Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Peter Dowd

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

In short, no. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has made no link whatsoever between the rate of corporation tax and tax take. This is one of these myths that have been presented to the House time after time, which in the main we have tried to ignore, but at some point we have say that it is complete and utter claptrap, not to put too fine a point on it.

The banking surcharge, supposedly introduced to compensate the taxpayer for this levy loss, will not come close to making good the difference. The Chancellor still has a choice though: he could reverse the cut to the bank levy and end the crisis in our children’s services instead.

It is increasingly clear that the oldest political party has run out of steam.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman therefore think that France’s recent proposal to cut taxes for higher earners in order to woo bankers over to France is an incorrect policy, and that France has got it wrong because low taxes do not encourage investment and growth in a country?

[Peter Dowd]

The only thing that is going to attract people over to France is the shambles that the Government have made of their Brexit negotiations. That is a significantly bigger factor than, for example, the banking levy.

Finance Bill

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Peter Dowd

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

As much as I would like to debate the tax gap with the hon. Lady, I think that shows an ignorance of the issues involved in the nature of the tax gap. As far as I am concerned, I am quite happy—more than happy—to debate this issue in due course, but I am simply making the point that we must move on.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Dowd]

I want to make a little progress, but I will come back to the hon. and learned Lady in a few moments.

In the past month alone, the Government have faced a barrage of criticism from the European Union for their poor record on tackling tax avoidance. The European Parliament’s report on money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion has accused the Government of directly obstructing the fight against tax avoidance, while the European Commission has opened an investigation into the Government’s changes to controlled foreign company rules, which made it easier for multinational companies to shift their taxable income offshore and reduced last year’s tax take by £805 million. That goes to the heart of the point I am making about the tax gap and some of its intricacies.

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. He has made it clear that he wants to talk about the issue before us rather than others. Labour Members say in new clause 1 that they want a review after 15 months. Despite speaking for more than 10 minutes, he has not addressed that. Has Labour assessed how much a review would cost and whether it would divert resources from the Treasury?

[Peter Dowd]

I thank the hon. and learned Lady for that intervention. Government Members have taken up about seven minutes of the time I have been on my feet—[Interruption.] Six and a half minutes, the Minister says.

I am quite happy to debate these issues, but that is the point of a review. Why not have a review? It is a perfectly reasonable and legitimate proposal, given the nature of what we are considering. If there is nothing to hide, and if the Government are quite happy to be open and transparent and to tell everybody how wonderfully they are doing, let us have a review. No doubt the hon. and learned Lady will support the new clause in due course.

[Lucy Frazer]

Forgive me for intervening again, but I do not think the hon. Gentleman heard my question: how much would the review cost?

[Peter Dowd]

If we had a review and identified areas of non-compliance, I suspect we would bring in far more money than that review would cost. That is why we have reviews. Again, I am sure that the hon. and learned Lady will support the new clause.

The Government’s opposition to any action to crack down on offshore trusts is not new. In 2013, while G8 leaders attempted to push forward new measures to deal with tax evasion, the previous Prime Minister was busy undermining them by writing personal letters to the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, begging him to stop the inclusion of offshore trusts. By contrast, the last Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to his credit, spent his last year in office attempting to get world leaders to agree to strict measures on offshore tax havens. That is all the more reason for a review, so let us have that review. I am speaking directly to our proposal. As I have said, if there is nothing to be fearful of, let us have the review.

Our opposition to the exemption of offshore trusts from these measures is well noted. We have been calling for the exemption’s removal since March. I called for its removal in the debate on the Ways and Means resolutions for this Bill, on Second Reading and in the Public Bill Committee, as the Minister knows, and I now call for its removal once again. I am happy to give the Minister an opportunity to reconsider, because the British public are no fools. They are more educated than ever about what an offshore trust is and what it is used for.

Finance Bill

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Peter Dowd

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 11th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

To be fired from a job is perhaps one of the most difficult experiences for an employee. There are very few people in this Chamber, let alone in the country, who have never had to go through the awkward, bitterly disappointing and scary experience of losing, or potentially losing, a job. This is the daily reality for thousands of people, and it goes to the heart of clause 5.

