Tag: James Murray

  • James Murray – 2022 Speech on the Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Bill

    James Murray – 2022 Speech on the Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Bill

    The speech made by James Murray, the Labour MP for Ealing North, in the House of Commons on 11 October 2022.

    Just over a year ago, Opposition Members stood in this Chamber urging the Government to drop their plans to hike national insurance contributions and to introduce a new levy on working people and their jobs. It was not just my Opposition colleagues and me making the case against this tax rise; the Government were warned by so many others, from the Federation of Small Businesses to the British Chambers of Commerce, the CBI and the TUC. Ministers were warned from all sides of the harm that their approach would cause. The Government were warned by their own Back Benchers. Ministers at the time even warned themselves. The tax information impact note on the tax rise was signed off by the Minister who took the original legislation through Parliament, and that note said:

    “There may be an impact on family formation, stability or breakdown as individuals, who are currently just about managing financially, will see their disposable income reduce.”

    In relation to businesses, it said:

    “Behavioural effects are likely to be large, and these will include…business decisions around wage bills and recruitment.”

    Yet the Government pressed ahead with the tax rise, supported in the Lobby by the current Prime Minister and the Chancellor. The Government kept supporting it until the then Foreign Secretary became Prime Minister and decided to perform a U-turn.

    We welcome this U-turn, as it puts an end to a tax rise that we said was wrong from the very start. It is, of course, not the only U-turn that we have seen under this Prime Minister. Just last week the Government U-turned on their damaging and misguided plan to cut the top rate of tax for the very highest paid, so our current message to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor is to keep on U-turning.

    James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)

    Will the hon. Gentleman clarify something? Would he keep the social care cap and the spending on the backlog, and if so, given that he supports repeal, how would he fund that?

    James Murray

    The truth is that we are having this debate as part of a wider Government economic strategy that has caused economic chaos, and contains no plan for growth and no plan to fund public services. Even when we were discussing the original Bill last year, there was no plan for social care: there was no guarantee that a penny of the money would go into social care. So I will not take lectures from the hon. Gentleman.

    James Cartlidge rose—

    James Murray

    I am going to make some progress. I may let the hon. Gentleman intervene again in a few moments.

    As I was saying, right now our message to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor is to keep on U-turning. They need to U-turn on their whole disastrous approach to the economy, which the Chancellor set out just over two weeks ago. That Budget—in all but name—was the most destructive, unfair and irresponsible fiscal announcement in a generation.

    The Prime Minister and the Chancellor should now U-turn on their decision to lift the cap on bankers’ bonuses. They should U-turn on their refusal to ask oil and gas giants to put some of their eye-watering excess profits towards helping keep to people’s energy bills down. They need to U-turn on their discredited, dangerous trickle-down approach to the economy. It is time for them to reverse their disastrous kamikaze Budget, which has unleashed an economic crisis that they made in Downing Street, and which working people are paying for through higher mortgages and prices.

    Alex Cunningham

    My hon. Friend says, rightly, that we support this particular U-turn, but is he not as perplexed as I am about where all this money will actually come from—or does he know that, rather than having a magic money tree, the Tories have a full orchard?

    James Murray

    My hon. Friend is right to point out that the Conservatives’ sums simply do not add up. However, you do not have to take our word for it, Mr Deputy Speaker. Just look at the markets: they have issued their own judgment on the Conservatives’ so-called economic plan, and they are not convinced.

    As we consider the repeal of the Health and Social Care Levy Act, it is important to remember how the Government’s decision to bring in this national insurance hike came to pass in the first place. Over the last 12 years under the Conservatives, we have been stuck in what the Chancellor himself rightly described last month as a “vicious cycle of stagnation”. With tax revenues stagnating under low growth, the Government made it clear that they felt the only way to raise more funds was to raise taxes on working people.

    On Second Reading of the legislation that is being repealed today, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury tried to defend the Government’s approach, saying that this new charge would

    “enable the Government to provide additional funding to the NHS so that it can recover from the pandemic.”—[Official Report, 14 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 843.]

