Treasury

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from the oral statement on public sector pay on 13 July 2023.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I am a little concerned about the £1.425 billion to be found from within the Department for Education’s existing budget between now and 2025, with £525 million this financial year and a further £900 million in the next financial year. Will the Minister be a bit more specific about exactly where that will be taken from within the Department’s budget to meet the teachers’ pay increase? While of course we welcome the fact that the Government are honouring the teachers’ pay review body recommendations, let us not forget that the envelope for the review bodies is set by the Government in the first place. There is something else going on in this situation: we currently have a recruitment and retention crisis among our teaching workforce, with something like 20% of newly qualified teachers leaving after three years and 40% leaving after five years. Nobody goes into teaching because of the money, but it always helps, and a rise in line with inflation would certainly help.

[John Glen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I think he welcomes what we have decided to do with the 6.5% pay increase, which leaves a typical teacher with £44,300. We are reprioritising within the Department for Education’s existing budget to deliver the additional funding to schools, but we are protecting core schools funding and frontline services. We have put in additional sums of money through the spending review and subsequent fiscal events: £330 million in 2023-24 and £550 million in 2024-25. The numbers add up, and he will recognise that.

[Official Report, 13 July 2023, Vol. 736, c. 533.]

Letter of correction from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen).

An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns).

The correct response should have been:

Public Sector Pay

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I am a little concerned about the £1.425 billion to be found from within the Department for Education’s existing budget between now and 2025, with £525 million this financial year and a further £900 million in the next financial year. Will the Minister be a bit more specific about exactly where that will be taken from within the Department’s budget to meet the teachers’ pay increase?

While of course we welcome the fact that the Government are honouring the teachers’ pay review body recommendations, let us not forget that the envelope for the review bodies is set by the Government in the first place. There is something else going on in this situation: we currently have a recruitment and retention crisis among our teaching workforce, with something like 20% of newly qualified teachers leaving after three years and 40% leaving after five years. Nobody goes into teaching because of the money, but it always helps, and a rise in line with inflation would certainly help.

[John Glen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I think he welcomes what we have decided to do with the 6.5% pay increase, which leaves a typical teacher with £44,300. We are reprioritising within the Department for Education’s existing budget to deliver the additional funding to schools, but we are protecting core schools funding and frontline services. We have put in additional sums of money through the spending review and subsequent fiscal events: £330 million in 2023-24 and £550 million in 2024-25. The numbers add up, and he will recognise that.

Autumn Statement

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

That is absolutely what we want to do, and that is why today we are announcing that the energy price guarantee will continue, supporting my hon. Friend’s constituents in an average household by about £500 during the course of next year. Going forward, because these are multibillion pound programmes, we need people to work together with the Government to also improve their energy efficiency. The other thing the Business Secretary will announce shortly is a long-term energy independence and energy efficiency plan which, if we implement it, will bring down the average fuel bill by another £500.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

In his statement, the Chancellor said that because of difficult decisions in 2010, the Government could then go on to do several things. However, places like Gateshead are still living with the drastically detrimental consequences of those 2010 decisions. The decision to incrementally withdraw revenue support grant from councils means that my own local authority is £179 million per year worse off now than it was in 2010. Many local authorities with a low council tax base are in exactly the same boat. We are worried about austerity 2.0, but we are also very, very worried about the continuing consequences of austerity 2010. So, after 12 years, when will the Government do something about local government finance to prove to people in Gateshead that the words “levelling up” are not just empty rhetoric?

[Jeremy Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say how important the levelling up programme is. The economic growth we have had since 2010 means we are able to invest in capital projects today. The levelling up round 2 fund will be protected and possibly increased from the £1.7 billion invested in levelling up round 1. We are absolutely committed to connecting areas like Gateshead into the national economy, which means that wealth spreads.

National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

Ian Mearns Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I am wondering how the Minister would suggest that a local authority such as mine in Gateshead innovates on that conundrum. When I ceased to be the deputy leader of the council in 2010, its net revenue budget was just over £300 million. This year, that budget is just over £200 million. It will take some innovating to balance that conundrum.

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for alluding to his experience in local government. I would simply say that there is a lot that good local authorities can do and have done already to ensure that they focus on value for money, but of course there is more that can be done. We need only look at the enormous potential for digitisation, property disposals and addressing back-office costs and sharing them with other local authorities. There is lots of innovation that can and should be done and there are good local authorities up and down the country that are doing that.

I will resume where I left off by addressing the fact that the Government cannot and must not shy away from difficult decisions, which is why the health and social care levy that we announced last year will remain in place, because it is only right to safeguard a dedicated source of funding for our NHS and for those who need care throughout their lives. As the Chancellor pointed out yesterday, a long-term funding solution for the NHS and social care is not incompatible with reducing the tax burden on working families, which brings me to the specifics of the Bill—an integral part of the Chancellor’s tax plan.

Covid-19: Government Support for Business

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

Yes, we do, and that is why we have given £12 billion of loan guarantees through the covid corporate financing facility for the aviation sector. At the Budget, we put in the airport and ground operations support scheme to help with fixed costs over the next six months. Of course I recognise that the situation is having a significant impact on the sector and the Government will remain engaged to support where we possibly can.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

A number of different things have happened this week in the Government’s messaging, but one significant thing was when the Prime Minister made his television statement on Sunday and told people to work from home if they can. Reinforcing that message has meant that, this week, an awful lot of people are not in the places that they expected to be, which has resulted in cancellations of bookings for hotels and restaurants. Rightly, reinforcing that message has had an impact that the Treasury needs to react to.

[John Glen]

I recognise that, which is why I have set out today the engagement that we are having to try to determine exactly what we need to do.

Lockdown: Economic Support

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab) [V]]

Prior to this lockdown announcement, we had had almost universal calls for an extension to the full furlough scheme in areas with tighter restrictions, which Ministers had rejected for months. Despite that, the Government saw fit to announce a new version of this on Saturday, only hours before the previous furlough was due to be replaced by an inferior scheme for us in the north, as further restrictions were becoming inevitable in many areas. Many people in the north therefore now believe that until workers in the south were to be affected by the national lockdown, they were somehow thought to be worth less. Businesses in Gateshead and elsewhere are desperate for clarity and certainty to help them in planning and so that they know whether and how they can survive. Will the Chief Secretary commit today to publishing details of a comprehensive, ongoing financial support package available to businesses and their workers in areas that will continue to need it, where tiers of restrictions might, sadly, have to continue after 2 December?

[Steve Barclay]

First, on the suggestion that there has been a differentiated approach, the point is that a number of arrangements were put in place, for example, with the Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, with civic leaders in your own Lancashire region, Mr Speaker, and with South Yorkshire, because we recognised that there were additional pressures in those communities. We also put in further support retrospectively, recognising that a number of areas had been in tier 2 restrictions for a period. So the suggestion that additional support had not been offered does not stand that scrutiny. If one takes the deputy chief medical officer’s advice, it was inappropriate previously to have a national lockdown—Professor Van-Tam set that out—but the pathway of the virus and the infection increase was such that a more comprehensive approach was taken. So this is a response to the health pandemic as much as a response to anything that is geographically determined.