Sheila Gilmore: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales), because we have served together on a number of Finance Bill Committees during the past five years. The debates on the details of a Finance Bill in Public Bill Committee are often better than those on the parts of the Bill taken on the Floor of the House. The theory is that the debates on the more important and bigger...
Sheila Gilmore: I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Of course the position she sets out is exactly what we saw in the early part of this Parliament when VAT was increased and a number of other measures were put in place. At that point, inflation hit about 5.5%, which then allowed the Government to say, “Aren’t we wonderful? We have just put pensions up by the biggest ever amount.” But that...
Sheila Gilmore: I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Clearly, those are the kinds of concern that people have. On the VAT proposals, the changes and exemptions that the Government may wish to make for some worthy cause are welcome. I am talking here about the help for organisations such as hospices. But there is scope to go further. I will say something now that, although not Front-Bench policy, is...
Sheila Gilmore: I think that campaign has taken off again, having been going for a considerable number of years.
Sheila Gilmore: Indeed. As the current campaigners have noted, there is no VAT on shaving cream, but there is on sanitary products, which suggests—
Sheila Gilmore: Yes, it is gender-made law. We will all have received a considerable number of e-mails about that recently, and I am sure that the campaigners would be pleased to hear the Minister commit at least to reviewing the situation.
Sheila Gilmore: That is a very interesting piece of information, and it is something that people should bear in mind—
Sheila Gilmore: Thank you for your guidance, Mr Hood. I am sure that you would not want me to stray on to the whole issue of food banks, which would probably take us to midnight. In conclusion, new clause 1 would provide us with an opportunity to look at the impact of VAT changes over this Parliament. We believe that they have been regressive and that many of our constituents have been affected, and we are...
Sheila Gilmore: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I was also going to say that it was a pleasure to be in the company of so many Members who had participated in Finance Bill Committees during this Parliament, but one by one they have disappeared from the Chamber—even the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who has been one of the most assiduous Committee members—which is...
Sheila Gilmore: That is clearly another way the Conservatives might seek to close this gap they have opened up for themselves. We need to know a lot more about this going forward, and so do the electorate. As hon. Members have said, VAT is a regressive tax. Even though those who have bigger spending power sometimes spend more and so may, in cash terms, spend more in VAT. It is a regressive tax, as are all...
Sheila Gilmore: 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...
Sheila Gilmore: rose—
Sheila Gilmore: In June 2010, we were told that we had to have an emergency Budget. Even at that stage, one of the strange things about that was that many of the measures were so un-emergency that they did not have to come in until the following January. To a large extent, the emergency Budget was a political statement about where the incoming Government wanted to go. Today’s Budget is a political...
Sheila Gilmore: We have heard the argument that if we reduce taxes, we get more revenue in. Of course, it is usually heard in relation to the 50p rate of tax, but that was a very poor example. It hardly had any effect, and so many people made their own arrangements before and after the announcement was made on reducing the rate again that we cannot tell what really happened. It is important that we should...
Sheila Gilmore: Tax revenues have been falling, and the whole issue about low wages is extremely important. We have had discussions in the House about zero-hours contracts. I think it was the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) who said today that Labour had done nothing about them for 13 years. I was not a Member of this House at that time, but I was a local councillor for much of that period and I...
Sheila Gilmore: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sheila Gilmore: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sheila Gilmore: rose—
Sheila Gilmore: Hon. Members agree that there are serious problems when payments of housing benefit rise so high. We disagree on our analysis of how it came about and what we should do about it. Unless we tackle the underlying issues, we will simply trim the edges, to the detriment of many households and families. As the Office for Budget Responsibility says in its review of spending on benefits and...
Sheila Gilmore: I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. In Scotland, the priority given to people who are homeless—a much wider definition of homelessness has been adopted by the Scottish Government—means that there is real competition for smaller houses. The majority of people who present as homeless are single people, so they too need the small houses that other people are trying to fit into.