    We argued at the time that if the Government felt that they had to raise taxes, those with the broadest shoulders should contribute more, but the Government refused. They pushed ahead with this tax rise on working people and their jobs, and they refused throughout the debate on the original legislation to ask those with the broadest shoulders to take more of the burden. Now, as they repeal the legislation for the national insurance increase, they have abandoned any attempt at fiscal responsibility altogether, with an economic approach that has borrowing at its heart.

    In a letter sent to the shadow Chancellor and the shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 22 September, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury wrote:

    “The additional funding used to replace the expected revenue from the Levy will come from general taxation and may require further borrowing in the short-term.”

    Labour takes a different approach. Our pledges are fully and fairly funded. As the shadow Chancellor has set out, we would boost NHS investment by ending the outrageous non-dom tax loophole exploited by the super-rich. We will use money from what is saved by scrapping that arcane practice to double the number of district nurses qualifying every year, to train more than 5,000 health visitors, to create an additional 10,000 nursing and midwife placements every year and to double the number of medical students so that our NHS has the doctors it needs.

    Chris Philp

    I think I heard the shadow Chancellor on television a week or so ago saying that her proposals on non-doms would raise about £2 billion. The cost of this measure is about £15 billion, so where is the other £13 billion going to come from?

    James Murray

    The Minister must not have been listening carefully enough to the shadow Chancellor setting out Labour’s plans, because we have set out how we would scrap the non-dom status, which it is completely irresponsible to keep in the current context, and to use some of that money to set out our plans for investment in the NHS. The difference between the Government and the Opposition is that the Government make promises and use throwaway comments about how they might fund this with general taxation or through extra borrowing, whereas when we set out our pledges, we set out exactly what we will pay for. They are fully costed, fully funded and paid for through fairer taxation.

    James Cartlidge

    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

    James Murray

    No, I am going to make some progress.

    We have set out that we will not borrow for day-to-day spending and that we will not ask working people who are already struggling to foot the bill. That is what we mean when we say we are the party of economic responsibility and the party of social justice. The Conservatives have shown themselves to be the party of a failed approach to the economy. After six so-called growth plans from the Government that have all failed, the drunken gamblers of Downing Street have rolled the dice one last time, putting their faith in the ideological mantra that if they just slash taxes and regulation, they will unleash business investment and growth. They believe that wealth is created only by a few at the top, when the truth is that it comes from the bottom up and from the middle out.

    The trickle-down economics of the Prime Minister and her Chancellor are wrong. Their approach will not work and it is not fair. It will hit working people’s spending power, undermining prospects for growth, and it ignores the need for the Government to be a partner for business to grow—something that is more important than ever with the turbulent, changing, challenging outlook that we face. That is why the next Labour Government would do things differently. We would bring together businesses and trade unions through a national economic council. We would support businesses to grow, through our modern industrial strategy, and we would use a national wealth fund to invest in the new green industries of the future. That is our approach to the British economy: pro-business, pro-worker, pro-growth.

    The Government are making the wrong calls again and again. They were wrong last year to introduce the national insurance rise on working people, just as they were wrong last month when they tried to cut tax for some of the highest paid in society and to hide the OBR report on their plans. We welcome the Government finally admitting that they were wrong to raise national insurance on working people and businesses in the middle of a cost of living crisis, but their wider economic approach is one that is characterised by ballooning borrowing and a discredited trickle-down approach to economic growth.

    The Prime Minister and her Chancellor are gambling with the livelihoods and wellbeing of people across the UK. Their gamble is dramatically worsening the cost of living crisis, with higher costs and mortgage payments for households across the country. It is shredding any reputation for economic competence the Conservatives might once have claimed to have, and it will fail to deliver the growth we need after 12 years of stagnation.

    Throughout the cost of living crisis, Labour has forced the Conservatives to U-turn time and again. By repealing the national insurance rise and levy and by halting their plans to cut the top rate of tax for the very highest paid, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have shown that they have it within themselves to make a U-turn. Our message to them is clear: do not stop there. The Government must U-turn on their whole economic approach and reverse their disastrous kamikaze Budget. Our message to the British people is also clear: this is a Tory crisis that has been made in Downing Street and is being paid for by working people. Only Labour will fix the damage that the Tories are doing. Only Labour will deliver economic responsibility and social justice. Only Labour will be a Government that are on your side.

