Tag: Anneliese Dodds

The comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 10 December 2020.

Today’s data shows that even before the second national lockdown, growth was grinding to a halt. The UK has had the sharpest recession of any G7 economy and is on course for the slowest recovery.

This is down to the Government’s irresponsible choices. Its failure to fix test, trace and isolate and chopping and changing over economic support has led to unnecessary job losses and businesses going to the wall.

The Chancellor must now act responsibly to get us through the spring with effective, targeted support for businesses and individuals right across the country.

The speech made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 2 December 2020.

This has been an extraordinary year. As it draws to a close, and with the prospect of a vaccine on the horizon, thoughts are turning to recovery, and how we can build a better, more secure future for the United Kingdom. That will require contributions from everyone; public, private, mutual and voluntary sectors. In particular it will require the support of the finance industry— where Britain is a global leader.

But it must also start with an honest appraisal of where our weaknesses lay, which have been so ruthlessly laid bare during this crisis.

The UK entered the pandemic with worryingly low levels of household financial resilience, after a decade that saw insecure work rise and wages flat line. A quarter of all families had less than £100 in the bank when the crisis began. Since March, 4 and a half million people have accumulated over £6 billion in debt and arrears.

We also entered the pandemic as one of the most unequal countries in Europe. That too has accelerated. As more and more economic activity was locked down, people on higher incomes, who could work from home, put money away. Their savings have risen. But those on the lowest incomes have been, on average, £170 a month worse off – losing 14% of their pre-crisis income.

And we entered the pandemic after a decade of too many examples of poor corporate practice. High profile collapses like BHS and Carillion indicated severe shortcomings in governance.

During the pandemic, most businesses have made herculean efforts to support their staff and local communities. But coronavirus has also shone a spotlight on problems: the Boohoo’s supply chain, the gaping hole in Arcadia’s pension scheme, the ‘fire and rehire’ approach taken at companies from British Airways to Pret a Manger.

When we emerge from the crisis we must deal with those challenges- of financial resilience, inequality and poor corporate practice. We all want life to return to normal. But that cannot mean a return to business as usual. We should never again let our country, or our economy, be so vulnerable to external shocks. Because we count the cost of that in lost jobs and businesses gone to the wall.

Financial services have an essential role to play in the recovery, and in laying the foundations for a better, more secure future. In fact, the recovery cannot happen without them. That’s one of many reasons why I’m so pleased to be addressing you today.

A well-functioning, responsible banking sector can help people save and build their financial resilience. Pension funds can take the money workers set aside for tomorrow, and put it to work, backing the businesses of today. As the stewards of our largest businesses, asset managers can raise the standard of corporate behaviour. And insurance companies can direct the money we all put by in case the worst happens, and make sure it builds a better, greener future.

Those aims hark back to the origins of the financial sector. A sector that saw its role as helping build social fabric, encouraging saving and resilience. Often those origins lay in Scotland. It was the Scottish minister Henry Duncan who is credited with founding the world’s first commercial savings bank. (Though I have to say that there was such a bank established by a female social entrepreneur in Tottenham. But she was not such a good publicist!!) And it was two other Scottish churchmen, Robert Wallace and Alexander Webster, who founded the first funded pension—the Widows Pension Fund to look after the wives and children of their fellow clergymen. The link between finance and social reform threads its way through the ‘friendly societies’ of the nineteenth century to the origins of trade unionism and, indeed, the Labour Party. And the purpose of financial services, helping people save, to transact, to share risk, to fund responsible business, is especially important to me. My father was an accountant, who ran his own small business. I saw first-hand how committed he was, to enabling his clients to do the right thing, grow their businesses and support the local economy.

Yet some firms have strayed a long way from this approach. When the finance sector stops thinking of itself as providing a means to empower individuals or businesses, but instead as an end in itself – it loses its way. And for a country like the UK, with such a large and powerful financial services industry, it is a huge lost opportunity. Indeed the results can be catastrophic.

