Building Societies Act 1986 (Amendment) Bill

James Daly Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

I completely agree—my right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and we will come to that in due course. She is absolutely right.

I want to focus on building societies in rural areas. The flight of the banks, in particular from rural areas but also from a lot of high street banking and the role they have traditionally carried out—this is partly why the Bill is so important—highlights the importance of cash in the rural economy. Many of my local small businesses are really struggling with how to bank cash properly. We also have a problem in our part of the world with ATMs now being subject to JCB theft—ATMs being ripped out of the wall. So, there is a cash problem and building societies have a really important role.

As well as reflecting the very best of old Labour, this is also, if I may say so, the very best of civic conservatism. This is Edward Burke’s little platoons. This is the weft and the warp of local connected responsible civic community-based capitalism; the sort of capitalism that small platoon civic conservatism has long championed. I would argue that all parties in Government over the past 40 years have slightly forgotten that that needs to be championed. We have seen the rise and the domination of big capital, big banks and big disconnected capitalism. I am here today as a card-carrying supporter of the mutuality model and civic capitalism. I think both main parties have that in common in their different traditions and history.

On rural banking and finance, in Mid Norfolk we have five towns and 114 villages. We are not quite halfway between Cambridge and Norwich. Traditionally, it has been something of a rural backwater. It is an agricultural community, with many retirees and pensioners moving to quiet rural Norfolk. It is a real challenge to ensure that our villages remain vibrant and our towns remain thriving. The model of development over the past 40 years has been over-focused on commuter housing. People drive their cars to Norwich and Cambridge during the day, and that sucks the life out of many of our villages.

The rise of online commerce and digital retail has also taken quite a lot of the life out of many of our towns, and our high streets are struggling to remain vibrant. The Government’s moves to reduce business rates has helped, but the pandemic and the cost of energy crisis, coming off the back of the Ukraine war, has hit rural areas disproportionately hard. That is a theme I will be picking up in the coming months in this House in the run-up to the Budget. Everyone has been hit by the cost of energy increase of course, but in rural areas there is a double triple whammy. Every member of staff in a company has to drive. Most of my relatively low-paid working families have one, two or three cars. They are not a luxury; they need them to be able to get to work. All our public services are hit—our bus services and our county council services—all across rural areas. We are paying a double whammy because of an over-dependency on transport and heating. That huge rural impact is hitting remote backwater rural areas very hard, particularly in my part of Norfolk.

In that context, it is urgent that we encourage the revival of the rural economy. I have long believed and campaigned locally that, with a slightly different approach to planning and development in our area, we could trigger something of a rural renaissance, with many small businesses popping up off the back of the Cambridge phenomenon and the Norwich Research Park. Small businesses often start off by working from home or looking for converted farm units; they are not in the city centre, but distributed. If we can get more businesses back into villages and small towns, we will have more people of working age in communities during the day. That will reduce congestion and commuting.

The model of a vibrant rural economy is key to so many of the priorities of successive Governments. We will never get to net zero if we keep shovelling people into cars and making them commute long distances in congested traffic jams. The more we can get people to work from home or nearer to home, travelling when they need to during the day and not in peak hours, the better. That vision of rural renaissance is key, but it will never happen if young people cannot afford to buy a house near to where they work, if thriving businesses on the high street are unable to cash-up, save and deposit cash safely, and if pensioners are unable to save, take out their deposits and interact with banking in the way they have for the past 50 or 60 years. We need to ensure that we build an economy for the people who live there.

That is what my campaign, The Norfolk Way, is all about. It is a project to promote that vision of rural growth. The Bill touches on much of that. One has only to see the flight of the mainstream banks out of such areas—I know that colleagues in other constituencies see that—and the desperation that people feel, whether they are first-time buyers or pensioners.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, but we should not see building societies as a panacea; they are closing branches in my area as well. How do we encourage building societies to keep branches open when they are closing throughout the country?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I do not want to suggest that they are a total panacea; I am lauding and applauding Nationwide in Dereham because it is doing great work, but we need to make sure that the Bill is part of a broader approach. I hope that Treasury Ministers, thinking about the run-up to the Budget and looking ahead, will think about how we can encourage more choice, more competition and more presence from both building societies and banks. We need choice and competition in rural areas and other areas that are not well served as well as in areas that are.

The opportunity for rural renaissance was hit hard by the pandemic, as well as by the Ukraine war, with its impact on energy prices, Putin turning off the gas taps and the cost of living crisis that we have all experienced. It is in that context that the Bill represents a chink of light and has been hugely supported locally. I am delighted to have helped the hon. Member for Sunderland Central bring it to the House.

I want to say something about the banks, because over the 13 years for which I have been privileged to be the Member of Parliament for Mid Norfolk the closure of banks—a cause on which I remember fondly working with the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), in 2009—has gradually hit much of rural Norfolk. Everyone understands that we cannot have a hugely staffed bank branch in every village, but there is a contract at the heart of the state between citizens, Governments and operations such as banks that work under regulations. Banks are there to provide a service, too, and if they are not going to provide that service we need to look at who will.

[George Freeman]

I do. My right hon. and learned Friend amplifies exactly the point I was making. He is right that sparsely populated or rural areas will often require different solutions, in the same way as small rural schools require us to network and support them through multi-academy trusts. Similarly, we need to be imaginative in how we support cash access and banking and saving in rural areas. That touches on a deep problem that I have witnessed over many years: Whitehall tends to see these problems through an urban lens, and we need to think a bit about how rural areas often need a slightly different approach. I hope that the Bill and the cross-party support for it will help to encourage the Treasury to think about how we can do more to make this a moment to encourage greater choice and competition out in the market.

It is particularly sad that the banks have stepped back from the service I described over the two or three decades in which many of them have focused rather more on big, international and complex financial trading—the derivatives that led to quite a lot of problems we had back in the great crash. It is particularly sad in Norfolk given that it is where one of our great banks, Barclays, actually started, with the Gurney and Barclay families. The first bank had its roots in King’s Lynn docks. As people were required to pay duties, they required credit finance. I encourage anyone who has not been to King’s Lynn to go there, as it has a beautifully regenerated and refurbished Georgian dockyard, where they can see the plaque commemorating the first credit facility that became the great Barclays bank. It is particularly sad to see a bank such as Barclays step back from the place in which it started. Everyone has history, roots and heritage, and I am not such a romantic that I expect Barclays to put a bank in every Norfolk village, but I do think there is a responsibility on all these companies to make sure that the people they are there to serve are getting the service they need.

I wish, in particular, to highlight the importance of access to cash on high streets for small businesses, as it is becoming a serious problem. I know that the Minister understands it, and I am grateful for his acknowledgement of it. Across East Anglia, and I am sure this is happening elsewhere, we are seeing an increasing frequency of ATM raids, where JCBs are driven into banks and ATMs are taken out. However, that is the thin end of a bigger wedge, and many businesses in Dereham, Attleborough, Wymondham, Watton and Hingham are beginning to struggle with what to do with cash on a Monday morning, and many local people are struggling to find a bank they can access.

I know that many people wish to speak this morning, so I will not detain you or the House for too long, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I want to touch on mutuality, which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) addressed earlier. We need to talk about, celebrate, champion and promote it more in this House. Some 300 years ago, we were writing the rule book for modern capitalism, defining the joint stock limited company and setting out the legal framework in English constitutional law, in common law, that drove the industrial revolution. We created limited liability companies, which allowed people to invest, raise money and back projects, and that was a key part of what this country did.

In an age of globalised capitalism and high technology, we have a challenge to make sure that capital does not become disconnected from the people who are providing the money, the savers, and the people who need the money to build businesses. For capitalism to work, we need a connection between money, the people who are saving it and the people who are borrowing it. The last crash in the City was a clear example of what happens when a disconnection is allowed to get to crisis proportions, whereby people do not know where the money that they have deposited is going and people who buy a complex derivative bond do not know what it is built on or what is underpinning it. We then have a serious problem. I am not suggesting that we go back to an agrarian revolution of trading wheat for a lift on a cart into Dereham, but I think there is a real issue in our economy in respect of connected capitalism.

Conservative Members in particular, as card-carrying advocates for the market, need to continue to champion and make clear the fact that markets work when they have values, connection and people at the heart of them. When markets are completely disconnected, they have no sense of the requirements of the people putting the capital in or taking it out, they do not value that connection and regulators do not understand the importance of the bond of responsibility between people who are trading with each other.

Mutuality is a proud tradition at the heart of the old labour movement, but it is also a proud tradition in civic conservativism—it is Burke’s little platoons. In a spirit of cross-party philosophising on this Friday morning, perhaps I can put some wind in the sails of the movement for mutuality. I would love to see more mutuality in different sectors, such as in finance, banking and housing, where, clearly, the building societies have been a great reform—I would argue that the housing associations have also been a great Conservative reform in housing.

There are many examples of where we could blow on to the embers of mutuality and encourage more of it in different areas, particularly in some of our social care sectors and health provision. It should not be a stark choice between private profit and public state. There is a whole third sector of mutuality— membership organisations that can deliver public goods, with cost reimbursement and important disciplines of financial control that are not necessarily either public sector, with all the efficiency challenges that go with it, or private sector, with all the incentives for high profit. There is a whole raft of organisations out there that we could be deploying better—in health and care, but also in criminal justice and a whole range of areas where the state has struggled in the past few decades to achieve its stated objectives.

