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Category: Economy

  • Mike Kane – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Mike Kane – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Mike Kane, the Labour MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg). I look forward to catching up once again at our annual meet-up at the carnival in July, and I wish him all the best with his therapy.

    The Secretary of State mentioned the great British invention of tarmac. John Loudon McAdam was a Scottish engineer in the 17th and 18th centuries who added coal tar to stone surfaces. That became tarmac, or “tarmacadam”—that is where the name comes from. I thought it was an odd reference for the Secretary of State to make, though, as we cannot get enough money for our crumbling roads and the potholes that we all face.

    Every day, I hear residents and businesses in Wythenshawe and Sale East talk about the harsh realities of the cost of living at the moment: old-age pensioners are afraid to put on their heating; more and more working families are using food banks; nurses, teachers and firefighters are struggling with household bills as costs go up and their pay stays the same; people are unable to meet private rents or manage rising mortgage rates; and local businesses are closing down because of overheads.

    Last Wednesday, the Chancellor had a chance to show that he is on the side of Britain’s people and businesses with a Budget that offered real support and serious solutions, but that is not the Budget we got. Instead, what the Chancellor offered was a Budget that did worse than deny people’s realities: it insulted them, with a £1 billion pension cut for the richest 1%; a stealth tax freezing income tax levels, meaning workers will see their pay squeezed further; and an overarching message that the Government’s plan was working and the economy was not that bad, at the same time as the OECD announced that the UK will be the only—the only—G7 economy to shrink this year.

    Where the Chancellor came closest to offering real support, he did so by stealing ideas from others, yet bungled the detail. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) mentioned the expansion of free childcare. Sadly, we will not see that crucial support to help parents get back into work introduced in full until September 2025. As it stands, the subsidy from childcare providers is so high that it threatens to put them out of business.

    I welcome the extension of the help with energy bills. The Government again capitulated to what Labour and campaign groups have been calling for, for months. But with an extension of just three months and more limited support, what we are seeing is more sticking-plaster politics. Where is the investment in green energy, which is the only way we will achieve true energy security? Then there was more of the same, with recycled ideas and empty promises from the many Tory Chancellors and Prime Ministers of the past. To level up, the Chancellor announced plans for the Truss-Kwarteng “investment zones”. Forget HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail or solid regeneration projects for Wythenshawe town centre and Sale town centre, all of which have been delayed or denied by the Government. Instead, they think these low-tax, reduced regulation, potential Canary Wharfs will generate jobs and skills in left-behind communities. These are far from the serious solutions that Britain needs. What the Chancellor put forward is a Budget that denies reality, delivers little and borrows heavily; a Budget from a Government who are out of touch, out of ideas and quickly running out of time.

    Under this Government, people are getting poorer. People are being supported into work, but getting paid less and taxed more, while public services struggle to cope—all the hallmarks of an economy in managed decline. Our people and businesses deserve more. We need a Budget that delivers for people, communities and businesses like those in Wythenshawe and Sale East: 1,600 homes for Wythenshawe town centre, if we had got our levelling up bid; 250 homes for Sale town centre; investment to regenerate Wythenshawe hospital, but with the hospital building programme stuck in the muck we could build 1,000 homes on that site with the right release of investment; an HS2 station near my constituency and an extended Metrolink loop line; a station on the mid-Cheshire line; scrapping business rates; and a proper plan to address skills gaps that are holding back our small and large businesses.

    What we need is a Budget that acknowledges reality and the scale of the challenge head-on, but meets them with the hope, ambition and determination needed to get Britain back on the path to growth. But for that style of Budget, it seems we will have to wait longer still.

  • William Wragg – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    William Wragg – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by William Wragg, the Conservative MP for Hazel Grove, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    On the earlier theme, it is important that I declare that I do not have a science degree, but it would impress the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), to know that my degree, being as it is, does indeed come from the University of Manchester.

    I put in to speak in the debate less on the allocated subject matter and more in the forlorn belief that the best time to speak in a Budget debate is after a set of Sunday newspapers, because they often allow the detail to percolate through. To the credit of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, very little seems to have come up in them to trip him up.

    We have had all sorts of talk this afternoon of macroeconomic forces, my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) spoke of banking crises across the world, and we have heard a great deal about artificial intelligence—presuming that is what “AI” stands for—but, in the age-old Back-Bench tradition, I want to talk about very parochial matters.

