Oral Answers to Questions
Ann McKechin Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Maude
The change to which the hon. Gentleman refers simply makes clear what was already the case. There will be considerable concern about whistleblowing, and we will do whatever is needed to ensure that we continue to be much more open about things that have gone wrong. Things are much less suppressed than they were when the Labour party was in power.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
5. What progress he has made on promoting digital inclusion.
The Minister for Civil Society (Mr Rob Wilson)
This is a devolved matter but in England and Wales more than 70 public, private and voluntary sector organisations now support activity under the digital inclusion charter, working together to help individuals, small businesses and charities to realise the benefits of being online. Later today the Government will launch the Digital Friends initiative that will call on civil servants to go out into their communities and teach digital skills to friends, family, neighbours, or colleagues who are offline.
Ann McKechin
The Minister will be aware that, unfortunately, Glasgow has one of the highest levels of population who are offline. The Government have recently run a series of adverts on Glasgow radio stations about encouraging people to switch their electricity and gas suppliers, but they are asking people only to use the online route. What assessment has he made about how we can encourage digital inclusion and the appropriate way to target Government adverts?
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 25 March.
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
I know the whole House will wish to join me in offering our deepest condolences to the families and friends of all those killed in yesterday’s Airbus crash in France. It is heartbreaking to hear about the schoolchildren, the babies and the families whose lives have been brought to an end. As the Foreign Secretary has said, it is very likely that some British nationals were involved. At this stage, three British nationals have been identified as having been on the flight. The Foreign Office is working urgently to establish whether any further British nationals were among those on board. We are providing consular assistance and will give further information as it becomes available. Our ambassador to France is at the crash site today. I spoke to Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Rajoy last night and made it clear that the UK is ready to offer any assistance we can. I expect to speak to President Hollande later today.
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Ann McKechin
May I join the Prime Minister in expressing sympathies to all the families affected by yesterday’s tragedy?
In 2014, the number of people working on zero-hours contracts increased by 19%, unsecured borrowing rose by 9%, and the percentage living in relative poverty was at the highest level since 2001. Does the Prime Minister agree that on his watch the future of our young people is only getting darker?
The Prime Minister
What has happened on my watch is that 174,000 more people are employed in Scotland. Zero-hours contracts account for one in 50 jobs, and it is this Government who have outlawed exclusivity in zero-hours contracts—after the 13 years of inaction from the Labour party. In the hon. Lady’s own constituency, the claimant count has fallen by 32% since the election. That is evidence that our economic plan is working in Scotland, as it is throughout the rest of the United Kingdom.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ann McKechin Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The figures are clear: we have created 2 million additional private sector jobs, and if we look at the number of extra people in work, public and private sector combined, it is 1.75 million more people. Behind those statistics are families who now have a pay packet and a job, and the chance to have a more secure future, and all that at a time when the Leader of the Opposition was very clear: he warned that our policies would cost 1 million jobs. He was 1 million per cent. wrong, and it is time that the Opposition withdrew what they said and apologised for all those statements.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
In November 2012, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, in evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, said that there were a dozen prosecutions in train in relation to the HSBC case load. None of them have come to court yet. Can the Prime Minister explain why?
The Prime Minister
First, on prosecutions for tax evasion, the figures are that they have gone up fivefold under this Government since 2010—2,650 cases, leading to hundreds of years of imprisonment, taken as a whole. That is what has happened, but there is an important point here, which is that, in our country, the tax collection agency, HMRC, is independent of Government and independent of Ministers, and it has to raise the taxes, carry out the investigations and order the prosecutions. It is very important in a free country that Ministers are not given the details of who is being investigated and what the prosecutions are. This does not happen in other countries, and we have a word for that: it is called corruption, but it seems to be the path suggested by the Labour party.
Food Banks
Ann McKechin Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister. May I give credit to the Greater Maryhill food bank in my constituency, which does exemplary work? It did not exist in 2009, despite the fact that unemployment in my constituency was much higher than it is now. Can the Minister explain why the use of food banks has gone up by a huge percentage while unemployment is decreasing, which he reminds us about frequently?