  • James Murray – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    James Murray – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    The tribute made by James Murray, the Labour MP for Ealing North, in the House of Commons on 9 September 2022.

    This morning I left my Ealing North constituency to come to Parliament by boarding an Elizabeth line train. As we know, the mark of Queen Elizabeth II on our banknotes, our coins, our stamps and so on will gradually give way over time to the mark of King Charles III, but in our part of the country, those stations and trains mean that my constituents and I will always have a physical tribute to our greatest monarch running through our borough.

    To the great disappointment of the countless primary school children who have asked me since I was elected, I never had the chance to meet the Queen as an MP, but I know that I was not alone in feeling her presence across Greenford, Perivale, Northolt, Hanwell and Ealing during the platinum jubilee celebrations in June. In our diverse part of London, people of all ages, all backgrounds, and all faiths and none, came out to celebrate the reign of our Queen and our love of our community and country. After the separation of the pandemic, we were celebrating the Queen’s jubilee with our neighbours, and that celebration itself helped the Queen’s assurance during lockdown—that better days would return—to come true.

    At those jubilee celebrations, as in the House of Commons today, everyone had their personal reflection on the Queen and what it was about her that they most admired. For me, what stood out above all else was her most incredible sense of duty and her awesome devotion to service, which, quite simply, was her life. On behalf of the people of Ealing North, I offer our deepest condolences to the King and the royal family, and our most heartfelt thanks for the life of Queen Elizabeth II, whose legacy will live on forever.

  • James Murray – 2022 Speech on Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits

    James Murray – 2022 Speech on Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits

    The speech made by James Murray, the Labour MP for Ealing North, in the House of Commons on 5 July 2022.

    We have been waiting for many months for this day to come, but here we finally are: I am referring not to the news that has broken within the last hour outside this Chamber, but to the fact that the Government are finally implementing a windfall tax, even if the Minister absolutely refused to say those words in her remarks.

    The Conservatives are finally introducing a windfall tax on oil and gas producers’ profits more than seven months after the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), first set out Labour’s plans for one. In the seven months since Labour first called for a windfall tax, the cost of living pressures facing people across the country have grown relentlessly and oil producers’ profits have soared.

    Since the start of the year, energy bills have spiralled by £700 for a typical household. Inflation has risen to 9.1%, the highest level in 40 years, and taxes on working people’s pay have jumped thanks to the Government’s decision to hike national insurance contributions. This year has seen the cost of living rise unremittingly, while oil and gas producers’ profits have in some cases tripled.

    A fair solution has been staring the Government in the face: levy a one-off windfall tax on North sea oil and gas producers’ extraordinary profits and use that money to help to cut people’s energy bills at home. Yet when, on 9 January this year, the shadow Chancellor first called on the Government to levy such a tax, Conservative MPs were falling over themselves to oppose it. The Education Secretary—as it happens, a former oil industry executive—came out firmly opposing a windfall tax on oil and gas producers on the ground that they, the oil producers, were already “struggling.” The Business Secretary said:

    “I’ve never been a supporter of windfall taxes.”

    The Northern Ireland Secretary said that he thought that a windfall tax

    “sounds attractive but doesn’t work”.

    The Deputy Prime Minister claimed that it would be “disastrous”.

    Ministers and their Back-Bench Conservative colleagues then went on to vote against our plan for a windfall tax on three separate occasions. So, despite our common-sense plan for a windfall tax receiving wide support across the country—with even some oil producer bosses backing its logic—Conservative Ministers simply refused to get on board until 26 May, the day after the Sue Gray report was published, when the Prime Minister and the former Chancellor suddenly changed their minds. It seems clear that what finally caused the Conservative leadership to change course and back a windfall tax was the need for a different set of headlines in that week’s news. Whatever it took to get the Prime Minister and the former Chancellor over the line, we were relieved that they finally agreed to back a windfall tax. We were relieved that some help with soaring energy bills was finally on its way.

