Oral Answers to Questions
Nigel Adams Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
13. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the level of employment.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Damian Hinds)
With an employment level of 31.2 million, there are more people in work than ever before. Over the past year, employment growth has been driven by full-time employees and by high and medium-skill occupations, showing that we are now moving into the next phase of our recovery, with high-quality employment helping to boost productivity and raise living standards across the country.
Nigel Adams
Against the backdrop of redundancies and potential redundancies in the mining and power sector in my constituency, will the Minister tell the House what support is available to businesses of all sizes in Selby and Ainsty to ensure that the trend of rising employment since 2010 continues?
Damian Hinds
I commend my hon. Friend for his personal endeavours, including the annual Selby district jobs fair. He mentioned energy-intensive industries. We of course recognise the particular challenges that some businesses in those sectors face. We cannot change world price levels, but we will bring forward compensation and legislate to exempt EIIs from renewables policy costs, helping with cash flow and providing greater business certainty. Businesses will of course also benefit from the further cuts to corporation tax and the higher permanent level of the investment allowance.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nigel Adams Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
Of course we are in a constant dialogue with the solar industry, and solar energy use has dramatically increased over the last five years, but so have the costs of that technology. Quite reasonably, then, we have reduced the subsidy going to solar. There has to be consistency in what Labour Members argue for. On the one hand, they say, quite reasonably, “Please deal with the energy prices that are affecting the steel industry”, but then their spokesman gets up and says, “Please add more cost on to energy bills in order to subsidise renewables.” The trouble is we cannot have both.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
8. What support his Department provides to people affected by large-scale redundancies.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Hands)
I recognise that all job losses are deeply concerning for those affected. In the case of large-scale redundancies, the Jobcentre Plus rapid response service can provide support for affected workers. The rapid response service stands ready to provide support, and is already working at Kellingley colliery in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We may consider further intervention in exceptional cases where the impact is particularly significant.
Nigel Adams
I, too, welcome the support and retraining packages for steelworkers. As my right hon. Friend rightly says, several hundred workers at Kellingley colliery are facing redundancy later this year, and a further 240 power station workers at Eggborough are going through a consultation and are very worried about their future and their jobs at the station. Will the Chief Secretary urgently meet me to discuss a similar support and retraining package for those workers in my constituency?
Greg Hands
I totally recognise the difficulties faced by many people in my hon. Friend’s constituency. One thing I will say is that my hon. Friend is a real champion for jobs in his constituency. Only last week, he ran his fifth annual jobs fair for his constituents, and that is part of the reason why unemployment there went down by more than 1,000 in the last Parliament. I will, of course, be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss further what training and support is available for the constituents affected.
Finance Bill
Nigel Adams Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Caroline Lucas
I wish that the hon. Gentleman had done a little bit more homework before making that point, because it is simply not the case. The point about the subsidies to the solar industry is that it has always been deemed that they would come down over time. The objection here is that they are suddenly being forced to reduce overnight at a time when the industry had been told that there was going to be a very different economic situation. Of course the costs of solar are coming down; they have been coming down in a remarkable way, and all credit to the solar industry for achieving that. But they are coming down in spite of the Government—in spite of their chopping and changing, their uncertainty and their lack of vision—and not as a result of something that they have done.
In conclusion, if the Government go ahead with applying this climate change levy to the renewable energy industry, they will strangle an industry that has so much potential for getting climate emissions down, creating jobs and bringing on a stronger and more resilient economy.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
I am grateful to be able to contribute to this debate. Members on both sides of the Committee will agree that keeping the lights on is one of the primary duties of any Government. Some of the more senior Members in this Chamber will recall the three-day week in the 1970s—I apologise for glancing over my shoulder to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)—when British businesses were forced to conserve their electricity at great commercial cost and television companies could not broadcast beyond 10.30 in the evening. We have come a long way since those bad old days and we cannot and should not allow this nation to find itself in a similar situation ever again.
With that in mind, we also need to recognise that the energy industry in modern Britain cannot be taken for granted. Like any other business, energy companies make difficult decisions every day. They decide what projects to invest in, using reasonable commercial principles. It has not been fashionable in recent years to praise energy companies, but we should not forget the significant number of jobs that rely either directly or indirectly on energy companies in this country. Many Members present will be aware that in my own constituency in North Yorkshire, energy companies have played an important role in the community over many decades, employing thousands of local people and generating millions of pounds in business for local companies.
Recent events in my constituency have prompted me to participate in today’s debate. Sadly, last week the Czech owners of Eggborough power station announced that the station was set to close, shedding 240 jobs in the process. That is not only a great personal loss to my constituents but a great loss to the nation, given that Eggborough provides roughly 4% of the UK’s electricity. I remind the Committee that National Grid recently announced that the capacity margin this winter is only 1.5%, and many analysts predict it could be much lower next winter.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
Eggborough power station employs a lot of my constituents, as it does my hon. Friend’s. Does he agree that the assessment undertaken by Ofgem is simply not robust enough and does not take account of that 4% figure? All it will take in 2016-17 is for the wind not to blow, for there to be a problem elsewhere on the plant or for the winter to be a little bit colder, and if Eggborough goes we will face blackouts. As I said on the radio recently, Governments that allow blackouts on their watch normally get their lights put out at the next election.
Nigel Adams
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend and neighbour. Whoever is in charge of ensuring that we have security of supply must ensure that they have robust numbers, and I am sure that my hon. Friend and I will be asking serious questions of them over the forthcoming weeks.
It saddens me greatly that this is not an isolated event. Many Members have communities that have been affected in some way by similar announcements in recent months: Longannet in Scotland, Didcot in Oxfordshire, and Ferrybridge, right next to my constituency in west Yorkshire. The Chancellor is rightly keen to create a northern powerhouse, and so am I, but I would rather see a northern powerhouse with some power in it. I do not want to see a no-power house.
There are no easy answers left on energy policy. I urge those hon. Members in opposition and in government who believe otherwise to think again, or to visit areas such as mine and talk to the constituents whose livelihoods are being put at risk. This is a commercially challenging time for the energy sector. Wholesale electricity prices are at the lowest level in years, in no small part due to the crash and the glut of oil in the global marketplace. That makes the investment case for any energy project, be it biomass, nuclear, gas or wind, incredibly challenging.