    I know that the House will have noted with great enthusiasm and interest, on page 72 of the magnificent Budget document, the announcement of a new community hub in Stockport—the Marple leisure hub. There was some bashfulness at the talk of swimming pools during the speech by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am not fussed about swimming pools in Richmond, Yorkshire, or indeed about general donations from the Treasury to keep the pool temperature in different leisure centres toasty warm; what I am concerned about is the success—finally—in securing the Marple leisure hub.

    The hub will be a magnificent boost for Marple and surrounding districts in my constituency. It will deliver a gym, a fitness studio, a new library, a community space and a five-lane swimming pool. When I saw the artist’s plan at an earlier stage, I noted that there were only four lanes, but we have achieved five—a massive 25% productivity increase, delivered overnight by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am absolutely enthused. The artist’s impression even has an inflatable flamingo. What could go wrong?

    In all seriousness, I am very pleased that that levelling-up bid was successful for my constituency. I should pay credit—those on the Opposition Benches may enjoy this—to the then Labour minority-led Stockport Council, which agreed with me that that was the right bid for the Hazel Grove constituency. It will not surprise the House—I cannot spot any Liberal Democrats in the Chamber—that a few more have claimed credit for it who had, it is fair to say, very little to do with it. I will tone down my language for the sake of Hansard, but success has many parents and failure has fewer—let us put it that way.

    I have been quite cheerful so far—those on the Treasury Bench must think, “What on earth has happened?”—but in the time remaining to me I will speak briefly about something else that lurks in the Budget document: Greater Manchester devolution. I am a contrarian. I can see many colleagues from Greater Manchester on the Opposition Benches. They must rejoice when the Mayor is given further powers and the ability to exercise them—

    Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)

    Hallelujah!

    Mr Wragg

    Indeed, indeed. Whether he exercises them wisely is a matter for debate—I think even some Opposition Members would concede that point.

    All I ask is that the Government pay attention to those of us who have the great honour to represent parts of Greater Manchester. Having been to a so-called briefing meeting with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up and whatever else it is called these days, I was somewhat perturbed and worried that I was, in the words of his WhatsApp message to the former Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), simply in a therapy session, whereby our concerns would be heard but no action would be forthcoming.

    In the spirit of cheerfulness, I simply say to the Government that if I and my colleagues from Greater Manchester are simply to be subjected to therapy sessions, then I shall make sure that I turn up at Delegated Legislation Committees in the same cheerful vein to argue against aspects of this so-called deal. I urge the Government to pay attention to Greater Manchester Conservative MPs—indeed, to any Member of Parliament from Greater Manchester—when they bring forward this tranche of powers that have no legitimacy and very little demand.

  • Mary Glindon – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Mary Glindon – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Mary Glindon, the Labour MP for North Tyneside, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    I am sorry that I cannot be as enthusiastic about the Budget as the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith), but it is good to see somebody so upbeat about something.

    Personally, I am very disappointed with the Budget. I had expected more from a Chancellor who had been a Secretary of State for Health, and subsequently Chair of its scrutiny Committee, with responsibility for one of our biggest and most treasured public institutions—the NHS. There was nothing in this Budget to address the staff crisis in the health service, and no mention of the long-awaited workforce plan. While the controversial decision to remove the lifetime pension allowance may or may not encourage senior doctors to put off retirement, there was no confirmation of a pay award for the health workers, or the thousands of other skilled and hard-working public sector workers across the board, who have had no option but to take strike action after 13 years of pay cuts and a fall in real wages. The OBR confirms they will fall again this year. Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, in commenting on the Budget, was right to say:

    “The Chancellor spoke about a high-wage and high-skills economy but did nothing to deliver it. The UK is still in the longest pay squeeze for more than 200 years. And our public services are still run-down and understaffed.”

    Childcare is important to the Budget and the economy, not just in North Tyneside but across the country. It is a massive issue for parents in North Tyneside and for nursery providers, and we know it will be a priority for an incoming Labour Government. The Chancellor’s increase in funding for childcare is welcome, but the two-year phasing in programme does nothing to solve the immediate need. Where does that leave families struggling to find and fund adequate childcare now? How does it help the childcare providers struggling to pay ever-increasing overheads and meet salaries for existing staff, when the increase in Government funding for free childcare places still falls far short of the hourly rate of pay for those staff? That is not to mention the problems attracting new recruits to the profession; the salary hardly seems appropriate for years of training and the prospect of working long hours when people can earn more money working in unskilled jobs.