    But that is no way to run the country—and what a cost those months of delay have had. For every day that Conservative Ministers refused to act, £53 million has been added to Britain’s household bills during this cost of living crisis. Next Monday, when we consider the Bill that will follow the resolution, the Opposition will urge Ministers to make right their delay in introducing the windfall tax. Otherwise, their months of delay will leave the public finances missing out on billions of pounds of tax revenue that could have supported further help for people with the cost of living.

    We know from the draft Bill and from what the Minister said that the Government are planning to introduce a brand-new tax break for oil and gas producers. That will give money back to the same firms that are supposed to be paying their fair share through the windfall tax. The Minister was unable to answer when my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) intervened, but our analysis shows that that tax break could lead to a third or more of any revenue from the new levy being handed straight back to the oil and gas producers.

    It is a subsidy that even oil executives do not seem to think necessary. It will subsidise projects that would almost certainly have happened anyway, and it will see 20 times more being given in taxpayer incentives to oil and gas producers than to firms investing in the renewable energy of the future, yet the Government seem determined to push ahead with their tax break. When we consider the Bill next Monday, we will urge Ministers to think again about that unnecessary tax break for oil producers, which will undermine both the impact of the windfall tax and our country’s wider efforts to tackle the climate crisis.

    We are relieved that the Government are finally proceeding with a windfall tax, and we will support the motion, but the Conservatives’ whole approach has shown so much of what is wrong with the way they conduct themselves in power. When we called for a windfall tax, they spent months opposing it as strongly as they could. They dismissed a fair and common-sense way, which was staring them straight in the face, to help people who face soaring energy bills. Then they changed course, not because it was the right thing to do, but because they needed a new headline to take attention away from the Prime Minister’s lack of integrity in office. Now, as they finally reveal the detail of their windfall tax proposals, they immediately undermine its effectiveness, and any wider efforts to tackle climate change, with a new tax break for oil producers. Their instincts are wrong. Their priorities are wrong. The way they run our country is wrong. With the windfall tax, we have shown that Labour is winning the battle of ideas in Britain, and that Labour will provide the leadership that our country needs.

  • James Murray – 2021 Comments on Securing the Recovery

    James Murray – 2021 Comments on Securing the Recovery

    The comments made by James Murray, the Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on 16 February 2021.

    Labour has set out what should be the priorities for securing our recovery – protecting jobs with a smart extension to the furlough scheme, and helping British businesses back on their feet by extending the business rates holiday and reduced rate of VAT.

    Instead of introducing these urgent measures to protect jobs and business, the Chancellor is hitting households up and down the country with council tax rises, pay freezes, and cuts to Universal Credit, and threatening businesses with a mountain of debt.

    The Chancellor is on the wrong side of the argument when it comes to securing our economy. Sadly, it’s the British people who will be left picking up the pieces from his mistakes.

  • James Murray – 2021 Speech on Universal Credit

    James Murray – 2021 Speech on Universal Credit

    The speech made by James Murray, the Labour MP for Ealing North, in the House of Commons on 18 January 2021.

    Our country went into 2021 with soaring covid infection rates, the highest excess death rate in Europe, and having had the worst recession of any major economy. Whatever happens with the vaccination programme, we face many more months of restrictions and the economic impacts will be felt for years to come. Yet the Chancellor and the Government cannot see how wrong it is to take away £20 a week from families who, having been hit by 10 years of cuts to social security and incomes, are now struggling with the extra costs of food and bills in the middle of the worst economic crisis in 300 years. It is a disgrace that today’s debate is even necessary.

    This cut to universal credit will hit millions of the poorest families across the country. In my constituency in west London, 44% of children are living in poverty. The cut will hit thousands of families in Ealing North, where over 4,300 households with children received universal credit in August last year, up by more than 1,800 since the start of last year.

    The mother of one of those families, Clare, wrote to me on Friday night about today’s debate. She kindly agreed that I could read out a few sentences from her email. She explained that

    “the £20 weekly boost is such a lifeline for us, especially for my family. I am a single parent and have an autistic son who is extremely vulnerable.

    I also have severe COPD and this extra amount has allowed us to buy some good reading books and nice food which we could not afford without the £20 boost.

