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Married Women (National Insurance)
8. Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon): If he will estimate the number of married women who were paying national insurance in 1990-91 at the reduced rate for married women in circumstances where they would have paid less national insurance had they paid the full rate of national insurance contributions. [125832]
The Paymaster General (Dawn Primarolo): In 1990-91, under the previous Government, about 60,000 married women could have paid more national insurance contributions at the reduced rate than if they had paid at the full rate. With effect from April 1999, the Government ended that situation.
Mr. Webb: I am grateful to the Paymaster General for that estimate of the number of women suffering that injustice. Does she accept that those 60,000 women were paying more national insurance than other women in the same workplace, but receiving no pension rights, unlike their neighbours, and that that was bizarre, unjust and unfair? That injustice was created under the previous Government; will the hon. Lady do something to rectify it?
Dawn Primarolo: The hon. Gentleman knows that from 1948 to 1977, married women had the ability to elect to pay reduced national insurance contributions. Women had to apply for the reduced rate and sign a declaration stating that they fully understood that the reduced rate would mean reduced entitlement. That was changed in 1977 and the Department of Social Security ran publicity campaigns, both through employers and directly to individuals, to remind people that they could withdraw that declaration and return to making full contributions. The reasons why some women chose not to withdraw it are a matter for them.
Child Poverty
9. Judy Mallaber (Amber Valley): What will be the impact on levels of child poverty of the changes to the working families tax credit announced in the Budget. [125833]
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen Timms): The Budget increased the rates of income support and working families tax credit by £4.35 for each child under 16. As a result of that and of other changes to the tax and benefits system made during this Parliament, a family with two children on half average earnings will, by the end of the Parliament, be £2,600 a year better off.
Judy Mallaber: During last week's national child minding week and the preceding child care week, I spoke to parents and child care providers in my constituency about the value of the child care tax credit linked to the working families tax credit. Does my hon. Friend agree that the working families tax credit and the child care tax credit are among the most important weapons the Government can use against child poverty, because they both boost family incomes and give parents real choices on whether to enter paid employment? Will he tell the House how many parents currently receive the child care tax credit and will he take further steps to promote its take-up?
Mr. Timms: My hon. Friend is quite right. Well over 100,000 people have taken up the child care tax credit, which has been a big success and represents almost three times the level of payment under the earnings disregard in family credit. We are ensuring that every applicant for the working families tax credit knows about the child care tax credit and, as my hon. Friend asked, we shall continue to draw attention to it. We shall also remind families that the Opposition would abolish it if they had the chance.
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset): Will the Minister look into a problem that one of my constituents has raised with me? She has received the working families tax credit through the post office since its introduction. She now has to switch to getting the credit from her employer, and is moving from receiving it in advance to receiving it in arrears, which is causing her real financial problems in looking after her children. Also, the money that the post office was earning for paying out the credit has been removed. Will the Minister look into the possibility of people receiving the credit through post offices and not necessarily through employers?
Mr. Timms: The hon. Gentleman acknowledges the importance of the working families tax credit in helping many people to return to work. I am pleased that so many people have taken it up. I am certainly happy to look at any individual case that the hon. Gentleman may wish to draw to my attention.
Mobile Telephone Licences
10. Mr. Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley): If he will make a statement on the revenue received from the auction of the third-generation mobile telephone licences. [125834]
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Andrew Smith): Receipts from the third-generation mobile spectrum auction will total £22.5 billion. That is good news. We have already received £12 billion, and I told the House on 17 April that those proceeds would be used to reduce net debt. On Monday 12 June, we set out how we plan to do that.
Mr. Hoyle: That is very good news. Can we make it even better for certain parts of the population? This Government have helped pensioners after 18 years in which they were neglected. Here is a golden opportunity to help them even more by introducing free television licences for all pensioners. Alternatively, can full consideration be given to a windfall for all pensioners using third-generation money? If we are using that money to reduce debt, perhaps we can put the debt repayments that we will save ourselves towards helping pensioners.
Mr. Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestions. Of course, the whole country benefits from reduced debt payments and reduced debt interest achieved as a result of having diminished the millstone of debt that we inherited from the Conservatives. People are already benefiting because debt interest payments are £4 billion lower than they were when the Conservatives left office. That enables us to re-allocate resources to priorities such as pensioners, health and education. I am pleased to reassure my hon. Friend that pensioners will share the benefit of that £22.5 billion.
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford): Will the Government treat the receipt of telecom licence fees as a revenue item, which would suggest that they intend to spend it eventually? Or will they treat it as a capital item, which would mean that they intend to bank it? Which option will they take under their new resource accounting rules?
Mr. Smith: As the hon. Gentleman implies, the £21 billion will accrue over the 21 years of the licence, and that is how the sum is treated in the national accounts. Because it accrues over that period, the benefit is also spread over 21 years. Reducing net debt is, therefore, the prudent way of helping the public finances and benefiting the public through reduced debt interest payments, as I explained. The receipt does not alter the total managed expenditure projections set out in the Budget.
Capital Gains Tax
11. Mr. Keith Darvill (Upminster): What representations he has received from businesses on his decision to cut capital gains tax for long-term investments. [125835]
The Paymaster General (Dawn Primarolo): This year's Budget proposals for the improvements in the capital gains tax business assets taper were formulated after wide consultation with venture capitalists and others.
