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Category: Economy

  • Peter Gibson – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Peter Gibson – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Peter Gibson, the Conservative MP for Darlington, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) on her maiden speech, and on her warm tribute to her predecessor.

    I welcome this Conservative Budget, and commend the Chancellor for the measures that he has announced. He is delivering on the Government’s priorities: to halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce debt, so that we can create better-paid jobs and opportunities across the United Kingdom. I know that this Budget for growth will guarantee a better future for the people of Darlington, and for people up and down the country.

    The focus of today’s debate is employment. At the outset, I want to highlight the fantastic new data which shows that the claimant count in Darlington has decreased by 11.3% in the past year, and is now below the point where it was before the pandemic. This is good news for Darlington, because it means that the Government are helping to get more of my constituents back to work and my plan to deliver more jobs as the MP for Darlington is delivering also. This Conservative Government, working with our Conservative council—led by the fantastic Jonathan Dulston—and the Conservative Tees Valley Mayor, the amazing Ben Houchen, have ensured that Darlington and the wider region are blessed with new opportunities for local people to build their careers in the town where they grew up, championing our ambition to allow people to stay local but go far. Nothing can demonstrate that better than the delivery of the Darlington Northern Economic Campus, thanks to my honourable friend the Prime Minister. With civil service jobs from eight different Government Departments, there are fantastic job opportunities—more and better opportunities than we have ever had before—enabling people to play a real part in shaping the future of our country. Indeed, I regularly look to see which civil service jobs are being advertised. As of yesterday, there were 314 jobs advertised that are potentially based in Darlington. In addition, with 80% of those jobs at the northern economic campus in Darlington going to local people from our region, we are truly empowering our community.

    We know that employment is the best route out of poverty and this Budget is delivering on removing barriers to employment that have prevented many of my constituents from continuing their working lives. I warmly welcome the announcement to extend childcare, enabling parents to return to work, and also the further support that we see for disabled people. Abolishing the work capability assessment will ensure that we make the system better for disabled people and that they find the job that is right for them. I know from my own constituency casework that many disabled people want to work and to contribute to society, and these steps will help with that.

    I have welcomed the unprecedented investments that this Government have made in the Tees Valley on many occasions in this House, such as the £14.6 million awarded to Darlington-based engine maker Cummins to develop a hydrogen combustion engine. Cummins is a fantastic local employer, and these investments will allow it and other such businesses to continue to deliver high-skilled jobs for local people in cutting-edge green technologies well into the future. With that in mind, the £20 billion investment to develop one of the first carbon capture and storage clusters in the north-east is also hugely welcome, putting us well on the way to making net zero Teesside a reality.

    Investment zones are another hugely welcome step. The Tees Valley Combined Authority has been one of the areas identified for this policy, which would see the Tees Valley potentially getting a further £80 million over the next five years. This will be a great boost to our economic growth, bringing in more jobs and more investment. I welcome the measures in this Budget to encourage further investment in the Tees Valley and the continued transformative impact that that will have on the region.

    As we are discussing employment, it is important to remember that there are limited levers the state has to control the ability of people to get into work. In my own constituency of Darlington, we have a number of organisations that work with local people to ensure that their potential is not wasted. Let me take the opportunity to praise the work of the Morrison Trust and the Conservative-led Darlington Borough Council’s youth employment initiative, which has done such an amazing job. By recognising individual needs and targeting support, both have been hugely successful in supporting people in Darlington into work—people who had been finding it hard to get a job for a variety of reasons.

    I also pay tribute to First Stop, which, through work that I have done with it, has secured £50,000 of funding from the Harrison Centre for Social Mobility. First Stop provides information, advice, guidance and support to people who are experiencing difficulties in their lives that may make them vulnerable to a range of outcomes. In addition to providing one-to-one sessions, it also provides workshops, training and activities, including job clubs each week.

    There are a couple of things that I would have liked to have seen in the Budget. First, I would have liked the enhancements that we have seen in the west midlands and Manchester devolved areas to be applied to the Tees Valley—I hope that they will come in due course. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my role as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hospice and end of life care, and I would have liked to have seen further specific support for this sector, but I will maintain the pressure on my local integrated care boards to deliver what is needed for our local hospices.

    In conclusion this is a Budget for growth. This Conservative Government have set out a plan to meet the real challenges faced by our country, boost economic growth and continue our commitment to our ambitious levelling-up agenda. This Budget is good for the country, good for the Tees Valley and good for the people of Darlington.

  • Andrew Western – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Andrew Western – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Andrew Western, the Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) on her outstanding maiden speech. Having known her before her election to this place, I knew she would quickly make an impact and she certainly did that with her contribution today.

    In his Budget speech yesterday, the Chancellor said:

    “In November we delivered stability; today it is growth.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 847.]

    That is a bold statement, and upon closer inspection one may even say a brazen one: brazen not only because that stability was required because of the Conservative Government’s kamikaze Budget and their crashing of the economy, but more pertinently because on this Chancellor’s watch our economy will not grow, but will shrink, by 0.2% this year. In fact, we only avert technical recession this year because the pain is distributed in such a way that it avoids two successive quarters of output decline—not because this Government have averted economic shrinkage, and not because they have delivered the laser-like focus on growth that our economy needs. Far from it, the evidence tells us that this Government have been asleep at the wheel: while we in the UK see economic contraction this year, every other G7 country is forecast growth. While we in the UK see an economy that is still some 0.8% smaller than before the pandemic, every other G7 economy has grown to be larger than it was before the virus intervened.

    Conservative Members tell us to look at the longer-term picture: they say that this was always going to be a difficult year and their action has lessened the blow. That is nonsense, because this claim fails to take into consideration that growth projections for years three to five of the forecast period are revised down, and at the same time our underlying debt is set to increase from 92.4% of GDP this year to 93.7% of GDP next year. This is Tory Britain: they crashed our economy last year, and they have no plan to put it right this year.

