Financial Statement

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I must remind Members that copies of the Budget resolutions will be available in the Vote Office at the end of the Chancellor’s statement. I also remind Members that interventions are not going to be taken during the Chancellor’s statement or, indeed, during the reply by the Leader of the Opposition, or even during the reply by the Leader of the Scottish National party.

It gives me great pleasure to call, to deliver his Budget statement, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to get straight to the issue most on everyone’s mind: coronavirus covid-19. I know how worried people are—worried about their health, the health of their loved ones, their jobs, their income, their businesses, their financial security. And I know they get even more worried when they turn on their TVs and hear talk of markets collapsing and difficult times coming. People want to know what is happening and what can be done to fix it.

What everyone needs to know is that we are doing everything we can to keep this country, and our people, healthy and financially secure. We are clear that this is an issue above party. We will do right by you and your family, and I know I will have the support of the whole House as I say that. This House has always stood ready to come together, put aside party politics and act in the national interest. We have done so before, and I know we will do so again. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, alongside officials and scientists, is leading the work on the public health response. Today, I want to set out our economic response so we bring stability and security.

Let me say this: we will get through this—together. The British people may be worried, but they are not daunted. We will protect our country and our people. We will rise to this challenge. But let me also say, yes, this virus is the key challenge facing our country today, but it is not the only challenge. We have just had an election where people voted for change—change in our economy, change in our public services, change in the cost of living, change in our economic geography. This Budget delivers on that change. Yes, as we deal with coronavirus, it is a Budget that provides for security today, but it is also a plan for prosperity tomorrow. It is a Budget that delivers on our promises to the British people. It is the Budget of a Government that gets things done.

Madam Deputy Speaker, before I set out the details of our plan, let me first thank Members who have contributed to the discussions on how to respond to coronavirus—Members from both sides of this House. Our economy is robust, our public finances are sound, our public services are well prepared. My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary is working around the clock to protect the public’s health, and I will do whatever it takes to support the economy.

First, let me explain the nature of the economic challenge and my overall strategy. The challenge is this: there is likely to be a temporary disruption to our economy. On the supply side, up to a fifth of the working-age population could need to be off work at any one time, and business supply chains are being disrupted around the globe. This combination of people being unable to work and businesses being unable to access goods will mean that, for a period, our productive capacity will shrink. There will also be an impact on the demand side of the economy, through a reduction in consumer spending. The combination of those effects will have a significant impact on the UK economy, but it will be temporary. People will return to work. Supply chains will return to normal. Life will return to normal. For a period, it is going to be tough, but I am confident that our economic performance will recover.

So given this analysis of the situation, let me set out our strategy to deal with it. We cannot avoid a fall in demand, because the primary driver of that reduction in consumption—the primary reason people are not spending as normal—is that they are following doctors’ orders to stay at home. The right immediate policy response is to provide security and support for those who get sick or cannot work by funding our public services and a strengthened safety net.

On the supply side, the right response is to provide a bridge for businesses to ensure that what is a temporary impact on our productive capacity does not become permanent. In other words, our response will be temporary, timely and targeted. This is the right response, and at the right time.

That response is clearly and closely co-ordinated with the Bank of England. The Governor and I have been in constant communication about the evolving situation, and our responses have been carefully designed to be complementary and to have maximum impact, consistent with our independent responsibilities.

The Governor set out this morning the actions that the Bank will take to help UK businesses and households bridge across the likely economic disruption: a 50 basis point reduction to interest rates to support business and consumer confidence and cash flows; the introduction of an SME term funding scheme to help reinforce the transmission of the reduction in Bank rate to the real economy; and releasing the counter-cyclical buffer to further support the ability of banks to supply credit.

The Government’s response will use fiscal action to support public services, households and businesses. Together, we are taking action that is co-ordinated, coherent and comprehensive.

Let me now set out our three-point plan. First, whatever extra resources our NHS needs to cope with coronavirus, it will get. Whether it is research for a vaccine, recruiting thousands of returning staff or supporting our brilliant doctors and nurses—whether it is millions of pounds or billions of pounds—whatever it needs, whatever it costs, we stand behind our NHS.

Secondly, during this immediate crisis, if people fall ill or cannot work, we must support their finances. We will make sure our safety net remains strong enough to fall back on. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already announced that statutory sick pay will be paid from day 1, rather than day 4.

Today, with the assistance of my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary, we can go further. Statutory sick pay will also be available for all those who are advised to self-isolate, even if they have not yet presented with symptoms. And rather than having to go to the doctor, people will soon be able to obtain a sick note by contacting 111.

But of course not everyone is eligible for statutory sick pay. There are millions of people working hard who are self-employed or in the gig economy. They will need our help too. So to support them during this period, we will make it quicker and easier to access benefits. Those on contributory employment and support allowance will be able to claim from day 1, instead of day 8. To make sure that time spent off work due to sickness is reflected in people’s benefits, I am also temporarily removing the minimum income floor in universal credit. And I am relaxing the requirement for anyone to physically attend a jobcentre—everything can be done by phone or online. Taken together, these measures on ESA and universal credit provide a boost of almost £0.5 billion to our welfare system.

To further support our people, I am also creating a £500 million hardship fund, distributed to local authorities, which will be able to use that fund to directly support vulnerable people in their local area. In total, that is a £1 billion commitment to support the financial security of our people.

But the best way to support people is to protect their jobs, and we do that by supporting our businesses—the third part of our plan. The measures I have announced today on statutory sick pay are crucial to support those who need to take time off work, but that cost would be borne by business. If we expect 20% of the workforce to be unable to work at any one time, the cumulative cost would hit our small and medium-sized businesses hard. So, in recognition of these exceptional circumstances, today I am taking a significant step. For businesses with fewer than 250 employees, I have decided that the cost of providing statutory sick pay to any employee off work due to coronavirus will, for up to 14 days, be refunded by the Government in full. That could provide over £2 billion for up to 2 million businesses. This will significantly ease the burden on businesses, but we can do more. I have asked Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to scale up the time to pay service, allowing businesses and the self-employed to defer tax payments over an agreed period of time. Starting today, there will be a dedicated helpline, with 2,000 staff standing ready to help.

Although time to pay is important, it will still be the case that some good, well-run businesses will face problems with their cash flow. They may struggle to pay people’s salaries, pay their bills or buy new stock. They will need loans to get through this period. So, today, I am announcing a new, temporary coronavirus business interruption loan scheme. Banks will offer loans of up to £1.2 million to support small and medium-sized businesses. The Government will offer a generous guarantee on those loans, covering up to 80% of losses, with no fees, so that banks can lend with confidence. This will unlock up to £1 billion of attractive working capital loans to support small businesses, with more as needed.

Taken together, I expect the combination of those measures to protect the vast majority of businesses through the worst of the crisis, but I have two other measures that will use the tax system to support businesses through this. Our manifesto promised that for shops, cinemas, restaurants, and music venues with a rateable value of less than £51,000, we would increase the business rates retail discount to 50%. Today I can go further, and take the exceptional step, for this coming year, of abolishing their business rates altogether. But there are tens of thousands of other businesses in the leisure and hospitality sectors currently not covered by this policy: museums, art galleries and theatres; caravan parks and gyms; small hotels and B&Bs; and sports clubs, night clubs, club houses and guest houses. They would not benefit from today’s measure, but they could be some of the hardest hit. So for this year I have decided to extend the 100% retail discount to them as well. That means that any eligible retail, leisure or hospitality business with a rateable value below £51,000 will, over the next financial year, pay no business rates whatsoever. That is a tax cut worth £1 billion, saving each business up to £25,000, and it means that, over the next 12 months, nearly half of all business properties in England will not pay a penny of business rates. I am also launching today a fundamental review, to be concluded at the autumn Budget, of the long-term future of business rates. But even with the temporary extension of the retail discount to the leisure and hospitality sectors, many of our smallest businesses already pay no business rates, so would not benefit from this policy. So to support them to manage their fixed costs, I am going to go a step further. I am providing, to any business currently eligible for the small business rates relief, a £3,000 cash grant per business. This is a £2 billion cash injection direct to 700,000 of our smallest businesses.

Let me summarise for the House the fiscal impact of our immediate response to coronavirus. Taken together, the extraordinary measures I have set out today represent £7 billion to support the self-employed, businesses and vulnerable people. To support the NHS and other public services, I am also setting aside today a £5 billion emergency response fund, and I will go further if necessary. Those measures are on top of plans that I will set out later in this Budget, which provide an additional fiscal loosening of £18 billion to support the economy this year. That means that I am announcing today, in total, a £30 billon fiscal stimulus to support British people, British jobs and British businesses through this moment. And of course, if further action is needed as the situation evolves, I hope the whole House knows that I will not hesitate to act.

I believe that this represents one of the most comprehensive economic responses of any Government anywhere in the world to date. The Governor of the Bank of England and I are in close contact with our counterparts around the world in the G7 and the G20, and to support the global response I am also making new funding of £150 million available for the International Monetary Fund’s relief efforts.

Madam Deputy Speaker, coronavirus will have a significant impact on our economy, but it will be temporary. I will do whatever it takes to get our nation through it. I am acting today with a multi-billion-pound commitment: more money for our NHS; more generous sick pay; faster access to benefits if you are self-employed; extra local support for the most vulnerable; tax cuts, loans and grants for businesses to protect people’s jobs—comprehensive action, and if more is needed I will take it. I know that all Members of this House will want to give this plan their full support.

Before I turn to the economic forecasts, I hope the House will join me in thanking the Office for Budget Responsibility, and Robert Chote in particular. After 10 years, this is his last Budget in charge. He has led the OBR with dedication and integrity, and established that institution as one that is respected around the world.

Madam Deputy Speaker, let me now turn to the growth forecasts. Since the OBR closed its forecast, it has become clear that the spread of coronavirus will have a significant impact on our economy in the coming quarters. But given that the nature of the shock is temporary, I still want to set out for the House the OBR’s judgment on the economy over the medium term. Even before coronavirus hit, we were facing a slowing world economy. There has been, across developed economies, including here in the UK, a decade-long slowdown in productivity. This, combined with the political uncertainty of the last three years, which affected business investment in particular, has led the OBR to downgrade our productivity over the forecast period and to slightly reduce GDP growth, compared with the March 2019 forecast.