By 2008, the finance sector had lost its way. But in 2020, we have often seen the sector at its best. Setting up huge new systems overnight to get government-backed loans out to businesses who were desperately short of cash. Helping those who ran into difficulty to keep a roof over their head. Partnering with charities to support those most in need.

We must harness that sense of active commitment as we plan for the recovery- a recovery which must be environmentally productive, not destructive; and one marked by providing additional opportunity, not wasting it.

Many in financial services are already blazing a trail here in many ways, with the amount raised in green bonds on the London Stock Exchange having nearly tripled in the last three years. But we know too there is much more to do. The UK is only just over a third of the way to achieving the targets we need to hit to reach net zero, and we will not get there without the power of the finance sector to mobilise capital and put it to sustainable use.

We need to go further, faster. That’s why Labour has called for it to be mandatory for all listed companies to report in line with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures next year, when the UK hosts the COP26 conference. And it’s why we sought to amend the Pension Schemes Bill – working hand in hand with pensions providers – so that pension schemes become aligned with the Paris Agreement.

Sadly, the government’s ambition in this area still falls far short of what is needed. Ahead of last week’s Spending Review, we called on government to bring forward £30bn of green investment in the next 18 months, supporting the creation of 400,000 jobs. That in turn could stimulate more private capital. Unbelievably, when it came to it the Chancellor actually cut £300 million of capital spending next year, compared with previous plans.

The second area where responsible finance has a critical role to play is in extending opportunity to every part of our country. We know, of course, that the UK’s financial services sector is more than just the City of London – with two-thirds of the sector’s 2.3 million jobs being outside the capital – but it is telling that people continually use that shorthand. This is symptomatic of a broader sense in which our economy is out of kilter. Holding all else equal, people living in the North of England have been more likely to be made redundant during this crisis- and of course, many are now, along with people in the Midlands and Yorkshire, much more likely to be living under the highest additional Covid-related restrictions.

Instead of accepting that regional inequality, we need to make every single part of this country the best place in the world to grow up in and the best place to grow old in. For that to happen, we need opportunities on people’s doorsteps –not at the other end of the country. That means businesses in every town that people want to work for, and where they can envisage their children working. And every part of the country must feel like a good place to set up home. That needs decent and genuinely affordable, energy-efficient homes. We can’t achieve any of that without the finance sector getting money to where it needs to be.

To deliver on those two aims – a greener economy, with opportunities right across the country– requires policymakers to work hand in hand with the finance sector. Because responsible financial services firms deserve a responsible government in return.

Too often, in recent years, we’ve seen precisely the opposite. A sector which accounts for 10% of our economic output has been almost totally left out of the government’s trade negotiations with the EU. What started as plans for an ambitious financial services chapter in a free trade agreement, with talk of mutual recognition and super equivalence, has been watered down and watered down. Now the Conservative Government is trying desperately to dress up a sow’s ear as a silk purse – their unilateral decision to grant access to UK markets, with the hope – hope, not guarantee- that we might get offered the same in return.

It is not a foregone conclusion that we will emerge with a deal, as last weekend’s revelations indicated. If we do obtain a deal, media reports suggest it will be as thin as gruel – it won’t contain anything for our largest exporting industry. And along the way, having threatened to break international law as a negotiating tactic, the government has trashed our reputation with other potential trading partners. Little wonder we’ve seen over 7,000 financial services jobs lost already and £1.2 trillion in assets poised to follow.

Sadly, what’s true of Brexit has been true of coronavirus too. Last minute changes to economic support schemes have left businesses in all sectors not knowing what on earth is about to happen next. The Chancellor set out four versions of his winter economy plan in six weeks, all of them before winter had even begun. We have come out of national lockdown today and yet the business support packages for Tier 2 and Tier 3 areas of the country are still inadequate and unfair, and we still lack clarity about what comes next.

