National Insurance Contributions Bill

My right hon. Friend makes a very good observation. I can rarely remember so few Labour Members b...

I accept entirely that the Minister cannot give specifics on the number of jobs the Bill will cre...

That is a similar point, and, as I say, I am nervous about giving precise numbers. Of the FSB res...

My hon. Friend mentions the welcome for this Bill from the FSB. Is he aware that charities and so...

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. She makes an important point that app...

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the measure was the largest tax cut in the Budget? Does he there...

Another observation one could make is that there are no Labour Members of Parliament here because...

I thank the Minister for giving way. Has he considered the fact that there are only a few Labour ...

That, too, is a theory, but I am not sure that it is necessarily persuasive. When we fought the p...

While the Labour Whips hunt for a seventh dwarf—

Cheeky!

No, I am definitely Bashful. Cheeky is probably on the other side of the House.

Does my hon...

I am grateful to hear of the experience in Tamworth, and my hon. Friend is right to raise that po...

Following on from the earlier point about confidence, does the Minister agree that, although all ...

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I pay tribute to the work that she does on the all-part...

In the emergency Budget that followed the last Westminster election, the Treasury said that it wa...

No, not at all. There is a whole host of measures, including the regional growth fund, and there ...

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) made a good point about rebala...

The striking point about the most recent growth numbers is that they demonstrate growth in every ...

While hesitating to introduce any controversy into the debate, does my hon. Friend agree that the...

I do agree. Given that we want to increase employment, it would not have been sensible to underta...

rose—

Whether all four of us will agree, I wait impatiently to find out.

Can the Minister explain how a measure that was not actually implemented destroyed jobs, as the h...

To have implemented the policy we inherited would have destroyed jobs. It did not do businesses i...

Does my hon. Friend agree that the reason the previous Government proposed the ridiculous increas...

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point that is well worth highlighting. When running a deficit of ...

What business hates more than anything else is the complexity of the tax system. We still have on...

The Bill will result in a big simplification for 450,000 businesses, because they will no longer ...

One of the concerns that small businesses had about the national insurance holiday—which was an e...

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I want to turn to the employers’ national insurance contributi...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, whom I congratulate on his elevation to the shadow Cabinet.

I am grateful to the Exchequer Secretary and I also welcome the new additions to the Government F...

If I remember correctly, that was in autumn 2010, when the next leader of the Labour party was sa...

My hon. Friend is being exceedingly generous in giving way. Does he agree that the Opposition’s l...

My hon. Friend makes two valuable points, but I detect that you do not want me to dwell on the is...

The Minister has talked about wages. Interestingly, the Federation of Small Businesses has said t...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is worth bearing it in mind that tax plays an important ro...

Will the Minister confirm that he will take no lessons from the Labour party, because during the ...

My hon. Friend is right. The policy of providing a NICs break only for new employees raised all s...

I greatly appreciate the Minister giving way. Before he sits down, will he or one of his colleagu...

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that observation, and we will of course take a cautious estim...

I salute the Minister’s valiant effort to gloss over recent history and his record. I can tell Go...

Given the Opposition’s dreadful predictions about how many jobs would be lost under the Governmen...

That was a valiant effort to change the subject, but today we are talking about this Minister’s r...

The hon. Lady is making some fair criticism of the national insurance holiday, but does she agree...

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but there were many other problems with the national insur...

As we are having a national insurance history lesson, what does the hon. Lady think the impact wo...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but I prefer to look at the record. When the Go...

The new version of events on the Government’s legacy is interesting. We received a dismal legacy....

I do not think that an economy that was growing was a bad legacy to leave. The legacy of three wa...

The key point about the national insurance measure in the emergency Budget was that it was a stat...

We have been speaking a great deal about rebalancing the economy and our proposals on regional ba...

A few moments ago, the shadow Minister was asked a question on regional focus. She has also said ...

The hon. Gentleman is somewhat confused. As was pointed out earlier, we always said that one of t...

I am delighted to hear the hon. Lady talk about the virtues of expanding reductions in national i...

I was proud to stand as a Labour candidate at the general election when the economy was starting ...

I note that the hon. Lady did not respond to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bedf...

I thank the Minister for that intervention. I am not surprised he wants to turn the attention awa...

This is a highly depressing speech. Should we not all be celebrating the fact that the economy is...

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is so depressed that his Government’s policy has failed, but t...

Does the hon. Lady regret the Labour Government’s failure, over 13 years, to take the anti-tax av...

I absolutely reject the hon. Gentleman’s point. We have a very good record on tackling tax avoida...

I warmly welcome the proposals in the Bill. We have already heard the statistics on its impact, i...

How much of the annual tax gap does the hon. Gentleman think this measure will tackle?

