argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Dawn Primarolo (Labour, Centre-left): With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Clause 67 stand part New clause 1—Report on impact of value added tax— "(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer shall, within three months of the passing of this Act, publish a report on the impact of the increase in the standard rate of VAT which took effect from 4 January 2011 (2) The report must estimate the impact of the increase in the standard rate of value added tax on— (a) living standards; (b) small businesses; (c) the fairness of the taxation system; and (d) economic growth.".
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Colin Lucas (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure that we all welcome the clauses relating to VAT relief for hospices, which do such a tremendous job. Can the Financial Secretary help me by explaining how charities are selected and how VAT exemptions are secured? I have previously raised the case of a charity dealing with disabled people in Wrexham that provides transport services, which are subject to VAT under the current arrangements. The process of securing exemptions seems easier for ski lifts, for example, than for disabled people in my constituency, so I would be interested to find out how on earth one secures exemptions for worthy charities.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Sheila Gilmore (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister referred to the Prime Minister’s pre-emptive strike, but he will be well aware that similar statements were made before the last election. Does not the whole VAT issue illustrate the difference between the parties? The Labour Government’s response to an economic recession was to stimulate the economy by reducing VAT. The response of the incoming Government was to deflate the economy by increasing VAT.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ian Colin Lucas (Labour, Centre-left): Is it not correct that in June 2010, when the Chancellor increased VAT, he said that he would eliminate the deficit by the end of this Parliament but has not done so? Despite the increase in VAT that he imposed, he failed in that aim. Why is that?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the deficit targets were not satisfied because the growth projections went down, and that is because consumption went down, and that is because VAT went up? I appreciate what the Prime Minister said earlier, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that if VAT went up now, when we have 0% inflation, that would spiral the economy down, and that it would be better to reduce VAT than to reduce tax thresholds in order to stimulate growth to balance the books?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): I am saying that given a choice between lower VAT or lower tax thresholds, does the hon. Gentleman accept that lower VAT would give higher growth and help to reduce the deficit—or is he a just a politician without any economic sense?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Julie Hilling (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister not see that raising VAT and cutting benefits hits the most vulnerable in society? Does he think it is right that children in this country should lose weight over school summer holidays because their parents do not have enough money to feed them, that people are dependent on food banks, and that we have had people starve to death because of benefit cuts? Is that the way this country should be in this day and age?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister assumes that the choice is between tax and spend. Does he accept that if the tax and spend options are made in one way rather than another they will promote more growth and therefore more revenues? If more money goes to poorer people who spend all their money, as opposed to rich people who hide it in tax havens—10% of UK wealth is offshore—and if we had a Labour Government and a fairer distribution, we would surely have more growth and fewer cuts.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew McCulloch Love (Labour, Centre-left): As we are talking about rumbling the Government, the election will be an opportunity to scrutinise the Chancellor’s claim about the £30 billion of savings. He has said there will be £12 billion savings from welfare reform but has indicated how only £3 billion will be found. He has said he will get £5 billion from anti-evasion and avoidance measures, but has indicated where only £3 billion of that will come from. There is still a huge credibility gap. Will the Minister help us with it?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): For the avoidance of doubt, and for what feels like the 278th time in Treasury debates, I should tell the Minister that the bank bonus tax will pay for one policy and only one policy: the paid starter jobs—the compulsory jobs guarantee. Why do the Government not match us on that policy rather than harp on about their failed rhetoric on the bank bonus tax?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Environment
James Hood (Labour, Centre-left): I have now to announce the result of the deferred Division on the question relating to the draft Infrastructure Planning (Radioactive Waste Geological Disposal Facilities) Order 2015. The Ayes were 277 and the Noes were 33, so the Question was agreed to [The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. New clause 1 stands in my name and those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) and my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson). It requests the Treasury to commission "a report on the impact of the increase in the standard rate of VAT which took effect from 4 January 2011." The report must estimate the impact of that increase on living standards, small businesses, the fairness of the taxation system and economic growth The House has debated issues relating to VAT on a number of occasions, which the Minister referenced in his opening remarks, and it was, of course, a hot topic of debate at Prime Minister’s questions today. If the Prime Minister or any Conservative Member thinks that they can put the issue to bed today, let me tell them that they will not find it that easy, and I will set out the reasons for that during the course of my speech. Frankly, to believe what the Prime Minister has said today about VAT would be rather like believing what the Deputy Prime Minister said about tuition fees before the last general election. The public are simply not going to buy it, and I think the whole House is well aware of that Our new clause asks for a review because Oppositions are limited in what they can call for in amendments to a Finance Bill, but no Member can be in any doubt about our argument about the consequences of the political choices that are being—and that have been—made by the Conservative party and signed up to by the Liberal Democrats, even though they have been desperately trying to pretend that they had nothing to do with the fiscal assumptions given to the OBR, on the basis of which it made its assessments of what is likely to happen in the next Parliament. I welcome to the debate the lone Liberal Democrat on the Government Benches, the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle). Perhaps if I give way to him he can rule out raising VAT.