I ask the Committee to imagine how thousands of people across the country at BAE are feeling at this moment after yesterday’s announcement of job losses. How are those workers feeling in Warton, Samlesbury, Portsmouth, Guildford and RAF Leeming, and in the Chief Secretary’s own county of Norfolk at RAF Marham? Added to the worry, concern, anxiety and hopelessness of redundancy now comes a potential tax bill to pay for the Government’s hapless management of the economy. Will the writ of clause 5 stretch across the Irish sea? What about the threat to the jobs of those at Bombardier in Northern Ireland, and the thousands of other associated jobs over there?

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman rightly points out the devastating consequences for people who lose their jobs—he refers to particular instances at the moment—but does he also recognise that this Government have created 3 million more jobs, which is helping our economy and those people?

[Peter Dowd]

This is not relevant to the debate, but a significant number of those jobs are incredibly low paid, and people have not had pay rises for many years. What the hon. and learned Lady says might well be the case, but the reality is that it is not about the quantity; it is about the quality—[Interruption.] Of course it is.

How insensitive and out of touch must this Government be to put clause 5 before Members today of all days? The Prime Minister has vowed that she will do anything and everything she can to help those affected at Bombardier and BAE, so perhaps the Minister would like to withdraw this provision here and now and put the Prime Minister’s warm words into action.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

It does not include profit shifting from multinationals. I am quite happy to defend the record of the last Labour Government, but I am more interested in this Government and what the next Labour Government will do in this regard.

The Government are only interested in doing what they have always been interested in since the party was founded: dramatically curbing the rights of workers and transferring their money to those who least need it. That is, outrageously, what clause 5 will do. Why else would the Government give themselves the power to lower the tax-free threshold for statutory redundancy payment? Why else would the Government feel the need to further harm discrimination victims? If, as they say, there is a need for clarity in the definition of “injury”, why do they not accept amendment 4, which would make it clear that victims of discrimination should not have compensation for harm taxed as if it were earnings? We only need to look at the comments of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who wrote an astounding report in 2012 comparing the work practices of Germany and the United Kingdom.

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in taking interventions. He suggests that the Conservative party is not looking after those on lower incomes. Does he not accept that it was our party that increased the tax threshold for lower income workers and also introduced the living wage?

[Peter Dowd]

When we take into account cuts to working tax credits and changes to benefits, that does not stack up, I am afraid. The hon. and learned Lady should know that.

In 2012, the Chief Secretary set out how some employers in Germany were exempt from pesky regulations, such as on unfair dismissal, or social security contributions, and opined that the UK Government should follow suit. She argued that the best way to fight unemployment, particularly among the over-60s and the under-20s, was by encouraging more shift work, work on Sundays and late-night work and, yet again, getting rid of protection against unfair dismissal. Is it any wonder that this Government are hellbent on giving themselves the power to cut the amount that a worker can receive tax-free after they are dismissed?

NHS Pay

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Peter Dowd

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Regrettably, I do not have much time to go through Members’ speeches, but I want to draw attention to the maiden speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan)—a Pompey boy. There are two victories in Portsmouth: HMS Victory and my hon. Friend’s victory, for which I thank him. He mentioned Arthur Conan Doyle’s time as a doctor in Southsea; if the Tories had their way, this country would be going back to Victorian times.

Some 5.4 million people work in the public sector—including members of my family; my wife and daughter work in the NHS, as I did for many years—and they provide services that are crucial to the good running and, literally, the order of the country. They provide the armed services that protect our country and the protection that this House enjoys day in, day out; they provide the services that educate and look after our children; and they provide the services that care for our disabled citizens and senior citizens. They provide services that we barely notice until things go wrong, such as traffic problems, floods, weather damage, public health emergencies and much more. Some 1.6 million of those people work in the NHS, providing the services that look after the physical and mental health of our—yes, our—constituents.

[Lucy Frazer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Dowd]

I will come back to the hon. Lady in a moment.

NHS workers are the subject of today’s debate, but we must not forget workers in the rest of the public sector. In fact, I believe that NHS workers would be dismayed if we focused only on their pay situation. Why would they be? Because they spend their professional lives looking after others. I take NHS workers’ commitment incredibly seriously, unlike that hon. Member on the Government Benches who laughs at nurses, doctors and allied professionals. That is the sort of thing we get from the Tories.