It is at times like these that our constituents and the energy industry look to Government for genuine leadership, and it saddens me greatly to say that on this issue the Government led by my party appear to have fallen short. “Investor confidence” is a phrase that is readily thrown around in debates like this and is perhaps too easily taken for granted, but when an esteemed member of the investment community such as Neil Woodford is quoted in a national newspaper in the days following the Government’s announcement on this issue as saying:
“If Government cannot be trusted to fulfil its long-term commitments then it will have to accept that it cannot rely on support from institutional investors”,
it would be irresponsible of me and other hon. Members not to heed his words.
It seems sensible to me that at a time when the energy sector is in such a sensitive and precarious place, policy decisions should be taken in the round rather than in isolation. The Government have already made public the saving they believe they would accrue as a result of removing the CCL exemption, but what about the consequences, intended or otherwise?
Drax Group, an energy company of which Members will be aware and that is based in my constituency, has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in recent years to become the largest renewable generator in the UK. It lost £425 million of its value on Budget day—£425 million in one day, a third of its total value. To me, it is incredible that a Conservative Government have effectively done that to a company that has done all that has been asked of it. The superb management team at that station has delivered Europe’s largest decarbonisation project. It is producing the lowest-cost renewable power available when we take into consideration full system costs, and it has done so while providing 8% of the UK’s power day in, day out. Furthermore, that is money that could otherwise have been invested back in the company further to fund its biomass operations or to support White Rose, one of the country’s two flagship carbon capture and storage projects. That is not an isolated case. I understand that many other renewables companies saw huge falls in their value on the back of the decision.
Discontinuing the CCL exemption would also eliminate the only financial incentive for businesses in the UK to use renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, and it has been in place for over a decade. Hon. Members will know that it is a rare occurrence indeed when I agree with Friends of the Earth, but its observation that the situation is comparable to imposing an alcohol tax on apple juice seems spot on. It appears to me to be a retrograde step, and one that will put small business owners, for whom I have the greatest respect, given my background before entering the House, in a position of uncertainty. Furthermore, as a Conservative it pains me to say that, far from being the removal of an unnecessary burden on business, the removal of the CCL exemption is the extension of a tax. Every business in the UK, whether large or small, must now pay the CCL; they can no longer avoid it by using renewable power.
I understand that one of the Government’s principal objectives in removing the CCL exemption is to prevent taxpayers’ money benefiting renewable generation abroad. However, the reality is that more than 70% of the income generated by levy exemption certificates went to UK-based energy producers. Furthermore, generators supplying renewable energy to the UK through interconnectors are currently exempt from a range of transmission charges that British generators are required to pay. Surely it would be better for the Government to look carefully at that loophole, rather than at measures, such as those proposed in the Bill, that will make the economics of generating in the UK less appealing.
As hon. Friends will know, I am not given to highlighting problems without suggesting solutions. I believe that all that Drax and the renewals industry are asking for is to be treated the same as other industries. When exemptions were removed from the combined heat and power industry, it was given two years’ notice. That contrasts with the 28 days’ notice given this time.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way—it is not easy to come to the House and take issue with one’s own party. Following his last point, does he agree that there were other ways to deal with any sense of unfairness about renewable energy coming through interconnectors, rather than taking a big hammer to smash a small problem in the system? We know how many jobs and how much future investment are based on business plans, whether at Drax, which I have had the pleasure of visiting, and at other renewables firms, small and large, across the country, which are doing their best to put some growth back into the British economy.
Nigel Adams
I agree with the right hon. Lady. Companies need certainty and time to plan, and 28 days’ notice is clearly ludicrous. A two-year notice period would allow companies to honour contracts they have signed, allow the industry to adapt and, above all, it would be fair.
I know that this is a topic of considerable interest and that other hon. Members wish to make their views known, so I will conclude my remarks by returning to my original point: nothing in life is guaranteed, including the availability of energy in our homes and businesses. I believe that we are entering a very precarious time for the UK, when our capacity margins are getting ever tighter and when plant closures continue to leave us reliant on gas imported from the middle east. Against that backdrop, we are in a global marketplace where investors are taking a sober, pragmatic approach to energy projects, and not just in the UK but elsewhere. We should be giving them greater certainty that the UK is a reliable environment to invest their money in, because that money is needed to deliver the energy projects that will power this nation in future. My concern is that the proposed revision to the climate change levy will do exactly the opposite. That is why, with great regret, I shall not be supporting the Government on this issue.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Howarth.
I rise to speak to Opposition new clause 2 relating to the Government’s changes to the climate change levy in clause 45, which have already been outlined by hon. Members. The climate change levy is a carbon tax on the non-domestic use of energy. Clause 45 is concerned with the removal of the exemption currently available to electricity generated from renewable sources in the form of levy exemption certificates. For some years now, these certificates have ensured that electricity generated from clean sources has not been liable to what is, or was, essentially a tax on carbon emitted from the generation of non-domestic energy supplies. In removing the certificates, the clause reverses that principle, leaving us in the utterly perverse situation where renewables generators will be taxed for their contribution to climate change, regardless of the fact that they make little or no such contribution. Several Members have mentioned the apple juice analogy, so I will hold back from repeating it, but it goes without saying that it is an excellent one.
The clause is just one aspect of this Government’s new approach to energy and climate change, which entails abandoning the most cost-effective forms of renewables, reviewing environmental taxes, and, apparently, abandoning their commitment to tackling climate change. That approach risks undermining an area of the economy that has some of the most promising prospects for the future. That sector offers more productive, higher-paid, higher-skilled jobs, particularly in the northern regions and in Scotland; and one would think that it was central to the Chancellor’s so-called productivity plan and his alleged northern powerhouse.
New clause 2 would therefore require the Government to set out the cumulative impact of the removal of the exemption on existing renewables generators and projects currently in the pipeline, where almost all the projects and the banking arrangements or investment decisions underpinning them will have been based on the current fiscal and subsidy framework; on investor confidence in the UK’s green energy sector, which is clearly vital to the future of the green economy and the high-skilled, more productive jobs that will flow from it; and on the UK’s ability to meet its climate change obligations, in which renewable energy has a vital role to play and may make up the shortcomings in other sectors—something that Ministers do not recognise at the moment.