Very little. We heard from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) that the me...

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales). As so often when members of h...

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I can understand why she would not want anybody to...

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but I am certainly not going to say that many of my c...

Is the hon. Lady happy about the fact that she stood on a manifesto which included a national ins...

We do not know that that policy would have taken jobs out of the economy, because we did not have...

Before I come to my main points about this Bill, which I support, I would just like to follow on ...

May I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work she has done to promote UKTI’s merits to MPs acr...

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind contribution and for his wholehearted support of that work on...

May I add my tribute to my hon. Friend for playing a role in this exercise? My constituency offic...

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Indeed, what he has observed might explain why Brit...

Is it not in fact the case that the incoming Government put taxes up? In particular, they put up ...

I would apologise if I felt that I had said that no taxes had gone up. Let me clarify in response...

It is truly a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), ...

rose—

I will give way in a second; I would love to hear from the hon. Lady.

Underpinning that sys...

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the intention behind tax credits was indeed to encourage peop...

The hon. Lady makes a point, but not a particularly good one. If the economy was borrowing so muc...

rose—

That is the bigger picture to which I guess the hon. Lady wishes to return, as she is one of, I t...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again and being so generous with his time. That myth ab...

The hon. Lady is digressing significantly from the Bill to talk about 1945, but in any debate I a...

Order. I have allowed the hon. Gentleman to range quite widely, but his comments must relate not ...

You read my mind, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall return directly to the implications of the measur...

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate, and to follow such an array ...

Does my hon. Friend agree that not only is this an exciting proposal overall, but the fact that s...

My hon. Friend makes a key point. The fact that the measure is open to charities and social enter...

And their family.

And their family. I am pleased that the Bill makes that moment so much more likely. There are man...

Does the hon. Lady accept that the rate of employment has not yet reached the level it had reache...

The hon. Lady can throw facts and figures around as much as she likes, but unemployment was so hi...

Because I lost a contact lens on the tube, Madam Deputy Speaker, I can see you but unfortunately ...

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically impassioned speech on behalf of small businesses an...

My hon. Friend makes a characteristically good point. I seem to remember that they signed up to m...

It is an honour and a privilege to follow the impassioned speech of my hon. Friend the Member for...

I endorse my hon. Friend’s last point. It is clear that if the boss of a business works closely w...

My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is absolutely the case. This is about how we build ...

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way in his excellent speech. Does he agree that one of the most...

Absolutely; there is a responsibility on all Members to do that. It is disappointing how few Oppo...

I will say a few words in support of the Bill. Like all Government Members, I believe that this i...

I have listened carefully to this debate. I have never run a small business; I have run a medium-...

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The quality of the advice to businesses from all quarter...

I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend has done within our party for a number of years to ...

It is very kind of my hon. Friend to make those remarks. The start-up hub competition at the Cons...

I believe this is my first opportunity to congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your new rol...

As well as exchanging pleasantries and niceties, will the hon. Lady commit now to backing the Gov...

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman raises that point, because the Opposition will set out ...

Before the hon. Lady casts our minds back to 2011, may I ask her the question I asked her hon. Fr...

I will repeat the words of my hon. Friend, who said that she was proud to stand in 2010 on a mani...

Was the context at the time that the Labour party had left the nation’s finances in the most appa...

Once again, Government Members want to airbrush the past three years of stagnation, lack of econo...

In the spirit of not wanting to airbrush, will the hon. Lady tell the House how she thinks the jo...

Coalition Back Benchers want to forget what the Government have done and the past three years of ...

This might be a foreign notion to Labour Members, but one reason why it has taken three years to ...

The budget for the policy in the Bill was there, but the Government introduced a failing policy t...

Will the hon. Lady confirm that, having supported the Bill, she will call on all Labour MPs to pr...

The Opposition support the legislation and it will pass unopposed this evening. It is rightly up ...

This has been a wide-ranging debate and I am grateful to have heard all the thoughtful contributi...

I thank the Minister for responding to some of the questions that I raised. She seems to be movin...

Perhaps I should repeat my comments. This Government should get enormous credit for introducing a...

Will the Minister reflect on the fact that many households are worse off as a result of the Gover...

Of course the Government recognise that living standards are under pressure and that household bu...

I warmly welcome that simplicity. Does the Minister regret, as I do, the previous Government’s pr...

My hon. Friend’s intervention says it all. Government Members have run small businesses and know ...

The Minister is making a powerful argument, but it leads to the question: why did the Government ...

We heard earlier on that that was a time for a temporary target. We were dealing with the deficit...

Does my hon. Friend find it as amazing as I do that Opposition Members can only snipe at schemes ...

My hon. Friend is right: that is exactly what our economy needs. I have been at the Dispatch Box ...