We’ve still had nothing from the government on what will happen to those companies who’ve taken out loans and find themselves burdened with unsustainable debt, despite the finance sector’s best efforts to draw attention to the issue. There’s still no word on the mysterious Project Birch plans to support our most strategic industries. Above all, there is still no proper plan to see the country through to March. That’s completely irresponsible, in a situation where the UK is experiencing the worst economic downturn in the G7 – and where the OECD yesterday forecast that our recovery will take longer than the rest of the G7, too.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Politicians and financial firms should be working hand in hand to lay the groundwork for our recovery. I want us to have a genuine partnership so that together we can deliver security and opportunity for every part of the country.

I’ve said today what a responsible financial services industry might look like.

My promise in return is that from Labour, under new leadership, you would get responsible government. A government that plans for the long-term, not chopping and changing every five minutes. A government that knows the value of one of our most important sectors and seeks to maximise it. A government that, once it has set the regulatory framework and the operating environment, will do all it can to ensure stability. That way, businesses and finance can plan for the future and deliver the fair and sustainable growth, and much-needed jobs, that every part of our country deserves.

The comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 25 November 2020.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This spending review was a moment for the Chancellor to take the responsible choices that our country needs. It was an opportunity to protect key workers, secure the economy and recover jobs in every part of our country.

During this crisis, we have seen who has taken responsibility: community health workers working round the clock to keep us all safe; the teachers who kept working so that key workers could too; the delivery drivers and shop staff who made sure that we had critical food supplies. Earlier this year, the Chancellor stood on his doorstep and clapped for key workers. Today, his Government institute a pay freeze for many of them. This takes a sledgehammer to consumer confidence. Firefighters, police officers and teachers will know that their spending power is going down, so they will spend less in our small businesses and on our high streets; they will spend less in our private sector. Many key workers, who willingly took on so much responsibility during this crisis, are now being forced to tighten their belts now; not in the medium term to which the Chancellor refers, but now.

In contrast, there has been a bonanza for those who have won contracts from this Government. Companies with political connections have been 10 times more likely to win Government contracts. So many businesses have worked tirelessly through the pandemic to support local communities, to keep critical supplies going and to produce drugs and vaccines—at cost price in AstraZeneca’s case—working with some of our country’s best scientists. But in their response to this pandemic, the Conservative Government have wasted and mismanaged public finances on an industrial scale: £130 million to a Conservative donor for testing kits that were unsafe; £150 million for face masks and £700 million on coveralls that could not be used; a £12 billion hit to our economy because the more effective, shorter, circuit breaker was blocked and a lengthier, more expensive lockdown put in place instead; £12 billion so far spent on a test and trace system that is still not working; and, today, news of £10 billion in additional costs for personal protective equipment, which was at least partly down to the Conservatives’ lack of pre-pandemic planning.

This waste and mismanagement is part of a longer-term pattern, showing that claims today around levelling up simply do not match the evidence: hospitals in Liverpool and Sandwell left unbuilt, over deadline by years and over budget by hundreds of millions of pounds; not a single starter home built, despite almost £200 million being spent; Northern Powerhouse Rail still not even approved six years after being announced; the courts modernisation programme three years behind schedule, letting victims down up and down the country; and people in the north more likely to have been made redundant during this crisis holding everything else equal.

Photo calls are not enough. We need delivery like the promotion of green manufacturing in the west midlands by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and the work of Labour Mayors and councils across the country. We need a Government in Westminster who take their responsibility towards all four nations seriously. That means informing the Finance Minister of Northern Ireland about the shorter timescale for this spending review ahead of time and fulfilling the “New Decade, New Approach” commitments. It means doing the right thing by the people of Wales to repair flood damage and make safe legacy coal tips. It means ending the barney between Westminster and Holyrood and instead working together in partnership to protect jobs and livelihoods.

