Budget Resolutions
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Mel Stride
I can reassure all mortgage holders up and down the country that this Government are absolutely determined to see inflation return to its target. The OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook, published yesterday, makes it clear that we will meet the 2% target one year earlier than it forecast in the autumn. The significance of that for interest rates is obvious: interest rates will come down faster if inflation recedes quicker, and that is exactly what has happened.
Mel Stride
I have been very generous with my time, but how can I say no? I must then make some progress.
Alex Cunningham
The Minister is a decent man. The Government make much of getting value for money, but they have little to say about the handing over of Teesside’s greatest land asset to two private developers, who have since banked tens of millions of pounds in profits, leaving crumbs for the public. That is after the investment of £500 million of taxpayers’ money and no private investment. Is the Minister content with that, or does he believe, as his own Government’s inquiry into the Tees Mayor’s business dealings recommended, that the deal should be renegotiated?
Mel Stride
I will not get into the weeds of the issue that the hon. Gentleman is attempting to draw me into, other than to say that he made at least one comment that I agree with: I am indeed a decent man. I thank him very much for that.
Inflation is falling faster than expected. People’s wages are rising in real terms, and have done for the last seven months. Under this Government, our labour market has been strong and resilient, delivering opportunities despite the headwinds. We have put incentives at the heart of our welfare. We have grown faster than Germany, France or Italy. According to the OBR, we will continue to do so over the next five years. We are attracting the business investment that is key to growth, delivering high- quality jobs across the country—from Nissan to Google to AstraZeneca, which announced £650 million of investment only yesterday.
No matter how much the Labour party seeks to talk down Britain, the investment flowing into our economy is a huge vote of confidence in our country. It shows that our plan is working. By contrast, as has been laid all too bare this afternoon, the Labour party has no plan or credible record. I have already gone through the tale of woe about the level of unemployment that Labour has left us in the past. Those poor young people had a 45% increase in youth employment on the watch of the shadow Chancellor’s party, and over 1 million people were left on out-of-work benefits for almost a decade.
On the Government Benches, we believe that work, not welfare is key to improving living standards. That is why we are incentivising and rewarding work in this Budget. Making work pay and ensuring families are better off means tackling the global inflation that I have referred to, on which we are making significant progress. As inflation decreases, we recognise that there are still some people who need extra help. I was pleased to see the extension of the household support fund for a further six months from April, which was also pushed for by the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms).
Rachel Maclean
I do not accept that, and I do not wish to rerun all the previous debates. The Government have listened to a lot of the issues involved in the roll-out of an incredibly complicated system, and the evidence speaks for itself. Universal credit has helped more people get into work, and work is always the best route out of poverty.
Before I move on, I will make a few comments about mental health conditions. A category of people in our country are the economically inactive, which is sad to me and many of us, because those people are fundamentally not free—they are dependent on the state. My concern is that the number of working-age adults who are out of the labour market because of long-term sickness has been rising since 2019, from about 2.2 million people then to about 2.5 million in the summer of 2022. I understand that that started before the covid pandemic.
The biggest relative jump in economic inactivity due to long-term sickness is among the under-35s, whose main complaints are depression, bad nerves or anxiety. I have two psychology degrees, and I fully understand mental illness and mental ill health. I also believe in using words precisely. I am therefore alarmed to see the conflation of the terms depression and anxiety together with “bad nerves”. Bad nerves? Both anxiety and depression are clinically recognised conditions; bad nerves is not.
Government statistics, obtained following several questions that I posed to the Department, do not break down the number of people self-reporting under each condition, and there is no data or information on how that concept of bad nerves is defined, assessed, treated, understood or prevented as a separate condition from depression and anxiety. That is because there cannot be. Having “bad nerves” is a totally meaningless phrase. No one knows what it is, so how can people decide if they are unfit to work if they have it? I have bad nerves about standing to speak in this Chamber, and my constituents have bad nerves when they are navigating the day-to-day challenges of juggling work and family. The phrase sounds like something out of a good housewife manual in the 1950s.
I simply do not believe, frankly, that bad nerves is a reason to be on sickness benefits, and yet figures from the labour force survey indicate that 1.3 million people are economically inactive due to some combination of bad nerves, anxiety and depression. We do not know how many are off because of each condition or how many are off because of bad nerves. I think it would be a good idea for the Department and the Ministers I can see on the Front Bench to understand on a more granular level what conditions are preventing our constituents getting back into work, so that we can target more efficiently the taxes of our constituents who are working hard for long hours and paying into the system, so ultimately reducing the bill.
Alex Cunningham
Did the hon. Lady detect anywhere in the Chancellor’s statement or the Red Book where he actually says, “We will put more resources into dealing with mental health services”?
Rachel Maclean
Over my time as a Member of Parliament, I have detected many statements by many Ministers on the Treasury Bench about investing in mental health services and back to work services, nationally and in my constituency. Redditch has a brand-new local mental health hub, delivered by the Conservative Government, and the Conservative borough council led by the excellent Mr Matt Dormer.
