argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is entirely right. The Government since 2015, and the coalition Government, oversaw the restoration of the banking sector to a healthy central part of our economy. He is absolutely right. The shift from the bank levy to the taxation of profits which was introduced on 1 January 2016 indicated that the risks themselves were diminishing under our stewardship, and that our banking sector was profitable enough to bring in considerably more tax revenue. Since 2010, under Conservative Chancellors, we have secured more than £44 billion in additional tax—I stress the word "additional"—from the banks, over and above the tax that we would be applying to them were they non-financial businesses.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): In 2010, tax receipts from the financial services sector amounted to about £53 billion; today they amount to £71 billion. We are making the banks and the wider financial services sector pay their fair share, but we do not want a race to the bottom. We want the sector to be competitive, because tens of thousands of well-paid, highly skilled jobs throughout the country—not just in London but in cities like Nottingham, near my constituency—depend on it.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): As circumstances change, it is right for us to move from a bank levy to taxing bank profits. I am sure that, in due course, we shall hear a great hue and cry about how appalling it is to lose the bank levy. Is that not a little perplexing, given that Labour voted against its imposition in 2011?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Rachel Helen Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): I, too, look forward with great interest to hearing from Opposition Front Benchers. Has not part of the Government’s overall approach been to back the independence of the Bank of England? Has that not also helped the overall regulation of banks, and ended the situation which, under Labour, led to some of the problems in the banking sector?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think it would pay all Members dividends to consider the comments made by Mervyn King at the time of the last crisis, when he said that the Bank of England had very limited scope to deal with the issues that were faced at the time. Since then, of course, we have fundamentally changed the structure of the oversight of banks. We have ensured that the Bank of England is at the heart of it, and that the independence of the Bank and the other institutions that we have set up is paramount. That is partly why the position of the banks is so much stronger than it has been hitherto We prevented the banks from reducing their corporation tax liabilities when they were required to pay compensation for misconduct, effectively applying additional taxes. The shift towards taxing profits means that the recovery in banks’ profitability will translate into higher tax receipts for the Exchequer, while also ensuring a sustainable long-term basis for the taxation of banks.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mark Andrew Menzies (Conservative, Centre-right): It is important that we raise record sums from the banks to pay for vital public services, but is there not a balance to be struck? We need healthy banks, not only to support small businesses and provide mortgages for first-time buyers, but to ensure that there are banks in our high streets.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right, and this is all about striking the right balance. We recognise that banks need to pay their fair share because of the systemic risk that they can feed into the economy, and because, some years ago, the British taxpayer stood behind the banking system. The other part of the balance is to ensure that our banking system remains competitive in comparison with others in the world, and can, in turn, leverage the competitiveness of our own industries through its lending.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): Conservative Members believe that it is better for commercial organisations to be left to run their own businesses. They tend to do it rather better than Ministers, dare I say—although I think I could be quite handy at running a bank or two; who knows The issue of bank closures is very important. We are working hard to reinvigorate our post offices and to ensure that the banking facilities that they provide—which are available, typically, to more than 90% of personal and business customers—are promoted in all the 11,500 branches in the United Kingdom.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting idea, but I would argue that that is already effectively in practice in the form of the post office: post offices are able to deal with the customers of the major banks, to take cash, and to offer banking services—albeit not the full range, but certainly the most basic and most important to local communities—and, as I said earlier, there are more than 11,500 of them across the UK.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): All of us who represent rural constituencies are concerned about the issue of access to bank branches and closures, but does that not mean that there is an extra onus on providing access to fast broadband in rural areas so that people can access online banking? To that end, should we not welcome the announcement in The Sunday Times that there will be further help this week for speeding up broadband in the most hard-to-reach rural areas?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend raises an important point about connectivity, particularly in rural areas, including in constituencies such as mine where making sure there is good broadband is often one way of reducing sparsity and people being cut off from each other, and that is why we have invested so heavily in that area These changes are expected to increase the additional tax contribution from banks by more than £4.6 billion over the current forecast period to 2022-23.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): Will the Minister re-emphasise the point he has just made: that the practical effect for our constituents of the move he is making today will make it much more attractive for important British international banks such as HSBC and Standard Chartered, who have a choice of locations in which to be registered—HSBC recently considered whether to move to Hong Kong or even mainland China—to remain in the City of London?