But while the world may slow down, we will act here with a response that is brave and bold, taking decisions now for our future prosperity. We are investing in world-class infrastructure and to lead the world in the industries and technologies of the future. The central judgment that I am making today is to fund an additional £175 billion over the next five years for our future prosperity. The OBR has said that as a direct result of the plans that I am announcing, growth over the next two years will be half a percentage point higher than it otherwise would have been. For the benefit of the House, the GDP forecast, without fully accounting for the impact of coronavirus, would have led to growth of 1.1% in 2020, 1.8% in 2021, then 1.5%, 1.3% and 1.4% in the following years. And today the OBR has made an estimate it has never made before. It has said, in its words, that today’s

“large planned increase in public investment should boost potential output too”.

If future Governments have the same determination to continue our approach, the UK’s long-term productivity will increase by 2.5%.

The OBR has confidence in the long-term future of our economy, and so do I. More investment and higher growth mean more jobs and higher wages. We already have more people working in our economy than ever before, women’s employment is at a record high, and since 2010 full-time weekly wages have grown faster in every region and nation of the UK than they have in London. The OBR expects that half a million people more will be in work by 2025. Wages are expected to grow in real terms in every year of the forecast period. The story of this Government has been the story of a national jobs miracle—and given the last few weeks that I’ve had, I am all in favour of jobs miracles.

On inflation, the OBR forecasts 1.4% this year, increasing to 1.8% next year and then, for the rest of the forecast period, remaining on or around target. I am sure that the whole House will join me in taking the opportunity to thank Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, for his seven years of dedicated public service. We congratulate him on his new role as finance adviser for COP26 and welcome his successor Andrew Bailey, who takes up his post on Monday.

Let me turn now to the fiscal forecasts. The economic impacts of coronavirus remind us of the importance of fiscal responsibility. Our public finances are strong, with the deficit down from 10% in 2010 to less than 2% last year. Our economy is well-prepared for the future—and it is well-prepared because of 10 years of Conservative-led Governments and Conservative Chancellors.

I too will always act responsibly with the nation’s finances. But it is important that we update our fiscal framework to remain at the leading edge of international best practice. Our economic security depends on maintaining the following principles: low and stable inflation, delivering price stability; fiscal sustainability; and independent, effective institutions like the Bank of England and the OBR. These features of our framework will always be protected. But there is a live global debate about what our low interest rate environment means for fiscal strategy, about the case for fiscal policy to play a more active role in stabilising the economy, and about the best ways to measure productivity-enhancing investment in the economy, such as human capital or measuring value on the public balance sheet. So I want to take time to consider these questions over the coming months so that our fiscal framework allows us to make the right long-term decisions for our economic security and prosperity. I will review the fiscal framework, consulting widely with a range of experts, and will report back in the autumn if I conclude that any changes are necessary.

But at the same time, credibility comes as much from what we do as what we say. We were elected on a manifesto that promised to meet a specific set of fiscal rules. Today’s Budget is about delivering our promises. That is why, despite the speculation, today’s Budget is delivered not just within the fiscal rules in our manifesto, but with room to spare. I am setting the amount that the Government will spend for the rest of this Parliament within those rules as well. Today the OBR reports a current budget surplus in every one of the next five years, and in the target year of 2022-23 we have fiscal space of nearly £12 billion. The OBR forecasts that borrowing will increase slightly from 2.1% of GDP in 2019-20 to 2.4% in 2020-21 and 2.8% in 2021-22. It then falls to 2.5%, 2.4% and 2.2% in the following years. The OBR forecasts that headline debt will be lower at the end of the Parliament than it is today, falling from 79.5% this year to 75.2% in 2024-25.

I am sure the House will understand that, given how urgently we have developed our economic response to the coronavirus, that package of measures has not yet been captured in the fiscal forecasts, and nor have the fiscal impacts of the Bank’s actions. But the House will also note that the target year for our current budget fiscal rule is not until 2022-23. So even within our current framework, I have the flexibility to act as required over the next two years.

Madam Deputy Speaker, as we enter a period of challenge, we start from a position of strength: the economy growing, more jobs, higher wages, stable inflation and sound public finances. We promised to manage our economy responsibly, and we are getting it done. This Budget responds, at scale, to the immediate threat of coronavirus and it reports on an economy whose foundations are strong. It is a Budget that provides for security today, but let me now outline our plan for prosperity tomorrow. This is the first Budget of a new decade; the first in almost 50 years outside the European Union; and the first of this new Government. At the election, we said that we needed to be one nation. While talent is evenly spread, opportunity is not, and we need to fix that. This is a Budget that will deliver on our promises to the British people, and it is the Budget of a Government who get things done.

We promised to get Brexit done, and we got it done. We promised to let hard-working families keep more of what they earn. This Budget gets it done. We promised to back businesses, to innovate, to invest and to trade. This Budget gets it done. We promised to invest in science and research. This Budget gets it done. We promised to deliver green growth and protect our environment. This Budget gets it done. We promised to level up, with new roads, railways, broadband and homes. This Budget gets it done. And, yes, we promised record funding for our NHS and public services. This Budget gets it done. This Government deliver on their promises and get things done.

Our plan for prosperity starts immediately by putting more money in people’s pockets. It was a Conservative Government who in 2016 introduced the national living wage, giving Britain’s lowest-paid workers the biggest pay rise in 20 years. And in just three weeks’ time, around 2 million workers will see their wage rise again by 6.2%. For a full-time worker, that is a pay rise of almost £1,000. That is the biggest cash increase ever, but we have promised to go further.

Today we are publishing a new remit for the independent Low Pay Commission. It now has a formal target that means that as long as economic conditions allow, by 2024 the national living wage will reach two thirds of median earnings. On current forecasts, that means a living wage of over £10.50 an hour. We promised to end low pay. We are getting it done. As people earn more, we will also cut taxes on their wages. I am increasing, in just four weeks’ time, the national insurance threshold from £8,632 to £9,500. That is a tax cut for 31 million people, saving a typical employee over £100. Taken together, our changes to the national living wage, income tax, and now national insurance mean that someone working full time on the minimum wage will be more than £5,200 better off than in 2010. The Conservatives are the real workers’ party.

I can also confirm that now we have left the EU, I will abolish the tampon tax. From January next year, there will be no VAT whatsoever on women’s sanitary products. I congratulate all hon. and right hon. Members who campaigned for this, including the former Member for Dewsbury who led the charge.

Let me turn now to duties. Scotch whisky is a crucial industry and our largest food and drink export. My Scottish Conservative colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), have highlighted to me the impact that the recent US tariffs are having. We will continue to lobby the US Government to remove these harmful tariffs, but in the meantime I am announcing today £1 million of support to promote Scottish food and drink overseas and £10 million of new R&D funding to help distilleries go green. To further support the industry, I can also announce that this year the planned increase in spirits duty will be cancelled.

Pubs are at the centre of community life, but too many have closed over the past decade. We have already promised to introduce a business rates “pub discount” of £1,000 for small pubs, but I have heard calls from many hon. and right hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), that we need to do more, especially given the possible impact of coronavirus on our pubs. Today I can announce that, exceptionally for this year, the business rates discount for pubs will not be £1,000; it will be £5,000. I am also pleased to announce that the planned rise in beer duty will be cancelled, and because of decisions that I have taken elsewhere in this Budget I am also freezing duties for cider and wine drinkers as well. For only the second time in almost 20 years, that is every single one of our alcohol duties frozen.

I have heard representations that after nine years of being frozen, at a cost of £110 billion to the taxpayer, we can no longer afford to freeze fuel duty. I am certainly mindful of the fiscal cost and the environmental impacts, but I am taking considerable steps in this Budget to incentivise cleaner forms of transportation. Many people still rely on their cars, so I am pleased to announce today that for another year fuel duty will remain frozen. Compared with 2010 plans, that is a saving of £1,200.

Wages up; national insurance cut; the tampon tax abolished; spirits duty frozen; beer duty frozen; wine and cider duty frozen; fuel duty frozen. We promised to cut taxes and the cost of living and we got it done.

As Conservatives, we know that to put more money in people’s pockets we need a thriving private sector. That is what drives growth; that is what creates jobs; that is what lifts living standards. The second part of our plan for prosperity is to unleash the power of business. Businesses need support to start up, grow and export. Today I provide: £130 million of new funding to extend start-up loans; £200 million for the British Business Bank to invest in scale-ups; another £200 million for life sciences; more money for growth hubs; 21 cities with British Library business support; £5 billion of new export loans for businesses; and dedicated trade envoys representing the north, the midlands, Wales and the west of England in our embassies around the world.

Businesses also need a fair tax system. We were elected on a manifesto that promised to review and reform entrepreneurs’ relief. I have now completed that review, and here is what we are going to do. Entrepreneurs’ relief is: expensive, at a cost of over £2 billion a year; ineffective, with fewer than one in 10 claimants saying that the relief was an incentive to set up a business; and unfair, with nearly three quarters of the cost going to just 5,000 individuals. Just because it is called entrepreneurs’ relief does not mean that it is entrepreneurs who mainly benefit. For all these reasons, I have heard representations that I should completely abolish it. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has criticised it. The Resolution Foundation called it

“the UK’s worst tax break”.

I am sympathetic to that argument, but, at the same time, we should not discourage those genuine entrepreneurs who do rely on the relief. We need more risk-taking and creativity in this country, not less. So I have decided not to fully abolish entrepreneurs’ relief today. Instead, I will do what the Federation of Small Businesses called “a sensible reform” and reduce the lifetime limit from £10 million to £1 million. A total of 80% of small business owners are unaffected by today’s changes. Those reforms save £6 billion over the next five years, and I am giving almost all of that money straight back to business through three additional measures.

The research and development expenditure credit will be increased from 12% to 13%—a tax cut worth £2,400 on a typical R&D claim. The structures and buildings allowance will be increased from 2% to 3%, giving an extra £100,000 of relief if someone is investing in a building worth £10 million. And, to cut taxes on employment, I will deliver our promise to increase the employment allowance by a third to £4,000. That is a tax cut this April for nearly half a million small businesses. That is another step towards the dynamic, low-tax economy that we want to see. We promised to cut taxes on business. We are getting it done.

