Finance Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 17th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I join the Deputy Speaker in congratulating my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes on her birthday. I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I will focus my remarks primarily on how the Budget will impact rural communities and, in particular, make a plea to the Minister for rural communities to benefit from the shared prosperity fund.

I am involved in a number of charities in rural North Yorkshire and I declare my interests as in the register. Primarily, I am honorary president of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and a member of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society. I also work closely with the charities FCN and RABI that do outstanding work with the farming community. These organisations have obviously had their fundraising activities slashed and I hope that as small charities they will benefit from the Government’s proposals for charitable organisations set out in the Budget. The impact on volunteers has been great. Many in rural areas fall into the category of self-isolation and it will be extremely difficult to re-engage with them in the future. But without them, the charities heavily rely on the staff, many of whom have been furloughed. The full impact will really be felt only when the furlough scheme ends in October. Do my noble friend and the Government recognise that the tourist season in rural areas of North Yorkshire and across the north of England and other parts of the UK is, by necessity, very short and those areas need to be treated as a special case in this regard?

The Government have set out a big homebuilding programme. On support for alternative home heating systems, I hope my noble friend will ensure that every new home has a boiler that is fit for purpose for the 21st century and that will not need to be replaced in the next five or 10 years. Will my noble friend also ensure the provision of funds to improve 4G mobile phone coverage, and that broadband will be rolled out to the hardest-to-reach areas, which currently have poor mobile signals and broadband connectivity?

I shall end with the two sectors, aviation and automotive, which have been hardest hit. The aviation industry simply asks that its furlough scheme be extended, and for a very modest 12-month air passenger duty wavier. The automotive industry is the only industry across the five EU markets in this category that does not have a scheme in place, and I hope my noble friend will set one up in the near future.