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): As is so often the case, my hon. Friend has hit an important nail on the head: in terms of improving our competitiveness, it is clearly deeply unattractive to have a situation where UK-domiciled banks are being taxed on their foreign operations whereas foreign banks are not being taxed by us on their foreign operations, but are only being taxed on their operations in the UK. He is right that the future of HSBC, Standard Chartered, Barclays and other banks, who make a huge contribution to our tax-take and our economy, are much more secure if they are not being disadvantaged by being taxed on overseas operations unlike their foreign counterparts. As part of these changes, the schedule also provides for a reduction in the amount on which the levy is chargeable for certain investments a UK bank makes in an overseas subsidiary I shall now briefly turn to the amendments tabled by Opposition Members. For the reasons I have described, we believe that a combination of taxing profits and balance-sheets is the most effective and stable basis for raising revenue from the banking sector. The bank payroll tax was intended as a one-off tax; even the last Labour Chancellor pointed out that it could not be repeated without significant tax avoidance. I can assure the House that information about the bank levy will continue to be published as part of the normal Budget cycle. Official statistics are published on the pay-as-you-earn income tax and national insurance contributions, bank levy, bank surcharge, and corporation tax receipts from the banking sector as a whole. The Government have published a detailed tax information and impact note on the proposed changes introduced by part 1 of the schedule. We have also published information about the overall Exchequer impact of the 2015 package of measures for banks, and these figures have been certified by the Office for Budget Responsibility Finally, new clause 2 proposes that HM Revenue and Customs should publish a register of tax paid by individual banks under the levy. Taxpayer confidentiality is an essential principle for trust in the tax system, and HMRC does not publish details of the amount of tax paid by any individual business. While this Government continue to consider measures to support transparency over businesses’ tax affairs, we must balance that with maintaining taxpayer confidentiality in order to sustain public confidence in our tax system.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I would maintain that the banks are indeed being treated rather differently from other sectors of the economy, not least—as I have been at great pains to point out this evening—because they are being taxed far more heavily than other types of business. On a fundamental issue of principle relating to tax confidentiality, it would not be right to single out any particular bank, whatever its history, to make an example of it and treat it differently from other financial institutions The changes in this schedule are part of a package of measures that provide a sustainable basis for raising revenue from the banking sector in the long term. These measures continue to apply additional taxes to banks, to reflect the special risk that they pose to the UK economy. They put the taxation of banks on a more certain and sustainable footing to ensure that the banks will continue to pay additional tax, and they reduce the impact of the bank levy on UK banks’ international operations. In doing this, we will ensure their continued health and competitiveness, which are essential for us if we are to go on raising yet more tax from our banking sector. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Other
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for talking about civil war. By contrast, in the interest of showing the solidarity among Labour Members, does he agree with the shadow Chancellor’s listing of his hobby in "Who’s Who?" as "generally fermenting the overthrow of capitalism"?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Other
Rachel Helen Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman refers to red herrings, but surely the views and political ideology of his shadow Chancellor are relevant. I will therefore give him another opportunity to answer the question: is he a Marxist, like his fellow shadow Treasury spokesman? Does he agree with that ideology, or is there civil war in the Labour party as well?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Other
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): It is very kind of the hon. Gentleman to take so many interventions on the trot. [Laughter.] This is not a minor issue. Let us not forget that Marxism destroyed the economy of half our continent. I very much admire the hon. Gentleman, but he did mention ideology in the first place. It is therefore not only in order for me to raise the question in his terms, but pertinent. Is he a Marxist—or is he perhaps a Leninist, a Bolshevist, or an adherent of one of the various other isms?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is talking about where the bank levy came from. I remind the Committee that it was actually Geoffrey Howe who introduced a deposit levy in a Budget in the early ’80s as part of his stabilisation of the financial system inherited from a previous Labour Government.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Michael Alex Burghart (Conservative, Centre-right): I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s potted Marxist history of the past 10 years. There seems to be a little bit of history that he has forgotten, which is of course the lax and inappropriate regulatory regime that the Labour party introduced under Ed Balls. That regime contributed to the terrible state in which our banking sector was left after 2008. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to remind the Committee and his party of that.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Rachel Helen Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is discussing the strictures and exhortations of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), who was then an Opposition Back Bencher. Surely the hon. Gentleman must recognise that it was the Labour party, in government, that deregulated the banks and took power away from the Bank of England. Whatever my right hon. Friend may or may not have said—he is an incredibly intelligent and learned person—he was not in government and was not making policy. It was the Labour Government who made the policy to deregulate and allow the financial crisis by taking away strength from the Bank of England at a time when it should have been strengthened.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I am confused by the hon. Gentleman’s position on the bank levy. He says that he voted against it in 2011 because it was set at too low a threshold, but between 2011 and 2015 the then Chancellor raised the bank levy seven times and, on each occasion, the Labour party voted against it. Why did it do that?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Other
