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Dawn Primarolo: I will give way in a moment.
Small businesses welcomed the Budget. They said:
Mr. Paterson:
I can inform the Minister that the Federation of Small Businesses, to which I spoke this morning, is extremely concerned about the cost and difficulty of administering the new scheme. Will she please give me an answer to my question, which was posed by the financial director I mentioned, who reckons that he will have to take on one extra person purely to administer all the extra paper required by the new scheme? From a sedentary position, the Minister said no. I should be grateful if she would answer in detail from a standing position, so that I can tell the financial director tomorrow morning.
Dawn Primarolo:
The hon. Gentleman can tell the financial director tomorrow morning that the Government
I urge the hon. Gentleman to read the press release put out today by the Federation of Small Businesses. It welcomed the merger of the Contributions Agency and the Inland Revenue as a help to business. It welcomed the inheritance tax threshold being raised to £223,000, and the employers' start to national insurance contributions being raised to £81.
The Federation of Small Businesses welcomed the 40 per cent. first-year capital allowances; the Inland Revenue's new role to assist businesses in setting up payrolls for their employees; and the downward taper on charging capital gains tax. It welcomed the review of national insurance contributions paid by the self-employed; the review of industrial and commercial use of energy to gauge the method of taxation; and the £50 million venture capital fund to invest in small businesses.
Dawn Primarolo:
While I am on the subject of what was welcomed--the hon. Gentleman can address himself to this, from a standing position--today the UK's bus and coach industry welcomed the Chancellor's decision to give an immediate cash injection of £50 million to rural transport. In a second press release entitled "Tax break joy for buses and coaches", the industry welcomed the Government's restoration of the bus fuel duty rebate. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman wishes to reply to that point.
Mr. Paterson:
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time. Will she please tell us who will analyse the status and the affairs of the relations of employees in small businesses?
Dawn Primarolo:
I advise the hon. Gentleman to go and lie down in a dark room, rest for a little bit and then familiarise himself with the current family credit scheme. If he then re-reads the proposals in the Budget, he will be suitably embarrassed by the ridiculousness of his proposition. He would do well to take lessons from the shadow Chancellor, who, when asked to comment on why he would not be putting forward any alternatives to the Budget, particularly on employment creation, told The Independent on Sunday that that would be difficult at the moment because it
The Budget that my right hon. Friend put before the House yesterday cut taxes for all employees and helped families with business. It particularly assisted the 20 per cent. of the poorest families with children, who will gain on average £490 a year. Over the next two years, families with children will gain up to £1,500. No family earning less than £220 a week will pay income tax. Any family with a full-time worker is now guaranteed a take-home pay of at least £180 a week. Couples with two children, on an income below £17,000 a year, will receive 70 per cent. of their eligible child care costs. That is a first, and it will improve
the opportunities for parents, particularly women, to return to the labour market, and ensure that people are lifted out of the poverty trap.
Mr. Lansley:
Will the Financial Secretary now answer this question? The Chancellor of the Exchequer said yesterday:
Dawn Primarolo:
I have just covered that point. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman was listening, so I shall repeat it. There is a tax cut for all employees who pay national insurance contributions--a gain of more than £65 a year.
The hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Townend) referred to smuggling. The Government announced a wide-ranging review in the Budget last July, to look at smuggling and fraud involving alcohol and tobacco. The Government take the effects of smuggling and fraud extremely seriously, which is why the review was set up. We continue to take action to crack down on smuggling and on the criminals who take part in this pernicious activity. We will not let up in our efforts to stop smuggling and smugglers, and our efforts are increasingly successful. The House can rest assured that we will act to make life even more uncomfortable for those who flout the law and defraud the honest taxpayer.
I am disappointed that the comments from the trade today appear to condone smuggling. Mr. David Swan of the Tobacco Manufacturers Association said:
This is a Budget for stability, for reform of the tax system and for a modern welfare state that lifts people out of poverty rather than trapping them in it. We want a modern economy, modern schools and modern hospitals in an environment where investment and reform go hand in hand. It is a Budget for enterprise, for families and for a safer environment. It is a Budget for the future, and casts off the doubts, insecurities and the poverty of the past that were created by the Conservative party in government.
It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed tomorrow.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Robert Ainsworth.]
Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham):
I am grateful for the opportunity of this Adjournment debate. At first sight, it has little or nothing in common with the Budget debate, but having listened for the best part of three hours to hon. Members discussing the conflict between the wallet and the purse and gender conflicts over finance, I realise that there is a direct link between the Budget debate and a discussion about what happens when families break down.
