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Tag: Speeches

  • Dan Carden – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Dan Carden – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Dan Carden, the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    May I, too, welcome you back to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker? It is good to see you there.

    I want to use the couple of minutes I have to pass comment on this year’s spring Budget to try to convey some of the reality that my constituents are living through and how these economic measures affect their lives. That is important, because it is the 13th spring Budget delivered by a Conservative Chancellor. The test is simple: how are the people I represent doing after 13 consecutive Budgets from a Conservative Government? Are the communities that I represent thriving? Is life a little easier? Are they earning more and maybe working a little less? Real wages across every region of the UK are lower now than when the Conservatives came to power in 2010. Are schools being properly resourced to help give children the best start in life? Are hospitals functioning and well staffed? Are the buses and trains affordable and running on time? Obviously, my constituents would answer a resounding no.

    What about the question of whether society is more equal than when the Conservatives came to power? Today, half of all UK wealth is held by the top 10% and the lion’s share of it by the top 1%. Think of the circumstances in which this Prime Minister and Chancellor came to their positions: their predecessors lasted 49 and 38 days respectively, and the fallout from their disastrous mini-budget cost the country £30 billion. Necessarily, by simple contrast, that makes the current incumbents look uber-competent. That, with a couple of major macroeconomic developments such as the halving of gas prices over the last six months, makes the economic forecasts slightly less catastrophic than might have been case just last year. All that can be spun to tell quite a good story and there are certainly press barons willing to print that up.

    If the Prime Minister promises to cut inflation by half and declining energy costs make that a reality—it was quite a safe bet when the promise was made—should my constituents really be grateful? They are still worse off, although by a little less than they once thought they might be. I ask Government Front Benchers: is that the scale of expectation that the public should now have? Is it the best that the Conservative party can offer to the country?

    This Budget is one of continuing, long-term managed decline: of people’s wages; of the public services that people rely on; of social security; of security at work, where low-paid, insecure contracts are now the norm; of local authority budgets—another £50 million has been cut from Liverpool this year; of investment, with the UK having the lowest business investment in the G7; and of disposable income, with people working simply to pay the bills. Most tragically of all, there is the managed decline of people’s living standards: the longest fall in living standards on record. It is the managed decline of people’s hopes, dreams and ambitions, and our collective capacity to realise them. As Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has said, we are heading into

    “a lost decade…coming on top of a very poor previous decade”.

    My time as an MP has been characterised by a constant struggle to prevent the worst from happening to my constituents—whether that is fighting to save local fire stations or care homes from closure, trying to stop vulnerable people from having their support taken away, or giving solidarity to workers whose jobs, pay and conditions are under threat. We are sick of just trying to prevent the worst. We are sick of managed decline. We want to unlock the potential of our people and give communities the power and the resources to focus on what they can achieve.

    The latest Prime Minister and Chancellor could have taken the opportunity to change approach. Instead, we have a business-as-usual Budget from a Conservative Government out of ideas and out of time. We need nothing less than national renewal—a new deal for working people; a bold, clean energy transition; an investment-led economy, based on making, not taking; and wealth, power and opportunity spread to every region and every community. Only then can we reclaim the future and look forward, once again, to a brighter tomorrow.

  • Maggie Throup – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Maggie Throup – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Maggie Throup, the Conservative MP for Erewash, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    I would like to add my name to the growing list of Members with a science degree. My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) will be pleased to hear that it is from the University of Manchester.

    Since I was last able to make a contribution to a Budget debate from the Back Benches, the economic outlook, both at home and abroad, has shifted dramatically. The aftermath of the pandemic, compounded by the effects of the war in Ukraine, has left many of the world’s leading economies battling a combination of high inflation and mounting debt.

    My right hon. Friend the Chancellor is to be commended for the measures he has brought forward to meet the target of halving inflation by the end of the year, to continue to support people with record high energy bills and, crucially, to avoid a recession. That is not just my assessment, but one reflected in the feedback I received on the doorsteps from my constituents across Erewash this weekend as we were out canvassing. They described the Chancellor’s statement as measured, confident and logical.

    I want to focus on tech, and specifically the support for the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. Everyone will remember the important role the MHRA played during the pandemic. It was the first medicines regulator to authorise a vaccine against covid-19. Its worldwide reputation is second to none. Many other regulators quickly followed in its footsteps in authorising vaccines, as they trusted its decisions. It was not just the fact that it was first on so many occasions in approving new vaccines—including the bivalent vaccine, effective against the original Wuhan strain and omicron—but the way it did it.

