Tax Credits

David Morris Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field]

I could not agree more, in that we have not had a Chancellor who has decided that it is misplaced for taxpayers to play the role in the welfare system that wages should play in our economy. That leads welfare reform into new areas about how to raise productivity, particularly among those who are lowest paid. We should not simply accept and welcome the Chancellor’s proposals for a national living wage but think about how we take it on from there. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

My first suggestion to those on the Treasury Bench stems from the fact of the Government’s introducing a national living wage. When the people who designed tax credits got to work, nobody thought that any Government would bring forward that proposal. They therefore incorporated two aspects into the tax credits system. The first was about how to subsidise, and make up to a more decent level, poverty wages. The second was that given the life cycle and where life’s journey takes us, there are periods when people have children and their budget is stretched, and the tax credits system should play a role in that. I ask those on the Treasury Bench, when they are thinking about what they do in only a few weeks’ time in the autumn statement, to consider whether we should now grow up and accept that we are going to have a national living wage, and that the tax credits system should not only subsidise low wages but take some of the responsibility for the costs of children. I think there would be a great deal more support in the country if tax credits were about supporting children rather than the need to subsidise poverty wages.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend, as I would call him outside this Chamber, make it clear that this is about tax credits and not child tax credits, as they are two different benefits?

[Frank Field]

There are two benefits—child tax credit and child benefit. The Prime Minister seems to misunderstand the difference between the two, because he said during the election that child tax credits would not be touched, but given that under this formula we are changing the clawback—or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) would say, the amount of money people lose—by changing the threshold at which people begin to take back tax credits, and the rate at which tax credit income changes, we are affecting the value of child tax credit. There are questions about the sense of having two benefits serving the same purpose.

My second proposal is one that I guess many Tory MPs have made privately to the Government. I cannot imagine that Government Whips are different from Opposition Whips. If we had been in government making this proposal, our Whips would have been very busy last weekend phoning hon. Members to ask what they would tolerate as a minimum for reform. I would have thought that one very clear message coming back would be that bringing in these reforms next April is not acceptable

The third and more radical proposal, which again unites Back Benchers on both sides of the House, is that the changes to tax credits should apply only to new claimants. One of the problems of our popularity in shovelling around taxpayers’ money without realising that the music might stop some day and people might think the bill was not actually affordable is that in the meantime our constituents have responded to the very clear messages—in the form of incentives in the tax credits system—about what we wish them to do. In talking both publicly and privately with Conservative Members and certainly with Labour Members, I have noticed a sense that it is one thing to say there is a new contract for people who are not claiming tax credits now, but it is a totally different ball game to say to the others, “You’ve responded and you’ve done all we expected you to do, but, by Jove, we are going to clobber you now for doing so.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen McPartland]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. I mention teaching assistants because I think they are a classic example of people who are constricted in the hours they are able to work. They can work only so many hours a week and so many days a year.

The existing mitigation includes free childcare for three and four-year-olds, but if people do not have a three or four-year-old that is pointless and no help whatsoever. There has been talk about the personal income tax allowance increasing from £11,000 to £12,500. I would like to see it go up to £15,000 by the end of the Parliament, but if people do not earn more than £11,000, it is of no use to them. People on £11,000 will still be hit by the £1,200 or £1,400 cut. That punishes people who are going out to work and doing the right thing. That does not sit right with me and I cannot support it.

[David Morris]

Does my hon. Friend think that a tapering system would be better suited to this policy?

[Stephen McPartland]

That is a possible solution and I am sure that the Treasury is looking into it. I would like to work with the Treasury on how the mitigation could work, and I hope that it will listen.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

I very rarely stand up in the House of Commons and congratulate an Opposition Member on initiating a debate of such magnitude, but I thank my friend the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). Many in this Chamber see him as a leading light on the welfare of the people of this country. I remember very plainly from before I was in politics the right hon. Gentleman being sacked for thinking the unthinkable, and here we are debating tax credits.

The tone of the debate is very measured. We are hearing balanced views from all sides. Tax credits were brought in for the right reasons, but they spiralled out of control. When nine out of 10 people can claim a tax credit, we have to ask ourselves whether it is a sweetener for working or a benefit, as it was originally set up to be.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

rose—

[David Morris]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is another hon. Friend.