Clause 45 retrospectively removes the exemption from the climate change levy—a tax levied on all non-domestic energy use—for electricity generated from renewables from 1 August 2015. The climate change levy was introduced in 2001. Its aim was to help the UK to meet domestic targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It has always been charged as a flat rate of energy consumed for non-domestic use. However, energy generated from renewable sources has always been exempt from the levy in the form of the exemption certificates that are awarded to renewables generators and, in turn, sold to electricity suppliers for less than the cost of the levy. This regime has helped to make clean energy more attractive and provided greater financial support to renewables projects for their lifetimes.
The Government have set out two justifications for the removal of the levy exemption from renewables: first, that it seeks to correct a so-called imbalance in the tax system whereby renewables generators based overseas benefit from the levy exemption when, according to the Government, they already receive state subsidies in their origin countries and are therefore unfairly benefiting from British taxpayers’ money; and secondly, that it provides so-called better value for money for UK taxpayers—or, to put it another way, raises a considerable amount of revenue to help the Chancellor balance the books. According to the tax information impact note accompanying this measure, the renewables exemption, as it stood, would cost nearly £4 billion over the course of this Parliament, one third of which would go to overseas generators. HMRC claims that there is evidence to suggest that some of these overseas generators receive support in their own countries, although it does not provide any specific evidence. Perhaps the Minister might like to comment further. Regardless of that, the fact is that what was essentially a carbon tax is now becoming simply an energy tax. As Friends of the Earth has asked,
“When is a carbon tax not a carbon tax? When it is a tax on zero-carbon things.”
It is quite straightforward really.
These changes to the climate change levy come on the back of a raft of announcements since the general election, most notably from the new Energy and Climate Change Secretary, which reflect the Government’s apparent U-turn on tackling climate change. Since 7 May we have heard that subsidies for large onshore wind projects are to be axed, while other subsidies for onshore wind and solar photovoltaics are set to end a year earlier than previously announced. The previous coalition Government’s commitment to increase the proportion of tax take from environmental taxes is to be abandoned, while all environmental taxes are to be reviewed. The coalition Government’s flagship green deal scheme to provide energy efficiency standards in homes—which, sadly, proved to be a complete flop—will be not reformed but scrapped. The link between a vehicle’s tax liability and its CO2 emissions is to be loosened under the reform regime. The zero-carbon homes commitment, first made in 2006 by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown and which would have ensured that all new-build homes from 2016 were self-sufficient, is to be scrapped.
John Redwood
I have no more time than the right hon. Lady for over-charging vulnerable customers. I, too, look forward to an informed and sensible response to the report she mentioned. I do not think, however, that it is very relevant to the levy and the tax change that we are debating here today. The issue before us is whether this change to the levy will make it more difficult to keep the lights on and more difficult to deliver cheaper energy. I do not think it does, but the Government need to respond to the other crucial issues posed by my hon. Friends the Members for Selby and Ainsty and for Brigg and Goole.
Given that the margins are now extremely tight—in view of the huge reduction in traditional capacity that we have experienced, some people are pessimistic about the next two or three winters—can the Government do more, and do it cheaply and sensibly, at the same time as making the levy change? That should ensure that the great power stations we still have available can be either kept in the system and running to provide more power—preferably base load power, but it may have to be variable power, given how the thing is now run—or at least be kept available on standby. We may have to pay a price for that as part of that guarantee of supply. The three power stations we have heard about from colleagues this evening are part of the possible answer. We need to know that there is a future for traditional stations and that they can be priced into the system while we are in this period of transition, trying to work out what a modern electricity generation system will look like in five or 10 years’ time.
Nigel Adams
Will not this change in the levy, which is being made so quickly and with so little notice—28 days—make things extremely difficult for generators such as Drax, and will not the likelihood of capacity that is safe for us all be greatly reduced over the next couple of years?
John Redwood
My hon. Friend has made a powerful case in defence of Drax. I hope that discussions are taking place between the Government and Drax about how Drax can continue to make a contribution and the Government’s intention—which I will be supporting this evening—can be preserved. I think it entirely possible to change the levy while also coming up with a solution for Drax.
Many people wondered about the advantage of switching from coal to wood, and about whether that was quite what we wanted to do as part of a so-called decarbonisation strategy. Perhaps there is a better answer, but I return to my original proposition: I want an answer that will keep the lights on and provide the best possible value for money, and I think that there needs to be more discussion between the Energy Department and the big power stations to meet those two aims.
What I liked about the Minister’s opening remarks was his constant stress on the importance of value for money. That must be what drives Government policy. We want the productivity improvements that are now coming through. It is remarkable how, when Labour Members complain about something, that nearly always transforms it for the better. They complained about the cost-of-living crisis, and energy prices collapsed. Then they complained about the lack of productivity growth, and productivity started to take off. We are very grateful to them for those wrong calls, which seem to provide the stimulus that we need in order to create a better world; but if we are to drive productivity forward, providing more and cheaper power is crucial, because many modern processes, particularly in industry, are very energy-intensive.
The danger of some of the policies that have been followed by the European Union and by the last Labour Government is that we price ourselves out of energy-intensive industries—not in a way that spares the planet the carbon dioxide that those processes generate, but in a way that simply drives the businesses to another part of the world. No one should be happy about that. Those who believe that the fundamental priority is cutting carbon dioxide must take a global view; they cannot take a parochial, single-country view. Again, those whose main concern, like mine, is the prosperity and wellbeing of the British people cannot be happy if the decarbonisation policy has worked in one country, but has produced an equal or bigger amount of carbon dioxide somewhere else because the jobs and the industry have simply been transferred. That makes no sense whatsoever.
My hon. Friend the Minister will have my support—and, I am sure, that of many Conservative Members—if this proposal is tested shortly in the Lobbies, but we see it as only one part of a much bigger picture. We believe that if it is to work in removing the anomaly between different types of power and allowing some power from overseas to benefit, we must ensure that other elements of the policy mix are able to deal with the fundamental issues of supply, availability and value for money in the power system.
What the Government must do—and what they are beginning to do in a way that is shocking some Opposition Members—is revisit the huge cat’s cradle of subsidies, environmental tax, environmental tax breaks and rules which are extremely complicated, and which may, indeed, be having perverse consequences. They may be driving carbon dioxide-generating business out of this country while not cutting the global totals; they may be jeopardising our security of supply; they may be making it more difficult to deliver what we wish to do for, in particular, lower-income consumers who find current energy prices very challenging; and they are obviously in danger of undermining important, big, traditional investments in this country that could serve us better for longer if they were not driven out of business by environmental controls emanating from previous Governments and, particularly, from the European Union.
