Finance (No. 2) Bill

The Minister is being unfair to Labour Members. They will manage to reduce the deficit by not ope...

We must not forget that Labour will put up gun licences—that is also on the list.

I note th...

Will the Minister give way?

I will give way one more time; I ought to press on.

The Minister’s case is that, because of the savings that the Government plan to make, there is no...

What I have said is consistent with what the Chancellor has said again and again. Our plans do no...

rose—

I am spoilt for choice. It is important to share these things around, so let me give way to the h...

The Minister assumes that the choice is between tax and spend. Does he accept that if the tax and...

I am deeply unpersuaded of the idea that, somehow, magically, growth will shoot up if we have a L...

It did last time.

The hon. Gentleman says growth shot up last time, but we had the biggest contraction of our econo...

Order. I shall ask Members once not to shout across the Chamber at one another, and to listen to ...

Thank you, Mr Hood.

When President Hollande took office, with the enthusiasm and support of...

Does not the latest Labour U-turn on the jobs tax—perhaps it was forced into it—create an even bi...

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I confess that I am a little young to remember the 1959 e...

Thank you.

I am looking at the hon. Gentleman. He may recall, as a very young lad, the 1959 general election...

indicated assent.

He does. I am sure he was a very young man at the time. Under a great deal of pressure, Hugh Gait...

As we are talking about rumbling the Government, the election will be an opportunity to scrutinis...

I will tell the hon. Gentleman where the credibility gap is. Labour Members effectively voted for...

Speaking of Labour’s spending and tax commitments, how many times over have Labour Members spent ...

I thought it was 11 but I could be wrong. It may be 12 by now—who knows?—because that money may b...

For the avoidance of doubt, and for what feels like the 278th time in Treasury debates, I should ...

The Government have a very good record in delivering jobs—sustainable jobs—in this country.

rose—

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who will no doubt enlighten the House about the 1959 gener...

I would be delighted to do so. I campaigned against Sir Oswald Mosley in Kensington North—admitte...

I share the view that we need to build more houses in this country, but I am pleased that last ye...

I thank the Minister for being so good with his time. All the measures in this year’s Budget stok...

It should be noted that the Office for Budget Responsibility does not believe that any of the mea...

I have now to announce the result of the deferred Division on the question relating to the draft ...

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. New clause 1 stands in my name and th...

I thank the shadow Minister for inviting me to give my views on the fiscal situation. My constitu...

Order. The intervention is too long.

Thank you, Mr Hood. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, during which he did not ...

Will my hon. Friend give us a bit more detail about new clause 1? I would like the study to look ...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is exactly what people across the country will be concer...

rose—

I give way to the rover from Dover.

Would the hon. Lady rule out a Labour Government keeping VAT at the same level, or would they red...

I will come on to what we announced yesterday, but we are not going to raise VAT. That is as clea...

Given that both parties have ruled out an increase in VAT and that the hon. Lady will not commit ...

I have a lot of time for the hon. Gentleman and we spend much time debating Finance Bills, but I ...

The hon. Lady says that the Conservative party will definitely increase VAT. What proof does she ...

If the hon. Gentleman gives me a few minutes, I shall get on to that point very shortly. He will ...

I do not want my hon. Friend to be too charitable to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so may I re...

I was just about to make exactly that point. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that in 2012, hav...

rose—

I am grateful.

The Prime Minister has been clear: we do not need to increase VAT or put VAT on essentials such a...

So basically, both those things are definitely going to happen if the Financial Secretary’s party...

This debate seems to be based on a false premise. The Government have been clear that a rise in V...

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me I will answer that by posing a simple question back to him, a...

The Government have been clear in setting out their plans in the Red Book, and they have been aud...

That was not even a valiant attempt to try to answer my questions, but the hon. Gentleman is not ...

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for her innate generosity in giving way. Does she not a...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have been debating whether VAT will go up, but new clause ...

Given the lack of a response from the Government Benches, may I suggest that seeing the impact of...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the only conclusion we can draw from what the Ministe...