    But let me turn to what this Budget says about the Conservative approach to basic fairness. The uplift in the annual tax-free allowance on pension contributions, from £40,000 to £60,000, benefits only those whose retirement funds constitute the largest 1% of pension pots in the country. Alongside lifting the lifetime allowance, that amounts to a huge tax break for some of the wealthiest people in the land. That this announcement came on the very same day that the OBR informed us we will have the lowest real living standards since records began speaks volumes about the appalling priorities of this Government.

    I have said before in this place that politics is ultimately about choices, and this Tory Government have made the wrong choices yet again. Not once in his speech yesterday did the Chancellor mention the words “fair” or “fairness,” and I cannot say I am surprised. They have form on fairness, and time and again they show us whose side they are really on.

    I accept that we need to address the shortage of doctors somehow, particularly as the Government continue to reject Labour’s fully costed proposal to scrap non-dom status and fund the largest workforce expansion in NHS history. So while I welcome the pension changes as they pertain to NHS staff, this should have been a bespoke offer available only to them, and in my view it should initially have been a pilot so that we could assess its future impact. Moreover, although the Government claim to want to help over-50s back to work, their unfair tax break for the wealthiest 1% has created a perverse situation whereby some over-50s may well be able to retire sooner, because their pension pots will have grown large enough for them to do so at a younger age than they had planned. Joined-up government? Don’t make me laugh. We have a Government at sixes and sevens, and a Chancellor without the clarity of purpose that is needed to turn our economy around.

    How do we know this? Well, let us recap. The Government want to level up, but we have the lowest investment in the G7. The Prime Minister wants debt to go down, but debt as a share of GDP will be up next year. The Chancellor wants to help with living costs, but we have the worst real living standards since records began. The Health Secretary wants to fix the NHS workforce, but the Prime Minister will not scrap non-dom status to fund it. The Work and Pensions Secretary wants to get over-50s back to work, but the Chancellor has just given a huge tax break to the richest, which means that they may well retire earlier than ever. It is preposterous. You could not make it up.

    We have had 13 years of this grotesque contradiction between words and action, this lack of vision, this fundamental mismanagement. The Government have no idea, no clue, and no plan for economic growth. They have crashed our economy, they have undermined our standing in the world, and they have decimated our public services. We are seeing sticking-plaster politics time and again, rather than the long-term solutions that our country needs. Because they are unable or unwilling to unleash the ambition of the British people to realise the fastest growth in the G7, we languish at the bottom of the pile.

    The Chancellor said yesterday that this Budget showed that his plan was working, but the reality is that this tired, out-of-touch, failing Government have no credible plan at all. It is time for a change. It is time for a Labour Government. For me, the next general election cannot come soon enough, and given this half-hearted attempt at a Budget for growth, it cannot come soon enough for the Conservative party either.

  • Iain Stewart – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Iain Stewart – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Iain Stewart, the Conservative MP for Milton Keynes South, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    May I start by warmly congratulating the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) on a fine maiden speech? Many issues divide us in this House, but one that unites us is the utter apprehension that we feel before making our maiden speech, and the enormous relief we feel afterwards. She did her family and her constituency proud. I echo her comments about her predecessor Rosie Cooper, who I enjoyed working with on many issues. I hope, similarly, to have a collegiate working relationship with her successor. Let me give the hon. Lady a little friendly advice: after a Budget, she should take time to read through the detail of the Red Book, because sometimes we find unpleasant surprises but sometimes we find very welcome announcements. That is what happened to me yesterday afternoon.

    As Chair of the Transport Committee, it will probably not surprise colleagues that I will start by talking about transport matters. A very welcome announcement in the Red Book was the Government recommitment to the next stage of East West Rail, which goes through my constituency. When fully opened, it will create a really important rail transport link connecting Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge. It is not just a transport link; it will help unlock enormous economic developments in the area and create the jobs of the future in many of the high-value clusters that we have along there. As well as the announcement that details will be coming out soon, there is the additional investment for local authorities to plan for developments around the new stations. That is an important part of putting in new transport infrastructure. It is not just about the line itself, important though that is in aiding modal shift, but how it helps much wider economic growth.

    On a local basis, I welcome the excess of £1 million to fix potholes in Milton Keynes—I can tell those on the Front Bench that we sorely need it. Also on the transport front, but looking more widely across the country, it is a positive step that additional powers and funding are going to the mayoral combined authorities to develop integrated transport solutions for those cities and towns across the country. In particular, I welcome the ability to develop cross-modal ticketing options. Access to good transport underpins the economy and people being able to attain new jobs, and I very much welcome those announcements.

    Looking longer term at transport, the Budget included some significant measures to help underpin future investment, looking not just at what the Government are spending, but how that can work in tandem with the private sector and institutional investors to help give us the assets we need in the longer term. In particular, there were the measures to extend the remit of the UK Infrastructure Bank.

    Many Members have commented on the changes to pension funds. I add this point: the ability of institutional investment funds to help support the development of our infrastructure is an enormous opportunity. On the insurance side, the Association of British Insurers has identified that the post-Solvency II changes could unlock an additional £100 billion of investment for our infra- structure over the next 10 years. Similarly, there is great opportunity with pension funds. Encouraging people to save more into their pension funds does not just help retain people in the workforce; it helps create those institutional funds that can be invested to all our advantage.

    The other welcome development that I will touch on is the creation of the new investment zones, which is another step in the right direction along with measures such as freeports, innovation accelerators and the various levelling-up funds. It will help stimulate partnership working between the public sector, the private sector and academic research and development. The principal of Strathclyde University, Sir Jim McDonald, has a great phrase—“the triple helix”—about combining those three and unlocking their potential to develop new technologies and how that then spreads out into the wider economy.

