Sir Mel Stride
MP for Central Devon · Conservative · United Kingdom
“May I welcome the Chancellor to his position and thank him for his kind remarks earlier? May I also wish him every success, because I am afraid that under this Government we need some? He will know that if we are to fix the economy, we have to fix the welfare bill.”
“Given all that is going on, this could be the last time. The legacy of this Chancellor has been the highest taxes on record, a benefits bill spiralling out of control, and unemployment 300,000 higher than it was at the last general election. The right hon.”
“The right hon. Lady cannot bring herself to answer the simple question I asked. I will tell her: she is borrowing one quarter of a trillion pounds more than the plans that she inherited—that is her legacy. We hear that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) is considering borrowing even more.”
“May I begin by agreeing with you, Mr Speaker, and saying how disrespectful it is that this U-turn on fuel duty has already been released to the media earlier this week?”
“Today’s announcements will bring little comfort to the hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their jobs, the countless businesses that have folded and the high streets that are now hollowed out.”
“The Conservative party has been campaigning for a fuel duty freeze for months. The Chancellor repeatedly rejected those calls, creating unnecessary uncertainty for motorists and businesses. Why did it take her so long to realise that putting up fuel duty during an energy crisis is a bad idea?”
The complete record
Every one of 4,446 lines we hold for Sir Mel Stride, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 78 of 89.
“As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there are many reasons why individuals use trusts. It may be that I want a trust for my children and I do not want it to be known publicly exactly how that trust will operate, for reasons of confidentiality. People may use overseas trusts because they are looking at dollar-denominated trading and need a jurisdiction in which that occurs. There is a whole variety of reasons. The idea that every time the word “trust” is mentioned it suggests something grubby or illegal is plain wrong.”
“My hon. Friend is correct. We have brought the corporation tax rate down from 28% to 19%, and it will go down further to 17%. The consequence is that we are raising twice as much corporation tax as we did in 2010.”
“If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the trust arrangements for those who become deemed domiciled as a consequence of this Government deciding to put an end to permanent non-dom status—something that his party never did in its 13 years in office—he will know that all is not quite as the Labour party presents it. Any funds coming out of such trusts will, when they are remitted, fall due to tax by the deemed domiciled individual exactly as they would for any other UK citizen.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is just another example of the 35 additional measures the Government are taking between now and the end of this Parliament to ensure we clamp down on tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance.”
“The hon. Member talks about our having to live within our means, and it is, of course, right that we do that. He talks about the amount of money we need to bring in. What has been most unhelpful is that the previous Labour Government were so ineffective at bringing in tax, the tax gap became so high they cost our country over £40 billion. If they had had the same average level of tax gap in their last seven years in office as we have had in our seven years, we would be about £45 billion better off.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We hear a lot of talk from the Opposition, but I am afraid that the results of what they did—or, rather, what they did not do—when they had their turn in office speak for themselves.”
“The hon. Member will know that the wealthy of this country pay their fair share. The 1% most wealthy income tax payers pay 28% of all income tax. What was the figure under the previous Labour Government? It was below 24%, so I will take no lectures from him.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The diverted profits tax works every day of the week. It works where HMRC has to step in and sort out the companies that fall foul of it, but it works even better than that: it prevents and deters many, many companies from behaving in an inappropriate fashion.”
“I am not going to get into the business of providing moratoriums on any particular matter at the Dispatch Box, tempting though the hon. Lady’s suggestion may be. That is not a path I am going to go down.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is but one further example of making companies criminally responsible where their employees try to facilitate tax avoidance. That is the right way to go and is just another measure the Government have brought in.”
“The hon. Gentleman talks about the amount revealed by these disclosures, and I assume he is centring his remarks on the half-hour television programme last night. The reality is that we do not yet know exactly the extent of what will be revealed, which is why HMRC has asked those with the data to make it available—so that we can use it to get on with the job of cracking down on those who might not have behaved as they should.”
