Finance Bill

Debate between Susan Elan Jones and Chris Leslie

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

The Government have apparently undertaken their own valuation exercise, perhaps stealthily, so they could publish the information on the numbers of properties across the country. Perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister, with his 16 special advisers, fanned out across the country to look at the issue. I do not know how they found out the 55,000 figure. If the hon. Gentleman has that information and publishes it, I will be interested to see it, but I am afraid I cannot be certain that it is the correct figure. Labour Members have to be very careful and cautious in taxation matters. We want to make sure that all the figures are very clear and well worked through instead of taking the Exchequer Secretary’s back-of-a-fag-packet approach. I take it as a commitment from him that all this information will be published in the public domain, and then perhaps we can work on devising this measure in a less partisan way.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend find it extraordinary that Government Members appear to have been sitting down with their pocket calculators regarding the mansion tax, but none of them has come up with how much ordinary taxpayers who pay the basic rate of tax would benefit from the 10p proposal?

[Chris Leslie]

It is all because their focus is on protecting the wealth of the wealthiest. Ducks go quack and Conservatives defend wealth and privilege. It is in their DNA; it is how they operate.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Susan Elan Jones and Chris Leslie

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

New clause 1 talks about the way in which the Government’s approach may target help on those who want to buy a second home. In tabling new clause, we were concerned that we should prioritise those who need their first home—a primary residence. That is an important part of our argument in new clause 1.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

No one knows more about housing issues than my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey)—with, perhaps, the exception of my hon. Friend, the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), to whom I am happy to give way.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am sure that I do not know more than the first-named hon. Friend.

Does my hon. Friend think that what could effectively become a holiday-home subsidy will end up having a disproportionate effect in rural communities? We know what has happened in north and west Wales in the past, but could not the same apply to the Lake District, Cornwall and other rural areas? Will my hon. Friend be asking the Minister whether any impact assessment has been carried out in relation to the potential cost of rural housing? This move is an absolute disgrace.

[Chris Leslie]

My hon. Friend ought to know by now that this particular Treasury does not go in for assessments based on evidence. In fact, we are lucky that there was a fag packet on which the Chancellor could draw up his plan.

My hon. Friend needs to recognise that the Budget was not designed to deal with the needs of the economy, the housing market or the rural communities to which she has referred. It was designed entirely to save the Chancellor’s skin, and to support his ideological approach and the extreme austerity agenda that he has been pursuing. Because he had been failing on the deficit and borrowing, he decided to design a housing market intervention that fell below the line—that added up in terms of national debt, but did not affect his borrowing figures. The convoluted scheme that he created may have a series of perverse consequences, because it was not designed to meet the needs of housing or of the communities that we represent. It was designed merely for the Chancellor’s own convenience, in the light of his disappearing and diminishing personal prospects.

We all know, or at least Labour Members know, that housing is the bedrock of a stable community, strong families and economic progress, and that the adequacy of housing availability is crucial to our economic recovery. There should be a cross-party consensus on the need to help families to get a foot on the housing ladder and helping people to fulfil their aspirations and provide a decent foundation for the future. However, despite the warm words about housing that we have heard for the past three years, the Government’s record is poor, and the housing investment measures in this Budget—like those in previous Budgets—fall well short of what is needed and what Labour Members would advocate. What hope can there be for hard-working families who are struggling to get on to the housing ladder, given the current mismatch between supply and demand? House building has fallen, rents are rising, home ownership is becoming harder rather than easier so that the goal for young families is becoming less and less achievable, and homelessness has risen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

I doubt that very much. I know that will shock my hon. Friends, but I suspect the Government have not thought about that.

[Susan Elan Jones]

We hear a great deal about Mr Lynton Crosby and his influence on the Conservative party. He is probably rubbing his hands with glee today, thinking, “Goodness, they haven’t worked out the fact that this is a tax break for me when I buy my second home,” if he does not already have one.

[Chris Leslie]

It had not occurred to me that the scheme could be the entrée for Lynton Crosby into a permanent residence. Who knows whether he will take up the scheme, but I am sure he will be very inventive about the matter.