It is worth observing that a total of 2.6 million people reporting those conditions are actually in work, and that is a credit to our mission to support people back into work, which ultimately is the best way to improve their mental health. I have a concern that following the pandemic, we have possibly seen a trend to over-medicalise some of the normal ups and downs of daily life. It is almost as though it were possible to live in a state of blissful utopia and that if there were any interruption to paradise, that is a condition requiring help. That is just not true.
The struggle of life defines us and builds our character. Taking away individuals’ opportunity and responsibility to face their fears by overprotecting them is the worst way to develop resilience, as any parent knows. The human condition is a state, mostly, of pain and fear. If we are fortunate, we will experience love and happiness in some small interludes, and we must appreciate those.
I want to be very clear, however, that I do not criticise anyone who is suffering from any mental health condition —I do not—including bad nerves, whatever that is. If we have a poorly designed system with poor labelling, it is not people’s fault if they respond to the structural incentives that we have designed, but we must not have bogus, badly defined phrases and cod psychology as a pathway to a lifetime on benefits. I really hope that the Minister will return to that in the summing up.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Fourteen years of Tory Government and they still cannot find a Chancellor who understands poverty, inequality and the need for public services. Despite the latest one being a former Health Secretary, he does not understand health and the role it plays in our society. I remind Government Members that they cancelled the new hospital for Stockton in 2010, and health inequalities in my area have since widened, despite the tremendous work of NHS workers and others.
Today I will try to help the Tories understand the consequences of their 14 years in power: over a decade of austerity and, now, “somebody’s” recession. At the weekend I was appalled to hear that life expectancy in the north-east compared with the rest of the UK will continue to fall for the next 50 years. A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research North’s stated that wealth, health, power, opportunity and systematic inequalities are just a few of the reasons why the north-east is set to see the north-south life expectancy divide endure for decades. It stated:
“The number of years you can expect to live in good health in the North and Midlands would be two-and-a-half years shorter than the South and three-and-a-half years shorter than in London.
Extending these overall trajectories, the gap in healthy life expectancy between the North and the all-England average would not close until 2056/57 while the gap between the North and South East would endure until 2079/80”.
After 14 years of Conservative Government, nothing has happened to close the gap, and national comparisons are widening further. It is even worse locally. People in the town centre ward in Stockton are expected to live 16 years fewer than those down the road in Ingleby Barwick.
That news comes after reports of a huge increase in child poverty, people being unable to see a GP for weeks on end, dental appointments that are simply not available, and waiting lists for operations stretching and stretching. Some appointments for operations that took just a few weeks in 2010 now take many months or, in some cases, over a year. I welcome the new diagnostics centre being built in Stockton, but it is only one small piece of a very large jigsaw of provision needed to do the best for our people. The author of the report and IPPR North research fellow Marcus Johns has confirmed that urgent action is needed to tackle the inequalities. He said:
“No one should be condemned to live a shorter, sicker, less fulfilling, or poorer life simply because of where they were born… It’s hard to avoid the conclusion we are headed in the wrong direction on inequality in health, wealth, power, and opportunity while local government finances languish in chaos.”
Let me turn to another report demonstrating regional inequality. The North East Child Poverty Commission’s February 2024 report highlighted that there has been no child poverty strategy for England or the UK as a whole since 2017. However, the proportion of north-east children in poverty from working families has risen from 56% to 67% in less than a decade. The report also found that the intensity of child poverty in the north-east is getting worse, with one in five children in our region now living below the deep poverty line, and more than one in 10 north-east children living in very deep poverty. Almost one in five north-east children is living in a food-insecure household, meaning that they do not have access to sufficient food to facilitate an active and healthy lifestyle.
Children in our region have been let down in a range of other childhood health measures, having either the highest or second highest rates in England of A&E attendance, emergency hospital admissions, and hospital admissions for asthma, diabetes and dental treatment. All of those are associated with higher levels of deprivation.
On children in care, the north-east has the highest proportion of looked-after children of any English region—113 per 10,000 children, compared with the England average of 74. In the Tees valley, all five local authorities are among the 20 areas with the highest rates of looked-after children in England. Indeed, the link between high rates of child poverty and social care interventions was flagged by the 12 north-east directors of children’s services, which made a joint submission to the independent review of children’s social care back in 2021. It said:
“Exceptional levels of poverty in the North East are driving dramatic rises in child protection intervention and the number of children in care. The cost of this cannot be afforded. Exacerbated by reductions in government funding, spending on early help has reduced at a time when it has been most needed. This vicious cycle can only be broken by different ways of working, backed up by adequate investment.”
Do we not want the best for every child, whether they grew up in the south-east or the north-east? We will not have it unless every child’s basic needs are met. It is deplorable that the Government, with their failure to act, have become complacent, with children in my region going to school hungry, unable to concentrate, unable to learn, and unable to have the future for which they have the potential. I am pleased that Labour is committed to ensuring that all primary school children have free breakfast clubs that set them up for the day, so that no child starts the day hungry and there is a safe space in which to be supported with friends.
There is another matter of great importance to Teesside. There is one area where there has been colossal amount of taxpayer investment in the north-east, but sadly, those same taxpayers are being robbed of the benefits of £0.5 billion invested at Teesworks. My advice to the Chancellor is to get the forensic accountants to pore through the books and reports, and they will find tens of millions of pounds that could have been reinvested in the people of Teesside, instead of being pocketed by two private sector businessmen, after the Teesworks Tory Mayor gifted them 90% of the asset.