I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to justify the support of our party for this one element by reminding us that it must be part of a bigger picture, and that that bigger picture must be driven by a more rational policy that can deliver both the security of supply and the cheaper energy that the United Kingdom needs.
Damian Hinds
On the right hon. Lady’s last point, that is not the only inefficiency in this scheme, as I was outlining earlier. She is correct about the consultations that are going on and about us fulfilling our manifesto commitment on onshore wind, but that does not mean that we will not continue to be absolutely committed to our environmental objectives. As I go through my remarks, I will talk some more about how we are on course to fulfil those objectives.
New clause 2 put forward by the Opposition would require the Chancellor, six months after the passing of the Finance Bill, to publish a report detailing the impacts of clause 45. Such a report is not necessary in that timeframe. The Chancellor has already presented a report to the Treasury Committee, which was published on 26 August.
I will take the opportunity to respond to some of the points that were made during the course of this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) spoke about Drax. He will understand that I cannot comment about that particular company because of the current judicial proceedings. He also spoke very passionately about his constituents in Eggborough, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole. Clearly and obviously, it is a very disappointing decision for everybody connected with Eggborough and for those who now face much uncertainty. There is no easy thing to say to someone in that situation.
Importantly, the value provided by the climate change levy exemption was relatively minor when compared with the other elements of Government support that are available for renewable energy. Most generators were expecting the exemption to have a negligible value for them by 2020, so it would not typically be a large factor in their long-term investment decisions.
Nigel Adams
On that basis, will the Minister at least consider a delay until 2017 if the value is so low by 2020?
Damian Hinds
We are not in a position to be able to change the approach. My hon. Friend asks about the timing. The exemption would have cost around £40 million a month to maintain. Without our change, more than £150 million of support would have gone to overseas renewable generation in 2015-16, and that figure would have risen to £300 million by 2020-21. My hon. Friend asked why not follow the same timings as the exemptions for combined heat and power, but those are on a very different scale and the timing was in the context of the coming of the carbon price floor, which would support CHPs. As I said earlier, more efficient and effective schemes have come about to support renewables through the renewables obligation and contracts for difference.
The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) spoke about the particular impact of the measure in Scotland, but I can confirm that Scotland receives a high level of renewables support from the UK Government. In the first contracts for difference auctions, 11 out of the 25 contracts were awarded to Scottish projects, and 30% of the support provided by the renewables obligation is for schemes in Scotland. That support, as I have said, is much more significant than that offered by the CCL renewables exemption.
The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion asked about the Government’s green credentials, a point that came up again in an intervention. I repeat that the Government take our environmental responsibilities extremely seriously and we are absolutely committed to meeting our climate change commitments, but as cost-effectively as possible. We are making good progress, with emissions down 30% since 1990, and we are on track for 30% of electricity supply to be from renewables by 2020. At the same time, we want to help consumers, keep energy bills down and keep British business competitive. It is vital that we take careful account of the costs of our policies so that we are not imposing unnecessary burdens on households and businesses, making household bills unaffordable or putting the UK at a competitive disadvantage.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nigel Adams Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is right. As I said at the beginning, the fall in the oil price, for all the challenges it poses in the North sea, is good for the British economy and good for British families. It is being felt at the pump, where petrol is now cheaper than when this Government came into office. One of the reasons why is that we abolished Labour’s fuel duty escalator. As a result, petrol is 20p per litre less than it would have been had we stuck with the shadow Chancellor’s disastrous tax plans. We have to make sure that motorists feel the full benefit of the falling oil price. As I say, it was a good move to abolish that disastrous escalator.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
4. What assessment he has made of the effect of lowering the rate of national insurance on levels of employment.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
6. What assessment he has made of the effect of reducing employers’ national insurance contributions on employment.
Nigel Adams
I am very grateful to the Chancellor. Will he join me in congratulating the entrepreneurs and risk takers who, across my constituency, have stepped up to the plate since 2010—so much so that we now have 60% fewer people claiming out-of-work benefits? What further measures can my right hon. Friend deliver to ensure that the economic recovery continues in my part of North Yorkshire?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that unemployment in his constituency has fallen. Twelve thousand extra jobs have been created in his constituency. That is because local businesses are benefiting from the employment allowance, and there is more to come with the cuts to national insurance for employing under-21s and apprentices. One of the reasons businesses are coming to his constituency is that he is such a champion of his constituency as a place to invest and employ. He goes out of his way to bring businesses and jobs to his constituency. That is why unemployment has fallen so fast there.
Mobile Phone Signal (Fownhope)
Nigel Adams Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
Today is the first day of the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. Fifteen years ago, at the 2000 show, Bill Gates presented an early version of the tablet computer and Nokia presented a device that had an electronic diary and could make phone calls. Today, many colleagues find their tablet an indispensable tool in their parliamentary and constituency work, and we take it for granted that our mobile phones have in-built diary and note functions. We are living in a fast-paced world where technology is constantly developing and making great leaps forward.
I want my constituents in North Herefordshire to be able to benefit from the latest in innovative technology. However, as those in London start looking at 4G and possibly even faster mobile phone connections, my constituents are being left behind. Too many parts of North Herefordshire and other rural areas suffer from patchy or non-existent mobile phone reception. It is indeed telling that while I am holding this Adjournment debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) held an earlier debate in Westminster Hall on mobile phone signal and internet connections in Herefordshire. He and I think that more needs to be done to address the problem, particularly in rural areas such as the beautiful county of Herefordshire, which we are both proud to represent.
The Government are now keen to improve the situation and launched the mobile infrastructure project to help tackle not spots. Many will remember that the Prime Minister told a newspaper in an interview last summer that he had to return from his holiday in Cornwall in 2011 and 2013 because of poor signal; he was twice forced to return to London so that he could remain updated on the fall of the Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi and on the Syrian conflict respectively. The Prime Minister at that point restated his desire to tackle not spots across the country. However, although the Prime Minister can return to London to keep updated, my constituents need a better signal where they are. The solution for the residents of North Herefordshire cannot and should not be to go to London.