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I am going to finish now, because I want to give time to everybody else who wishes to speak in th...

It is pleasure to speak in this debate—I hope it will have been worth the wait—and to serve under...

As my hon. Friend will have noted, the new clause states that the Chancellor should produce a rep...

My hon. Friend has been doing this job much longer than me, so I suppose he has earned the right ...

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I want to say first how much my hon. ...

When the Chancellor decided to increase VAT, he must have asked Treasury officials to produce pro...

Indeed. My hon. Friend has made a very valid point. I think that we should all be interested to k...

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I was also going to say that it was a...

As we saw in 2010, what the Prime Minister says this side of an election is not necessarily the s...

That is clearly another way the Conservatives might seek to close this gap they have opened up fo...

Does my hon. Friend agree that a rise in VAT will not only have an impact on the living standards...

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Of course the position she sets out is exactly what ...

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech. She has returned to the point about the scale of the...

Order.

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Clearly, those are the kinds of concern that people ...

I understand that we are not talking to a benevolent Government here, but as my hon. Friend is li...

I think that campaign has taken off again, having been going for a considerable number of years.<...

Decades.

Indeed. As the current campaigners have noted, there is no VAT on shaving cream, but there is on ...

It suggests that men made the law.

Yes, it is gender-made law. We will all have received a considerable number of e-mails about that...

On that issue, growing a beard is an option for a man, but being unhygienic is not an option for ...

That is a very interesting piece of information, and it is something that people should bear in m...

Order. It is very interesting, but we are straying a wee bit from what we are supposed to be deba...

Thank you for your guidance, Mr Hood. I am sure that you would not want me to stray on to the who...

We have had a lively debate and heard contributions from a number of Members who could be describ...

The Chancellor fought incredibly hard in the EU to protect bankers’ bonuses, so can the Minister ...

This has been a long-standing issue. The experience of trying to bring in new zero rates has been...

I beg to move amendment 1, page 2, line 1, at end insert—

“(3) The Chancellor of the Excheq...

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause 1 stand part and clauses 2 to 5 stand part.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. Amendment 1 stands in my name and t...

indicated dissent.

It is a little unfair of the hon. Gentleman to shake his head at such an early stage of my speech...

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the worst aspects is the massive loss to the Revenue? Am I ...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The measure has a static cost of £3 billion a year, and behav...

The hon. Lady raises an interesting point about the static and behavioural effects. She will be a...

The Minister is tempting me to go further than I want to at this stage, because I am going to dev...

As always when it comes to talking about the 50p tax rate, my hon. Friend is incredibly persuasiv...

My hon. Friend is both generous and correct. Members who were here for the last debate will know ...

I know that the shadow Minister was not a key part of the previous Government, but does she belie...

I was not a Member at that time, so I was not a part of that Government at all, but I am proud of...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to recognise the importance of the national minimum wage to ma...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was coming on to exactly that point. This is a question abo...

Is my hon. Friend interested, as I am, in the line developed by the Liberal Democrats that the 50...

One day.

Indeed. This is all about the choices made to bring down the deficit. We made a choice—a forward ...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) always takes part in ...

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that that rate of tax should have gone up to 50p during the dow...

One of the things about the annual debate on the 50p rate is that the usual suspects make the sam...

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Is not one example of how the burden is not being share...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, when I was talking about VAT in my constituency yest...

I was on the phones canvassing the other week, and a man from a neighbouring constituency said th...

My hon. Friend has acquitted herself of that duty in her usual brilliant way. We may not be able ...

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. She is always incredibly generous, especial...

That is exactly the point. If the Government have nothing to hide and nothing to fear from all th...

My hon. Friend talks about the work done by HMRC. Is that almost the same piece of work that the ...

As ever, my hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is precisely to get that additional data that...

I come back again to what the hon. Lady’s colleague, the shadow Chief Secretary, said from the Op...

I was here for that debate and my hon. Friend the shadow Chief Secretary was recognising that the...

