Andrew Bowie

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

No, I do not accept that, and I can tell the hon. Lady that 8,014 families in her constituency will benefit from the changes we are suggesting if she votes for them tonight. Let me tell her and the House what the Chancellor’s failure means in reality. This year, the basic level of universal credit for a single person aged over 25 is £334 a month. The Chancellor’s measures this April were so feeble that someone on that benefit will be expected to find as much as £50 or more a month simply to cover the increase in their energy bills. That is leaving aside the soaring costs of food and other goods. That £50 is around 15% of their income, so what are they going to do? They will not be able to afford to pay their bills, they will get deeply into debt and they will go without food. It is already happening to millions.

On Friday, in the citizens advice bureau in my constituency, I met someone who is in circumstances similar to those I described. Let me be honest: I have no idea how I would cope in those circumstances. Does any Member of this House? Maybe the Chancellor can tell us what somebody in those circumstances is supposed to do. If he cannot answer that question, it should tell him something—that he is failing in his duty to the people of this country who most need his help.

What makes the Chancellor even more culpable is that something that could help is staring him right in the face. It is something on which the case has become unanswerable, and on which the Government have run out of excuses, while oil and gas producers are making billions: a windfall tax. It is so hard to keep track of the Government’s position on a windfall tax that I have given up, but I think the Chancellor has said he is prepared to look at the idea. Honestly, the British people cannot afford to wait for him and his dithering anymore, or for his hopeless excuses.

I want to go through the hopeless excuses, because this is an important argument that this House and this country need to have. What are the Government’s excuses for not applying a windfall tax? First, they said in January that the oil and gas companies were, in the words of the Education Secretary, “struggling”. BP has its highest profits for a decade, Shell has its highest profits ever, and the boss of BP, Bernard Looney, describes the price hike as a “cash machine”—and these people say the companies are struggling. Perhaps we can have a show of hands: does anyone on the Government Benches still believe that those companies are struggling? What is the Government’s next excuse? They argue that a windfall tax will hurt investment—

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It will.

[Edward Miliband]

Oh, it will, says the hon. Gentleman from a sedentary position. Right, here we go. The problem is that the companies themselves say that is nonsense. BP’s chief executive officer, Bernard Looney—whom I take as more of an authority than the hon. Gentleman—was asked two weeks ago which investments he would not proceed with if a windfall tax was levied. What was his answer?

“There are none that we wouldn’t do.”

Even BP does not buy the Tory arguments against a windfall tax on BP.

[Andrew Bowie]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Edward Miliband]

No; I will make some progress. The final excuse—[Interruption.] I want to come to this because it is important, and I am perhaps anticipating the Chancellor. The final excuse is that it is somehow anti-business to levy a windfall tax. Let us dispose of that argument, too. I strongly recommend that Members who believe that argument read an article that I have with me—I am happy to put a copy in the Library of the House—by Mr Irwin Stelzer, a long-time confidant of Rupert Murdoch. This is the first time I have quoted him in the House. A few days ago, in an article entitled, “Now is the time for a windfall profits tax”, he wrote:

“People who believe in capitalism believe that private sector companies should be rewarded for taking risks…not be rewarded for happening to be around when some disruption drives up prices, producing windfalls.”

That is the point: these profits are unearned and unexpected, and the British people are paying for that windfall. These companies are profiting not from decisions they have made, risks they have taken or wealth they have created, but from a global spike in prices to which Britain is badly exposed—a spike exacerbated by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

What is the principle that the Government are defending here? What is their hill to die on? Is the principle that they really wish to defend that oil and gas companies should pocket any profits, however bad the geopolitical instability? Is that however large the crisis and however gigantic the windfall, taxation must not change? That proposition was rejected by Margaret Thatcher, Geoffrey Howe and George Osborne—remember him?—all of whom levied windfall taxes. Who else do we see supporting a windfall tax today? I have to say, it is a pretty big tent: John Allan, the guy who runs Tesco; Sharon White, the woman who runs John Lewis; Lord Browne, the guy who used to run BP; and Lord Hague, the guy who used to run the Conservative party—the usual leftie suspects.

