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8.7 pm
Kali Mountford (Colne Valley): It is common to start a speech by saying that we have had a wide-ranging debate, but that is true today. We have heard comments about pigs; witnessed an internecine battle about Europe; visited and revisited housing; talked about deregulation; and been told about the north-south divide.
It is worth taking a moment to consider the Conservative amendment, and in particular its last sentence. The Conservative party would have us
The right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) refused to take interventions from Labour Back Benchers, which is regrettable in any event. He refused to give way on IR35, which Conservative Members love so much that they cannot resist mentioning it in the debate again and again. Who is really affected by IR35: the poorest people in our society; the unemployed; those struggling to make a living? No, not at all.
Conservative Members talk of enterprise measures when what they are really talking about is tax avoidance. On IR35, they refuse to answer the simple questions about whether one pays tax through PAYE or as a self-employed taxpayer or whether one avoids it.
Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset):
Why does the hon. Lady think it reasonable for a self-employed computer
Kali Mountford:
If the hon. Gentleman considered the measures properly, he would find that genuine entrepreneurship is rewarded, not discouraged, by IR35. All the cases that I have considered in detail and all the fears engendered by the Conservatives, who have made people scared that they would be much worse off, happen not to be true. If people have long-term contracts with a firm, it is correct to admit that they are employed and they should pay tax accordingly.
The Queen's Speech advocated investigating benefit fraud more closely and introducing measures to discourage it. How can it be right to say to someone on income support that benefit fraud is wrong and take measures to combat it, but to say to someone on a more than adequate income that it is acceptable for them to avoid paying their proper taxes? After all, tax avoidances means less money for the rest of the economy and, therefore, for all the measures necessary to help people who are much worse off.
It is wrong to avoid paying tax and it is certainly wrong to describe attempts to prevent that as an attack on enterprise. When it comes to enterprise, we should ask how we should reward it. Do we do it in an ad hoc manner, so that, if someone has the wit to employ the right accountant, he can avoid tax? Or should we ask how we can best encourage enterprise in the economy? The measures in the Queen's Speech will do much to address the latter question.
We should nurture the enterprise culture in schools. We have had some discussion tonight about generating the right skills for the economy, but enterprise is never talked about in schools. We should fund schools to encourage young people--especially girls, so that they can start to do something about the pay gap between men and women--to think about enterprise and how they can make an economic contribution. Another measure should be introduced to make available a sum of money in the early days of a new enterprise to provide support. That would be an excellent way in which to encourage enterprise properly, instead of in some strange, ad hoc fashion.
How can we share economic success fairly? I am grateful to those Conservative Members who have recognised that we are economically successful, but such success must be sustained and enable people to make long-term judgments. The Opposition's amendment is self-congratulatory, although one Opposition Member at least acknowledged that their time in office saw two recessions and our withdrawal from the ERM. To listen to most Tories, one would think that we lived through the most successful economic period in history before the general election in 1997, but that simply is not the case. People felt insecure and could not make plans for the future. Many hon. Members have mentioned the housing market, but that, too, was affected by people's inability to plan for the future. We now have a period of sustained and sustainable economic growth, stability, low interest rates and low inflation. We will experience fluctuations, but the current economic stability has to be good for the generation of jobs and the sharing of our success among a wider range of people.
The Labour Government have made a point of sharing success with more people including, for example, lone parents. Indeed, we have a convert to that approach in the
hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts). I recently asked him about his ideas for lone parents and he proudly gave me a copy of his speech on them, which makes interesting reading. He accepts, at last, that young women benefit from being in a family which has one or more members in work, even in a single parent family. Encouraging a culture of work and ensuring that work pays enough to be worth while is beneficial to everyone.
It is right that people should be able to share in economic success whatever the size, shape or condition of their families, but the worrying aspect of the Conservatives' proposals is the suggestion of the removal of choice. It has been suggested that the Opposition are schizophrenic in their attitude to this debate, and that is true of their attitude to making work pay and caring for the family. They have gone on about MIRAS, the married couple's allowance and how to keep families together, but they propose a measure that would force women, when their children are 11 years old, to claim jobseeker's allowance and according to which they would have their benefit taken away if they did not get a job within 13 weeks. That is way too much stick and no carrot.
The Opposition's amendment contains nothing about how to help people into work or the barriers to work. One of the major barriers for women who do not have a partner--and those who do--is the lack of quality, affordable child care that is supported by the Government, but Conservative Members refuse to recognise that. They have not caught up with the reality of making work pay so that it genuinely benefits families. The Opposition's schizophrenia will continue until they realise that they cannot encourage mothers into work by force. The one thing that Conservatives should have learned from the old YTS and YOP schemes is that people forced into a scheme do not fare well and look to leave it quickly. Work must pay, which is why I welcome the tax credits imaginatively introduced by the Government--which are not the ad hoc tax credits that people affected by IR35 awarded themselves.
Mr. Stephen Day (Cheadle):
Speak for your constituents.
Kali Mountford:
I am. My constituency has low unemployment and many families with young children. Despite the image of "Last of the Summer Wine", it is a young constituency and the regional development agencies--about which the Opposition do not appear to have heard--are making the sorts of changes that will encourage enterprise. The RDAs are introducing corridors for new technologies to encourage growth. However, unemployment in my constituency is already low, and people who previously did not have opportunities have them now. The jobs that people get are real, with real career prospects. Women no longer simply run a shuttle backwards and forwards, or work in the typing pool, or answer telephones. They can now look to the future, so that their families' prosperity can grow.
The schizophrenic approach of the Conservative party would condemn women to lives on benefits, without a choice of well-paid employment, until their children were 11. However, when the children reached 11, women would be told that they had to go to work, regardless of the type of employment available, or of the skills that the women were supposed to have been able to acquire.
Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton):
Many hon. Members--especially Conservative Members, but also a few Liberal Democrats--have said that the Queen's Speech was rather timid and cautious. They are right, but one element of the speech is historic in the economic benefits that it will bring. That element is the Government Resources and Accounts Bill.
That Bill is one of the most important measures to be introduced in this Parliament. It represents the most major reform of public finances since the time of Gladstone. Given that Gladstone was a Liberal, the House will not be surprised to hear that Liberal Democrat Members will support the Bill on Second Reading, which takes place soon.
Mr. Letwin:
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way with his usual courtesy. Will he explain why the Bill should represent the most important reform since Gladstone, when the resource accounting system that it proposes will create a public sector balance sheet that omits hospitals, schools and most other major public assets?
"engineer a return to the golden economic legacy of enterprise, dynamism and flexibility left by the previous Government".
Let us consider the credibility of that formulation and ask, if the economy is successful, who is to share in that success and whether we are being fair.
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