Make waves among MPs: Ask your MP to sign the Robin Hood Tax early day motion

Sign everybody. This needs to happen.

Just looked at the EDM list. My MP John Pugh [LibDem] has signed the motion having written to me to promise he would. Excellent, he gets my vote next month.

John Pugh is my MP in Southport and I fully support the Robin Hood tax. I am a pensioner

He's a good egg, Pugh.

Response from George Osborne's office. Email received yesterday.
Dear Sheryl,



Thank you for contacting George Osborne regarding a 'Robin Hood' tax. George has asked me to respond on his behalf.

Conservatives agree with the sentiment behind the 'Robin Hood' campaign and you may be interested to know that George recently met with Richard Curtis and members of the Robin Hood campaign team to discuss our common objectives.

Unlike Labour, we have said that we will introduce a levy on banks in the UK. At the same time, we will push for international agreement on a bank levy that could raise billions of pounds to fund domestic and international policies, including action to help the most vulnerable, and tackle climate change, at home and abroad. We will continue to pursue international agreement if possible on the exact design of a tax, and will consult widely.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is producing a report on what form such a tax might take. They are considering the practicality of a transaction tax, alongside other options like a levy, a form of which President Obama has proposed and the Swedish government has implemented.

We also agree that, in spite of other pressures on public spending caused by the recession, government spending on international development should continue to be a priority. We are therefore committed to increasing aid spending to 0.7% of GNI, because we believe that overseas aid can save lives, combat diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, and help to create bring new jobs, universal education and other opportunities for people living in the poorest countries.

In addition, we recognise that climate change is already hitting some of the poorest people in the world, and urgent action is needed to cut emissions and help protect people from the impact of rising temperatures. David Cameron has made this a personal priority of his. We have signed up to the 10:10 campaign, and committed to cutting UK government emissions by 10% within 12 months of the general election. As we have repeatedly stated, we also support international negotiations on new mechanisms to provide additional funding for this important issue.



Kind regards,

A Responce from my mp Robert Key FSA
Member of Parliament for Salisbury

Hello!

So do I - or something like it. I am pleased that this is official Conservative Party policy - and I hope you will support us!

Good wishes from Robert Key.

My MP Sandra Gidley has confirmed that she has signed EDM 913 in her letter to me dated 24th March. However, her name does not appear on your list of signatories.

A Responce from my mp
Dear Ms X,

Thank you for contacting me about the Robin Hood tax campaign. I am sorry that I have taken some time to reply to you but I wanted to examine this proposal in some detail and give a personal response to this campaign. I have discussed this with Vince Cable's team and thoroughly explored the arguments on both sides so I can now give a more informed - and longer ! - reply.

I have long-supported a Tobin Tax, support the Robin Hood Tax and have signed the EDM.

Arguments for the Tobin Tax (Robin Hood Tax)

I have long supported the idea of a Tobin Tax - a tax on financial transactions which would discourage speculative trading, often in meaningless financial instruments, commonly seen as one of the reasons for the financial crisis. There are plenty of examples, particularly from the late 90s, of entire economies - despite their fundamentals being sound - brought down by speculative activity.

Short-term speculative trading creates a lack of responsibility over the financial instruments created. In the credit crunch of 2008, the impacts of which are still being keenly felt, sub-prime loans and mortgages could be packaged up into highly complex "securitised" assets and then sold quickly from trader to trader without anyone knowing what they really contained, how much they were worth, or how risky they were.

I am impressed with the range of expert economists that have lined up in support of the idea. Adair Turner, the Chairman of the FSA, and not normally seen as radical, is in favour of a tax on what he rightly describes as "socially useless" activity - to, in James Tobin’s words, ‘throw some sand in the wheels’ of speculative activity. Paul Krugman, the widely-respected Nobel Prize-winning economist and keen supporter of a transactions tax, recently wrote that "It would be a trivial expense for long-term investors, but it would deter much of the churning that now takes place in our hyperactive financial markets." It would not have entirely prevented the financial crisis, and it would not be a panacea to future crises, but it does solve part of the problem.

A transaction tax would therefore be a desirable thing simply on the basis of the cost, and thereby disincentive, that it would create to speculators. But it would also be very desirable in the money that it could raise. The Robin Hood Tax campaign suggests that an average tax of 0.005% on transactions could raise as much as $400 billion. If even a quarter of that money were collected it could amount to doubling the developed world's annual Official Development Assistance (of about $100 billion). How this money would be used is a separate question, and I would certainly advocate a large proportion of it going to development aid and climate change mitigation in developing countries. However, it could also be used to help pay down our mounting deficit - which has arisen, of course, largely because of the greed of the banks.