The views of business on the proposals to use taper reform to boost productivity and increase the provision of risk capital have been very positively received.
Mr. Darvill: It is refreshing that we have a Government who are taking measures that will increase the flow of investment and are widely supported, particularly by owners of small and medium enterprises. Will my hon. Friend tell the House about any other measures that she may be considering to increase investment in businesses which will help to create more jobs and prosperity?
Dawn Primarolo: I am glad that my hon. Friend acknowledges that the vast majority of people will receive a significant benefit from these provisions. I think that he may have been referring to proposals for new deferral relief on corporation tax paid by companies in respect of capital gains or on disposal of large shareholdings. A consultation document on the matter will be published shortly.
Euro
12. Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East): What discussions he has had with (a) the Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe and (b) the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on the timing of any move to replace the pound by the euro. [125837]
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Melanie Johnson): The Government's policy on membership of the single currency remains as set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in October 1997, and restated by the Prime Minister in February 1999. The Government have said that they will recommend joining a successful single currency only if it is in our national economic interest to do so, and if the economic case for the UK joining is clear and unambiguous.
Dr. Lewis: I hesitate, Madam Speaker, even to dream of usurping your job, but I am not sure that that was an answer to the question that I asked, which was whether the Chancellor had met the Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe or the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to discuss factors determining their decision to join the single European currency. I even spared the Chancellor's blushes by not including the Foreign Secretary in that list.
Is it not the case that if the Chancellor ever gets back on speaking terms with any of his ministerial colleagues, the test that they will be discussing will be not the economic tests with which he is so fixated or the Euro-federalist test with which his colleagues are so fixated, but the size of the overwhelming majority of the British people--two thirds--who are resolutely opposed to abandoning our economic and political sovereignty by replacing the pound with the single currency? Is that not what it is really about?
Miss Johnson: I am afraid that, according to the Tory party, Paul Sykes will decide what is in the national
economic interest. We believe that there should be a referendum and that the people of the UK should decide what is in our national economic interest.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough): I was wondering whether the representations that have been made on the euro include representations from Mr. Ian Campbell, who was mentioned earlier in this Question Time by the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) as a director of a national charity, which indeed he is. The charity that he directs is the Institute of Export, which regularly echoes the language of the Conservative party in its broadcasts, and which has nothing to do with dealing with child poverty and the other issues that we were discussing at the time.
Madam Speaker: Order. That question was totally out of order, and does not relate to the original question. Let us try somebody else.
Mr. Bill Rammell (Harlow): Does the Minister agree that there is absolutely unity of purpose within the Government on the single currency? Is not that the most enormous contrast with what happened under the last Conservative Government, when we had Conservative MPs putting out different general election manifestos and we even had the previous Conservative Prime Minister describing three of his Cabinet colleagues as the illegitimate ones?
Miss Johnson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Tory party has always been split on Europe and on the euro. A survey in The Daily Telegraph of 50 prospective Conservative candidates suggests that the party is shifting even further to the right on Europe, if that is possible. Out of those 50 candidates, 33 take a harder anti-European stance than the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro and St. Austell): The House will draw its own conclusions from the fact that the Chancellor prefers to speak on charities and unemployment in the north-east than on the euro or pensions. Notwithstanding the fact that he will be sitting immediately behind the Economic Secretary, might she care to tell the House, assuming that the conditions of entry are met in the Chancellor's opinion, why she thinks Britain should join the euro and what the advantages are?
Miss Johnson: We have said that we will consider whether we meet the five economic tests early in the next Parliament and that we will do so in terms of our national economic interest, which includes the 3.5 million jobs that are highly dependent on our continued membership of the EU--something that is deeply in question with Conservative Members.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington): Can I lob my hon. Friend a very friendly question? Can I tell her that, when I meet business men in my constituency, they ask me, "When can we have the referendum?", and I tell them, "I guess it'll be in 2002"--discuss?
Miss Johnson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his very helpful question. Of course, early in the next Parliament, we will look at how we are meeting the economic tests that we have set ourselves, and then we
will decide whether it is right to put it to the British people. It should be remembered that, in all of this, we have at heart Britain's economic interests and that we play a constructive role in the EU. In the past few days, we have secured a victory for the United Kingdom's national interest on the withholding tax, so it is clear what a constructive role in Europe can do for this economy and its people.
Mr. Michael Portillo (Kensington and Chelsea): May I suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he will come to regret his decision not to answer this question, because it speaks volumes about the state of the Labour party that he is not willing to answer a question on the central economic issue of the day--the Government's position on the euro? Will the Economic Secretary, who has been put in this hapless position, admit that only one of the five economic tests that have been set out by the Chancellor could in any way be thought of as being objective--even that could be massaged by the Chancellor--and that the other four tests are wholly subjective? The potential effect of the euro on unemployment, on the City, on flexibility and on investment are merely matters of opinion, on which different members of the Cabinet will doubtless take different views in due course. The tests that he has set out offer Britain no protection whatever against a potentially catastrophic decision. Will the Financial Secretary accept that the five economic tests amount to little more than four fudges and a fiddle?
Miss Johnson: That is complete rubbish. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would care to comment on whether he supports his earlier statements on Europe, including that in "A Vision for the 1990s"--published by the Conservative Political Centre in 1992--in which he said that the British people and British business in particular did not want to be left out of Europe. Does he agree with that statement, or does he wish to retract it?
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