    Save the Children says that we also need a strategy for investing in skills development for childcare workers. High-quality childcare must be about enabling every child to have the best start in life. That does not seem to be a priority for the Government. Reducing the ratio of adults to children, for example, just sends out the wrong signal.

    Our seven local authorities, including North Tyneside, have welcomed the north-east devolution deal, which will bring £4.2 billion of investment into our region over 30 years and see additional powers transferred from Whitehall to local people. However, the Chancellor did not mention the all-important trailblazer status that was agreed with the Secretary of State at the signing of the north-east authority agreement.

    North Tyneside itself was short-changed in the Chancellor’s Budget. The council will get £500,000 in pothole funding, but that is only £1 of every £8 the Government have cut from the pothole budget since 2021. North Tyneside will not receive any of the regeneration funding that has been announced and will still have to bid as a lower-priority area in the next round of the levelling-up fund. While I congratulate South Tyneside Council on its new levelling-up partnership funding, I am concerned—and, I confess, a little jealous—that there is no such funding for North Tyneside.

    I continue to be worried about the future of small businesses in North Tyneside. The Federation of Small Businesses says that the Chancellor missed the chance to bring in measures that could have jump-started a new era of growth and productivity. For years, small business have been the backbone of the economy. The Chancellor would do well to listen to the FSB.

    With the cost of living crisis still bearing down on households in North Tyneside and across the UK, the Chancellor provided little comfort other than extending the energy price guarantee for a further three months and a few more crumbs from the table. For my constituents and people across the country, times have always been hard under the Tories, and that will continue while they remain in power. It is time for Labour to take the reins.

  • Brendan Clarke-Smith – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Brendan Clarke-Smith – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Brendan Clarke-Smith, the Conservative MP for Bassetlaw, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    I expected to spend longer talking about corporation tax following this Budget, but I will not talk much about that today. When we look at the rates elsewhere, we would all like to see it lower as a long-term ambition, but there is a lot of really good stuff in this Budget to offset that. In particular, there are the tax reliefs for R&D we have heard about. I would say that small and medium-sized enterprises getting £27 from HMRC for every £100 of R&D investment is a really excellent policy.

    Locally, we very much feel that we have a great chance to become the superpower we have heard about recently, because Bassetlaw will be the home of the STEP—spherical tokamak for energy production—fusion project. It is something we are incredibly proud of, and for our future energy generation, it is something we can take out to the world. We will have the world’s first commercial STEP fusion energy plant, which will be built at the home of one of the last coal-fired power stations, so this is very much about changing from old technology to new. It is about the billions this will generate, as well as the growth, the jobs and the apprentices we are going to get as we go from fossil to fusion.

    Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)

    And it is 5 miles from the town of Gainsborough.

    Brendan Clarke-Smith

    Yes, of course, and Gainsborough is a very important town to us locally. It fits within our local economy, and I am sure this project will benefit my right hon. Friend’s town as well. I know he is very passionate about this subject, and at the moment he is campaigning for further involvement in and recognition of this project for his constituency.

    We know we are going to get an investment zone in the east midlands, and I think this would be an excellent site for one. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), who is in his place, has been campaigning every single day for at least the last six months an investment zone at Doncaster Sheffield airport, which would be another really great site. Neighbouring zones will of course all work together for growth in our regions. We do not just draw a line around our region; we work together and interact, and Yorkshire is incredibly important to us.

    Just last week, for Open Doors week, I visited Europe’s largest concrete facility, Laing O’Rourke in Worksop, which is a centre of excellence for modern construction. It makes pre-cast components, and it is actually manufacturing a lot of the parts for Everton football club’s new stadium. I was going to make a few jokes about it being probably the best ground in the championship next season, but there is a lot of competition in the premier league right now, and I think I will stick to Notts County jokes before I upset anybody. There is also a £28 million privately funded carbon capture and power generation plant in Rhodesia in my constituency. Such companies want to invest in this country because of this Conservative Government, who are pro-growth and pro-business.

    To top it off, the icing on the cake for Bassetlaw was to find out about the levelling-up partnership that we are going to be part of. This is worth £400 million for 20 different places in this country, and we are very proud to be one of them. We have had £20 million announced for Worksop town centre, which is going to be transformative as we move more from retail to leisure, get people going back into our town centre and get a bit of pride back into our town centre. This partnership also helps other towns that have missed out or have perhaps been neglected by a Labour council, such as Retford. There is lots to be done there, too, and we have great links on the east coast main line. It is a wonderful town with a lot of great facilities and great people, and the drive is there to go forward and grow.