Implementation

The principle of whether such a tax would be a good thing is somewhat separate from the possibility of implementing it. But of course the two (desirability and practicability) cannot be separated entirely. How easy would such a transaction tax be to introduce?

Although it may be possible to levy a small transaction tax on sterling transactions alone, I am told it would be much better to have a common approach by leading financial centres including North American, European and Asian governments. Given the fluidity of capital around the world, there is always the danger that unilateral action will just lead to capital moving elsewhere. However, once we have this agreement, we would be able to catch taxes fairly easily. As Krugman points out in his article, although transactions may take many different routes, they are normally 'settled' in large centralised institutions - and this is where the tax could be applied.

The European Parliament has already voted for a European transaction tax. This is welcome, and will help to work out how to get round some of the technical obstacles to implementation, as well as creating a 'real-world' example of the transaction tax in practice.

Related Lib Dem policy

The Liberal Democrats have already proposed creating an immediate new levy on bank profits at a rate of 10%. This would be a direct recognition of the beneficial and explicit taxpayer support which banks have received: the UK banks owe their very existence to the British taxpayer. Some banks such as RBS, Lloyds-HBOS and Northern Rock have received direct taxpayer bailouts. However, all have benefited from the explicit guarantee that none of them will be allowed to fail.

The Governor of the Bank of England has estimated that the UK banks have received the equivalent of £1 trillion in taxpayer support. But it does not stop there. The banking industry is unique in having the taxpayer acting as its safety net and the Liberal Democrats believe that this should be recognised. Our banking levy would be expected to yield around £2bn next year and this revenue would be used for the moment to tackle the UK structural deficit – thus ensuring that the banking sector helps to pay for the problems it has in part created.

Again, thanks for taking the time to write to me. I am very pleased that there is such a sizeable weight of public opinion behind such a transaction tax. It is important to keep up pressure behind a proposal which has such strong merits - from reducing dangerous speculation, to potentially raising hundreds of billions for international development and reducing the impacts of climate change on the poorest countries.

Yours sincerely,

Evan Harris

Received a supportive reply from Evan Harris (Oxford West MP Lib Dem) saying that he has signed the EDM. Let me know if you want the full text of the email and where to forward it!

Reply from my MP to my email. But, according to your list, he didn't sign the EDM

Dear Ms W

Thank you for your letter.
I agree with the sentiment behind the 'Robin Hood' campaign and you may be interested to know that the Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has met with its representatives in order to discuss our common objectives.
That is why Conservatives have been calling for an internationally-agreed tax on banks which could raise billions of pounds to fund domestic and international policies, including action to help the most vulnerable at home and abroad. The IMF is producing a report on which form such a tax might take. They are considering the practicality of a transaction tax, alongside other options like a levy, a form of which President Obama has proposed and the Swedish government has implemented.
I also agree that, in spite of other pressures on public spending caused by the recession, government spending on international development should continue to be a priority. We are therefore committed to increasing aid spending to 0.7% of GDP because we believe that overseas aid can save lives, combat diseases such as malaria and AIDS, and help to create new jobs, universal education and other opportunities for people living in the poorest countries.
In addition, we recognise that climate change is already hitting some of the poorest people in the world, and urgent action is needed to cut emissions and help protect people from the impact of rising temperatures. David Cameron has made this a personal priority of his. We have signed up to the 10:10 campaign, and committed to cutting UK government emissions by 10% within 12 months of the general election. As we have repeatedly stated, we also support international negotiations on new mechanisms to provide additional funding for this important issue.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Murrison (Conservative - West Wiltshire)

Dear Ms. X

Thank you for your email concerning the Robin Hood Tax campaign. I strongly support a financial transaction tax and I took part in the recent House of Commons launch.
I believe that this is a great opportunity to mobilise public opinion here and throughout the world so we get just some of the huge amounts of money in the global banking system dedicated to meeting the needs of the worlds poor and combating climate change.

Once again, thank you for your interest in this vital matter. In the light of constituents representations I have written to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in support of the campaign and I will continue to press the case. Please email AndrewSmith.PolicyQuestions@gmail.com if you would like me to forward a copy of their letters once I have received a reply

--
With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,
Andrew Smith (Labour - oxford)

Dear Ms X,

Thank you for copying me into your email.