Teesworks is probably one of the most important projects in the country, but private individuals will benefit most from the hundreds of millions in profits expected over the coming years—individuals who are yet to invest their own money. I have wondered how the tens of millions of pounds paid out in dividends to those two individuals could have been used on Teesside, where all our local authorities are being forced by the Government to cut services and hike council tax. If those local authorities had just £10 million each, they would not have to cut services and our social care could be given a major boost.
The Chancellor also needs to look at the 28 recommendations in his own Government’s inquiry into the appalling way the Tees Mayor has been running his business— 28 recommendations because of the lack of transparency, poor value for money, and a total disregard for proper process. Recently the Mayor landed us with a legal action bill in excess of £3 million against PD Ports. It leaves the legal fees of the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology looking like chicken feed. If the Chancellor is serious about value for money from taxpayers, he would show the guts that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has failed to show, and order the National Audit Office to see exactly how the £0.5 billion of taxpayers cash has been used at Teesworks and who is deriving the benefit. I think he will discover that Teesworks is not working for our communities, and we have seen only a few hundred of the tens of thousands of jobs promised actually created.
In conclusion, we have had the years of austerity and we now have the Prime Minister’s recession. The ramifications have been immense: appalling regional inequality, poor health, and a cost of living crisis, but above all, poverty on a scale we should be ashamed of.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(11 months, 1 week ago)
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Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
The overall number of children in absolute poverty after housing costs remained stable between 2020-21 and 2021-22. The latest statistics show that in 2021-22 there were 400,000 fewer children in absolute poverty, after housing costs, than in 2009-10. The Government continue to provide comprehensive support to help people find, progress in and thrive in work, recognising that that has to be sustainable in tackling poverty.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
A couple of weeks ago, when I asked the Prime Minister why 34% of children in Stockton North live in poverty, he claimed that child poverty was down. But even if we rely on his and his Government’s unique measuring tool, child poverty is still up, considerably, across every part of the north-east under his watch. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1 million British children have suffered destitution in the past year. When will the Prime Minister and his Ministers stop pretending that they care and make way for a Labour Government who will sort out the mess that shames the Tories?
Mims Davies
The Government are determined to ensure that all children, wherever they come from, have the best start in life. We are committed to supporting families and helping them into work. The full uprating, this year and last, is the signal.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Rachel Reeves
I have spent time in my hon. Friend’s Slough constituency talking to working people and businesses. On the most recent couple of visits there, I do not remember anyone saying, “The big priority for families and businesses in Slough is a tax cut for the 1%.” Instead, they were saying, “Let’s have a targeted scheme for the NHS, as Labour has called for, instead of this blanket approach for the top 1%.”
The Government have, to be fair, given us some growth: growth in stealth taxes, growth in mortgage costs and growth in NHS waiting lists. There is no plan for the future, just a Tory legacy of pain. It will take a Labour Government to spark and sustain growth, lift people’s living standards in every part of the country, meet the challenges of the future and achieve the change that our country desperately needs.
When I meet people in industry, I hear frustration from employers who cannot get and retain the staff that they need. It is a feeling the Tories know all too well, with three Prime Ministers in one year, and the current Chancellor the fourth in that role since just last summer. Yet somehow, it is the same Tory Government. It is a bit like Trigger’s broom in “Only Fools and Horses”, with its 17 new heads and 14 new handles, only much less useful.
After his five months as Chancellor, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) might feel that he should qualify for a Conservative party long-service award. In fact, of the past three Chancellors, he is the first to deliver a Budget, although the last Chancellor did last long enough to deliver a mini-Budget that crashed our economy—an extreme experiment in ultra-Tory ideology, using Britain’s economy and people’s livelihoods as their laboratory. It must never happen again.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Our country has some amazing assets and amazing opportunities to invest in the green industries of the future, but we see a lacklustre plan from the Tory Government to exploit them. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Government of gimmicks have all but given up on leading the way and creating jobs and opportunities as we decarbonise our economy and, in reality, want to import everything from abroad? Surely it is time that they nicked our plan.
Rachel Reeves
I know that in my hon. Friend’s constituency, there are huge opportunities for the jobs and industries of the future—for example, in carbon capture and storage and in green hydrogen.
I will not be churlish: I must admit that there were some good ideas in the Budget yesterday—the ones that my colleagues and I have announced in the last few months, which we are happy to support. There was a fairer deal for people on prepayment meters who are paying a premium—we called for this last August. There was also preventing a fuel duty increase, a plan to help the over-50s back into work and better childcare provision for working parents. They were all called for by Labour and are now backed by the Tories. The truth is, however, that after 13 years of Tory Government, people will rightly ask, “Is that it? Is that really all they think it takes to reverse 13 years of low growth, falling living standards and crumbling public services?”
Of course, we welcome the freeze in energy prices—after all, we proposed it—but politics is about priorities. Labour first called for a windfall tax to help people with their bills 14 months ago. We were clear that keeping energy prices down was our top priority, and that it was wrong for oil and gas giants to profit from the windfalls of war at everyone else’s expense. Yet again, however, the Chancellor chose yesterday to leave billions of pounds of windfall profits on the table, which could be supporting families and businesses during this cost of living crisis. It is a question of who pays, and the Government are turning to the public and saying, “You.”