To help our businesses lead the next generation of high-productivity industries, we also need to invest now in the technologies of the future. We are the country of Newton, Hodgkin and Turing. Ours is a history filled with ideas, invention and discovery, and it is truly a national history. The first steam railway ran between Stockton and Darlington. The first television was invented by a Scot. A Welshman invented the first hydrogen fuel cell. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, born in Northern Ireland, discovered the first radio pulsars.

To compete and succeed, over the next decade and beyond, we need to recapture that spirit, so the third part of our plan for prosperity is to invest in ideas.

In our manifesto we made a promise to double investment in research and development to £18 billion. I will not be doing this today. Instead, I will increase investment in R&D to £22 billion a year. That is the fastest and largest increase in R&D spend ever. As a percentage of GDP, it will be the highest in nearly 40 years—higher than the US, China, France and Japan—and a major step towards our target of increasing public and private investment in R&D to 2.4% of GDP. And we won’t wait to get started. Next year, funding will increase by 15%, the fastest year-on-year growth on record. Detailed allocations of our new investment in ideas will be set out at the spending review, but I can make some announcements today.

I am investing £1.4 billion in our world-leading science institute at Weybridge, where, as we speak, they are working to analyse samples of coronavirus. To secure our leadership in the technologies of the future, I am investing over £900 million in nuclear fusion, space and electric vehicles. As we invest in ideas, we are also changing the way we fund science in this country. I can confirm that we will invest at least £800 million in a new blues-skies funding agency here in the UK, modelled on the extraordinary Advanced Research Projects Agency in the US.

As we invest in ideas, we are also changing where we fund science in this country. Today, half of R&D funding goes to London, the east and the south-east of England, so we are investing £400 million of new funding in high-quality research, with much of that incremental funding going to our brilliant universities around the country. We promised to make this country one of the scientific research centres of the world—we’re getting it done.

There can be no lasting prosperity for our people if we do not protect our planet, so the fourth part of our plan for prosperity is to create the high-skill, high-wage, low-carbon jobs of the future; to level up, with completely new industries in our regions and nations; and to raise our productivity and lift our quality of life even as we cut our emissions. The Treasury’s net zero review will set out the Government’s strategic choices ahead of COP26 later this year. Today’s Budget takes the first steps.

First, we will increase taxes on pollution. Electricity is now a cleaner energy form than gas, but our climate change levy, paid by companies, taxes electricity at a higher rate. As another step towards equalising the rates and encouraging energy efficiency, from April 2022 I am freezing the levy on electricity and raising it on gas. I will support the most energy-intensive industries to transition to net zero by extending the climate change agreements scheme for a further two years. To tackle the scourge of plastic waste, we will deliver our manifesto promise to introduce a new plastics packaging tax. From April 2022, we will charge manufacturers and importers £200 per tonne on packaging made of less than 30% recycled plastic. That will increase the use of recycled plastic in packaging by 40%—equal to carbon savings of nearly 200,000 tonnes.

Let me now turn to red diesel. The red diesel scheme allows selected users to pay duty of just over 11p per litre for diesel, compared to almost 58p per litre for everyone else. But the sectors using red diesel are some of the biggest contributors to our air quality problem, emitting nearly 10% of the noxious gases polluting the air of cities like London. This is a tax relief on nearly 14 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year—the same as the entire population of London and Greater Manchester taking a return flight to New York. It has been a £2.4 billion tax break for pollution that has also hindered the development of cleaner alternatives, so I will abolish the tax relief for most sectors. That is the right thing to do, but I recognise that it will be a big change for some industries, so, firstly, this change will not take effect for two years, giving businesses time to prepare. Secondly, I have heard the concerns about agriculture, particularly from the National Farmers Union and rural colleagues—including, indeed, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer)—so I have decided that agriculture will retain the relief. I will also keep the relief for rail and for domestic heating, and there will be no impact on fishing. We will consult over the summer with other sectors. Thirdly, to help develop cleaner alternatives to red diesel and other fossil fuels, we will more than double R&D investment in the energy innovation programme to £1 billion.

As well as taxing pollution, we will invest in and cut taxes on clean transport. We are introducing a comprehensive package of tax and spend reforms to make it cheaper to buy zero or low emission cars, vans, motorbikes and taxis; we are investing £300 million in tackling nitrogen dioxide emissions in towns and cities across England; and we are investing £500 million to support the roll-out of new rapid charging hubs, so that drivers are never more than 30 miles away from being able to charge up their car. Taken together, this Budget invests £1 billion in green transport solutions.

Many Members around this House will have seen the devastating impact of the recent floods on homes and businesses in their own constituencies, particularly the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), my hon. Friends the Members for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) and for Telford (Lucy Allan), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne). I can announce today that I am making £120 million available immediately to repair all defences damaged in the winter floods. To support those areas that have been repeatedly flooded, I am also providing £200 million of funding directly to local communities to build their flood resilience. To protect people and over 300,000 properties, I am doubling our investment in flood defences over the next six years to £5.2 billion.

We are also supporting natural habitats such as woodlands and peat bogs. I can confirm today that to protect, restore and expand these wonderful habitats, and capture carbon, we will provide £640 million for a new nature for climate fund. Over the next five years, we will plant around 30,000 hectares of trees—that is a forest larger than Birmingham—and restore 35,000 hectares of peatland. This Government intend to be the first in history to leave our natural environment in a better state than we found it.

I can make one further announcement on green growth. Carbon capture and storage is precisely the kind of exciting technology where Britain can lead the world over the next decade. I can announce today that we will invest at least £800 million to establish two or more new carbon capture and storage clusters by 2030. Once up and running, these clusters will store millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. The new clusters will create up to 6,000 high-skill, high-wage, low-carbon jobs in areas like Teesside, Humberside, Merseyside or St Fergus in Scotland. It is levelling up in action.

Green jobs; better flood defences; cheaper electric vehicles; innovative new technologies. We promised to protect our environment—we’re getting it done.

As a party, we know that talent is evenly spread in our country, but that opportunity is not. We have to put that right. We need to build the infrastructure that will lay the foundations for a new century of prosperity. We need to grab the opportunity to upgrade, to improve, to enhance and to level up. That starts today with the next part of our plan, as we get Britain building.

Over the next five years, we will invest more than £600 billion in our future prosperity. Public net investment will, in real terms, be the highest it has been since 1955. Take the average amount we have invested over the last 40 years in real terms—we are tripling it. Capital budgets in 2024-25 alone will reach over £110 billion. I will set out the detailed capital allocations at the spending review, but I am taking three major steps today. First, we are going to change the whole mindset of Government. To make sure that economic decision making reflects the economic geography of the country, we are reviewing the Treasury’s Green Book. We will have Treasury offices in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I can announce today that we are also opening a new economic campus in the north, with over 750 staff from the Treasury and the Departments for Business, Local Government and Trade. And we will not stop there: our ultimate ambition is to move 22,000 civil servants outside central London.

Secondly, because of this changed mindset, we will invest more in our nations, cities and towns. Today’s Budget provides an extra £640 million for the Scottish Government, £360 million for the Welsh Government, and £210 million for the Northern Ireland Executive. I am announcing £242 million of funding for new city and growth deals, taking our investment in these deals to more than £2.7 billion. We have agreed today a new devolution deal in West Yorkshire, with a directly elected Mayor for the region. And to make sure that it is not just Londoners who benefit from the kind of long-term transport deal that helped Transport for London, I am announcing today that the new West Yorkshire Mayor will, along with the seven other metro Mayors, get new, London-style funding settlements worth £4.2 billion. These settlements are in addition to the transforming cities fund, which will invest over £1 billion in local transport in 12 further cities, including Stoke, Preston, Derby and Nottingham, and Southampton.

Thirdly, we are going to build broadband, railway, roads: if the country needs it, we will build it. Today’s Budget provides £5 billion to get gigabit-capable broadband into the hardest-to-reach places, and £510 million of new investment into the shared rural mobile phone network, which means that in the next five years 4G coverage will reach 95% of the country. Let me thank my right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary, who will get this done.

We are also going to build better railways, with spades going in the ground on HS2, our commitment to fund the Manchester-Leeds leg of Northern Powerhouse Rail, funding today for a new station at Cambridge South and the midlands rail hub, Darlington station moving to the next stage of development and approval, and funding to make a dozen train stations more accessible.

And there is more money for our roads too. Today I am announcing the biggest ever investment in strategic roads and motorway—over £27 billion of tarmac. That will pay for work on over 20 connections to ports and airports, over 100 junctions, and over 4,000 miles of road. I am also announcing new investment in local roads, alongside a new £2.5 billion pothole fund—that is £500 million every single year: enough to fill, by the end of the Parliament, 50 million potholes. The details of all the road schemes that I am funding will be published later today, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary for all his efforts.

Our ambition is truly national: the A417 in the south-west; the A428 in the east; the A46 in the midlands; unclogging Manchester’s arteries; freeing the traffic north of Newcastle; and—something my north and mid-Wales colleagues will be particularly pleased to hear—we are protecting beautiful villages in the Welsh borders as we finally build the Pant-Llanymynech bypass. We promised to get Britain moving, and we are getting it done.

There is one more road I would like to mention. It is one of our most important regional arteries. It is one of those totemic projects symbolising delay and obstruction. Governments have been trying to fix it since the 1980s. Every year, millions of cars crawl along it in traffic, ruining the backdrop to one of our most important historic landmarks. So to the many hon. and right hon. Members who have campaigned for this moment, I say this—the A303: this Government are going to get it done.

Today we have announced the biggest programme of public investment ever: £27 billion for strategic roads this Parliament, funding to fill 50 million potholes, new railways, new stations, £5 billion for broadband, a new Mayor for West Yorkshire— investment in every region and nation of our United Kingdom. We promised to get Britain building: this Budget is getting it done.