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Hood. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, during which he did not rule out a rise in VAT under the Liberal Democrats. Perhaps we will have to wait for others to comment on that.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Wright (Labour, Centre-left): Will my hon. Friend give us a bit more detail about new clause 1? I would like the study to look at the impact of VAT on the poorest people in our community, who are hit disproportionately by increases in VAT. The Conservative party has form on VAT, so the poorest people will be very concerned that it will rise again after the election.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is exactly what people across the country will be concerned about. The Conservative party has form, about which I will go into in detail during my speech. History proves that what the Prime Minister said at Question Time today should not be believed, because it has all been said before and VAT has always gone up.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): I will come on to what we announced yesterday, but we are not going to raise VAT. That is as clear as it gets, and the hon. Gentleman knows that I remind the Committee that VAT is the tax that hits everyone, with the same rate paid by the pensioner as by the millionaire. For many pensioners and those on the lowest incomes, it is the biggest tax that they pay. It is also the tax that hits people every single day, whether they are buying a cup of coffee or filling up the family car. Everybody does that every single day. The Government’s decision to raise the standard rate of VAT has, without doubt, hit the living standards of millions of people. According to the Treasury’s own figures, it has cost families an average of £1,800 over the past four years. That is no small trifling sum of money, even if it is averaged over four years As I heard from constituents across Birmingham when I was there with the shadow Chancellor yesterday, £1,800 has had a huge impact on their ability to make ends meet and to do the basic things in life—putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their families’ heads, desperately hoping they will not have to go to a food bank, even though they have a job, just to put food in the bellies of their children. That £1,800 is a significant sum of money and, coupled with the other facts of this Government’s record, such as wages being down by an average of £1,600 a year and the combined impact of tax and benefit changes, families are on average more than £1,000 a year worse off.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): I have a lot of time for the hon. Gentleman and we spend much time debating Finance Bills, but I must say to him as gently as I can that that was an absurd intervention. We have made a clear commitment to the British people on what will happen to VAT on our watch. It will not go up. We know that it will go up if his party wins the next general election. There are no two ways about it. It does not matter what the Prime Minister has said and it does not matter what the hon. Gentleman says now. We know that because of his party’s record and form on VAT. I shall give a lengthy exposition of that history and form very shortly.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ian Colin Lucas (Labour, Centre-left): I do not want my hon. Friend to be too charitable to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so may I remind her that in addition to the 2010 increase in the standard rate of VAT, the Chancellor made proposals in 2012, in the middle of his disastrous economic policy, to extend VAT through the pasty tax and the caravan tax? Not only did he increase VAT in 2010, but he went back to the well in 2012 when the policy was collapsing.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): I was just about to make exactly that point. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that in 2012, having already done what all Conservative Chancellors do and put up VAT, the Chancellor sought to expand it by applying it to pasties and caravans in the so-called omnishambles Budget. I have always thought that it was a bit of a shame that that term from "The Thick of It" was used, because if the sequence of events that unfolded following that Budget had been presented to the scriptwriters of "The Thick of It", they would not have touched it. They would have said that even for "The Thick of It" it was an unbelievable series of events. Yet that is what the Chancellor delivered. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Chancellor tried to expand the scope of VAT, yet today the Conservatives wonder why nobody will believe what the Prime Minister said at Prime Minister’s questions We do not have to go back over the past 20 or 30 years. We can just look at the record of the current Chancellor and Prime Minister on VAT. They like to put it up, and they sought to expand its application. I noticed that earlier the Financial Secretary appeared to rule out an expansion of VAT, but I was not entirely sure whether he had done that deliberately. Will he intervene on me to confirm that not only will VAT not go up—that is according to the Prime Minister, although I do not believe it—but it will not be expanded? I wonder why the Financial Secretary is not biting my arm off to intervene and confirm that.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): So basically, both those things are definitely going to happen if the Financial Secretary’s party is elected in a few weeks’ time Where are we today? The same old Tories and the same old story. Whatever the Prime Minister has said today simply will not answer the justifiable charge against the Government about why they should be trusted if we look only at their record and at what they have delivered in this Parliament. They broke their promise after the last general election and they will do the same after the next one. At the end of each Parliament since 1979 in which the Tories have been in government, they have raised an average of £13.5 billion from VAT changes. The electorate know that when it comes to VAT and the Tories, actions will always speak louder than words. People know that they cannot be trusted because they break their promises again and again. They broke their promises in 1979, 1992 and 2010, and they will break them in 2015.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): If the hon. Gentleman will allow me I will answer that by posing a simple question back to him, and then I will give way so that he can answer it. Where will the £12 billion of cuts to welfare come from? How will the £5 billion for tax avoidance be found? If he can answer those questions he will go further than those on his Front Bench have managed to do while making those promises. Perhaps he can shed some light on the issue for the British public.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Government Operations
