Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2021-05-24
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ben Morgan Lake (Plaid Cymru, Centre-left to left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), with whom I agree on the importance of the Government ascertaining how measures in this Bill may have a differential impact on different areas of the country, depending on different socioeconomic and health conditions I rise to speak to probing amendments 27 and 28, which stand in my name. They would encourage the Government to bring much-needed transparency and strategic thinking to the reliefs proposed by clauses 15 and 19. The amendments reflect Plaid Cymru’s constructive approach to this Bill and our priorities of building Wales’s economy and delivering on our net zero commitments Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to hear that I have no intention of detaining the House for very long this evening and so simply wish to reiterate some of the points I made in Committee. Before doing so, I wish to commend the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and the speech by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on IR35 and umbrella companies. I very much hope that the Government will take them into consideration with some urgency Amendments 27 and 28 would require the Government to analyse the impact of changes to the annual investment allowance and research and development tax credits on the UK economy, their geographical reach and their impact on efforts to mitigate climate change. The amendments reflect a concern not only that existing tax reliefs are being used wastefully, but that we need to better support the levelling-up agenda and the decarbonisation of our economy so that we can achieve our legally binding net zero targets. I say that in the full knowledge that many other hon. Members have made these points far more eloquently than I could this evening. I particularly wish to commend the amendments standing in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), which would go some way to ensuring that any measures in this Bill would have decarbonisation and our net zero commitments very much at the heart of their endeavours More generally, the UK Government have a lacklustre record on the use of reliefs. Both the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have raised serious concerns in that regard, with the latter concluding that the Government do not fully know their cost and have failed to conduct due diligence to establish value for money, with some 204 reliefs currently uncosted. When we consider that estimates for the 158 reliefs that have been costed suggest that they could cost the taxpayer as much as £159 billion a year, we as parliamentarians are not only justified but duty bound to establish precisely how those reliefs will contribute to levelling up and decarbonisation efforts. I commend the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and the work of her Committee, which greatly enhances the quality of our scrutiny in this place With those words, I hope that the Government will urgently take on board our amendments, and those tabled by the Members to whom I have referred, to improve the transparency and effectiveness of tax reliefs to furthering what I think are common goals of levelling up and tackling the net zero agenda.