Only by having a plan for prosperity will we grow the economy. Only by having a growing economy can we invest in our public services. And only by investing in our public services, the people’s priority, can we send a clear message to those who rely on them: you are our priority. Our public services are one of the most important tools by which we, the Government, can level up and spread opportunity, so that no matter who you are or where you were born, you will have every chance to succeed in our modern, dynamic economy.

And that starts with education. We have already provided schools with a three-year settlement worth over £7 billion by 2022. My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is taking forward our plans to increase per-pupil funding next year by an average of over 4%. Today I am providing every region in the country with funding for specialist 16-to-19 maths schools; £25,000 per year, on average, for each secondary school to invest in arts activities; £30 million a year to improve PE teaching; and £8 million for the Football Foundation’s scheme to build new pitches for around 300,000 people to play on. And to support families, I am providing £2.5 million to fund research into how best to integrate family services, including family hubs, championed by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce).

Next, I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to my predecessor and friend, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid). One of the issues he is most passionate about is levelling up further education. At the spending round, he increased funding for 16-to-19 education by £400 million. Today I can secure his legacy, with £1.5 billion of new capital over five years to dramatically improve the condition of our entire FE college estate. My predecessor wanted to level up further education—Saj, we’re getting it done.

I have one final education announcement. I have talked today about Britain being the country of scientists, inventors and engineers, but we are also the country of Shakespeare, Austen and Dahl. Our greatest export to the world is our language, our greatest asset is the free exchange of ideas and debate, and our greatest responsibility is the education of our young people. A world-class education will help the next generation thrive, and nothing could be more fundamental to that than reading. And yet digital publications are subject to VAT. That cannot be right. So today I am abolishing the reading tax. From 1 December, just in time for Christmas, books, newspapers, magazines or academic journals, however they are read, will have no VAT charge whatsoever. There will be no VAT on historical fiction by Hilary Mantel, manuals and textbooks like “Gray’s Anatomy”, or, indeed, works of fantasy like John McDonnell’s “Economics for the Many”. The irony is, it sold so few, it is literally his own little-read book.

Our second priority is to make sure people have affordable and safe housing. Today I can make good our promise to extend the affordable homes programme, with a new multi-year settlement of £12 billion. This will be the largest cash investment in affordable housing in a decade. To support local authorities to invest in their communities, I am cutting interest rates on lending for social housing by 1 percentage point, making available more than £1 billion of discounted loans for local infrastructure, and consulting on the future of the Public Works Loan Board. I am confirming nearly £1.1 billion of allocations from the housing infrastructure fund to build nearly 70,000 new homes in areas of high demand across the country, and a new £400 million fund for ambitious Mayors, like Andy Street in the west midlands, to build on brownfield sites. And tomorrow my right hon. Friend the Housing Secretary will set out for the House comprehensive reforms to bring our planning system into the 21st century.

But the housing challenge is most acutely felt by those with no home at all. So today, I am confirming £650 million of funding to help rough sleepers into permanent accommodation. That will buy up to 6,000 new places for people to live, enable a step change in support services and help us meet our promise to end rough sleeping in this Parliament. To fund those rough sleeping measures, I am confirming today that our manifesto promise to introduce a new stamp duty surcharge for non-UK residents will be introduced at a rate of 2% from April 2021.

I have one further measure to announce on housing. Two and a half years on, we are still grappling with the tragic legacy of Grenfell. Last year, we allocated £600 million to remove unsafe aluminium composite material, or ACM, from high-rise residential buildings. Today, I go further. Expert advice is clear that new public funding must concentrate on removing unsafe materials from high-rise residential buildings. So today, I am creating a new building safety fund worth £1 billion. That is what the experts have called for. That is what the Select Committee has called for. That is even what the Opposition have called for. That new fund will go beyond dealing with ACM to make sure that all unsafe combustible cladding will be removed from every private and social residential building above 18 metres high. My right hon. Friend the Housing Secretary will spearhead our efforts to make sure that developers and building owners do their fair share as well.

There is no more cherished public service than our NHS. Whatever resources the NHS needs to deal with coronavirus, it will get. We all benefit from a thriving health service, so it is right that we ask everyone to contribute. Business benefits from our NHS. So, as promised in our manifesto, the corporation tax rate will not be cut this year but will remain at 19%—still the lowest rate in the G20. Migrants benefit from our NHS, and we all want them to do so, but it is right that what people get out, they also put in. There is a surcharge already, but it does not properly reflect the benefits that people receive. So, as we promised in our manifesto, we are increasing the immigration health surcharge to £624, with a discounted rate for children. To raise further funds for the NHS, I am announcing a package of measures today to clamp down on aggressive tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance, including extra funding for HMRC to secure £4.4 billion of additional revenue.

Those extra contributions allow me to take three further steps to support our health services. First, mental health support can be critical for many people, and particularly for our veterans. Thanks to the campaigning of my hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) and for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), I will be supporting veterans with mental health needs with a £10 million donation to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust. I am also confirming today that, to encourage employers to provide veterans with job opportunities, we will introduce a new national insurance relief.

Secondly, I have listened to concerns from all sides of the House that the pensions tax system is preventing doctors from taking on more hours. To significantly reduce the number of people who the tapered annual allowance affects, I am increasing both taper thresholds by £90,000, removing anyone with income below £200,000. Based on their vital work for the NHS, that will take around 98% of consultants and 96% of GPs out of the taper altogether. At the same time, I am reducing the minimum annual allowance to £4,000, which will only impact those with incomes above £300,000. This is a £2 billion commitment that supports our hard-working doctors.

Let me turn now to the overall funding settlement for the NHS. We have already provided the NHS with a record funding increase of £34 billion over five years—the biggest cash increase in public services since the second world war. Today, I can go further. I can announce over £6 billion of new funding in this Parliament to support the NHS. That new money will deliver 50,000 more nurses, 50 million more GP surgery appointments and work starting on 40 new hospitals—you heard that right: 40 new hospitals. We promised to back the NHS, and this Budget gets it done.

I have one last point to make about public services. We have now left the EU. We promised to get Brexit done, and we got it done. We promised to regain control of the money we send to Brussels, and for the first time ever, today’s OBR forecast shows that the billions of pounds we would have sent to the EU can now be spent on our priorities. Today, I am launching the next spending review, to conclude in July, setting out detailed spending plans for the Parliament.

Let me set out for the House our new totals for spending on public services. The OBR has said that today’s Budget will be the largest sustained fiscal boost for nearly 30 years. Next year, day-to-day departmental spending will grow at the fastest rate in 15 years. Over the spending review period, it is set to grow at the fastest rate since 2004, with an average growth rate in real terms of 2.8%—twice as fast as the economy. That means that by the end of this Parliament, day-to-day spending on public services will be £100 billion higher in cash terms than it is today. More police—safer streets. More nurses—better healthcare. More teachers—better education. The House now knows what the electorate already know: the Conservatives are the party of public services.

We are at the beginning of a new era in this country. We have the freedom and the resources to decide our own future—a future where we unleash the energy, inventiveness and creativity of all the British people, and a future where we look outwards and are confident on the world stage. That starts right now with our world-leading response to the coronavirus. This is a Budget delivered in challenging times. We will rise to this moment. We will get through this together. This Budget delivers security today, but it also lays the foundations for prosperity tomorrow.

This is just the start. Over the next few months, we will tackle the big issues head-on. From our national infrastructure strategy to social care and further devolution, this is the Budget of a Government that get things done—creating jobs, cutting taxes, keeping the cost of living low, investing in our NHS, investing in our public services, investing in ideas, backing business, protecting our environment, building roads, building railways, building colleges, building houses and building our Union. This is a Budget that delivers on our promises—a people’s Budget from a people’s Government—and I commend it to the House.

Provisional Collection of Taxes

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 51(2)),

That, pursuant to section 5 of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968, provisional statutory effect shall be given to the following motions:—

(a) Rates of tobacco products duty (Motion No. 40);

(b) Vehicle excise duty (motor caravans) (Motion No. 44).—(Rishi Sunak.)

Question agreed to.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We now come to the motion entitled “Income Tax (Charge)”. It is on this motion that the debate will take place today and on the succeeding days. The Questions on this motion and the remaining motions will be put at the end of the Budget debate next Tuesday 17 March.

Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am delighted to call to make her maiden speech, Nicola Richards.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am delighted to call Suzanne Webb to make her maiden speech.

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[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb). My constituents in Richmond Park will have listened with great envy to tales of an efficient, on-time train system, so I thank her for that.

The most recent estimates of the tax gap in the UK—between what is due to HMRC and what is actually collected—are in the region of £35 billion. As a proportion of overall tax owed, this is just over 5.5%. The proportion has actually fallen in recent years, but this needs to be set against a backdrop of increasing austerity, which impacts disproportionately on the poorest in society. If the Government’s goal is to balance the books, they need to collect all the money they are owed with the same rigour as they manage their expenditure. A society that is quick to sanction those who fall foul of the rules on claiming benefits should be just as quick to penalise those who avoid paying their fair share of tax. As parliamentarians, our interest in the tax gap should not be in its size, its proportion as a share of tax collected or its comparison to prior years, but in the efforts taken by the Government to reduce it, as an indicator of their commitment to fairness and the equal treatment of every citizen, regardless of their income.

As we transition from our membership of the European Union to whatever we are headed towards, attention must be focused on anti-money laundering regulations. The proposed sanctions and anti-money laundering legislation would give Ministers powers to scrap existing EU regulations and replace them with UK laws. The Liberal Democrats are concerned that enthusiasm among some on the Conservative Benches for a bonfire of regulations—a “Singapore-on-Thames” style, low-tax, low-regulation UK economy—will result in these new regulations been watered down, to the benefit of those who would prefer less intrusion in their financial affairs. What assurance can the Government give us that the UK outside of the EU will clamp down just as firmly on tax evasion as it did when it was within EU structures?

The Conservatives’ previous attitude to tax havens does not inspire. Sir Vince Cable, while Business Secretary during the coalition, introduced a “people with significant control” register for anyone who owns more than 25% of a UK registered company, or otherwise exercises significant control over it. These PSC registers were due to be extended to cover the British overseas territories, until they were vetoed by the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, after intensive lobbying. Will the same forces be brought to bear on our post-EU anti-money laundering regulations? Will the Conservatives stand up for the ordinary taxpayers of this country and put in place robust measures to tackle financial crime?