It was also in the summer of 2014 that I learned that Fownhope, a village in North Herefordshire, had suffered a blow in its quest for improved mobile signal. Fownhope had been selected to have a new mobile phone mast as part of the mobile infrastructure project. Instead of that being good news for the village, it became clear over the summer that the proposed mast for Fownhope was not going to proceed. The mast had already been through pre-planning and the proposal was in the public domain. Not only was that a terrible blow to the prospects of improvements to mobile phone reception in the village, but thanks to prior publicity of the mast there was notable public disappointment for Fownhope residents, whose hopes had been dashed. In July I visited Fownhope and accepted a petition, signed by over 300 villagers, about the decision.
I was initially informed that Arqiva, the company running the project on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, had found that some not spot areas that were originally targeted for the project had existing mobile coverage. I later discovered what had happened in the case of Fownhope after asking the Minister a number of written questions. It appears that not spot data are compiled and held by Ofcom, with information provided by the mobile network operators. The planning for the mobile infrastructure project was based on data originally provided in 2010. Since 2010 the operators have made changes to their networks, including consolidating and sharing sites, which had an impact on the locations of not spots. In March 2014 the mobile network operators submitted updated information on where they thought they had coverage, as predicted by desktop planning tools. The information was compiled by Ofcom and fed into Arqiva, which subsequently altered its plans accordingly. The updated information showed that coverage had improved in Fownhope since the inception of the mobile infrastructure project in 2010. That meant that Fownhope was no longer eligible for the project and the proposed phone mast was withdrawn.
In some areas where coverage was thought to be marginal or there was uncertainty about coverage, Department for Culture, Media and Sport officials commissioned on the ground drive testing to assess the level of coverage. On the ground drive testing did not happen at Fownhope. Instead, Ofcom chose to rely on the mobile phone operators’ maps to assess coverage and did not carry out the tests for all 34,000 not spots across the UK containing premises. Before removing Fownhope from the mobile infrastructure project, Arqiva did not assess the reception in Fownhope or visit the village. Instead, it relied on the data provided by the mobile operators to Ofcom.
In early September I met Arqiva representatives, who confirmed the process whereby the mobile network operators send Ofcom their maps, which are overlaid on top of one another to give an exact area where there is no signal. They said that if there is even a hint of a signal from one operator, even a poor signal, in an area previously deemed to be a not spot, that is sufficient under state aid rules for the phone mast to be withdrawn. I do not believe that this process is ideal because people pay the same amount for 2G as a person receiving 3G or even 4G, so there is an inbuilt incentive for phone operators to claim that their coverage is better than it really is. That should change, as my constituents in Fownhope and other areas are being grossly overcharged for a service that is unsatisfactory.
In October I formally met the Secretary of State about the mobile phone signal and the removal of the proposed mast for Fownhope. During the meeting I handed over to my right hon. Friend the petition that I had received about the mast, with more than 300 signatures. As a result of our meeting, he asked Ofcom specifically to go to Fownhope to check the strength of the mobile signal, rather than relying on data maps provided by the phone operators. Although this offer to test the signal did not necessarily mean that Fownhope would get its mast, it reassured me that the decision on whether or not to proceed would be based on accurate data—or at least, I hoped it would—instead of predictions made by the mobile network operators.
A recent report published earlier this year jointly by Which? and OpenSignal based on over 67 million data readings taken from over 39,000 users of the OpenSignal app showed that the coverage for users significantly differs from the coverage maps provided by the mobile companies.
Ofcom did visit Fownhope and came back to me with its results—extraordinarily—yesterday. What a lucky thing we had the debate timetabled for today, or we may never have known what the results were. It is far from clear from the results what Ofcom will decide. It has produced a picture of Herefordshire covered with little red dots and little green dots. The red dots indicate no signal; the green dots show an adequate signal. There is a little patch around Fownhope covered in orange dots. There are large numbers of red dots, the odd green one and huge numbers of orange dots. The report says, I believe, that Ofcom has not decided yet what an orange dot means. It is going away to think about it. But what it means is that people cannot make a mobile phone call from Fownhope, even if they are lucky. However, we will see what Ofcom tells the Minister in due course.
During our meeting with the Secretary of State, he mentioned his plans to introduce national roaming. At present someone from abroad holidaying in Herefordshire whose phone is set to roam will get a better mobile signal than a Herefordian. I agreed with the Secretary of State that this was not fair or satisfactory.
On 5 November the Government launched a consultation on improving mobile phone reception. I urged my constituents to respond to it. Many of them took part in it and many more told me about the problems they were having with mobile phone reception. One constituent told me that they have to go upstairs in their house and lean out of the window to get a decent signal, and another said that he can make mobile phone calls within his home only from one small corner of his kitchen.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
I place on the record my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a director and shareholder of two telecoms companies. I, too, have to lean out of my window to get a mobile signal at home. Does my hon. Friend agree that the roll-out of certain technologies with wi-fi calling means that the rolling out of the mobile phone signal in bad areas goes hand in hand with the roll-out of broadband signal across the country?
Bill Wiggin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He cannot begin to imagine my delight when our new coalition Government chose Herefordshire to be one of the four pilot schemes for the roll-out of superfast broadband. The whole point of a pilot scheme is that one learns from one’s experiment—but oh no, so pleased were the Government with the pilot scheme that they decided roll it out everywhere, irrespective of how well it was working. At this point, people who had fallen into the pilot scheme areas for superfast broadband found that they were not at an advantage any more and very quickly became at a disadvantage. Instead of receiving superfast broadband by 2015, perfectly timed, with all the political intuition required of a Government, to coincide with the general election, we will not get our superfast broadband in Herefordshire until 2016.
That is of course a bitter disappointment to me, but more so to the people who live in places such as Fownhope who could have seen a better use of technology to piggy-back a better mobile phone signal from a superfast broadband link. This is particularly bizarre given the fantastic military infrastructure we have in Herefordshire, and the broadband delivery to all our schools. The superfast highway does exist. It is not a magic thing that needs to be created; it is there and we have not managed to exploit it in the way that we should have done. I extend my total sympathy to my hon. Friend for having to lean out of the window for a signal. In my house, an orange signal means that one has to lean out of the bathroom window, but luckily O2 is more effective.
Mr Vaizey
I agree with my hon. Friend. DEFRA put up £10 million at the beginning of this Parliament, which DCMS matched, to help smaller rural and community broadband providers to provide broadband in areas that were not part of the national programme. DEFRA is and will continue to be an effective partner in our broadband roll-out programme, which is developing all the time. I do not want to give the impression that we are doing that on the back of an envelope, because we have a clear programme. It is right for my hon. Friend to highlight the difficulties faced by him, his constituents, and indeed the Prime Minister, but it is also worth stating —perhaps I can turn to the glass-half-full element of the debate—that we are making significant progress.
