Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Peter Dowd and Emma Hardy

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

The hon. Gentleman was that busy talking about sizzling sausages and Marxism last week that he did not hear what I had to say. Now, it is not for me to constantly repeat myself—although I know the Tories do it all the time—so I suggest he reads last week’s debate in Hansard.

Luckily, I am pleased to see that even these mendacious measures are not enough to prevent this Government from a slow-motion collapse. The twists and turns continue. If the weekend reports in the media—specifically The Sunday Times—are anything to believe, if this House votes against the deal, No. 10 has a

“dark strategy to twist arms.”

So what is the cunning plan? Well, No. 10 seeks to

“encourage a crash in financial markets after losing a first vote in the hope this stampedes MPs into voting for it a second time”.

This is ordinarily known as extra-parliamentary activity. The fact that the media are actually putting that scuttlebutt into print, however bizarre, simply shows the desperation in No. 10, so it is important that we do tease out the issues, as we will with new clauses 1, 2 and 3, but this situation bears witness to the siege mentality now at pathological—some might even say clinically obsessive—levels in Downing Street.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I am sure that my hon. Friend, like me, was glued to the television at 10 o’clock last night, watching a documentary “A Northern Soul”, about a man called Steve living in poverty in Hull and his inspiring work to help the children living in that city. I therefore give my hon. Friend my wholehearted support in particular for new clause 2, which would provide for a tax impact assessment to look at how we can genuinely help people like Steve who have suffered so badly under this Government.

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend is right. I am afraid that the Government are in denial over the question of child poverty; I will come back to that point shortly.

Quite simply, the Prime Minister and those around her have lost the plot; and there have been plenty of plots recently. This Government would not know progress if it stared them in the face, which is why we need new clauses 1, 2 and 3. It is little wonder that the Government have presided over eight years of economic ineptitude that have seen our tax system and society becoming increasingly unequal.

As I said on Second Reading, Labour will not stand in the way of any change that would put additional income into the pockets of low and middle earners. Maybe that answers the question of the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), so he might not have to look at Hansard. Low and middle earners have borne the brunt of the economic failure of this Government and we will not take that cash out of their pockets. However, we believe that the richest in our society and those with the broadest shoulders should pay more tax to help support our public services and finally end austerity. This is not a controversial view, at least among the morally orthodox.

Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Peter Dowd and Emma Hardy

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Dowd]

Q On the point of infrastructure, which you raised before—interestingly, you raised a point about state-owned ports—our ports are fully privatised. That makes it more difficult in a sense for the Government to control their development, which is understandable. Have you got any evidence that the Government have taken proactive action to improve the infrastructure around the ports in the light of the potential challenges you are facing? I say that as a Member of Parliament who has a pretty big port in his constituency.

Richard Ballantyne: As you know, the ports industry in the UK is market-led and market-driven. We have three types of port: local authority-owned ports, which operate on a commercial basis in competition with private ports; full private sector ports, or equity ports; and the trust ports, which are Dover, Aberdeen, London and so on, and they are still run on a private basis and pay corporation tax on any profits they make. Significantly, all of them are financially and strategically independent of Government decisions. That has worked. Effectively, the Government have delegated the authority to run the ports because they understand that you need technical experts to manage such things as safety and the commercial arrangements.

In terms of what is going on at the moment, the Government do influence the connections to ports. Ports have publicly owned road and rail connections. Following a lot of lobbying from my association and others, the Department for Transport is undertaking a port connectivity study, which is not about spending any money on connections but about assessing the state of the road and rail connectivity of the UK ports industry, and how we get ports more on the radar when big investment decisions like the road investment strategy and rail strategies are made and Treasury spending budgets are allocated. It is about us, perhaps, rising up. There has been a lot of big-ticket passenger-focused spend, such as HS2, Heathrow and Crossrail. Freight has felt a bit of a poor relation. We are working to improve that, but unfortunately freight does not vote, so it is a challenge for us.

[Emma Hardy]

Q I am so delighted that you said that. I am completely biased, coming from Hull where there are major problems with port connectivity. Is that something you have already given recommendations to Government on, or is it something you are working on now?

Richard Ballantyne: The Department is considering a lot of feedback from the ports. I know Sir John Randall, a former Member of this House, oversaw that as an independent chair. The officials are now working on the final detail. I hope it will make a number of recommendations, and it should be out within the next month. As I say, I think Sir John went to visit Hull.

[Emma Hardy]

He probably got stuck on the way there. That is good news, thank you.

[Peter Dowd]

Q I want to ask a question, Chair, but I am conscious of the interruption that may come. This question is specifically to Mr Windsor, on the information you provided to us. In that document you said,

“It has been commented that the Bill is not as precise as Members would have hoped for”—

I suspect you were a diplomat in a different life—

“in terms of either the areas covered by the legislation or in certain cases the powers vested in the authorities. Also from our understanding this document will have to be read with other documents such as CEMA and secondary legislation which still has to be written which has the potential to cause confusion and thus perhaps hinder compliance from Trades perspective.”

To what extent will compliance be hindered? How extensive, how comprehensive, how problematic will that compliance be?

Robert Windsor: It is always more difficult where you have more than one source to draw the compliance requirements from. One of the things that my members have been used to are the codified laws and regulations that have come from Europe, in particular customs codes and things like that. They got more complex as time went on. Basically, there was a single point of reference, so people would go to that and at that point they would pretty much know what was written, how it could be interpreted in different member states—[Interruption.]