Mr Wilson
The reasons for people visiting food banks are complex and frequently overlapping. It is difficult to give one particular reason for the use of food banks increasing at a time when, as the hon. Lady says, unemployment is dropping rapidly in constituencies all around the country.
That brings me to an important part of my speech, on the economy. Our broad policy approach is that economic growth and employment offer the best route to give people a better future and to reduce poverty. Our country has been through the deepest recession in living memory, and the Government inherited a tough fiscal and economic situation, including the highest structural deficit of any major advanced country.
The Government have a long-term economic plan to secure Britain’s future, and sticking to it is the best way to improve living standards. Although there is more to do, that plan is working, as the Chancellor made clear in his autumn statement. There are now more people in employment than ever before, and I hope Opposition Members will welcome that fact. The economy is growing faster than any other in the G7, and we have cut income tax for 26 million people and are freezing fuel duty, cutting child care bills and providing funding for councils to freeze council tax. It is working—disposable income per capita is rising, and income inequality is down. I welcome the news this morning that not only are jobs being created and unemployment falling, but wages are rising significantly above inflation.
However, we are not complacent. There are still hard-working families facing challenging circumstances, which is why we continue to spend £94 billion a year on working-age benefits to support millions of people who are, for instance, unemployed or on low income. More than 93% of jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance claims are now processed on time, within 16 days, which as I said earlier is up 7% since 2009-10. Universal credit will further speed up that processing, and the Department for Work and Pensions will do more to raise awareness of short-term benefit advances. That work will include providing more information about such advances to claimants both online and in jobcentres. We will also update staff guidance on those advances and remind staff of the process for considering them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ann McKechin Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Murrison
The hon. Gentleman is perhaps confusing the welfare cap with the benefit cap. It is important to note that the previous Minister in the Department for Social Development, Nelson McCausland, said that universal credit will lift 10,000 children out of poverty, and that most people in Northern Ireland will benefit from the change in the welfare rules. This has a substantial capacity to improve the lives of those who are reliant on welfare in Northern Ireland.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
9. What steps she is taking to tackle youth unemployment in Northern Ireland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Dr Andrew Murrison)
The November labour market survey reports that the unemployment rate in Northern Ireland for 18 to 24-year-olds has come down 5% over the year, and the Government are directly helping to get young people into work by abolishing national insurance contributions for businesses employing under-21s and apprentices aged under 25.
Ann McKechin
The Minister will be aware that unemployment in Northern Ireland is much higher than the UK average, and a recent survey by the Belfast Telegraph found that two thirds of young people wanted to leave Northern Ireland. What specific steps is he taking to improve skills and training to encourage young people to stay in Northern Ireland?
Dr Murrison
Of course, these are matters primarily for the Department for Employment and Learning, with which the Government work closely. I hope the hon. Lady will be aware of the economic plan published 18 months ago in collaboration with the Northern Ireland Executive laying out the steps that we would take jointly to promote a shared and integrated future, including the creation of the further education college at Craigavon. Further such measures will be considered. The important thing is to increase the number of apprenticeships in Northern Ireland, and the national insurance contributions announced in the autumn statement are an important part of that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ann McKechin Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman rightly identifies 4G as an opportunity for communities of the sort that he and I represent. He will be aware of the money that has been put into the mobile infrastructure project by this Government. That work is going on and will ultimately assist in reaching 4G.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
7. What progress has been made on the implementation of a Scottish rate of income tax; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)
Implementation of the Scottish rate of income tax is being led by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and the Work programme includes representatives from HM Treasury, the Scotland Office and Scottish Government. The project is handling the detail of the implementation and operation of the Scottish rate and is on track to make the necessary changes in readiness for April 2016.
Ann McKechin
The Secretary of State will be aware that the Office for Budget Responsibility has consistently reported that the Scottish tax share of income tax is reducing, which is largely due to the fact that we have a higher proportion of basic rate taxpayers. Will he tell us what discussions he has held on how that will be reflected in the final transitional settlement when the Scottish Government take control of the share of Scottish tax?
