Non-domestic Energy Support

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is a champion for the ceramics sector, and I know how important it is to the Potteries and to his constituency. If he looks at SIC code 23 in the list of sectors, he will see a range of ceramics industries that are covered. It is worth looking at that list, because there are a great many specific types. Obviously we want to support business as far as possible. As I have said, the qualification for support is for the sector in question to be above the 80th percentile for energy intensity and the 60th percentile for trade intensity, and that is likely to cover much of the ceramics sector.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome this package, and I especially welcome the inclusion of charitable organisations, but the fact remains that even if energy prices stabilise, given Government policies on net zero and the decarbonisation of electricity, there will be continued upward pressure on businesses’ energy bills for the foreseeable future, and I do not believe that the package will help many of the small businesses that are hanging on by their fingertips at present because of the massive energy price increases.

First, will these measures apply to Northern Ireland automatically or, because of the separate regime, will they have to be tailored to the Northern Ireland market? Secondly, when it comes to energy-intensive industries that do a lot of trade, will the package include businesses such as food processing, which is very important in Northern Ireland?

[James Cartlidge]

Yes, food processing would be included. If the right hon. Gentleman is asking whether food processors would be in the energy and trade-intensive section, I suggest that he look at the website later or ask the company in question to do so. As with the current energy bill relief scheme, support will be given to UK non-domestic customers including those in Northern Ireland.

Covid-19: Economic Impact of Lockdowns

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey]

I was quoting Lord Sumption, the former Supreme Court judge, who was talking about the way governments were led at that time—those were his words. What we need to take from them is the question of why those decisions were not questioned or challenged by Members of Parliament. Why were those decisions not challenged? If we look at the record of the House, the decision appears popular because MPs voted for it pretty much unanimously, when there should have been greater debate.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the right hon. Lady accept that Lord Sumption was right, although maybe not according to the common use of the term “populism”? First, the use of fear encouraged people to think, “There is no alternative. I have got to do this.” Secondly, the lack of any examination of the measures by the media ensured that there was not any contrary point of view, so listening politicians heard people saying out of fear, “You’ve got to do something”, and the media, when questioning that, saying, “This is the right thing to do.”

[Esther McVey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. That is why I quoted Neil Ferguson at the start of the debate, who said that he never thought a western democracy would lock down, and why I posed the question about whether a campaign of fear was then brought forward, creating an atmosphere in which no one could dissent or ask questions. Going back to the question raised by the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), there appeared to be a giant consensus across all political parties, leading to that word “popular” at the time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) on securing the debate, and I thank her for her sterling work in leading the all-party parliamentary group on pandemic response and recovery. The APPG has delved into many issues that those who made or supported decisions that led to this situation would love to forget. There is a desire to put all this behind us, and to ignore the fact that there was controversy about the decisions made at the time. That controversy was submerged by a deluge of fear tactics and an unwillingness to debate the issue. The media played a big part in that. I did a number of interviews back home in Northern Ireland, and people who questioned decisions were regarded as almost not caring whether people lived or died. That was the atmosphere in which the debate was carried on. There was, in part, a deliberate attempt to squeeze people into doing and accepting things that naturally, in an open and democratic society, they would never dream of doing or accepting.

Everybody who has spoken was probably in the group of those in the House of Commons who were prepared to challenge. However, this debate is not about saying, “We told you so.” The debate is important because it ensures that the inquiry into the covid response, which is being carried out, will look at the side of the argument that was ignored, and of which full cognisance was not taken, when decisions were made. The inquiry is independent, but I hope that the Minister accepts that it is important to feed back to the inquiry the point that it must not simply reinforce all the decisions that were made. It must examine whether, when those decisions were made, decision makers sought full knowledge of the consequences that would flow from them.

We are here to look at the economic consequences. Of course, they were felt at the time, but they are still being felt today, as speakers have outlined, and will be felt for a long time. As the economy was locked down and we could not leave people without some kind of support, an immediate consequence was a huge amount of borrowing. The figures have been given today: £376 billion or £407 billion. Those are mind-boggling figures. Some of that went on support for healthy people who could have gone to work safely, and without any consequences for the health service or their families. Even people who worked outside—builders or farm workers—were unable to go to work, because they might be infected by those they worked with. There was the cost of paying healthy people not to work, when they could have worked.

Then there was the splurging on many national health issues, including the rush to buy personal protective equipment, hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of which we have never used. It is still being stored by the countries that were supplying it to us; we are paying them to do that.

