Ways and Means

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman is right about the importance of those measures, and they will go forward. The policy has not changed; it will just come forward at a different time with other measures in this area.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Does the Minister have the staff to do the job on addressing tax avoidance?

[Mel Stride]

Our record on addressing tax avoidance speaks for itself. HMRC has raised £160 billion from clamping down on avoidance, evasion and non-compliance since 2010, which is a vast improvement. Given that our current deficit is running at about a third of the 2010 level, this Government have brought in a huge amount of money. In terms of having the resources, we have invested £1.8 billion in HMRC since 2010 to focus exactly on tax avoidance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

The reality is that the Tories support tax dodgers. Full stop.

Several of the measures before the House will create even more work for the falling number of people employed by HMRC and put further strain on them. The Government’s actions will ensure that many of the so-called anti-avoidance measures trumpeted by the Minister will fail before they even begin.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

My hon. Friend has just touched on how the Minister is going to implement these measures, which is what I asked about earlier. He will probably know that the Government are closing tax offices throughout the country, with a reduction in staff as a result. How can they honestly say they are going to implement legislation to go after tax dodgers?

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The proposals for reorganisation will do nothing to help that—they are in a chaotic state.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Andrew Jones)]

The GCHQ cyber-accelerator in Cheltenham is part of the Government’s £1.9 billion cyber-security strategy. It allows business start-ups to gain access to GCHQ’s world-class personnel and expertise, and the accelerator helps these businesses to expand, contributing to jobs and opportunities, including in Cheltenham, and it makes the UK a safer place online. I know that my hon. Friend has worked very hard on this for a considerable period of time. He makes an important point as he speaks up for his constituency, and how it is leading in the UK and across the world.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

How does the Minister expect to reduce youth unemployment, given the further education budget cuts across the country, particularly in Coventry, where the budget has been cut by 27%?

[Stephen Barclay]

Actually, we are seeing record numbers of people, in particular disadvantaged students, going to university. The situation will not be helped if people are conned with the idea that student debts will be written off.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I was going to call the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), but he does not seem to be standing—

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Go on, get in there man.

[Mr Cunningham]

15. What provisions has the Chancellor made for universities in this country after 2020? Will he match pound for pound the lack of EU money?

[Mr Hammond]

What we have said is that where EU funding is awarded to projects involving universities, businesses, external research institutes and farmers between now and the point of our departure from the European Union, provided those awards meet our value-for-money criteria and have the support of the UK or devolved Administration Department responsible, the Treasury will underwrite those awards. We expect that in any settlement with the European Union, the Commission will go on paying those awards after we have left, but if it does not we will stand behind them.

Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)]

I appreciate the spirit in which the new clauses have been spoken to, because we are all here for one purpose, which is to make sure that the Bill works as well as possible for the benefit of as many charities as possible. In responding to this short debate, I will try to offer evidence of the reasons why we cannot, or do not think that it is right to, accept the new clauses.

New clause 1 would require Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to publish every year an analysis of the number of penalties imposed; the circumstances giving rise to the imposition of those penalties; an assessment of the number of charities set up with the primary purpose of accessing the small donations scheme; and an assessment of the efficacy of the matching rule in preventing fraud. That relates to the general debate that we have had throughout the Bill’s progress about how we prevent fraud and a minority of people from exploiting the rules.

New clause 2 would require the Chancellor to undertake a review of the matching rule—the same is true, as we have just heard, of new clause 4—in consultation with the charity sector, and to lay a copy of the report by the end of the 2017-18 tax year.

New clause 3 seeks a power to prescribe by regulations an exemption for certain charities from the connected charities provision. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), is right to say that we debated that proposal in Committee and that I undertook to reflect on it. I will tell her where I have got to shortly. The new clause would require the Treasury to consult the scouts, guides, military cadet groups and other organisations before publishing draft regulations on or before 31 October 2017.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

On consultation, the Minister has mentioned the scouts and a number of other organisations, but has she considered consulting the Brethren? I am sure that she will recall that, during the last Parliament, the Brethren lost its charity status for a while and there was a large number of debates on it.

