Autumn Statement Resolutions

Anna Firth Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle). As I listened to her speech, I came to the conclusion that we have something in common: we both seem to welcome tax cuts. She does not seem to think that they have gone far enough. I wholeheartedly welcome this Budget. It a serious Budget for growth, a Budget that sets the course for the long-term success of our country, a Budget for businesses, a Budget that rewards hard work, and a Budget that rewards our pensioners and senior citizens.

Tackling inflation has rightly been the Government’s top priority over the past year. We have all seen the horrendous effects of double-digit inflation on the cost of living, on energy prices, on households and on our constituents. I believe that the Chancellor and his team deserve all our praise for the dogged way in which they have kept to the programme and delivered. They have more than delivered, because inflation has more than halved over the past year. That will make every single one of my Southend and Leigh-on-Sea constituents better off, which I wholeheartedly welcome.

Being Conservatives means that we believe in growing the economy by giving people and businesses the freedom to succeed. We believe that lasting wealth creation depends on cutting taxes and reducing regulation. Our way is to set businesses free. I do not want to get too party political at this stage in my speech, but that is not the way of the Opposition, who have traditionally been about ramping up borrowing, increasing debt, and, obviously, increasing mortgage rates.

My priority—always—is to make Southend and Leigh-on-Sea safer, healthier and wealthier. I judge all legislation against those three simple tests, and this autumn statement will undoubtedly make my constituents wealthier. The vast majority of Southend and Leigh-on-Sea residents work hard, work full-time, and own their own homes. They deserve to keep as much of their own money as possible, so I welcome the fact that, thanks to the long-term responsible decisions taken by the Chancellor and his team last year, we can now begin to get back to cutting taxes. We are not going as far as I would like, but we are making a good start.

Cutting taxes for 27 million working people from January, by cutting the main rate of national insurance contributions from 12% to 10%, is a great start. It means that the average person in Southend West and Leigh-on-Sea, earning an average of only £36,500 a year, will see an almost immediate tax cut of £480 per person. If it is a family with two earners, as most of them are, they will see a tax cut of £960 per year—nearly £1,000 a year, starting from January. A senior nurse at Southend hospital will be better off by £600 a year, and the average police officer will be better off by £630 a year. I welcome putting that money back into the pockets of my hard-working constituents, because we on the Conservative Benches know that employment is the long-term route out of poverty. I am delighted that the welfare reforms in the autumn statement will cut the number of people in this country who are signed off work on benefits, to ensure that their potential is not wasted in the long term. Making a concerted effort to help people back into work is not nasty: it is responsible, compassionate, and ultimately caring.

I also welcome the support for small businesses in the statement. Over 98% of businesses in Southend are micro or small businesses; Southend is a city of entrepreneurs, and I am very proud of them. As such, I welcome the extension of the 75% business rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure until 2025 and the decision to freeze the small business multiplier, which will be a huge benefit to businesses in Southend and Leigh-on-Sea. Having been self-employed for many years, I also welcome the support we are giving to the self-employed by cutting class 2 national insurance contributions from April 2024 completely. Again, we are putting more money into the pockets of the hard-working.

Permanent full expensing will mean the biggest business tax cut in modern British history. Again, it is clear what side Conservative Members are on: we are on the side of businesses, the job creators, and those who are working hard. I also welcome the fact that fuel duty will remain frozen, maintaining the 5p reduction introduced last year. Some 80% of Southend households have at least one car or van—significantly higher than the national average—and 40% of my employed constituents drive to work, so being a motorist is not a dirty word in Essex. We enjoy our cars and are proud of them, and of white van man. Let me say this loud and clear: there will be no ultra low emission zone in Essex. Kremlin Khan can keep his communist measures in London; we will not have them in Southend.

We must also look after our pensioners and the poorest in society. There are nearly 18,000 pensioners in Southend West, and we must do the right thing by them. As such, I welcome the fact that the Chancellor has reaffirmed his commitment to the pensions triple lock and pension credit. I thank him and his team for listening to the many representations from Conservative Members to keep that triple lock, which will rise in April 2024 by 8.5%. That is going to mean an extra £70 a month for my pensioners—nearly £900 a year.

More importantly, I welcome the fact that this Government are positioning the UK to be a global leader in the industries of the future. We had a revolution in banking when I started my career in the City, and it has created a long-term tax take on which we all depend in part today. Creating the industries of the future is an investment in high-paid jobs and in the tax take that we will all be relying on as we get older. Last year, we became the third trillion-dollar tech economy in the world; our tech sector is now double the size of Germany’s and three times that of France. Our life sciences sector is the biggest in Europe. Offshore wind has been mentioned; we do more offshore wind than any other country in Europe. We are now Europe’s biggest film and TV production centre. Those successes are all investments in our future, and they are not quick fixes—they are not things that just happen. They are due to long-term strategic decisions, laying the foundation for future success. It is because of these long-term strategic decisions that we have grown faster since 2010 than France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Finland, the Netherlands and Japan. In fact, I think the Chancellor even mentioned a few more countries in his statement.

I would say that what is happening nationally is reflected in Southend. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), who has joined the Treasury team, is no longer in his place because he will know, from attending our trade summit in September, that Southend is not just a historic, successful, scenic seaside city but that it has a growing life sciences sector, with world leading businesses such as Olympus KeyMed and ESSLAB, to name but two. In fact, the Thames estuary, backed by the Government, has been named the UK’s No. 1 growth area, with the potential to create 1.3 million jobs and add £190 billion to the nation’s economy by 2050. I would welcome—and I continue to encourage the Chancellor to look at this—the creation of new investment zones, in particular focusing on new cities. The Chancellor recently said,

“don’t bet against Britain—it’s been tried before and it never works.”

I would say, “don’t bet against Southend either”, and certainly not against the mighty Southend United, as the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), who is not in his place, knows only too well.

The other area I want to touch on is apprenticeships. On skills, business-led local skills improvement plans have been a big success, particularly in Essex, where we have an excellent one run by the Essex chambers of commerce. However, we do need the Government to commit to long-term funding beyond the current 2025 cut-off point to truly embed them into the skills landscape, and I would like to continue that conversation with the Treasury team. Of course, apprenticeships offer a chance for people to earn while they learn and gain industry experience, and I welcome the fact that we are committing a further £50 million to a two-year apprenticeship pilot to explore new ways to stimulate training in growth sectors. However, at the same time, the apprenticeship levy does need to be reformed. Apprenticeships are not always the best solution to all training needs. I have a brilliant college in Southend, the South Essex College, and I have heard many times that greater flexibility is needed in the types of training for which the levy can be used. Many firms need shorter, more modular training to enable individuals to upskill quickly. I hope that the Government will look at allowing a percentage of the apprenticeship levy to be used on other forms of accredited training offered by approved providers.

To conclude, I welcome the autumn statement. The measures contained in it are good for my constituents in Southend and Leigh-on-Sea. I believe they are good for the country, and I look forward to supporting them at the beginning of next week.

[Several hon. Members rose—]