[James Daly]

My hon. Friend is making an outstanding speech, and we could philosophise all day, which I am tempted to do very badly. Mutuality in the modern day requires a profit element. For all building society branches to remain open, the business has to produce a profit. Mutuality in the sense of Ketley’s Building Society in 1775 is a different concept completely. We therefore should always come back to the point he makes that, for mutuality to succeed, it must be based on a civic, conservative and capitalist model. It cannot work in any other way.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and encourages me to wrap up my philosophising. He is right—I am not at all anti-profit; it is about what is done with the profit. One of the geniuses of mutuality is that the profit is recycled back in to pursue the interests of those who put in the capital in the first place.

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[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) on bringing her Bill to the House. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a practising solicitor and a partner in a firm of solicitors.

When MPs stand up and say “Everything in my speech has already been said,” it feels as if they are claiming the credit for things that they have not said. But having followed such outstanding speeches—especially from my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), who set out the technical case for why the Bill is needed—I will keep my remarks to what I would call the social and cultural case for building societies.

In a debate on another subject in this House, I have talked about the Gigg Lane football stadium in my constituency. What does that have to do with building societies? Well, Gigg Lane was bought by a person in a capitalist society, but it is an institution of cultural and social value to the area in which it sits. The question I posed to the Minister in that debate was whether we view sporting institutions in the same way we view a branch of Tesco or Sainsbury’s—great businesses though they are—or whether businesses and institutions that act within the financial market but have a great history and social contribution to make to their local area should be viewed somewhat differently. There is an argument to make about building societies in that respect.

This debate makes me nostalgic, because my university days were spent behind the counter at the Yorkshire Building Society in Huddersfield, where I worked for many years. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover spoke about being a board member of a building society; I know from my experience behind the counter talking to people that building societies are important as not only financial but social institutions. I used to see the same people coming in every day, or certainly every week. It was about company; it was about community; it was about family. That has been reflected in hon. Members’ remarks today.

The building society is an institution that has been in place since Ketley’s was founded in 1775, as the hon. Member for Sunderland Central noted. It is an institution that has changed to reflect society, but as politicians we must do everything we can to protect it. The Bill is fundamentally about fairness in the market in which building societies carry out their business. It is about allowing them not only to do the social good that they have done for 250 years, but to survive. We could have a huge debate about these issues.

The 1986 Act effectively allowed societies to demutualise and become fully fledged banks. We saw the and Abbey National do that. Speaking as a as a capitalist, it should be a good thing to have freedom of choice within the market—but is it? We have seen what has happened to the market since then, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dover ably set out. Has it benefited the banking sector? Has it benefited the country? Has it benefited the people who were members of those great institutions? Where I am from in Huddersfield, Halifax was a huge employer and a huge cultural institution, and sadly it has been somewhat diminished as a result of the actions taken and the opportunities that the 1986 Act gave it. This piece of legislation is addressing some of the problems that the previous Act put in place.

It is important to reflect briefly on the history of building societies, as the hon. Member for Sunderland Central ably did. They developed as a response to societal changes and, as has been said, they were a means to allow people with ambition, who wanted to own their own home, access to capital to do that. It was a positive; it was what I would call Disraelian conservatism. I am nowhere near as articulate as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) in this respect, but to me, Disraelian conservatism says that there are certain enduring institutions within society that Government and the state must do everything to protect. Those institutions can be viewed as the monarchy and all types of things, but I think building societies fall within that category. They do so much social good that we must be somewhat—and I hate using this word—protectionist to ensure that they are allowed to flourish. If we look at the development of societies and changes within our society, self-terminating building societies, which were terminated when all members had a house, were still going up until 1980, when the First Salisbury and District Perfect Thrift—now that is a great name for a building society—came to an end.

We have seen legislation on this subject. We saw the Building Societies Act 1874, which provided legislative backing to allow for the growth of societies, and by 1910 there were 1,723 societies in existence across the country. After that, building societies went into decline, but we saw another period of expansion in the ’60s and ’70s; the Building Societies Act 1962, which granted further powers to building societies, was the charger for that. We can see that legislative amendments provide building societies with the opportunity to develop their businesses, to thrive and to succeed in the market in which they sit.

I think we have 42 or 43 building societies left, and it is fundamental that we allow those building societies to thrive. We have talked at length about banking in rural areas, but I also have concerns about banking in somewhat urban areas such as mine and, I am sure, in other constituencies. In Ramsbottom, a great town within my constituency, there are no banks on the high street now. We have a banking hub, but I am afraid a banking hub does not provide the social benefit that a building society does. As a free-marketeer capitalist I am constantly looking at the profit of a Barclays Bank, or any bank, and at its social good. If an institution has a profit of £1.6 billion, which I think Barclays did for the last quarter of 2023, I wonder why there is not capacity within the system to maintain a branch presence in many towns throughout the country. Building societies, in their social and moral mission, are fundamental to our financial sector.

I do not intend to make further comments, because everything has been articulately set out, but we are blessed in this country to have institutions that have their origin in the mid-1700s and have developed and responded to social and political need. Let us bear in mind that building societies effectively increased the franchise, because the only people who could vote in the 1800s were people who owned a house. Those who were voting would not have been able to do so unless building societies had lent them the money, so they have had a huge impact in every way, shape and form. This amendment to the 1986 Act is about fairness, competition and benefiting first time buyers. It has much to recommend it and I thoroughly support it.

Delivery of Public Services

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As she outlines, these backlogs have real and important human effects; they are not just numbers on a page.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr McFadden]

I will make some progress.

This is happening not just in the field of justice. Record numbers of patients are waiting for NHS treatment, and they are waiting longer than ever: the waiting list for NHS treatment is now 6.5 million, with more than 300,000 patients having been on the list for over a year.

Given that the system had to focus on dealing with covid, some might point to pandemic effects. There would be some justification for that argument if we had not gone into the pandemic with waiting lists that had already rocketed, but we went into the pandemic with waiting lists of 4.4 million patients, almost double the number on the lists when this Government came to power. Long waits and more people waiting are not just features of the pandemic. The number waiting more than 18 weeks is now 2.5 million, but even before the pandemic that number was nearly three quarters of a million. Some 840,000 patients were told in April that they will have to wait more than a month for a GP appointment—if they can even get through to the surgery in the first place. Millions of people are struggling to get any access to NHS dental treatment. Last year 2,000 dentists left the NHS, almost one in 10 across the whole country. There are 4,500 fewer GPs than in 2013, and Conservative manifesto promises to increase the number of GPs have been broken repeatedly. These delays are not the fault of NHS staff or the patients; they are the result of 12 long years of the Conservatives presiding over the system we have and it is time they took responsibility for the backlogs and the delays that have resulted from their long period in office.

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[Mr McFadden]

Well, the Government have chosen the route that we discussed in the Chamber last night. I do not want to repeat that, but other routes are available to them to reduce the bureaucracy experienced by our farmers and exporters.

The delays in asylum matter because they cost money. Seventy-five per cent of asylum claims are eventually endorsed, but, until they are decided, legitimate claimants cannot make a positive contribution to the country by taking up a job, and claimants who are denied cannot be removed from the country. It is neither in the interests of those who seek refuge nor in the national interest to have a system so beset by delays and backlogs. It is certainly not value for money for the taxpayer, either.

On passports and driving licences, people are being asked to wait up to 10 weeks for a passport—a standard that was itself breached more than 35,000 times in the first quarter of the year according to the Home Office. That is where backlogs beget backlogs. There are reports of travellers being asked to seek emergency travel documents because passports have not been issued, but now—this is the least surprising news ever—there is a queue for those documents, too.

Three quarters of a million drivers are waiting for their licences to be processed because of the backlog at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. A large proportion of those drivers have medical conditions and need specific permission to keep driving. That is where the backlog begets workforce issues, because, until those people get their new licences, they often cannot return to work. I appreciate that none of that may be as exciting as the latest wedge issue thought up in No. 10, but delivering on basic governance is the Government’s job, and it is time to do that job. The duty of service delivery does not go away. At the heart of this are two issues: getting the workforce right and making the most of new technology.

[James Daly]

The right hon. Gentleman touched on criminal justice earlier. Will he join me in asking Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, to take responsibility for the appalling situation that the criminal justice system is in, in Greater Manchester? It is not protecting vulnerable people or investigating crime, as a result of which my local residents are suffering. Will he join me in asking Andy Burnham to take responsibility and do something about it, which is his job?

[Mr McFadden]

I detect a pattern with these interventions. They seem to be saying that the problem is everyone’s responsibility except the Government’s. There is no escaping 12 years in office.

There are two issues at the heart of this: workforce and technology. Staff shortages are common in many areas. The unemployment figures have fallen, but so too has the overall number of people in employment. More than half a million people have left the labour market since the pandemic. They are from all age groups, but the biggest group is the over-50s, and their biggest reasons for leaving the labour market are ongoing health issues and caring responsibilities.

This is where the delays and backlogs become a vicious circle. I have already mentioned that when people with medical conditions cannot get a new driving licence approved, it can prevent their return to work. The Access to Work programme is there to help people with disabilities into work, but people face delays of up to 12 weeks in their application being processed, and the waiting list for decisions has quadrupled over the past year. That holds people back from taking up jobs and makes the staff shortages worse.

