Economic Growth

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate on the first King’s Speech for more than 70 years, particularly today on the occasion of His Majesty’s 75th birthday, and particularly when the topic is economic growth, which goes to the heart of everything we are here to do in this place. Economic growth is not about statistics, percentages, and headlines in the Financial Times: it is about the real impact on households, residents and businesses across our constituencies and the whole country.

I would say this, but in my constituency of Burnley and Padiham, we probably have the best set of local businesses anywhere in the country. They do not just stand ready to help us with our future economic growth; they are doing it already. I am thinking of brilliant businesses in Burnley, including multinationals like VEKA and Safran Nacelles and big bakeries like Warburtons and Cherrytree. In Padiham, we have businesses like LP Technology, which is expanding at a rapid pace, and so many more. That is what we do in Burnley and Padiham: we make things and we export them.

That is the first thing about the King’s Speech that I want to touch on. Since the 2019 general election, we have passed some exciting legislation and signed some exciting trade deals with countries including Australia and New Zealand. I was privileged to sit on the Bill Committee during the passage of the Trade Act 2021, in which we rolled over a whole swathe of trade deals from our membership of the EU. It is very exciting that we are now looking at those same trade deals and seeing where we can go further, strengthening our relationships with fast-growing countries. That is exactly what the new legislation for CPTPP will do. Growth in countries like Vietnam and Canada is faster than almost anywhere else in the world; those are the countries where our businesses can seize opportunities. LP Technology—one of the businesses in Padiham that I just mentioned—is going to countries like Australia and signing massive business deals. That is only possible because of the amazing work of our trade negotiators and the team in the Department for Business and Trade. The more of that we can do, the better.

Economic growth is centred in our communities, and that is why I was delighted to see the long-term plan for towns mentioned in the King’s Speech. Since 2019, we have done an incredible job in Burnley and Padiham of working with Government to secure levelling-up funding. We secured £20 million from levelling-up fund 1 and £12 million from levelling-up fund 2, and the Prime Minister came to Burnley personally to announce that we were one of the towns to get a further £20 million as part of the long-term plan. We are going to use that to work with communities to find the things we need to do to secure extra economic growth. In the second town in my constituency, Padiham, we have a flood defence scheme worth almost £18 million that is securing the future of the town, the local economy and the residents who live there.

None of that would be possible without employment, and I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend the Chancellor speak at the opening of this debate about his plan in the autumn statement next week to make progress on helping people get into work. Unfortunately, in Burnley we continue to have an unemployment rate that is higher than the national average, and that applies to both adults and young people. We are making massive progress in tackling that issue, and it is important we tackle it because of the real impact it has on people and families. The best thing we can do to help families in Burnley is to help them get into work, and that is particularly true of households that have been out of work for some time. I hope that in the autumn statement next week we hear more from the Chancellor on the work he has been doing with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on tackling long-term out-of-work households.

I will end by talking about the final thing that I think makes a massive difference to economic growth, even if it is a politician’s hobby horse, and that is potholes. Our roads in Burnley and indeed across Lancashire need upgrading. We have brilliant logistics businesses in Burnley that take the products I have mentioned and send them around the world, but we can only do that with roads and infrastructure that are fit for the 21st century. My final ask of those on the Treasury Bench is that, as we look to the autumn statement and the Budget, we continue the focus on potholes and on the infrastructure that makes our country work.

Digital Pound

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

I thank the hon. Member for his contributions to the ongoing debate. I have said that there is an opportunity for us to design in financial inclusion; that is one of the advantages of consulting early and of building a consensus across the House on a subject as important as our nation’s currency. He is quite right that it needs to be accessible and reliable as a store of value; the opportunity for it to sit side by side with cash and with the existing bank and digital payments system should give us the ability to drive financial inclusion outcomes.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement and the foresight that he and the Treasury are showing in getting the consultation out early. What assessment has the Treasury made of the potential impact on our small and medium-sized enterprises—particularly import and export SMEs, which are big users of foreign currency?

[Andrew Griffith]

As my hon. Friend knows, one of the points of friction—one of the costs—is the exchange of currency. It has come down greatly over time, but is still often measured in the percentage points. A true central bank-issued digital currency—a digital pound—that could be much more readily converted without the current number of intermediaries could be a real opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises engaged in that all-important activity to our great nation: exporting our goods and services.

The Growth Plan

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I did not mention anything on workers’ rights in my statement and I have always been very focused on broader workers’ rights—[Interruption.] On the right to strike, the minimum service levels are crucial to ensure that the public are protected from militant trade union action. That is entirely fair, it is what happens in Europe and we are 100% committed to that.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on growth, which will allow businesses in Burnley and Padiham to grow, and allow people to keep more of the money they earn. Following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe), in east Lancashire we stand ready to lead this country in aerospace, cyber and small modular reactors. So I urge the Chancellor to look sympathetically on a bid from east Lancashire. Will he meet me, and other east Lancashire colleagues and the leader of Lancashire County Council, to talk about what an east Lancashire investment zone might look like?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Just to remind my hon. Friend, investment zone conversations are very much being led by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, who I am sure will be engaging with the relevant councils. I would be happy also to talk to my hon. Friend about the opportunities that investment zones represent.

Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar). I wish hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House a very happy St Andrew’s Day.

It was a slight surprise to see on the Order Paper a motion in the name of the SNP that did not mention independence, but the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) managed to get it in in his perfectly scripted intervention—the first that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) took. I understand why SNP Members have chosen this topic today. I understand why they want to keep making the case for independence—because it is brilliant for their social media clips. It allows them to stand up here, express their faux outrage, and post those clips on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and all the others. But it does not improve the lives of their constituents. Call me old-fashioned, but that is what I came here to do. I came here to represent my constituents of Burnley and Padiham and to make their lives better. My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) made the point crystal clear when he explained what his constituents are going through right now. SNP Members had the chance to talk about those issues and they chose not to. They chose not to table an urgent question. They chose not to have a debate in the House. They chose to ignore what is happening to people up and down Scotland and the rest of the country.