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for that useful intervention because I absolutely do remember that. The reason why those words might linger in mind longer is that they came from someone holding an office of state. Cabinet members at the time were positively encouraging those whom they considered their friends in the City to become increasingly reckless, as was the First Minister of Scotland, as I have mentioned.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): It might be a function of my age, but I must confess that I have no recollection of anything to which the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) referred. I apologise to the House for the lapse in my memory, but I am of an advanced age and it is perhaps a senior moment—I do not know I support the Bill and the plan that goes with the banking levy, which is a fair way to ensure that banks make a fair contribution to the tax system and that they make the right contribution to society. The changes proposed in the Bill are fair. They provide for a level playing field for all banks, whether domiciled in the UK or based outside it.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): I was about to describe the level playing field as I see it. The Bill will remove any disincentive there might have been for banks to base themselves in the UK, which is important. I remind all Members of the reputation that our country and particularly the City has. I think we would all agree that the City is the financial capital of the world With respect to the bank levy, the banks’ contribution must go beyond the paying of taxes, as outlined in the Bill. Given the banking sector’s behaviour—I referred to the comments by the hon. Member for Bootle about saints and sinners earlier, but I am generalising now—the banking industry does have a responsibility to make a fairer contribution to society, which is what the measures taken by the Government since 2010 and 2015 have made happen Let me mention in passing the Financial Conduct Authority’s report on the Royal Bank of Scotland and its treatment of small and medium-sized business customers.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not want to distract my hon. Friend from his excellent speech, but he referred earlier to the former First Minister, Alex Salmond; does he recall the encouragement that Mr Salmond gave to RBS with respect to ABN AMRO and anything related to that purchase, which many people thought at the time was a risky investment?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): I have a very bright recollection of that. There is a famous document that shows the First Minister wrote to the chief executive of RBS and added at the end some personal notes that went above and beyond encouragement Given recent history, it is right that the banks make a more-than-fair contribution, and that is what they have been doing. I return to the FCA’s report on the RBS and its treatment of small and medium-sized business customers. I refer specifically to the conduct of RBS’s global restructuring group, about which the FCA’s report makes depressing reading. When I looked at the report, I lost count of the number of times the words "inadequate", "inappropriate", "systematic" and "failure" were linked repeatedly to a wide range of RBS’s activities, and particularly the global restructuring group’s conduct towards small and medium-sized businesses. The words I highlighted were appended to the description of how the group laid charges and managed loans and communications and to the description of its valuation practices. There is also the fact that the complaint procedures were completely ignored Many Members from all parties will know of examples of how the systematic failings in RBS’s global restructuring group affected constituents and their businesses. My constituency is no different. I am mindful of ongoing investigations involving cases in my constituency and have no desire to jeopardise their progress as I address the issue of bank levies. I shall simply say that from the cases I have seen there remain many unanswered questions that RBS needs to address Many Members present will be aware of RBS and the Bank of Scotland having closed their bank branches.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend reminds us that, what with Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of Scotland, there is clearly a theme among these great institutions that failed. Has he considered the fact that the bank levy is one function of a system in which ultimately the lender of last resort is the most important function? That system would simply not exist had Scotland gone independent and been left with massive liabilities to pick up. It would not have been able to cope.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a first-class point. He provides me with an opportunity to remind the House that, thankfully, in September 2014, Scotland had the good sense to vote overwhelmingly to remain part of the United Kingdom. Part of the reason for that was, I am sure, the lessons we had learned as a country from our experiences between 2007 and 2009, particularly the recklessness of the Scottish National party Government and the First Minister at the time, Alex Salmond, in the way he conducted himself with respect to RBS Just so that the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) is aware, I am talking about the bank levy in relation to bank closures. It is my firm belief that having bank branches in communities is part of the covenant between the public and their financial institutions, but that covenant that is clearly broken. People should expect the banking sector to keep businesses going with cash flow, loans, financial planning and so forth. People should also expect that bank branches are close by and serve the communities in which they live. Earlier, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) reminded us that high street banking is particularly important for people in our constituencies who are elderly or whose mobility is challenged in other ways In Bannockburn, Dunblane, Bridge of Allan and the Springkerse estate in Stirling, RBS and the Bank of Scotland are leaving communities without adequate access to banking. It is important to state these things in the context of our consideration of the bank levy.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): I am in favour of some fair competition in retail banking. We need to consider many important issues in the context of the future of retail banking, especially how it appears in the heart of our communities RBS is closing its branch in Bridge of Allan, which happens where I live. In the past eight months alone, the Clydesdale bank, the Bank of Scotland and the TSB have all closed their branches, and now RBS is, too. That leaves the post office on Fountain Road as the only place where anyone will be able to do any over-the-counter banking.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comment. In fact, I have made representations to Ministers—as have my colleagues on the Government Benches—because of the impact that the closure of the bank branches, particularly the recent announced closures of the Royal Bank of Scotland branches, will have on communities such as the one from which I come in Bridge of Allan. I do have concerns about the capabilities of the Post Office branches to be able to deal with the kinds of cash amounts that they will now have to handle. It is a different scale of operations that they will have to be prepared to lift themselves to. Yes, I have made representations, and I will continue to do so. In fact, there is an Adjournment debate on the subject following these debates.