    The one bit of advice I give to my hon. and right hon. Friends is that these schemes are great in themselves, but more can be done. When I was a Minister in the Scotland Office, my portfolio of responsibilities included growth deals in Scotland, which have proved to create effective partnership working among the public, private and academic sectors. Some of those deals are coming to their planned end and some of the levelling-up funds will conclude in the next year or two, so there is an opportunity to look at what comes next and to combine these different types of Government investments, institutional investments and working with the private sector to let local areas develop their economies to thrive in the future. I should declare a little interest: I am writing a paper on this for the think-tank Onward. It is still in production, and I doubt it will ever hit the bestseller shelf at Waterstones, but I hope it will contain some useful ideas, and I think it will probably command cross-party support because there is a growing consensus that the right way forward is to unlock and help realise locally generated ambitions. Central Government do not always have the answers; I am not breaching any confidences in saying that, and it applies to Governments of all political stripes.

    The steps the Government have taken thus far with the investment zones, accelerators and so forth are good in themselves, but there is an opportunity to blend them so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I look forward to contributing to the debate on that, but this is a Budget to be welcomed for the measures I have outlined and many others as well.

  • Ashley Dalton – 2023 Speech on the Budget and Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Ashley Dalton – 2023 Speech on the Budget and Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    The maiden speech made by Ashley Dalton, the Labour MP for West Lancashire, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this debate. It is a particular honour to be called to do so by a fellow Lancastrian and my constituency neighbour.

    I take my place as my predecessor, Rosie Cooper, leaves frontline politics. A servant to West Lancashire for over 17 years, Rosie conducted herself with the utmost dignity and respect throughout her tenure as a Member of Parliament. Despite facing some of the most heinous and challenging circumstances anyone in this place could face, Rosie displayed great resilience and continued to serve West Lancashire with grace and diligence.

    Everyone in this place entered politics to make a difference. As Rosie leaves to take up a new role in the NHS, which I know is so important to her and her politics, she can genuinely say she made a difference. Through the British Sign Language Act 2022, which was brought about by her private Member’s Bill, Rosie secured equitable recognition for people who use BSL as their primary language—a group of people that in the most recent census was 22,000-strong. I know that they and many others are truly thankful for her hard work and unwavering commitment.

    You will know, Mr Speaker, that on the way into my constituency you pass a road sign that reads simply “In West Lancashire we’ve got it all”, and it is no exaggeration. With a Roman market town, villages recorded in the Domesday book, the growers and farming communities of the Lancashire plain, and a 1960s new town, West Lancashire truly does have it all.

    Look back at the gingerbread women of Ormskirk—women in the 1700s who knew their own worth, and with a recipe so successful it is still used today, took their place in Ormskirk’s economy; and look forward to the innovators and community builders of the future being moulded by the thriving Edge Hill University. West Lancashire’s story is one of making your mark.

    For me, West Lancashire’s best asset is its people. The people of West Lancashire represent what it means to be British. They are hard-working, innovative and, most of all, ambitious. But all too often, their ambition is frustrated by a lack of opportunity. I hear stories from my constituents in Skelmersdale—Skem—that they feel trapped and confined by their circumstances. It is a great sadness that for many people in Skelmersdale, their ambition for their children is that they leave Skem—that they get out to get on. Opportunities that exist in Manchester or Liverpool are opportunities that should be accessible to folk in West Lancashire, but they simply are not. West Lancashire is brimming with potential but is literally being left behind.

    During the by-election, while I was out campaigning, Sandra stopped me in the street to talk about what is important to her. She probably recognised me from the hundreds of leaflets that she had had through her door. Sandra was really proud of her grown-up children working hard to provide for their own families, but she told me that they were each working two or three jobs and were barely able to just get by. As proud as she is of her children, Sandra told me that getting by should not be this hard. When the best that hard work can deliver is just getting by, something has gone wrong.

    Yet, like the gingerbread women of the 1700s, West Lancashire still dares to succeed. There are people like Paula and Maureen, who started the Sewing Rooms in Skelmersdale, a social enterprise to tackle social exclusion and train and employ women in the textiles industry. In the face of a global pandemic, they made masks. When faced with a cost of living crisis, they developed, made, and sold thermal cooking bags that use little to no energy to cook hot food. On the back of that success, they have won the contract to design and make the kit for the Great Britain gymnastics team at the Special Olympics world games in Berlin this year. There are people like 19-year-old Rossi Forrest, who sold me my Christmas tree last year from the new nursery and garden centre in Bickerstaffe that he started from scratch. And people like Jo, who sells pyjamas and underwear on historic Ormskirk market, and whose thermal vests and long johns kept me warm during a long—very long—winter by-election.

    Across West Lancashire, people are working hard and daring to succeed. But in the face of a cost of living crisis and a stagnating economy, it is too often an uphill struggle. It should not be this hard. This Budget was an opportunity for the Government to show that they believe in West Lancashire as much as I do. Instead, it is another sticking plaster on 13 years of economic failure, with small businesses and sole traders once again expected to fend for themselves. The people of West Lancashire are ambitious, but their ambition is not being matched by government. While wages are down, mortgage repayments are up. Whilst living standards are down, the tax burden is up. When my constituents need an economy that is moving, we are at a standstill. This is not a Budget for Sandra. It is not a Budget for Paula and Maureen. It is not a Budget for Rossi, and it is not a Budget for Jo, either.

    Politics is often spoken about in abstract terms, as though it is something that happens to someone else, somewhere else, separate from our communities. When I stand to speak, 100 years since the first women were elected to this place and nearly 300 years since the gingerbread women of Ormskirk made their mark, I speak with the voices of Sandra, Rossi and Jo, and all the other people of West Lancashire, because the politics in here must meet the ambition of the communities out there. What we choose to do shows where our priorities lie. Our priorities are born out of what we stand for. On the Labour Benches we stand for meeting the ambition of the people of West Lancashire and beyond, not for getting by but for getting on.

  • Richard Drax – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Richard Drax – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Richard Drax, the Conservative MP for South Dorset, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    I welcome the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) to the House, and I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

    We are the party of low taxes, or we are nothing. It is a core Conservative value that we believe people should keep more of their money. In that regard, I commend the Chancellor for scrapping the pensions allowance. It is rather strange that the Opposition are wailing about it when they themselves wanted to remove it, albeit just for doctors. This reform will not just help doctors, but help to retain headteachers, police chiefs, senior officers in the armed forces, air traffic controllers, prison governors and many others.