There seems to be a disconnect between what I heard from the Chancellor yesterday and the experiences of my constituents and many people across the country. The Tories claim that their plan is working, but the Resolution Foundation says that the typical household will be £1,100 worse off as a result of the Government’s policies over the period of just this Parliament. Is that really what success looks like to them?
The reality is that people are still weighed down by a prolonged cost of living crisis that is taking its toll. Debt advice organisations have faced a tidal wave of demand from people, but incredibly, the jobs of thousands of debt advisers are at risk. Let me be clear: more people are struggling not because they have forgotten how to budget, but because Tory Budgets are simply not working for them.
One of the biggest costs people face is their monthly mortgage or rent. The Chancellor said yesterday that the impact of the mini-Budget had disappeared—seriously? He should tell that to the family facing a £2,000 hike in their mortgage payment, as confirmed by the Office for Budget Responsibility yesterday. That means less money to spend on the local high street, meals out with the family or an annual holiday. That is the lasting damage that the Conservatives have done to the living standards of working people. The last thing that the country needed in the middle of a cost of living crisis was a Tory mortgage penalty.
Despite all the damage that the Tories have done, I am optimistic about the future for our country. I have had the privilege of seeing great innovation across Britain, from the development of battery operated trains at Hitachi in County Durham to hydrogen-powered engines at JCB in Staffordshire and pioneering research at Rolls-Royce into carbon neutral aviation. I know the potential that we have as a country. That is what Labour’s green prosperity plan is all about. It is a plan to decarbonise our economy, drive down bills and let British businesses and workers compete in the global race for the jobs and industries of the future.
Rachel Reeves
The problem is that last autumn, the Chancellor announced a scrapping of the R&D schemes, but then brought back something this week that we are supposed to cheer about. The plan that Labour has set out will rely on Government and business working and investing together.
As President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act galvanises green energy in the United States and Governments from Europe to Asia and Australia respond, it is not enough here in Britain to cling to old ideas and old methods while other countries steal ahead in the global race. Our growth plans will be alongside a modern industrial strategy, reform of business rates, changes to the apprenticeship levy and measures to fix the broken Brexit deal in order to increase the order books for British industry. There is so much more that the Government could be doing to boost growth, create good jobs and get Britain’s economy firing on all cylinders, but I heard so little of that in the Chancellor’s Budget yesterday.
The verdict is in. The Federation of Small Businesses says that the Budget leaves “many feeling short-changed” and that
“the Government’s lack of support for small firms in critical areas is glaring.”
It says that
“trickledown economics here simply does not work.”
The British Chambers of Commerce highlights that, yet again, the Government
“failed to reform business rates”,
and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders says:
“There is little that enables the UK to compete with massive packages of support to power a green transition that are available elsewhere.”
The Institute for Fiscal Studies describes capital expensing as “temporary tweaks”, concluding that:
“There’s no stability, no certainty, and no sense of a wider plan.”
As for working people, the TUC points out that:
“Real wages will not return to 2008 levels until 2026”
and that
“workers across the economy will have looked at this Budget and thought ‘was that it?’”.
This is a Government who are struggling to paper over the cracks after their 13 years of neglect and shoddy workmanship. The roof is leaking, the windows are rotten and the foundations are suffering from subsidence. The Tories are totally incapable of building the country and economy that we need.
Alex Cunningham
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way a second time, even though she would rather not. I wonder whether she has seen the comments from the Federation of Small Businesses, which said that, on investment in the labour market, the measures that small businesses were looking for are missing, and that the measures are well wide of the mark and irrelevant to the 5.5 million-strong small businesses in our communities.
Rachel Reeves
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and the words from the Federation of Small Businesses should have a chilling effect on those on the Government Front Bench.
Beyond the economy, growth rates and living standards, if we want any further evidence of the Government’s failure, just look at our public services. Public services play a crucial role in achieving a strong economy and a good society. They adapted during the pandemic and were critical to our response in the fight against covid, with people taking personal risks to keep others safe and supported. Thirteen years of Conservative Government has weakened our public services and devalued the people working in them. Labour would make choices in the national interest.
Yet again, the Budget failed to abolish non-dom tax status. As we know, non-doms have no bigger champion than in Downing Street, but Labour believes that those who make Britain their home should pay their taxes here. The non-dom rules are costing us £3 billion every year. Ending that tax exemption could fund the biggest expansion of the NHS workforce in a generation.
It is not just our NHS that has suffered. We have lost all kinds of community assets over the last 13 years, from libraries to Sure Start centres and youth clubs. Let us take one example: since 2010, 382 swimming pools have closed in England under the Tories. Yesterday, the Chancellor announced a £63 million package to keep the remaining ones open, but, at the same time, the Prime Minister has upgraded the local electricity network to heat his own swimming pool. I wonder whether he will be inviting the local kids who have lost their swimming pools to come and use his facilities.
