Spending Review 2020

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the spending review laid great stress on the need to preserve jobs. The Chancellor accepted that retail, hospitality and leisure have been some of the hardest-hit sectors during the pandemic, yet the review confirms that the Government are persisting in doing away with tax-free tourist shopping. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that the Government’s costings on this move are based on a “highly uncertain estimate” of how international tourists will react to the change. However, industry forecasts say that it will cost at least 40,000 jobs as tourists head to centres such as Milan and Paris to spend their money.

I must declare my interest as chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions. Our members —museums, art galleries, gardens and so on—across the country are desperate to see this measure, which will destroy jobs and reduce government revenues overall, reversed. Will the Minister re-examine this perverse decision?

Secondly, the spending review announced the laudable aims of fostering more building of social housing and the creation of a national infrastructure bank—something that we have long needed. In a report on a consultation also published last week, the Government said that the bank will be able to provide advice to local authorities on local projects. The consultation on future lending, carried out by the part of the Treasury known as the Public Works Loan Board, states that the PWLB will no longer lend to local authorities to invest in commercial property simply for yield, but the Treasury lent billions to local authorities to do just that. Those deals are now going badly wrong, as many predicted they would, so can the Minister tell the House whether he will support those local authorities which now face financial catastrophe as a result of loans fuelled by Treasury lending?