    However, what concerns me is the tax pressure on those who receive less. We are still facing the highest burden of taxation since the end of the second world war. I fear we are falling into the socialist trap of raising expectations that the Government will provide all the answers; they cannot, and should not try to. The consequence is higher and higher taxes to pay for services such as extra childcare. I entirely endorse the excellent speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) on the problems that this policy could raise. While welcomed by many, it fails to recognise that if families paid less tax, they would have more disposable income to pay for services such as childcare, rather than relying on the Government. Raising the tax threshold, especially at the higher rate, would help in that regard. The insistence that the Government can spend people’s money better than them is not our philosophy.

    I accept in full that we are paying a heavy price for locking the country down during the pandemic, and now dealing with a major war in Europe, but this is not the time for faint hearts and overcaution, especially with a general election looming. For we know—we have just heard—where Labour will take us: myriad new taxes, a rise in existing ones, and a party driven sadly by the few, not the many, and by envy, punishing those who work hard and want to provide for their families. Let us stop reinforcing Labour’s values and start reminding the country of ours.

    On that note, despite the many calls for corporation tax not to be raised from 19% to 25%, the increase will go ahead. Despite being mitigated by some capital allowances, it is a regressive and regrettable move. This after the Chancellor pledged to reduce corporation tax to 15% last year when he stood for the leadership of our party—how right he was then. Yesterday’s Budget rightly placed great emphasis on growth, and while I am all for getting people back to work, I am not in support of a tax hike on those who create the jobs in the first place. Beyond that, the increase will be a major and negative factor for companies deciding where and how much to invest. Let us not forget that the corporation tax of our nearest competitor, the Republic of Ireland, is a meagre 12.5%. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said of an earlier Chancellor:

    “Lawson brought intellectual self confidence and energy to the task of being Chancellor. He fearlessly slashed income tax and corporation tax rates. Extra revenue poured in as growth improved.”

    Surely that is what business needs: a visionary Conservative Government committed to creating an environment that gives wealth creators the incentives to take risk and create the prosperity and jobs that all of us in this House want. Unfortunately, that is not evidenced when we look at the oil and gas industries.

    Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)

    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

    Richard Drax

    I will not, because we do not have time and others wish to speak.

    Because of pandering to the green lobby and unachievable targets, oil and gas companies face punitive tax rates such as the 50% corporation tax rate and a 35% windfall levy. As the war in Europe has reminded us, energy security is paramount. Over-reliance on supply from overseas has left many countries—not just us—vulnerable to fluctuation in prices and supply. Regrettably, we are a long way from ending our reliance on fossil fuels, so surely it is common sense to encourage investment here at home, not to increase our carbon footprint by importing from abroad.

    Before I conclude, I must mention defence. While the extra £11 billion over five years is to be welcomed, it is not nearly enough, with little—if any—of that money going to our conventional forces. This at a time when the world is increasingly unstable. Arbitrary figures for defence spending plucked out of thin air by both sides demean our armed forces and us in the House. In the face of some very real threats, a thorough appreciation needs to be undertaken and the defence budget set accordingly. To be an effective NATO partner, we need the mass to sustain a prolonged and major confrontation. Right now, we do not have it.

    I conclude on a point of caution. As I hinted strongly at the start of my speech, this over-reliance on Government to provide the solution to everything must stop. It is simply unsustainable. Our Conservative Government would do well to recall the words of JFK in his inaugural address:

    “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

  • Clive Efford – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Clive Efford – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Clive Efford, the Labour MP for Eltham, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    When I looked at the clock as the Chancellor finished speaking yesterday, I was shocked that his speech had been only an hour. The speech was well padded out. I thought at one stage that he was going to tell us how much the Government planned to spend on paper clips in the next year. He started by announcing that we were not going into a recession, expecting praise for not taking us into a recession that the Conservatives had brought us to the brink of in the first place. It was a bit like an arsonist asking to be thanked, having set light to your house, for then ringing the police. Average energy bills have doubled in the past 18 months, the average mortgage is up by £2,000, and household incomes are lower in real terms than 13 years ago. Those are the worst figures since records began.

    We have had 13 years of cuts to our public services, leaving them in a parlous state, and we went into covid with record numbers on NHS waiting lists—2.5 million people. We now have an estimated 7 million people waiting for hospital appointments. According to a Nuffield Trust report published last year, our NHS is short of 12,000 doctors and 50,000 nurses and midwives, and we will need over 500,000 more NHS and care workers by 2030. Where was anything in the Budget to deal with that crisis? Oh, we did have one thing; we had a tax cut for the wealthiest 1% to keep doctors in the NHS. Only the Tories could turn a crisis in the NHS into an excuse to cut taxes for the wealthiest 1% in this country.

    Someone with a £2 million pension pot will get a tax saving of £275,000. How is that justifiable? Yet next month the tax thresholds will be frozen. For a basic rate taxpayer, that is £500 a year, for a higher rate taxpayer, that is £1,000, but in this Budget it is somehow justifiable to make that tax cut to the richest 1%. It is just not fair. In the past decade, we have seen the Conservatives stand by while a disproportionate share of national income has gone to the wealthiest. The OBR has confirmed that the cost of living crisis means that living standards will fall by 5.7% over the next two years. Average real-terms household incomes are at a 50-year low due to a decade of consistent low growth. The Resolution Foundation’s “Stagnation nation” report, published late last year, shows that in each decade since the 1970s, average household incomes rose by 33% until 2007, but since the Tories took power, weak productivity growth has fed directly into flatlining wages and sluggish income growth, with real wage growth falling below zero in the 2010s.

    The Government’s own figures show that incomes have grown by an average of 9% since 2008—0.7% a year—having grown by an average of 2.2% in each of the previous 20 years. Their excuse is to blame everyone else, but everyone else internationally has been through the same shocks as us. How do the Tories explain the fact that average household incomes in the UK are 16% lower than in Germany and 9% lower than in France, having been higher than both in 2007?