    How does this Budget affect the average, everyday person? We talk about these figures—millions and billions—all the time, but for me the Budget comes down to individuals and families, and what we are going to do for them. With our blue-collar offering, there is quite a lot we can be very pleased with. As a former children’s Minister, I think the childcare proposals for those from nine months on that have been outlined can be absolutely transformative and really help parents. I have had parents say to me that they would like it to happen straight away, but I think we all realise that there are capacity issues, and the sector is of course going to need some time to adapt. I know there are arguments both ways on ratios—some people like them, some do not—but it is as much about flexibility for nurseries as it is about money. To give an example, one time when I took my young child along to the nursery, I and many other parents had to wait because a member of staff was stuck in traffic. I think the nursery was one child over the ratio level, and we had to wait until the member of staff got there. We are giving nurseries flexibility in that kind of situation, and of course it is optional, which is great.

    The freeze on fuel duty is really great for working people. What is not so great are ultra low emission zones. Many people are having to drive through them and pay exorbitant amounts of money just to drop their children off at school. It is very much a tax on the white van man—if someone wants to go into Sheffield, they are going to be charged. People think this is just about London, but it is not. It penalises working people. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) is mentioning Manchester, and I know people are very concerned about it there. This is something we need to stop: we should not be taxing people to go to work.

    Finally, people will be really pleased with the action on energy prepayment meters. We have given a huge amount of support for people’s energy bills, but we all know that those on meters are sometimes the most vulnerable in our society, and those who struggle the most are paying a penalty. It is absolutely right that we have done something to change that. With all Budgets, a lot of people like to use the word “but”; I prefer to use the word “and” for the things we would like to see in the future. I think this is a good Budget, and there is lots of good stuff in it. It is a great Budget for Bassetlaw, and I commend it.

  • Stewart McDonald – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Stewart McDonald – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Stewart McDonald, the SNP MP for Glasgow South, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a sign that God is shining on the House to see you back in the Chair—healthy and feisty as ever, I am sure. You will recall that, when I joined the House in May 2015, Conservative Members would regularly cheer the Chancellor and various Front-Bench Ministers when they uttered the words “long-term economic plan”. That was the No. 1 talking point of the Cameron Government, but of course, as we have seen since that Government left office, the Conservative party had no such thing. Indeed, it is somewhat telling that, in last week’s Budget, the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box, content to let the applause wash over him because

    “the UK will not now enter a technical recession this year.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 833.]

    Such is the mess that the Conservative party has created that it is managing to celebrate a slightly lower level of decline for the economy.

    The Chancellor’s myopia is what worries me most, because he stood at the Dispatch Box like a sailor patching a leaky tap, not quite matching the moment in the way that one would expect from Britain’s Finance Minister. By stark contrast, the United States steams ahead with almost $400 billion of green subsidies to rewire its economy for the 21st century in the shape of the Inflation Reduction Act. The short-sightedness of this year’s Budget has instead condemned the United Kingdom to another year of falling living standards and slow economic decay. Closer to home, the European Union also announced bold and strategic plans in the shape of the Net Zero Industry Act, which will similarly mobilise billions and billions of euros to reshape the economy of the world’s largest single market so that it can produce at least 40% of the technology it needs in order to achieve its own climate and energy targets. While two of the world’s major economic powers set out plans to meet the moment, this Government instead celebrate—I quote again—that

    “the UK will not now enter a technical recession this year.”

    Rather than championing a bold economic plan to improve living and working conditions, the Chancellor—clearly unable to meet the moment—settled for tax breaks for research and development, urging us to cheer on his efforts to turn the UK into a life science superpower. While that aim is entirely laudable, and one that every single Member of the House could undoubtedly sign up to, the Chancellor needs to engage with the reality here in this country. As I mentioned earlier, the gulf between ambition and reality was summed up by the Manchester-based Nobel prize winner Andre Geim when he said that the reason that researchers are not staying in the UK or being attracted to the UK is the low living standards here. They can come here and suffer higher costs and lower salaries, or go elsewhere for better opportunities.

    That neatly sums up the running theme of this Conservative Government, who seem oblivious to the fact that firms and institutions are made up of human beings—human beings who need modern public services, a healthy public realm, and a Government who can offer them the prospect of a bright future. What the reality looks like has been mentioned in this debate: to quote Torsten Bell from the Resolution Foundation,

    “the worst parliament on record for living standards. By a country mile.”