This Government have no plan to clean up the mess they have made over 13 years. Each and every time they promise to solve a problem, they fail and the country pays the price. We need a Budget for growth, yet growth has been downgraded. We needed to raise living standards, yet household incomes are falling at their fastest rate since records began. We needed a proper windfall tax on the energy giants, but instead they continue to enjoy the windfalls of war. We needed a Budget for home ownership, yet mortgage costs have risen because of the Tories’ kamikaze mini-Budget last year. We needed a Budget with a plan to invest in our NHS workforce, but the Prime Minister and Chancellor chose to defend the non-doms instead.
The Tories have had their chance and they have blown it; they are out of ideas and they are out of time. We need a general election and a Labour Government to give our country its future back.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
While she has gone off for a well-earned cup of tea, I add my tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton). She has good reason to love her constituency, and I am sure that our mutual friend, Claire, from my constituency would also congratulate her today. I also declare my interest as chair of the all-party groups on carbon capture, utilisation and storage and on the chemical industry, because I am going to mention both.
The Government have been keen to talk up the Budget, which the Chancellor claims will sort out the broken economy, an economy wrecked by successive Tory Governments. If they are so confident that this is a Budget that will make a difference to all our people, they should test it by putting it to the country with a general election now. They will not do that, because they know the public can see through the latest round of gimmicks that do very little to help struggling families.
The OBR confirms that the hit to living standards over the past two years is the largest since comparable records began. The UK will be the weakest economy in the G7 this year, and the only country that will see negative growth. Wages are worth less than they were 13 years ago. Yes, we have a short extension to the energy support scheme, but as ever with this Government, the greatest support seems to be funnelled towards the richest 1%; many a CEO and City banker will have been raising a glass of champagne to the Chancellor in the City last night.
I join the Carbon Capture and Storage Association in welcoming the Chancellor’s allocation of up to £20 billion of support for the early development of carbon capture, usage and storage. I just hope it means that the much-promised project for Teesside, which I have been championing for donkey’s years, will at last be confirmed, but we lack detail on what will be happening and where and when. So, we still have a Government-controlled roll-out, rather than unleashing industry as we have seen under the US Inflation Reduction Act 2022.
Ruth Herbert, chief executive of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, says:
“We look forward to seeing which projects have been chosen to move to construction, the forward timeline for selecting the next CCUS clusters that need to be operational this decade, and a swift passage of the Energy Bill through Parliament, to finalise the regulatory framework for the industry.”
We have had enough anguish over the years on Teesside, as elsewhere, and I know that everyone involved is hoping and praying that this will not be yet another false dawn for carbon capture and storage and something will actually happen. When we look beyond the initial clusters, it is clear that further support will be needed to decarbonise all the UK’s industrial regions.
As a Teessider, I am pleased to see the Chemical Industries Association react positively to the Budget, although it made the point that
“there remain massive and urgent challenges if it is to truly compete on a global stage.”
The association’s chief executive, Steve Elliott, said
“chemical business leaders will feel this is better than first feared, especially with confirmation of full expensing of qualifying capital investment in year one…investment zones…the extension of the climate change agreement scheme”
as well as the support for CCUS. However, he also made the point that
“this still leaves the UK lagging behind some key competitor countries…Companies are already taking those decisions on future investments—especially in the green technology arena—so we would urge the Chancellor to accelerate any UK response to America’s Inflation Reduction Act.”
I join the association in that view.
I welcome the idea of investment zones and will back the provision of one for Teesside, but, as with so many other promises for our area, we are yet to see the previous promises of tens of thousands of jobs fulfilled. There have been a few hundred, but that is a long way from tens of thousands. The CBI has said that the UK is being left behind in the global race for good green jobs: as we have already heard today, it is investing five times less in green industries than Germany, and roughly half what France is investing.
The previous Labour Government gave the green light to 10 new nuclear power station sites, but the Tories have not managed to complete one in the last 13 years, and yesterday’s announcement offered nothing that had not already been announced. While there was some good news for large-scale companies, small businesses were left waiting for news that never came. The Federation of Small Businesses was disappointed with the Budget, saying:
“On investment and labour market—the measures that small businesses were looking for are missing.
Measures announced by the Chancellor are well wide of the mark and irrelevant to the 5.5 million strong small business community. They are caught in between irrelevant tax reductions for big businesses, and just energy support for households…This is a particularly painful set of announcements, considering the sacrifices they made to stay afloat in the face of Covid, rampant inflation and the energy supply shock.
Proposals to help people with poor health back to work are ill-designed and poorly thought out”
—and this is a business organisation—
“and some won’t happen for years. Those with health conditions and disability have been let down by a Government that’s ignored employers’ view on what can best help.”
Health is always a priority for me when it comes to Budget speeches, and yes, in my 13th Budget speech in a row, I plead with the Government to address the health inequalities in my area, to reinstate the plan cancelled 13 years ago, and to build us our new hospital in Stockton. I do not know if it was one of the 40 pledged by the Government, but that pledge is straying further and further from reality, and did not even warrant a mention yesterday.
I will end with a topic of which the Tories seem to have little or no understanding: poverty. Since the Tories came to power, the number of children living in poverty in the Tees Valley has skyrocketed to over 40%, the highest level in the country, and the proportion of children living in absolute poverty continues to rise in every single north-east local authority area. Research by the TUC has revealed that the north-east also has the highest rate of child poverty in key worker families, up by 18,000 in the last two years. The chair of the North East Child Poverty Commission, Anna Turley, said yesterday that the Chancellor showed
“a deeply concerning level of complacency about child poverty, and the scale of the challenge we face both as a country and particularly here in the North East.”