Like many Adjournment debates, this is prompted by a local constituency concern, although it has wider implications. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) and I represent the borough of Richmond. Like many boroughs, it established 10 years ago a forum for domestic violence under the police- community consultative group. More recently, it established a women's information centre to deal with domestic violence. I have been increasingly involved in the centre's work, and as a result have been educated on some of these problems, and have drawn several conclusions.
I have been struck by the fact that the women's information centre is an extremely valuable and important part of the local community. It handles roughly 1,300 cases a year, and is vastly over-subscribed. The professions who work there have a hand-to-mouth existence. They devote an enormous amount of their time to fund raising and to fighting their way through the thickets of the different agencies that are responsible for women's welfare. The system for dealing with cases of domestic violence does not work.
Having become involved in the work of the forum and the women's centre, I have learnt at first hand the horrific statistics and facts about domestic violence, of which I suspect many people are unaware. It is now well established that about one in 10 women are victims of physical violence that leads to hospitalisation. Domestic violence is mostly against women: there is some violence against men, but it is a small problem. About one in three women experience some form of violence; about one in eight experience violence throughout their relationship; and about two in every five murders of women are the result of disputes involving domestic violence--roughly one every three days. Those are horrific statistics.
It is important to have this debate not only to highlight my constituency concern and the work and problems of the local women's groups, but to give the Government an opportunity to explain how they intend to approach this problem. I am well aware that this problem has a history: it did not suddenly arise.
For the best part of two decades, women's groups have established refuges, and public consciousness of this matter has gradually increased. In 1993, the Select Committee on Home Affairs produced a valuable report, which provided many of the recommendations on which current policy is based. The 1995 inter-agency report from the Home Office took the matter one stage further, as did the family law reform in 1996. We are dealing with an incremental process.
I thought it important--given that a new Government were in office, and given the possibility of a burst of energy and reforming zeal--that some outstanding points on the agenda would now be tackled. In the rest of the time left to me, I want to suggest--in an aggregate sense, and subsequently in more specific ways--some of the problems that I hope the Government will tackle. I am glad that both the key Ministers have taken the trouble to be here.
I feel that two key philosophical points need to be made. First, it should be recognised--I think that such recognition is now widespread, but the need for it should be reiterated--that we are dealing with a serious crime. Domestic violence is not just an accident or a faux pas; it is a crime. It has taken a long time for that to be accepted. It is rather like drunken driving or rape, in that it is a crime that needs to be punished. It needs to be dealt with appropriately by the courts, and by the judicial process generally.
The other point is more subtle, and perhaps less generally appreciated. It is much better to deal with matters such as this with preventive action than to deal with them subsequently. I have been staggered by the vast amount of public resources absorbed by problems of domestic violence that, with a little imagination, and perhaps better policy, could have been avoided.
A valuable study conducted in Hackney--I am sure that the Minister is aware of it--suggests that some £5 million a year is spent as a result of domestic violence being unchecked, the subsequent action by social services departments and the necessary process in the courts. It has been estimated that the aggregate cost in London is about £300 million. That expenditure is not necessary, and it could be avoided if policy were approached in a slightly different way. Let me suggest a few ways in which we could deal with the problem.
I want to concentrate on funding. Ministers may imagine that, as a Liberal Democrat, I will suggest a new tranche of public expenditure, but that is not my objective. I recognise that there is already quite a lot of public expenditure in this area; the issue is how to use that expenditure better within existing budgets.
As one who has come to the problem from outside, I am struck by the number of agencies that exist. There is the safer cities programme, to which some boroughs have access and some do not; there is the single regeneration budget; there is the national lottery, which is available to some parts of the country but not others.
The women's refuges--I have discussed the matter with them--are in the extraordinary position of having to deal with some 25 different revenue streams, potentially, in order to fund their activities. The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions provides quite a few; the Department of Health provides others. I do not know whether the Minister knows this, but I gather that one of the key services--the help line--is due to finish on 31 March as a result of the ending of the Department of Health grant.
The issue, however, is not simply one of money being available or not available. It is about the vast complexities of funding in the sector, and about ways of reducing those complexities. Let me make some specific suggestions.
First, the Home Office could simply keep track of all the expenditure, some of which is in the domestic violence budget and some of which is not. That would give us a comprehensive picture of how much was being spent, where it was going and why it was being allocated.
