Date: 2023-04-18
Kirsty Blackman: It is a pleasure to take part in a Finance Bill Committee of the whole House. I will raise a number of points, particularly in relation to the new clauses and to what the Minister said about them. The right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) mentioned tax simplification. During later consideration of the Bill, we will raise questions about the removal of the Office for Tax Simplification, what has happened to the Government's assessment of the benefit of that office, whether we will have an issue with removing that office, and whether there will be a cost to the public purse or to businesses as a result of. We will support Opposition new clauses 1, 3 and 6. We would also support new clause 10 if it were pressed to a vote. I will talk a little about new clauses 6 and 10 on requests for transparency. It is incredibly important that we have transparency about how allowances, tax and everything else put in place by the Treasury--and, in fact, by every Government Department--work. The Red Book that is produced at Budget time gives us a genuine idea and expectation of how much any measure--be it an investment allowance, a new tax measure, or something else--is expected to generate, but the UK Government are not terribly good at putting in place post-implementation reviews of such tax measures. We do not have enough transparency on whether the tax measures put in place have actually achieved what the Government intended. In fact, I tabled a written question on this some time ago, and various Government Departments were unable to tell me even how many post-implementation reviews they had carried out and whether there were any that they had not carried out. It seems to me pretty fundamental that the Government should fulfil their role of calculating the cost or benefit and saying whether the projection has seemed accurate. It is all well and good for the Government to say, "This is going to raise PS100 million," but if they do not then assess whether it did, how can we be sure that a measure had the desired effect, particularly when it is something such as an investment allowance? We are not saying, "We don't think there should be allowances"; we are saying, "We want the allowances that are put in place to actually work in the way that they are intended to work." I have concerns about that. New clauses 6 and 10 would require the UK Government and the Treasury to provide transparency on the allowances and their resulting outturn. It is particularly important to look at our climate change obligations. In fact, we have tabled an amendment specifically on looking at the entire Finance Bill through the lens of whether it will  help us to meet our climate change and Paris agreement commitments. There is no point in this House agreeing to legislation that takes us further from the Government's stated aims and legislative commitments on climate change. I am still of the opinion that the UK Government are fairly good at talking the talk on their climate change commitments but not at translating that into checking whether our climate change objectives will be hampered by the policies that are put in place. During the Committee stage of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Act 2022, for example, I requested that the new organisation be set up on a net zero basis from the beginning. Given that we have net zero targets, I do not think that it is unreasonable to ask for any new Government department to be set up on that basis and, at least, to not contribute in a negative way to our carbon outturns. As I said, we will support new clauses 6 and 10 if they are pushed to a vote. New clause 8, which relates to clause 10, addresses the R&D spend on data and cloud computing. We have tabled a probing amendment on that, and although we do not intend to press it to a vote, I would appreciate it if the Minister were able--either today or at a future stage--to answer some questions. We have particular concerns about clause 10 as it relates to part 2 of schedule 1. The explanatory notes--a hefty document--state that: "Expenditure on data licences and cloud computing services only qualifies for relief to the extent that the commercial use of that licence or service is restricted to the particular research and development activity to which the claim relates, and that the customer does not have a right to...ongoing use after the relevant research and development has ended." I appreciate the Government's intention, but we have tabled new clause 8 because we are concerned that this will hamper anyone applying for the allowance in the first place, as they may want to continue to use that data licence and cloud computing after the research and development. Surely they are only doing the research and development because they think it will be profitable and positive for their company. I am concerned that they may choose not to make the investment or to apply for the allowance if they know that they will have to pay it back at a later stage if this does what the company surely wants to achieve, which is to make money. This could have been done in a different way, by allowing companies the investment opportunity and the R&D allowance for the data licence and cloud computing, and then stopping the allowance at the point at which it begins to make money, rather than saying, "If this does begin to make money, you have to pay us back." It would be great if the Minister could answer questions on that issue today, but if not, I am happy to receive information afterwards, so that we have clarity on the Government's assessment of this. The Minister mentioned the Prime Minister's stated aims in relation to inflation targets. I appreciate that these are aims to reduce inflation, but the reality for our constituents is that there will still be inflation--although the rate will drop, we will still have inflation, with prices going up. Given that there has been a massive increase in the price of food particularly, which went up 17% at one point, and in the price of energy, our constituents will still see the lower rate of inflation levied on current  prices, so they will still see the price of pasta increasing, and they cannot avoid buying staples such as pasta and rice. I am concerned that the UK Government are not taking this seriously enough. At this moment, my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) and for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) are finishing up a drop-in session on the concerns of their constituents and all our constituents about energy prices. Again, I am concerned that the UK Government have not done enough; we have been saying that for a significant period and calling for individuals' bills to be reduced. It seems like more could be done by the UK Government to protect our constituents. It is appreciated that there has been some protection in place, but the reality for people coming through the door of our surgeries is that their energy prices have increased significantly and their wages have not kept pace, and they have far less disposable income as a result. In Scotland, we look at all decisions, and in particular financial ones, through the lens of wellbeing. I appreciate that the Government have targets in relation to inflation. They also have targets in relation to fiscal rules. The International Monetary Fund announced in the last couple of weeks that two of the main fiscal rules will be missed. If there are to be rules in place, we should have better rules, and we should actually meet them. If we look at decision making through the lens of ensuring individual and community wellbeing and meeting climate change targets, we end up in a situation where everybody is better off, rather than having fiscal rules that do not actually translate into my constituents' outgoings at the end of the month and that are not being met anyway as a result of the decision-making process. We know that a major factor that has created the situation the UK finds itself in, almost uniquely, is the loss of single market access and Brexit. It is also to do with the reduction in immigration that we are seeing because we do not have the freedom of movement that we did previously, and therefore we are struggling to fill an awful lot of the jobs that would have been filled by people coming from the EU, a significant number of whom have left as a result. We will move a number of amendments in Committee. We do not intend to push new clause 8 to a vote, but we would appreciate more conversation with the Minister on our concerns about that issue. We will be supporting new clauses 1, 3, 6 and 10 if they are pushed to a vote.