It means a shared prosperity fund that is effective because it is delivered not on the whim of Conservative Ministers but from our devolved Governments and our regions. The levelling-up fund that the Chancellor just announced—his rabbit out of the hat—yet again, just as with the Beeching reopening programme, involves MPs going to Ministers and begging for support for their areas, rather than that change being driven from local communities. So much for taking back control! This is about the centre handing over support in a very top-down manner.

Labour has been clear about the responsible choices that we wanted the Chancellor to make today to recover jobs, retrain workers and rebuild businesses. To recover jobs, Labour called for £30 billion of capital spending accelerated over the next 18 months, focused on green initiatives, supporting 400,000 jobs and bringing us in line with countries such as France and Germany. This Government’s ambition is for half that number of new jobs. To retrain workers, we needed an emergency programme to support people back into work, but kickstart has been slow to get started, and the skills offer for those over 25 will not start until April. The Chancellor said at the beginning of his speech that our economic emergency “has only just begun”—try telling that to people who have been out of work since March.

Restart, announced today, must meet three key tests to be effective. It should help people who need it most, not cherry-pick. It should be up and running as soon as possible, yet it appears that only a fraction of Restart funding will be available next year. And it must involve local actors who know their communities, not be imposed from Whitehall. Of course, job search support ultimately only works if sufficient new jobs actually exist. That is why we needed ambitious action to boost our economy and to support our businesses.

To rebuild business, we called for a national investment bank. I welcome the announcement of a new UK infrastructure bank, given that valuable years have been lost since the Green Investment Bank was sold off. Now the Chancellor must boost its firepower, and he must deliver on his Department’s responsibility for the drive to net zero. We have known since the Stern report that the climate crisis is the biggest long-term threat to our economy, yet far too often, this spending review locks us into a path that will make the transition to net zero harder, not easier, locking our economy out of the green jobs of the future.

To rebuild business, the Chancellor also needs to listen to business. We are less than a week from the end of the lockdown, yet we have heard nothing about whether extra support will be provided through the additional restrictions support grant for areas subject once again to tough restrictions. The Chancellor is still threatening employers with an increased contribution to furlough in January, at the worst possible time for increasing and building confidence.

In fewer than 40 days, we are due to leave the transition period, yet the Chancellor did not even mention that in his speech. There is still no trade deal, so does the Chancellor truly believe that his Government are prepared and that he has done enough to help those businesses that will be heavily affected? Will he take responsible action to help those excluded from Government support? Why is he still refusing to make the speedy fixes to universal credit that Labour has advocated, which would aid the self-employed, and why will he not provide families with certainty by ensuring that the increase in universal credit continues beyond April?

The IMF has made it clear time and again that now would be the worst time to slam on the brakes and put the car into reverse. It has called for a “meaningful additional push” from our Government to maintain fiscal support until the recovery is on a sound footing. The UK’s GDP is 10% smaller now than it was at the end of last year. We have seen the worst downturn in the G7. We needed ambitious action today to stimulate growth and maintain demand, and we needed the Government to take responsibility for the real reasons why people and communities up and down our country are being held back.

Over the past 10 years, child poverty has risen by 600,000. We have had the worst decade for pay growth in eight generations. The cost of childcare has risen twice as fast as wages. The number of young apprentices has plummeted. Last quarter, we saw the highest level of redundancies on record. Social care is in increasing crisis and, despite the Conservative party’s manifesto having promised a long-term solution, we are still waiting.

It was trailed in the press that the Chancellor would be moving 20,000 jobs out of London, yet cuts to local authorities over the past 10 years have seen 240,000 jobs lost—12 times that figure of 20,000—with the hardest-hit communities often those in the north, midlands and south-west. Today, the Chancellor could have matched his Government’s promise to do whatever is necessary to support local authorities through this crisis; he did not. And yet again he showed his Government’s lack of confidence in their own measures by failing to provide an equality impact assessment.