    Wealth inequality in this country has grown under the Conservatives, and a failure to tax the assets of the super-rich is leading to widening inequality. The more wealth someone accumulates, the less tax they pay. The Government should be looking at how we tax wealth and tackle that growing inequality. Since the banking crash in 2007-08, it has become easier to borrow money, which has meant that the wealthiest people have been able to buy assets, and we do not tax those assets. I would like to see a discussion about a tax on wealth above £10 million. A 1% tax on that wealth would raise £11 billion. I have spoken to many people who are in that tax bracket, and they say that a 1% tax on their wealth at that level would not cause them to take flight and go abroad—they would not notice it. No one is going to up their family and their children’s future because they would pay 1% tax on their wealth above £10 million.

    We could equalise capital gains with income tax rates. There is cross-party support for this measure, which could raise £15.2 billion. It is not a radical suggestion, because it is what Nigel Lawson did back in the 1970s. I welcome the fact that the Government are offering tax relief for investment in R&D, because that could reward people who pay their tax in that way.

    It is not fair that people who pay rent to somebody who has bought properties pay national insurance contributions on their wages, but the person they pay rent to does not pay national insurance contributions on the income from that rent. We should look at expanding the range of national insurance to make the system fair. The Labour party supports reform of non-dom status, which would raise £3.2 billion.

    There is money in the system that we can use to resolve many of the problems we face with the crisis in our public services. It is a travesty that, given the strikes we are facing and the crisis in the national health service, there was nothing about that in the Chancellor’s statement yesterday. It is time for a new form of government. It is time for a Government who will tackle inequality and create a fairer taxation system that will benefit the whole country, not leave people to sink or swim. We need an active Government who will be on people’s side, intervene when necessary and do what is necessary to create a fairer and more equitable society.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    The worst health emergency for 100 years and the worst energy price shock for 50 years have done severe damage to our economy in the last few years, but the Budget has demonstrated the positive impact of the difficult decisions taken in the autumn statement to repair the public finances and restore stability after the damage done by global economic turmoil. As we have heard, unemployment is near a 50-year low, productivity is higher now than it was before the pandemic, and the OBR predicts that we will not go into recession, that inflation will fall and that growth is returning. That means we are on track to meet the first three of the Prime Minister’s five priorities, which are to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut NHS waiting times and stop the boats.

    At the heart of the Budget and the Government’s wider economic policy is helping people with cost of living pressures. Taken together, the measures in the Budget and those previously announced are worth £94 billion over this year and next—one of the largest support packages in Europe—which is an average of more than £3,300 for every household in the country. In advance of his statement, I asked the Chancellor for the continuation of Government support for energy bills. I also made the case for families struggling with childcare costs, raising the issue alongside others in Parliament just a week or two ago, so I am really pleased with the plan to extend the 30 hours of free childcare for working parents to cover children from the age of nine months to four years. It is also very welcome that the childcare component of universal credit can now be paid up front.

    This package is a truly radical set of changes, and investing in early years education and childcare is a sound economic move. Not only will it bring more parents back into the workplace to help address labour shortages; high-quality early years provision can also be an engine of social mobility, helping children to get the best start in life in order to enable them to realise their potential and succeed in their aspirations. The increase in the rates to be paid to childcare settings for delivering the free entitlement is a crucial part of this endeavour. It has been a key ask of the sector, but what is now proposed is still a very big change and implementation will not be easy, so I will be scrutinising progress carefully as a member of both the all-party parliamentary group for nursery schools, nursery and reception classes, and the APPG on childcare and early education.

    I welcome the changes to the pension tax rules, which have been pushing experienced GPs and hospital doctors to cut their hours and retire early, just when we need them most. I have raised that problem with successive Health Secretaries and Chancellors of the Exchequer. The lifetime allowance is, I am afraid, a classic example of where taxes get so high that they deter work and depress economic activity. It is not just about the very high taxes paid if a person hits the lifetime allowance limit; it is also about the uncertainty, which means that doctors have cut their hours even if they have not hit the limit, because they fear reaching it. Both are causing problems with the retention of our hard-working doctors, so I believe that the changes announced by the Chancellor yesterday will play an important part in reducing those NHS waiting times in the way that we all want. I hope that it will also mean that my constituents have faster and better access to GP appointments.

    Finally, I want to highlight some areas where further action is needed in relation to Budget matters. Implementation of reforms relating to the regulatory climate for artificial intelligence and the approval of medicines, as announced yesterday, are welcome, but I would like to see a more concerted push to improve regulation to make it more targeted and more agile and to ensure that it keeps up with technological change. This area can play a crucial role in raising productivity, boosting growth and making this country the science super-power that the Prime Minister wants it to be. It is also crucial to raising living standards in the long term.

    The taskforce on innovation, growth and regulatory reform set out a blueprint for starting this reform process, and I would ask the Minister to report back on progress in implementation of the taskforce’s recommendations. I welcome the indication by the Chancellor that he will come back with a plan for one of TIGRR’s key proposals —to unlock productive investment from pension funds—but we do need to get on with this. The freedom to make our own choices on regulation and design these rules according to our own national interest is a key benefit from Brexit, and we need to grab the opportunity that it presents.

    Lastly, I fully back, of course, the caution shown in this Budget on the public finances. Bearing down on inflation and getting debt under control must be our top priority. But as the economic situation, I hope, continues to improve, I would ask my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to strive to find the room for further pay increases for the public sector and, of course, for wider tax reductions in the longer term.

  • Stephen Timms – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Stephen Timms – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Sir Stephen Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I apologise for my late arrival in the debate.