[Jane Ellison]

Obviously, I was not in this post at the time, but I recall someone in my constituency drawing my attention to that. As I will come on to say, the consultation process leading up to the Bill was exhaustive, but I also hope to reassure the House that the ongoing consultation with people who have an interest in the issue is significant on the part of HMRC and the departmental team led by the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), who has responsibility for civil society. It is fair to say that we have a good, constructive and ongoing dialogue with the charity sector and those affected by the provisions, but I acknowledge that there was a slightly different concern in relation to the group mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.

New clause 4 proposes that an assessment be put before the House within six months of the passing of the Bill, and it centres on the gift aid matching requirement and its impact on charities of different sizes. We debated similar amendments in Committee and, although I accepted that they were well intended, I decided that they were unnecessary, so it will probably not surprise the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles and the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), who spoke on behalf of the SNP, that I will make some of the same points again today, but I hope to build on what I said in Committee.

New clause 1 concerns fraud—a vital issue that we have discussed a number of times and that we take very seriously. I am grateful to Opposition Members for giving us the opportunity to return to this important subject. I welcome, as I did in Committee, the fact that we have a cross-party consensus on protecting the gift aid small donations scheme from fraudulent attack. Opposition Members have raised on several occasions the efficacy of the matching scheme as a deterrent against fraud, and they asked us on Second Reading and in Committee to prove that the matching rule prevents fraud. At each stage, particularly in the debate on the matter in Committee, I drew the House’s attention to a few examples of the shocking abuses of charitable status that have resulted in criminal convictions this year alone. Sadly, I have a reasonably extensive list of quite recent events, but I sense that I do not need to persuade people that fraud does happen in a minority of cases.

I am not sure exactly what further evidence Opposition Members would like me to provide. As I said in Committee, the Government are, in essence, being asked to prove a negative. That is a risky proposition, and I will illustrate why. If the suggestion is that the Government should adopt a wait-and-see approach, remove all the protections and then attempt to close the loopholes when fraudulent attacks take place, I cannot agree that that is the right approach. Opening up the scheme to abuse would be irresponsible, could waste a large amount of public money and—probably most importantly—could cause untold damage to the reputation of our fantastic charity sector. I cannot recommend that course of action to the House.

To be clear, we know that the majority of charities are honest. They are run by dedicated and trustworthy people—the sort of people whom we all know in our constituencies. For the fraudsters, however, nothing is sacred. It is a sad fact that if they are presented with an opportunity, they do not hesitate to exploit it. I gave examples on Second Reading and in Committee of fraudulent activity seen by HMRC, and I am sorry to say that, as I have mentioned, further examples are easily provided. It is not just HMRC and the Treasury that recognise that fraud in the charity sector is a problem; there is wide acknowledgment in the sector that fraud is a costly issue, particularly because of the reputational damage it causes. Some Members may be aware that last month saw Charity Fraud Awareness Week and the launch of a new “Charities against fraud” website, which is a joint initiative between the Charity Commission and the Fraud Advisory Panel to help trustees and volunteers to recognise the risks and take action to prevent fraud in charities.

There is also recognition from charity umbrella bodies that charity fraud can be incredibly damaging. The Charity Finance Group noted in its guide “Countering Fraud”, which was published during Fraud Awareness Week:

“Fraud is a problem that can affect any charity from the very large to the very small. Falling victim to fraud can undermine a charity’s reputation, damage donor confidence and reduce a charity’s ability to help its beneficiaries. On occasion fraud has even led to the forced closure of a charity.”

The Government will not tolerate the abuse of charitable status, for the reasons so eloquently expressed by the Charity Finance Group. The Government will continue to take action to tackle and disrupt the dishonest minority who attempt such fraud.

I am simply not convinced that it would be helpful to publish an annual report detailing the compliance activity that HMRC has undertaken. Indeed, I fear that doing so could have the unintended consequence of assisting the very people whom HMRC is attempting to weed out. HMRC’s operational performance in this and every other respect is, quite rightly, the subject of independent scrutiny by the National Audit Office and Parliament, through the Treasury Committee and the Public Accounts Committee. For that reason, I believe that new clause 1 is unnecessary, and I hope that the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles might consider withdrawing it.