    The numbers were laid bare in today’s Financial Times. The Office for Budget Responsibility is predicting that UK households’ real income per person will still be below pre-pandemic levels in 2027-28, meaning hardly any improvement in living standards for the better part of 20 years. Jumana Saleheen, the chief economist at Vanguard Europe, has said that, on three key measures of living standards—household income, gross domestic product per capita, and real wages—

    “we’ve seen stagnation over the last 15 years.”

    According to the Office for National Statistics, average UK real household income is broadly unchanged since 2007. Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has said:

    “We are in the middle of a decade in which incomes are barely rising at all, with very feeble growth for two…decades.”

    UK wages adjusted for inflation increased by 23% in the eight years to 2008, but fell by 5% in the following eight years, again according to the ONS.

    Having the ambition to be a life science superpower is one thing. It is perfectly laudable, and all of us can agree and sign up to it. However, so long as we have living standards in this country that are grossly behind our western European counterparts—we have higher costs, higher prices, lower wages and a public realm that physically just does not work, if we are completely honest—the Government can completely forget being a superpower in anything other than a brain drain. If anything that Ministers have said from the Dispatch Box is to mean anything, they need to fix the living standards problem every household is dealing with.

  • Andrew Bridgen – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Andrew Bridgen – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Andrew Bridgen, the Independent MP for North West Leicestershire, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    I remind the Chamber of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. For 22 years before coming to this place, I was the managing director and chairman of a food processing company. I am also a qualified transport manager, and I remain the equal largest shareholder in that company.

    First, I want to highlight an aspect of the Budget that is of particular interest to my constituency of North West Leicestershire, which is fuel duty. The level of fuel duty is of immense importance to my constituents, given two facts: the first is that public transport is extremely limited—in fact, my constituency does not have access to any main line railway station, or any railway station at all. The second is that, since North West Leicestershire is the centre of the population of the UK, with good communication links with the M42 and the M1, a third of all jobs in North West Leicestershire are in distribution or are logistics-related. As such, the freeze on fuel duty that was first put in place in 2011 has been extremely significant to the huge economic growth we have seen in North West Leicestershire.

    To think tanks such as the Social Market Foundation that complain that the Treasury has forgone money to benefit the rich, I say, “Why do you think we should penalise my constituents who have to use a car to get to work?” The fuel duty freeze is the right thing to do to maintain economic growth, and my constituents will certainly support it—and not just my constituents. We already have 1.2 jobs for everyone of working age in North West Leicestershire, so a lot of people have to travel in from surrounding constituencies to work in my constituency. I am sure those people will be very grateful for the tax freeze as well.

    With regard to the lack of a railway station, I cannot help but give a push for the reopening of the Ivanhoe line, which Network Rail said would be the most beneficial reopening of a railway line that it currently has on the books. That line would link the great town of Burton upon Trent with Leicester, and would pass through North West Leicestershire and South Derbyshire, benefiting all of our constituents. It has cross-party support, including from the Members from Leicester.

    Turning to energy and science, I would like to mention an energy source that I have been promoting for some time, which is small modular nuclear reactors. Only in November last year, I said to the Secretary of State that renewables cannot be relied on to provide all our energy needs, due to their intermittent nature. It is clear that we need to add more reliable baseload capacity, and nuclear is the favourite for that. Hundreds of my constituents work at Rolls-Royce, and many of them work on the development of small modular reactors. Therefore, I very much welcome the announcement in the Budget of a competition through Great British Nuclear to build small modular reactors in the UK, and the inclusion of nuclear energy in the green zero carbon taxonomy. I am sure that my skilled worker constituents at Rolls-Royce in Derby will step up to the mark, and that we will see reliable baseload energy produced from that source sooner, rather than later.

    Next, I turn to investment zones, and I note that the Treasury has identified the proposed east midlands mayoral combined county authority to deliver that policy. I feel that I have to point out that the ongoing issue we have in Leicestershire, and indeed in Leicester, is the veto being exercised by the current Mayor of Leicester, which is preventing Leicester and Leicestershire from joining that authority and creating that critical mass in the east midlands. That has particular relevance to the topic of the debate, as Leicester is home to the National Space Centre and has many space and science-related companies around it. Indeed, my own constituency of North West Leicestershire is home to a space company in the form of Zeeko, which makes ultra-precision polishing solutions for the optics for satellite cameras. Quite honestly, it would be an outrage if our county and the city of Leicester were to miss out on an opportunity to be involved in this situation because of the intransigence of the city Mayor. I wish all those in the city seeking to abolish the mayoralty very well in the May elections.