The Liberal Democrats called for the extension of the register of beneficial ownership to all British overseas territories so that accurate assessments of tax owing can be made. Companies that do not voluntarily disclose this information should be barred from bidding for Government contracts, on the basis that companies that may be avoiding contributing to the public purse should not be expected to benefit from it. Furthermore, HMRC should be properly resourced so that tax avoidance can be identified and redressed. With tax inspectors stretched to the limit, too many claims go unscrutinised and too few spot checks are carried out. The Social Market Foundation estimates that under-reporting is considerably more prevalent than current analysis suggests, and that the tax gap may in fact be much wider than the stated £35 billion. The 2019 Liberal Democrat manifesto called for a general anti-avoidance rule, under which all the little loopholes and anti-avoidance measures could be prosecuted without specific legislation. HMRC could make far greater progress in closing the tax gap if it had sufficient legislative tools. A Government committed to levelling up and treating all taxpayers fairly would introduce such a measure in their forthcoming Budget.

I confess to a little wry smile when the Minister mentioned the Making Tax Digital programme and its hoped-for success in reducing the tax gap. Before I was elected to this place, I was the financial accountant for Historic Royal Palaces. In that role, I was responsible for introducing Making Tax Digital into the organisation, and I have to say that although it was successfully implemented and the organisation is now reporting under that regime, the implementation was significantly held up by the very poor drafting of the legislation that introduced it.

The tax gap needs to be closed. This is money that belongs to us and to our constituents. Week after week, we all see the consequences of too little money in our public services. The tax gap is money taken out of the pockets of the poorest in society, and the Government must not sit back and allow this to happen.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am afraid that I have to impose a time limit of six minutes with immediate effect. This way, everyone will get a chance to speak.

Economy and Jobs

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call the next speaker, I am going to do something very unusual. Many colleagues today have been incredibly brief in their speeches. Our problem from the Chair is usually that people take much longer than they are meant to—a wonderful bunch of speakers this afternoon have taken a considerably shorter time than they were entitled to. I am therefore going to increase the time limit to nine minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. This is exceptionally unusual, but people have been so self-restrained and so brief that, most remarkably, I am going to remove the time limit altogether. We can therefore hear from Marsha De Cordova at some length.

Cross-border Trade and Accounting

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

I feel almost embarrassed to be intervening on the promising discussion between my hon. Friends the Members for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) and for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay); it is almost as though one would be intruding by saying anything from the Treasury Bench, given the degree of conversation that was going on. I thank them both for a most engrossing and expert discussion.

When I was thinking about this debate, I did a little research into the background of my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire and discovered that part of his life had been spent not merely as an accountant at Tesco and Marks and Spencer, where he started to develop the considerable personal knowledge he has demonstrated, but involved an outfit called Tough Mudder. I do not know whether you have come across Tough Mudder, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is an organisation that specialises in ultra-long obstacle courses of 8 to 10 miles, or possibly longer. It holds some rather interesting events. I bring your attention to the “arctic enema” in which participants plunge into a dumpster filled with ice water, dunk themselves underneath the plank that crosses the dumpster and then pull themselves out on the other side. There is also “electroshock therapy” in which live wires hang over a field of mud that participants must traverse. Above all—this is especially important in the context of the House of Commons—there is “Everest” in which participants run up a quarter pipe slicked with mud and grease; just the thing to ascend the ladder of career opportunity in Government and Parliament. It does not surprise me at all that my hon. Friend should have acquired those important skills; he is demonstrating them so brilliantly in his parliamentary career.

It is also quite interesting how my hon. Friend has deployed precisely those Tough Mudder tactics so successfully today in calling for an Adjournment debate on cross-border trade and accounting systems and then taking us into the highways and byways of the tax code. I call that classic bait-and-switch of the kind that the founders of Tough Mudder would be delighted with.

Let me mention a few of the things we have touched on before coming to the main thrust of the topic. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight Making Tax Digital for VAT, not merely as a success for HMRC—although it has had some delay, it is clearly proving to be that in relation to VAT—but because of its wider effects. More than 1.25 million businesses are signed up to Making Tax Digital for business, and very nearly 1.75 million VAT returns have been successfully submitted through the service. Some 81% of all businesses mandated from April are now signed up to it. That is a tremendous achievement, and it fully bears out the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet. When the British people are presented with a challenge, particularly on taxation, they rise to it and overcome it. That is an important and valuable characteristic, and it is one we rely on.

There are also wider benefits, and they are becoming quite evident. There are potentially quite significant productivity benefits—we are still measuring them in HMRC. The benefits are starting to become sufficiently well known within the smaller business community to result in many signing up for Making Tax Digital VAT voluntarily; they are not captured by its mandate because they are not above the threshold. That is an important aspect of the wider picture of improving productivity and audit and accountability that goes with these developed processes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire also rightly mentioned the concerns and opportunities created by new methods of managing and valuing intangibles. That is always of great interest to Revenue and Customs, as he might imagine. He talks about the importance of transactional barriers and the need to avoid them; of course, I agree. He rightly focused on extracting an appropriate level of tax from the very largest companies and platforms—he and I have written about this in other contexts. It is important to level the playing field, with platforms using their power for good rather than yielding to the temptation to exploit insider information and one-to-many power to create an unlevel playing field. In part, that is exactly what our digital services tax is designed to do.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet quite rightly mentions cigarette excise losses. If it is of any reassurance to him, I personally have sat with the HMRC fraud team tracking of some of these gangs in real time. I can tell him that it is an enormously impressive operation and one that yields great benefits to the Revenue and to this country’s Exchequer.

Turning to the issue at hand, let me say a few things about the very important question that my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire asked about cross-border change and the role that accounting systems can play in that. He will be aware that the Government are committed to an efficient and effective customs system that minimises administrative burdens on people who trade. He will also know that HMRC has invested some £34 million to fund training for individual businesses and—this is the key point—to develop and grow the customs intermediary sector so that it embeds greater expertise and institutional capacity to sustain our customs over the longer term. Indeed, I spoke at the launch of the UK Customs Academy, funded by HMRC, only last month.

It is also important, as my hon. Friend has stressed, to make customs processes as simple as possible. The current declaration system, known as CHIEF, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet mentioned, is being replaced with a new customs declaration service that is much more modern, much more flexible and able to anticipate vastly larger volumes of trade, and much easier and quicker for traders to use. The digital and streamlined processes committed to in the 2018 Budget are already coming into play and the specific commitment to halve the time it takes to receive authorised economic operator status is a further exemplification of that.

Let me come, slightly more widely, to the question of VAT. My hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire is right to ask whether VAT systems can be used to facilitate cross-border trade. This is an issue that officials within HMRC have explored in relation to HMRC’s own VAT regime and whether that can be deployed to facilitate customs processes. The House should be clear that there are specific challenges arising from that. The first has to do with the monitoring of goods, and the UK is under an obligation to demonstrate its control over goods imported and exported from this country. The Government need to be able to monitor the movement of goods in real time, but the trouble is the current VAT system, which is of course typically run on a quarterly returns basis and does not meet the real-time requirement, as VAT is accountable after the movement of goods.

The second challenge is a related one and bears on assurance. It is an underlying principle of the World Trade Organisation and the World Customs Organisation that tariffs should exist as a trade policy tool and must be applied in a fair and reasonable way. Real-time controls are a way of satisfying authorities that the correct tariff has been applied and collected on goods and, of course, it is important not to lose the credibility that border controls confer when they are deployed on the UK as a trading partner. That would potentially be put at risk by this suggestion.

Real-time controls of course also help to ensure that goods that do not comply with regulatory standards or that pose a security risk—of course there are such goods—do not enter this country. Without some customs processes, it would be difficult to identify and check goods that pose a risk to this country. It could be a phytosanitary risk, one from hazardous materials or, of course, one from weapons and other things of that nature.

The final challenge I would identify is that we are under an obligation to show that we have applied trade policy in a fair and uniform manner, and customs controls allow us to differentiate countries that have free trade agreements from those that are subject to most favoured nation status. Of course, any future customs facilitation for UK-EU trade will be a matter for negotiation once we have left the EU. Both we and the EU envisage putting in place ambitious customs arrangements to make use of all the available facilitative arrangements and technologies that we can.

Let me reassure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and colleagues across the Chamber that we are preparing for that negotiation and will work with Parliament, the devolved Administrations and others to ensure a successful outcome in the interests of all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Thank you. What an interesting debate. It’s all right—I am a lawyer, so I understand accountants.

Question put and agreed to.

Summer Adjournment

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Our new Prime Minister urges us to embrace a spirit of optimism, so I am going to meet him in that challenge as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on taxis. I have good news for the Government, who lack a majority and find it difficult to legislate: this is one area where they would find cross-party support if only they would bring forward the Bill we have been waiting for. When I was first elected as the Member for Ilford North in 2015, we set up the all-party parliamentary group on taxis because it was clear to those of us who represent significant numbers of London taxi drivers and licensed private hire drivers that there is a wild west in the regulation of the taxi and private hire industry. It allows unfair and anti-competitive practices, and also puts passenger safety at risk.

We embarked on a programme of consultation and engagement with stakeholders right across the industry in order to come up with our report on the future of the taxi and private hire industry, which made a compelling case for reform. It was so compelling that, although the Department for Transport itself did not quite embrace the report, it was at least persuaded to commission its own report. An independent committee led by Mohammed Abdel-Haq, a great guy, produced a thorough and comprehensive report that said pretty much exactly what our report had said. So a cross-party report has made the case for reform and the Department for Transport is also making the case for reform—a case that was accepted by the now former Secretary of State for Transport and two successive Ministers, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani)—yet we still have no legislation.

So, in the spirit of this debate and in the spirit of optimism our Prime Minister tells us to embrace, I am optimistic that my speech will be heard by those on the Treasury Bench and that we will see legislation in the autumn. More than 1,000 of my constituents and their families are looking to the Government to act and I will be relentlessly on their case after the summer. I am afraid, though, that that is where my optimism about our new Prime Minister ends.

