Living Standards

Debate between Geraint Davies and Lord Barwell

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

There are certainly some commodity prices that Government can influence—my hon. Friend is quite right to pick me up on that—but there are others, such as the prices of basic foodstuffs, that are beyond national domestic control.

How do we solve the problem? I would like to suggest five possible solutions. The first is economic growth. It is not a solution on its own, because part of the deficit is structural.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gavin Barwell]

I will give way once more, to the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), because I promised I would.

The OECD forecast shows that our economy is projected to grow in quarter 3 by 0.9%, which is more than any other country in the G7 other than Canada, and in quarter 4 by 0.8%, which is the best projected rate in the G7. Unemployment in my constituency of Croydon Central is 6% lower today than it was when Labour left office, while youth unemployment—which the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who spoke before me, rightly spoke so passionately about—is nearly a quarter lower today than when Labour was in office.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I am afraid I cannot give way again.

That change has taken 2.7 million low-paid people out of income tax altogether and cut the income tax bill for someone on the minimum wage by a half. The shadow Chief Secretary talked about priorities. It is true that this Government have made a change to the tax rates for some of the wealthiest in our country, but if we want to talk about priorities, we have to say that the Treasury has spent 50 times more cutting tax rates for people in ordinary low-paid work than it has paid in reducing the top rate. That shows this Government’s priorities.

As other hon. Members have said, we have ensured that petrol duty is 13p a litre cheaper today than it would have been if we had followed Labour’s policies. We have cancelled the beer duty escalator. We have helped local councils across the country to keep council tax bills down. We have a scheme that we will introduce for tax-free child care, which will help with the cost of child care for people with children under the age of 12. We are ensuring that energy customers are placed on the lowest tariff. We have introduced the triple lock for the state pension, to ensure that we never again have the national scandal of our pensioners being given a derisory pension increase each year. We are also introducing the Help to Buy scheme, to try to help my constituents who want to own a home of their own and take that vital first step to get on the housing ladder, so there is much that this Government are doing.

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I cannot give way again.

There is also the crucial issue of wages. I have talked about the national minimum wage already, and there were some interesting reports in the media recently about the Government perhaps looking at what they can do on the minimum wage. As a Conservative, I would worry very much about a uniform increase, which might price some people out of the labour market. However, there is a case for asking whether larger companies or those that are making healthy profits should not be paying their staff more, because at the moment we are subsidising some employers to pay low wages, through the tax credit system that the previous Government introduced. I very much hope that the Government will look at how we tackle the issue of quality of life for people on low pay from both ends, by raising the personal allowance, so that we do not tax them so much, but also seeing whether we can ensure that they are paid a fair wage for the hard work they do.

One Opposition Member who talked about this issue implied that it was just Labour councils that are passionate about a living wage. My local authority, Conservative-controlled Croydon council, pays all its staff the London living wage, while the Mayor of London has guaranteed that that will apply to all staff working for the Greater London authority as well.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Geraint Davies and Lord Barwell

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

That cuts to the point of one of the amendments, which deals with the frequency with which we carry out the reviews. That is an important point, because if we had more regular reviews, they would be based on more recent data, and we would not see such dramatic changes. If we had a review every five years, we would not see significant changes in many of our constituencies.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gavin Barwell]

I will give way once more to my predecessor.

[Geraint Davies]

The point I was trying to make, which I think has been misrepresented by the new hon. Member for Croydon Central, is that we should use the best data available on those people who are 18 and over and eligible to vote. I have accepted that we will not get a perfect number, but I propose that we should do the best we can with the data sets available to get as accurate a picture as possible, and that that is the best basis for a fair democracy. That would be much fairer than simply relying on registration figures.

[Gavin Barwell]

I take that point, but my response would be that, rather than using figures that are guesstimates, we should use the actual electorate figures. We should also, however, take action across the country to replicate the work of the best local authorities to drive up representation.