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Tuesday Volume 608 19 April 2016 No. 145 HOUSE OF COMMONS OFFICIAL REPORT PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (HANSARD) Tuesday 19 April 2016 © Parliamentary Copyright House of Commons 2016 This publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright/. 759 19 APRIL 2016 760 Mr Gauke: The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the House of Commons Treasury analysis published yesterday that shows the various models and the consequences were we to leave Tuesday 19 April 2016 the EU, including a permanent reduction in our GDP compared with what it otherwise would be and significant damage to productivity growth. The hon. Gentleman is The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock right to highlight that point. Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con): Do the Government PRAYERS welcome the opportunity to bring forward actual data without the need to project forward 14 years using techniques that have proved to be inaccurate every six [MR SPEAKER in the Chair] months? Mr Gauke: As I said, HMRC has gone through the Oral Answers to Questions data and will provide them to the ONS. It is for the ONS to decide the timing, but I have drawn the House’s attention to what it has said. Returning to the Treasury analysis, it compares one TREASURY scenario with other scenarios, and all three possible scenarios for leaving the EU would leave this country The Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked— poorer than we otherwise would be. National Insurance Numbers (Other EU Nationals) Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab): The impact of EU membership on jobs is obviously significant. 1. Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con): When HM Revenue Will the Minister pass on my congratulations to the and Customs plans to publish data on the number of officials who did the useful analysis that was published active national insurance numbers used by people from yesterday? A regional breakdown on page 65 of the other EU countries. [904537] document suggests that 100,000 jobs in the north-east are dependent on EU exports. I had thought that the The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David figure would be 140,000, so will he ask the officials to Gauke): The Government are committed to providing look at it again with a view to revising it up? data on active national insurance numbers used by people from other EU countries. HMRC is currently Mr Gauke: I will certainly take that representation on compiling that information and is working closely with board. Of course, the north-east of England has the the Office for National Statistics, which is reconciling very large Nissan plant, which provides a significant the four main sources of international migration data. number of jobs. The argument in the Treasury analysis The data on active national insurance numbers will be is that we benefit from an open economy. If we leave the published as part of, or alongside, the ONS’s publication. single market, we become a less open economy, which It is up to that independent statistics authority to decide will have a cost to the British people in their living when it is ready to make public the information. standards. Henry Smith: I have been asking HMRC for the figures since January. The British people have a right to Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): The disgracefully know such facts, particularly in the context of the UK’s dodgy document published by the Treasury yesterday EU referendum debate. Will we know before 23 June is, frankly, worthy of the children’s programme “Jackanory”. how many foreign nationals from other EU countries The immigration figures suggest that there will be 3 million have national insurance numbers? more immigrants in this country by 2030, placing my hon. Friend in clear breach of the Conservative manifesto Mr Gauke: It does take some time for HMRC to commitment to reduce immigration to tens of thousands combine and match multiple datasets and hundreds of a year. What is his response to that accusation? millions of lines of its own and the Department for Work and Pensions’ data. The intention is to publish Mr Gauke: The numbers are based on the ONS the information alongside the ONS analysis. I note that projection that was used at the last Budget. No account according to its website the ONS plans to publish in is taken of the achievements of the renegotiation secured May a note on migration incorporating the latest available by the Prime Minister. On the Treasury analysis, a large migration data, and helping to explain further why the number of independent economic commentators have two datasets show different trends. argued that it is broadly in the right direction. My hon. Friends who advocate that we should leave the EU Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op): What should come forward with their own analysis, setting about the 3.3 million people—one in 10 of the existing out exactly what model they would follow and what the workforce—who pay their national insurance and tax economic consequences would be. and whose jobs are linked to UK exports to the EU? Does the Minister agree that leave campaigners should not just cross their fingers and dismiss reality and that First-time Homebuyers Members on both sides of the House have a duty to spell out the fact that leaving the EU would put real 2. Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con): What steps he is jobs at real risk? taking to help first-time homebuyers. [904538] 761 Oral Answers19 APRIL 2016 Oral Answers 762 The First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Mr Osborne: Under this Government the number of Exchequer (Mr George Osborne): We are both building first-time buyers is up by 57%, whereas under the last more houses and helping young families afford those Labour Government in the last Parliament it fell by homes. Some 400,000 new homes are being built over 50%. the years of this Parliament, half of them starter homes for first-time buyers. In the Budget I also launched the Seema Malhotra: Perhaps the Chancellor will be hearing new lifetime ISA, so that young people no longer have for the first time that the number of under-35s heading to choose between saving for a home and saving for homes they own has fallen by more than 280,000 since their retirement—we are going to help them do both. 2010. Indeed, the number of affordable homes available All this from a Conservative Government who support to buy has halved since then. Private rental prices rose people’s aspirations to buy their own home and, in time, by 2.6% in the year to February, with incomes failing to pass that on to their children. keep pace. In September, the Government spoke of a “national crusade” to get 1 million homes built by 2020, Victoria Prentis: Following the promise of an extra but in November that figure was more than halved. £19 million from the Treasury to help make Bicester Shelter says the Government’s starter homes scheme garden town a reality, will the Chancellor update the takes away homes that people on typical wages could House on the other means he is using to encourage afford. Is it not true that home ownership is in freefall house building, particularly for first-time buyers? because of the housing crisis, with young people who are aspiring to own being the hardest hit? Mr Osborne: I am delighted that we can support the community that my hon. Friend so ably represents in Mr Osborne: I have already said that the number of Parliament, and provide money for the upgrade of the first-time buyers is actually up by 57% under this M40 junction and a new secondary school to go with Government, and I would make this observation: we the new homes being built in Bicester. Of course that cannot have a strong and successful housing market, comes as part of a suite: we are investing in new starter and people getting on the housing ladder, unless we homes and in shared equity products for people; our have a strong and successful economy. If we followed help to buy ISA has been used by hundreds of thousands the prescription of the Labour Front-Bench team, of of people; and the new lifetime ISA will also help young nationalising half the economy and imposing punitive people. Those are all things we are doing to make sure tax rates, there would not be anyone able to afford any this a home-owning democracy. home in this country. 23. [904559] Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con): Is it Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab): But there is a not the case that this Government’s lifetime ISA could problem, because the Office for Budget Responsibility help to produce, at maximum rates, a home deposit of says that lifetime ISAs will increase house prices, as they up to £50,000, and, even at lower rates of savings, a will increase demand and there is relatively restricted deposit enough for a terraced home in Norwich costing supply. Is the Chancellor confident that his measures to £120,000? increase the supply of housing will mean that the OBR is able to revise that analysis—yes or no? Mr Osborne: The lifetime ISA will be a very popular and successful new saving product precisely because it Mr Osborne: I agree that it is vital that we not only does not require people to choose between saving for a help people afford homes, particularly young first-time home or saving for their retirement; they can do both.