    It is striking how hard it is for Conservative Chancellors to resist the temptation to hand out big tax cuts to the wealthiest while raising tax for ordinary people. We can sympathise with the Chancellor in that he meets many such people—many people among the 1% wealthiest pension savers in the country—who are very courteous and very nice to him over convivial dinners, and they explain to him their frustrations with the Government’s pensions tax policy. These are good eggs, and who could possibly begrudge them a £1.2 billion tax cut? But the reality is that pension tax relief is already massively skewed in favour of the best-off, and the Chancellor, when times are hard, has decided to give another billion to the wealthiest in pension tax relief.

    I do welcome the adoption of the Select Committee recommendations on support in universal credit for the costs of childcare, which was announced yesterday. As the Secretary of State explained, allowing the costs to be paid up front from universal credit and lifting the cap—absurdly, it had not been raised since 2005—will remove very important barriers to work, including a barrier to those who are working part-time from working full-time.

    There is much to welcome in the health and disability White Paper, which says that the system will be changed so that it focuses on

    “what people can do, rather than what they can’t”.

    That is laudable, but precisely the same form of words was used by Alistair Darling to introduce changes to the incapacity benefit system 25 years ago. Whether the detail turns out to be a good thing will depend on the detail, which is largely absent. The Secretary of State spoke about consultation. The Government’s ill-fated disability strategy came to grief in the courts because had not adequately consulted disabled people. We must hope that that lesson has been learned.

    Nobody will mourn the work capability assessment, which the White Paper says will be replaced by

    “a new personalised health conditionality approach”.

    Can Ministers tell us what that means? The White Paper goes on to explain that it

    “will provide more personalised levels of conditionality and employment support”,

    but I am afraid that leaves us none the wiser. The problem is that, despite being years late, much of the vital detailed work does not seem to have been done yet.

    I welcome some of the specific proposals to reform PIP—for example, I am pleased that the call to match people’s primary health condition with a specialist assessor will at least be tested. Many PIP assessments come up with the wrong answer, as we know, because when people appeal against the determination, the great majority win their appeal—in fact, the proportion who do so has been going up. The White Paper proposes to place more weight on the PIP assessment in future, so it is even more important that we get it right. The only way to do that is to record all the assessments, so that if the decision is subsequently found to be wrong, it is possible to go back, work out why and consider how to avoid the same mistake being made again in future.

    The White Paper says that there will be an increase in recording, which is a good thing, but the Select Committee proposed five years ago that all assessments should be recorded, with an opt-out for the claimant if they did not want their assessment to be recorded. In the new contract for assessments to be agreed this year, the Department should instruct providers to record assessments by default with a clear opt-out option. That proposition is supported by all three assessment providers. It will ensure that there is an objective record of the assessment, which will reassure claimants and allow assessment quality to be audited. When recordings are available and the findings of assessments are overturned, the recordings should be checked at least on a sample basis to see whether an erroneous outcome could have been avoided.

    I welcome the White Paper’s commitment to test the feasibility of sending a copy of the assessor’s report to claimants automatically before the decision is made, which was also recommended by the Select Committee five years ago. I hope that the feasibility testing will be brief so that that can be introduced across the system soon.

    It is disappointing that there is still not yet a target for disability employment in the White Paper. The Government congratulate themselves on achieving the previous very undemanding target early, but I am pleased that the White Paper says:

    “Our goal to reduce the disability employment gap remains.”

    In the 2015 election campaign, David Cameron announced a target to halve the disability employment gap. Unfortunately, that target was quickly scrapped as soon the general election was out of the way. I hope that a clear target on the disability employment gap will now be adopted.

    Much will depend on the support that disabled people receive from work coaches. Polling by the charity Scope found that half of jobseekers with complex disabilities do not feel supported by work coaches. The initial training for work coaches does not seem to cover the barriers to work faced by disabled people, and jobcentres lack the specialist assistive technology that many disabled people need to look for and apply for work.

    The White Paper refers to the potential of the UK shared prosperity fund to provide employment support. It is disappointing that there will be, I think, a two-year gap between the European social fund ending and the UK shared prosperity fund being allowed to support employment projects. A witness to the Select Committee yesterday suggested that the flexible support fund might be expanded, at least temporarily, to try to bridge that gap.

    That could lead to a large amount of important employment support capacity not being lost, which it will be if the gap is allowed to take effect.

    Lastly, I appeal to the Secretary of State to spare us the embarrassment of the Department’s appealing against the ruling this week by the Information Commissioner that the Department’s research on the impact of benefit sanctions must be published. The Department promised to publish it. As was her wont, his predecessor but one, the right hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), decided to hide as much as possible if it contained any hint of a question mark about the Department’s policies. I welcome his review of that approach, and I hope he will show with this particular case that things have now changed.

  • Rachel Reeves – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Rachel Reeves – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    The reality of yesterday’s Budget is clear: long-term growth downgraded, household incomes falling, public services on their knees. Families are facing the biggest hit to living standards since records began. The only surprise was a huge handout to the richest 1% of pension savers. Yet again, working people and businesses—the key to our economic success—have been put at the bottom of the pile.

    The questions people will be asking themselves after 13 years of Conservative Government are these. Am I and my family better off? Are our school, hospitals and transport systems working any better than 13 years ago? Frankly, is anything in Britain working better today than it did when the Conservatives came into office? The answer to those questions is a resounding no.

    Labour believes that the tax burden must be shared fairly. That is why I have announced today that Labour will reverse the changes to tax-free pension allowances. It is the wrong priority, at the wrong time, for the wrong people. Instead, we would create a targeted scheme to encourage doctors to work overtime and not to retire early. That could be done at a fraction of the cost, as the British Medical Association has said.

    The Government’s policy to give tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% is unravelling before our eyes. Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, says that even on the “optimistic” Office for Budget Responsibility costings, it will cost an eye-watering £100,000 per job retained. The Resolution Foundation said:

    “The beneficiaries from these reforms stand to gain large amounts, and they are heavily concentrated among the very rich”.

    It added that

    “this giveaway could lead to inheritance tax ‘abuse’”.

    Pensions expert John Ralfe has said that

    “this is not about supporting a hard-pressed NHS, it is really a tax giveaway…for the very highest earners.”