    My son needs constant care, and just for him to have the books to read gives me some free time to relax and have some time to catch up on chores, and also my sleep as my son only sleeps 4 hours max at night.

    I have also been able to bake some nice meals that are nutritious where I could not afford most of the ingredients before the extra was put in place.”

    Families such as Clare’s and others across the country need that extra help. The Government must cancel this cut, extend the uplift across legacy benefits and show that they understand the impact that their approach to social security has on people’s lives.

    The outbreak has confirmed how inadequate our social security system has become and how challenging it is for so many people to get by from one week to the next. The fact that the Government felt they had to increase universal credit by £20 a week at the outset of the covid crisis shows how insufficient it already was. Beyond the outbreak, we are clear that the system should be replaced with one that offers a proper safety net and decent support for all. Cancelling the £20 cut to universal credit will not right all that is wrong, but it will be a lifeline for millions as we come through this crisis.

  • James Murray – 2020 Comments on Tax Avoidance

    James Murray – 2020 Comments on Tax Avoidance

    The comments made by James Murray, the Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on 2 November 2020.

    The Government promised to crack down on promoters of tax avoidance this year – but now all their pledges have been dropped from 2020, with no guarantee of when we’ll see them return.

    It’s irresponsible for the Government to keep dragging its feet on such a key issue. Everyone should play by the rules and pay their fair share of tax. The fact this Chancellor is pushing ahead with a key worker pay freeze while going soft on tax avoidance makes you wonder about his priorities.

  • James Murray – 2020 Speech on Covid-19

    James Murray – 2020 Speech on Covid-19

    Below is the text of the speech made by James Murray, the Labour MP for Ealing North, in the House of Commons on 11 May 2020.

    It is the first responsibility of Government to keep people safe and during this crisis that responsibility is acute. What the Government say and do each day has profound consequences, whether that is being too slow with lockdown measures and PPE, or creating confusion with ill-considered announcements.

    If lockdown measures are to be eased, it is critical that the Government keep the rate of infection as low as possible. In their plan published today, they acknowledge the role that mass testing and contact tracing play in suppressing transmission, but we have been a long way from the comprehensive, effective and, as the Prime Minister put it, world-leading system we need. The plan mentions targets of 100,000 tests a day last month and 200,000 tests a day this month, yet there has not been a single day in May when the number of people tested has been above 70,000. The plan also mentions a role for local authority public health services, but it feels far too much like an afterthought. The Government have focused all their energy on a new national call centre, rather than listening to local authorities, experts, and MPs, who have implored them to put local teams at the heart ​of those efforts. The Government plan also mentions controlling the outbreak in care homes. The importance of that cannot be overstated, as this Government’s failure to protect people who live and work in care homes is fast becoming one of their greatest failings of the covid-19 crisis so far.

    Last week, my team and I spoke to care homes across my constituency. One care worker told us how traumatic it had been for their colleagues to lose so many residents. They told us that they would usually expect to suffer around three deaths a year in their home, but that they have lost twice as many people in a single fortnight of this crisis. The people we spoke to were deeply upset with the Government and with the lack of recognition for care, and they felt that they had been in a crisis for far longer than since coronavirus. One worker said to us that their colleagues were tired and upset, but that they had been for years. That is the truth at the heart of this crisis.

    This outbreak has laid bare the deep-seated inequalities in our country. It is hitting those people hardest who cannot work from home, such as low-paid care staff, hospital cleaners and bus drivers. It is hitting hardest those who do not have a decent home, such as those living with overcrowding or sofa-surfing and those who are homeless.

    Once we get through the immediate crisis, we must not let the Government forget those workers who are risking everything to keep the country safe. We must not forget those receiving care who are paying such a dreadful price, trade unions that are playing a crucial role in protecting people’s jobs, BAME communities, who are suffering more than anyone else, and councils and local volunteers who are getting food delivered to those who need it most. When we begin to emerge from this crisis, making our economy work for people who do the essential jobs in society, building a new generation of council housing, and ending the austerity that has caused so much harm to our public services, will be more important than ever.