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for her innate generosity in giving way. Does she not agree that new clause 1 would provide transparency and openness, and that the report would be immensely useful? Does she honestly think that any true democrat and believer in fiscal transparency could do anything other than support the Labour amendment?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have been debating whether VAT will go up, but new clause 1 is pretty innocuous. It calls only for a review and an assessment of the impact the rise in VAT has had on living standards. If the Minister wanted us to believe what the Prime Minister said today in Prime Minister’s questions—that he is ruling out a rise in VAT—then what is the problem? Adopt the new clause, add it to the Bill and let us have the assessment. He would be able to show how VAT has had an impact and why the Conservatives are doing such a good job, if they are elected again, in not letting it go up.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Fiona O'Donnell (Labour, Centre-left): Given the lack of a response from Government Members, may I suggest that seeing the impact of the increase in VAT written down might make it harder for the Tories and the Liberal Democrats to break their promise the second time around?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the only conclusion we can draw from what the Minister and the Prime Minister have been saying today. If the Minister really wanted to back up the Prime Minister’s claims, and to give us a hint that he might be believed, he should have just accepted our new clause. It is straightforward, and adding it to the Bill would shine some light on the impact of VAT. We are very clear that we will not raise VAT. It may be that the Government do not want the facts out in the public domain because they plan to do so.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shabana Mahmood (Labour, Centre-left): I am going to finish now, because I want to give time to everybody else who wishes to speak in the debate We all know what is coming if the Conservatives are elected at the next general election: VAT will go up. That is what their record tells us and that is what their plans require. If the Minister wants to be even a little bit believable—even 1% believable—he should at the very least accept new clause 1 and set the cat among the pigeons, but I do not think he will take that opportunity today.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Fiona O'Donnell (Labour, Centre-left): It is pleasure to speak in this debate—I hope it will have been worth the wait—and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I hope that we both have the opportunity to repeat the experience after 7 May I rise to support this excellent improvement to the Bill proposed by my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, because I would like to better understand the impact of the VAT increase in my constituency. The Tory long-term economic plan is a marketing con and a rebranding of a five-year failed economic plan—five years of broken promises on borrowing, the deficit and VAT. I do not know if Government Members have been watching a new programme—on ITV down here, but on STV in my constituency—in which hypnosis is used to shift people’s perception of reality. I am not sure if that is what they are doing, although there does not seem to be anyone asleep in the Chamber. We all seem to be wide awake—certainly Labour Members are wide awake to the impact of the Government’s failure to deliver on their economic promises. Simply saying, "We’ll now call it a long-term economic plan, because it has not quite worked out in the short term", is not going to fool anyone On the increase in VAT, I remember meeting my local chamber of commerce. In East Lothian, we do not have large-scale manufacturing or large employers, apart from in the public sector, so the private sector is largely made up of small and medium-sized enterprises. When I asked them how they were coping with the changes in the economy they said that the single-biggest factor for them was the VAT increase. It had done the most damage to their businesses. Other Members have spoken about its impact on the poorest in our communities, but in East Lothian it has also had an adverse impact on entrepreneurs and businesses—the people who should be creating the jobs that could eradicate unemployment in my constituency.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Wright (Labour, Centre-left): As my hon. Friend will have noted, the new clause states that the Chancellor should produce a report within three months of the passing of the Act. I suspect that the Treasury already have these figures and could probably move more quickly. If her point about businesses is right and businesses are complaining to Members, they must also be feeding this information back to the Treasury, so I suspect that it already has these figures and could publish the report any time it wanted.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Fiona O'Donnell (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend has been doing this job much longer than me, so I suppose he has earned the right to be more cynical. I am still flush with the newness of this change of role in my life, and I would like to think that that was not the Government’s intention, but I shall bow to his longer service in this place and more expert analysis It was interesting to hear the Financial Secretary speak about the role that VAT had played in the Government’s short-term failed economic plan over the last five years. He talked about the mess the previous Labour Government had left, but the economy was growing when we left office, and, as other hon. Members have said, part of the reason it reversed was the increase in VAT, which stifled confidence and the spending power of many in our communities. I would also like to hear from a Government Member whether a great deal of the deficit resulted from the decision by the then Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), to bail out the banks. Would Government Members have bailed out the banks, or do they think we should have left them to fail? Is anyone going to jump up? Anyone? No, they are all hypnotised, it would appear, and unable to respond. Bailing out the banks was the responsible thing to do. It might have seemed unfair, but it was important to people in my constituency that when they went to the ATMs the next day they could still draw out their wages The Financial Secretary talked about the Government’s sustained economic growth agenda. I do not remember sustained economic growth following the increase in VAT. I seem to remember the worst recession that this country has ever had, following that intervention by the Government. That has hurt people in my communities and, I am sure, in communities right across the country.