Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). It seems like only yesterday that she and I went on a tour with the Doorkeepers when we first arrived here.

It is a brilliant Budget by the Chancellor, but I know that my constituents will want to know exactly what’s in it for them, so let’s get quickly to the point there: furlough has been extended—it has supported more than 10,000 people in Newcastle-under-Lyme; the self-employed will have more grants and the net has been cast wider; there is a universal credit extension for a further six months and equivalent support of £500 for working tax credits; there are business restart grants and recovery loans; and, importantly for a red wall town such as mine, there are freezes to alcohol duty and fuel duty. The latter is particularly important as we lack public transport in Newcastle-under-Lyme; that is a very welcome thing for a town.

I want to talk about towns because there has been a lot of talk about them recently and I feel that the Labour party has missed the boat on towns. I wish to quote at some length:

“For far too long the ambitions, needs and values of nine million people in towns across Britain have not been heard.

Our economic model treats cities as engines of growth, which at best drag surrounding towns along in their wake, causing life to become harder, less secure and less hopeful for too many people in towns in recent decades.

Our political system is blind to the values and experiences of people who live in our towns, wrongly treating cities as a proxy for the national opinion.

After the EU Referendum starkly exposed the growing gulf between towns and cities, it is clear that this is no longer sustainable.”

Those are brilliant words. They are the words of the shadow Foreign Secretary, the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), when she launched the Centre For Towns in December 2017. I have read all that it had to say. It is a centre-left think tank, but I agree with an awful lot of what it said. I am really proud that the previous Government took that agenda into the general election and started thinking about how we can deliver for left-behind towns—communities such as Newcastle-under-Lyme and others in north Staffordshire.

Locally we have seen so much investment. We have had £11 million already through the future high streets fund, and we have a £25 million towns fund bid in with the Ministry at the moment. I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on the £16.9 million success of Kidsgrove’s town deal bid, which will have knock-on effects for those living in the north of my constituency. I am pleased that even after all his largesse the Chancellor found that Newcastle-under-Lyme could also be a priority area for the UK community renewal fund, which will enable us to bid for a further £3 million, supporting skills, local businesses, communities and place—that is so important—and supporting people into employment. So I make no apology for what the Chancellor has done for the towns agenda. It is an agenda that has been neglected for far too long. The Labour party recognised that, through the hon. Member for Wigan, a few years ago. It is a shame it did not act on it, and that is why what happened in the 2019 election happened.