Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. Given the range of expertise that has been contributed today and the range of topics we have covered, I will spend my time directly answering as many of noble Lords’ comments as possible.
Many noble Lords reflected on the economic circumstances we find ourselves in. The current high levels of inflation we face, with increased costs for households and businesses, have a clear impact on growth. As my noble friend noted, the best tax cut we can give households and businesses is to get inflation back under control, and that is exactly what the OBR forecasts will happen.
My noble friend Lord Bridges asked about the difference between the Bank of England’s forecast and the OBR’s forecast, and the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, also spoke about the difficulties of producing forecasts in these times. Specifically on those differences, the Bank of England made its latest forecast in February and it was based on different market determinants from the time. In its economic and fiscal outlook, the OBR reports that the difference is driven by falling energy prices and interest rates since the Bank’s forecast and, as my noble friend Lord Willetts noted, a predicted greater recovery in labour force participation following the measures announced in the Budget.
Inflation will reach 2.9% by the end of the year, but we recognise that the next 12 months will put real pressure on people, particularly when it comes to their energy bills. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said that this Budget did nothing to help with that and I really must correct her. Not only did it extend the energy price guarantee at £2,500 for the next three months, it removed the pre-payment meter premium, which is something that this House has called for many times. It is also important to remember that significant further help announced in the Autumn Statement is still to be delivered to households across the country.
The noble Lord, Lord Bird, asked for universal credit to keep pace with inflation and that is exactly what will happen. Those relying on universal credit, the state pension and other means-tested benefits will see them go up in April by more than 10%, and we have further cost of living support payments worth £900 to be paid over the next year to 8 million households on means-tested benefits. Support payments of £300 will go to more than 8 million pensioner households next winter and £150 will be paid to those on disability benefits. It is very important that people know that further support with the cost of living is on its way. In fact, support to households to help with higher bills is worth £94 billion, or an average of £3,300 per household across this year and next.
The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said that there was no support for businesses with their energy bills. But the energy bills discount scheme will provide all eligible businesses and other non-domestic energy users with a discount on high energy bills until 31 March 2024, following the end of the current energy bill relief scheme. It will also provide businesses in sectors with particularly high levels of energy use and trade intensity with a higher level of support.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked why no equality impact assessment had been produced with this Budget. I reassure noble Lords that His Majesty’s Treasury has rigorous processes in place to ensure that we comply with our legal requirements. We go beyond these by publishing a summary of equality impacts for tax measures within the tax information and impact notes alongside the Finance Bill.
When it comes to distributional analysis, that was published in the 2023 Spring Budget and it shows that the typical household at any income level will see a net benefit next year following government decisions made in the Autumn Statement 2022 and onwards. Low-income households will receive the largest benefit in cash terms and as a percentage of income from government decisions. Furthermore, looking across all tax, welfare and spending decisions made since the 2019 spending round, the impact of government action continues to be progressive, with the poorest households receiving the largest benefit both in cash terms and as a percentage of income in 2024.
The noble Lords, Lord Eatwell, Lord Bilimoria and Lord Tunnicliffe, and many others spoke about the impact of the freeze on tax thresholds, announced last spring and extended in the Autumn Statement. It is true that, after a colossal effort to fight Covid, with the Government spending over £370 billion on measures to support the NHS and our economy, we have had to take difficult decisions to get our public finances back on track.
We have frozen tax thresholds and, as we will come to, we have asked businesses to contribute more, through increased corporation tax rates. However, I say to my noble friend Lord Bellingham and others that 70% of businesses will see no change to their corporation tax headline rate, because small businesses are exempted, and only 10% of businesses will pay that top rate of 25%.
When it comes to the personal tax threshold freeze, noble Lords should note that, even after the freezes that we are putting in place, the changes we have put in place since 2010 mean that someone on an average salary will still pay £1,000 less in income tax and national insurance next year than if thresholds had gone up in line with inflation since 2010. Thresholds will be higher at the end of the period of the freeze than if they had been simply increased with inflation since 2010.
We had to take some difficult decisions on the public finances but that does mean—I hope this offers some reassurance to my noble friends Lord Bridges and Lady Lawlor—that we are bearing down on debt and have the deficit falling in every year of the OBR forecast. That means we are projected to meet the Prime Minister’s second pledge: to get debt falling. Indeed, total managed expenditure as a percentage of GDP is forecast to fall in each year of the forecast. We have also launched an efficiency and spending review; as part of the Autumn Statement 2022, departments have been asked to identify further efficiencies, building on the 5% efficiency challenge set at the 2021 spending review.