    Energy security and scientific innovation are key to the future of the UK’s economy and stimulating economic growth. There are many measures in this Budget that will help us to maintain and improve our place in the world when it comes to science, and this Government have demonstrated their commitment to that goal. In the area of energy and security, this Government are being realistic, and it is clear that nuclear has a significant part to play in achieving that goal in the future. Picking up on some points that have been made by the Opposition, I would add that the relationship between business and our excellent research establishments—our universities—has certainly improved, but more progress needs to be made. If we could harness all the innovations in research that we have at our great universities, we would be really accelerating our economic growth. We must work towards that endlessly.

  • Chi Onwurah – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Chi Onwurah – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Chi Onwurah, the Labour MP for Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    This was a business-as-usual Budget, but after 13 years of economic failure, what my constituents desperately need is change. In the north-east of England, wages in real terms are on average 3% lower today than when Labour left office in 2010. I would like the House to think about that for a moment. Over 13 years of Conservative Government, my constituents have got poorer. Politicians are often asked if we know the price of a loaf of bread, so let me take that as an example. In May 2010, it was £1.16. In January this year, it was £1.39, a rise of 20%. How about a pint of milk? In May 2010, it cost 44p. In January this year, it was 69p, a rise of 57%. Prices have gone up, and wages have not kept pace.

    Last Friday, I visited Atkinson Road Primary Academy in my constituency and heard from the absolutely wonderful students there. Over their entire lives, they have seen their parents, their aunts, their uncles, their brothers and their sisters all getting poorer. There are Conservative Members of Parliament representing seats in the north-east, and I ask them this: did they set out to make people poorer, or did it just happen through incompetence and arrogance?

    It did not have to be this way. If the Conservatives had mirrored Labour’s rate of growth, workers in the north-east would be £11,000 a year richer. What a difference that would make. We would not have half the children of Newcastle growing up in poverty and we would not have 100,000 people in the north-east forced to use food banks. Tory MPs and Government Ministers are offering the public budgeting advice when they have constructed an economy where the majority of people do not benefit from the wealth that innovation creates.

    In addition to lower wages, £300 million-worth of cuts to Newcastle City Council mean our city has poorer public services. On Newcastle’s streets, lone women are left stranded at 11 pm because we have lost 15% of our region’s bus services in a single year. Of those buses we have left, just a fifth turn up on time. Businesses cannot open, because their workforce are delayed on different bus services. Across the board, and across our country, people are paying more for shoddy services. Regulated train fares have seen the highest increase since 2013 and, with the scrapping of HS2’s eastern leg, northern communities are paying the price for broken Tory promises. More than 7 million people are waiting for NHS treatment, often in pain and discomfort. Do not even think about trying to get an NHS dental appointment. In December, the north-east saw the longest wait times for accident and emergency, at four hours. The longer the Conservatives are in power, the longer people wait.

    In a statement last week, the Chancellor tried to claim that inflation was the root cause of strikes. Perhaps he forgot that it was his party, and this Government, who crashed the economy and left working people to pay for their mess. This Budget was a chance for the Government to unlock Britain’s promise and potential—a chance to reverse 13 years of low growth, low productivity and low wages, and a chance to spread and deliver opportunities to people in Newcastle Central. What did we get? Just a handout for the richest 1% and their pension pots.

    The Chancellor likes to talk about making the UK a science superpower, yet he failed to mention Horizon Europe in the Budget. At €90 billion, it is the world’s largest science funding programme, but his Government have left our scientists out of it. At the same time, research and development tax credit policy is changing almost as fast as Chancellors, but with even less preparation. The Chancellor gave back only a fraction of the £4.5 billion he took from innovative small and medium enterprises in the autumn statement. The Federation of Small Businesses has, in its own words, been “left feeling mystified” by the changes.

    The great businesses of Newcastle Central deserve a Government they can partner with to deliver jobs, growth and innovation. Fantastic life sciences start-ups and scale-ups, such as AMLo Biosciences, LightOx and NunaBio, and long-established innovative manufacturers, such as Spincraft, all deserve better. Labour will secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 through our long-term industrial strategy. A Labour Government will unleash the potential of the north-east. This Government just starve it.