Concentrix

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. Like other Members, my constituency casework is full of examples of the mismanagement of the tax credits contract. I thank my constituency team back up the road—Iain, Colin, Jenn and Louise—who have dealt with a large volume of cases, always with great sensitivity and professionalism.

Over a long period, Her Majesty’s Government have created a system that they charge Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to administer. HMRC outsources the process but not its responsibility, and this time its chosen enforcer was Concentrix. However, it is unfair to lay all the blame at the door of Concentrix staff, or, indeed, HMRC staff. The current welfare system, as designed, is flawed—seriously flawed—and while we continue to support it, the blame is ours. Far from enabling people and giving them the financial security to build their own lives, the welfare system has made life more complicated for those who need support.

Dealing with poverty is an ongoing struggle in constituencies such as mine, where deep-rooted inequality continues to stifle ambition and opportunity. Yet, as with so many other policies, my constituents are once again disproportionately affected by the UK Government’s inadequacies. We have heard excellent contributions from Members who outlined specific examples of how the tax credit contract has been so appallingly mismanaged. However, the saddest indictment of UK Government welfare and tax policy is that there are still so many people in desperate need of tax credits in the first place.

Concentrix is clearly not blameless in this situation; its faults and mistakes are well documented. However, while the UK Government may solve the problems inherent in this contract by bringing it back in-house, we are still left with the wider problem of Government services being delivered by private companies. Private companies should never be in the position of delivering vital public services. Citizens and Governments should have a direct relationship with each other. Taxpayers contribute directly to the Government, but when the money is going in the other direction, it should not be filtered through a private company before it gets to the individual.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I agree that these human issues are far too sensitive for private companies to be profiting from them. Interestingly, when I first raised this in January with the Leader of the House in asking for a debate or a statement, I was told, “Just send me information about the problem with a case.” Why did it take eight or nine months and the involvement of the BBC to finally get a Minister to the Dispatch Box to do something about this?

[Ronnie Cowan]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point very eloquently.

Companies bid for UK Government contracts not on the basis of how they can deliver a fairer and more equal society, but of how they can save money for the Government. Companies are incentivised to deliver these results, and ultimately their first loyalty is to owners and shareholders. By off-loading services to private companies, the UK Government and HMRC are trying to absolve themselves of responsibility when there is a problem. We have seen these problems appear time and time again. G4S, Atos and Concentrix are not names that inspire public confidence in the delivery of high-quality public services. How many more disasters is it going to take before the UK Government realise that corporations should not be delivering public services? My constituents have no interest in Government reviews, PR exercises or ministerial statements about the issue—all they want is to be paid what they are due, on time, without the risk of its being arbitrarily removed.

The existing welfare system needs to be ripped down and replaced with something suitable for the 21st century. A couple of weeks ago, we had a debate in Westminster Hall about a universal basic income. There is support across parties for a serious investigation into this. We should stop treating the symptom and start treating the entire patient. Maybe, just maybe, the time for a universal basic income has come.

House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that brings me on to my next subject—value for money.

We know how hard we work in this place. We have constituents whom we have to represent and make sure that their interests are brought to this House. The Lords have none of that. Some of them barely turn up. Some of them have barely been in for a debate or made any parliamentary contributions at all. Yet we are prepared to have this huge expense to sustain that place while the number of Members of Parliament who come down here and work hard for their constituents day in, day out is being cut.

I want to say a couple of other things about the reduction in the number of Members of Parliament. The Government are in the process of taking us out of the European Union, and when the 73 Members of the European Parliament, who have significant powers, are no longer there, we will be expected to take up that work. An increased workload will fall on a smaller number of Members of Parliament when we no longer have Members of the European Parliament working for us in Brussels and Strasbourg.

