Income tax (charge)

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As many Members across the House will know, people often think that just because a constituency is in a certain part of the country—the south-east in his case—it must be enormously prosperous. Many of us represent enormously deprived communities, perhaps just an individual ward, within an otherwise prosperous area, so it is very important that the criteria for levelling up take that all into account. That is why the Green Book is being rewritten as a result of last week’s Budget. We look forward to hearing more about that in due course.

With interest rates at an historic low, it is time to get Britain building. That is why the Chancellor set out plans to inject £640 billion by 2024-25 into roads, railways, hospitals, broadband, housing and research, to modernise the fabric of our country, turbo-charge our economy—perhaps to electrically charge our economy —and get every single region of the UK growing, not matter where it is.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Strategic investment in infrastructure is very welcome, but another Budget measure that the Chancellor announced was the removal of the red diesel rebate for the construction industry, which means the cost of diesel for construction will double. That is predicted in the Red Book to bring in £5 billion over two years. How much of that £640 billion investment will be written off by paying costs for diesel?

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Gentleman, who has questioned me passionately many times about greening the economy, will appreciate that red diesel contributes tremendously to the problems he often cites. There will be a consultation, so he will have an opportunity to put his concerns on the record, as he has done partially today.

The Government will provide more details on our investment priorities when we publish our national infrastructure strategy in the spring and the comprehensive spending review later this year. That will include taking forward Northern Powerhouse Rail, having already committed to the section between Manchester and Leeds, and reversing many of the Beeching cuts, as I have mentioned. I am grateful to Members across the House for bringing forward an extraordinary number of potential Beeching reversals, which the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry, is now in the process of assessing, working with colleagues across the House. We are also delivering High Speed 2, to transform rail connections between our major cities while releasing capacity on our existing railways, particularly for freight.

We will present an integrated rail plan for the north and for the midlands, examining how HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail can best work together, along with wider investment in transport across the regions. We have the largest ever investment in English strategic roads. We have £27 billion to tackle congestion and increase capacity. We have £2.5 billion to fill potholes and ensure that more do not develop. We have £5 billion for the roll-out of broadband, particularly in rural areas, to ensure that our four nations are fully linked together. We have record funding of £5.2 billion for flood defences—we have seen recently how important it is to have that cash going in. We have £4.2 billion for urban transport through long-term settlements with eight mayoral combined authorities. We have £22 billion for science, innovation and technology by 2024-25, to help us develop new products and services to sell around the world.

Of course, we also have a massive housing programme. We have made significant progress towards building more affordable, high-quality homes in recent years— far more than when I was Housing Minister—and the housing supply is now at its highest level for 32 years, which is quite an achievement. However, we still have a long way to go. The Budget mentioned remedying some of that shortfall, first by extending the affordable homes programme with a multi-year £12 billion settlement, and secondly by helping local authorities to invest while such low interest rates are available.

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[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Miss Dines). I congratulate her on delivering her maiden speech, and indeed on becoming the first female MP to represent her constituency, and wish her well for the future. She said that she embodies working-class values and that Margaret Thatcher is her hero—that is a concept that I have yet to get my head around, to be honest, but I wish her well.

Having been a civil engineer before coming to this place, I am instinctively in favour of investment in infrastructure, so I welcome the Government’s pledge to increase infrastructure investment. It can be truly transformational. The Scottish National party has argued for years that, instead of austerity, targeted investment can help improve the economy, especially with borrowing rates at an extended all-time low. It is good to see that this Government are finally listening. However, infra- structure investment should also fit a strategic picture and be part of long-term planning. It therefore does not make sense that the Budget and its headline announcements pre-date the Government’s long-overdue response to the National Infrastructure Commission’s national infrastructure assessment, which was published in July 2018.

A strategic approach also means avoiding a cavalier approach and glib announcements, such as proposals for a “Union bridge” between Scotland and Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Bolton North East (Mark Logan) also made a fine maiden speech, but in the last couple of minutes it went badly south. He might be demanding the construction of a Union bridge, but the Secretary of State for Scotland has said that it is just a euphemism for a tunnel. If the Government cannot agree on whether they are going to build a tunnel or a bridge, surely they should instead allocate the money to the Scottish Government, who will use it much more wisely.