  • Kate Kniveton – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Kate Kniveton – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Kate Kniveton, the Conservative MP for Burton, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    I rise in support of the Chancellor’s spring Budget and today’s debate, focused on technology and science. On this topic, I am delighted to represent a constituency that offers huge potential to help us harness British ingenuity and make us a science and technology superpower. This Budget takes important steps towards achieving that goal, and my constituency of Burton and Uttoxeter in the heart of the north midlands manufacturing corridor is key to unlocking the vital growth that this country needs. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

    In Staffordshire, we have world-class businesses along the corridor driving the hydrogen technology revolution, including JCB in my constituency. We also have Toyota, Alstom and Rolls-Royce nearby. These technologies will play a vital role in contributing to our net-zero goals and advancing our manufacturing industries. The recent announcement that JCB has become the first construction equipment company to develop a fully working hydrogen internal combustion engine is a fantastic development that has the potential to transform the way we power heavy machinery, but these companies, and others along the corridor, want to do more. There is so much potential ready to be unlocked, but the infrastructure to support these industries is not matching the pace of their technological breakthroughs.

    The Chancellor and Government colleagues have heard me banging on about my role as project champion for the north midlands manufacturing corridor and the importance of upgrading the A50/A500, and I make no apology for that. Delays along the A50/A500 corridor are costing the economy £8 million each year. Without improvements, increasing congestion could threaten growth and hold back investment. The Government, as they strive for growth in these sectors, need to upgrade this vital corridor as a priority. These improvements could create more than 12,000 jobs, generate £12 million for the economy and further solidify the UK as a global leader in the development of hydrogen technology.

    I urge the Chancellor to look at the work of Staffordshire County Council, Midlands Connect and the Midlands Engine in supporting the creation of a hydrogen technologies valley investment zone in Staffordshire around this vital corridor. Major investment will enable the area to be a centre for innovation, design, manufacturing and the export of hydrogen products. This investment in Staffordshire—in Burton, Uttoxeter and surrounding areas—will mean economic growth, job creation and improved transport links, allowing these businesses to keep showing why they are world-class and helping establish us as a science and technology superpower. I fully support the Chancellor’s Budget. It is only by embracing innovation and investing in our future that we can build a stronger, more prosperous Britain for generations to come.

  • Wayne David – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Wayne David – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Wayne David, the Labour MP for Caerphilly, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    I think it is fair to say that there are few surprises in the Budget. Many of the announcements were expected, and quite a few of them were borrowed from the Labour party, but a significant rabbit was pulled out of the hat—and it was a really big one. It was announced that there will be a £1 billion tax cut for the richest 1% through changes to tax allowances. Someone with a £2 million pension pot will now get a tax cut of more than a quarter of a million pounds when they take their tax-free lump sum. Moreover, there will be no limit on how much the rich can put into their pension pots tax-free. That is not all: they will be able to pass that on to their heirs tax-free through the creation of a local inheritance law.

    I am told that a competition is now under way in my Caerphilly constituency to find out whether anyone at all will benefit from those tax allowance changes. The odds are that not one single individual there will. The justification for that generous tax cut is that it will encourage people into work. Frankly, it is unlikely that that will happen judging by the reaction from a large number of commentators. As has already been said in the debate, if the measure is aimed specifically at doctors, why not have a proposal that is tailor-made for them?

    If the Government really want to get people into work, I urge them to tackle economic inactivity effectively. Figures in the 2021 census indicated that of the 10 local authority areas in Wales and England with the highest levels of economic inactivity, five were in the south Wales valleys—because individuals are sick or disabled. Blaenau Gwent has the highest proportion—36.1%—of working-age residents who are economically inactive. Then, there is Merthyr Tydfil and the Caerphilly County Borough Council area, where the figure stands at 34%. The legacy of coalmining and heavy industry generally has much to answer for, but it is fair to say that in those areas there is a chronic lack of well-paid jobs and chronic ill health. The responsibility for that situation lies squarely with central Government.

    Unfortunately, the measures in the Budget will do little, if anything at all, to tackle those issues. What they will do is make the rich richer and reinforce the trends that we have seen over the last 13 years. It is worth pointing out, though, that, if anything, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing. There were 147 billionaires in this country in 2020, for example; now, there are 177. At the same time, as the OBR has confirmed, there has been a huge fall in living standards over the last two years—the worst figures since comparable records began.

