Hospitality Sector
Debate between John Lamont and Christine Jardine(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I come to Parliament this week fresh from the Edinburgh festival—on which note I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Hon. Members will be pleased to hear that I was there not as a performer, but because every year I am tempted across the border into neighbouring constituencies by the absolute feast of music, theatre, dance, literature and comedy that is the Edinburgh festival. Every year it contributes £400 million to the city’s economy, and it is hosted and supported by a hospitality industry that, in my constituency alone, is valued at £200 million and supports 6,500 jobs.
That is the big picture, but there is a much smaller and individual picture about the businesses who come to me every week with complaints. I have to say to Conservative Members that this issue did not miraculously start in July last year; it has been going on for the past decade and since the Conservative Government destroyed the economy on a whim a couple of years ago. These businesses are suffering and under threat.
Christine Jardine
No, actually—I think the hon. Member has said enough today.
Those businesses are suffering and they have been for years. Hon. Members know how important they are not just to my constituency, to Edinburgh or to Scotland, but to the United Kingdom, because of the jobs that they create and the people they employ. That little picture is about families who are dependent on those businesses and who tell me that they are unhappy with the national insurance changes.
Christine Jardine
Those families also tell me that bigger businesses, like Edinburgh zoo and fantastic tourist businesses, which the national insurance changes have added—
Christine Jardine
The hon. Gentleman is beginning to sound a bit like a parrot.
Christine Jardine
No, I will not give way. We hear the hon. Gentleman. I will repeat the phrase for him again: tourism tax. Yes, we know that Edinburgh is taxing tourists, but it is doing that to support its hospitality business, which has been under threat for a decade.
We need to look at the burden that our businesses are carrying: the national insurance burden; VAT, which could be reduced; and the business rates in many places. I appeal to Ministers to listen to the constituents we have heard from today—to listen to my constituents. They should listen to the fact that if those businesses fail, our economy will not have the growth on which this Government and every Government depend so much for our future. Each of those small businesses makes up an important part of that big picture: the hundreds of millions of pounds—the billions—that hospitality brings to this country.
Independent Schools: VAT and Business Rates Relief
Debate between John Lamont and Christine Jardine(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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John Lamont
The hon. Gentleman represents a part of Scotland where the proportion of young people going to independent schools is among the highest, if not the highest, in the country. I have had conversations with constituents and the teaching staff at a number of schools in his constituency, so I know how concerned they are. A number of parents are now considering taking their children out of the sector because they can no longer afford to pay the fees.
The hon. Gentleman knows from his discussions with those parents that they are not necessarily wealthy. During the last election, I spoke to parents who had made really tough choices about how they lead their lives to ensure that they can pay school fees—very often in schools in his constituency. They have made that choice about how they want their children to be brought up, and I think it is wrong that the Government are potentially taking that choice away or making it much more difficult for families to send children to the very good schools that he supposedly represents.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I represent a different part of Edinburgh, where one in four or five pupils goes to independent school. I have already received representations from parents who have had to take their children out of their schools and are concerned about where they can be placed in the city, given that the Labour council has already said that at least 15, and possibly 16, schools will be at capacity by the end of the decade even if there are no extra pupils.
John Lamont
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. Many young people, particularly in the city that she represents, go to schools in the independent sector, so the effect of this policy will be disproportionately higher in her city and the constituency of the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), than in other parts of Scotland and the United Kingdom. It is disappointing how dismissive Labour Members are of the concerns raised by the schools that the hon. Gentleman supposedly represents.
My fourth point, which really undermines Labour’s stated reasons for going ahead with this policy, is that there are huge potential costs to state schools arising from pupils moving out of independent schools. Every pupil who moves from an independent school to a state school will incur more cost to taxpayers. Those students did not cost the Government any money, but now their entire education will be met at a cost to the taxpayer.
The Government think that they have been clever by raising a tax to support public services, but they have not come to the obvious realisation that they are also raising the cost of providing public services. Just look at the number of students: there are 30,000 pupils in independent schools in Scotland alone. Survey data from the Independent Schools Council shows that, across the UK, 8,500 children have already left independent schools or did not start last September, and another 3,000 are expected to have left in January. The Independent Schools Council has stated that that is nearly four times the Government’s estimate for this year alone. The kicker is that the real test will come in September 2025, once this policy really hits parents hard. All those pupils will now have their education delivered by the state, and taxpayers will have to pay for it.
Now that I have outlined the great damage that the policy could do, let me turn to what the Labour Government have said in response and rebut some of their ridiculous claims. The Government stated in response to the petition that the policy
“will raise £1.8bn a year, helping to deliver the Government’s commitments for children in state schools.”
Except that may not be the case. It may not raise anywhere near that amount, because that is an estimate, not a hard fact. That claim also does not fully take into account the cost to the public finances of so many young people joining the state school system all at once. It is a big claim, and it does not really stack up.