As my hon. Friend is aware, phase 1 of our rural broadband programme involved a £500 million fund from the Government matched by local authorities and Openreach, to enable up to 90% of premises nationwide to get superfast broadband speeds of at least 24 megabits a second. That programme has already gone out to more than 1.2 million homes. We expect soon to announce the milestone of 1.5 million homes, and we are on course to reach 4 million homes under that programme in good speed. Indeed, in many areas the project is ahead of schedule. As my hon. Friend is aware, in his area about £35 million went into phase 1 of the Hereford and Gloucestershire Fastershire project, covering some 113,000 premises. Latest figures suggest that the programme has already reached 35,000 homes. That figure will be higher by now. The vast majority of those 110,000 premises will be reached this year, although some will be reached in the year after.
My hon. Friend will also be aware of phase 2. We secured an additional fund of £250 million, which was again matched by Openreach and local authorities. In the Fastershire area of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, that amounts to almost £20 million to target a further 33,000 premises; so, just under 150,000 premises all told in phase 1 and 2, reaching coverage of approximately 93% of all premises in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire.
One important point to make is that, when we have these debates, my hon. Friends and other hon. Members will, understandably, point to where things are not going as well as anticipated and where the problems are in order to highlight those problems. As I say to them again and again, however, we are on the same page. These funds have not come from nowhere. They have not been magicked out of the air in the past week. We recognised, in the very first weeks after the election, that rural coverage for broadband was a big problem. We were not prepared to accept the previous Government’s commitment to provide speeds of 2 megabits under a rural broadband programme. We recognised immediately that by the time the programme rolled out people would be demanding faster speeds. We set a target of 24 megabits, which is more than adequate. Most people nowadays would expect, if they think about how they use broadband—accessing iPlayer, or indeed receiving payments from the rural payments agency—speeds of about 7 megabits or 8 megabits to be more than adequate. We have recognised absolutely the need to provide broadband for rural areas. The programme is, despite some of the critiques that have been levelled at it, going extremely well. We will see even more of a step change this year than there was last year.
The other element of the equation is phase 3—I am still dealing here with fibre broadband, but as my hon. Friend pointed out that is very relevant for mobile broadband coverage—where we have set aside £10 million to test out different technologies. Critics of Openreach will be delighted to know that a number of smaller providers have secured those funds to test out new technologies to reach the very hardest-to-reach premises. When we talk about hard-to-reach premises, we are talking about perhaps a house at the end of a long track, where it would cost £20,000 to £25,000 to provide a superfast broadband connection. In terms of value for money, one could argue whether that is an effective use of taxpayers’ money. If we can find new technologies that would bring down that cost substantially, it is incumbent on us to examine them. Those programmes are under way. We will evaluate them and come up with a sum that we think is adequate to get to our often-stated target of reaching 100%. We have not been specific about when or how much money, but that is our ambition.
Nigel Adams
Is the Minister able to enlighten us on possible time scales for the evaluation of those new technologies, which are so important for constituents not just in Herefordshire but north Yorkshire?
Mr Vaizey
We are evaluating them at the moment. I hope, certainly by March, that we shall have an indicative assessment of how effective those programmes have been. My hon. Friend took part in the Westminster Hall debate that we held shortly before this debate and compared the area he represents to Herefordshire in terms of rurality. It is also comparable to Herefordshire in being one of the first counties out of the blocks in relation to rural broadband. I am pleased to say that he is doing extremely well, because, in effect, £28 million has been spent in north Yorkshire to bring broadband to his constituents and others, covering 130,000 premises. That programme has ended, as far as I am aware, and we have in fact covered more premises than we targeted—about 141,000 premises have been covered. Another important point to make is that not only is the programme, when it is on the ground and up and running, often going faster than we expect, we often end up covering more premises than we originally targeted. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire hinted, there is a difference between desktop research and actually having boots on the ground. I am delighted as well that in north Yorkshire more than £8.5 million is going in to cover a further 20,000 premises.
Mr Vaizey
My hon. Friend knows that even when that programme is complete, given the rurality of his area we will have covered about 92% of the county. We therefore need to find a cost-effective way to reach the last 8%. They are not forgotten; and no premise will be left behind.
I have covered the Government’s position on rolling out rural fibre broadband. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire said in his excellent and comprehensive speech, which covered very fairly the Government’s approach to broadband, fibre broadband is essential for mobile coverage, which is why I have spent so much time talking about it. However, we are also focusing on mobile coverage—an issue that has become more and more pressing over the past couple of years.
I can remember getting my first mobile phone. It was actually politics that brought me into the world of mobile phones. When I was selected as the candidate for Bristol, East, I realised I would need a mobile phone to carry out my duties effectively. I do not know whether it was the mobile coverage or my own abilities that saw me turn a 5,000 Labour majority into a 17,000 Labour majority in Bristol, East in the 1997 election, but I remember getting a mobile phone and thinking it was the most extraordinary piece of technology I had ever come across.
The 18 years since have passed in a blur—it is hard to think it is almost two decades since I first dipped my toe in the political waters—and now being without one’s mobile phone is almost like being without one’s left or right arm. Smartphones and tablets—my hon. Friend talked about the tablet Bill Gates introduced 15 years ago—now have the sort of computing power one would have found in a large warehouse computer 40 years ago—somewhere such as the UK Atomic Energy Authority in Harwell in my constituency.
Mobile phones are essential pieces of equipment, and there is no reason why people living in rural areas should not have the same decent service that people get in city areas. However, it is worth inserting a caveat. We must remember that mobile phone companies are private companies. Government Members—and there are only Government Members here today, so we can have a private conversation in which free-market thinking prevails and without anyone taking us on—should applaud this private investment rolling out national networks. It is a highly competitive environment providing low costs for consumers. Indeed, the Government and the taxpayer benefit from the spectrum payments made by mobile phone companies.
A lot of obstacles are put in the way of mobile phone companies rolling out their networks: they have to pay high rents to landlords, they have to get planning permission, and the equipment is expensive. My hon. Friend referred to some of those issues. In particular, he mentioned the electronic communications code, which governs the ability of mobile operators to put up and access masts, and we are keen to press ahead with changes to the code as soon as possible—before the Dissolution of Parliament, I hope.