The NHS employs some 1.2 million people, but it went into the pandemic with 100,000 unfilled vacancies. We have argued for a forward plan for NHS staffing, and for training so that the vacancies can be filled. That was supported by the cross-party Health and Social Care Committee, but fiercely resisted by the Government. I have to say to the Minister that looking the other way will not make the workforce issues go away. Why are the Government so resistant to the forward planning needed by the NHS?

The question is how we make the most of our potential workforce, and help those who could go back to work to do so. Many people in this country are suffering from long covid. There are people with mental health issues, and people for whom childcare costs are a barrier. We support an expansion in mental healthcare, so that we get support to those who need it within a month, and we support mental health hubs in our local communities. More breakfast clubs and after-school activities would not only be good for children but would help parents get back to work, too.

The point of all this is that we should use the talent and energy of everyone who can make a contribution, and address any barriers to work that they face, but that is not the Government’s response to the backlogs; they have proposed staffing cuts of 20%. How will that help anyone to get a passport, driving licence or health treatment quicker, or get their case to court sooner? Is it really the best that the Government can come up with? Is it even a real response, or just another initiative thrown up to provoke a debate that distracts attention from the real issues that people face?

The issue is not just about the workforce; it is also about using innovation and technology to make public services better for the public. Covid has been described as the great acceleration. It was a time when years of change were compressed into months—in education, in the way we work, in the way we shop and pay for things, in accessing healthcare and so on. The question is how we make the most of what we have learned, and of all the other rapid changes in daily life that are powered by technology, to reform our public services for the future. Our ambition should not be just to return to where we were in 2019; it should be to improve, so that we can have high-quality public services for all.

We already knew that the Conservatives were running a high-tax, low-growth economy—we have said that many times—but the backlogs that I have outlined in public services, in area after area, show that it is also a high-tax, low-delivery economy. We have the highest tax burden since the 1950s, but people cannot get a passport or an appointment with a dentist. That is simply not a good enough deal for the British public.

The Prime Minister says that he wants another two terms in office, but our public services cannot afford another two terms of backlogs and chaos. This Government are not really governing any more. They are simply campaigning.

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[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. Friend is right to say that with this budget for the NHS comes a responsibility for that organisation to be absolutely open and candid—in a way that, frankly, it has too often not been—about where its resources are deployed, and certainly to avoid funding a culture of managerialism at the expense of the patients. We have had recent success in securing some of the data that we have been looking for, but this is a subject where ongoing pressure from across the House for greater transparency is welcome. Certainly if there is any data that we hold that my right hon. Friend would like to see, I will do my best to facilitate that.

[James Daly]

I welcome the steps the Government are taking to address the challenges within the system. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a bit rich for Labour Members to be lecturing anybody on waiting times when waiting time targets in Wales have not been met for many years? As of May 2022, nearly 700,000 patients were waiting for care, which is a 50% increase since February 2020. That is a record to be ashamed of.

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The performance of the Welsh Government in this area is genuinely concerning, but this also demonstrates a point about fundamental fairness. This debate is sometimes mischaracterised as everything being this Government’s fault, but as we have heard from the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), the performance of the Scottish healthcare system is blighted by many of the challenges that we are facing in England. Clearly there are also problems in Wales and significant problems in Northern Ireland. What matters is that we set out a clear plan to deal with them.

Our NHS elective delivery plan states that by next month no one will be waiting more than two years for elective care, except where patients choose to wait longer for some reason, and in a number of highly specialised areas.

We know that considerable progress has been made in achieving that target. The number who have waited two years or more in acute hospitals has fallen by 15,000 to 6,700, down from a peak of 22,500 in January. At the same time, the Government are on track to deliver our manifesto commitment for 50 million more primary care appointments by 2024. GP appointment numbers have already recovered to pre-pandemic levels, with 25.3 million taking place in April, of which 1.3 million were covid vaccinations.

The motion also mentions court dates, where we are also making good progress. We are providing almost half a billion pounds to address criminal court and tribunal backlogs.

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[Darren Jones]

My hon. Friend is right, and it is for the Government to do something about it. What is the point of having a Government or paying taxes if the Government stand by and say, “Oh well, this is just something that we cannot really affect”? Inequality is growing and it is now impossible for people to make themselves wealthy in our country without inheriting wealth. These issues are getting worse and worse, and the Conservative Government think it should just be left to the market and that the Government have no role to play.

In the backlog Britain that exists in reality today, whether that is passport services or elsewhere, Ministers sit by. They blame anyone else they can think of and threaten public services without taking any responsibility for their role as Ministers of the Crown. It is their job to fix these issues. Why are they not doing so? Until I see the Conservatives get a grip of the economy—[Interruption.] The Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Minister for Security and Borders are chuntering, but they are welcome to intervene.

[James Daly]

Does the hon. Gentleman make the same points to the Welsh Government regarding their appalling NHS waiting times?

[Darren Jones]

I am a Member for Bristol, but I point out that the Conservative and Unionist party ought to take some responsibility from here about what is happening across the country and the Union. Once again, however, its Members deflect responsibility and distract the public from the real cause of our problems, which is 12 years of Conservative economic mismanagement.

The facts may be uncomfortable, and Ministers may chunter, but they come from the Office for Budget Responsibility and the national statistician. Ministers have no answer to that evidence of the Government’s economic mismanagement of the last 12 years—they merely deflect and blame others. Until I see a Government who are ready to get a grip of the economy, with a plan to make Britain stronger, more successful and more sustainable, with the energy to not just survive until the next vote of no confidence, but invest in and modernise our public services, I have little hope that we will move away from the Conservative legacy of the high-tax, low-growth backlog Britain that we live in today.

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[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I congratulate the Labour party on bringing forward today’s debate, and acknowledge at the outset—I am seeking common ground with those on the Treasury Bench—that government is hard. Government means not being entirely in charge of events, and the Government must be responsible for things beyond their direct control. The SNP has been the Government of Scotland since 2007, and it has seldom been easy to achieve the results we wanted, but we see the verdict of the people of Scotland on the performance of the SNP Government: the 2019 Westminster election, the 2021 Holyrood election and the local election this year have been resounding SNP victories.

[James Daly]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very fair point, but is that the reason why A&E waiting times in Scotland are at a record high? In May over 10,000 people were waiting over two years for medical treatment; is that not a shameful record for the SNP Government?

[Alyn Smith]

I was hoping to find common ground, rather than hear endless whataboutery. We could all swap stats about the performance of our relative Governments, but I am here to critique the performance of this UK Government and try to find solutions. Have there been challenges? Of course there have. Are we all facing common challenges from the international global situation with covid? Of course we are. It is how we respond to those challenges, the decisions we make, and how we resource our public services that we can be judged by. The people of Scotland judged the SNP Government, and resoundingly backed us. Of course there are challenges, but I am proud to stand by the SNP’s record.

To govern is to choose, and it is the choices of this UK Government that we can critique today. I endorse the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) about the underlying causes of policy failure, the UK Government’s wrong decision in leaving the EU, and doing so in the way they did. That compounded a number of our difficulties, just as wrong management choices affected the delivery of public services. I will not belabour or repeat the points my right hon. Friend made, but the SNP remains very clear about our ambition for Scotland: we want an independent Scotland, back in the European family of nations. The people of Scotland will have a choice on that in October 2023. We will come back to that discussion at the proper time, I do not doubt, and I look forward to that.

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[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith), who seemed to argue that incompetence is justified as long as a party gets the democratic mandate to continue to act in that manner. I welcome his straightforward comments accepting that the SNP Government, who have responsibility for the matters that we are discussing, have faced the same challenges, including those resulting from the pandemic, as the rest of the world, and, like others, found difficulties in overcoming them, hence some of the bad figures that I quoted. I thank him for his straightforward response.

In talking about the delivery of public services—the Labour party, who brought forward the motion, do so with such certainty of criticism and purpose—we must look back to Labour’s previous actions as well as at its current actions, because clearly it must be doing something right. I gave the example—it is worthy of repetition—that Labour politicians criticise Conservative politicians for challenges regarding waiting times, yet in Wales 700,000 people are waiting for planned care, which is a 50% increase on February 2020, and no Opposition Member makes any reference to it. If the Welsh Government have any idea of how to address that, I would welcome Members sharing the news with us. What is the idea? What will they do? There is nothing on that. [Interruption.] I will not give way.

So we go on and look back further. The criticism in respect of the NHS is that, in effect, money has been put in but wasted in various ways. I thought, “I must look back at when Labour ran our NHS. I’m sure that there is a real record of investment and getting a really good bang for the taxpayer’s buck.” Although I am the very proud MP for Bury North, I am from Huddersfield and my local hospital was under threat under the last Labour Government because of the decision to build Calderdale Royal Hospital.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the Labour party’s delivery of the NHS. Is he not aware that public satisfaction with the NHS was the highest it has ever been when Labour left office?

[James Daly]

The hon. Lady talks about public opinion. Calderdale Royal Hospital was constructed with a £34 million private finance initiative deal that, at the last reckoning, cost the taxpayer £740 million. The last Labour Government wasted millions upon millions of pounds on the NHS that should have been invested in modernising and developing frontline services—it was absolutely criminal. We have made record investments throughout our time in government, as shown in the increased number of nurses and the increased services that my constituents are able to access, although there are challenges.

[Margaret Greenwood]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. Surely he must be aware that his Government’s Health and Care Act 2022, which was enacted just a month or so ago, opens up the NHS to private sector takeovers that will be deeply inefficient because money that should be spent on patient care will be taken out and given to shareholders.