There should have been a more focused debate about what was needed and the nature of what we were facing, as well as a willingness to listen to the other side of the argument. On many of the discussion programmes that I took part in, all the people brought in were on one side of the debate, even though the arguments on that side were well known. The media companies had researchers who could have dug out someone on the other side of the debate—the Government were certainly in a position to do that—yet they decided not to.

There was the immediate spending, and the impact on businesses. I can think of many people in my constituency who lost their dream of having their own business. The girl who used to cut my hair had a small hairdressers and employed three people. She obeyed all the rules. She spent what little capital she had on putting up screens and buying different instruments that could all be sterilised after use. She survived the first lockdown, but when it came to the second, she said, “I’ve no more money to keep the business going,” and she lost it. We all know of hundreds of stories like that in our constituencies.

One Monday, I had parliamentary business, and I chose to come in rather than do it by Zoom, because I believed that Parliament should be sitting. As I came through Leicester Square on a Sunday evening at half-past 8—I remember, because I took a photograph of it—I went into Burger King to get a burger; I was not allowed to sit in the place, but I could sit outside, and throughout the time it took me to eat the burger, I was the only person sitting in Leicester Square. How could hospitality businesses ever survive that kind of situation? It was not necessary.

The Government argued, “You’ve got to do these things to save the health service, save older people from death, and stop disease spreading.” Other countries chose different routes and had better outcomes. They did not do the damage that was done here, because rather than spread fear, they gave information that people could choose to act on. Most people, being sensible, would act on sensible advice. I would never have dreamed of going to see my mum and dad when they were alive if I had a bad cold, because they were vulnerable. If that meant I did not see them for a week or two, I did not see them for a week or two, and yet we felt we had to tell people, “You cannot do this because we can’t rely on your common sense.”

There were short-term consequences: businesses went under and huge amounts of debt were built up. The Government were left with a huge amount of debt, which has curtailed their ability to help with the current economic crisis. Then there are the consequences still felt today. If supply chains close down, firms go out of business. If the people supplying the goods that we rely on are no longer there, or cannot get the parts that they need because other parts of the supply chain have been affected, then of course there will be inflationary pressures. People who lived through the pandemic and saved money came out of it immediately wanting to spend, but the goods were not there to spend money on, so we started the inflationary spiral. I will not fall into the trap of blaming the Government for inflation, all the economic difficulties and the fuel crisis, but they have to accept some responsibility for the consequences of the choices they made.

There are other consequences. We had questions to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy today. There were questions about the difficulties that companies have recruiting. Why do they have those difficulties? Because the economically active workforce has declined. In some cases, having lived through furlough, people found that they could live on less. They decided to change their lifestyle abd just not work. They took early retirement or decided to work part-time, and there has been an impact on the labour market.

Hundreds of thousands of people are not able to work because the health service cannot cope—the warnings were given—with all those who were not diagnosed during the lockdown. People were afraid to go to hospital; they were told not to go, and that their doctor would not see them. Now they find themselves unable to work because of sickness. We talk about long covid; we are suffering from long covid—the long-term economic effects of the covid decisions that we made. It is important to have debates such as this, in which we highlight the impact of those decisions. We must ensure proper examination of the decision-making process at the time, and learn lessons from the actions that we took.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that in Northern Ireland, the impact has been even greater? In a population of less than 1.9 million people, about 400,000 people are on waiting lists. The cancer waiting list and undiagnosed cancers are at an all-time high. The ambulance service is in disarray, and people in our wonderful nursing profession are being left high and dry, despite their expectations. They will not be rewarded, after being told that they were the most valuable people in society.

[Sammy Wilson]

The other aspect to this is the excess deaths that we now have. At the time, I did not support the daily death toll being announced on the news. I thought it was wrong to do that. It is strange; there are now excess deaths due to lockdown and its implications on the health service, but we do not publish those numbers. It is a daily reminder of what happened, however. Families across the country are sadly being reminded daily of the impact on the health service of the decision that lockdown was the way to go, even though in many cases the hospitals that closed down, and were not open for normal service, were not dealing with covid patients. I mention that because it reminds me of the fear that was engendered even among health professionals. Many health professionals would phone me and say, “I don’t dare speak out, because if you do, you can get struck off.” Such was the atmosphere of fear.

