Income Tax (Charge)

Debate between Nigel Evans and Catherine West

Thursday 28th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who made important points on the inequality that exists. Her constituency has similarities with mine. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) said, an enormous number of people are still on benefit, yet, at the same time, the wealth tax list published by The Times shows that 23 more billionaires have made money just from the covid crisis.

We have not talked much about waste this afternoon. The debate has to be considered in the context of the cross-party investigation on the covid crisis led by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) and how much money was given out in a haphazard way. Had that money not been wasted, it would be available now to assist our constituents, who are feeling the pinch with autumn on its way and with inflation affecting food and fuel bills as well as clothing, shoes and everything that we purchase.

If my reading of documentation from the OBR and IFS is correct, there has been a 2% reduction in GDP as a result of the scarring from covid and a 4% reduction owing to Brexit. Trading with our European partners has gone down from about 63% to 60%. That may not sound like that much in percentage terms, but it actually represents quite a reduction in trade with our main trading partners. We face an autumn of many difficulties on many fronts—it makes one feel nostalgic for the last time we had a surplus Budget, which I believe was when Gordon Brown was Chancellor, which was quite some time ago. Since then, we have had deficit Budgets under Tory Administrations.

I want to highlight the increased tax burden on many people who do not earn very much money at all. The jobs tax increase of over 1% on employees and employers that will come in next April will lead to a sense of less money in the pocket. There is still much uncertainty at this time about covid and a question mark over whether we will need increased restrictions in the autumn. It feels like a bit of a gamble in terms of how much of a burden it is placing on working people to carry the can for Government mismanagement, waste and increased taxes.

Many hon. Members have mentioned the missed opportunity on climate ahead of COP26. We could have seen much more funding for basic measures: for example, we could have asked local authorities to retrofit homes and provide state-of-the-art new boilers. That could have provided the opportunity to train up the 180,000 workers we will need to install heat pumps. Our local authorities would have been grateful for the opportunity to do their bit; instead, they are still scrimping and saving, despite the small increase in local government funding. Much more could have been done.

We have the tax cut for flying between Manchester and Heathrow—should we be encouraging that in this day and age? When we look back at various green schemes—the green new deal introduced as a sort of payment on homes back in 2010 by Greg Barker, now in the other place, or the green homes plan, which ran out of steam—we see that time and again the Government have missed the opportunity to ask local authorities to deal with their own localities. Green schemes work best when operated at local level.

We all of course think day in, day out about the productivity puzzle. We know that, unless we spend more on education, we are not going to see long-term improvements in our economy. I welcome the work and report on early years by the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), but I do not think £500 million is going to do what Sure Start did. Many of us have had a number of Sure Start children’s centre closures over the years and this is reinventing the wheel and too little too late.

The Chancellor talked yesterday about tutoring. I am a big believer in tutoring, but it often implies that the hours a young person spends in school are not productive. How do we use the hours when children and young people are in school in a better way? My survey of schools shows the teaching staff to be exhausted and morale to be quite low, and I hope that, after the pay review body does its work, teachers will get a proper increase for their daily work. Why does this need to be a question of either tutoring or increasing the time young people can spend in school? We should be looking at both.

Further education spending has been cut by 50% since 2010. I am pleased that there are some bootcamps and there are new and different ways to spend the apprenticeship levy, but we need to think much more carefully about what works and increase investment in training, career development and the whole area from early years through to FE and adult education.

Sir Kevan Collins, who was the education tsar under the Government, has written in today’s Times. He thinks that the £5 billion is only a third of what is needed to bring our education system up to the required level. We all want our workforce to be more skilled and the productivity gain that would bring, but if Kevan Collins, the expert who was commissioned to look into this, says this falls far short, we need to believe that and do more about it.

I am very proud of my busy London high streets, but I was sad that the Chancellor did not even mention the word “London” yesterday; it seems to have gone out of vogue but, as those of us who are based in our wonderful capital will know, we need quite a lot of levelling up ourselves in London. The high street in Wood Green, where I am the MP, has a number of people walking up and down but businesses say that, although there is plenty of footfall—people are still there—the amount they are spending has dipped right down. Since 2010, the number of transactions and payments to small businesses and the chains in our mall have dropped considerably. That reflects Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis showing we have had negative growth, or tiny bits of growth in our local areas. A lot of that is down to these patches where we have high unemployment and not much at all in our pockets.

Our small businesses are very disappointed that, despite promising it for years now, there was not a proper review of business rates. The Labour proposal to take more as a digital tax from Amazon and to top up small business relief is a neat solution and I ask the Government to look at that again. They are letting down small businesses, which are the lifeblood of all our communities.

We are experiencing problems related to lack of occupancy of shops on our high streets. I am particularly cross with the banks. The week before last, I presented a petition about the closure of the NatWest branch in Crouch End, and then, lo and behold, as I sat down we learned that the Lloyds in Muswell Hill is closing. Not only is that a terrible waste of the lovely space that those banks were taking up on the high street, but often there is no guarantee that they will replace those branches with an ATM—a hole in the wall—which means that people will not even stop to buy a sandwich and get some cash out at the cashpoint. That is the least the Treasury could be doing.

I believe that there have been hundreds of bank closures since 2015. I would like the Treasury to show a bit of muscle and go back to the banks and say, “Okay, you’re closing a branch, so what are you giving us back?” Why do we not make them work for the tax cut—the £4 billion—that they got from the Treasury yesterday and say, “In return, every time a bank is closed on the high street, put in an ATM so that at least we can get cash out and our high streets are not deserts”?