    Traditionally, the different stages of clinical trials are carried out sequentially, but whether it was a vaccine or a therapeutic, the acceptance that regulation could be made on data generated by stages of clinical trials carried out in parallel was a real and significant breakthrough. Yes, on most occasions the MHRA was first to authorise a vaccine from the variety of suppliers available, but on some occasions it was able to base its approval on Food and Drug Administration or European Medicines Agency approval.

    That type of linked-up working for a wider range of medicines is now being facilitated by the allocation of funding in the Budget. As has been acknowledged by Dr June Raine, the MHRA’s chief executive, the £10 million funding will be used to fund its ongoing innovation work and accelerate the development of groundbreaking global recognition routes. That will undoubtedly give UK patients faster access to the most cutting-edge medical products in the world.

    A few weeks ago, I was invited by the former chief executive of the British Bankers Association and one of my predecessors as the Member of Parliament for Erewash, Angela Knight, to speak to a delegation of senior business leaders, during which we discussed the importance of public health and the value of health tech to the economy. It is estimated that the private sector alone loses over 100 million workdays each year to sickness absences, greatly impacting on productivity and hindering wealth creation.

    To fully capitalise on the creation of new investment zones, as well as the expansion of UK civil nuclear, led by Derby-based Rolls-Royce, we must ask ourselves: how do we keep the UK workforce healthier for longer? The answer is through a combination of targeted public health measures aimed at prevention, such as tackling obesity and reducing levels of smoking, together with innovative health tech partnerships, such as the one signed by the Government and Moderna to invest in mRNA research and development and build a state-of-the-art vaccine manufacturing centre here in Britain.

    Returning to the targeted public health measures announced in the Budget, I especially welcome the £60 million for public swimming pools. I trust it will be distributed fairly to ensure that swimming pools such as those at West Park leisure centre in Long Eaton and Victoria leisure centre in Ilkeston can continue to be used by my constituents to support both their physical and mental health.

    This Budget is designed to inspire confidence in the British economy and will continue to provide the stability that has so often been the watchword of the Conservative Government led by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. My constituents stand to benefit greatly from the measures introduced to curb inflation, help with the cost of living—we heard about many aspects of that, including the change to prepayment meters and protecting energy payments—and safeguard vital public services. I am sure that many of my constituents will raise a glass or two to the Chancellor for again backing the British pub. I therefore look forward to backing the Budget in the Lobby tomorrow evening.

  • 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.

  • Alan Lovell – 2023 Speech at the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators

    Alan Lovell – 2023 Speech at the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators

    The speech made by Alan Lovell, the Chair of the Environment Agency, at the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators on 22 March 2023.

    The biggest challenge of our era is climate change. How people experience the physical impacts largely depends on how well we manage we manage water. That means:

    • In flood – when there is too much water
    • In drought – when there is not enough
    • And when water is polluted.

    Of these three, I am most concerned about water resources. But to grip the existential risk of supply and demand we will need to ask the public to do two things:

    • Save water, and
    • Pay more for it.

    Getting people to make these changes means we must also discuss water quality – because we cannot ask for public cooperation unless the water sector can prove it is cleaning up its act.

    The Environment Agency’s National Framework for Water Resources showed that by 2050: the amount of water available in England could be reduced by 10 to 15 percent, and some rivers could have between 50 and 80 percent less water during the summer.

    Climate change and population growth mean the need for significant action grows every year. This risk is more acute in some areas than others: the South-East is already the driest part of the country. As more people choose to move there, we face difficult questions about the distribution of national resources.

    2022 was the warmest year on record. During the 40-degree heatwave, demand for water increased by up to 50 percent and this led to short-term supply issues. If significant action is not prioritised, by 2050 around 4,000 million extra litres of water will be needed every day.

    There are reasons to be optimistic. Since the early 2000s, Statutory Water Resources Management plans have helped us save over 300 million litres a day, despite seeing population rise by over 6.5 million during that time.

    Also, water companies’ Water Resources Management Plans show ambitions to maintain supplies in extreme 1 in 500-year drought events by 2040. This is before the need for emergency measures such as rota cuts or standpipes.

    I am also grateful for the water companies’ collaboration with the Environment Agency as part of the National Drought Group. But the pace of change now requires much more significant long-term investment to increase supply and reduce demand.

    Everyone has a role: water companies, government, farmers, regulators, and the public. All must work together.