Although the Government intend to reduce the number of Members of Parliament, they have absolutely no plans whatsoever to reduce the numbers in Government. Instead of attempting in any way to reduce the size of Whitehall, they have made sure that there are more Departments, more special advisers and more civil servants. If there is to be any reduction in the number of Members of this place, surely there should be a reduction in the number of people who serve in this Government.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very interesting point. Our workload will increase if and when Britain withdraws from Europe and we no longer have any Euro MPs, and the change in the boundaries will increase the workload further.

Concentrix: Tax Credit Claimants

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I think that the best thing that we can do with this debate is ensure that lessons are learned from this failure, and that the whole Government act on them. It is time to get answers from the Treasury about the extent to which it, rather than Concentrix, is responsible for the failure.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend has done a great service in securing this debate. I had a problem, to say the least, over Christmas with a family who had no income for about eight weeks. We spent most of the Christmas period trying to get that family some money. Does she not agree that these matters should not be farmed out to private companies? They are far too sensitive. The Government should have another look at this, and the responsibility should be taken in-house. It should also be noted that HMRC has taken on another 30 staff; that is one heck of a cost as well. Another company that should be investigated is Capita, which is doing exactly the same thing because it has been set targets.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

My hon. Friend is right that we need to work out what Government should do. I will deal with that point later, but it is clear that part of the problem with Concentrix is that if people were notified, they often did not believe what they were told, because the Treasury insisted that Concentrix use its own branding on the letters, so people got letters from some company asking for extensive data. I would have treated that as phishing and thought, “This is someone trying to scam me.”

Tax Credits: Concentrix

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

Of course. If any Member wishes to write to me, I will ask HMRC to look at it as a matter of priority. The hon. Lady may not be around tomorrow morning, but there is an opportunity, if she or any other Member wants to bring a complex case, to go to the drop-in where HMRC officials will be available. If she would like to write to me, I will of course look at the case.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I first raised this issue last January. It has taken about eight months to get to this situation. The issue, which had been going on for weeks, related to a family who did not have any income over the Christmas period. Why does it take a BBC programme to bring Ministers to the Dispatch Box? On Monday, a member of my staff was given the run-around by HMRC and Concentrix because nobody would take responsibility. My constituents have spent hours on this. To involve the private sector in such a sensitive and humane issue does not work.

[Jane Ellison]

I am sorry to hear that the hon. Gentleman had that difficult experience. I cannot agree with his general point about there being no role for the private sector in this regard. I refer again to the amount of money that has been saved for the taxpayer. There is a lot of error and fraud in the system, and it is important that we bear down on that. We do not want money to go to people for whom it is not appropriate, in particular in relation to the nature of people’s households. Much of the fraud does rest in that area. As he highlights, this is a particularly difficult and sensitive area to investigate, but we need to continue to investigate it because the amount of fraud in the area of tax credits is considerable.

Charter for Budget Responsibility

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that under his own Government’s fiscal rule, the deficit should have been completely eliminated last year, and debt should have dropped but it has increased. I will send him a reading list.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

When the Prime Minister was first elected last week, she said that she would govern for the many and not for the few. However, in response to questions today about the fact that poverty is affecting many people in this country, she gave the usual answer, which was that we have to have a strong economy. That suggests that she is departing from what she said in Downing Street a few days ago. Does my hon. Friend agree that this has been the longest recession resulting from punitive measures since the second world war? The second world war lasted for six years; this has lasted longer. It is brutal and it is punishing the needy in society.

[John McDonnell]

I was trying to take heart from the fact that when she spoke in Downing Street, the Prime Minister recognised just how divided Britain is between the wealthy and those at the sharpest end of the austerity measures. I was hoping that that would be translated into an acknowledgement today that the fiscal rule must go.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

Good try. Initially last year I thought the fiscal charter was so ludicrous that I was just going to rubbish it or ignore it. Then, as people remember, I made a U-turn because I thought we could defeat it, because we had virtually all the Labour party and others demonstrating that it was ludicrous. We predicted that every target set in the fiscal charter would be missed, and we were right. The Labour party is an anti-austerity party. We will campaign against austerity, but more importantly now, we are campaigning for a long-term future plan of investment.

