Budget Resolutions

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady agreed with the point made by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) on bank taxation. Does she agree that 28 is higher than 27? The corporation tax rate on banks is currently 27%, and after the rise in corporation tax and the change to the bank corporation tax surcharge it will be 28%. By anyone’s reckoning that is an increase in taxation on banks, not a decrease.

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, but I do not want to get involved in nit-picking. [Interruption.] I did not mention either 27% or 28%. I was talking about the disparaging increase in the minimum wage, which has already been eaten up by the national insurance hike. That broken Tory promise means a nurse on an average salary will see her tax bill rise by £310 a year. After 18 months on the frontline of the pandemic, covid heroes will be clobbered by a tax hike and the cost of living crisis. How can it be that NHS staff and care workers are facing a £900 million tax hike while banks are, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton said, being given a £900 million tax cut? No doubt bankers will be toasting their tax cut and the Chancellor’s decision to reduce the bank surcharge with cheaper bubbly tonight. It is clear that this Chancellor’s priorities are not the priorities of the British people.

It could have been so different. The Government could have addressed the labour shortage that threatens to derail our recovery before it gets going. They could have radically overhauled business rates, as they promised, instead of the sticking plaster we got. They could have provided the £10,000 that the Liberal Democrats want every adult to have to buy training in the new skills that they desperately need.

The Government could have provided the £150 billion green recovery plan we are calling for to insulate people’s homes and to protect our natural environment. They could have seized the opportunity afforded by COP26 to lead the way on protecting the planet. Instead, the Chancellor has slashed air passenger duty on domestic flights and admitted that overseas aid will not be restored to the legal target of 0.7% until at least 2024. What kind of signal does that send to our international partners ahead of next week’s crucial climate summit in Glasgow? Then again, the word “climate” did not appear anywhere in the Chancellor’s statement.

It is clear that this is the Budget of a former hedge-fund manager, but we cannot run a country like a hedge fund. There is no column in a spreadsheet for people’s dignity and no formula for investing in our children’s future. Today’s Budget promises a future bitter with the consequences of the Chancellor’s inaction—bitter with the betrayal of future generations. It is a Budget that handcuffs us to the consequences of climate change, fails to invest in our children’s education and hammers families with tax hikes instead of helping them with the cost-of-living crisis. What has it all been for? The suspicion remains that the Chancellor is using old data from the Office for Budget Responsibility so that he can save some spending for later in the Parliament. That is the reality: pain for ordinary families now, but a tax cut before the election to help Tory candidates. The Budget should have been about ordinary people’s jobs up and down this country but was instead all about one person’s next job—the Chancellor’s.