    Labour recognises the mess that the Government have got into with our NHS workforce planning, and we have called for changes to doctors’ pensions, but we will oppose this untargeted scheme for the wealthiest and we will put this measure to a vote in Parliament next week. I defy Conservative Members to vote in favour of a policy that they know will do absolutely nothing to lift the living standards of their constituents.

    Last autumn we saw the Chancellor of the day announce reckless tax cuts to help the richest, too. Why does this keep happening? The reason why the Tories get the wrong answers is that they have the wrong priorities for our country and the wrong analysis of the economy. Wealth does not just trickle down from the top; it comes from the efforts of millions of working people and thousands of businesses. That is Labour’s approach to growth.

    Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)

    The right hon. Lady denounces the abolition of the lifetime allowance, but it was actually something that never applied under Labour at all. If Labour is so concerned about its loss, why did it not introduce it in the first place?

    Rachel Reeves

    Gordon Brown introduced a lifetime allowance for pensions savings, as I am sure the right hon. Lady remembers. However, the point here is about priorities. For all our constituents, there is an average tax increase per household of £650, starting next month with the freezing of the tax thresholds and the increase in council tax. Yet yesterday, the only permanent tax cut provided in the Budget was for people who already have pensions savings of more than £1 million. I just do not believe that that is the priority for our constituents, and I think hon. Members right across the House, if they think about it, know that too.

    Mr Deputy Speaker—is that what I call you?

    Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)

    Yes.

    Rachel Reeves

    It is wonderful to see you in your place. We were told that this was a “Budget for growth”, but the documents published with this Budget confirm that the UK economy will shrink this year. The Chancellor expects us to cheer at the news that the economy will shrink a little bit less than he previously thought. Is that really what “good” looks like for the British economy?

    The Office for Budget Responsibility also confirmed that we will have the weakest growth in the G7 this year and next year, and it saw growth downgraded for each of the last three years of the forecast period. All the while, the UK is the only G7 economy that is still smaller than it was before the global pandemic.

    Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)

    This Budget will not do a great deal for my Slough constituents who are really struggling to make ends meet and pay their bills, apart from a big tax cut for the very richest in our society. My constituents will have the highest tax burden and the biggest drop in disposable income since the second world war inflicted on them. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Budget will not actually help to solve the cost of living crisis?

    Rachel Reeves

    I have spent time in my hon. Friend’s Slough constituency talking to working people and businesses. On the most recent couple of visits there, I do not remember anyone saying, “The big priority for families and businesses in Slough is a tax cut for the 1%.” Instead, they were saying, “Let’s have a targeted scheme for the NHS, as Labour has called for, instead of this blanket approach for the top 1%.”

    The Government have, to be fair, given us some growth: growth in stealth taxes, growth in mortgage costs and growth in NHS waiting lists. There is no plan for the future, just a Tory legacy of pain. It will take a Labour Government to spark and sustain growth, lift people’s living standards in every part of the country, meet the challenges of the future and achieve the change that our country desperately needs.

    When I meet people in industry, I hear frustration from employers who cannot get and retain the staff that they need. It is a feeling the Tories know all too well, with three Prime Ministers in one year, and the current Chancellor the fourth in that role since just last summer. Yet somehow, it is the same Tory Government. It is a bit like Trigger’s broom in “Only Fools and Horses”, with its 17 new heads and 14 new handles, only much less useful.

    After his five months as Chancellor, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) might feel that he should qualify for a Conservative party long-service award. In fact, of the past three Chancellors, he is the first to deliver a Budget, although the last Chancellor did last long enough to deliver a mini-Budget that crashed our economy—an extreme experiment in ultra-Tory ideology, using Britain’s economy and people’s livelihoods as their laboratory. It must never happen again.

    Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)

    Our country has some amazing assets and amazing opportunities to invest in the green industries of the future, but we see a lacklustre plan from the Tory Government to exploit them. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Government of gimmicks have all but given up on leading the way and creating jobs and opportunities as we decarbonise our economy and, in reality, want to import everything from abroad? Surely it is time that they nicked our plan.

    Rachel Reeves

    I know that in my hon. Friend’s constituency, there are huge opportunities for the jobs and industries of the future—for example, in carbon capture and storage and in green hydrogen.

    I will not be churlish: I must admit that there were some good ideas in the Budget yesterday—the ones that my colleagues and I have announced in the last few months, which we are happy to support. There was a fairer deal for people on prepayment meters who are paying a premium—we called for this last August. There was also preventing a fuel duty increase, a plan to help the over-50s back into work and better childcare provision for working parents. They were all called for by Labour and are now backed by the Tories. The truth is, however, that after 13 years of Tory Government, people will rightly ask, “Is that it? Is that really all they think it takes to reverse 13 years of low growth, falling living standards and crumbling public services?”

    Of course, we welcome the freeze in energy prices—after all, we proposed it—but politics is about priorities. Labour first called for a windfall tax to help people with their bills 14 months ago. We were clear that keeping energy prices down was our top priority, and that it was wrong for oil and gas giants to profit from the windfalls of war at everyone else’s expense. Yet again, however, the Chancellor chose yesterday to leave billions of pounds of windfall profits on the table, which could be supporting families and businesses during this cost of living crisis. It is a question of who pays, and the Government are turning to the public and saying, “You.”

    There seems to be a disconnect between what I heard from the Chancellor yesterday and the experiences of my constituents and many people across the country. The Tories claim that their plan is working, but the Resolution Foundation says that the typical household will be £1,100 worse off as a result of the Government’s policies over the period of just this Parliament. Is that really what success looks like to them?

    The reality is that people are still weighed down by a prolonged cost of living crisis that is taking its toll. Debt advice organisations have faced a tidal wave of demand from people, but incredibly, the jobs of thousands of debt advisers are at risk. Let me be clear: more people are struggling not because they have forgotten how to budget, but because Tory Budgets are simply not working for them.