The childcare announcement is significant, and I give it a cautious welcome. I sat on the last Childcare Bill Committee some seven years ago, and warned then that the plans would not fly because of lack of investment. The Minister then said the market would create itself. It did not, and costs remain high and places available restricted. I hope that this time they will get it right. Children and families in my constituency and across the country deserved a Budget that would pull them up out of hardship and allow them to thrive and fulfil their potential, not one that makes the lives of the wealthier even easier. Our Government of gimmicks cannot sort the mess they have created, so it is time to test their plans with the people, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, and call a general election.
Alex Cunningham
I am grateful to the Minister for acknowledging the support for carbon capture and storage, but this must be the start of the investment. We need another wave of investment followed by another wave after that. Are the Government really committed to it?
James Cartlidge
We have announced £20 billion of funding, which shows the strength of our commitment. We want to decarbonise and continue our rapid progress to net zero, but, along the way, we must maintain energy security, otherwise what have we learned from what has happened in the past 12 months, following the invasion of Ukraine? Our constituents want to know that we will do everything possible to grow the supply of UK domestic energy.
State Pension Triple Lock
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House calls on the Government to commit to maintaining the state pension triple lock in financial year 2023-24 as promised in the Conservative and Unionist Party manifesto 2019.
I hope not to detain the House long, because the proposition before it this afternoon is very simple: we are asking the House to stand firm in instructing the Chancellor and the Prime Minister to honour the triple lock promise and uprate the state pension in line with inflation for the next financial year. The motion should not be controversial; indeed, every Member should be able to endorse it in the Division Lobby this evening.
The reason we have tabled this motion is that pensioners deserve certainty that the promise of protection offered by inflation-proofing the state pension will be honoured. Let us remind ourselves of the facts. Pensioner poverty is up by 450,000 since 2010. Prices in the shops are up. Energy bills are up. The Office for National Statistics found that between June and September this year 3.5 million pensioners had already been forced to spend less on food and essentials because of the soaring cost of living. Over half of pensioners are cutting back on gas and electricity in their homes, and Age UK has projected that 2.8 million older households are set to be in fuel poverty this winter—1.8 million more than in previous years.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Did my right hon. Friend read the reports in The Times that the Government are in fact going to follow our example and to confirm that they will increase the state pension in line with inflation? Does he agree that the Minister could intervene now and save us several hours debating these issues by just confirming that the Government do in fact intend to do that?
Jonathan Ashworth
I have read not only The Times but the 2019 Conservative manifesto, which committed Conservative Members to maintaining the triple lock, so I look forward to their joining us in the Division Lobby this evening—[Interruption.] I look forward to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Gary Sambrook) joining us in the Division Lobby.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
When I talk about poverty in this House—let us be clear that that is what we are talking about today—I usually refer to the fact that some 40% of our children in the north-east live in poverty. Not for them will be the grandparent trust fund or gift of tens of thousands of pounds for a deposit to buy their own home, and not for them the holidays or trips to theme parks with grandma and grandad—some of the things that many children in our society enjoy and even expect. That is because huge numbers of our pensioner generation, who have worked hard all their lives, are struggling to get by. It is only because they make sacrifices that they are able to ensure their grandchildren get a gift on their birthdays or at Christmas.
The state pension is the largest source of income for most older people. For some, particularly women, it is their only source of income. Meanwhile, the number of pensioners living in poverty has been rising since 2013, with the figure exceeding 2 million last year. What kind of society are we that allows our senior citizens to simply exist through their later years, rather than enjoy their reward for decades of service to our country? Is it not a great sadness that those self-same pensioners are more likely to be in ill health after a life of struggle?
Pensioner poverty is a disproportionate risk, affecting 34% of private tenants and 29% of social rented sector tenants, compared with 12% of older people who own their home. In April, the state pension increased by 3.1%, instead of the 8.3% due under the triple lock formula, costing someone on the full new state pension a real-terms income drop of £487 a year and someone on the full basic state pension £373 a year. Some Conservative Members may say, “Well that’s only £10 a week.” But Labour Members know the value of £10 to a struggling household. Energy bills typically make up 6.6% of weekly spending for the over-75s, compared with 4.2% of weekly spending for households of all ages. Without certainty from the Government over whether they will be protected, those constituents are having to enforce their own cutbacks.
Then there are those not in receipt of the full state pension. Around 1.4 million older people receive pension credit—a vital top-up for people on the lowest incomes. If pension credit is increased only by earnings, rather than inflation, an older person living alone could be missing out on a further £400 a year, rising to more than £600 for a couple. Is there no end to the dependency of this Government on those with the lowest income to pay for the mess of the past 12 years? With people choosing between heating and eating, there is an impact on public health, therefore putting even more pressure on our overstretched NHS workforce.
Reinstating the triple lock is a practical choice. Even so, it leaves the UK’s level of spending on older age benefits below that of comparable countries. According to the latest OECD figures, at 7.1%, the UK spends less on old age benefits as a proportion of GDP than the average of 7.7%. Why is that? We are one of the richest countries in the world, but, sadly, what we see is the gap between the rich and the poor widen year on year.