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[James Daly]

Privatisation of NHS services began under Labour. There was more privatisation under Labour, so I thank the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to highlight Labour’s desire, when it was last in power, to privatise large parts of the NHS.

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend remember Labour’s famous slogan before every general election: “We have just 24 hours to save the NHS”? Well, it has been a very long 24 hours since 2010, has it not?

[James Daly]

I remember another slogan from when Labour left office: “there is no money.” I agree with my hon. Friend.

We talk about figures all too often in this House, and we can come up with any figure. It could be £1 billion, £2 billion, £500 billion or £500 million. That is not the delivery of public services; it is just us coming up with figures. The question is: what delivery model will get bang for our buck and deliver services so that people in Scotland do not wait so long in A&E and so waiting lists are not as long in Wales? The delivery model is the issue.

[Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman keeps referring to the healthcare system in Scotland. When will the English Government implement free prescriptions and free annual eyecare for the people of England? When will they implement free social care for the elderly in England?

[James Daly]

There is record investment in the NHS in England, and it is for the decision makers, those who deliver frontline services and medical professionals to make those choices. The hon. Gentleman is saying that politicians, not medical professionals, should decide the right choices for patients. [Interruption.] It is strange that he is laughing, but he makes my point on the method of delivery.

I have a constituency example of what this Government have done to deliver public services. I have already spoken of the Mayor of Greater Manchester’s appalling supervision that led directly to my local police services, and the local police services of my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson), being put in special measures, and to the most vulnerable people in our communities being put at risk. My local council, a Labour council, was given £122 million to support people, businesses and frontline services during the pandemic. Under the £37 billion package that was before the House last week, 12,000 households in my constituency will get at least £600 to support them through this period, and most of them will get up to £1,200. When we talk about those figures and what the Government have done, we see that they are supporting the people in Bury to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. The problem is that the delivery model is Labour-controlled Bury Council, which is incompetent, I am afraid, and its record would suggest that. We therefore need a wider debate about how we link the money that the Budget and the Treasury gives to local and regional government and how that is spent in the most efficient way.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. He rightly points out the grotesque incompetence of our Mayor. The second largest police force in England, Greater Manchester police, is failing; it is considered to be inadequate. I was wondering whether he could remind me who the Health Secretary was when people were drinking water out of flower vases at Mid Staffs and, apparently, satisfaction with the NHS was at its highest.

[James Daly]

The Mayor of Greater Manchester has been consistent in his past and present career regarding the delivery of public services. The important point is that we have to learn from the mistakes that my hon. Friend highlights and make sure that public services are delivered in a different way.

The Government have invested more than £400 billion during the pandemic. Not only have they given the metropolitan borough of Bury the £122 million that I mentioned, but both constituencies in Bury have got upwards of £200 million. There are three free schools and there have been two levelling-up fund bids, as well as all sorts of other things—including the purchase of Gigg Lane, Mr Deputy Speaker—directly to help and support the aim of us all to make sure that public services are delivered in the best possible way. However, we cannot have this debate simply about figures. We have to work out a way to ensure that managers in the NHS and civil servants in various councils throughout the country deliver on the manifesto and the mandate that is given by the Government through record levels of investment in schools, the NHS and all the other things that we are discussing.

The Government’s record is something to be proud of. We heard from the Opposition what their plan is: nothing. There is no plan. This is simply an opportunity to read out a load of manufactured points, rather than supporting the Government in their efforts to level up and make sure that public services are delivered in the interests of constituents throughout the country.

National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

James Daly Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

I do not recall whether the hon. Gentleman was present in the debate on the health and social care levy, but if he was, he would have heard us set out that any increase in taxation should fall on those with the broadest shoulders, not directly on working people. This Government are laying the worst possible tax rise at the worst possible time on the shoulders of working people. In the long run, the way to fund public services sustainably is through growth, but this Government have become a low-growth Government, and therefore a high-tax Government. That is the truth of their economic model, and that is what we would seek to change.

Since September, when the Health and Social Care Levy Bill was pushed through Parliament, our arguments against April’s national insurance hike have only got stronger. The difficulties that people face in making ends meet have been mounting by the day. Inflation jumped again yesterday from 5.5% to 6.2%, with the OBR now forecasting it to hit 7.4% this year—the highest rate in 30 years. Energy bills that have been rising rapidly are set to soar next month, and the crisis in Ukraine will put even greater pressure on the cost of energy, petrol, and food. The pressure on the Chancellor to change course has been rapidly growing, yet he has backed himself into a corner. He has nailed his colours to the mast, stubbornly refusing to reconsider his deeply unfair national insurance hike, and that seems to be how we have ended up where we are today.

We have a Chancellor who has found himself politically unable to cancel his national insurance hike, yet also unable to ignore the fact that this is the worst possible tax rise at the worst possible time. That is why he has tried to respond by making these changes to national insurance thresholds, with promises of further tax cuts at some point in the future. Whatever the merits of the individual measures, that approach is driven not by what may be the right thing to help people now, but by the Chancellor’s desperate ambition to portray himself as a tax cutter, despite all evidence to the contrary.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

In light of the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to reducing the tax burden on hard-working people, will he join me in calling for the scrapping of Andy Burnham’s clean air zone tax in Greater Manchester. That is a tax on business and jobs, so does he agree that it needs to be scrapped now?

[James Murray]

We have had a number of comments about what is within the scope of this debate, and I suspect that issue is rather out of scope. I will focus on national insurance and the Chancellor’s spring statement yesterday, and matters related directly to that.

Following the spring statement and the package announced by the Chancellor yesterday, Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, stated:

“This package only makes sense if:

- your only test for policy choices was can you prove you’re a tax cutter

- you’ve already announced a rise in National Insurance.”

Overnight analysis by the Resolution Foundation has set out the stark truth that considering all income tax changes to thresholds and rates announced by the Chancellor, seven in eight workers will pay more in income tax and national insurance in 2024-25.

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[Richard Thomson]

I presume that the hon. Member is a supporter of the present constitutional set-up. I know that he sought election in Scotland before finding his present constituency, and in view of that he ought to be aware that only some powers are devolved, and the Scottish Government have limited fiscal powers. Those powers that they do have, however, they have used effectively. They have reduced taxes for about 54% of workers, and have also introduced benefits such as the Scottish child payment, which is doubling. They have used the limited powers at their disposal judiciously. If the hon. Member is patient, I may accept a further intervention from him when I come to other aspects of the deficiencies in that fiscal settlement.

[James Daly]

The hon. Gentleman has made some points about the record of the Scottish National party Government. I hope he will correct me if I am wrong, but according to the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, over the three years up to 2021 Scots paid £900 million more in taxes than those in the rest of the UK, and would have paid exactly the same as those in the rest of the UK had their rates mirrored those of the UK. As a result of decisions by the Scottish Government over the last three years, Scots have been clobbered with £900 million worth of extra taxes. Is that correct?

[Richard Thomson]

As I have said, 54% of Scots are paying lower rates of tax than they would be paying if they lived elsewhere in the UK. Overall, the tax system has been reshaped to make it more progressive and, I would argue, more equitable. According to the Resolution Foundation, about 1.3 million people across the UK will be pushed into absolute poverty as a result of tax decisions made by this Government. I have to say that it is a bit rich to argue, as some Conservative Members wish to do, that the Scottish Government, on a budget that is determined in great part by political decisions taken in this place, should be dipping into the revenues that it has earmarked for essential public services in order to mitigate the impacts of poor choices made here.

The Scottish National party has been sharply critical of the national insurance rise since it was first announced, for straightforward reasons. We believed that it was a regressive tax. It hit the lowest earners the hardest. It was a tax on jobs, and therefore a tax on growth. It was rebranded as a “health and social care levy”, although the Government had no clear idea of how the money was to be spent within the NHS, and could not clarify the question of how any of it would be passported through to social care services in England. Moreover, as a result of its impact on people’s incomes, it would bake in inequality—both generational and geographical—for decades, mitigating social care costs for some but not for all.

The Bill removes some lower earners from the liability that the Chancellor has created, and we welcome that partial retreat. Realigning national insurance and income tax thresholds is broadly sensible, but I believe—I am happy to be corrected on this point—that it only takes us back to the status quo ante of 2010, when the Conservative Government first came to office. Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, posed an important question in The Times this morning:

“Why promise to spend billions cutting the basic rate of income tax whilst going ahead with an increase in NI rates? That will make the tax system both less equitable and less efficient. It will increase the wedge between higher taxes on earnings and lower taxes on pensions and unearned incomes. And wouldn’t that money have been better spent sooner helping those most in need?”

I certainly cannot quibble with that.

Let us not be fooled: even though the thresholds are moving, this is still a tax increase. There has been no shortage of informed opinion telling the Chancellor that this was the wrong thing to do, but from a political point of view I am bound to say that he has made mugs of his Conservative colleagues—not just those who had to swallow the indignity of betraying a manifesto pledge at the last election, but those who have gone all out to stoutly defend the policy over the last few months.

The manner in which the Bill has come before us exposes the nonsense that this tax rise was ever in any way “hypothecated”. If the right way to fund the health and social care levy was through a hike in national insurance—and I do not believe it was—it cannot also be right to backtrack on the extent of that rise. It is also impossible to argue that it is hypothecated when we see no corresponding increase in the health budget in England.

