I began business questions by raising the report from Age UK published this week which warned that three million elderly people are worried about staying warm in their own homes this winter. Despite these shocking figures all the government does is act as a mouthpiece for the ‘big six’ energy companies who are profiteering at everyone’s expense. It is now over a month since we announced our plan to freeze energy prices until 2017 and all the government does is dither. The prime minister says he wants to roll back green levies even though he introduced 60 per cent of them and he can’t even tell us which ones he wants to cut. I asked for some clarity as to what the government’s position actually is.
I followed by raising tax evasion. Back in January the prime minister went to Davos and told the world that the UK would use its presidency of the G8 to tackle tax evasion. But on Monday we discovered that the flagship agreement to recoup tax from UK residents who hide money in Swiss bank accounts has brought in over £2bn less than the chancellor predicted and we also learned that the man in charge of tax policy at HMRC is on record as saying: ‘Taxation is legalised extortion’. Is it any wonder that despite meaningless ministerial PR, the tax gap just keeps on growing and Tory donors are laughing all the way to their kitchen suppers in Downing Street?
I followed this by raising the point of yet more special advisers by the government. The coalition agreement promised to: ‘Put a limit on the number of special advisers’ but this week we’ve discovered there has been a 50 per cent rise over the last three years, costing a record £7.2m. Nick Clegg now has 19 in his office alone, which is nearly 20 per cent of the total. I asked the leader of the House whether he agreed with me that this is a complete waste of money!
Despite all the new advisers the government is becoming even more incompetent. This week the Department for Work and Pensions lost its appeal in the supreme court on its flagship back-to-work scheme. The health secretary was humiliated in the court of appeal over Lewisham hospital. It has had to slow down universal credit for the third time. And it has had to apply the brakes to disability benefit changes. On Wednesday it couldn’t even write an amendment to our opposition motion on education that was in order and then we had the spectacle of David Laws winding up the debate on teaching qualifications robustly in support of the government and then abstaining on the vote. I asked Andrew Lansley to make time for a debate on the mounting evidence that this is a government which has abandoned all notion of collective responsibility and is descending into chaos and incoherence.
Finally as today is All Hallows’ Eve I suggested that children across the country will be dressing up as the deputy prime minister to scare their friends. I just hope they don’t do what he does and promise treats but hand out tricks instead!
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Angela Eagle is MP for Wallasey, shadow leader of the House of Commons and writes the weekly Business of Parliament column for Progress. She tweets @AngelaEagle