    One of the biggest costs people face is their monthly mortgage or rent. The Chancellor said yesterday that the impact of the mini-Budget had disappeared—seriously? He should tell that to the family facing a £2,000 hike in their mortgage payment, as confirmed by the Office for Budget Responsibility yesterday. That means less money to spend on the local high street, meals out with the family or an annual holiday. That is the lasting damage that the Conservatives have done to the living standards of working people. The last thing that the country needed in the middle of a cost of living crisis was a Tory mortgage penalty.

    Despite all the damage that the Tories have done, I am optimistic about the future for our country. I have had the privilege of seeing great innovation across Britain, from the development of battery operated trains at Hitachi in County Durham to hydrogen-powered engines at JCB in Staffordshire and pioneering research at Rolls-Royce into carbon neutral aviation. I know the potential that we have as a country. That is what Labour’s green prosperity plan is all about. It is a plan to decarbonise our economy, drive down bills and let British businesses and workers compete in the global race for the jobs and industries of the future.

    Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)

    The right hon. Lady rightly points to the great innovation, research and development that is happening in British companies. Does she not agree that the measures that the Chancellor announced to help to discount research and development will be a major boost to such industries?

    Rachel Reeves

    The problem is that last autumn, the Chancellor announced a scrapping of the R&D schemes, but then brought back something this week that we are supposed to cheer about. The plan that Labour has set out will rely on Government and business working and investing together.

    As President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act galvanises green energy in the United States and Governments from Europe to Asia and Australia respond, it is not enough here in Britain to cling to old ideas and old methods while other countries steal ahead in the global race. Our growth plans will be alongside a modern industrial strategy, reform of business rates, changes to the apprenticeship levy and measures to fix the broken Brexit deal in order to increase the order books for British industry. There is so much more that the Government could be doing to boost growth, create good jobs and get Britain’s economy firing on all cylinders, but I heard so little of that in the Chancellor’s Budget yesterday.

    The verdict is in. The Federation of Small Businesses says that the Budget leaves “many feeling short-changed” and that

    “the Government’s lack of support for small firms in critical areas is glaring.”

    It says that

    “trickledown economics here simply does not work.”

    The British Chambers of Commerce highlights that, yet again, the Government

    “failed to reform business rates”,

    and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders says:

    “There is little that enables the UK to compete with massive packages of support to power a green transition that are available elsewhere.”

    The Institute for Fiscal Studies describes capital expensing as “temporary tweaks”, concluding that:

    “There’s no stability, no certainty, and no sense of a wider plan.”

    As for working people, the TUC points out that:

    “Real wages will not return to 2008 levels until 2026”

    and that

    “workers across the economy will have looked at this Budget and thought ‘was that it?’”.

    This is a Government who are struggling to paper over the cracks after their 13 years of neglect and shoddy workmanship. The roof is leaking, the windows are rotten and the foundations are suffering from subsidence. The Tories are totally incapable of building the country and economy that we need.

    Alex Cunningham

    I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way a second time, even though she would rather not. I wonder whether she has seen the comments from the Federation of Small Businesses, which said that, on investment in the labour market, the measures that small businesses were looking for are missing, and that the measures are well wide of the mark and irrelevant to the 5.5 million-strong small businesses in our communities.

    Rachel Reeves

    Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and the words from the Federation of Small Businesses should have a chilling effect on those on the Government Front Bench.

    Beyond the economy, growth rates and living standards, if we want any further evidence of the Government’s failure, just look at our public services. Public services play a crucial role in achieving a strong economy and a good society. They adapted during the pandemic and were critical to our response in the fight against covid, with people taking personal risks to keep others safe and supported. Thirteen years of Conservative Government has weakened our public services and devalued the people working in them. Labour would make choices in the national interest.

    Yet again, the Budget failed to abolish non-dom tax status. As we know, non-doms have no bigger champion than in Downing Street, but Labour believes that those who make Britain their home should pay their taxes here. The non-dom rules are costing us £3 billion every year. Ending that tax exemption could fund the biggest expansion of the NHS workforce in a generation.

    It is not just our NHS that has suffered. We have lost all kinds of community assets over the last 13 years, from libraries to Sure Start centres and youth clubs. Let us take one example: since 2010, 382 swimming pools have closed in England under the Tories. Yesterday, the Chancellor announced a £63 million package to keep the remaining ones open, but, at the same time, the Prime Minister has upgraded the local electricity network to heat his own swimming pool. I wonder whether he will be inviting the local kids who have lost their swimming pools to come and use his facilities.

    This Government have no plan to clean up the mess they have made over 13 years. Each and every time they promise to solve a problem, they fail and the country pays the price. We need a Budget for growth, yet growth has been downgraded. We needed to raise living standards, yet household incomes are falling at their fastest rate since records began. We needed a proper windfall tax on the energy giants, but instead they continue to enjoy the windfalls of war. We needed a Budget for home ownership, yet mortgage costs have risen because of the Tories’ kamikaze mini-Budget last year. We needed a Budget with a plan to invest in our NHS workforce, but the Prime Minister and Chancellor chose to defend the non-doms instead.

    The Tories have had their chance and they have blown it; they are out of ideas and they are out of time. We need a general election and a Labour Government to give our country its future back.

  • Tim Farron – 2023 Comments on the Spring Budget Speech

    Tim Farron – 2023 Comments on the Spring Budget Speech

    The comments made by Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, on Facebook on 15 March 2023.

    It absolutely beggars belief that the Conservatives’ budget had next to nothing in it to address the NHS crisis in Cumbria and across the country.

    People are waiting for hours in A&E, weeks to see a GP, months for cancer treatment, and an eternity for mental health care.

    And what did the Chancellor announce to tackle this disastrous situation? Barely a word, barely a penny.

    Meanwhile the Conservatives have once again shown they don’t care about our rural communities. There was nothing to support us on the big issues we face whether it’s the crisis in farming or on the scandal of sewage being dumped in our lakes and rivers.

    Cumbrians are being taken for granted by this Conservative Government.