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[Gareth Davies]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[James Daly]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rachel Hopkins]

I am going to make some progress.

The household support fund is simply a short-term solution. I declare an interest as a vice president of the Local Government Association, which warns that we need an “effective long-term solution” to support the most vulnerable. The Chair of the Select Committee on Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), raised a number of points on that issue earlier; I add that 60p in every £1 has been taken away from local authorities over 10 years of Tory austerity. We need to see much more stability and certainty for local authorities before we will see an impact.

Ultimately, Luton South deserves a Government that will help them through the cost of living crisis, with a plan to drive growth and living standards. That is not what the Conservative party’s spring statement offers, but it is what a Labour Government will.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), who made a passionate speech. This has been an incredibly important debate, but the framing of the debate by the Opposition Front Bench was somewhat curious. The hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray) did not want to answer any questions from Members, including myself, on taxation issues that impact the cost of living for my constituents. Thankfully, the debate has been wide-ranging. If we are to discuss the impact of tax, we must look at it in every part of the country.

I listened to the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson). I often have to restrain myself from intervening on Members of the SNP, but today, I had to listen to the spokesperson for a party who has actually found a way of taxing the people of Scotland, their own citizens, to the sum of £900 million in extra taxes over the last three years for a net benefit of £170 million.

[Richard Thomson]

I think the hon. Gentleman is confusing cause and effect with the complicated system for forecasting tax revenues and then balancing payments between the Treasury and the Scottish Government. Would he like to add that clarification to his remarks?

[James Daly]

Absolutely not. The SNP has found a way of raising taxes that penalises their own citizens and raises less income.

I come back to Greater Manchester. I am proud to be the MP for Bury North. My constituents face a wide range of taxation issues. They will support the Government position and the policy announced yesterday on the increase in the national insurance threshold. Every single person in this debate has supported it. Indeed, the hon. Member for Gordon said, very curiously, that it was an indictment but he was going to support it. It is a good policy that will put more money in people’s pockets. It is a tax cut, especially for those on the lowest incomes, which is to be welcomed.

I want to consider this policy in the context of the largest self-employed sector in my constituency—taxi drivers. Taxi drivers will be hit completely by the taxes proposed for Andy Burnham’s clean air charging zone—at 493 square miles, it will be the world’s largest such zone. That tax—£10 for small vans and £60 for lorries—will hit all those who rely on certain types of motor transport to earn their living. How can that be right? I stand up here on a regular basis and ask Opposition Members to support me in asking for that charge—a cost that hard-working taxi drivers and others in my constituency face—to be removed, but there is silence. We have to look at the whole of the country, and at the policies put in place by politicians at different levels.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) talked about his experience of a local Labour authority. In Greater Manchester, we have council tax rises linked to incompetence. We have precepts that the Greater Manchester Mayor is levying on taxpayers in my area, even though he, as police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester, has wasted millions on millions of pounds on a failed computer system. The decisions of politicians impact my constituents every day. I hope at some point Opposition politicians will join Conservatives in Greater Manchester in calling for the reduction of taxes on our constituents, for the benefit of those constituents.

We see a contrast. The Government are investing in my constituents and in hard-working people.

[Alexander Stafford]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s point about clean air. Does he agree that there will be the same impact in the nearest big city to my constituency, Sheffield, where at the end of this year heavy goods vehicle drivers will be charged up to £50 a day? With the huge increases in petrol costs, there is a double whammy for hauliers; the charges should be scrapped.

[James Daly]

I completely agree. We should be looking at ways to support our hauliers and others who are reliant on motor transport for their businesses and livelihoods.

The contrast is with a high-tax Labour and the SNP policies I have touched on. We have a Conservative Government who, through the pandemic, have invested £400 billion in supporting people and businesses. In my area, more than £100 million has supported businesses through the pandemic. As a result, in the last quarter of last year, as has already been mentioned, employment levels were back to pre-pandemic levels and there is a record number of vacancies—1.25 million—in the market. That is what we must also consider when looking at how the Government are performing. We have a Government who are creating well-paid, highly skilled jobs in all parts of the country as part of the levelling-up agenda. That is to be welcomed. The policy we are debating today is that of a tax-cutting Government; the national insurance policy is a tax cut of £6 billion. Such policies must be welcomed.

We have a Government who invest in their people, in training, in supporting the most vulnerable, and in supporting hard-working, self-employed people in my constituency, and who look at every possible way to link policy to economic growth and employment growth. We have a Government who see that the best way to address the many challenges our constituents face is to make sure that the financial and other support is in place while ensuring that they have the tools and the training to get a well-paid and well-supported job in their local area. That is what this Government are about —the creation of jobs, tax cuts and actions for the many and not the few.

The debate is not just about this place and one policy. In the real world, people are creating wealth. The debate is about how people can use the tools that the Government are giving them to create jobs and opportunities. That is what is happening. I welcome the measure, which clearly has support across the House.

Pensioners were mentioned and they face challenges with the rising cost of living, as do many others. Since 2011, when the triple lock was put in place, the state pension has increased by 35% or £2,050 and is now at the highest level relative to earnings in 34 years.

I am absolutely certain—knowing my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury—that this measure is not the end of our fiscal policies and our tools to ensure that people will continue to have job opportunities and to be able to take advantage of the economic conditions that have been created.

This is the right policy at the right time, and I congratulate the Government for it. The Government know that all our citizens face challenges, but the route out of the difficulty is good, skilled, high-wage, high-quality employment in all parts of the country and I welcome the Government’s commitment to that.

[Rachel Hopkins]

rose—

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[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) that she has just made a brilliant speech, but if she wants to repeat it she is perfectly welcome to do so!

The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), who has just left the Chamber, made a valid point about the nature of today’s debate. We as a House need to look again at how we deal with financial statements. It is all well and good having a statement followed by questions, but these statements are becoming increasingly significant—they are, in effect, mini-Budgets—and we need to look again at how we try to cram a debate about the whole statement into just one piece of the legislative proposals stemming from it. In future it would be better, just as we do with the Budget, to timetable specific debates on the statement and then we would have the legislative flow from that.

I put on the record my apologies to the Pendle constituency Labour party. I was meant to be doing the Sydney Silverman annual lecture this evening, but I have postponed it. I apologise to the CLP for any inconvenience caused. The annual lecture is a significant event, because Sydney Silverman was the man who abolished capital punishment and he had a fantastic record as a Labour MP up there. They have been very good about it and we will choose another date. I have postponed it because, as I raised with the Chancellor yesterday, there is nothing in this spring statement—and for me this is the most significant thing about it—for the poorest in our society, including those forced to live on benefits and pensioners, and I am really worried about what will happen to them over the next six months. My reason for being here is to say that we need to have a proper debate in these coming weeks and months about the nature of poverty in our society, the nature of low incomes, and the options available to us to tackle those issues. I have tabled an amendment, but it looks as though the whole debate is going to run into one.

Last Friday I met a group of unpaid carers who are looking after family relatives. I remind Members that the carers allowance is £67.60. I just do not know how people can live off that. In fact, they cannot live off it. They now face the energy price increases that we have discussed today, and they are being hit by the inflation rate going up. The fact is that, although both benefits and pensions are to increase by 3.1%, the predictions for the increase in the rate of inflation are anything between 7% and 10%. That is a startling cut in people’s living standards, and I do not know how they are going to cope.

I want to wage a cross-party campaign to get the Chancellor to come back sooner, with more measures to assist the poorest in our society. As I said yesterday, I predict that when we get to November there will be large numbers of pensioners and others sitting in their homes freezing. We have gone through a period where, year after year, we have highlighted the number of excess deaths in this country, particularly of older people during winter, and I think that that number will increase again.

Much has been said about the Government’s record on pensions, but I have to remind them that the reason the triple lock had to be introduced is that Mrs Thatcher broke the link between pensions and earnings, and the pension became undermined. When the Government proposed the triple lock, I wholeheartedly supported it. That is why all our manifestos at the last election committed to supporting and abiding by the triple lock, so I found it truly shocking when the Government tore that up and suspended it last year. I thought that we had embedded it into the political thinking of this country that, whatever happens, pensioners should share in the wealth growth of this country, including wage growth, or at least be protected against an inflation hit, but we seem to be going backwards. I know that the Government have said that it has been suspended possibly for only a year, but I fear that it might become the norm. That is why Members from across the House should try to secure from the Chancellor a commitment that something should be done to inflation-proof at least the benefits and pensions of the poorest in our society.

Another issue that I think is going to come at us rapidly in these coming months—I think it will become an important part of the political debate and we should wake up to it now—is that of wages. Unless we inflation-proof wages, I predict that we will see a flaring up of industrial strife in our country. I will give the example of what has happened to council workers in the latest pay settlement. With inflation possibly between 8% and 10% by the end of the year, their wage settlement is 1.75%. That means, in effect, a wage cut of up to 8%. I invite the Government to consider the issue of wages in the public sector, because they obviously set the terms of those in the private sector as well. Unless we inflation-proof wage settlements, our lowest-paid workers will be hit hard by the erosion of their wages as a result of inflation. I think that the Government should be saying to the pay review bodies that, in negotiations, they should start with inflation-proofing settlements.