Time and again, Government MPs say that their latest Prime Minister has the 2019 mandate to remain in power. That mandate includes the promise to retain the triple lock, as did ours. Now Conservative MPs can pick and choose which of their promises they will keep and which they will not. The pensions promise has been broken once. Can Conservative Members really believe that any little credibility that they have left can be retained if they break it again?
Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Bill
Alex Cunningham ExcerptsTuesday 11th October 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Act 2022 View all Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 11 October 2022 - (11 Oct 2022)
Alex Cunningham
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments. I think that he will agree that the savings that could be made in the longer term by implementing an effective tobacco control plan are absolutely massive; both the Department of Health and Social Care and the Treasury could derive tremendous benefits from it very quickly, if they act properly.
Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill [Lords]
Alex Cunningham ExcerptsThursday 8th September 2022
(2 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Act 2022 View all Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 8 September 2022 - (8 Sep 2022)
Chloe Smith
Yes, that is absolutely the case. There have been extensive conversations with clinicians and those in the hospice movement more broadly. I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to all those who work in hospices such as the one he mentions in Lichfield and the many more across the country. They do such an important job in giving people comfort and support and the right care at the end of their life.
In announcing that the Government intend to move from that six-month criteria to the 12-month end-of-life approach, we have engaged very widely and endeavoured to communicate as clearly as possible so that people know what support is available.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to her new position. I welcome the changes that the Government are introducing in this Bill, but as long as one in four terminally ill people of working age spends the last year of their life in poverty, I think that we need to go further. To that end, will the Minister meet me to discuss my Terminal Illness (Support and Rights) Bill, which will require utility companies to provide financial support to customers with a terminal illness and make the employment rights of people with a terminal illness more robust at no cost to the Exchequer. In fact, it may save the Exchequer a few pounds.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chloe Smith
As my right hon. and hon. Friends have laid out extensively to the House, the process being followed is one of initial discovery. After that, it will be possible to provide fuller answers to the House of Commons about how the broader process will work. The vast majority of claimants will either be better off or no worse off, and I want to lay on record one more time that 55% of people will see an increase in their award, 10% will see no change, and 35% will be protected transitionally.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
It is not usual to project poverty levels in terms of statistics—[Interruption.] Does someone want to join in? [Interruption.] I just cannot hear. Somebody is talking. Projecting poverty levels is not something we normally do. However, the latest official statistics show that in 2021, some 8 million people were in poverty in absolute low-income before housing costs, which was a fall on the previous year. I am very conscious of the challenge of the cost of living right now, which is why we are providing a £15 billion support package targeted at the most in need, but I am proud of the fact that we are getting more and more people into work—over half a million in just the past five months. We know that for most people, the best way to get out of poverty is to get into work.
Alex Cunningham
Even using the Government’s preferred measure of absolute child poverty, the proportion of children living in absolute poverty rose in every north-east local authority area between 2014-15 and 2019-20, and continued to rise in the first year of the pandemic. In Stockton, that figure is up by 7.1 percentage points; in Hartlepool, it is up by 7.2; in Darlington, it is up by 7.9; in Redcar, it is up by 9.4; and in Middlesbrough, it is up by a colossal 13.9 percentage points. Those are not just numbers: they represent thousands of children. Can the Minister tell the House which of the Tory leadership candidates will be content to see children in places such as Stockton go hungry, and which of them will take action to ensure they do not?
Dr Coffey
I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would give me the specific source of his statistics, because I believe that statistically, child poverty has actually fallen, something of which Government Members are proud. Nevertheless, he will be pleased by the fact that people have opportunities and are getting into work. That is what we will continue to do, because we know that children in workless households are undoubtedly more likely to be in poverty. That is why we continue to focus on getting their parents into work.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) will be aware that, in recognition of the cost of living challenge, we have announced a new £15 billion support package that is targeted at those who are most in need, bringing the total cost of living support to £37 billion. The extra support should cover every household, but is particularly targeted at helping more than 8 million households in receipt of means-tested benefits. The household support fund, which is delivered through councils, is another way that constituents can access help.
Dr Coffey
The Government have always been clear that getting into work and getting on in work is an important way to lift people’s prosperity. That is why we lifted the national living wage from April; why last December we quickly put in place a change in the taper rate so that people keep more of what they earn, while still getting support and benefits; and why we have stepped in with a substantial package of support to help people with this particular challenge of global inflation—caused not only by supply chain challenges after covid, but by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has done a lot to damage to energy costs.
Alex Cunningham
As well as being impacted by the soaring cost of living, two thirds of the near 50,000 children in the Tees valley and families on universal credit are affected by the punitive impact of deductions. That is because most of them are paying back the Department for Work and Pensions advance that is needed to survive the five-week wait for their first universal credit payment. Will the Secretary of State accept that every pound clawed back is a pound not available for families to spend on food and other essential costs? Will she change this cruel policy now, and make a real difference to children and families already living in poverty?