“My hon. Friend is right to point out the difference. The tax gap today is 6%, which is about the lowest in the world and the lowest in the history of our country. As I said earlier, if we had had the same average tax gap as Labour during its term in office, we would be more than £40 billion out of pocket—less money, as the shadow Chancellor put it, for the nurses, the doctors, the paramedics, the police, the Army and the others in our public services.”
“The Finance Bill, which has just gone through the House, contains important provisions to clamp down on those who enable tax avoidance—the category of individual and company to which the hon. Lady refers—and those are some pretty stiff penalties.”
“The accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster are readily available, transparent and audited in the normal fashion, and there has been no suggestion to date, as far as I am aware and certainly not in the television programme last night, of any mischief related to any aspect of its dealings.”
“I can confirm that in 2015 an additional £800 million was made available to HMRC for the purposes of bearing down on tax avoidance and evasion, and that that is expected by 2021-22 to bring in more than £7 billion in additional revenue.”
“My hon. Friend is right. We know how much we have brought in through clamping down on avoidance and evasion: £160 billion since 2010. We also know that we have about the lowest tax gap in the world and that it is far lower than it was under the last Labour Government. Those figures speak for themselves.”
“I think that if the hon. Lady checks my answer to the question from her right hon. Friend in Hansard , she will see that that was not the totality of my response, and that I also referred to dollar-denominated trading and the complexities thereof. She may then be able to answer her own question.”
“As the hon. Gentleman will know, those are not figures that I have at my fingertips. As he will also know, confidential arrangements are rightly in place in many of the structures to which he refers; indeed, he, and perhaps even the headquarters of his party, might even be held within one of those arrangements. Of necessity, that particular information is not fully available.”
“As the right hon. Gentleman will know, there are requirements relating to transparency and donations to political parties, and the Government have put an end to permanent non-dom status.”
“The hon. Lady may know from my earlier comments that the wealthiest 1% in the country pay 28% of all income tax. She should also be aware that in 2010, during her party’s time in office, the proportion was only about 23%. Ours is the party that is standing up for the poorest and the least well off in our society, and as part of that process we have taken almost 4 million of the lowest-paid out of tax altogether.”
“I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman that everyone has a moral obligation to pay their fair and legally due share of tax, and when it is found as a consequence of these disclosures that some have failed to do so, HMRC will be on their case.”
“The Government are leading the way in exactly that endeavour. As I said earlier, a very important point to note is that we have a multilateral approach to this issue, and we are working hard at delivering on it.”
“I have explained about the transparency that we need. We need to ensure that HMRC obtains the information that it requires to satisfy itself that the dealings in those territories are being carried out appropriately, and that is exactly the position that we are working towards at present.”
“I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not start to opine on the constitutional settlement we have with our overseas territories and Crown dependencies, but I will make one important point that relates to the issue he has raised: we must not forget that they do not have representation in our Parliament, and we therefore have particular responsibilities in listening to them and co-operating with them, rather than, as he perhaps suggests, coercing them.”
“The most important message for the hon. Lady’s constituents is the merits of getting on top of tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance, which is exactly what this Government have done, and which is in turn raising the vital taxes for our public services so we can have the kind of public services that are a hallmark of a civilised society.”
“The hon. Gentleman referred to a £6 billion tax gap, but the figure is not £6 billion; it is 6% of all tax that should be collected. On his suggestion that there should be a general principle or general rule, there is already a general anti-avoidance rule for exactly the purpose to which the hon. Gentleman has alluded.”
“This Government have brought far more property into the scope of taxation than the hon. Gentleman’s party ever did in 13 years in office, so I will not take any lectures on that point from him. [Interruption.]”
“The hon. Gentleman characterises those involved in overseas trusts as eye-wateringly rich, but I do not think all of them are; there are many pension funds, and there will be many who rely on those pension funds to live, and many of them might, indeed, live in his constituency. I think this general characterisation of it all being about super-wealthy people and all being about tax dodgers and so forth is rather crude, and, frankly, not worthy of the Opposition.”