The truth is that the Government have run out of excuses and, amid the chaos and confusion about their position, I think a massive U-turn is lumbering slowly over the hill. I say this to the Chancellor: “Swallow your pride and get on with it.” Every day he delays is another day when the British people are denied the help they need. Millions of families are having sleepless nights because the Chancellor will not act. What is he waiting for? As proposed by the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), the Chancellor should come to the House with an emergency Budget that has a windfall tax, gets rid of VAT on energy bills, increases the warm home discount to £400, includes an emergency plan to insulate 2 million homes this year, and cuts business rates.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Edward Miliband and Andrew Bowie

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

As the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) says, do not sign it, but I make another point. This is an agreement that the Government signed, and as the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) exposed, under article 16 of the protocol, there is not only a Joint Committee set up but a capacity for unilateral action in the case of social and economic disruption. He asked whether the protection will still be in place for unilateral action if these clauses go away—I can answer him, since the Minister did not: yes, they will still be in place, because they were in place all along. This has all been a completely unnecessary charade.

It is not just on international law that this Bill was savaged; it was savaged on devolution as well. This is very important, because it goes to the heart of the way we are governed as a country and the heart of our future as a country. Like the Government, the Opposition believe in our United Kingdom, but many people—including Conservatives—feel that this Bill deeply undermines devolution. Let us just listen to Lord Dunlop. For the benefit of the House, Lord Dunlop is the Government’s devolution guru—he is the guy advising the Government on devolution. He describes the Bill as

“an unnecessarily heavy-handed approach to balancing the demands of free trade within the UK with respect for the roles and responsibilities of devolved institutions.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 October 2020; Vol. 806, c. 1336.]

He also says that the Government should

“think long and hard before overturning…on the back of Conservative votes alone, any sensible changes”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 November 2020; Vol. 807, c. 585.]

made to the Bill on devolution. So on devolution and international law, the Bill has been savaged.

Something has changed in Government on the Bill during the last three months. The truth is that the top brass of Government are running a million miles from the Bill, not just on international law but on devolution as well. We learned a few days ago from the very reliable Paul Waugh that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has some thoughts on the Bill. He wrote:

“Even some Whitehall officials were baffled why the bill was drafted in the first place.”

He went on:

“Sources tell me that Gove has been looking at ways to either amend the devolution section of the bill, or ditch it altogether. If the whole bill is quietly left”—

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It is untrue.

[Edward Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman says that that is completely untrue. I hope it is true, in the following sense: unless we remove the provisions in the Bill on lawbreaking and amend the provisions on devolution, we are massively undermining the Union, because as I will explain, we are departing from the principles of shared governance that we have developed over 20 years.

It is not surprising that the Government top brass are running from this Bill. Has it succeeded in improving our international standing? No—it has been calamitous, embarrassing and toxic for our international reputation. President-elect Biden, among others, is deeply concerned about the Bill. Has it succeeded in upholding and strengthening the United Kingdom, which I know the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) supports? No, it has not—it has given a stick with which those who want to undermine the United Kingdom can beat the Government.

Has the Bill succeeded in getting the Brexit deal that the Government told us it would hasten? Remember what they said—that it would show we were standing up to the EU, show that we meant business and face them down. This is a very important day to be talking about this issue. Where is the deal then, less than a month before the end of the transition period? Where is the deal? As a country, we desperately need a deal for business, workers and our economy. It is 12 weeks since this piece of legislation had its Second Reading and still no deal has been struck. And on this of all days the Government choose to bring this Bill back to the House. Our message to the Government is simple: deliver the deal that they said was oven-ready so that business can plan, even in these short weeks. Deliver what was promised.

Let me turn to the detail of the Lords amendments from the Opposition point of view. I start by going back to the issue of the rule of law. As I said, Members across all parties in the other place worked together to defeat the Government on part 5 of the Bill. I cannot do any better than Lord Howard—I have never said that before—who said:

“I do not want”

the UK

“to be an independent sovereign state that chooses as one of the first assertions of that sovereignty to break its word, to break the law and to renege on a treaty that it signed barely a year ago.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 October 2020; Vol. 806, c. 1295.]

That is not some remoaner, as I think the saying goes—it is not some person who voted remain; it is Lord Howard, a Brexiteer and the former leader of the Conservative party.

The House could instead listen to Lord Cormack, who said

“this is shameful; there is no other word for it. I am deeply ashamed that a Conservative Government should have embarked on this course.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 October 2020; Vol. 806, c. 1301.]

I am proud to be defending the rule of law.