An issue that I have not yet mentioned is education and the long-term impact of the unnecessary lockdown of schools. Children could not easily become infected or pass on the infection. Even if they did get covid, it had very little impact on them, but they have not escaped the long-term educational impact of being taken away from school.

It has been mentioned briefly, but not enough, that the most severe impact has been felt by the least well-off in our society. I remember going into people’s homes—I probably should not have visited them during lockdown, but I did, because they were my constituents. Those living in blocks of flats did not have a garden to put their youngsters out into, and they were worried that they were not geared up to help their youngsters with their educational needs. They were worried about the long-term impact on their education, and on their social lives. I think we have forgotten that the people hardest hit were the most vulnerable and most needy. I hope that this debate helps to remind us that we should not go down that path again, and that all these issues should be considered.

Autumn Statement Resolutions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

First, may I say at the outset that I do not fall into the group who blame the Government for all of the problems that we face? We must recognise the impact of the covid period on supply chains not just in our country but across the world. Whether the lockdown was advisable, I was one of the few in the House who believed that it was not, that it was prolonged for far too long and that it would have an economic and health impact, and it did. Of course, there is also the war in Ukraine and the cynical use of energy that we have become dependent on. Again, the policy of pursuing net zero, weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, not producing our own and so on, has come back to bite us. We were also slow in identifying the inflationary tendencies in the economy, so we did not take the appropriate monetary policies at the right time. Once the Americans decided that they were going to tackle inflation through higher interest rates, it was inevitable that we would find ourselves in the same situation.

We could, therefore, point the finger of blame at the Government and say, “Did we really need the lockdown policies that were pursued?”—we are now paying for them—and, “Are some of our energy policies correct?” I do not believe that they are, and they have contributed to the current situation. Nevertheless, global pressures beyond the decisions made in this House and by the Government have impacted on the situation.

I welcome some of the measures in the statement, especially those designed to help the most vulnerable in our society. I therefore welcome the uprating of benefits, although I believe it is important to use all of our efforts to get people who are on benefits and requiring support into work, because that is good for them, good for the economy and good for the fiscal situation that we face. I also welcome the triple lock on pensions. The Government had made an important commitment, and political credibility depended on them honouring that.

I also welcome the support for people’s energy bills, although it has not yet appeared in Northern Ireland. Perhaps the Minister can give us some more information about that. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom where promises have been made but not so far delivered, despite the fact that four Business Secretaries, two Chancellors and two Prime Ministers have made that promise. I would like to see it delivered before Christmas, because people are facing their energy bills now.

My next point is in the Northern Ireland context. There are those in Northern Ireland who say that being part of the United Kingdom has no value. The truth is that many of the measures that I have outlined so far would not have been possible without the fiscal and economic umbrella that we have as part of the United Kingdom. I listen to Sinn Féin saying regularly, “If only the Northern Ireland Assembly were restored, we would be able to help the people who face economic difficulties.” That is despite the fact that the Sinn Féin Minister was responsible for a budget that left us with a £650 million hole in the budget this year. Although he could never get a budget that any of the parties in the Assembly agreed with, he never made any effort to improve it or to try to deal with the difficulties. The idea that somehow the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly would bring forward a fountain of support for people who need it is for the fairies—[Interruption.] I hear the moaning from the SNP, who also come to the UK Govt with their hands out for more money, because they realise—although they will not admit it—the benefit of being part of the United Kingdom and having the fiscal umbrella that that affords in times of economic difficulties.

I do not believe, however, that the autumn statement and its provisions will address the major problems that the Chief Secretary outlined today. The first is inflation, which destroys businesses, people’s savings and their ability to live sustainably. There is also the issue of debt. Little in the statement points to achieving the economic growth that we require, which would increase production, increase tax revenues and reduce the burden of debt in the economy. Indeed, many of the tax measures—and Conservative Members have been as critical of them as I am—have been designed not to encourage growth, but to make growth much more difficult. I have no difficulty with taxing windfall profits—profits that were not expected, that investment decisions were never made on and that have been made on the back of decisions made elsewhere that have hurt the customers of the firms concerned—but I have a problem with taxing the profits of companies that want to grow and that rely on profits for investment decisions. We have seen that corporation tax on profits will be kept at a high level, allowances will be reduced, dividend taxes will be frozen and so on. All of that will militate against economic growth.

