Autumn Statement Resolutions

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrew Griffith)]

In these challenging times, this was an autumn statement that responds directly to the needs of our country. It is serious and sensible, it delivers on stability, growth and public services, and it does so at a time of great geopolitical uncertainty. Inflation is on the march around the world, with higher rates in Germany, the Netherlands and Italy than in the United Kingdom. Interest rates are up from historic lows across the Atlantic and in the euro area. Growth forecasts around the world have been downgraded.

We are not immune from these global challenges, and so many colleagues on the Government Benches were right to provide that context. My hon. Friends the Members for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne), for Poole (Sir Robert Syms), for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and for Delyn (Rob Roberts) talked about how anybody who denies that economic context is taking the British people for fools. Those of us on this side of the House will never take the British people for fools. We will tell them the truths.

In designing our response, we have focused on the need to be compassionate, honest and fair, just as we did during the covid pandemic, spending £400 billion to protect the people and businesses of this country. We have put our values front and centre, and that means, despite a downturn, delivering a stronger NHS and protecting pensioners. It means spending £55 billion this winter to protect households on energy bills, and it means, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) talked about, giving us the time to deliver the public service reform that will make sure that we spend every pound of taxpayers’ money in the right way. It means that, even with underlying debt as a percentage of GDP falling, we are investing in an education system that gives people the skills they need to take advantage of the job market of the future that we are going to create. And it means that, even with public sector borrowing kept below 3%, we will be building the infrastructure we need to compete in the world.

As my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), the Chair of the Treasury Committee, talked about, inflation is the most invidious thing, and that is why this autumn statement goes with the grain of the action that we need to take now. These are immensely difficult decisions. Increasing taxes is not something that any Government want to do, but right now it is what a responsible Government, facing these challenges, must do. My right hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough and for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), and my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) talked passionately about that. None of us on this side of the House came here to do that. Conservatives believe in people keeping more of what they earn. We are on the side of strivers, and the quicker we can get back to that, the better, but now is not that time.

We are going to grow public spending, but we are going to grow it slower than the economy. As my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said in his opening speech, for the remaining two years of this spending review, we will protect the increases in departmental budgets that we have already set out in cash terms. We will then grow resource spending at 1% a year in real terms for the three years that follow. Although Departments will have to make efficiencies to deal with inflationary pressures in the next two years, that means that overall spending on public services will continue to rise in real terms for the next five years.

This was not just a statement about stability and our public services. Central to it was growth. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said to the House last week:

“Sound money is the rock upon which long-term prosperity rests; but it is not enough on its own. Our plan is designed to build a high-wage, high-skill economy that leads to long-term prosperity.”—[Official Report, 17 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 851.]

This autumn statement delivers on that: more money for education; working with the Department for Work and Pensions and seeking to tackle the crisis of inactivity, at a time when employers are crying out for workers, with more than 600,000 people off welfare and into work; and increasing public funding for research and development to £20 billion by 2024-25, as part of our mission to make the United Kingdom a science superpower, with the highest level of research and development that the country has ever seen. We are investing in high-risk, high-reward research, and we seek for the constituency of every Member, the vision that my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley seeks for his constituents.

We will grow by using our Brexit freedoms to take the next step in our supply-side transformation, targeting five growth industries of outsize opportunity. [Interruption.] Opposition Members may disagree that these are outsize opportunities, but do they disagree with digital technology, life sciences, new low carbon industries, our wonderful financial services, and advanced manufacturing? We need to be better at turning world-class innovation into world-class companies, but the capital to invest in opportunities cannot come solely from the taxpayer, whatever the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) may wish. That is why our decision last week on the reform of Solvency II is so important for growth. Without compromising policyholder protection, the changes will better mobilise the UK’s £3.4 trillion of pension wealth. As the Association of British Insurers estimates, that will unlock £100 billion of new investment here in our economy over the next 10 years. That is investment in sustainable assets, clean energy, house building and local communities, and it is just the start of a series of measures that will combine with the Financial Services and Markets Bill—the first ab initio review of financial services regulation for over 20 years, and the first since we left the European Union—and will make the UK the world’s most innovative and competitive global financial centre.

That is why, unlike those on the Opposition Benches who yearn wistfully for powers to be returned to their Brussels overlords, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor were right to reaffirm today that we must never go back, and never pursue a relationship with Europe that relies on alignment with EU laws. Brexit can deliver and is already delivering enormous benefit and opportunities—something my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset reminded us.

[Peter Grant]

Will the Minister give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

I will happily give way. Perhaps the hon. Member will tell the House how dividing this great Union will grow our economy.

[Peter Grant]

As I think everyone on these Benches will agree, the Budget we have just had presented to us means that the Union is anything but great. Will the Minister tell my constituents one thing from Brexit that is a definite benefit even to 20% of people in my constituency—something about which they will notice a difference?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Griffith]

I am afraid we do not have enough time left to share all the benefits that we are delivering for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, but as SNP Members sit here tonight, and the nights are dark and the evenings growing colder, his constituents, like all our constituents, will be enormously grateful for the £55 billion that we are putting in to protect people and households from the cost of energy this winter.

We face a global energy crisis. We face high and global inflation. We face a global economic crisis. We do not live in isolation away from those economic realities. As much as the Opposition twist those facts, those are the realities after covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But with our resourcefulness and resilience, we will overcome those challenges. This autumn statement was for doctors, nurses and those working in the NHS. It was for teachers and schools. It was for pensioners and those on benefits. It was, above all else, for those on the lowest wages, those who are vulnerable, those who need help with their energy bills and everybody who relies on public services.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Andrew Stephenson.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.