Oral Answers to Questions
Ann McKechin Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Maude
We have enabled suppliers who suspect that a procurement is being done in the old-fashioned way that we inherited to raise it directly with my officials in the Cabinet Office, who can then intervene with the public sector procurer-commissioner to ensure that it is done in the modern way, which does not exclude small businesses from supplying to government in the way that was routinely the case in the past. We have made a huge amount of progress, but we still have a long way to go.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
5. What his policy is on the deduction of trade union subscriptions from payroll in the civil service.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
The policy is delegated to individual Departments.
Ann McKechin
I am interested in the Minister’s response because I understand that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has been writing e-mails and letters to other Secretaries of State, asking them not to write off. Will the Minister confirm whether that is correct, and will he make clear all correspondence between him and other Liberal Democrat Ministers concerning their opposition to this Tory attack plan on worker representation?
Mr Maude
I can do no better than quote a member of the Public and Commercial Services Union—she is just identified as June—who said that direct debit is
“the easiest way of paying my union subs. You know then that it’s going to get paid because you’re not dependent on your employer taking it from your wages. I think it’s better.”
I agree with June.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ann McKechin Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
I certainly join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to everyone who worked on the growth deal in her area. Over the next few years, growth deals collectively will represent a transfer of £12 billion of Government money away from Whitehall—out of Departments here in London—and into the hands of local communities and local enterprise partnerships. That is a really big, bold act of decentralisation, which I think will finally break the back of the excessive centralisation from which we have suffered for far too long.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
T14. The coalition agreement provided for a limit on the number of special advisers, but since 2010 the number has increased. Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell us what he personally will do to place a limit on it?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady will know, special advisers play a very important role in all Governments. Of course they need to be held to account, and of course we need to be entirely transparent about how many are employed, what they are paid, and so on. We have taken unprecedented steps in publishing that information. Special advisers play a particularly important role in a coalition. We have two parties seeking to work—as we generally do—productively and co-operatively within the Government.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ann McKechin Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
I have had this discussion with BT, and I am happy to hold it again. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), will take up the specific point, which is that we have asked BT to give more detail in their roll-out plans about which homes and areas will get broadband so that other companies and organisations are then able to see whether there are different ways of filling any gaps. However, I do not agree with some who think that BT has somehow not been putting its shoulder to the wheel. A massive investment is going into broadband: 10,000 homes and businesses are being connected every week. This is a real success story for our country.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
Q13. As the Royal Mail share price remains about 70% above the flotation price, will the Prime Minister now rule out paying a £4 million bonus from taxpayers’ money to its Government advisers?
The Prime Minister
The taxpayer is £2 billion better off because we were able to put this business into the private sector, whereas previous Governments failed so dismally.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ann McKechin Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Clark
I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman’s question, given that this policy was originated by the Labour party. Everyone agrees that we should modernise our electoral system so that people vote individually. The hon. Gentleman did not oppose the passage of the legislation. We need to proceed with it. The Electoral Commission will monitor it and provide advice as we go.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
2. What his plans are for reform of the House of Lords.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
In the absence of wider reform—[Interruption.]
Greg Clark
In the absence of wider reform, the Government have said that they will support the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles), which proposes changes to the rules governing the membership of the House of Lords, including removing peers who are convicted of a serious offence—bringing the rules into line with those of the House of Commons—and removing peers who do not attend.
Ann McKechin
I am obliged to the Minister for his response. According to the House of Commons Library, the additional costs of running the House of Lords have increased by £42 million since 2010. Will the Minister confirm how much his Government’s policy of stuffing the Lords until it bursts will cost the taxpayer between now and the general election?
Greg Clark
I will raise my voice to make the point that the hon. Lady has some nerve to lecture us on House of Lords reform when the Labour party blocked such reform. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) is right to say that some of my colleagues voted against it, but they did so because they disagreed with it; Labour Members voted against it despite the fact that they said they agreed with it.