[Mark Durkan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. In acknowledging the contribution of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) in securing this debate, will he also acknowledge the role of the other place in creating an entirely different context for this debate, because we would not have been hearing the tone he has remarked upon had it not been for Monday night and the position forced on the Chancellor?

[David Morris]

I disagree with my hon. Friend on the debate in the other place, because I think it was unprecedented that that motion was passed. However, I have my own words to say about that in another context, which he will probably read about over the weekend.

We were in a position where almost everyone was on a tax credit. They were a stepping-stone to gainful employment. The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said it right: employers do not know if their employees are on tax credits. I know that; I employed over 100 people and some were claiming tax credits, but I found that out only down the line in certain circumstances. So it is mainly a hidden benefit.

I applaud what the Chancellor is trying to do. I do not think this idea of a £1,300 average loss to 3 million households stacks up, because it is based on estimates. We do not know what is going to be in the spending review. However, we do know what has already happened by raising the personal tax allowance to £11,000 in April, with the aspiration for it to be £12,500 in 2020. That will help out and create a tax break worth about £1,000 to people all across the country. We are also offering 30 hours of free childcare, which amounts to £5,000. Fuel duty has been frozen, too, and the economy is on the up.

[Caroline Flint]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about 30 hours of free childcare, but I think most people listening in the Gallery or outside will think that is for all children in any form of childcare. We need to have an honest debate. That is 30 hours of free childcare only for those three and four-year-olds in nursery education. That does not begin to help those families that have different-age children, and the cuts to working tax credits fundamentally affect families who get access to support with their other childcare costs to enable them to take up a job and stay in work.

[David Morris]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her eloquent intervention. She demonstrates that there is confusion in the whole sphere of tax credits and child tax credits. When tax credits were brought in, they helped families who were struggling in a time of great austerity. It has to be acknowledged that we are still in a time of great austerity, but the economy is now on the up and we are seeing projections that we are starting to come out of recession mode and that we will move into a lack of deficit within the next five to 10 years.

What do all these figures mean? Put simply, they mean that we have to balance the books and we have to look at every possible way of doing so. We have to think the unthinkable, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead—I keep calling him my “Friend”—did all those years ago. I do actually have faith in the Chancellor. I know him personally, and he is a good, decent, caring man, despite what we read in the newspapers and despite what is said about him. I know that he will be watching this debate and hearing what we are saying. He will be thinking about this. Yes, nine out of 10 people were claiming tax credits. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead said that these measures could benefit eight out of 10 people, but we must care for the other two people in every 10 and ensure that we get the right deal for them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huq]

I think that we have a similar number—6,500 families—in Ealing Central and Acton. It is the children whom we should be thinking about. They are not just columns on a spreadsheet, but real people.

There was great drama at PMQs yesterday. The leader of the Labour party asked the Prime Minister six times about these plans and whether working people would be worse off next year, and six times, the Prime Minister refused to answer. Even The Sun—not the most Labour friendly paper—referred to that exchange. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said:

“This is not a constitutional crisis; it is a crisis for 3 million families”.—[Official Report, 28 October 2015; Vol. 601, c. 339.]

We could go further, even further than this motion. The Chancellor could still perform a full U-turn, which I would welcome, as I did the rapid conversion to feminism in this place yesterday. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, if the Chancellor were to make a U-turn, we would welcome it on the Labour Benches. We would not taunt the Government if they were to do that. There is still time.

The Chancellor has a choice before him. He can continue hell-bent on his tax giveaways to big corporations and to the wealthiest in our country, or he could reverse those tax breaks to the few and go for a lower surplus target in 2019-20 while still sticking to his self-imposed charter. He would still be in a position not to hit those 3 million working families with these tax credit cuts. After all, this is a Government who claim to be on the side of working people. The ball is now firmly in the court of the Treasury Ministers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) said that, often, the lifting of people out of taxation is used to justify these measures, but such a move is not as progressive as it initially appears to be. It helps dual earner households the most, but only those who earn enough. It makes no difference if the Government start taxing at £6,000 or £11,000, because there is little help for those on £5,000—the lowest paid on the distributional curve.