    Water companies must:

    1. Invest in capacity

    The last reservoir opened in England, Carsington in Derbyshire, was in 1991 and the next one, Havant Thicket, isn’t planned to open until 2029. I grant that some others have been expanded in the meanwhile, but nevertheless this 38-year gap has left us more exposed to heatwaves and population growth. We also need to invest in transfers of water between regions of the country.

    I’m glad that the Environment Agency is part of the Regulators’ Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development, set up in 2019, to improve regulation and help the sector respond to long term water resources challenges.

    I am delighted that the draft plans for expenditure in AMP8 are significantly more ambitious in terms of the action and ambition required. I am aware that there are challenges around supply chains. We will work together with government and the sector to find solutions, but I am clear that the need for significantly more investment is pressing and absolutely necessary.

    1. Accelerate action to reduce leakage

    Water companies in England lost an average of 2,923.8 million litres of water a day in 2021-22, over a trillion litres over the year. Sorting this involves better management, preventative engineering, and the increased use of technology to spot leaks faster.

    1. Regain the public’s trust.

    We need people to change their habits. This is notoriously difficult.

    The government is clear that if we want to ask the public to act, water companies must first get a grip on leakage. But, to meet future resource pressures, people need to reduce their water use by 33 litres a day – from 143 litres per day to 110.

    England’s population is forecast to be around 67 million by 2050. 67 million people reducing average water usage down to 110 litres per person per day would save approximately 2,211 million litres of water per day. Roughly half of the 4,000 mega litres needed by 2050.

    Water companies can help by imposing hosepipe bans earlier in hot, dry years. It’s essential that people reduce their water use and make water efficient decisions. Hosepipe bans make savings and also alert more people to the fact that water is a limited and precious commodity.

    Water companies can also make metering, preferably smart-metering, compulsory where possible. Metering is proven to make people pay more attention to the amount of water they use. In the Environmental Improvement Plan the government has committed to increased smart metering for households and businesses through accelerated investment between 2020 and 2030. At the same time, families must be protected from unexpectedly large increases in bills.

    The government also has a key role to play and has committed that it will promote using water wisely with mandatory water efficiency labelling of products like dishwashers and showers.

    People could be encouraged to harvest rainfall. For individuals this could mean having a water butt in the garden or improving drainage. Last summer supplies of water butts in Cornwall ran out in days after South West Water made the excellent move of offering free water butts.

    For farmers, it means improving farming practices, including irrigation and, where appropriate, building more on-site reservoirs. As we look to increase resilience, nature-based solutions can help deliver wider benefits across catchments. Farmers have a big role in delivering this. The wider agri-food industry should do more to help farmers with on-site expenditure for the types of behaviours their customers would like to see.

    Regulators must also improve.

    Ofwat can allow bill increases, while ensuring the economically vulnerable are shielded from the cost-of-living crisis with strong social tariff protection. But bill increases are necessary for the infrastructure we need.

    Yesterday’s announcement that Ofwat will now require companies to take account of environmental performance when deciding whether to pay dividends is also a good step.

    The Environment Agency should be much clearer about how we are managing abstraction to balance multiple, current needs with the protection of nature. We also need to modernise regulation and, where appropriate, carry a big stick.

    We will continue to pursue large criminal fines in the courts. We are also very encouraged by possible changes affecting our ability to levy penalties, as opposed to fines set by the courts. This would bring us more in line with the penalties which Ofwat can impose and include a massive increase from the current level of £250,000 as well as hypothecating the proceeds – as indicated by the Chancellor.

    Our largest ever criminal regulatory investigation is currently underway. We are seeking to determine the extent of any non-compliance of environmental permit conditions. All wastewater treatment works are in scope and more than 2,200 sites are being scrutinised. But water companies don’t need to wait for us to conclude this investigation. They need to sort this now.

    The biggest challenge facing the water environment today is supply and demand, but without public action to save water and pay more for it, we are all lost at sea. Restoring trust is vital. Water companies can rebuild trust. To do so they must:

    1. Stop defending the indefensible
    2. Start fixing the problems (for one: resolve leakage)
    3. Be transparent
    4. Be much more careful with executive salaries and bonusses
    5. Improve compliance.

    For the Environment Agency’s part, as a regulator we will be fair and recognise good performance. I commit to personally celebrating good work when I see it, including in the next Environmental Performance Assessment.

    Today, the political will exists to implement change. We must capitalise on this moment to drive action that will better protect England’s water resources. The water sector must prove to the public that it is up to the considerable challenges ahead.

  • 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.