Debate on the Address
Ann McKechin Excerpts(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Simon Hughes
No; many people’s living standards are not better than they were three years ago, but we have been dealing with what my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary calls the greatest economic heart attack we have had in his lifetime and mine. My constituents have seen, over several months, unemployment come down—not consistently, but there have been months when it has come down and youth unemployment has come down. They have seen an economy that is picking up. The construction industry in my patch is powering ahead; although I appreciate that it is not the same around the country.
But what my constituents have not yet seen, and what the Government are trying to deal with, is the inequitable opportunity and an inequitable distribution of the available wealth. One thing that the Liberal Democrats need to continue to argue for in the coalition, and which I hope the coalition will buy, is that we need to deal with the inequity in Britain whereby there are still people a mile and half from this building, in the City, and in Canary Wharf a bit further away, who have bonuses that are completely without justification, while there are many people on the minimum wage and struggling to get work. We need a redistribution of wealth—I am not ashamed to call for that—and a redistribution of the profits, and we need the banking industry to understand that it has to pay itself reasonable wages. The European Union has the right idea, in my view—not a view shared by the Chancellor—in seeking to make sure that we limit the bonuses given to people across the financial sector so that they do not, in effect, take far more than they deserve.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman talks about his passion for redistribution. It is one that I share, but can he explain why, in that case, he voted to abolish the 50p rate of tax for those who are paid £1 million and more? At the same time he voted for welfare reform and changes that are taking money from those on the very lowest incomes and from communities such as those that I represent, which are being utterly hammered, with millions of pounds being taken out of our local economy as a result. Does he consider that to be fair redistribution?
Simon Hughes
I voted for the income tax changes as a package that took many people on low and medium incomes out of tax altogether as a result of the raising of the tax threshold, and only when I was satisfied that people on very high earnings would pay more net. Yes, they had a reduction last month in their top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p in the pound, but with all the other changes that affect them they will make a bigger total contribution to the economy in tax. The hon. Lady knows what I am going to say next. I was here for all the time of the Labour Government, when for every single month apart from the last few weeks the top rate of tax was 40%—not 50%, not 45%, but 40%. The great socialist regime of Tony Blair and the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) did not deliver the great socialist nirvana, and that was the time when people in the banks were earning obscene amounts, the likes of which had never been earned before, and they were not dealt with.
On the welfare cuts, the Liberal Democrats argued strongly in the coalition that benefits should not be cut, but that with some inflation-lined exceptions there should be a limited increase this year of 1%. That is what the Government have tried to do. There are exemptions. Changes to housing benefit should not apply to any pensioner householder in the country. Some rates of increase of benefit for people with disabilities are higher than 1% to try to achieve equity. These are all attempts to deal with a welfare bill that is extremely high. It is not pleasant and I do not pretend that it is easy. We would all like to be able to give much more to people who are struggling, and I am very concerned that the bottom 20% should be the priority of this Government in their remaining two years. From the hon. Lady’s Front-Bench colleagues I have heard no answers as to how we pay our bills, deal with the fact that we are paying 120 million quid a day in interest on our debts, sustain the welfare state and encourage people back into work.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
I very much enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess), but he will probably appreciate that I do not necessarily agree with many of his comments. On High Speed 2, I actually think that the Government are not ambitious enough. My personal view is that the line should continue straight up to Glasgow, and that we should start constructing it from both ends, as has happened with almost every other major construction of high-speed rail in the world. Then we would all be better together. Of course, there was a helpful “better together” paragraph in the Gracious Speech.
May I counsel the hon. Gentleman and a number of other Members who have spoken about referendums? Government by referendum will always end up with pausing and halting, as we find at the moment in my own country, where we have to wait a horrendous 500 days more before we can make a decision on a proposal that, of course, I will not support. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would take the same position, although unfortunately he will not have a vote. However, the way it halts all other debate when we need to make progress is something I deeply regret, and I counsel against those who are so keen to rush to referendums.