Let no one imagine that the heat has gone to my head and I am now persuaded that our new Prime Minister is ready to take our country forward in the way that he suggests. He urges us to judge him on his record. Well, that is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) might describe as a target-rich environment.

I am afraid that the record of the Prime Minister as Mayor of London is not one to be proud of: millions of pounds wasted on a garden bridge that was never built; millions of pounds wasted on a cable car with no passengers; huge amounts of taxpayer money wasted on a vanity project, Boris island airport, which never even made it past the artistic licensing phase; the water cannon that he purchased but was never able to use; the fact that crime, including violent crime, rose before he left office; the ticket office closures; the bluff, bluster and bombast, which we saw so heartily represented at the Dispatch Box today; and a carelessness and lack of attention to detail, which have left a British citizen languishing in an Iranian prison, not because—let us not make excuses for the Iranians—the actions of the previous Prime Minister’s Foreign Secretary led to her detention, but because this Prime Minister, through his careless disregard for briefing and his careless use of language, aided and abetted the Iranian Government in making her suffering and the injustice she is experiencing last that much longer. It is totally appalling.

I am afraid that optimism is no substitute for a plan. In the unlikely event that the Prime Minister were minded to keep his pledge to lay in front of the bulldozer at Heathrow airport, I would be the first to volunteer to drive it. I am afraid that in the Prime Minister and in what we heard from the Dispatch Box today there is no plan for our country. In fact, the spending commitments he made on schools, health and so many other areas of public policy were not about a vision for the future; they were an admission of nine years of failure—school cuts, NHS cuts, police cuts, and every single one imposed by the party he leads and most of which he voted for once he was elected to this place.

We will judge this Prime Minister on his record. It is not a record to be proud of. It does not inspire confidence in his ability to lead our country. It is not a change of Prime Minister that we need; it is a change of Government.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman speak so well for the all-party parliamentary group on taxis.

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[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury (Jeremy Quin)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) and to reply from the Treasury Bench.

This afternoon’s debate took place at a time when the Westminster hothouse was even hotter than normal—over 39° C. Hon. Members will I am sure be keen to return to their communities to serve their constituents in cooler climes and, I hope, with cooler temperatures. Not all of us, however, can boast the sun, the sea and the splendid ice cream of which the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) is so justly proud.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) reminded us in her speech yesterday that our primary role in this place is to do the best to look after our constituents. I thought that point was encapsulated very well by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), but it was apparent in all the passionate contributions made this afternoon by all the Members present. I am just sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my winding up cannot possibly do them all the justice they deserve.

I found out to my surprise the other day that some Members in our sister Parliament in Canberra sit for constituencies named after people rather than geography. If the same principle applied to our parliamentary procedures my vote would be—the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood alluded to this—for the evening Adjournment debate to be referred to as “the Strangford”, whereas my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) has made this particular debate his very own. We always await his contribution with interest and he never disappoints either this House or the many constituents whose problems he brings before us. I recall being taught at school that without cities, civilisation could not rise. It is similarly axiomatic that without hearing of Southend’s claim to be a city, this House could not rise either.

In opening the debate, my hon. Friend raised many points that will be best answered, I fear, by the Departments concerned, but I was glad to hear him talk about school funding, which is a very active issue in my Horsham constituency as well. I hope that, like me, he was encouraged by the positive and robust comments made by our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in his statement this morning.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) is a dashing Member of the House and it is no surprise to hear that he joined the police in a successful raid on drugs perpetrators. He also raised the importance of housing regulations, particularly in the context of environmental standards. That passion is shared by the Government. I remind him of the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) in the last Budget and I am sure that my hon. Friend will continue to push on this issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) raised the dreadful issue of trafficking and prostitution—an issue that was brought home to me by the charity Streetlight in my constituency. I understand that her report on this was launched at 4 o’clock this afternoon. I admire her for being in her place; it is a fine example of multi-tasking in this Chamber.

My hon. Friends the Members for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) and for Moray (Douglas Ross) always speak with such passion and effectiveness on behalf of their constituencies and of Scotland as a whole. I visited my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling in his constituency—it was a great pleasure—and I look forward to visiting Moray in due course and hearing more about the benefits of the city deal.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) spoke with great passion about an issue in his constituency on which he is hugely engaged. He has put his developers firmly on notice.

Turning to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), on 3 April this year, we celebrated the first anniversary of his Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 coming into force. He spoke again on homelessness, among other issues, and we all value the contribution that he has made on homelessness. He said that the House will rise with a zing in its step this afternoon after the tremendous performance of the Prime Minister—a statement with which I wholeheartedly agree, but not every Opposition Member might.

Turning to Opposition Members, there were many great speeches on the other side of the House this afternoon. The hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), the chairman of the all-party group on charities and volunteering, said in a brilliant speech that she would be satisfied if, as a result of her contribution, just one person started helping the RAF Benevolent Fund. I am certain, having listened to her speech, that it will have been far more effective than that.

Turning to my Sussex colleague, the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), one of the highlights of the parliamentary year for me was listening to his Adjournment debate back in November, on World AIDS Day, when he spoke with such passion. He raised a point of great passion again today—his schools—and I would love to debate it with him. Now is not the moment, but I am certain that he will pursue that in his normal, assiduous way.

The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) made a speech of two halves. I preferred the first half—the optimistic half—but he spoke with great passion throughout. I know—because I know him—that whatever his views on my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, he will bear no ill will or ill harm to any Member of this place, but the hon. Gentleman made his point in his customary manner.

I had the privilege of briefly serving under the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) when he was a Minister in the Treasury. He had a reputation then as being a courteous, detailed and effective Minister. He is clearly deploying the same skills in this place on behalf of his constituent—a case that seems very strange and which I am sure he will continue to pursue.

The hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) spoke movingly of those facing alcohol dependency issues and the importance of the alcohol charter.

The hon. Members for Keighley (John Grogan) and for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) expressed the passion of many—of all our constituents—on the issue of climate change. The hon. Lady, in particular, referred to the challenges being faced by those in the developing world because of climate change, which affects us all.

The hon. Members for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), and for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick), and indeed the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), in his summing up on behalf of the Scottish National party—I remember vividly replying to his maiden speech all those years ago—all spoke about or touched on universal credit. I am familiar with many of the issues that they raise, not least through the Horsham District food bank and Citizens Advice in my constituency. Universal credit is a better system than that which preceded it, but that does not mean that it cannot be improved. I urge all hon. Members to continue to raise, as I know they do, individual cases with the Department concerned.

The hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) forcefully called on the Government to look again at avoidable deaths from epilepsy, in the context of a constituent who had suffered a personal loss. I hope, as does he, that real good can come out of her campaign, and out of the tragedy to which he referred.

The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) spoke with great knowledge—and pith, which was very welcome in this debate—on pension mis-selling. I am sorry that the knowledge is the result of a dreadful scam having been inflicted, it appears, on his constituents and members of the British Steel pension scheme. We all utterly condemn the scammers. I am sure that we will hear much more from him on this subject.

The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) made a compelling speech on Ukraine and Russia, and was supported in that by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who followed him, and who also raised concerns about the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust that I am sure will have been heard by the relevant Department.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East spoke with passion about the imminent closure of the Caley railway works in his constituency. I wish him well in his discussions with the Scottish Minister with responsibility for transport, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will remain in close contact with my hon. Friends in Government.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), with whom it is a pleasure to serve on the all-party parliamentary group on credit unions, spoke effectively, as ever, on a range of issues regarding housing in Tower Hamlets—a subject that he always speaks on with great authority, and will continue to do so. The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) speaks well on behalf of her constituents; today she chose a broader theme and a global outlook, but spoke with equal passion, determination and force.

We heard a little bit of history from the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). She put her hopes for the future of the beautiful city that she represents in the context of its deep historical roots as Eboracum and Yorvik. She spoke passionately of York as a living, breathing, vibrant city, where planning works on behalf of all York’s citizens.

Many hon. Members will be very aware of the benefits to school students of a proper diet and breakfast. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) spoke convincingly and with great knowledge of what sounds like a tremendous scheme in her constituency, and with huge passion on the Shooting Star children’s hospice. As she pointed out, no Adjournment debate would be complete without a contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Just for fun, and for our benefit, he contributed in both English and Ulster Scots, and we were grateful for it. He revelled in his passion for the land, and raised the acute issues faced by many of his constituents who work on it. We were grateful for his contribution.

Many hon. Members raised the dreadful plight of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Even while we are not sitting, she and her family will firmly remain in our thoughts, as the Foreign Office continues to work on their behalf. There were many valuable points raised that I regret I have not had time to address; I am sure that they will be spotted and picked up by the Department concerned. It remains for me to thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, your fellow Deputy Speakers, the Clerks, and all the officers of this House for all their work—all the officers who keep us informed, briefed, fed and watered, and, above all, safe.

My hon. Friend Member for Southend West referred to the importance of education. We will all have had teachers who helped guide us here. I think of one of my English teachers as I wish all hon. Members a brief

“time for frighted peace to pant”,

as we prepare for fresh-winded “accents of new broils” when this House resumes. Have a good summer.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate. May I, on behalf of all the occupants of the Chair, wish all hon. Members a busy but peaceful recess—not a holiday. I also want, on behalf of us all, to thank everyone who works here in the Palace of Westminster. You work so hard to make our work easier, and we really appreciate everything that you do to support us. We hope that you all have peaceful and happy holidays.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.

Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

Second Reading

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I can inform the House that Mr Speaker has certified the whole Bill, in accordance with Standing Order No. 83J, as being within devolved legislative competence and relating exclusively to England and Wales.

Kew Gardens (Leases) (No. 3) Bill [Lords]

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith]

That is absolutely right.

I am delighted that the Government have taken up this small, uncontroversial but nevertheless important Bill. Members who have visited Kew Gardens will know what an extraordinary place it is. With 2 million visitors a year, including 100,000 schoolchildren, the gardens are one of the great wonders of the world. There are stunning landscapes, extraordinary plants and peaceful walks—except when they are punctuated by the noise of aeroplanes flying over, but that is a debate for another day.

