Income tax (charge)

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). I offer congratulations, too, to my hon. Friends the Members for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), for Blyth Valley (Ian Levy), for Bolton North East (Mark Logan) and for Derbyshire Dales (Miss Dines), as well as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), on their maiden speeches. It is a real honour to serve in Parliament. I am proud to be part of the 2019 intake of MPs across the Chamber, and we are all profoundly humbled by the circumstances and responsibilities that are on our shoulders.

The Budget was delivered in truly exceptional circumstances that have grown ever more so in less than a week. This is a challenging economic environment for us as a nation as we face the global coronavirus outbreak, and I hope that colleagues across the House will recognise the Chancellor’s willingness, first of all, to give the NHS whatever help it needs to get through this unprecedented challenge. To describe this as a baptism of fire for the Chancellor and, of course, for the new Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, whose appointment I welcome, would be significantly to understate things.

Our new Chancellor was extremely impressive last week, as he set out the measures that we are taking to protect, as best as we can, our economy, our workforce and indeed our entire population from the damaging financial effects of coronavirus, and I look forward to his making a statement later today in the same vein but with significantly more firepower. I must especially speak up for the small business owners of pubs, bars and restaurants and all their employees, many of whom have been in contact with me today. This is a hugely worrying time for these firms, which are pillars of their communities as well as of their local economies.

I turn to the substance of the Budget. The first point that I want to make is that it has delivered on the promises in our manifesto—promises that the British people voted for last December and that won us our majority. We are delivering the largest cash boost for the NHS in history, as we promised. The announcement of funding for 40 new hospital projects and the protected capital investment budget, to ensure that estate refurbishment and maintenance across NHS buildings goes ahead, is another manifesto pledge delivered.

I am particularly pleased by the announcement of £17.6 million of capital investment for the Royal Stoke University Hospital to build three new modern wards to increase capacity there. This Budget was also the first part of our long-term plan for levelling up the British economy—something that my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme will hugely welcome. North Staffordshire has historically not had the best deal, so I am delighted to see concrete plans in the Budget to ensure that everyone across our country has the opportunity to succeed, especially in Newcastle-under-Lyme and north Staffordshire more widely.

I am also pleased at the announcement that the Department for Transport has included improvements to the notorious M6 junction 15 in the second road investment strategy. I promised Newcastle-under-Lyme residents that I would call on the Government to act and am delighted that my concerns and those of my colleague and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), who has also been campaigning on this issue in his time in the House, have been heard. Work must now be done to see what a new junction 15 could look like and how quickly that much needed improvement can be brought forward. That will have important benefits for my constituents, particularly those in the southern suburbs of Clayton, the Westlands and Westbury Park.

I hugely welcome the Government’s commitment to put 0.8% of GDP into research and development; it is particularly welcome that that would place us above countries such as the US, China and Japan as a proportion of GDP. I especially welcome the commitment that more R&D funding will go to universities outside London, the east and the south-east of England. World-class science is happening right across the country. For example, fantastic, innovative projects are taking place at Keele University science park in my constituency, such as the smart energy network demonstrator and the hydrogen project HyDeploy, which should provide greener energy from our gas network. We also have a number of world-class firms in our science park, such as the vaccine manufacturer Cobra Biologics and Pharmaceutical Services, whose skills and capacity will, I hope, be tested sooner rather than later.

I hope that Keele will benefit from the increase in R&D funding, along with many other institutions across our country. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement about investing £800 million into a model based on the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is also very welcome and relevant at the moment. I know colleagues across the House will be particularly interested in seeing how that money is going to be used. Alongside my colleagues on the Science and Technology Committee, I will be looking at how it is best spent to ensure that we are investing in ideas and pushing our country forward.

I turn to a couple of campaigns. I am glad the Chancellor responded to the lobbying on the issue of the fuel duty freeze from me and other MPs in the Blue Collar Conservatism group. We promised during the general election that we would be on the side of hard-working families if we got into government, and that is why I am so delighted that he confirmed that fuel prices will not be going up in this Budget. The fuel duty freeze will make a huge difference to hard-working people in Newcastle-under-Lyme who rely on their cars—the cumulative effect is now about £1,200 more for the average driver. I also repeat my previous pleas in the House for investment in public transport provision across north Staffordshire, starting with a super-bus network.

I am delighted that the Chancellor has announced he will axe the reading tax on digital books, newspapers and academic journals from 1 December 2020. That was another campaign I had supported ahead of the Budget, and the announcement is fantastic news. The decision will make a huge difference to people with disabilities who struggle to read or handle printed books, and remove a barrier to literacy for children and young people, 45% of whom now prefer to read on a digital device.

In conclusion, I welcome the Budget and I expect to welcome the additional measures the Chancellor will be taking later today. These are unprecedented times, and he and the rest of the Government will have my full support in dealing with the challenge that we must now face.