NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation
Debate between Matt Hancock and Chris Leslie(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The plan is of the NHS by the NHS for the NHS. We in Government will absolutely facilitate it and support it, and of course we are putting in the money, but the NHS as a whole should be very proud of what this plan proposes and the way the implementation is being done in such a rigorous fashion.
Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Change UK)
May I press the Secretary of State a little further on the section of the plan that relates to prevention and early intervention? We are all waiting still for the prevention Green Paper. In particular, there are some diseases and illnesses, such as stroke, where apparently four out of five cases could be prevented by such early action, whether it is diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, or blood pressure and cholesterol testing devices. What more can be done for this Government to show they are serious about preventing ill health, such as stroke?
Matt Hancock
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The whole plan—the whole NHS long-term plan—is about prevention as well as cure. The focus of the NHS needs to switch more towards prevention as well as, of course, helping people get better when they get ill. Taking the example of stroke, there is a lot on the prevention of stroke in the draft prevention Green Paper—just to give him a bit of a teaser for that. At the core of improving prevention of stroke is both behaviour change but also better use of data, because being able to spot people who have symptoms that are likely to lead to stroke can then help much more targeted interventions. I find it striking that with the big stroke charities, as with the big heart charities, their big ask is for better and more access to data.
Banking Reform
Debate between Matt Hancock and Chris Leslie(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Leslie
It is difficult for the hon. Gentleman to criticise the previous Government, when they put the statute in place ready to be triggered by the present Government. It is baffling to my constituents and to his that we cannot allow them to see the simple figure of how many multi-millionaire bankers there are. I am not suggesting that we reveal their names, just the number involved.
Chris Leslie
I am hoping that the hon. Gentleman is going to concede that that needs to happen.
Matthew Hancock
The hon. Gentleman is making an argument for rejecting the Walker review. I was not in the House during the last Parliament. Could he just tell us who commissioned the Walker review?
Chris Leslie
I am not making an argument for rejecting the Walker review. It recommended the disclosure of the numbers, but it is true that Walker has since changed his tune. The reliance on what he calls “regulatory arbitrage”, and the suggestion that if we were to make that change here in the UK alone, we would suddenly see an exodus of the banking community, are absolutely fallacious arguments. We have a responsibility to show a lead, and surely the Government should be able to do that. It would be invidious if that were not the case.
In the short time available to me, I also want to walk through some of the other proposed changes that hon. Members mentioned. They raised issues about proprietary trading, and there are even more Government Members who are in favour of the Glass-Steagall split between investment and retail banking. There has been an interesting consensus on that. That might not necessarily be the right thing to do, but it is certainly worth consideration by the Vickers commission.
The structure of the sector has also been mentioned, as has the question of whether we need to revisit the issue of competition. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) asked how we could remove some of the constraints on mutuals and credit unions, and on others entering the sector, given that the barriers to new entrants are too high. Indeed, I note the very thoughtful speech from the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who mentioned a number of interesting ideas about how reforms might take place. I was quite taken by her suggestion about consumers’ current account numbers being portable. Other interesting suggestions were also made.
Basel III and the question of cushions and reserves are clearly important for guarding against failure and reducing taxpayer liability, but do we need to pay similar attention to liquidity, as the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) suggested? Should certain institutions have greater cushions and reserves than others? Perhaps that is the subject for a more sophisticated debate at another time.
Other components have to be addressed as well, including the financial capability of consumers and consumer responsibility. Yes, consumers have a right to know more about the products and companies involved, but perhaps it is also important to have a debate about the responsibilities of consumers. That needs to be acknowledged. We need to revisit the question of fairness for the taxpayer, and for public service users, indirectly, as well. Unfortunately, we have heard too much back-pedalling on the banking levy and on the role that the banks need to play in repairing the public balance sheet—[Interruption.] The Minister suggests that he is not back-pedalling, but from what we read—albeit in the newspapers—it sounds as though the Government might reduce the percentages that they want to implement, as announced in the Budget, if they are going to stay within the proposed 0.04% in year one and 0.07% thereafter. I would be more than happy to give way to the Minister on that specific point if he wants to clarify that position once and for all. But perhaps he will keep that for another day. He has also been back-pedalling on net lending targets of the business, although that was in the coalition agreement.