We also have to recognise that we have to play a role with regard to prices overall. The Government have accepted that there needs to be a continuation of some form of cap on energy prices. I think there should be a cap on profits. The Common Wealth think-tank published its analysis of the energy company profit rates, which were between 42% and 45%. That is absolutely staggering. If that is not profiteering, I do not know what is. We have to come back to this House within the next couple of months. We cannot leave it beyond the recess. Before the recess, we need to know the assessment of the Government, the OBR and others of what the energy price situation is going to be like in three months’ time, and we need measures in place to protect people. We know that the price of oil and so on will fluctuate, but we have to make predictions on the best information we have, before the recess at the end of July, so that we can start to protect people.

We also need to consider other measures on prices. Last week the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan proposed a 12-month rent freeze in London. I proposed a rent freeze last October because it was clear from talking to ACORN, the London Renters Union and others just what rent increases were coming through post covid. Unless we start protecting people with rent controls, particularly in high-rent city areas, a rush of evictions will start again, leading to an increase in homelessness and to those homeless families unfortunately having to rely on cash-strapped councils to support them.

Finally, in addition to the need to provide more support for the hardest hit, including those living in poverty and pensioners, and the need to control the implications of increased prices in both energy and rents, we need—and I hope this is coming next week—clear plans from the Government on where we go from here in tackling the energy crisis. I welcome the lifting yesterday of VAT on solar panels and so on, but, to be honest, that was a fairly small step in terms of what is needed. One of the most effective ways in which we can help people in this coming period is through investment in home insulation. A few years ago, we put forward a plan to insulate 27 million homes, the independent assessment of which was that it would create about 450,000 jobs and reduce energy bills significantly. What we can do now is make sure not only that we insulate people’s homes and bring down their energy bills, but that we create good jobs. We need the Government to come forward immediately with a programme that prioritises that action. Of course we need to go for green growth and investment in wave, wind and solar power, but the quickest gains can be made through home insulation. In that way, we might give some hope to people who, at the moment, are viewing the coming winter as a pretty bleak period.

I have listened to this debate from the start, and I have listened to all those who are quoting the IFS, the Resolution Foundation and so on, but what sticks in my mind is the fact that there are 2 million pensioners and 4 million children living in poverty. We can argue about the Government’s record over the past 10 years, but that is the stark reality of it. The Resolution Foundation analysis that 1.3 million more people will be forced into poverty is shocking and it should shock us all. We should treat it as an emergency that we need to address very quickly. That is why I say that this cannot be the last debate on it between now and the summer recess. We need to have the chance to consider clear proposals about how we deal with the plight of the poorest in our society, how we tackle the way that they are being hit by prices rises and rent increases, and how we can insulate their homes for the future.

I will finish on the point that I made yesterday. A 3.1% increase for those forced to live on benefits and for pensioners, with inflation at anything between 8% and 10%, will push so many people over the edge into real poverty, real stress and mental health problems, and unfortunately for some it will further existing distress. That is what we should be talking about today. We need to be considering measures to address the whole issue, otherwise we will be failing in our duty.

One final point. We are all on good wages and salaries and we do not suffer anything like the hardship of many of our constituents, so it behoves us to try to take into far greater account the most deprived people in our society. So far in these discussions, with all the point scoring and so on, I do not think that we have properly done so. In the coming months, how we tackle this matter must be the nature of our debate.

[James Daly]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very thoughtful speech. Among his proposals is a cap on profits. I wonder whether he could expand on that. In my constituency, for example, we have many small businesses; we do not have multinationals or anything such as that. Does he advocate that all private sector businesses, whatever their size, should have a cap on profit?

[John McDonnell]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman heard me properly. I was referring to the energy companies, specifically in regard to the profits that they have made. If he looks at the report of Common Wealth, the think-tank, he will see that it was looking at 42% to 45% rises for a number of those energy companies. That is where we need to cap profits. That would then give us the opportunity to redistribute some of that into supporting families and so on. It is about trying to be as targeted as possible so that we get the maximum benefit for the maximum number of people in our country. In his speech the hon. Gentleman used the slogan, “For the many, not the few”. It just shows what a good slogan it is when the opposing side starts stealing it.

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[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; it is the certainty in that plan that allows us to move forward. That is the point I want to drill down on, and he has articulated it much more eruditely than me—it is obviously the fantastic focus he has, being a Teessider. Publishing a plan that sets a clear roadmap, as our right hon. Friend the Chancellor did yesterday, is vital so that we know where we are going and the fiscal interventions we will have to make to help people. That is what people are looking for.

[James Daly]

One of the measures our right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced yesterday was an increase in the household support fund to £1 billion. How does my hon. Friend feel that councils such as his in Sandwell—I note his previous comments on that—will be able to deal with the bespoke needs of his constituents?

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. It goes without saying that the funding is vital for my constituents in Sandwell. I know, from the interactions I have, how much impact that has on people on the ground. I cannot even articulate how important what our right hon. Friend the Chancellor did yesterday will be and how it will improve people’s lives. My hon. Friend refers to my contribution in the House earlier today, which brings me back to the running theme of my speech: delivery on the ground. Unfortunately, we now have commissioners in Sandwell because the Labour administration could not run the authority for 50 years.

We must ensure that that funding gets through to the people who really need it. That is key. Once again, it is absolutely right that we have put the funding in place, but we must ensure that there are robust systems in place to ensure that it gets through. We have learned throughout the past two years that, whether it is what we are doing today on national insurance or the unprecedented package of support this Government provided to keep businesses and the economy going, keep wages paid and keep people in employment and support, we must have the on-the-ground delivery.

I know, from my own experiences in my local area, that at times that delivery failed, and that meant businesses closing down and people not able to get the support they needed. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that that funding will change lives in my constituency—but, if it is to do so, those people who are delivering it must be able to deliver, and it is incumbent on central Government to step in where they need to and provide the guidance necessary to support delivery of those vital funds.

We are in unprecedented times, as we have heard today. We have just gone through a period of unprecedented spending—£400 billion to keep our economy afloat—and we did that to protect jobs and keep people employed. From my constituency and the communities I live in with my friends, neighbours and family, I know the impact that has had, by keeping people earning, and keeping small businesses and people’s dreams and aspirations going.

People will say that this is not the perfect solution. The difficulty with fiscal interventions is that there is never a panacea; there will never be one magic bullet that sorts the whole problem out. This Bill is part of a broader package, and the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) helped to draw that point out. The Bill we are discussing forms an important part of a broader package, enabling us to address an anomaly that we have had for so long and leading to a tax cut for people, but it must come with additional measures and packages such as those announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor yesterday.

The one thing it is incumbent on those on the Treasury Benches to do is ensure that this money gets to real people. That means ensuring that we have processes in place that work. As I said at the start, I know my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is committed to doing that. He has set up his committee on value for money—my right hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary has heard me bang on about that four times in this speech now—to ensure that that delivery happens. However, we must ensure that the money gets through, because that is how we will benefit normal people such as those in the communities I represent, in Wednesbury, Oldbury and the heart of the Black Country, the great town of Tipton.

Cost of Living Increases

James Daly Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have great respect for him, and I only wish that that was extended to him by the Leader of the House, who I think said he was a “lightweight”. The reality is that the people in Scotland have voted in successive elections to put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands, to ensure that the likes of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, who are posted missing, do not have the economic levers that are causing such distress just now.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman made reference in his previous comments to the impact on constituents of the cost of living. I therefore ask him to take this opportunity to tell the Labour Front Bench that Andy Burnham’s Greater Manchester clean air zone, a tax on business and jobs in my constituency emanating from the Labour party, should not come into place—it should be scrapped. I would welcome the hon. Gentleman joining me in our joint campaign to improve the standard of living for constituents all across the country.

[David Linden]

Gosh, that could have been a career-ending one for me there. At the moment, it appears that the Labour party and the Conservatives are getting on quite well. The fact that a Tory MP can cross the Floor to the Labour party suggests that the back channels between both parties are relatively good at the moment. I am sure that those can convey whatever message to Andy Burnham that the hon. Gentleman wishes.

As I was saying, if Scotland were independent, we would not have the likes of Boris Johnson and his ilk anywhere near the levers of economic power. In many respects, however, revelations about Downing Street being turned into a frat house during a deadly pandemic are just the latest in a long litany of bad decisions by a Prime Minister Scotland did not vote for. So I must confess that I find myself somewhat baffled and wondering why being economical with the truth in this Chamber is the tipping point for Tory MPs on the Prime Minister.

Why did Tory MPs not see the Prime Minister for what he really is when he compared Muslim women wearing the hijab to looking “like letter boxes”? Why did they not see him for what he really is when, talking of the war-torn Libyan city of Sirte, he said it could be the “new Dubai” and that all that had to be done was

“to clear the dead bodies away”?

Why did Tory MPs not see him for what he really is when he unlawfully shut down Parliament, misled the Queen and tried to run the country like a tinpot dictator?

The fact is, this Prime Minister should resign because he is morally bankrupt—he always has been. But if we do not tackle the cost-of-living crisis now, frankly, it will be many of our constituents who are bankrupt. [Interruption.]