Studies have shown that the national living wage, which is not an actual living wage, will only affect a small minority of people and it will never help those under the age of 26. My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) also pointed out that the childcare element is quite limited. In my own constituency, parents would be hard-pressed to find a nursery that could offer a place, because there is not the commensurate resource to match the policy.

People have been wondering, even before the mess of this week, how they can trust a Prime Minister who blatantly said one thing on TV as recently as 30 April and then quite a different thing just a couple of months later in July. He made a promise of no cuts to a voter on a phone-in programme. That was then followed up by David Dimbleby to check that what he said was clear. By July, that promise had gone. That must be the fastest U-turn in history. In PMQs yesterday, we heard some MPs say that they had claimed tax credits. I do not know whether that is true. Perhaps we can put that down to the theatre of PMQs.

[David Morris]

rose—

[Dr Huq]

I have already given way once, so I will not do so again. Reduced tax credits are being introduced alongside a gamut of other welfare changes, the cumulative effect of which is an assault on the lowest paid in our country.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The measures to save welfare—as I say, we will help with the transition—come alongside the increase in the national living wage, the increase in the personal allowance and the action we have taken to cut social rents. They are all part of a package that is delivering economic security to the people in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman remembers what the situation was like five or six years ago in Northern Ireland: high unemployment, a lack of business investment and people looking for work. Now we are in a situation where jobs are being created and people are finding work. Do I say that everything has been done that needs to be done? Absolutely not. We have more to do to bring jobs and investment to Northern Ireland. Let us work together to make that happen.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

My local council keeps bleating on about cuts, saying how they are going to affect everybody living there. But, on the front page of a newspaper, a management consultancy company that the council brought in said that in my constituency and the region, 10,000 jobs are going to be created over the next five years. [Interruption.] Yes, very lucky. Does the Chancellor agree that his economic policies have put that on track and that my area of the world is going forward, making it better for the people who live there?

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a result of the combination of him being a very effective local MP and the fact that we have a Conservative Prime Minister and a Conservative Government, we are delivering more jobs into my hon. Friend’s part of Lancashire. Indeed, I remember on visits with him seeing the work being done on the link road to the port, which for decades—including when there were Labour MPs representing the constituency—was campaigned for, but never delivered. Now it is actually being built and delivered as a result of my hon. Friend’s local efforts.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

David Morris Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady, who is a Greater Manchester Member of Parliament, should talk to her leaders in Greater Manchester who put the proposal to the Government. The proposal was not invented in Whitehall and visited upon Greater Manchester. The leaders of Greater Manchester made the very good point that when there is a strong connection between the needs of the national health service and the social care of residents across Greater Manchester, it makes complete sense for them to be managed together. That was their proposal and, in line with what my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) said, we were very pleased to endorse it.

As I said, this is just the start. We want to build on the ingenuity and experience of local councils and civic and business leaders in an area to attract private investment to match the public investment. The city and local growth deals that we implemented in the last Parliament have transformed £7 billion of funds from central Government Departments into £21 billion of local investment. This Budget represents a golden opportunity for local leaders to repeat that success on a grander scale. Furthermore, with measures such as the creation of new enterprise zones, for which an invitation has gone out to places across the country, and the extension of the coastal communities fund, we are determined that this invitation should be extended to all parts of the country.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

Would my right hon. Friend look favourably on an enterprise zone application for Morecambe White Lund and on a coastal communities investment, because Morecambe needs more money on top of the £1 billion that was delivered by the previous Government? I am sure that, with the Secretary of State’s help, we can do better.

[Greg Clark]

I know from the last Parliament what a fighter my hon. Friend is for his area. I would welcome an application for Morecambe not just for an enterprise zone, but for the coastal communities fund—announcements were made on those two important policies in the Budget. I say to Members from all parts of the House that this is a big opportunity for them to work with the council and business leaders in their area to put forward a compelling bid for funds and, indeed, the devolution arrangements.