“Levelling up” is another Government catchphrase, but at least it acknowledges the neglect of some of the regions and nations of the UK over the years. That is particularly true in Scotland, where the lack of infrastructure investment by Westminster is an historic disgrace. Hansard is littered with broken promises of particular road schemes—projects that were subsequently delivered by the SNP Scottish Government. It took an SNP Government to construct a full-length motorway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and it took an SNP Government to construct the missing M74 linkages. It was the SNP Government who build the M80. It is the SNP Government who are dualling the A9 and making it an electric highway. It is the SNP Government who had to complete the upgrading of what was the last single-track trunk road in Great Britain, the Road to the Isles between Fort William and Mallaig. To date it is the SNP Government and the Scottish Parliament, not Westminster, who have been doing the levelling up for Scotland.

Anyone driving around the highlands or across the Western Isles will see many road upgrades and causeways built by the Scottish Government with the help of EU funds. That was another way of having to make up for Westminster letting Scotland down. How will Scotland get its full share of the UK prosperity fund, given that access to the EU structural funds is no longer available?

We can talk about levelling up, but, as the Prime Minister said himself in the build-up to the Scottish referendum,

“A pound spent in Croydon is of far more value to the country than a pound spent in Strathclyde.”

Given that he has never apologised for that, it is hard to believe that he is taking the “levelling up” agenda seriously.

Another contradiction in the Budget and the big infrastructure projects proposed by the UK Government is the fact that they also propose to remove the red diesel rebate for construction plant. That would double the cost of fuel for plant hire companies, which would be passed on to clients. Have the Government considered the cashflow implications? Have they actually thought through the measure in total? The Red Book shows an income of an extra £5 billion over two years. That is £5 billion, more or less, added on to construction projects, so the Government are robbing Peter to pay Paul. Because of Scottish devolution, the Scottish Government and local authorities need to pay more for construction projects, and that money goes back to the Treasury, so we will be subsidising the Treasury yet again.

Another transport project that was supposed to level up connectivity between the regions and nations is the third runway at Heathrow. However, the UK Government lost in the court because they did not allow for aviation emissions to be aligned with the Paris agreement. They will now turn round and say that it does not matter because it is private investment, and it is up to Heathrow to sort it out. Well, it is not up to Heathrow to sort it out; it is up to the UK Government to do that, because climate change is their responsibility. They should follow the Scottish Government’s lead, and include aviation emissions in their net zero target. Moreover, if they are clear about levelling up, where are the public service obligations to protect the extra slots if the Heathrow third runway goes ahead? That is another vital aspect of connectivity.

There is also the issue of HS2. Where is the levelling up there? The route starts in London. The first phase is between London and Birmingham, and the London-Crewe section will follow. Trains will travel more slowly between Crewe and Scotland, because they cannot travel as fast on the existing main line. How can it be levelling up for us to have a poorer service once the high-speed trains are up and running—and where is our share of the Barnett consequentials? Roughly £750 million is due to us to date. If we are given that money, we can get on with our own infrastructure projects.

The Government have a big job to do if they are to hit their net zero carbon target by 2050. It will mean further strategic infrastructure investment, which will need to be done correctly to achieve this levelling up. That means investment in energy infrastructure. Again, we await the Government’s White Paper. When will it come, and when will we have a coherent energy policy that makes energy efficiency measures part of a national infrastructure project? The National Infrastructure Commission has long called for that, as has the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. The Scottish Government have led the way, spending four times as much as the UK Government per capita.

We need proposals for carbon capture and strategy—the current Budget proposals are too vague—and we need to end the nuclear obsession. It is completely illogical to pay £92.50 per MWh for Hinkley for 35 years, compared to just £40 per MWh for offshore wind and a 15-year concession. We need to invest in renewable energy.

We need a levelling up of broadband and mobile coverage. The proposed infill still leaves Scotland behind. The UK Government are contributing only £21 million to the £600 million R101 programme. The size of Scotland’s land mass is roughly 60% of the size of England’s, yet we will get only 18% as much funding as England from the UK Government. That is not levelling up.

If Westminster were serious about levelling up, it would make up for those deficiencies—and if it is not willing to level up, let Scotland become an independent country and we will level up on our own terms.