I see that the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), who has managed to come to the Chamber rather than touting for a second job, wants to intervene. If he wants to intervene on the speech, he is welcome to do so, otherwise than chuntering from a sedentary position.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

In opening the debate, the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) rightly pointed out that it is a UK-wide debate on an issue that affects constituents throughout the country, but in some parts of the country, pressures on the cost of living come from different sources and are very onerous. Wanting, as ever, to help, I have come to the Chamber today to highlight something that all politicians across Greater Manchester can do to prevent those pressures from being increased, namely ensure that the Greater Manchester clean air zone—created by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, supported by all the local authorities, and emanating from Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Transport for Greater Manchester—is scrapped. It is a ludicrous proposal that will place burdens on those such as the taxi drivers who today have rightly staged a go-slow throughout Bury town centre. To go to work, if they are in a non-compliant vehicle, they will have to pay £10 a day, which will be devastating, while lorry drivers will have to pay £60 a day. That affects businesses of all kinds. It affects employment, and all the other things that we have been discussing. The Greater Manchester clean air zone will put people out of business and out of work, and will increase already onerous costs.

I visited a haulage yard in my constituency and talked to Mark Hinchliffe, who set out very clearly the costs faced by his business and others like it. There is a transport café in Walmersley Road, and lorries travel along the motorway two minutes away from it. Any lorry driver who wants to have his or her breakfast in that café will have to pay a £60 congestion charge, which is ludicrous. The business that comes from everyone who goes to that small café, which has been open for decade upon decade, will be obliterated by a charge and a process that emanate from a plan delivered by Greater Manchester Combined Authority to central Government on 1 March 2019. This is a plan that has been championed continuously by the Mayor of Greater Manchester. The charge on my constituents was put to a vote at Bury Council on 28 July 2021, and all the Labour members present voted for that tax to be imposed on them.

In discussing the cost of living today, we have heard SNP Members quite rightly talk at great length about matters involving the Scottish Parliament. We have also heard the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) talk about the Welsh Assembly. However, we, too, have devolved government in Greater Manchester. It is a disaster, but it is devolved government all the same. When required to be there for the constituents of Bury and every other part of Greater Manchester during this difficult period, the best thing that the Mayor of Greater Manchester, the leader of Bury Council and all the other local authorities could do was to impose onerous taxation on businesses and individuals that will destroy their ability to earn a living. It is ridiculous.

I understand that the Mayor of Greater Manchester is coming to Westminster this week, as he should, to speak to Ministers. He has been thinking for years and years and years that this is the greatest plan in the world. On his visit here, I encourage him and all politicians—

[Navendu Mishra]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree, that, since 2019, the market for vehicles has changed dramatically in the UK? That has a lot to do with covid, but also with the global semi-conductor shortage. Does he not think that the onus is on the Secretary of State to support the local authorities in Greater Manchester to make sure that they can make a just transition so that the population of Greater Manchester can breathe much cleaner air?

[James Daly]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. We have a complete difference of opinion. Both he and his Labour colleagues do not wish to scrap the scheme. They wish to go back to Government for further funding—for a hardship fund. That hardship fund has not been defined, but estimates of the funding required are in the region of £2.2 billion to £2.5 billion of income. I would be interested to hear where he proposes that income should come from. I hope that, instead of that and to support his constituents in Stockport, he will join me in telling the Mayor of Greater Manchester to say to the Secretary of State, “I got this wrong. We got this scheme wrong.” The consequences of it for my constituents and for the constituents of the hon. Gentleman are too severe.

Surely no politician, whether in Greater Manchester, Scotland, Wales or England, would simply go ahead with the plan of the Mayor of Greater Manchester, of the GMCA and of Transport for Greater Manchester to put people out of business. Why would anybody do that? It is incumbent on the Mayor of Greater Manchester to come to London this week and say, “This plan is wrong. I got it badly wrong.” He needs to ask the Government to look at it in that context and not dance around the edges. He should not say that we need extra money—a bit here and a bit there. He must say that the plan is a disaster in terms of the cost of living of my constituents and the constituents of the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra). Every single politician who believes in supporting their constituents with the cost of living, which has been talked about today, should completely and utterly oppose the Greater Manchester clean air zone.

Budget Resolutions

James Daly Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Having sat here for six hours, I am running out of unique points to make. Rather than following in the footsteps of illustrious colleagues who made fine, analytical arguments on the Budget in its widest sense, I have been asking myself what it will mean for the ordinary person I represent in Bury.

Three or four days ago it was announced that Greater Manchester will receive more than £1 billion of funding to transform our transport infrastructure. Today the metropolitan borough of Bury, which is made up of two parliamentary constituencies, was successful with two levelling-up fund applications. Both were for £20 million, one to transform Radcliffe, a fine town in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), and one to transform the world’s best market, Bury market, which as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, has the finest purveyors of black pudding. I have been working with my local Labour council and national Government to put forward a vision of how such an iconic part of our history and heritage in Bury can be used to transform and regenerate the town centre, to create employment and to provide a hub for mental health and health services.

In the last week people in the metropolitan borough of Bury, on those three announcements alone, have received more than £100 million of funding, from which we are getting a new interchange, better bus services and better tram services, as well as more employment and the regeneration of our town centres. Anyone looking at the Budget will therefore say it is a fantastic Budget that will transform opportunities and do something that politics has not done for a long time. It not only provides the fiscal policies that allow the general economy to prosper but is changing landscapes in front of us and reinforcing our pride in our areas. I thoroughly support every announcement that the Chancellor made today.

I fully support the cut to beer duty, in respect of which I want to make one point. The big four pub companies in this country account for 25% of the total number of pubs. Pubs are disappearing at an alarming rate throughout the country. All Conservative Members, and I suspect even Labour Members, support the reductions in duty, which are clearly welcomed and will benefit the industry. I gently encourage my friends on the Front Bench to think about this problem, though: the profit will go to the pub companies, in the main. Often, the contractual and leasehold arrangements that they have with their tenants in the pubs in all our constituencies make it financially unviable for the pubs to succeed, no matter what steps are taken in respect of tax. I hope that is taken into consideration.

Let me go back to Bury and how the Budget will improve lives. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on youth employment, and I welcome the announcements on skills and further funding. I do not have time to go over them all, but I do know how the investments that have been previously announced are affecting my constituents. Last week, planning permission was given for a £6 million health, innovation and STEM centre, which will teach new skills and provide new facilities and training opportunities for young people in Bury. It is not simply about the numbers; when I sit in the Chamber, I sometimes think how important it is that we personalise things. We have to demand and think about outcomes, not just amounts of money, and the Government are putting in place policies in that regard.

I wish to speak in support of a lot of my hon. Friends who have talked about the positive and optimistic nature of the Budget. Last week, I talked to the headteacher of Derby High School, a fine high school in my constituency. She was full of ambition and ways to improve the delivery of education for students at the school, but the building is completely unacceptable for that and needs investment. The Budget offers a way for investment to be put in. We will have more new schools and more educational support, so that schools like the Derby know that the Government are going to back them with not only increased funding in the schools budget but the facilities that pupils in my Bury constituency will hopefully enjoy.

Whenever I look at Budgets, I cannot escape my 10 years as a councillor. Whenever I see the word “pothole” in anything, I get very excited, and there is £8 billion in pothole funding. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) probably thinks the same thing. At its basic level, politics is about the things people see when they walk out the front door. If there is a pothole, people want it to be fixed. People want roads to be in such a condition that they can drive down them safely and appropriately. People want transport infrastructure in Bury. They want good schools that can be improved. They want better hospitals. That is what the Budget will deliver in areas such as mine and throughout the country. It is a fantastic Budget.

The Budget also opens up opportunities for technological advances. Last week, I visited the East Lancashire Railway in my constituency. Bury is known for many things and is a unique place, but one fine example is the steam railway. We have the longest continually used locomotive shed in existence—we have been fixing steam-railway locomotives in Bury since 1860—and although the House cannot see it, it is the most amazing place to go into. When we consider the skills agenda, there are obviously the high-tech jobs, the green jobs and all the other things that the Chancellor talked about, but there are also other innovative sectors. There is too much work for the East Lancashire Railway: we have to invest in that site so that we can carry out the renovations that are needed and preserve part of our national heritage. The railway is looking for £10 million of investment to transform that site so that it can provide more apprenticeships and opportunities and create the sense of pride in place that is at the heart of a lot of the Government’s policies.

The Budget invests in Bury people and in the infra- structure necessary for our economy to prosper, and it will put more money into the frontline services that we all need. I was delighted about the investment in special educational needs services—I know that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) is very passionate about this. Whether we as a Parliament succeed in levelling up this country will depend on our creating equality of opportunity for those with special educational needs to have the best chance to thrive and succeed. It is a credit to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and to this Government that money is going into that area. Again, it is about how that money is delivered on the ground—£100 million, £200 million or £300 million are just numbers on a piece of paper. We have to think about the delivery model at a local level.

I have been speaking with the fantastic headteacher at Elms Bank School in my constituency, and we believe that the best model for delivering SEN provision in our area is through an SEN hub—a lifelong hub where we have the integrated commissioning of services in one place to support people not only on their educational journey, but with mental health support and employment support. One comment that was made was that the pandemic has shown that the delivery of services at a local level can be done in an innovative way to ensure that we are delivering these important levelling-up provisions in the best way. Certainly in Bury, the creation of hubs has been excellent.