Kew is a great deal more than a beautiful garden or a tourist attraction: in addition to hosting the world’s largest collection of living plants, its herbarium contains a collection of more than 7 million plant species. It is an extraordinarily valuable international resource, which is in the process of being digitised, as we have just heard, and made freely available worldwide. Kew Gardens is at the forefront, the cutting edge, of international plant science, which is crucial in providing a response to the existential threats of climate change, antimicrobial resistance, and diseases such as cancer, diabetes and more. Kew is simply a priceless national asset, and we should be doing everything we can to support it.

That brings me to the Bill. Very briefly, let me say that I first brought it to this House as a ten-minute rule Bill in January of last year, following similar efforts by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) and by my friend Lord True in the other place. Unfortunately, it was blocked, I think, nine times by a friendly colleague on the Government Benches. I want to repeat my thanks to Ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for their decision to bring the Bill forward in Government time, and I welcome the changes that have been made to the Bill in the Lords. Although the intention of the Bill was never to allow Kew to lease out core parts of its estate, it is welcome that that is now clear in the Bill, with explicit protections for its UNESCO status.

Having visited Kew many, many times, including this morning, I can assure hon. Members that the clear intention is to use the powers in this Bill to lease out the residential buildings on the periphery of Kew’s estate. In fact, I saw a number of those buildings this morning, all of which are beautiful and all of which have been empty for more than a decade. The anomaly of Kew Gardens being Crown land means that it has several buildings that can be leased for a maximum of only 31 years, which is not commercially attractive compared with the 150 years that the Bill will now allow.

Like the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), I want to caution against the suggestion that passing this Bill into law will provide some kind of windfall for Kew. There is no doubt that the potential financial gains are significant, but they must not be seen as a substitute either for visitor income or for Government funding. I hope the Minister agrees that this Bill is an opportunity for Kew to do more. With the spending review on the horizon, I urge him to make sure that Kew continues to receive significant support from Government. I want to reiterate that this Bill must not be used as a pretext to reduce such funding sources.

I thank the Bill team for their support and their willingness to take this Bill off my hands, out of the risk of its being blocked by some on the Back Benches, and on to the statute book. I look forward to it passing its first Commons stage this afternoon.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

What a well balanced debate, as a result of which we go straight into the wind-ups and immediately back to Dr David Drew.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Rutley]

Long may they flourish, grow and prosper—absolutely. Their enthusiasm is infectious, and we are grateful for it. We want them to continue to succeed in the work they do. I hope the Bill will continue to make positive progress through Parliament, so that we can take this work forward.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Thank you.

[Stephen Pound]

Thank Kew!

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

For the avoidance of doubt, and particularly for Mr Pound’s information, I should say that that was entirely unintentional.

I thank the whole House for dealing so swiftly with this important matter after the many months that the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) spent trying to get the Bill through the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Mortgage Prisoners

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) for securing this debate, and for his comments about his constituents, who he described as real people with real lives and terrible fears about already high interest rates increasing further. He spoke about the need to move from a computer-driven affordability test to a reality test, so that we can say yes to people and there will be better protections. He also said that capitalism must be tempered by responsibility and fairness, and that the interests of the consumer must be put before corporate interests. I agree with him.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) said that he was drawn in by the real-life experiences of his constituents, and that what the Government and the FCA have done so far is inadequate. He paid tribute to those journalists who exposed the role of lenders, and said there has been insufficient due diligence in the process. He said that we have a moral duty to act, and called for a formal inquiry.

The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) talked about the need for a statutory obligation to permit a switch to more affordable products if necessary, and a powerful presumption, if that is not allowed, for non-possession where the switch has been refused. I think that that is a perfectly reasonable position to take.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) talked about the enormous hardship placed on customers, who are being punished because they have been caught up in the middle of regulatory change. She said that selling off to Cerberus was a major policy failure and that UK Assets Ltd was misled. She also said that the FCA has been complacent, and that Ministers should do something about that particular issue.

The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) was surprised to see regulated mortgages sold off to unregulated companies. The impact on his constituents was to put them in terribly stressful situations and he said that that experience remains raw. As he said, “See it, say it, sorted.”

My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) asked why, when we have a land of home ownership, we are allowing such a threat to that home ownership by the practices of unregulated lenders that can be accessed via an email. He said that there are 300 to 400 people affected in each constituency.

The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) talked about people trapped by large exit fees or the rigidity of new lending criteria, leading in some cases to the loss of homes and assets transferred to vulture funds. He reminded us that behind each broken product is a person and a home.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) said that part of the legacy of the crash was banks seeking to benefit from the turmoil, with people trapped in purgatory. Let us hope it is purgatory, because you can get out of purgatory. It is very difficult to get out of hell.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) gave an example of how his constituents, like so many people, were affected by the transfer to Cerberus and how they are locked in to a poor product, with the consequential impact on their lives and finances of having to pay three or maybe four times the usual interest rate.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) called for an urgent inquiry into the issue. He wanted to add his support to addressing this particular subject. He referred to the grooming of customers in order to rip them off even more and how banks have little interest in customers whose mortgages they have sold on, and said that that is not acceptable.

The hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) paid tribute to troops on D-day. I think we all support and give our full commitment to that. He then asked why this matter had not been sorted out. He did so in his usual wishy-washy way by skirting around the issue: he simply said that it is wrong for the people we represent and he is right.

The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) gave an excellent speech. It was a very considered, thoughtful and forensic speech which asked the question: why on earth do we let them get away with it? Why did we let them get away with it before the crash? They created the conditions and the process, and then they went back to consumers and businesses and said that their businesses, houses or mortgages were no longer sustainable. The impact is on families. The bankers created the conditions for mortgage prisoners and it is really up to us to do something about it.

The hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) talked about the damage to people’s life chances. The selling off to vulture funds has led to thousands of people being caught up in unregulated systems, with a lot of asset-stripping going on.

Finally, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) set out the cost of higher interest rates as a result of the lack of access to more competitive rates and the impact on businesses. She made the point that this is not just a legacy issue, but a threat to the future.

I understand that this is the seventh debate that we have held on banking in a year. I have to say that it is a sad state of affairs when we are having a debate on mortgage prisoners and vulture funds. There is something wrong with that and it speaks volumes. I was at a meeting today with about 25 people who are either affected by the issue or who are helping and supporting those who are affected. I suspect that many are in the Public Gallery today and I welcome them. Some are in despair and feel completely powerless against powerful bodies that simply ignore them, and they feel let down by us.

Lenders have an approach to their customers that is simply take it or leave it. Since the global financial crisis, we have heard many voices in this House speaking about the cost of that disastrous period, born out of rapacity, as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said. In some quarters, that rapacity continues. I am sorry to say that UK Asset Resolution Limited, which is owned by the state, has not helped in the curtailment of that culture and has potentially encouraged it, even if by default. As many people have asked, why, for example, has it sold off mortgages to companies that are not regulated? In effect, they have been left at the mercy of those companies by the state and the Government. That is not acceptable. A Government company selling off assets to unregulated companies—it is difficult to believe.

My first question to the Minister is this: why has the Government allowed UK Asset Resolution Limited to do that? What is he going to do about that, and about the 200,000 people financially imprisoned by this scam? I do not accept in any way the Government’s argument that this is a question of being at arm’s length from these matters. How can the Government take such an approach when their citizens are being ripped off? They are in danger of aiding and abetting that ripping off. How can they continue to allow people who pay their mortgages and bills, and who carry on with their daily living against the odds, to be penalised? People are in a position where the inequality of bargaining is causing no end of hardship, worry, familial dislocation and, in some cases, attempts at suicide and perhaps loss of life. Millions of people have suffered from not just the recession caused by the rapacity of banks, but the cuts to social security and public spending that followed. I remind Members that in one fashion or another, the banking bail-out cost £1.5 trillion to put right, according to the Office for National Statistics.

We are hearing today about one group who have particularly suffered as a result of the financial meltdown and the decisions that have been taken since. For many Members of this House—and members of the public—who have mortgages, it seems unconscionable that we have not been able to refinance them at more competitive rates. The ability to do so is part of a healthy mortgage market that does not allow lenders to abuse their positions. The reality of those locked into interest rates that are sometimes three times the going rate can be horrendous, as we have heard time and again today from the 14 or 15 Members who spoke.

How can it be possible that people are ineligible for a mortgage when they will be paying less? That question has been asked so many times today. What a bizarre state of affairs. It will cost people less than their current mortgage so they cannot have it. Did we bail out the system only to allow the system to continue to penalise people who have not failed to keep up payments? These consumers, despite being up-to-date with their mortgage payments and seeking to move to a more affordable deal without borrowing more, are being held back by inactive lenders and entities not authorised for mortgage lending.

The practice of selling mortgages and unregulated commercial loans to unregulated funds has been creating mortgage prisoners, exposes businesses to asset stripping and threatens to continue to create further mortgage prisoners and risks to businesses, as laid out in the motion. Yet we seem to be seeing a curious case of blame-shifting. The chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority referred in evidence to the Treasury Committee last year to a “peculiarity” of EU law. A peculiarity—is that it? Others seem to have suggested that the UK’s interpretation of the law is at fault. At any rate, the directive was brought into UK law in 2016, so the Government of the time and the Government of today have a responsibility to deal with the problem, wherever and whenever it originates. As I said earlier, its origins lie in the reckless behaviour of the those in the banking sector in the years running up to the crash. They were not reckless in lending to so many individuals, but they were reckless in their general approach to risk and exposure to little-understood derivatives. As a result of their behaviour, the aggressive downsizing of balance sheets meant that people with no history of default were put into high-risk groups and, ultimately, had their mortgages transferred to vulture funds, becoming de facto credit risks despite impeccable credit histories. Many of these funds are outside the purview of standard regulation, and the FCA may in some cases legitimately claim that as a result there is little it can do. However, it must come forward with proposals, rather than just sitting on the sidelines. That is its responsibility.