“The issue of making decisions during purdah has already been raised. It is right and proper that those decisions were made because, as the hon. Gentleman will know, under the appropriate arrangements, the Government should never act such as to incur costs through delay. Furthermore, those decisions were signed off in entirely the right manner by the Cabinet Office.”
“It provides the funds for the public services on which we all rely. Every pound we raise through taxation is another pound we have to support our nurses in the NHS, keep our police force functioning effectively and support our armed forces. In other words, HMRC is not engaged in some kind of theoretical exercise. One of the most important functions Government have is to bring in the money to support public services. Taxpayers expect and demand that the money be spent responsibly, with good reason. I think all Members here would agree that it is vital that HMRC can deliver value for money and maximise the tax it collects, relative to the tax due. It follows from that that we must have a tax authority that is fit for the modern age. I make no apologies for using that expression.”
“May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies? I know this is an important subject to you, so if I hear any stifled gurgling or funny sounds, I will put them down to your general condition, rather than to you expressing an opinion on the matter at hand. I thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) for securing this very important debate. We are talking about very important matters—people’s jobs and local communities. Of course, the overarching matter we are talking about is the efficient collection of tax. We all know why that is extremely important. Before I get into the specifics of the plans we have been discussing, perhaps I could make some general points that will be useful. HMRC’s work is fundamental to that of the Government.”
“On top of that, we will have £300 million-worth of savings over the next 10 years, and we will have annual cost savings of £74 million in 2025-26 compared with 2015-16, rising to around £90 million from 2026-27. The savings are ongoing and will be long standing. [Official Report, 27 November 2017, Vol. 632, c. 2MC.]”
“A number of Members in the debate raised the costs mentioned in the National Audit Office report, the Public Accounts Committee report and so on. Certainly, the business plan has gone through various iterations, but where we are is quite clear: the total investment over the next 10 years will be £552 million. The NAO has disputed some of our figures, and the Government’s view is that the NAO has looked at those figures on a different basis—for example, over a 10-year period, whereas we were initially looking at figures over five years. We have some cost avoidance of £75 million per annum from 2021 through getting out of the private finance initiative arrangement—which, incidentally, we entered into in 2001, which was of course under a Labour Government.”
“We need a tax system that offers digital services in an age in which people increasingly expect and rely on them, that makes use of technological developments to deliver as efficient a service as possible, and that is suited to the dynamic and fast economy of today. [Graham Stringer in the Chair ] I hope that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East would agree that just dispersing employees across a wide area is not an efficient way to run any organisation, let alone one with responsibility to the taxpayer.”
“Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) raises the issue of long-term leases, and he is right to say that in some cases there are no break clauses. I make three points on that. First, we get a much more competitive rate if that is the basis on which we enter into a lease. Secondly, that of course does not mean that leases cannot be broken at some future point by way of negotiation. That is quite typical in the commercial property market. Thirdly, we have flexibility within those leases, such that other Government Departments and employees would be able to use the buildings as well. There are therefore at least three very good reasons why that approach has been taken. Let me now make some progress.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes two points. One is a general point about the economic sense, or otherwise, of locating the services in larger hubs. The arguments on that are, broadly, extremely strong. They are that we can have larger groups of people and more collaborative working and can ensure that the infrastructure and technology are there. HRMC operates very differently today from how it operated some decades ago. We take a risk-based approach to chasing down tax that should be paid and is not being paid. That involves a lot of data and analysis. Frankly, the idea—if anyone here is entertaining it—that for the last few years people have been able to walk into their local tax office or have appointments there is just not correct. We need centres of excellence that can work in the manner that I have described. The hon.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right: much of the debate has focused on the matters to which he refers. I am not seeking to avoid those other elements of the debate at all and was coming on to them, but I shall deal with them now, as he has raised them. HMRC has had eight very sensible criteria by which to judge where to locate the new hubs. He will know that we are looking at sustainable large sites, with the capacity to hold all HMRC’s requirements for the region in a single building. The talent pipeline, which has been mentioned, is extremely important.”