I would always advise hon. Friends in rural constituencies to work with mobile operators, as my hon. Friend indicated he has done. Sometimes an operator wanting to put up a mast will meet with objection from the local community, and sometimes the landlord will demand a very high rent. I know of one project in the mobile infrastructure project, to which I shall turn in a moment, that was stopped because the community itself objected to a mast, and of another that was stopped because the landlord asked for a sky-high rent. A lot of my hon. Friends can work with their local landowners to ensure, where coverage is bad, that sites could be provided at low cost to the operators, although I am obviously not asking them to give away the value of their land as they are commercial people, just as the operators are.
I shall deal shortly with Fownhope, but as I said earlier, the issue of coverage for mobile phones has become more and more pressing as mobile phones become more and more essential. There is no secret at all here: the Prime Minister was recently moved to comment on the poverty of his mobile phone connection when he was visiting some of the more rural parts of this great country of ours. Hitherto, mobile phone coverage has always been assessed in relation to its coverage of premises, and I am pleased to say that, following the successful 4G auction, all the operators are effectively committed to providing coverage to premises of 98%. Even better news is that while the licence stipulates that such coverage should be completed by the end of 2017, because of the competitive nature of our mobile phone companies, they will all have covered 98% of premises with 4G by the end of 2015—some two years ahead of schedule. In fact, it is safe to say that we have one of the fastest roll-outs of 4G anywhere in the world, and certainly one of the fastest take-ups of 4G.
Premises, of course, are not the same as geography. When my hon. Friend refers to the green, orange and red dots, he means that people are driving around his constituency or indeed walking around it and seeing dropped calls or no coverage at all. That is why, following his meeting with the Secretary of State, the latter was keen to press the mobile phone companies to improve their coverage. In my humble opinion as his junior Minister, I believe my right hon. Friend has secured a landmark deal, which will secure 90% geographic coverage of the UK by the end of 2017. My understanding is that that will get rid of two thirds of not spots, which are what we are talking about when we discuss mobile phone coverage and no operator signal is present.
Nigel Adams
The Minister is generous in giving way. This is an incredibly timely debate. Will the Minister remark in his summing up on the fact that 30 years ago last week we had the first ever mobile phone call on a commercial network in the UK? Would it not be nice to think that 30 years on, we would have that 90% or perhaps even more coverage in the UK, given that the technology was rolled out three decades ago?
Mr Vaizey
I hear what my hon. Friend says. It is important to note that when the first mobile phone call was made, it was done with a device that was the size of a small brick. Now we have devices that can slip easily into one’s inside pocket and, as I say, they have astonishing computing power. We should be alive to what my hon. Friend says. For example, some people who might have a faux retro nod to the past are keen to go on eBay and buy some old phones such as Nokia ones. They do so for two reasons: one is battery life, but the other is voice coverage. The more sophisticated some phones get, the worse their aerials become. The iPhone that we all have to look cool with and do our e-mails on has a pretty poor aerial, and sometimes the voice coverage we get from our smartphones is not as good as that from a phone that might have been in our pockets 10 years ago.
I hasten to say that I do not want people to take what I just said and run away with it, as I am not recommending that people walk around with a smartphone and a retro phone to cover all the bases, but it is worth noting that sometimes poor coverage, whether it be in using a smartphone or making a call inside an armour-plated Daimler, can be affected by factors other than the proximity of a mobile phone mast.
Nigel Adams
I echo what the Minister says, because the best phone I ever had for making phone calls—after all, that is why we bought the things in the first place—was a P3 Nokia phone. I am not sure whether the Minister is old enough to remember the P3.
The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Mark Lancaster)
Do you still supply them?
Nigel Adams
We certainly do not still supply them, but I concur with everything the Minister has said.
Mr Vaizey
Of course we all fondly remember the old P3 Nokia, and there may well be a market for new retro phones that simply provide good voice coverage.
It is interesting to note the way in which the etiquette of using a mobile phone has changed. Not only am I old enough to remember buying my first mobile phone, but I remember when a previous Conservative Chancellor thought that it was a good idea to levy a tax on mobile phones. As a new technology, they were seen as a scourge, particularly when one was trying to have a quiet dinner in a lovely restaurant and someone was talking on a phone. Now, of course, the etiquette problems are different. There may be a lack of communication between a husband and wife when one of them is using a tablet, or people may be reading e-mails during a meeting when others are trying to have a discussion. Personally, I have moved on from making voice calls. I tend only to text or e-mail, and it is very rare for me to make a call. Perhaps there will not be a market for the retro phone after all.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nigel Adams Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Osborne
I follow the practice that previous holders of this job have followed over the past 20 years, which is not to comment on the exchange rate, but as I said in my response to the first question in this session, the weakness in the eurozone is an emerging risk to the UK economy and something to which we need to be alert.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
Constituents of mine have been targeted by phone fraudsters calling them at home pretending to be from their bank, and several have had their bank accounts emptied, leaving them devastated. Will the Minister meet me and other hon. Members whose constituents might have been affected to discuss a way forward to ensure that banks have in place proper, robust security measures to prevent that from happening again?
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrea Leadsom)
Yes, I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that issue. I have been made aware of such cases. Of course, banks try to ensure that they have robust processes in place, but if anything else can be done, we are happy to look at it.
Consumer Rights Bill
Nigel Adams Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Yasmin Qureshi
No, I will not, because I only have a few minutes.
The third thing to notice is that the
“hearts of animals stunned by C.B.P. stopped beating earlier as compared to those of the animals slaughtered according to the”
halal meat method. No one wants to talk about the science, because the accepted wisdom goes with the prejudice that I am sorry to say certain newspapers in this country show towards certain groups without looking at the evidence.
Autumn Statement
Nigel Adams Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Osborne
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman notes that the Northern Ireland Executive will get additional resources because of the way in which the Barnett formula is applied. We are clear that we want to be fair to Northern Ireland. In designing our reoccupation relief we noted how some of Northern Ireland’s schemes to help people reoccupy empty properties have been successful. There is no doubt that empty shops on the high street—partly driven by technological change—are not a good advert for a community.