Greece

David Morris Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

As I said earlier, I do not think that anyone has been particularly enamoured with Syriza’s foreign policy, but what has been clear over the past few weeks is that it really needs to resolve the issue it faces with the eurozone.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

As the Government’s self-employment ambassador, I have had texts from a lot of people during this statement. They are worried about late payments by businesses in Greece and, more to the point, draconian steps that may be taken by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Will the Chancellor reiterate the steps that could help such small enterprises to flourish by being paid more quickly?

[Mr Osborne]

I very much commend my hon. Friend for the work he does. Let me reiterate that HMRC is ready to operate the time to pay scheme to help both the self-employed and small businesses—and, indeed, larger firms—who have problems because there have some kind of financial transaction with a Greek company and have been caught up in the Greek Government’s capital controls. There is advice on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website, and they can get bespoke advice by phoning the helpline.

House of Lords Reform

David Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Westminster Hall

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered reforming the House of Lords and the number of peers.

Thank you for chairing this debate, Mr Hollobone. It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship.

This debate is not designed to diminish the Lords’ responsibility, status or powers. I am trying to find a way forward that will allow us to retain the Lords’ expertise and keep them there for life, as was originally envisioned when they were appointed. It must not be seen as ageist or in any way derogatory to what goes on in the other place. I value the Lords; the Lords are valued. Their expertise is second to none, irrespective of their type, and their constitutional role should not be underestimated.

There are currently 786 peers, with 40 peers on leave of absence or otherwise disqualified from sitting. The Conservative party has 228 peers; the Labour party has 212; there are 178 Cross Benchers; the Liberal Democrats have 102; the Democratic Unionist party has four; the UK Independence party has three; Plaid Cymru has two; the Ulster Unionist party has two; the Green party has one; there are 28 non-affiliated peers; and there are 26 Lords Spiritual. It is a bit long-winded to state how many Lords there are, but it is important that I do so because our upper Chamber is one of the most highly-subscribed democratic institutions in the developed world.

The numbers in attendance by age were supplied to me by the House of Commons Library. The analysis reveals that the mean age is currently 70.4 years—in effect, 70 years. The median is roughly the same, implying a symmetrical distribution, with roughly as many peers above that age as under it. The oldest party is the UK Independence party, at a mean age of 76.3 years, although there are only three of them. The mean age of the Cross-Bench peers is 76.2 years; for the Labour party it is 71.3; for the Conservatives it is 70, and for the Liberal Democrats it is 70.3.

It is difficult to analyse peers’ activity, yet a brief analysis using Hansard data reveals that the mean age of the 20 most active Members of the House of Commons, excluding Mr Speaker, is 64.9, which is more than five years younger than the average of the House of Lords. That may suggest that younger Members are more active, although I would be cautious about drawing that conclusion, given that it is based on only a partial analysis of the data.

In the previous Parliament, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) wanted to have a partly elected upper Chamber. He proposed that the upper Chamber continue to be known as the House of Lords for legislative purposes; that the reformed House of Lords should have 300 Members, of which 240 are elected Members and 60 are appointed independent Members; and that up to 12 Church of England bishops may sit in the house as ex-officio Lords Spiritual. His proposal would have halved the number of Lords and created a semi-elected second Chamber, which would have huge ramifications for our unwritten constitution and our intellectual talent. I believe that that would be the wrong way forward, and would cause a drought of our intellectual talent in the other place.

Dan Byles, the former Member for North Warwickshire introduced a private Member’s Bill for the retirement of Lords. Some peers have utilised that provision. I contacted Dan, and he disclosed that the retirement age was always aimed at 75, although that was never mentioned.

My proposal is to reduce the numbers in the House of Lords. It could be seen as radical, although I hope it is not. I want it to be seen as a constructive way forward. I believe that there is a better way to slim down the Lords by 250 Members, so it becomes more proportionate to the Commons over a 20-year period. I propose that the Lords eventually settles at 450 to 500 peers, who should remain in the House of Lords as life peers, but retire from the Lords as we know it at the age of 75. They may wish to retire from the Lords under Dan Byles’s law, but that would be up to them.