There is a pattern to the proposals in the Queen’s Speech, and the Government’s pre-announcements were as much about what was not included as the actual content. The failure to legislate for the plain packaging of cigarettes is possibly the most stunning example in the Queen’s Speech of a failure to govern in the national interest. This should not be a party-political issue. The evidence of harm is known, we accept that that harm is likely to be greater if someone takes up the habit in their early years, and we recognise the attractiveness of advertising as more likely to influence the young and impressionable. Other western countries have already taken a lead so it is not a step in the dark, and there is compelling evidence to suggest that such a measure will lead to significant savings in public health costs, as well as preventing many people from suffering avoidable illnesses and premature death.
What exactly are the Government afraid of? It is time for their special advisers to stop whispering in their ears about harming relations with large tobacco companies, and for them to recognise their wider duty to this nation’s children and their life chances. I hope they will reconsider their decision and bring forward legislation later in the Session. As many Members have pointed out, there is plenty of space in the timetable to ensure we get the legislation through by next year.
On the various issues concerning business and enterprise, the consolidation of consumer protection legislation mentioned by the hon. Gentleman is welcome and in part foresees the implementation of a recent EU directive. I welcome the fact that it will include updating the law on things such as online shopping. The Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, of which I am a member, will take a closer look at those proposals in the coming weeks, but I regret that the legislation has not been used as an opportunity to tackle issues that our constituents talk to us about all the time: rising energy prices when global prices are falling and the profits of energy companies are rocketing; transport costs that often increase at three times the rate of inflation; and the growing number of payday loan shops, which are spreading like a bad rash up and down the high streets of our country.
I appreciate that there is an ongoing Office of Fair Trading inquiry into payday lending and a possible Competition Commission referral, but the pace of the Government’s response has been worryingly slow. The Committee’s report on the subject was issued more than a year ago, and the OFT subsequently identified problems with companies representing 90% of current market share in the UK. More and more people with severe debt problems have multiple payday loans, but there is still no sign of badly needed stricter regulation to bring some of the worst aspects of that business under proper control.
The OFT report earlier this year was utterly damning in its review of the industry. It stated that almost a third of loans taken out in 2011-12 had been rolled over at least once, and that those loans accounted for almost half of lenders’ revenues. Nearly 20% of revenue came from 5% of loans that had been rolled over four times or more. The obvious conclusion was that too many people were being granted loans they could not afford to repay, and it appeared that lenders’ revenues were heavily reliant on customers failing to repay their original loan in full and on time.
Our Committee’s recommendation last year to limit the rolling over of such loans was brushed aside on the basis that the Government were
“focused…on ensuring rigorous affordability checks are carried out before each and every roll-over”.
However, the OFT report clearly showed that this industry earned the greater part of its profit from doing precisely the opposite. The OFT found that only six of the 50 firms it visited could provide documentary evidence that they had assessed consumers’ disposable income as part of their affordability checks—and let us not forget that the OFT inquiry started after the industry stated that it would toughen up its codes of practice. As Ministers are well aware, more than one trade group represents that sector, and they do not represent all practitioners. Therefore, a voluntary approach was never going to provide the protection needed by some of the most vulnerable in our communities. This problem is not one of a few rogue traders, but of a malfunctioning sector that is causing real harm to thousands and trapping many in high levels of debt. It is not about more regulation, but about better regulation that actually tackles the problem.
The Government’s recent response of introducing advertising restrictions and allowing the Financial Conduct Authority to impose fines from next year will make a moderate difference but nowhere near enough to end the misery we are now witnessing across the length and breadth of our country. We need urgent legislation to place a strict cap on the number of roll-overs, and as suggested by our Committee, we should re-examine evidence from other parts of the world such as Florida, which successfully placed a cap on the amount that could be borrowed at any one time. Its high repayment levels should be our aim too.
Last year we had the benefit of a statutory-backed consumer’s voice in the shape of Consumer Focus, which put pressure on the Government on this issue. It was vocal in calling for speedy action but is now silenced as a result of the Government’s legislation. Voluntary bodies such as Citizens Advice, Which? and StepChange carry out a great deal of valuable work, but their services have been considerably stretched by the rapid increase in demand over the past few years from those experiencing high levels of debt. The need for a strong consumer champion with the same rights of access to the Government as powerful trade lobby groups has never been greater. I am sure we will return to the effectiveness of enforcement as we look in greater detail at the draft consumers rights Bill over the coming weeks.
