Economic Responsibility and a Plan for Growth

Alan Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

Just like the constituents of Arundel and South Downs, I do not want the constituents of Eddisbury to face any prejudice. My hon. Friend makes his point well, and I am sure that the Energy Minister will be listening.

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

If the so-called energy price guarantee will reduce inflation by 4% or 5%, what will inflation go to in April 2023 when the Government remove it?

[Andrew Griffith]

I have learned not to make forecasts in life.

[Alan Brown]

You just did.

[Andrew Griffith]

I was citing external forecasts, rather than making forecasts of where energy prices in an unprecedented moment of global volatility will be six months hence. Maybe the hon. Member has a greater insight into that.

[Alan Brown]

I feel I have.

[Andrew Griffith]

No. Treasury officials will lead a review regarding the appropriate measures to support households and businesses with their energy needs beyond April, but without the taxpayer picking up an inappropriate share of the burden.

--- Later in debate ---

[Drew Hendry]

Again, the hon. Gentleman makes a fantastic point. The growth we are seeing from this Government is the growth in poverty and in inequality. That continues to rise and the Government are very good at driving it forward.

As I was saying, those off gas grid consumers are being given £100. Scotland is energy rich and a net exporter of energy. Renewable energy is six to nine times cheaper than the gas-fired power our prices are linked to. In Scotland we have the energy, but until we have the power our people will continue to be ignored over their basic needs and their potential.

After the Chancellor’s statement, the Scottish National party, through my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), tried to introduce some certainty for households terrified by the rising energy prices by tabling an amendment to the Energy Prices Bill that would have required Ministers to outline within 28 days how support after April would be provided to households. Labour failed to support that amendment. The Chancellor says that more difficult decisions will have to be made, which means cutting the funding for things that ordinary families and the most vulnerable rely on. We should note that the threat for those struggling by, many of them working people relying on universal credit, has not been lifted; there may be further reductions, on top of the fact that inflation has been three times higher than their last increase. Common decency demands that benefits must be fully uprated. Are the Government capable of that?

We should also remember that this Government still have not reversed the pernicious £20 a week cut to UC, yet the Chancellor had the cheek to say—this has been repeated today—that the Government’s priority will always be the most vulnerable. Does that include pensioners? This week, he was briefing journalists, including Robert Peston, who said this today, that the Government were abandoning the triple lock. With inflation rampant—today’s figure is 10.1%—this means further hardship for Scotland’s older people. Yet today, the Prime Minister says no. Is this another U-turn? Or is it like when she says that the energy cap will mean no family would pay more than £2,500 per year? Is it just—let me find some parliamentary language—questionable?

If the Government really mean that they care, they would reinstate the £20 a week to UC, scrap the bedroom tax, get rid of the odious rape clause and uprate benefits in line with inflation. They could choose to follow the progressive lead of the Scottish Government, who have brought in, among a wide package—[Interruption.] The Minister is laughing. The Scottish Government have brought in the Scottish child payment, which has risen now to £25 a week. That is helping to mitigate the callous cut made by his Government. They could choose to follow that progressive lead and to follow what the Scottish Government have done in doubling the December bridging payment from £130 to £260, at a time when families will need it most, in the depth of winter and at Christmas. The Government could pay for much of this by taxing the excess profits of companies that are clearly making them.

[Alan Brown]

My hon. Friend was talking about the Tories not keeping their pledge to protect the most vulnerable, and he has highlighted some awful policies that are making people more vulnerable. In addition, under this Government fuel poverty has increased by more than 50% and now affects 6.7 million households. So to say that the Government are protecting the vulnerable is, unfortunately, a sick joke.

[Drew Hendry]

My hon. Friend has said it all there—it is clear. To hear laughter this afternoon from Government Front Benchers about measures to mitigate poverty is shameful.

The Government could have taxed some of the excess profits, and companies are daring them to do so. Sometimes, as with the boss of Shell, they are asking the Government to do this. The Government could do this but they will not, because protecting the vulnerable is not what Tories do. It gets worse, because now the Bank of England will react with further interest rate rises, pushing mortgages to unaffordable heights for some homeowners and prospective buyers. As we have heard again today, the Government want to lay all the blame on the illegal war in Ukraine and on global conditions, but everybody knows that much of this is Tory-inflicted. A big part of that is Brexit. It has hamstrung businesses by starving them of vital staff; it has pushed inflation higher through import prices; the UK’s shocking balance of trade has been exposed; and it has ushered in a raft of new tax costs for businesses across the nations of the UK. As the former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney pointed out:

“In 2016 the British economy was 90% the size of Germany’s. Now it is…70%.”

That was before the clusterbùrach of the mini-Budget. Labour, with all the backbone of a squid, joined at the tentacles with this Tory ideology, is trying to pretend that somehow it will make Brexit work. Most Labour Members do not believe that, and it flies in the face of all the logic and informed opinion.

All this chaos is a timely reminder for the people of Scotland about why they should choose a different path. I say to people back home: look at what the Government are doing to you, to your communities, to your businesses, to your families and to your children’s futures. Let us make comparisons with the UK. Other countries similar to Scotland are wealthier and more equal, and have higher productivity, lower poverty, lower child poverty and lower pensioner poverty. Democracy can and will triumph. Scotland has the right to choose a very different path from this one, to build a better future as an independent nation and as an equal partner in the European Union—one that seeks to lift people up, not keep them down, and to live by the values of a welcoming, diverse and compassionate nation.