I am tempted to speak about Bury for a lot longer. There is much to be said about the place, but I prefer to say this: as the last person to speak in this debate, I can say that I have listened to all the contributions from those on the Opposition Benches and that what they say is not logical. We are investing billions of pounds in frontline services and billions of pounds in the most vulnerable people. By cutting taxes, we are providing the conditions for businesses to thrive. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I am a practising solicitor and have my own business. What has been announced today supports employers like me. It is supporting people to deliver more jobs on the ground, supporting skills, and providing the opportunities for the future. I know that there is political knockabout and that perhaps people say things because they have to do so, but I am so proud of our Government. We are delivering on our central mantra of levelling up for every single person no matter their background, no matter their circumstances, and no matter where they are from. People have an equal chance to have a happy, fulfilling life, and that is what this Budget is about. It is a fantastic Budget, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Scott Mann.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Working People’s Finances: Government Policy

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

What a joy it was to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) give a truly brilliant speech. It is somewhat apt that the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) spoke about Brian Clough, who was passionate about his local community. Brian Clough gave hope and aspiration to the communities he represented and, having spent time with my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool in her constituency, I know that is exactly what she does. This is the first time Hartlepool has had such political leadership for a long, long time.

This is an important debate, and the first line of the Opposition motion says

“this House is concerned about the negative impact of Government policy on the finances of working people”.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), who is no longer in her place, framed that argument by saying it is based on choices made by the Government, my Government, this year and last year.

I want to test that thesis and, rather than stating things in bland generalities, I will make specific reference to my town of Bury and the impact of the choices that my Government have made over the past two years and how they have benefited working people.

Over the past two years, this Government have given nearly £80 million in busines support grants to businesses in my area, ensuring that people have jobs, that businesses are able to continue and that wages can be maintained at their previous level. That is down to the choices made by this Government. We have protected jobs, which seems to have been completely ignored by some Opposition Members.

What else have this Government done for the people of Bury over the past 18 months? In the financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22 so far, Bury Metropolitan Borough Council has received £1.8 million, on top of the other support that is open to people in my community, to support vulnerable families and specifically to help with fuel, energy and water bills. That is on top of the £1.8 million that the council received from the hardship relief fund, the majority of which has been given to families of working age, who have received £150 credit set against council tax bills. That is part of a total package of £118 million, separate from furlough and the Government-backed schemes such as the loan schemes, which has ensured that businesses have not only been able to maintain employment and pay wages but have been able to thrive and expand.

This Government and every Conservative Member should be extremely proud of that record and of the investment this Government have made in communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool mentioned the £25 million going into her town, and it means regeneration. It is creating employment and changing lives. This Government are making these decisions in every part of the United Kingdom every week, and they are changing lives.

[Alex Cunningham]

I also congratulate my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer), on her maiden speech. I am sorry that her Tees valley colleagues have now abandoned her, because I wanted to share some child poverty figures with them. Since 2015, the number of children in poverty has gone up by 1,800 in Stockton South, by 2,000 in Hartlepool and by 1,900 in each of Darlington, Redcar and Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. Will the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) address the children in the Tees valley and persuade Tees valley MPs to vote against the universal credit cut?

[James Daly]

From recollection, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool will tell me if I am wrong, Ben Houchen got 74% of the vote. Conservative MPs have been elected in Labour areas of the Tees valley because we give hope and we have a plan. This Government’s plan for jobs is working, whereas Labour has offered nothing to the Tees valley over the past decades. The Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool and other Members in that area are putting forward plans that are changing lives, for which they should each be extremely proud.

I come to the second part of the debate. In Bury, we have seen unprecedented support during an incredibly difficult period. How do I, as a Member of Parliament, feel about the Government policy? How do I look at what we should be doing to change people’s lives, give hope and inspiration, and make sure that people can make the best of themselves, having the best career, best-paid job and best future? I have heard no arguments —no plan, definitely—from any Opposition Member in respect of how that is going to happen; I have heard no hope, no vision, no anything for children in Bury or in the Tees Valley about how their lives are going to be transformed by a Labour party. I have heard bland generalities.

The shadow Minister said that the Labour party would create a high-skills, high-wage economy, but they are going to be too late, because this Government are doing it already. We are investing billions of pounds in skills uptraining, not only to give young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds the best chance to have a highly paid, skilled job, but to regenerate our areas. In an area such as Bury, we have to have that skillset so that we can bring in high-tech manufacturing and make sure that those jobs are closer to our communities, so that people, including young people in Bury, do not have to go to Manchester or London to have a highly-paid job.

This Government have a plan that is delivering; the plan for jobs is delivering, and we can see the kickstart figures. We are creating, through youth hubs, kickstart and all the other programmes that have been outlined, a set of policies and programmes. Bury College is part of a bid for institute of technology status for Greater Manchester. What does that mean? It means colleges in Greater Manchester are working with the University of Salford to create the means by which high-skilled, high-worth employment is going to be on the doorstep for people, with the skills training that is being delivered. I had the privilege of going to Bury College with the Minister two weeks ago; the T-levels that have been introduced by this Government are inspiring aspiring people and changing lives, making people’s futures brighter—we cannot overlook that.

We have a transformative Government. Every decision made is regarding levelling up. Everything we decide to do is done to transform opportunity. Sadly, the Labour party is not interested in that and certainly does not have a plan to do it. So I congratulate this Government. There are challenges. We are dealing with a £400 billion pandemic, for which there is no panacea, but this Government have done what they have needed to do to protect people’s livelihoods and interests, and to support families throughout this period, with unprecedented financial support. We are now on to the next stage. The plan for jobs is working; it is hope, it is aspiration and it is changing futures and lives in communities such as Bury. I support the Government wholeheartedly on that vision for our country.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

4. What fiscal steps he is taking to help young people into work as part of the economic recovery from the covid-19 outbreak.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

19. What fiscal steps he is taking to help young people into work as part of the economic recovery from the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)]

It is absolutely right that we remain relentlessly focused on helping young people into work, and our plan for jobs does exactly that with a range of initiatives. I would just draw colleagues’ attention to the fantastic youth offer that our jobcentres are rolling out, providing 13 weeks of intensive tailored support for those young people who enter universal credit and creating 140 dedicated youth hubs across the country.

[James Daly]

In Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington, the Government’s plan for jobs is working, saving jobs and getting people back into employment. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on youth employment, may I ask my right hon. Friend to update the House specifically on how schemes such as kickstart are helping young people with employment and training opportunities throughout the country?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he does as chair of the APPG on youth employment, and I thank him and his colleagues for their advice as we have developed these initiatives. He is right to highlight kickstart. This is a signature initiative of this Government, providing Government-funded, high-quality jobs for young people at risk of long-term unemployment. It has got off to a fantastic start, with 50,000 kickstarters already having started and thousands more to come.

Leaving the EU: Impact on the UK

James Daly Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con) [V]]

As a Member representing an English constituency, I welcome the opportunity to say how much the Union of our countries within the United Kingdom means not only to me but to all my constituents in Bury North. Scotland is a brilliant, beautiful country, and I feel honoured to be a citizen of the United Kingdom.

Every Conservative Member is united behind our Government’s mission to level up, bringing prosperity, jobs, increased life chances, massive increases in public infrastructure spending and investment in frontline services to all parts of the United Kingdom. That is our priority, not talking endlessly about Brexit. The SNP could have tabled a motion to address any of those issues, or many more that impact the everyday life and future of everyone in Scotland, and how we in the United Kingdom Parliament could work together with the Scottish Government to secure better outcomes for every resident in Scotland.

Instead, they chose yet again to prioritise their political need, no matter the opportunity, subject or context, to bring every debate back to an independence referendum or their overwhelming desire to rejoin the European Union, rather than concentrate on jobs, skills, investment and many other important subjects that are crucial to Scotland’s future.

As we heard from the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) and many other SNP Members, this is not a debate about the impact of the UK’s exit from the European Union; it is a debate about the desire of the Scottish National party to rejoin at all costs. Myriad statistics show the negative impact on the Scottish economy of independence, and I do not believe we should overlook such things, but at heart this debate is about heart. It is about Members speaking up to say, “I believe in the United Kingdom. I believe in its financial construct, its social construct and its partnership. We must and should work together to achieve the best possible outcomes for all our citizens.”

Even though I am the Member for Bury North, I want to work constantly and tirelessly to ensure that my Government’s desire to level up and to make sure that everyone in each nation of the United Kingdom feels the benefit of the spending that is being put into the economy over the coming years is felt in Scotland.

I will not talk about the past; I want to talk about the future. As an MP. I want to work with the SNP and with all hon. Members to improve people’s lives, and not to engage in the same debate over and over again.

Economic Update

James Daly Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am not familiar with the specific details that the hon. Lady raises, but I can see the logic of what she is saying, if I followed it correctly. I will happily have a look at that and write back to her.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con) [V]]

I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement of an extra £500 million of discretionary funding for local authorities in England. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that councils have absolute discretion in the use of those moneys, including, if they so choose, the provision of grants to self-employed workers or sole traders whose businesses are based at their home address?

[Rishi Sunak]

I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that the grants are meant to be discretionary. It is for local authorities to make the decisions at their discretion as to how best support their local economies. The guidance should remain the same as it was before. I believe it gives local authorities the discretion they need.

Future Relationship with the EU

James Daly Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The future is not yet written and I invite the hon. Lady to consider at this critical moment for Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom what she might do to assist the UK Government in achieving the objective that she wants.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend reassure the House that, because of the agreement reached by the Joint Committee on the Northern Ireland protocol and regardless of the outcome of our negotiations with the EU, there will be no new customs infrastructure required in Northern Ireland?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. We accept our responsibilities with regard to the Northern Ireland protocol, as does the EU, and, again, I put on record my thanks and congratulations to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on all the work that he has done to secure that.