During the Budget the Government published their response to the Heseltine report on growth, “No stone unturned”, which was favourable to many of its recommendations. The BIS Committee had the benefit of two evidence sessions with Lord Heseltine earlier this year, and I believe that much in the report could carry cross-party support and consensus. Despite the desperate need to grow our economy, however, there was precious little sense of urgency in the Queen’s Speech.
Most recommendations in the Heseltine review, including the creation of a single pot of finance to be spent locally and a call for further devolution, have—not surprisingly—been postponed until after the 2015 election, and putting the report out to grass shows how out of touch the Government are with the real needs of our country. One area of the report was completely ignored, but I believe it is crucial if we are serious about changing the way we support businesses large and small to deliver growth. In his report, Heseltine points out that there are few formal structures in our society in which we have a genuine dialogue between Government at all levels—national and local—and the business sector. The UK’s current business bodies represent only a small percentage of the total number of businesses—about 650,000 out of a total of 4.8 million—whereas the German Chambers of Commerce represents more than 3.5 million businesses. The UK arrangements have caused fragmentation and weakness in the business sector’s voice in government and in decision making. Businesses have a planned and comprehensive structure not only in Germany, but throughout the continent, in Japan and in north America. Lord Heseltine recommended a radical improvement in how businesses are engaged and supported at local and sectoral levels to ensure a co-ordinated business support structure.
The hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) mentioned the lack of skills and the challenge we face in the coming years, particularly in apprenticeships. That reminds us that, if we are serious about improving our skills base, and if we want to bring ourselves up to the standards we witness in countries such as Germany, which offer sustained, high-quality, in-depth training to hundreds of thousands of young people every year, we need a business structure that can properly support such a change.
I note that it was reported earlier this week that several of our country’s largest employers are hoping to form a national framework to help school leavers and the unemployed into the labour market, including by delivering a comprehensive careers advice service. Such a move implies that the business community does not have much confidence that the Government’s approach to careers will provide the right advice or tackle the skills shortfall, which employers are rightly increasingly worried about. The move is welcome, but unfortunately it does not include the jobs and opportunities in the supply chains through the small and medium-sized enterprise sector, which are the heart of our economy. Unless and until we as a country can engage at a similar level with the vast majority of our businesses, we will simply miss out.
Finally, I should like to make some observations about the mortgage indemnity scheme proposal in the Budget. I have asked a number of questions of both the Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government, which operate the help-to-purchase schemes, about whether non-UK citizens will benefit from them. After a wait of more than five weeks, the Government have been unable or unwilling to answer my questions on that point.
There are serious difficulties with the mortgage indemnity scheme, which the Treasury Committee branded as a work in progress, adding that it might have a number of unintended consequences. This week, Andrew Brigden, a senior economist at Fathom Consulting, which is run by a former Bank of England economist, stated:
“Had we been asked to design a policy that would guarantee maximum damage to the UK’s long-term growth prospects and its fragile credit rating, this would be it”.
I spent 18 years in the property business before I came into the House, and I believe the policy is an act of complete and utter folly. It will place the taxpayer at considerable risk of fuelling rocketing property prices in the parts of the country that do not require it. At the same time, it fails to address the shortage of houses, which is at the root of the problem in our housing market. It does not change our housing market so that we have greater control in the long term over the private rented market and more stability, and it will not mean that people can buy houses when they can afford to do so. Many people, particularly younger people, no longer have types of employment that offer the security that gives them the confidence to buy.
Instead of the Government’s high-risk, casino-type methodology, I suggest that a better way is for the Government to invest in social landlords and councils to encourage them to build more houses. Such investment could mean that local authorities can borrow money perfectly reasonably and repay it at perfectly healthy ratios. That will allow us properly to tackle the housing crisis, which is at the root of many of the problems we encountered before the bank crash. Unless we are serious about them, they will occur again.