Dr Coffey
The hon. Gentleman forgets that the advance is there to spread the payment that people are entitled to over a year into 13 payments. We have also enabled people in effect to have that payment spread over two years, with 25 payments. It is about a phasing of how we put into families’ pockets the benefits to which they are entitled, and nothing else.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
As the economy recovers, and with record job vacancies, our focus is on supporting parents to secure a role and to progress in work. This is based on clear evidence around the importance of parental employment, particularly where it is full time, in substantially reducing the risk of child poverty. Our multi-million pound plan for jobs, which has been expanded by £500 million, will help people to boost their wages and their prospects.
Alex Cunningham
Every time I walk down the high street in Stockton, I see the signs of poverty, with 51% of working-age families with children receiving universal credit, the majority of whom are in work. They are heading towards Christmas wondering how to put food on the table, never mind buy presents for their children. Will the Government accept responsibility for child poverty, recognise that the £20 uplift to universal credit could have made all the difference this Christmas, and tell me what parents should say to their children on Christmas morning, when there will be very little to celebrate?
David Rutley
The hon. Member talks about in-work poverty. Important steps were put forward in the Budget to improve the taper rate and the work allowance, which will really help many of his constituents—in fact, the vast majority of them, about 3,966.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Jonathan Reynolds
I agree absolutely; that is the point. We saw in the exchanges between the Secretary of State and me on Monday, as well as in Prime Minister’s questions, that the Government’s proposition is that somehow people working full time will be able to work 50 or 55 hours a week, on top of what they are already doing. The Opposition are more than happy to have a discussion about raising pay—we have plenty of ideas. Let us discuss raising the minimum wage to at least £10 an hour now or reducing the universal credit taper rate so that people keep more of what they earn. To dress up this devastating cut as a choice between supporting jobs and supporting families is an insult to the millions of working people who will see their incomes drop. Hon. Members who support the cut should at least have the decency to stand up and say so rather than hide behind straw men.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I will give my hon. Friend some statistics from my constituency, where 37% of all children—that is 6,802—are living in poverty, a figure that has increased considerably under the Tories. Thousands of them and their families rely on universal credit to put food on their tables. With the latest figures showing inflation rocketing, and that is very much on food, does my hon. Friend agree that adults and children will go hungry if the Government do not do the right thing?
Jonathan Reynolds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. However, it is also important to say that there are 1.7 million people this will affect who cannot work, owing to disability, illness or caring responsibilities. I have not heard a single mention of them from the Government, or the offer of any help coming their way to mitigate this cut.
Dr Coffey
I will. I am pleased to say that I think there are more people with disabilities in work at the end of the pandemic than there were at the beginning. There is a number of things and I encourage my hon. Friend to read the Green Paper on what we have set out as possible ways forward. We want to make elements such as the Access to Work programme work better in terms of potentially being transferrable. In particular, we have some specialist schemes that we target on people with disabilities, and particular efforts are being made to help people with disabilities to access kickstart. We will continue to try to support people with disabilities to make the most of their potential, as we set out in our broader approach in the national disability strategy.
Dr Coffey
I will not, because I am conscious that we are nearly an hour into this debate and many hon. Members will want to speak about this important matter.
Right across Government, we are investing to help people to get better-paid jobs, whether that is through digital boot camps, the lifetime skills guarantee, the £650 billion infrastructure programme that will generate 425,000 jobs, the £8.7 billion affordable homes programme expected to support up to 370,000 jobs, and the green jobs taskforce, which goes from strength to strength as we work our way towards net zero. I have referred to the extra funding through the health and social care levy, which will include support for care workers, but we will not stop as we help people to progress in work. This Conservative Government and Conservative party want people to prosper as we build back better and level up opportunity across the country.
Tackling poverty through boosting income is one element and we will continue to support people with the cost of living. We have kept the uplift in housing support through the local housing allowance rates, as I mentioned to the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), maintaining it in cash terms this financial year. We spend over £6 billion on supporting childcare, which is equivalent overall to about £5,000 per family. As I said to the House, that can be up to £13,000 per family for people on universal credit.
We have increased the automation of matching benefit recipients with energy suppliers to make it easier for the warm home discount to be awarded almost automatically. I was very pleased to see that more mobile and broadband suppliers stepped forward with social tariffs for people, which is why I am delighted to let the House know that we are working with those suppliers to make it easier for them to verify the identity of people seeking those special discounts. I am also leading cross-Government action to do more on tackling poverty and the cost of living, which will help many families with their day-to-day costs.
We have heard that universal credit is flexible and that people are treated individually. I am very aware of the challenges on food insecurity. That is why we included the questions we did in the family resources survey so that we can start to think about how we can direct our policies specifically to those people. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) was trying to get out of the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), what is accurate—I am pretty sure to say—is that, in 2008, tax credits may have changed, but that was effectively for people in work. What we did not see was a boost in the unemployment benefits, so when the shadow Secretary of State criticises us for putting an extra £20 a week in the pockets of people who were newly unemployed, I do not think that his assertion is defensible.
One thing that the House may see in a couple of years is that, although in the last year of the last Labour Government we saw a reduction in relative poverty, that was largely driven by the fact that higher-paid people were unemployed—we saw a shrink in relative poverty simply because of a statistical anomaly. We have to deal with real-world facts and make sure that the provision of cash, by helping people with their income, is really the way to help them to get on in work but also to help them with the cost of living.