The measure of this Government will not be the number of press releases issued during this crisis or the number of pictures it published on Instagram; it will be the responsible action that they took, or did not take, for the sake of our country.

Next year, the eyes of the world will be on the UK as we assume the presidencies of the G7 and the UN Security Council and host the COP26 summit, yet now is the time that the Chancellor has turned his back on the world’s poorest by cutting international aid. It is in Britain’s national interest to lay the foundations for economic growth around the world—no wonder many British businesses have condemned his move.

Businesses have been more and more vocal about the problems with this Government’s last-minute approach, always one step behind when we need to plan responsibly for the future. We must learn the lessons from previous failures and ensure that the next challenge—the roll-out of the vaccine—is dealt with as efficiently, effectively and speedily as possible.

Next time, we need a comprehensive spending review that takes responsible choices—to build a future for our country as the best place in the world to grow up in and the best place to grow old in. People should have opportunities on their doorstep, not at the other end of the country. Everywhere in the UK should feel like a good place to set up home. That is what the Chancellor must deliver.

The comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 5 November 2020.

The Bank of England’s new forecast shows the huge economic costs of the Government’s last-minute scramble to catch up with events.

Labour called three weeks ago for a short, effective circuit breaker. Instead we got weeks of delay that will be counted in lost lives and livelihoods.

The Bank of England has had to step in once again because of the Government’s inability to get a grip on the health and economic crisis.

The comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 21 October 2020.

The Government had a chance to fix its shambolic approach to supporting areas moving into Tier 3. It said no.

The Prime Minister said those on the lowest salaries would get 80% of their salary, but by voting against our motion he has blocked huge numbers of workers facing hardship from getting the support they need.

Boris Johnson promised to deliver for the North and the Midlands, but he’s let them down in the middle of a pandemic.

The comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 13 October 2020.

Today’s redundancy data is deeply concerning. Sadly, more people are going to lose their jobs until the Government gets a grip. That means fixing test, trace and isolate, putting in place a proper Job Recovery Scheme and making clear, consistent and fair funding available to local areas as soon as restrictions are applied.

The Chancellor’s chaotic habit of trying to fix problems of his own making at the last possible minute risks unemployment spiralling to levels we haven’t seen in decades.

The comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 9 October 2020.

It is deeply worrying that growth was weak in August despite the easing of restrictions, especially as we now face Covid-19 cases rising and more areas coming under local restrictions.

The Government must get a grip on test, trace and isolate, reform the sink or swim Job Support Scheme and urgently put in place consistent economic support for areas of localised restrictions.

If the Chancellor doesn’t act, we risk a devastating spike in unemployment that will choke off the recovery as we head into winter.

The comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 9 October 2020.

The Chancellor should have introduced a Job Recovery Scheme that incentivised employers to keep more staff on. Instead, his Job Support Scheme makes it more expensive to bring staff back than many other international schemes.

Viable businesses just need support to cope with the restrictions the Government has imposed on them. They pinned their hopes on the Chancellor to deliver, but he’s forcing them to flip a coin over who stays and who goes.

This wasn’t by accident – it was by design. The Chancellor’s sink or swim Job Support Scheme is a throwback to the worst days of Thatcher, and just like in the 1980s people on the lowest incomes will pay the highest price.

The comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 5 October 2020.

The Government’s failure to get a functioning track, trace and isolate system working means large swathes of the country, including in the North and Midlands, are now under additional restrictions and face a jobs cliff edge.

Labour urged the Chancellor to introduce a wage support scheme that incentivised employers to keep more staff on. However, he ignored these calls and now nearly a million jobs are at risk when the furlough scheme ends in a few weeks’ time.

When he speaks at Conservative Party Conference, Rishi Sunak must promise to get a grip of the jobs crisis before it’s too late. If he doesn’t, Britain risks an unemployment crisis greater than we have seen in decades – and Rishi Sunak’s name will be all over it.