My second suggestion rather goes against the grain of my belief in the unshackling of local government. I think that, as long as we have capping and close central direction, some ring fencing of central Government money may be a helpful way of dealing with such matters. For example, specific allocation of social services training funds to domestic violence would be one way of ensuring that all boroughs had access to proper funding. Alternatively, money could be ring-fenced for special provision for looking after children in refuges. I know that that is another concern of the women's movement. Ring fencing could also apply more generally to refuges.
Those are all temporary fixes, however. My main recommendation in regard to funding is that it would be very desirable if the Government arranged for the Home Office to have a fund--a pot of money--for which different projects could compete in an open market and a transparent process.
That was the main concern of the groups in Twickenham. They are not asking for more money or for the Minister to take out his cheque book. They ask for a clear process in which they can compete on merit with other projects for a pot of Home Office money that is available to all parts of the country, and demonstrate the merit of their work. In that way, they could provide some sustainable long-term funding for their activities.
One of the key criteria in judging access to that pot of funding, which could be existing money that is put under a different heading, is that projects should be preventive, rather than dealing with problems after they have already occurred. I hope that the Minister will seriously consider that point.
The other sets of recommendations are not to do with money--I am sure that they have already been debated within Government. The first involves public awareness. Over the past few years, there has been a campaign, directed almost exclusively at women, under the heading, "Don't stand for it". One could argue that the audience should be men rather than women, but the campaign has raised awareness. Much has been done, but it is clear that much more could be done, in terms of good leadership from the Government and to increase public awareness.
Let me take a few examples. As I understand it, few hospital accident and emergency wards collect statistics on injuries sustained as a result of domestic violence. That information is vital to get a picture of how serious the problem is and the type of families that are most vulnerable. However, at no stage, as far as I am aware, has any effort been made to make the Department of Health conduct that sort of statistical collection.
It is clear to those of us who work closely with the police that, in recent years, their awareness of these problems has enormously improved. Just as with race relations, the police are among the more sophisticated agencies in dealing with these problems, but there is an enormous gap between the best police officers, who are, in many ways, probably the best agents, and the worst, where the canteen culture is still alive. A lot more needs to be done with the police.
The same is true of the judiciary. I am talking not about the crass judges who think that a good beating may be the best way of dealing with a domestic situation, but more sophisticated problems of how judges deal with the award of access to children in a situation of domestic violence. Those are the sort of issues that need to be discussed with the professionals and that I suspect have not been adequately dealt with.
Finally, a whole raft of legal initiatives could be taken forward by a Government who were determined to be innovative and to reform in this sector. They already have the Family Law Act 1996 to build on, but a whole set of other things seem highly relevant. It appears that a woman who is not on benefit would have to pay, for example, about £1,000 to get a court injunction to stop her partner committing violence. Access to the courts is extremely difficult.
Legal innovation is possible in another area. We could borrow from some of the experience in the United States. There is, I think, a well-known experiment in Duluth, Minnesota, where victimless prosecution is being launched. The woman is not required to go through the whole process of enacting her horrific experiences, but the police take a proactive role in prosecution.
"The Chancellor has delivered a Budget for both employers, employees and consumers. Small businesses with long-term investment will benefit. More people will be encouraged into the jobs market and at the same time consumers will have more money in their pocket."
Those were presumably not the small businesses in the hon. Gentleman's constituency to which he spoke on the telephone this morning. Perhaps he could tell us what his party's policies are to help business, if he does not support what the Government have done.
"would be bad for our party."
He said that it would divide them, and would only reopen discussions about what their policy should have been at the last election.
"Further reforms will . . . ensure that no one pays national insurance for the first £81 of their weekly earnings."--[Official Report, 17 March 1998; Vol. 308, c. 1106.]
The Red Book, at paragraph 3.31, says:
"The lower earnings limit for employees will remain unchanged (at £64 in 1998-99)."
Which is accurate?
"We estimate that more than a million smokers are already buying black market cigarettes and tobacco."
Gallaher said:
"This is a green light for bootleggers."
The Wine and Spirits Association said that this is a "crime-boosting Budget." The Brewers and Licensed Retailers Association said that the Budget
"sends a clear signal to criminals that crime really pays."
Those comments are irresponsible. There is no change in tobacco duty until 1 December, no change in alcohol duty until 1 January, and no change in spirit duty at all. It is unacceptable for those organisations to encourage people to believe that duty has already been increased.
10 pm
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