I pay tribute to all the campaigners who have brought this matter to the attention of the House, including the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton and the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking. They have been absolute stalwarts in pursuing the matter. I urge the Government to move as quickly as possible to establish whether the problem lies in EU regulation or in its interpretation, and to address it as swiftly as possible.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove referred to Cerberus, which features in Greek mythology. This particular three-headed dog, however, locked victims not just in hell but in negativity, repetition and hopelessness. This dog is symbolic of the inability of people to leave because they are trapped in an expensive mortgage hell. The Government must now put it on a leash, and sort out the rules.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call the Minister, let me echo the words of the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) in welcoming to the Public Gallery a great many people who are interested and involved in this subject, and who, I gather, have met Members this afternoon. I see Members assenting to that.

I draw attention to this because we so often hear criticism of what happens in the Chamber, and hear it described as a circus or a bear pit. It is delightful for once to be able to show the people who care about this subject that when matters are debated properly, thoughtfully, forensically and collaboratively here in the Chamber, it makes a difference.

Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I remind hon. Members that, if there is a Division, only Members representing constituencies in England may vote. I call the Minister to move the consent motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That the Committee consents to the following certified clauses of, and Schedule to, the Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill—

Clauses and Schedules certified under SO No. 83J(1)(h) as relating exclusively to England and being within devolved legislative competence

Clauses 1 and 2 of, and the Schedule to, the Bill (Bill 385).—(David Rutley.)

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to speak very briefly. The SNP is quite happy to support the Bill. As the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said in the full House of Commons 30 seconds or so ago, this law has been enacted by the Scottish Parliament and already applies. I am grateful to hear him think that it is more substantial than the proposed legislation we are passing today.

We are currently not in the House of Commons but the English Parliament, the Legislative Grand Committee (England), and only for England because of the consequential disapplication of some of the Bill to Wales by dint of a clause. It has only taken me most of the afternoon to try to read through it to figure out exactly where the different extents apply.

I was keen to make sure I was here in the absence of my hon. Friends the Members for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and for Glasgow East (David Linden), who usually make sure that the EVEL—English votes for English laws—stages do not go completely unnoticed in Hansard and by the riveted watching public. One day—perhaps today is the day and the hon. Member for Shipley will speak—Members from England and Wales will participate in the Legislative Grand Committee and justify the colossal waste of time and money that has been spent on establishing the EVEL procedure. We wait, perhaps still unfulfilled, for that day to come.

[The First Deputy Chairman]

I look around expectantly and discover that nobody wishes to catch my eye.

Question agreed to.

The occupant of the Chair left the Chair to report the decision of the Committee (Standing Order No. 83M(6)).

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair; decision reported.

Third Reading

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Mike Penning]

To me, a trophy-hunting Bill is the simplest thing in the world. If someone wants to do that sort of thing, do not bring trophies—the animal’s head—to this country. That is so abhorrent to 99.9% of the British public.

We have set a line in the sand and shown that we can bring such Bills through the House—it is a shame that more people are not in the Public Gallery to listen to us when we get things right. I am sure that, tomorrow, in Parliament this will get thruppence, because of President Trump and other things that have been going on, but this indicates what this House can do and is right morally and ethically. We should be very proud of what has happened in this House today.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

If I may say so, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is a great pity that when something of importance is achieved in the proceedings of this House, as it is about to be, it is not noted because the commentators prefer drama to care and doing the right thing.

[Sir Mike Penning]

Perhaps they prefer a circus in this House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Yes, we will not go on about which circus is really the circus. To bring about what everyone in the Chamber has been aiming towards for a very long time, let me put the question.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

For the sake of clarity, I confirm to the House that the Back-Bench motion on the mineworkers’ pension scheme will not be moved today.

Excessive Speeding and Driving Bans

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

The hon. Lady, true to form, shares the praise with all those who have worked behind the scenes, which has been noted.

The hon. Lady was probably expecting my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who has been promoted, but I hope she will be pleased with my response. I do not want Hansard or any journalists to be confused: I have not been promoted for long, just for the next 15 minutes.

Road safety is a top priority for the Government. Road deaths are a tragedy for all affected, and injuries can cause suffering and life-changing misfortune. Much of that harm is avoidable, and it is not an inevitable consequence of road transport. As the hon. Member for Clwyd South mentioned, all available research shows a link between excessive speed and the risk of collisions. Increased compliance with speed limits, as part of a wider package of road safety measures, will play a significant role in reducing the number of collisions on our roads.

I share the hon. Lady’s concern that people who drive at appalling speeds, risking the lives of others as well as their own, are too often back behind the wheel too soon. However, sentencing is a matter for our independent courts and is based on the facts of each case. A driving ban, the length of which is at the discretion of the judge, is already an option, and guidance is issued by the Sentencing Council. This is not something on which the Department can intervene. The judiciary are constitutionally independent of the Government, and it is important that no action is taken that may undermine this fundamental principle.

It may help if I say something about the totting up of points. If an offender amasses 12 penalty points or more within a three-year period, a minimum six-month disqualification must be ordered. An offender disqualified in this way may also be ordered to take an extended driving test. Offenders who are disqualified for 56 days or more have to apply for a new licence.

However, courts have the discretion not to disqualify, or to impose a reduced disqualification, if there are mitigating circumstances or exceptional hardship—the hon. Lady raised that issue. This is wholly up to the courts and, again, is not something that the Department can influence, but the Department always notes what is raised in the Chamber. We know the media have reported cases where drivers with many points are still behind the wheel.

At this point I ought to say something about the relative responsibilities of the Department for Transport and the Welsh Assembly. Much road safety legislation and policy is devolved to Wales and Scotland. As well as being responsible for their own trunk road networks, they set policy on safety cameras and issue guidance on setting speed limits. They have legislative competence on all the substantial provisions of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 concerning speed limits and traffic signs.

The enforcement of speed limits is an operational matter for the police. Policing in England and Wales is divided into territorial forces, with the Westminster Government setting policing policy. It is for chief police officers to decide how to prioritise enforcement in accordance with their local priorities and demand. Their police and crime commissioner’s police and crime plan can also be used to address this issue. Individual police forces may also work with local communities and local volunteers to tackle speeding, taking specific local needs into account.

The penalties for excessive speed start with informal advice—the hon. Lady has campaigned on this—because, of course, the more that people are aware, the more they will hopefully monitor their speed. Where such advice is not appropriate, drivers are prosecuted by means of a fixed penalty notice or, in the most serious cases, a postal charge bringing them before the court.

Current guidelines issued by the National Police Chiefs’ Council allow police the discretion to take account of the individual circumstances of each speeding offence, and to take the action they consider appropriate. This ensures that the focus of attention is on the most serious offending and those individuals who clearly and deliberately break the law. The guidelines also seek to provide consistency of treatment from forces in different parts of the country and to set out the principles that underline the police’s approach to enforcement of the law on speeding. However, these are only guidelines, and there are no plans to change this or advise the police how to enforce speed limits.

The hon. Lady mentioned Operation Snap, and I agree with her on the outcomes of that programme. The police have introduced Operation Snap, which has used media such as dashcam evidence, helmet cameras or personal video for the detection of road traffic offences that do not involve a collision. I agree that this is an example of innovation that tackles those driving offences that the public want the police to deal with. It also significantly reduces the time for the police to make a decision on an offence. The aim of Operation Snap is to improve driver behaviour. This is important to note, because she spoke about the anti-drink-driving campaigns back in the day, which changed people’s attitudes completely. If drivers perceive that they could be prosecuted for driving poorly, we hope that they will not drive poorly to begin with, thus reducing the likelihood of a collision.

The hon. lady also talked about sentencing and penalties. After a full consultation, in October 2017 the Ministry of Justice confirmed Government plans to introduce life sentences for drivers responsible for the deaths of other road users. The proposals that were confirmed include: increasing the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving from 14 years to life; increasing the maximum penalty for causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs from 14 years to life; and creating a new offence of causing serious injury by careless driving. Sentencing remains a matter for the courts, but raising the maximum penalty will give the courts the tools to deal with the most serious cases. The legislation will be brought forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.

The hon. Lady also made powerful points about drink-driving, and I wish to confirm that the Government currently have no immediate plans to lower the drink-drive limit in England and Wales. Our approach to tackling drink-driving is through rigorous enforcement, penalties and changing the social acceptability of drink-driving in the first place.

The hon. Lady made some good comments about the Brake report, which we welcome as it highlights the important aspects of road safety. Last June, the Government announced their intention to publish the refreshed road safety statement and the two-year road safety action plan later this year, to address four priority user groups: young people, rural road users, motorcyclists and older vulnerable users.

The hon. Lady made some important points about technology. We are currently engaged in negotiations as part of the EU’s third mobility package, which will introduce intelligent speed-adaptation devices in vehicles in the future. She made a powerful point about telematics. I do not want to stray into another Minister’s area of responsibility at the Dispatch Box, so I will offer the hon. Lady the opportunity to meet the relevant Minister once they have settled into their post.

I emphasise that we are determined to improve safety on our roads for all road users, and to see to it that offenders receive the justice that they deserve. I do not doubt that, just like the previous Minister, the new Minister will take this issue incredibly seriously. If I have not covered all the hon. Lady’s points, I will ensure that any that are outstanding are covered in a written response. I congratulate the hon. Lady on being a strong campaigner on this issue and on bringing this important debate to the House.

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for all your work, and I thank the Clerks, the Doorkeepers, and everyone who works in the Tea Room and the Library and keeps us going, as well as the wonderful team from the Department for Transport, who keep the Ministers going. I hope that everybody has a wonderful recess, although I am a little nervous because I am being joined by my parents-in-law, Tim and Wendy Wheeldon. They will be spending time with their daughter-in-law in the constituency of Wealden. I am pleased to be spending the recess with my husband, David, but my daughter, Farah, is going to become a teenager, as she turns 13 on 1 June, so this might not be a quiet recess and I may wish to get back to work sooner than my colleagues.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Just before I adjourn the House, I wish the Minister, all her family and everyone who serves this House so well in many, many capacities, a peaceful recess. I also add to the many accolades that have been expressed about Philippa Helme, my most sincere thanks for her calm, wise counsel on many occasions here in the Chamber and behind the scenes. Once again, on behalf of everyone who works here and who serves this place, I thank Philippa for her many decades of dedication to this place and wish her well for an exciting future.

Question put and agreed to.