    The crisis in living standards has had a hugely negative impact on my constituents. Like so many people across the country, my constituents are facing huge levels of inflation, as well as significant increases in their energy bills. The real hardship is manifested in a host of different ways, but I will cite just one for the moment: food banks.

    Citizens Advice has recorded that between April and September 2020, 23,905 emergency food parcels were distributed in south-east Wales alone, which includes my Caerphilly constituency, and that 34% of those who accessed Citizens Advice and requested a food bank parcel were in work but facing real financial difficulties. This is in-work poverty. Unfortunately, the Government are doing little about it.

    My local authority, Caerphilly County Borough Council, through its “Newsline”, is giving clear advice to people on how to claim the benefits they are entitled to and how to relieve the suffering they are going through. For many people, this Budget offers little at all, if anything. My conclusion is unavoidable and straightforward: we need a Labour Government who put people first, and we need that Government as soon as humanly possible.

  • David Davis – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    David Davis – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by David Davis, the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

    Like two of the previous speakers, I am also a science graduate, although I do not compare myself with the Conservative party’s most famous science graduate. I had intended to make my speech essentially about science and technology, because they are massively important and, as the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) pointed out, we have fantastic competitive advantages in those fields. That will be a major part of growth.

    Since last Tuesday, however, dramatic events have unfolded in the banking sector—particularly over the weekend. Back in 2009-10, the then Chair of the Treasury Committee, Lord McFall, asked me to chair the Future of Banking Commission. The last week has, unfortunately, brought back some memories. One of the characteristic problems of the banking sector is its short memory, particularly when it is Wall Street that we are talking about. I hope that the House will indulge me if I remind it of the lessons of the major banking crashes of the past half century.

    Back in 1933, after the great depression, the Americans passed the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated banks out into risky investment banks and straightforward commercial banks. That gave us about seven decades of stability until 1999, when President Clinton—under pressure from unwise and greedy Wall Street lobbyists—essentially removed Glass-Steagall. What followed was the collapse of several banks, including Lehman Brothers—probably precipitated by the new mark-to-market rules—in the great crisis that we saw in 2008.

    In 2009, because of the crash, America passed Dodd-Frank, which required banks with more than $50 billion in assets to be subject to tight regulation. Again, under pressure from Wall Street, President Trump relaxed those regulations in 2019. I talk about Wall Street, but the whole world followed. Of course, after that relaxation, banks assumed that they had an infinite period of low interest rates and that they could borrow ad nauseam. When global interest rates sharply increased by three, four or five times, the shock destabilised a number of those banks. One such bank was Silicon Valley Bank, which had been taken out of regulation by the Trump changes.

    There is a lesson for us in all that. It has caused an instability in the financial system. Chancellors, central bank governors, financial secretaries in the States and regulators have no chance but to claim that the system is robust. I am not so sure. We will not know for a while whether it is actually robust, because of the complexity of the system. Of the three major banks that have failed so far, each has failed for different reasons, and we have no clear insight into what risks other banks have taken, partly because of the deregulation under Trump and his predecessors. In that respect, we in this country are probably in a better place than either the Americans or the Europeans, but I am keeping my fingers crossed as I say that so as not to tempt fate.

    There is one lesson that we should learn. A big issue on which the world is hanging at the moment is whether the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS is a success. I draw people’s minds back to Lloyds taking over HBOS, which was done under pressure from the Government of the day—from Gordon Brown—and Lloyds itself nearly collapsing the very next year. I hope that UBS will not do the same. The point of this story is that we are in a period of extraordinary global financial instability.

    I am a low-tax Tory—I would have loved the Chancellor to have had a lower-tax strategy—but I have to say that the events of the past week have demonstrated that a very small-c conservative strategy is wise under these circumstances. The more confident the markets in the Government, the better our prospects for the future. That said, I would be completely unsurprised if we had to have another Budget in the autumn owing to the nature of the transitions and changes that are now happening.

    If that happens, I would ask the Chancellor, “Could you please look again at bringing back your super-deduction?” That will attract investment here in a way that will not happen with the 25% rate. I would ask, “Will you look at doing away with IR35 and at other concerns that will improve prospects for small businesses?” In my view, it will be incredibly difficult for the banks to get right the balance between inflation and growth now that their hands are tied by the instability of the banking sector. My one line to the Chancellor is this: please look, for the next Budget, at much more growth.