I propose that Lords over 75 become the Lords council. They would still be able to attend functions and use the facilities of the House of Lords. In fact, they would be able to go about their daily business as they do now. They would still be remunerated, and it would cost no more than it does now. The problem is not the number of Lords, but the number we appoint, so we have to find a way forward that enables us to value our existing Lords and appoint new ones in a manner that reflects where we want the House of Lords to be in 20 years’ time.

Members of the new Lords council would be able to sit on Committees, based on their expertise and choice. They would be able to influence their colleagues and the Government as before. However, they would not be able to attend the Chamber and vote. That would have a significant effect on getting down the numbers, improving the working environment and creating a Chamber atmosphere similar to the Commons.

The benefits of my proposal are that it would enable us to value our peers without losing them as we reduce their number over two decades. It would allow a tapered reduction to take place in a sensible and measured manner. It would allow the more active peers to debate and work on a regime suited to their stamina. Therefore, the Lords who, to put it bluntly, are getting older and cannot attend the Chamber regularly will have options. They would not be able to go into the Chamber in the first place, although they would be able to advise. It would create a career path from the Commons into the Lords, and make both Chambers more efficient. The new appointees would be strictly limited and appointed in the same way as before. However, there would be constraints that I will not mention in this debate that will have to be looked at to ensure we have the correct political system at work. We must prevent the perception that the Lords is being stacked by political means. The main benefit would be that we retain the expertise of all ages and reduce the numbers sensibly.

As the median age is currently 70—there are as many under that age as over it—the maths naturally state that if the proposal were to become law, roughly a third of peers would go into the new Lords council in the first five to 10 years. The restriction of the numbers of new appointees would ultimately reconfigure the look of the new Lords structure. I firmly believe that my proposal is a viable and credible means of reducing the number of Lords and, more importantly, preventing the loss of our valued intellectual talent that an elected second Chamber would cause. It is very simple and straightforward.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I am happy with most of what my hon. Friend said, but I am concerned about the age being fixed. Some peers are very effective beyond the age of 75. I suggest a slightly different arrangement, whereby a percentage—I will not say what that is at the moment—retires or is requested to retire, and people compete for the remaining places. How about that?

[David Morris]

That is a valid and constructive way forward, as an annexe to what I am trying to do. I would like hon. Members reading this debate in the future to understand that this is a simplified view of what could happen. Further debates would have to take place, and legislation would have to be enacted to make it actually work. However, what my hon. Friend has just articulated very well is that we could have a percentage of Lords who assist a transition, and so still retain the intellectual expertise in the other place—that is the whole ethos behind this debate.

I have nothing more to add, but this is an important subject. For literally decades we have been trying to sort out the problem of the number of Members of the House of Lords. Although I voted for the proposals of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam in their initial stages, I did not like them. We should look into the issue in a more measured and stately way—one that suits the House of Lords as it currently stands.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I must apologise, Mr Hollobone—I have not spoken in a Westminster Hall debate before and so am not quite sure what I am doing.

I am the SNP spokesperson on the House of Lords. Our policy is no longer to have a second Chamber, but I understand that this debate is about finding a way forward by reforming the House of Lords rather than getting rid of it. The way forward that has been suggested is really interesting and would reduce the number of Lords. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) mentioned that some Lords are active and effective over the age of 75; that was an interesting point and should be taken into account.

One concern I have with the proposal of the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) is that in the interim period of 20 years he suggested there is a risk that the House of Lords as a whole will continue to get older. If we are aiming to reduce the number of Lords, presumably we will not be appointing many more in that interim period, which will push the average age up, even with a cut-off point of 75.

[David Morris]

I agree with the hon. Lady. I have looked into this, and if we do the maths, as I said earlier, the average age in the Lords is around 70, and the average active Lord is 65 years of age. She is correct that there is a mathematical schism, in that not appointing new Lords would push up the average age. However, over a period of 20 years it would come down to how many Lords were appointed in the initial stages. We could have a calculated assessment that kept in mind the ages of the Lords and how many might be around in 20 years, which would allow us to work out a taper.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Absolutely. If the youngest Lords at the moment are in their 30s and we do not appoint any more, in 20 years the youngest will be in their 50s, which is a concern.