I think there is a lot to be said for the Tobin tax (the Robin Hood tax you refer to), and it could certainly generate some money for funding overseas development, which I think would probably be the most appropriate use of it. I suspect it wouldn't actually generate as much as £3 billion, because the banks would change the way they operate, but the money would come in handy anyway.

I think it would be much more effective if we could persuade other countries also to introduce such a tax system - in particular the US, Germany, France and Switzerland - but we ought to go ahead without them if we can't get them to join in.

In terms of controlling the banks, I also think (and it is Lib Dem policy) that we should introduce a new levy on bank profits at a rate of 10%, to recognise that the banks have received so much support from us - some exist only through our support. Banks such as RBS, Lloyds-HBOS and Northern Rock have received direct taxpayer bailouts. However, all have benefited from the explicit guarantee that none of them will be allowed to fail.

The Governor of the Bank of England has estimated that the UK banks have received the equivalent of £1 trillion in taxpayer support. But it does not stop there. The banking industry is unique in having the taxpayer acting as its safety net and the Liberal Democrats believe that this should be recognised. Our banking levy would be expected to yield around £2bn next year and this revenue would be used for the moment to tackle the UK structural deficit – thus ensuring that the banking sector helps to pay for the problems it has in part created.

Further to this, we also believe that the banks should be broken up, so that the risky aspects are separated from the mainstream commercial banking - we cannot continue to have banks that are 'too big to fail'. Bonuses should be highly limited - at least in the banks we the taxpayer are supporting. We put money in to save them not to pay huge cash bonuses! And we should make sure that the banks offer support to small companies and individuals, rather than starving them of funds as they currently do.

I hope that gives you a clear picture of my own position, and that of the Liberal Democrats on this issue.

Yours sincerely,



Steve Goddard

Parliamentary Candidate

Oxford East Liberal Democrats

I've just received a letter from my local MP (Rt. Hon Meg Munn - Labour - Sheffield Heeley) in response to my request re: EDM signing. She thanks me for my request but states "I do not sign Early Day Motions as they are not effective. However, I can inform you that I did attended the Robin Hood Tax meeting and found it most interesting. The discssions identified that while there is a lot of supprot for the principle, there are a number of technical isues for which the answers are unclear. Due to the international nature of finance, such a tax would work best if a lot of countries adopt it, so there is a need for broader international campaign. I look forward to seeing developments on this issue."

She has also directed me to the exchange which took place during Prime Minister's Question Time yesterday [16/3/10] where Stephen Pound M.P. [Ealing North - Labour] challenged the PM to achieve international agreement on a Robin Hood Tax.

Hi,

Received a very supportive letter from my Liberal Democrat MP John Pugh [Southport.] Whilst the main bulk of the letter was a generic party reply, Mr Pugh added a personal note, thanking me for drawing his attention to EDM 913, and saying that he'd be delighted to sign.

Below is the text I got back from my MP. How do I respond?

Dear Mr Williams,
Thank you for your email in support of the "Robin Hood Tax" campaign, which would put a tax on "speculative banking transactions" to fund crucial public services in the UK and to help fight global poverty and climate change.
The idea of such a tax is interesting in theory and is not dissimilar to the Tobin tax on currency transactions - an idea which was first proposed 40 years ago. However, it is unclear how it would work in practice. For a start, there appears to be no definition of what would make up a "speculative banking transaction". Some financial transactions undoubtedly reflect pure speculation and contribute to financial crises, but others help economic adjustment and market stability. A "Robin Hood Tax" would not distinguish between the two. By slowing the adjustment of financial markets, the tax would slow recovery from a crisis. Artificially slowing market adjustments to genuine price shocks could have a higher economic cost than rapid adjustment.
Such a tax would be practically impossible to implement effectively. The UK has been leading the fight against international tax evasion and avoidance. We have taken a number of important steps in that regard, but even after recent events we simply do not live in a world where taxes can be set and enforced at an international level. Whatever we think about financial secrecy havens and offshore centres, we must acknowledge their existence. Most of them are sovereign nations exercising exactly the influence over their tax affairs that the UK Government exercise over tax matters in the UK. No international mechanism is in a position to secure the agreement of all the countries in the world, or even those with a significant financial centre, to impose a transactions tax.
Financial services can be based anywhere. We know how quickly capital markets can move. Traders would simply move their activities to regimes without the tax, with the likely result that the market would become less well regulated. Driving the markets offshore to poorly regulated centres would add to
the instability of the financial system at the cost of substantial job losses in the UK.
For the tax to work, we would not only need to get every major country to sign up to it, along with a consensus as to what it would be levied on, but we would need an agreement as to how the proceeds are ring fenced (the campaign refers to fighting poverty, protecting public services and raising money "to tackle issues you care about"). While a Labour Government would be happy to spend the proceeds on supporting public services and on international development, a Conservative one might decide to use it to cut the top rate of tax - not exactly in the spirit of the campaign. Similarly, other nations are free to spend their tax income independently of one another so I do not see how we can ensure that the aims of the campaign are actually met. Furthermore, countries with a relatively large financial sector - such as Switzerland - would accrue far more than their "fair share". I do not see how these proceeds could be redistributed internationally (rather than potentially spent on providing business incentives, therefore negating the overall impact).
I should make it clear that I totally support discussions on options to ensure the financial sector might contribute to the potential costs of any residual risks it poses to taxpayers and to broaden social objectives. However, we must draw policy conclusions in the context of the practical realities of our wider international financial responsibilities. Despite all its good intentions, quite frankly I currently believe the "Robin Hood Tax" is a non-starter.
Yours sincerely,
Rt Hon Keith Hill MP