We know that many of our small businesses really do it for the love. I am thinking of small shops such as the Pretty Shiny Shop in Stroud Green ward and Dunns bakery in Crouch End. They are fantastic local employers —that is the thing. They often have young people working after school, or women whose caring responsibilities work around the different shifts. They are doing their bit to keep our high streets going, and I would like to see the Treasury respond in kind to keep them going.

I want briefly to talk about the vibrant restaurant sector, which will benefit from some of the minor adjustments that the Chancellor announced yesterday. I am very grateful for that. I could not quite follow all the changes to alcohol, I am afraid—he lost me a bit—except that I think champagne is going to be cheaper, but I am sure you know that, Mr Deputy Speaker; I am sure you were taking notes, as somebody who likes a tipple.

However, some people do not drink—let us not forget that—and we could have spent that time talking about something that mattered more, such as fuel bills, how expensive childcare is, and the fact that people who are carers and do a job do not get any recognition for that in our taxation system. There are so many more things that we could have spent time talking about. Instead, I understand that yesterday’s announcement was followed by a very funny outing to a brewery, where the wrong prop—the wrong keg of beer—was used. I am sure that the shadow Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), will refer to that in winding up.

This has been an excellent debate. There is a lot that we have in common, but we face a number of challenges. I would like us to be much more focused on how we can help our constituents through this very tough and uncertain period. Autumn will lead to a Christmas of shortages, of very high fuel bills, of expensive food, clothing and shoes, and of looking at a very modest increase to the minimum wage, which could really be a living wage if we tried harder and made it a real £10 an hour. I hope that the Treasury will look again at making some announcements this weekend when COP is in town, so that we can be even more pleased to be in a leadership role there, and that it will look specifically at the role of local government in day-to-day measures to improve our environment.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We are now going to move to the final Back-Bench contribution, so will any Members who have contributed to the debate please start to make their way to the Chamber for the wind-ups? Those will follow Mr Jim Shannon.

Covid-19

Debate between Nigel Evans and Catherine West

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It goes without saying that we must use this opportunity to thank all our public health workers, as well as our journalists and broadcasters. My favourite is Victoria Macdonald from Channel 4, who seems to portray the pain and suffering, and yet the strength and solidarity of our health workers; a huge thank you to all our broadcasters and journalists, who are doing such a good job of keeping us informed.

I regret that the Government did not tackle soon enough a review back in the summer of what went wrong in the first wave, which in my view has led to our being in a third wave. Had we had an effective review in the summer and, for example, introduced testing in schools on 1 September, we might not be in the situation that we are in now.

On the question of long covid, I am on the all-party group, with many Members from across the House. We know that there is not a proper care pathway. I think of a 40-year-old constituent of mine who has not recovered, even though he suffered from covid last April. It is now coming up to 10 months and he still has not seen a specialist because he was never in accident and emergency and within a proper care pathway. We must urgently address that dreadful long-covid syndrome, which is affecting so many people who are recovering from covid.

I put on record my regret that we did not tackle the isolation strategy with enough energy, and with enough understanding of the lives of people who work in insecure roles, who desperately need to be compensated, whether for taxi driving or being a security guard. In all those insecure jobs, they need to be paid to stay at home. I also put on record, as many have in the debate, the 3 million excluded. It is probably more than 3 million. The work of the all-party group is very important, but it is particularly the creative sector that is terribly affected by the covid crisis. It has been going on for several months. People feel that there is no way out and they are feeling absolutely desperate.

In particular, I ask the Minister, first, whether nurseries will stay open. If they do, will nursery nurses be put forward for early vaccinations? Will dentists be higher up the list? They are very at risk because of their work, in terms of the covid germs. No. 3 is optometrists and then, of course, other professionals such as teachers. Also, prisoners, prison officers and prison educators are very much at risk of covid. Will the Minister please take back to the Justice Secretary the question of whether classes in prisons should be going ahead at the moment? I would not want anyone not to be protected from this terrible virus.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We are just going to see whether we have the electrics sorted out at Sir Geoffrey’s place.

Protection of Jobs and Businesses

Debate between Nigel Evans and Catherine West

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West]

Indeed. No one on this side of the Chamber is saying that any of that money was not very much called for. There was a tiny bit of wastage, according to the Select Committee findings that I read yesterday, but I hope that, over time, the Treasury will get rid of the £3.5 billion wastage.

I have some asks for my constituency and I have my figures here. I am a London MP, and many Members who know London will be aware that Muswell Hill ward is not considered to be a low-income place. Unfortunately, however, it has seen an increase of 300% in jobseeker’s allowance and universal credit claimants. The neighbouring Fortis Green ward, which is also considered quite an expensive and well-to-do part of my constituency, is facing a 234% increase in the number of people signing on. Alexandra ward is home to the famous and beautiful Alexandra Palace exhibition hall, the former home of the BBC, and it is a lovely part of my constituency. It has seen a 220% increase in the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance and universal credit. The difference between this recession and the 2008 global financial crash is the impact that this one has had across the economy.

Lots of people are very well paid when they are in work, but because they are self-employed, they are suffering exponentially. What are my asks? First. I am asking for sector-specific schemes for workers, so that we can look at the self-employed and particularly those in the creative sector. Secondly, I am asking for specific help for people who, for example, have a small business and are helping several of their employees to manage but have not had anything back for themselves. In conclusion—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. We must now go to the wind-ups.