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9.10 pm
Mr. Tony McNulty (Harrow, East): I have listened very carefully to the debate, but remain unconvinced by Opposition Members--not least the hon. Member for
Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), the Liberal Democrat spokesman, who took the best part of 27 minutes to "unconvince" me.
It is very easy to take in isolation one measure, however important, in an extremely complex area, without explaining the whole story across government. It is very easy to give erroneous impressions by dwelling on one aspect of policy in one area. Given Opposition Members' speeches, it is clearly easy to scaremonger, worry and suggest that there are no alternatives. There is almost a mantra to the Opposition's policy: "If we say often enough that there is no alternative, there may not be any alternative." Opposition Members have not, in any shape or form, answered the fundamental case put by the Paymaster General. It is very easy to do all those things, but it is also quite shameful.
Many Opposition Members are using this issue to give people cause for concern. Their time and energy--not least, given some of their professional backgrounds--would have been, and still will be, better spent helping the people who are affected by the change to alter their investment patterns. The point about the range of other vehicles that can be utilised has not been discredited. Opposition Members have said often enough that it has been discredited, but have not sufficiently proved the charge that there is no alternative. The fact that St. Margaret used to say that there is no alternative, does not automatically mean that such a response can be invoked at any time in order to change an argument.
Mr. Bercow:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. McNulty:
No, I have precious little time and others are still waiting to speak. The hon. Gentleman can have a cup of tea with me after the debate.
As has been suggested, the measure removes a distortion, and needs to be seen in the context of discouraging companies from distributing profits and encouraging them to reinvest. Again, that charge has not been answered--certainly not by the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Ms Kelly). The right hon. Gentleman's little foray into American business history showed more about his lack of knowledge of it than otherwise. The case has been well made for the need to restore investment levels and to develop economic policy for the future. In that context, Opposition Members' comments at the beginning of the debate, which seems so long ago now, about Labour forgetting the working class and being interested only in the middle class were facile and fatuous.
In considering this policy, we must appreciate the reality of the Government's action on pensions. Although I do not doubt that many of the cases read out by Conservative Members on 30 June--I have read through them quite assiduously--were true, they did not offer anything like half the story of what people may lose if they do not opt for alternatives, and what they will gain in other areas of policy on which the Government are working. To suggest only half the story, but to paint it as the whole story, does not do the constituents of Opposition Members that much of a favour.
Every item detailed by Labour Members has been ridiculed or pooh-poohed by Opposition Members. We were told by the hon. Member for Kingston and
Surbiton--probably in the 22nd minute of his 27-minute peroration--that winter payments for pensioners are a gimmick. He was asked several times--admittedly, from a sedentary position--whether, in that case, the Liberals would abolish the current arrangements. There was no answer, so we must assume that it was only a gimmick. It was so irrelevant to the Liberals that they could not be bothered to table an amendment to the motion.
On 30 June 1998, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb)--in between writing his stunning little column for Accountancy Age--said that fuel was crucial to poorer pensioners. Opposition Members made no mention of the fact that pensioners would gain £108 to £140 a year in fuel payments--far more than they would lose if they stayed in their current savings vehicle. During the passage of the Bill that became the Finance (No. 2) Act 1998, an Opposition Member said that the debate on the subject was another red herring.
The only mention that was made of the £21 billion invested in the national health service was a cack-handed attempt at "Brucean" economics by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton. During his 27 minutes, he tried to say that £21 billion equals £1.5 billion, and that we are spending the £1.5 billion only because the Liberals pressured us to. That is nonsense.
Mr. Bercow:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. McNulty:
I cannot, I am afraid. I have told you before: we shall have a cup of tea afterwards.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order. The occupant of the Chair would no doubt be very pleased to be able to have a cup of tea, but the hon. Gentleman knows that that is impossible. His remarks are being addressed to me.
Mr. McNulty:
I apologise profusely, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Strangely, there was only ridicule about free eye tests. Nothing was said about the £3 billion programme to improve home residential care programmes, which is just the start of what we are doing, especially for the very elderly, in that regard. Nothing was said about the White Paper proposals on concessionary travel for all pensioners.
Nothing was said about benefit take-up, apart from a facile little comment by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Mr. Loughton) on 30 June 1998, which seemed to suggest that pensioners who desperately needed benefits lacked virtue if they took them up. He spoke sneeringly of their having to rely on the welfare state instead of supporting themselves. If he was present--which he was for much of the evening--I would remind him that all those pensioners paid their dues time and again to the welfare state, and that it is not a matter of shame that they take that money back again, but their due right. If that is what they need into their late old age, we should encourage that.
I shall not dwell on the other half of the equation--not mentioned in the motion or in interventions--concerning future pensioners. The world having stopped and then started again for Conservative Members in the year zero, 1 May 1997, they have no idea what the future is about,
other than next week's headlines and hoping that William does better at the next Question Time than he did at the previous one.
In Committee on the Bill that became the Finance (No. 2) Act 1998, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham spoke about
The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) tells us that we shall be judged on the decision that we take. Well, I hope that we are judged on the totality of the decisions that we take, if only in terms of those short items about VAT on fuel and what we are doing for the lowest-paid pensioners. Opposition Members will be judged on the record of their time in government; not on their rhetoric--a word that an Opposition Member used at Question Time today, emphasising the second syllable instead of the first--but on their action over the past 18 years. In that regard, they are still found wanting.
Mr. Tony Baldry (Banbury):
I shall be brief because the issues are of a narrow compass and we have been going for nearly two hours. The debate is bizarre. Ministers have not addressed the points in the Opposition motion. It says, very straightforwardly, that from April 1999, nearly a third of a million non-taxpaying pensioners and a third of a million other non-taxpayers will lose an average of £75 each because of the Government's decision to abolish the dividend tax credit. At no stage did the Paymaster General or anyone else on the Government Benches say that that statement was inaccurate, fallacious or in any way wrong.
The motion further notes that
Ms Sally Keeble (Northampton, North):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Baldry:
No. I shall be brief. The hon. Lady wants to get in, I think.
The motion goes on to state that
"the culprits and perpetrators of the crime, who sit on the Labour Benches."--[Official Report, 30 June 1998; Vol. 315, c. 168.]
If there are those who perpetrate crime in this regard, they do not sit, and in the past have not sat, on Labour Benches.
"80,000 of the pensioners affected will lose over £100 per year".
That figure has not been challenged, so presumably it is correct--
"it is unacceptable that basic rate taxpayers and higher rate taxpayers are unaffected directly by this decision which affects only non-taxpayers".
18 Jan 1999 : Column 662
There has been no explanation from the Paymaster General or anyone else as to why such circumstances have come about.
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