Secondly, the changes to personal taxation will reduce disposable income, which takes away customers from firms that want to invest. Why should they invest if the customers will not be there? If 5.4 million people are dragged into the higher tax levels and see their disposable income fall by 7.1%, and in a year’s time we will be less well-off than we were pre-pandemic, it will not be a climate in which businesses will want to innovate, invest and produce the conditions for economic growth. That being the case, how then do we even pay the interest on the additional debt—the £100 billion that has been mentioned? The Budget does not lay the foundation for dealing with the problems of paying our debt or growing our economy. If we did so, we could increase our productive potential, which could be anti-inflationary.

I could go into some of the measures that have already been mentioned today, but let me just mention one: the investment and exploitation of those fossil fuels that we have in our own country. We need energy and independence. We also need to raise the revenues from those resources. We know that we will need them anyway because we import them. The Government need to look at incentives for improving the production of the resources that we have in our economy.

Basically, I welcome some of the issues that have been addressed. However, the people of Northern Ireland would like to hear from the Minister when the support for fuel and energy will be available to them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I, too, have park home residents in my constituency. It is very important that we treat them fairly and give them the help that we are giving others, so we have set up the energy bills support scheme alternative funding as a way of helping them. It is designed to give them the equivalent of the £400 that we are giving to people with more normal energy consumption patterns. I will write to my hon. Friend with more details.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

BBC Radio 4 erroneously claimed this morning that energy payments to consumers in Northern Ireland would be held up because of the non-operation of the Assembly as a result of the Northern Ireland protocol. Ministers have worked with the Minister for the Economy in Northern Ireland and have made commitments that payments will be made before Christmas, but some senior civil servants seem to be seeking to use non-payment as a lever to get the Assembly back into operation. Will the Chancellor confirm, first, that money is available for the package; secondly, that the energy companies are ready to deliver it; and thirdly, that the Government will keep their commitment to ensure that payments are made before Christmas? Will he also investigate whether civil servants are interfering in the political process in Northern Ireland?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we are absolutely determined to ensure that support gets out to everyone in the United Kingdom as quickly as possible this Christmas. I am absolutely not aware of any delay of the kind that he suggests, but I will happily make inquiries to make sure of that.

Economic Update

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I will.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome the Chancellor’s appointment and wish him well in his job, because on his success depends the success of all our constituents in meeting the cost of living. While inflation cannot be blamed on the Government, because it is an international thing, and while interest rates are going up across the world, the one thing for which the Chancellor is fully responsible is today’s increase in taxation. It will take money from people at a vital time, meaning that they are unable to pay their bills or pay for their investment plans. I assume that he has done some economic modelling on that. What impact does he believe it will have on growth and on the burden of debt in relation to GDP over the next two years?

[Jeremy Hunt]

The right hon. Gentleman asks a very important question. I remind him that what I have announced today has been very largely the cancellation of planned tax cuts, rather than being new tax increases. This has a very important impact, in a positive direction, on national finances, but unfortunately it will not be the end of the story. If we are to deliver a credible Budget in which we can demonstrate—my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) asked about this earlier—that debt is falling as a percentage of GDP by the end of the period, we will have further difficult decisions ahead. This Government will not shirk from them.

Economic Situation

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

It is not taxpayers’ money in the sense that the phrase suggests. There is a fiscal indemnity so that any profit or loss will end up flowing back to the Exchequer, but, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami), whether that is crystallised depends on market prices. I point out that the volume of gilts so far purchased is considerably less than the limits that were set out.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Covid supply-side disruption and the war in Ukraine have obviously added to inflation, as has monetary policy in the United States and our own high levels of borrowing, added to the rate of interest here in the UK. That has put real pressure on households across the United Kingdom. Despite the fact that the Government have responded by putting more money in people’s pockets through tax cuts and help with electricity bills, there is real public concern about the stability of our economy. Does the Chief Secretary accept that that is partly due to poor political decisions such as reducing the top rate of taxation, bad communication of his own strategy, open warfare on his own Benches and some of the careless remarks that we saw yesterday from the Governor of the Bank of England?

[Chris Philp]

I think the Prime Minister said a couple of weeks ago that, with hindsight, some of the pitch rolling or preparation could have been better handled, but I think that the package of measures is in the interests of the country. In addressing the cost of living pressures that the right hon. Gentleman referred to, we are protecting our fellow citizens, our constituents, from what could have been £5,000, £6,000 or even £7,000 annual energy bills. That is important. We are alleviating the burden of taxation at what is a difficult time. We are making sure that the households most in need of assistance get additional assistance, amounting to £1,200 a year for the one third of households on lower incomes. All those are measures designed to protect our constituents and I am sure that he will join me in welcoming them.