If the welfare cap is breached it is up to the Chancellor of the day to come to the House and say either, “I am prepared to breach the welfare cap: let’s have a vote on that”, or, “I am not prepared to breach the welfare cap and here are the measures I am prepared to take”. Those measures would also have to be voted on. In other words, the Chancellor will be accountable to the House for welfare spending, instead of the situation we have had for the past decade, in which welfare spending doubled with no statement ever being made from this Dispatch Box.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
On behalf of retired coal miners across the country, I thank my right hon. Friend for his recent announcement restoring the concessionary fuel allowance—it was the right and proper thing for him to do. I also commend him for his announcement on business rates, which will be welcomed by small businesses in Selby and Tadcaster and across my constituency. Will he join me in thanking those entrepreneurs and business people in my constituency whose efforts have resulted in a reduction in unemployment of more than 30% since the last election?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend led an effective and powerful campaign on behalf of his constituents and other former miners who had lost their concessionary fuel allowance because of the collapse of the company they had worked for. I stepped in to help because he and others, including my hon. Friends the Members for Sherwood (Mr Spencer), for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles), came to talk to me about the matter. It was a simple case of doing the right thing and, thanks to my hon. Friend, we have done it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nigel Adams Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
5. What estimate he has made of the number of jobs created in the private sector in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
11. What estimate he has made of the number of jobs created in the private sector in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement. [R]
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
In the past year, employment in the private sector has increased by 380,000, more than offsetting the fall in public sector employment of 104,000. For every public sector job lost, more than three have been created in the private sector. That confounds the predictions of those who thought it could never happen.
Mr Osborne
I am delighted by the news of the new jobs being created by Waitrose in Northwich; as my hon. Friend well knows, I represent part of that town. That will be good for the people who live in it, and I hope that some of my constituents will find work there. The employment allowance, which we debated in this Parliament this week, is going to take £2,000 off the national insurance bill of every firm, but the biggest benefit will be felt by the smallest companies; 450,000 firms will be taken out of employer NICs altogether. That is a real boost for business, and it shows how we can help to support the recovery.
Nigel Adams
Unemployment is down by almost 30% in my constituency since the last election. Given that Selby lost almost 2,000 jobs in 2004 in the mining industry, that is very encouraging. Given UK Coal’s recent troubles and its callous decision to withdraw concessionary fuel from some ex-miners and their widows, what comfort can the Chancellor give to these pensioners, who potentially face fuel poverty this winter?
Mr Osborne
I know that this difficult situation has been brought about by the failure of UK Coal. I congratulate my hon. Friend on leading this campaign to do something about the situation, and I know that my hon. Friends the Members for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) and for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) have joined him in coming to see me about it. We are looking very carefully at the case for what we can do to help those who have had their concessionary fuel allowance taken away because of the failure of UK Coal. I am personally looking at this case and I hope to have some good news shortly.
Finance Bill
Nigel Adams Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Leslie
I can assure the Minister that he is wrong to have concerns that anyone is looking to apply the policy to properties below £2 million in value. I can assure him that Gauke Towers will be safe, unless of course in leafy Hertfordshire that property has now increased in value to that level. Perhaps the Valuation Office Agency could give us an estimate, but I assure him that that is not the intention. We simply urge the Government to come clean on the research, which we now understand the Treasury has commissioned.
We now have a couple of Liberal Democrats in the Chamber, albeit looking at their iPhones—[Interruption.] Their Samsung Galaxys—my apologies. They will be interested to know that the Treasury has commissioned research into the feasibility of a mansion tax, so now we know that it is worth a freedom of information request to try to elicit the information. Let us draw out the information.
The Minister mentioned that there are 55,000 properties worth £2 million or above. The Liberal Democrat manifesto promise may well yet come to fruition. We know that the Liberal Democrats put a lot of effort into pulling together the detailed figures on the proposal. We were persuaded of the case and now it looks as though slowly but surely the Treasury is coming into that frame of mind, too.
It is right that we focus on finding a way to support a tax cut that would supplement the personal allowance zero rating. The 10p starting rate would be a better and more progressive tax, which could be supported by the hon. Members for Harlow (Robert Halfon), for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) and for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers)—those Conservative Members who have voiced the case in favour of a 10p starting rate of income tax in recent months.
We know that the annual tax on enveloped dwellings could be the foundation upon which the administration of the policy could work. I was not convinced by the Minister’s argument that there was no read-across from that new tax, which the Treasury is introducing in this Bill. My hon. Friends the Members for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), for Islwyn (Chris Evans) and for Telford (David Wright) spoke eloquently about the economic benefits that could arise if the new 10p band were in place for lower and middle-income households. That money could feed through into the economy more directly and in a progressive way. The hardship and the tax rises that we have seen from the coalition parties have not reduced the deficit, which is going up. Unfortunately, that is the price being paid for the Government’s failed economic plan.
We still hope to persuade the Government that steps can be taken to help people on lower and middle incomes this year. Let us get the Treasury to publish that work. Now we know that research has been commissioned, let us have it published and in the public domain. It could help to stimulate the economy and help the many people who are finding life much harder under this Government. The concept of a mansion tax, asking those with considerable wealth to pay a fairer share to help those on more modest means, is an idea whose time has come.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
In my neck of the woods, there are not too many people with £2 million houses. There may well be in Nottingham East. This issue was raised earlier, but will the hon. Gentleman make it absolutely clear whether the Labour party’s plans for the mansion tax include farmhouses?
Chris Leslie
I do not think that our plans do. We would look at mansions—that form of housing accommodation. However, I would be prepared to see whether the Treasury study, which could be commissioned under the new clause, could look at whether farmhouses would be ruled out. We would be happy to look at such questions. We should, however, be looking at personal estates of £2 million and more in that built-mansion context. That is the nature of the proposition before us. In clause 97 and beyond, definitions of property are set out in respect of the annual tax on enveloped dwellings. They provide a series of exemptions and set out where the line should be drawn in terms of farmhouses and so forth. I recommend those clauses to the hon. Gentleman, as they may well serve as a guide to how a mansion tax could work in future.
We need that work to be undertaken, however. This new clause does not seek instantly to implement the Liberal Democrat proposition. It simply seeks to find ways of building on that as a basis on which to look at the annual tax on enveloped dwellings, thinking of how that might apply to a mansion tax, and in particular using that revenue to help 25 million basic rate taxpayers. That is the objective. We have got to give more help to those who are finding it difficult to make ends meet. That is why I commend this new clause to the House.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.