It is important that we have these debates. They show that there is a thirst for democratic accountability on financial services policy. Perhaps one of the lessons that we learn is that simply delegating many of these issues to European institutions or to the regulators is inadequate. There is a democratic deficit, and Parliament has a role to play. Hon. Members who try to find out information on Financial Services Authority reforms and regulations sometimes struggle to get the necessary documentation from the Vote Office, which is not good enough. We need to recognise our role as legislators, because our constituents are watching how we behave. They are watching how we set policy, and they expect us to do that. We should not be blown around entirely by the regulators, by Europe and by the markets. Politicians need to lead, and Ministers need to show greater leadership, and I hope that the Government will do that.
European Union Economic Governance
Debate between Matt Hancock and Chris Leslie(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Leslie
Indeed. There could be significant direct policy changes as regards transfers of policy and also indirect economic impacts on the UK. We have to see more detail about what will emerge from those who are in the driving seat—unfortunately, that does not seem to be either our Chancellor or our Prime Minister.
Matthew Hancock
I am extremely grateful. The Minister made a clear statement that this House, under this Government, will retain fiscal sovereignty. Would the hon. Gentleman?
Chris Leslie
We take the view, as we always have, that where it was in the British interest to co-operate with our European colleagues, we would do so. The hon. Gentleman’s continuing loyalty to the Chancellor is laudable—he has a record of that—but I am not sure that he has convinced the colleagues on his own side. The coalition remains precarious on Europe, straddling so many major divisions on how to proceed. It is little wonder that the Prime Minister is on the margins of these discussions in Europe when he is buffeted between the margins of his own Government. He is caught somewhere between the pro-European enthusiasms of the Deputy Prime Minister—at least, that used to be his position before the general election, and I am not quite sure what his position is now—and the anti-European Union noises from a sizeable chunk of his party. Will the Prime Minister persuade his colleagues that any treaty should not require a referendum? We shall have to wait and see. Although the Government might be concentrating on papering over the cracks in the coalition, the Opposition will monitor closely the impact of these changes on exports, growth, jobs and the prosperity of this country. Those are the issues that matter to our constituents and they are our priorities.
Finance Bill
Debate between Matt Hancock and Chris Leslie(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Matthew Hancock
I am always delighted to talk about when the previous Labour Government lost office, so I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Let me go through a few more elements of the economic evidence. I have here an extremely good literature review, by Policy Exchange, the think-tank, which lists—
Matthew Hancock
What Policy Exchange has done is review the economic literature, which is what I am looking at. Perotti, in 1999, said:
“High debt levels are associated with higher probability for fiscal policy to have”
expansionary effects. The European Commission—not something that Labour Members tend to barrack—said: “Expenditure cuts may exhibit” expansionary features,
“even in the short and medium run.”
So the economic evidence is there. The best quotation from that review is this:
“Though now quite well established in economic literature”—
referring to the argument that fiscal consolidations promote growth—
“this work is still feeding its way into the wider public consciousness.”
No doubt part of the reason for the slow move of that argument into the public consciousness is the argument put forward by Opposition Members that it is not true.
There are two other important ways in which consolidation will get to higher growth. The first, of course, concerns expectations of future tax rates. If people around the country can see that spending is out of control, they will anticipate that taxes might have to rise in future, whereas setting out a clear path for taxes makes it clear that there will not have to be sharp and immediate tax rises in future, even if that path includes some tax measures. That forward-looking element of human nature, which is so important in understanding how the economy works, matters at a personal level—for some people far more than for others, as I entirely accept—but it especially matters in the corporate world. Businesses look to the future to see how much tax they will be paying, as well as how much it will cost them to pay it because of the complexity of that tax. That is why it is so important to have both the simplification of the tax system that my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary—soon to be right hon. Friend, no doubt—set out, and the ladder down in headline corporation tax rate, which will set out a 1% reduction year on year so that our businesses know that Britain is open for business.
Finance Bill
Debate between Matt Hancock and Chris Leslie(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Chris Leslie
Indeed, I think there is a set of unfairness issues that affect not only public services and our constituents, but business to business. Many small businesses will be incredulous at this giveaway to the banks, which are having their corporation tax cut. HSBC’s own banking analysts agreed that they would be better off. One of them was quoted in the media as saying:
“We’d expect most domestically-orientated banks, for example Lloyds, to be better off after four years than they were pre-Budget.”