The hon. Lady is making a perfectly sensible point now, but it is a very different point to that ...

My interpretation of what the Minister is saying is that he is making a valiant attempt at trying...

rose—

I am not going to give way again, because I have very little time. The Minister can pick the poin...

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.

First, I shall say a wo...

It would have been popular.

None the less, under this Chancellor and this Government, we will stick to the long-term economic...

People find some of these behavioural effects hard to imagine. One of them, of course, was that u...

My hon. Friend raises an important point. There are a number of behavioural effects. Sometimes wh...

Not at all.

Given that the hon. Lady has said that, I will certainly give way to her. If she is not stepping ...

If the Minister was listening to my speech, he would know that I am asking for a report to give u...

We are making further progress. The hon. Lady has now explicitly said that the 50p rate will not ...

I appreciate that we are five and a half weeks from a general election, so we can exchange party-...

I accept that I can be carried away with party-political knockabout. I look to the hon. Gentleman...

I thank the Minister for giving way again. He is being very generous with his time.

As asse...

That is a very good point, which leads me to the two quotations that I was about to give. Paul Jo...

rose—

rose—

I am spoilt for choice, but ladies first.

I thank the Minister for his generosity in giving way again. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has...

We have a record of increasing the personal allowance. This is a very good time to make that poin...

I beg to move amendment 2, page 3, line 39, at end insert—

“(3) The Chancellor of the Exche...

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

The review proposed in amendment 2 would give us a better understanding of the factors that are h...

Is not a theme developing today: the extent to which tax cuts and spending cuts should contribute...

My hon. Friend is right. This comes back to the impact of the choices being made—who is being pri...

This is one point on which I think we can agree. Does the hon. Lady share my worry that investmen...

This might be the one time during a Finance Bill debate when the hon. Gentleman and I have been i...

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that we assess what the larger corporations do wit...

My hon. Friend makes an important and interesting point. This is not only about how we how we mak...

rose—

If my hon. Friend wants to intervene, I will give way again.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I was enjoying her contribution so much that I was going to desi...

My hon. Friend is right. I am glad that she has put on record the interplay between the Consumer ...

Does my hon. Friend agree that supporting small businesses, developing skills and apprenticeships...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and her point takes us back to our earlier debate about the va...

This might be my last contribution in this place, so I would like to say what a great privilege i...

It is an honour to intervene in what might be the hon. Gentleman’s last speech in this place. Has...

The economy of the country is an ecosystem. No company exists in isolation and each relates to ot...

Does the hon. Gentleman think it right for a Government to take money from a city where a lot is ...

Another thing that the Government have done is to move towards localising business rates again. C...

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales), because we have served ...

It is a pleasure to see you back in the Chair, Mr Hood.

I wish to talk particularly about t...

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. It is also a pleasure to follo...

The best way to get the tax contribution is to give people real jobs with real pay; then we will ...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that goes to the nub of the issue today. As my hon. Frien...

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales), who spoke in this deba...

On a point of order, Mr Hood. Can we look again at the way in which the business of this House is...

Order. I ask Members for order to allow the hon. Lady to make her point of order.

I was simply making the case that our procedures are brought into disrepute when we have not had ...

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. She may want to take her point up with the Procedur...

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It has just come to my attention that the Government have...

It is a business matter for the Government, as the shadow Leader of the House is well aware. Righ...

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Usually I am an assiduous attender, as you kno...

It was a business motion that was agreed yesterday, but not the terminology, I presume. Mr Speake...

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have had some slightly strange events on th...

We are getting into areas that are not a matter for the Chair. This is agreed business of the Gov...

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for a member of a Select Committee who has...

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Other members of the Health Committee are also...

May I just say that we are raising a matter where a Member is being discussed? I presume that the...

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Like my hon. Friends, I think that we, as members of ...

Does anyone else want to speak on this matter?

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do think it is an absolute outrage that the ...

I am sure that you are aware that Mr Speaker has sent a letter to the Chair of the Select Committ...