Thank you @majowil - Perhaps this link will help - it deals with many of the points raised by Mr Hill. http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/category/faq/

I attach a response from Ed Vaizey, MP for Wantage

Dear Clem Davies,

Thank you for your letter.

I agree with the sentiment behind the 'Robin Hood' campaign.

That is why Conservatives have been calling for an internationally-agreed tax on banks, which could raise billions of pounds to fund domestic and international policies, including action to help the most vulnerable at home and abroad. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is producing a report on what form such a tax might take. They are considering the practicality of a transaction tax, alongside other options like a levy, a form of which President Obama has proposed and the Swedish government has implemented.

I also agree that, in spite of other pressures on public spending caused by the recession, government spending on international development should continue to be a priority. We are therefore committed to increasing aid spending to 0.7% of GNI, because we believe that overseas aid can save lives, combat diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, and help to create bring new jobs, universal education and other opportunities for people living in the poorest countries.

In addition, we recognise that climate change is already hitting some of the poorest people in the world, and urgent action is needed to cut emissions and help protect people from the impact of rising temperatures. David Cameron has made this a personal priority of his. We have signed up to the 10:10 campaign, and committed to cutting UK government emissions by 10% within 12 months of the general election. And as we have repeatedly stated, we also support international negotiations on new mechanisms to provide additional funding for this important issue.

You may be interested to know that the Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has met with the Robin Hood campaign in order to discuss our common objectives.

Thank you again for taking the time to get in touch.

Yours Sincerely,

Ed Vaizey

I received EXACTLY the same response from my MP, Eric Pickles, Chairman of the Conservative Party.

John Austin, MP for Erith and Thamesmead - good response, even though he's retiring after 20 years this election.

I have been a long-standing supporter of the principle of a Tobin Tax. Both Gordon Brown and Alistair darling have been attempting to persuade other world
leaders to support an international tax on currency transactions. I will happily sign EDM 913.

John Austin MP
Labour Member of Parliament
ERITH & THAMESMEAD

John Maples, MP for Stratford on Avon sent this reply.
very disappointing, but about what I have come to expect unfortunately.


Dear Constituent,

Thank you for your e-mail about a possible Robin Hood Tax. I am afraid I think the proposal as it stands is ill conceived and would be very damaging. We have every reason to feel very angry with banks for the terrible mistakes they have made, but if we want to tax them more, we should tax their profits not their transactions. Also, measures in relation to banks have to be internationally agreed, or they will be very easy to avoid. There are international moves afoot in relation to regulating and taxing banks, which might achieve consensus.

I am sorry not to agree with you.

My MP, David Drew, did sign the EDM and he sent me this reply;

Dear Miriam
Thank you for your email. I couldn't attend the meeting as I was in Committee but have had a report back from it. I am very happy to support the concept of a Robin Hood Tax though personally I would still prefer the original Tobin Tax.
Yours sincerely
David Drew

I asked my MP for Teignbridge Richard Younger Ross and he said 'Very important and has all Lib Dems support'. And to be fair has been great everytime we have expressed concerns about global poverty, climate change etc