Analysts at Redburn Partners said that Lloyds in particular would see a 3% rise in its earnings per share by 2012, especially as corporation tax is planned to be reduced to 24% over time. The measures in this Bill make only a 1% change in that tax from 28% to 27%, but as the years pass the banks’ gains clearly will accrue and become even greater.
It was no coincidence that the share prices of some of our leading banks leapt after the Budget statement, even though, paradoxically, it included a banking levy that they supposedly feared. Lloyds shares gained 2.7% the morning after the Budget, and others were similarly jumping for joy. The Daily Mail—a journal of great repute—reported that a city insider was privately very happy, saying that
“some banks will have a feeling of glee at the way this has worked out. But none would be stupid enough to say anything openly.”
It will be for the Minister to defend this measure of course, and I look forward to hearing him explain why, of all institutions, the banks deserve this windfall at this time.
The interplay between the banking levy and the impact of the corporation tax cuts must be at the heart of our considerations this afternoon, and I am glad that my Front-Bench colleague my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) have tabled amendments that also seek to probe that issue. My amendment would have the effect of not passing on the corporation tax cut, and theirs’ would insist that at the very least the Treasury conduct a review of these matters.
My concern remains that the banking levy was set at far too low a rate—starting at 0.04% and rising to the heady heights of 0.07%. I gather that might even be about half the level at which the Americans set their banking levy. The notion that this was all done internationally at the same level is absolutely not the case. For some bizarre reason, the Chancellor really held back. He made great play of this levy in the Budget statement because he knows the general public are angry about the situation the banks have left in this country. They are furious that the banks were the source and cause of many of our national debt problems and the deficit we face today. I am glad that the Government say at page 26 of the Red Book that they will consult on the final details of the banking levy, and I urge the Minister to think carefully about how that levy will play in relation to the corporation tax reduction, because if the banks are gaining from that, it must be possible to ensure that they pay their fair share at some point .
Matthew Hancock
Does the hon. Gentleman regret his party’s position before the last election, which was that we should not have a banking levy unless everywhere else in the world signed up to it? Does he therefore applaud the current Government’s leadership in unilaterally putting forward a bank levy?
Chris Leslie
I may be wrong, but it is my recollection that a number of countries simultaneously came out with their banking levy arrangements, on the continent as well as America, and it was, of course, the natural point at which to introduce a banking levy. It is a matter of nuance whether we get a collection of large industrial countries to act simultaneously or we act on our own as a country, but I think it is necessary to have a banking levy that recoups all the payments that the banks took from our taxpayers.
Chris Leslie
I am delighted that that hon. Gentleman is thinking about supporting the amendment. That is incredibly important and a good step forward. I genuinely welcome his support this evening, because this could be a close-run thing. I have made an assessment, as far as I can as a humble Back Bencher. My assessment is that there are hundreds of millions of pounds at stake here that the banks could be gaining. However, I also support the amendments grouped together under this clause. We need the Treasury to undertake an urgent assessment. If the Minister says that he accepts the principle of my amendment but that he wants to do more work on it to get the details right, I would, like him, be happy to consider my position on pressing this amendment.
Matthew Hancock
Does the hon. Gentleman have any evidence to suggest that the reduction in corporation tax on banks would offset the £2.5 billion to be raised by the bank levy?
Chris Leslie
Yes I do, and at the outset of my comments, I quoted a series of highly professional and well-respected analysts from across the City of London. They were saying that this was a “good outcome”, that there would be “a feeling of glee” about the Budget measures, and that they expected
“most domestically-orientated banks…to be better off after four years”.
It is important to remember that the £2.5 billion supposedly gained from the banking levy is obtained only as it progresses to years four or five. At the outset, it generates an exceptionally small amount of revenue—I believe the figure is less than £1 billion.
Matthew Hancock
Can the hon. Gentleman supply any evidence that the corporation tax cut is larger than the £2.5 billion to be raised by the bank levy, because none of the things that he read out was evidence of that?
Chris Leslie
If some analysts, who on the secondary evidence before me are saying publicly that they believe that the corporation tax—