This brings me to the third pledge from the Prime Minister on our economy: to get it growing. My noble friend Lady Moyo spoke so eloquently about the importance of growth as a prerequisite of good public services, as a precursor to innovation and as a necessity for a healthy democratic society. That is why the Chancellor focused on making this a Budget for growth.
The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, spoke of his frustration at what he saw as the artificial constraints that the design of fiscal rules has placed on investing in growth. I welcome that debate; although we may have different views on their design, I hope we can both agree on the importance of having a framework in place to maintain fiscal credibility, as was well expressed by my noble friend Lady Lea of Lymm.
I very much agree with noble Lords on the importance of investment. I welcome the point made by the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, that, when it comes to areas such as corporation tax, we should not focus solely on the headline rate—although that remains the lowest in the G7—but look at how we build incentives into that tax. Full expensing will be a tax cut for businesses investing, worth around £9 billion a year, and I acknowledge that noble Lords would like that to be made permanent. The Chancellor has said he would like that too, when fiscal circumstances allow. However, it is worth noting that the increase in the annual allowance to £1 million is permanent and amounts to full expensing for 99% of businesses in this country.
I reassure the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, that the Government do not see the solution to investment in this country as something for only the private sector to do. We are continuing to deliver the biggest programme of capital investment in 40 years, and public sector net investment will be 2.5% of GDP on average over the forecast period, delivering more than £600 billion of planned public sector gross investment over the next five years.
My noble friend Lady Moyo spoke of the most effective investment being multidecade in timeframe, and when public and private sources of investment come together. That is exactly what we are seeking to do through our commitment to £20 billion of support to the early deployment of carbon capture, usage and storage, allowing the Government to enter commercial negotiations with successful emitter projects and providing certainty over revenue streams to stimulate private investment.
The noble Lord, Lord Fox, spoke about our response to the US Inflation Reduction Act, and other noble Lords mentioned plans in Europe. Our approach to CCUS shows that we have a plan to stimulate investment in our green industries but in our own way, building on the success that we have had, for example, on contracts for difference with offshore wind, which has led us to be the second-largest producer of offshore wind in the world, behind only China. Further, the launch of Great British Nuclear and the competition for small modular reactors, along with our commitment to Sizewell C, show an ongoing commitment to the UK nuclear industry and to meeting our net-zero targets.
Many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, welcomed the announcement of investment zones, which will grow clusters in one of our five future growth sectors, partnering great research institutions with local areas. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that each investment zone will have access to up to £80 million of funding, but this is also about policy flexibility, to allow for greater collaboration and to address the needs of each individual area. He asked about environmental standards in investment zones. I reassure him that the Government are committed to ensuring that investment zones uphold the UK’s high environmental standards and meet our international commitments.
As well as our plans to support investment, many noble Lords focused on the workforce measures that we included in this Budget. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about the Government’s planned changes to remove the work capability assessment and whether we will also reform the PIP assessment process. While many people claiming health and disability benefits have a positive experience, we want to improve the overall experience and trust in the benefits system for disabled people. We are doing this by making it easier to communicate and engage with us by improving the accessibility of our services and buildings. We are also testing new initiatives to make it easier to apply for and receive health and disability benefits.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also asked why there was no mention of social care. She will know that the Government are investing record levels of funding in response to the pressures facing both health and social care services. It was at the Autumn Statement 2022 that we made available up to £6.1 billion for the next year and £8 billion in 2024 in additional funding for the NHS and adult social care.
That brings me on to the pension tax changes made in this Budget, which were remarked on by many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and my noble friends Lord Bridges and Lord Willetts. I will try to address the different points raised. The aim of our pension tax changes is to incentivise highly skilled and experienced individuals to remain in the labour market, bringing the benefit of their knowledge and experience to the UK labour force. Some noble Lords said that this measure is too expensive. My noble friend Lord Willetts helped me on this in terms of the cost per additional worker in the workforce being similar for this measure compared with childcare measures.