There could be a degree of election for the pool of life peers, as well as for the hereditary peers. The SNP policy is to abolish the House of Lords entirely, but if that is not going to happen, we want something that is closer to representative democracy. That would mean some form of election, and a House that represented the breadth of the population. A mean age of 70 is nowhere near doing that—I am not in any way being ageist, but simply suggesting that there is a lack of representativeness. If there were a system whereby a group of the current life peers was chosen democratically to continue in the House, we would be more likely to have a swathe of peers who were more representative of the population.

[David Morris]

I understand where the hon. Lady is coming from and share some of her sentiments. However, we looked at that in the previous Parliament and could not get the proposals through the House. I think the House of Lords should be kept as it is now; the issue is how we get the numbers down. I do not have a panacea and am hoping that this debate will be the start of a process. I share her sentiments, which could be looked at in future.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Absolutely.

I do not have much more to say. I appreciate the chance to contribute to the debate and hope that we can find a constructive way forward that includes reform of the House of Lords and, in particular, reduces the number of its Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

My hon. Friend makes my point for me, which is that I do not think that my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale is pretending that his proposal is a complete answer. I think that he is putting it forward as an interesting and thought-provoking contribution to a broader debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight is quite right to point out that this question about how we reduce the size of the House of Lords will depend not only on people leaving, standing down, retiring or—as this proposal suggests—entering as councillors, but on the number of people coming in and at what age they come in. This proposal does not necessarily address that issue directly—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale was quite straightforward about that—and that is why I suggest that we ought to have other people contributing to this debate, because it will require other proposals for us to come up with a full suite of potential answers.

[David Morris]

I know that the Minister may not be able to answer this question, but could he possibly point me in the right direction in the House of Lords to like-minded Lords who would like to take this matter further? I know that previously Dan Byles worked closely and respectfully with the Lords.

[John Penrose]

I am sure that the Whips in the Lords and the Leader of the Lords will be happy to point my hon. Friend at particular people who might be interested, and I also suggest to him that he might want to talk to some of the Lords who sponsored the two successful private Members’ Bills that have gone through recently. They might be interested themselves, or they might know other colleagues who would be interested in picking this matter up. That would be my starting point.

I hope that other people outside Westminster Hall have listened to this debate, that their interest is piqued and that they will start to consider this important and—as I have said—currently unexpectedly neglected area of constitutional reform, because we have only just started to focus on it. Therefore, this debate is an incredibly valuable starter for 10—a way of beginning a wider debate and kicking things off—but we need to be clear that it is a starting point and not the final answer. To be fair to my hon. Friend, I do not think that he is positioning it as anything else but that.

With any luck, those outside this place will listen to what we have said today and start work. If they start work and then have weighty thoughts on a variety of approaches to pursuing this important area of constitutional reform, I will be delighted to hear what they have to say.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

3. What recent steps he has taken to rebalance the economy and create a northern powerhouse.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

4. What recent steps he has taken to rebalance the economy and create a northern powerhouse.

[The First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

We have a comprehensive plan to rebalance the economy and create a northern powerhouse by bringing together the great cities and counties of the north of England, alongside plans to support other vital economies in our country, such as the south-west. Those plans involve major investment in transport infrastructure, backing science and skills, and supporting local businesses. The centrepiece of the northern powerhouse is the commitment to a major transfer of power to our great cities and counties so that local people can take more control of the decisions that affect them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The question is about the northern powerhouse and must be confined to the northern powerhouse. We are immensely grateful.

[David Morris]

In my constituency, a link road was 60 years overdue. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor came, and the Prime Minister put a series of bolts into the bridge there. Does my right hon. Friend the Chancellor agree that the road is vital to the improvement of my constituency, and that such projects should be rolled out across the area to ensure more vitality in the northern powerhouse?

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) is a huge champion of Plymouth and the south-west. We will have time to address the south-west in questions.

The Heysham link road is a major achievement for my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris). People have campaigned for it for 70 years. I happened to visit about a week before the general election with the Prime Minister. Because of my hon. Friend’s fight for infrastructure and jobs in his seat, he is back in the House doing his job.