We have just had a speech from the Financial Secretary which puts a very positive spin on the Finance Bill. Although he sought to put a positive spin also on the measures announced by the Prime Minister today on tax avoidance, his speech shed no further light on the critical issue of offshore trusts and the need for a public register of beneficial ownership. It fell far short of the measures that we announced today in our tax transparency and enforcement programme.
The House is back after three weeks of turmoil at the top of the Tory Government which has called into question the competence and credibility of the Prime Minister and his senior Ministers. They were in trouble even before the Business Secretary’s inept handling of the crisis at Port Talbot. Since then we have had a week of ducking and diving from the Prime Minister over revelations in the Panama papers. What the Prime Minister showed today was that he and his colleagues can get top marks for talking the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk their scorecard is far less impressive.
The Bill seeks to put into law the tax-related measures set out in the Budget, and what a Budget it was. The author of the omnishambles surpassed himself and delivered a mega-shambles. No Budget has unravelled as quickly or as comprehensively as this one. It was a Budget that failed to add up. As we begin to debate on the Bill, we do so against the backdrop of a huge,
gaping black hole, with estimates of a figure of £12 billion or more that has yet to be funded. The Chancellor was faced with the real prospect of a revolt and his Budget not passing. Within days the main revenue-raising policy—cuts in personal independence payments for over 300,000 disabled people—proved too much even for the Work and Pensions Secretary. His parting shot, aimed at the Chancellor, complained of a Tory Government heading in a direction that divides society, rather than uniting it. The Budget and this Finance Bill have unfairness at their very core.
We will be voting against the Bill tonight, because it fails the fairness test and the test of adequately investing for our future. The Bill cuts corporation tax, which is already the lowest in the G7, while the Budget cuts support for working people, leaving over 2 million families, on average, £1,600 worse off a year by 2020. The Bill cuts capital gains tax, which benefits the wealthiest, at a time when the Chancellor has failed to meet his own deficit and debt reduction targets. How can it be fair, at this time, to fund tax breaks for his friends on the backs of the poor and the vulnerable?
Growth has been revised down last year, this year and every year of this forecast, and so too have business investment and productivity. The Chancellor is set to miss his export target by more than 14 years. Growth in average wages is being revised down while household debt is going up. He has admitted failure on his key targets. He has breached his own welfare cap. The Government are set to borrow £38.5 billion more than planned, and public sector net investment is set to fall as a share of GDP over this Parliament.
This is a recovery built on sand, and it is not just us saying it. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) told readers of ConservativeHome that, for all the Chancellor’s talk about investment in export-led growth,
“the growth our economy has seen… comes courtesy of debt-fuelled consumption and a renewed housing and property boom.”
It is young people who are being punished by those choices. A recent YMCA survey of young people found that 41% said that debt was the biggest issue facing their family in 2016—so much for a Budget for the next generation.
The Chancellor has singularly failed to rebalance the economy, and that failure has implications for this Finance Bill. The Bill contains a series of tax cuts that he simply cannot afford. The £12 billion estimate does not include new figures published in an answer to a written parliamentary question, revealing that the Tories’ plans to force every school to become an academy could cost £1.3 billion, yet just £140 million was allocated for those plans, leaving a funding shortfall of more than £1.1 billion.
Before the Government seek once again to hide behind the turbulent conditions in the world economy, as the Minister attempted to do, let us be clear that most of the problems are of the Chancellor’s own making. We needed a Finance Bill that builds the foundations of a strong economy and that is the basis for prosperity and security for Britain’s families and businesses. We did not get it. Of course, there are some positive measures, such as anti-avoidance measures and industry support measures, that we broadly welcome. Support for the oil
and gas industry and the quality of apprenticeships— 30% of apprentices currently appear not to complete their apprenticeships—are issues that we will want to explore further, along with tackling frequent tax avoiders. But these measures do not go far enough, as I will highlight later.
There is little good news for manufacturing, and no coherent overall industrial strategy, which of course includes the needs of the steel industry.