Noble Lords then said that it was poorly targeted because, while the childcare measures have the benefit of helping potentially lower-income households, these measures will be targeted at those people who are relatively better off. Again, my noble friend Lord Willetts helped me by pointing to the benefits of the policy being not only about the recipient of the tax relief but about its wider effect. Here, we are focused on a big change in retaining senior clinicians in our NHS workforce. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, was sceptical about the difference that this policy change would make to retaining those clinicians. I have two quotes: the shadow Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, said that the cap on doctors’ pensions was “crazy” and it would “inevitably save lives” to scrap it; and the BMA said that scrapping the lifetime allowance is
“an incredibly important step forward and … potentially transformative for the NHS as senior doctors will no longer be forced to retire early and can continue to work within the NHS, providing vital patient care.”
The BMA went on to say that
“the Chancellor has acted decisively to avert a major workforce crisis”.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, then asked why we did not focus the measure solely on doctors. He gave one of the answers himself, saying that we passed a law to change pension provision for senior judges. We can bring in this tax change by April for the start of the new tax year. Another reason why we have not limited it to one profession, as the noble Lord will also know as he has raised other cases with me in the past, is that these reforms will benefit experienced key workers, including head teachers, police chiefs, senior personnel in the Armed Forces, air traffic controllers and prison governors.
The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, asked about the interaction with inheritance tax. I reassure him that the costings produced and published at Spring Budget with regard to the lifetime allowance included the inheritance tax impacts for the scorecard period. I further say to him that the primary purpose of a pension is to provide an income in retirement. If someone dies before they get to use it, we think it is right that beneficiaries can inherit those funds, and they are not usually part of someone’s estate for inheritance tax purposes. We are aware that some people may use their pensions to try to reduce their inheritance tax liabilities rather than to provide for their retirement. We do not think that pensions should be used as a vehicle primarily for inheritance tax planning and we will keep all aspects of the tax system under review.
I turn last, but by no means least, to the Government’s plans for childcare. In my enthusiasm for announcing our substantial reforms in this area, I made an error in my speech. I made reference to youth mobility schemes. I need to clarify that those schemes have not been agreed but are something that we would like to explore with international partners over coming months and years. I apologise for inadvertently misleading the House on that matter.
However, I was pleased to hear so many noble Lords welcome the policy on childcare; it will be truly transformative. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked whether the free hours would be adequately funded. I reassure noble Lords that the Government will provide £4.1 billion of funding by 2027-28 to provide 33 hours for nine months to three years, and we will provide £204 million from September next year to uplift the existing rates for providers. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked about the changes to ratios. Noble Lords will know that this move is in line with many other comparator countries in Europe and indeed Scotland. The change is optional for providers, but DfE will continue to closely monitor the quality of care in early years settings, including through Ofsted.
The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, quoted the Sutton Trust. He is right that the aim of the policy is to remove the costs of childcare as a barrier for parents who want to return to work, so the extension of free hours is for working parents. To make that transition even easier, for those who are on universal credit we have increased the amount that they can claim for childcare through universal credit and are paying that amount up front.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked what impact the policy would have on employment. The OBR expects that by 2027-28 around 60,000 more people will enter employment, and around 1.5 million mothers will increase the hours they work as a result of this policy. The OBR has further said that the policy has by far the largest impact on potential output in this Budget.
In my speech, I may have been the Tigger to my noble friend Lord Bridges’ Eeyore, but I reassure noble Lords that the Government are under no illusions about the challenges that we face both at home and with the increased threat picture abroad. To my noble friends Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Tugendhat, I say that that is why in this Budget we have provided an additional £11 billion for defence and national security priorities over the next five years, with nearly £5 billion going in during the next two years to improve the resilience and readiness of our Armed Forces. This is on top of the spending review 2020 cash uplift of £24 billion over the spending review period for defence, which is the largest sustained increased since the end of the Cold War.
What of the Government’s final goal of growth? The Spring Budget made the biggest increase to supply reforms that the OBR has ever scored in its forecast, bringing 110,000 workers into the workforce and increasing GDP by 0.2%. My noble friend Lord Bridges is also correct that population change contributes a further 0.5% to potential output.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked about the recovery of our economy since the Covid pandemic. When you look at private sector output, you see that our economy has more than recovered since the pandemic. The picture is different on public sector output, but that makes the figure not very comparable with other international countries as we measure our statistics in a different way.
Overall, supported by policy and underlying conditions, the OBR has revised GDP upwards in every single year of this forecast. With inflation down, debt falling, growth going up, and transformative policies for investment in our growth and in childcare to get people back to work, this is a Budget that I can commend to the House.