The Growth Plan

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Absolutely. I will be updating the House on measures to try to make sure that the financial services become, as they have been in the past, a world-leading industry.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I think many people will be astounded at the reaction to the Chancellor’s proposal to increase economic growth in the United Kingdom, which will increase standards of living, increase employment, help to raise revenue for public services and reduce the national debt. I only hope that the Brexit freedoms that he talks about, once we are free of the Northern Ireland protocol, will lead to investment zones and regulatory reform in Northern Ireland.

Will the Chancellor consider two things to help working families? First, will he consider increasing tax-free childcare allowances, which would be an immense help for them? Secondly, since two thirds of people in Northern Ireland rely on home heating oil, will he accept that a £100 increase in assistance is not acceptable when there has been a 300% increase in the price of heating oil?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We are absolutely looking at the childcare issue, and I am sure one of my Cabinet colleagues will update the House on that; we are talking about the heating oil intervention; and we are very willing and eager to engage with Northern Ireland colleagues and friends on working out how we can roll out investment zones in Northern Ireland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend speaks with authority and experience on this topic, and of course she is absolutely right: the UK Government are ensuring that families across the United Kingdom are benefiting from the support we are putting in place. More broadly, we will do everything we can in government to protect and support the United Kingdom.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Many of the fiscal levers the Government could use to support Northern Ireland are not available, because we are under the EU VAT regime and still subject to EU state aid rules, which would rule out many of the measures the Government would take. Is that not a reason why the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill that is going through the House of Commons is essential, in order to enable the Government to use fiscal levers across the whole UK to benefit all of the people, be they Unionists, nationalists or any others in Northern Ireland?

[Rishi Sunak]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. As I said from this Dispatch Box at the time of the spring statement, we were unable to extend our VAT cut on energy-saving materials to Northern Ireland because of some of the provisions in the protocol. He will know that the legislation we have put before this House, which I am glad received support last night, will address exactly those issues.

Financial Statement

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend has championed the issue consistently since I have had this job, and she deserves enormous credit. I would be very happy to talk to her and to take her proposals up with the Department for Education.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

It would be churlish not to accept that the Chancellor has sought to deal with many of the issues that working families today face, but given the windfall in taxes that he has experienced, I believe that more could have been done to help with fuel costs, energy bills and other cost of living increases. It is significant that the Chancellor could not apply all his tax cuts to Northern Ireland because of the Northern Ireland protocol: that shows that the protocol needs to be dealt with.

At the start of his statement. the Chancellor referred to Ukraine, but surprisingly there was no mention of additional resources for defence—for the defence of this country, the defence of democracy and the defence of values in the face of Putin’s aggression. Why was that absent today?

[Rishi Sunak]

On fiscal windfalls and headroom, I refer the right hon. Gentleman to my answer to the Chair of the Treasury Committee. Our headrooms are relatively small by historical standards and could be wiped out very easily by small changes in the macroeconomic outlook, so I think that it is wrong to say that there is a huge windfall. Indeed, borrowing for the forthcoming year will be higher than was forecast in October.

On defence, I refer the right hon. Gentleman to my answer to the shadow Chancellor. We increased the defence budget by £24 billion in 2020—the largest increase since the cold war. The Ministry of Defence was the only Department that got a four-year settlement when all the others got just one year. That is how seriously we take the issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend is an active campaigner for the steel sector in her constituency. I can assure her that energy-intensive industries such as steel receive substantial support from the Government, including free allowances from the emissions trading scheme and the £315 million industrial energy transformation fund, to help them to cut energy bills.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

A statutory instrument entitled the Customs (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2022 was on yesterday’s Order Paper for approval by the House. It amends the customs arrangements for the United Kingdom by excluding Northern Ireland from them, changing the term “United Kingdom” to “Great Britain”. That runs totally contrary to the assurances given by the Prime Minister that Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK customs territory; it runs contrary to article 4 of the Northern Ireland protocol; and it now means not only that Northern Ireland is part of the single market under the European Court of Justice, but that it is outside the UK customs territory. The motion relating to the instrument was not moved. Can the Financial Secretary give an assurance that it will not be brought back to the House until there has been a meeting to explain why it is necessary, what its impact on Northern Ireland is and why the Government have brought it forward?