“There will always be arguments about whether we should do things and the local impacts and so on, but this overarching direction of travel, it seems to me, has to be right.”
“I do not accept that point. We could take it to its logical conclusion and assume that everyone could work from home, and we could then have a very disparate workforce. There may be some attractions to that, but there is huge value in bringing people together in a single building, where there is a critical mass of individuals: collaborative working and the sharing of experience and ideas can take place, meetings can be held, and the technology is all in one place. I would have thought the hon. Gentleman would recognise that. Let us face it: if we went back to 2005, we might be debating whether we should shrink the number of offices from 600, which is what it was at that point.”
“On the latter point—the specific query— I will have to get back to the hon. Gentleman, but on the general point about impacts, HMRC has looked extremely closely not just across the eight criteria, which I was working my way through, but at the impact on the individuals working at the existing offices. I know for a fact that that has gone right down to literally every single employee, plotting where those people live, and working out travel-to-work times and so on.”
“Could I just make one other point? The relocation does not necessarily mean that all the employees who worked at the previous office, for want of a better expression, will no longer be working for HMRC. Many of them—about 90%—will either work through to retirement at that office or migrate to working at the new hub.”
“We are not publishing the kind of impact assessment that the hon. Gentleman suggests, but my point is that it is not the case that HMRC has not very carefully looked at those individuals who will be affected—at where they live, the travelling issues and so on—to ensure that it is as helpful as it possibly can be to all the employees in those circumstances. We heard in the debate about providing assistance with travel costs, for example. There is also relocation assistance. All that is being very carefully looked at and engaged with by HMRC.”
“The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I have not come here prepared with all the precise details of exactly how that decision was arrived at, but I am confident that HMRC has, with due diligence and in a very objective and dispassionate—no, objective—way, looked at which locations meet the eight criteria, and made a balanced decision at the end of that. I am very confident that it has come to the right conclusions.”
“No. I am not going to commit to bringing forward all sorts of reports and things that various hon. Members may or may not call for. I understand why the hon. Gentleman may call for those things, but I can reassure him that we have published the criteria on which the decisions were made. They are in the public domain. There are eight criteria, and they are very clearly available.”
“That prompts the question of what the overarching purpose of HMRC is: to provide customer service efficiently to those who need access to it, and, at the end of the day, to bring in tax. We have a tremendous record, and it has a tremendous record, of doing exactly that. The main thrust of these decisions has ultimately to be about having a 21st-century organisation for a changing environment, and that means the kind of model that this process is driving towards.”
“The criteria are there to allow a balanced judgment across the eight criteria as to where the best place is for the regional hubs. That is exactly the approach that HMRC has taken. I fully appreciate that there are Members here who are very unhappy with the fact that there may be some closures in their constituency, but that does not necessarily mean that the criteria are being inappropriately exercised.”
“As the hon. Lady knows, a transition office will be kept in East Kilbride; it would certainly not have been there had many of the strengths to which she alluded not been present in the local community. On balance, it has been decided that it is better to go to Glasgow with a hub than to have a similar arrangement in her constituency, but that is not to suggest that there is not a great talent pool in her constituency. It simply means that on balance, under the eight criteria that we reviewed, the best solution we have come to is Glasgow.”
“The hon. Gentleman has asked precisely the same question that the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) asked, so I have already dealt with that.”
“I understand why Members here are vexed about their constituency—I totally get it—but we cannot allow that to trump the really important job of bringing our tax collection into the 21st century, and making sure that it is effective, so that we keep our public services going.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of crowding out private sector investment, but I am primarily concerned about the possibility of crowding out tax collection. If we do not have hubs that are fit for the 21st century, that are bristling with new technology, talent, and well-qualified, well-trained individuals working collaboratively from those units, we will be less effective at bringing the money in. The tax gap was mentioned; it stands at 6%, a record low. Under Labour in 2005 it was around 8%. If it was 8% today, we would have £11.8 billion less coming into the Treasury, which is enough to pay for all the police forces in England and Wales, so these things matter.”