I think we are winning the argument right across the piece. As I said, from partners in industry and across the political parties—even in the Conservative party now, as we saw in the leadership campaign—there are voices calling for hundreds of billions of pounds of investment. We are winning that argument. The problem is now that we need decisive change from Government with regard to the fiscal rule; otherwise Britain will remain on hold.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I am sure that one of the things that my hon. Friend learned, as I did, during the referendum was that, as I mentioned, the British people have had enough of austerity. They want politics to change. They want investment. Some of my hon. Friends have mentioned the areas of investment. It is important that we learn the lesson of the referendum—that people have had enough of austerity.

[John McDonnell]

Many voted to leave on the basis that they and their towns and regions felt left behind as a result of seven years of austerity, which have brought about high levels of poverty, lack of investment, and low-paid jobs and insecure jobs. As a result, I think there was an expression of anger in the referendum about a whole range of issues. People were saying to the Government, “We’re not satisfied with your performance, we’re not satisfied with the way we are being governed and we want change.”

Centenary of the Battle of the Somme

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

The motion was tabled in my name and that of the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis).

On 12 August 1916, a young German officer called Friedrich Steinbrecher wrote home, saying:

“Somme. The whole history of the world cannot contain a more ghastly word.”

Somme is seared into the national consciousness like no other battle before or since.

On Friday, in Manchester, at Thiepval, in London and across the country, we will unite to mark the first day of the centenary of the Somme. Soldiers are often glorious, but war never is—and anyone saying otherwise is a complete fool. War is sheer, bloody reeking hell on earth, and we politicians must do everything in our power to avoid it. More than 1 million men lost their lives during the 141 days of the Somme offensive, many of them reduced to unrecognisable scraps of flesh and bits of gristle. Most, of course, survived but so many were left with physical and mental scars that they would take with them to the grave.

For the record, I should declare an interest: since November 2011, I have been the Prime Minister’s special representative for the commemoration of the centenary of the Great War and thus involved with the national arrangements that I suspect my right hon. Friend the Minister will shortly discuss. All I will say, sparing his departmental blushes, is that his officials and the associated arm’s-length bodies have done a truly fantastic job, and continue to attract admiration from our international partners. I would also like to pay particular tribute to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the Royal British Legion and the Imperial War Museum, which have all worked tirelessly, and to the BBC whose coverage has been in the very best traditions of public service broadcasting.

I think we have had a pretty divisive few weeks. Now is the time for unity, as we come together to remember one of the bloodiest battles in our history—a battle that touched everyone from Lerwick to Londonderry to Land’s End. In all our communities, it still casts a long shadow. If a battle divides, its centenary has the power to unite. That was vividly shown last month when we marked the centenary of the Battle of Jutland, shoulder to shoulder with Germany in the grand panorama of Scapa Flow and on the Jutland Bank.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The Somme was obviously the major battle of the first world war, but we should not forget all the other battles of that war, in which so many men lost their lives or were badly maimed. My grandfather, for example, was badly wounded at the battle of Loos.

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I suspect he will have closely followed the programme over the past two years and will continue to monitor it closely over the next two years, leading up to armistice in 2018.

As I was gazing over Scapa Flow a few weeks ago, I wondered how many seamen in Jellicoe’s grand fleet, or in Scheer’s high seas fleet, would have guessed that their countrymen would be spending most of the ensuing 100 years as the closest of allies, united in the most powerful alliance that the world has ever seen. On Friday, we will be standing shoulder to shoulder with another friend and ally at a very special Anglo-French place, the Thiepval monument on the Somme, in the lee of which there are 300 French and 300 British graves. It is a special place; a haunting place. It was Lutyens’s great triumph—a monument to the missing, but more than that: an enduring monument to the unity, I think, of Europeans, and particularly our unity with our closest continental neighbours.

At this time of historic opportunity and risk, let us make the centenary’s legacy one of amity and concord in our European neighbourhood. Here at home, too, we are desperately in need of a coming-together moment. The Somme vigil on Thursday night, and the silence at 7.30 on Friday morning, will, I hope, facilitate such moments of quiet reflection.