SNP Members spoke about the Elections Bill. The right hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) said that we had not made the case for the changes being made in the Bill. That is not true. If anyone reads the Conservative manifesto that delivered the majority on this side of the House, they will see that we proposed changes on ID for elections.

[Aaron Bell]

I served on the Elections Bill Committee and the evidence we heard from Tower Hamlets, Peterborough and all over the country does make that case very clearly. We took on the arguments made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) in that Committee and defeated them.

[Antony Higginbotham]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, which highlights perfectly my point about faux outrage: all that SNP Members come here for is to do clips for social media. They do not want to be here. I get why they do not want to be here; I understand their desire for independence. But given that they are here, they have an obligation and a responsibility to represent their constituents in the best possible way, and we could have focused this debate on a much better subject.

SNP Members have put forward a number of examples that they sought to use to highlight his conduct, but they were very selective in doing so, so let me give them some other examples. Why do we not talk about the vaccine roll-out, led by the Prime Minister, which was the quickest in the world? Why do we not talk about the fact that the Prime Minister decided he would be the first Minister for the Union? Why do we not talk about the fact that the Prime Minister launched the Union connectivity review, because he cares about linking the four corners of the UK? Why do we not talk about the UK shared prosperity fund? Why do we not talk about the fact that our armed forces are growing and that, as a result of the plans announced by the Defence Secretary, they are growing for the first time in Scotland, too? We could have focused this debate on far bigger issues that matter to people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and it is a shame that the SNP did not.

Brexit: Opportunities

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

I, too, warmly welcome the announcement from the new Paymaster General. It means that laws in this country will be made here in this Parliament, which is something that residents throughout Burnley and Padiham very much want to see. Will the Paymaster General confirm that this new approach will go hand in hand with our new free trade agreement policy, ensuring that our absolute focus is on supporting the small and medium-sized enterprises that are the backbone of this country?

[Michael Ellis]

My hon. Friend is, of course, quite right. With the establishment of the points-based immigration system that I have just mentioned, and the bilateral trade agreements that my hon. Friend has just mentioned—agreements with over 60 countries in addition to the EU, accounting for £889 billion of UK bilateral trade in 2019—things are looking up, and will continue to do so.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee of the Whole House (Day 2)
Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake).

I welcome the action that the Government are finally taking against the promoters of tax-avoidance schemes. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I will be supporting new clause 29, which would require the Government to review the impact of provisions relating to tax avoidance and publish regular reports that set out the findings. We will also support amendment 77, which would cause the promoters of abusive tax-avoidance schemes to be treated as acting dishonestly for the purposes of criminal prosecution for tax offences, without dishonesty having to be proved separately by the prosecution. We believe that the measures we are considering are what the Government should have been doing earlier. The promoters of abusive tax-avoidance schemes have deprived the public purse of millions of pounds and defrauded countless people who thought that their services and the advice offered were legitimate.

The action being taken now comes too late for so many victims of these schemes who had no intention to do anything unlawful or to evade taxes and have already been unfairly penalised. Liberal Democrats are committed to clamping down on tax avoidance, but the retrospective nature of the loan charge is causing uncertainty and financial hardship to ordinary working families, most of whom acted in good faith. Thousands of IT support professionals, social workers, teachers, cleaners and nurses—all of whom acted in good faith, based on professional financial advice that what they were doing was legal—now face immense pressure, which is impacting on their mental health and causing serious financial hardship, which will only be magnified by the economic consequences of covid-19.

Meanwhile, online tech giants and international corporations have been avoiding tax for years but have not been clamped down on in the same way, even internationally. With the load charge, the Government are going after nurses and teachers. Like many other right hon. and hon. Members in this place, I have a number of constituents who find themselves in exactly the position that I have described, facing retrospective taxation since HMRC changed its rules in 2017. One constituent whom I have been representing has attempted to correspond with HMRC on anomalies in the settlement agreement policies, but to no avail. Although he is categorised as fully compliant and not liable for the loan charge and pre-2010 loans, he is not being refunded any settlements that include pre-2010 amounts. The fully compliant are not benefiting from the pre-2010 amendments, while other categories are.

As I have said, we undoubtedly need to clamp down on tax avoidance—the deliberate evasion of taxes—but we should be clamping down on those who promoted it, not on those who took advice believing that it was lawful. The Chancellor must also go further than his recent decision merely to limit, in the Budget, the retrospective element of the charge to 2010; he must end the retrospective application of the rules altogether so that nobody who fell victim to such schemes before 2017 should be unfairly penalised. The Government must also further re-examine IR35.

I shall end my speech there, but it is important that we recognise that the steps that we must back today should have come before us much earlier.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), but I must pick up on one of her points. She indicated that the Government had done nothing to crack down on online companies, but the evidence shows that the Government took action to ensure that if we buy something from an online marketplace such as eBay, Wish or Alibaba, the seller charges VAT. That was a significant source of lost income for the Exchequer.

It is right for Opposition Members to raise the Panama papers, because they highlighted to the general public—to residents up and down the country—the actions of a small number of tax-avoidance advisers and very wealthy individuals who did not want to pay their fair share. I think it is right that we should look at that in the context of the action that the Government have taken.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee of the Whole House (Day 1)
Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

My final point is on an issue raised a number of times in this debate: the environmental goals we rightly wish from our corporations. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury are leading in the country so that the United Kingdom can be a centre for green finance and green investment, and that is entirely correct. Parliament has passed a law to achieve net zero within a certain time frame, but we have not really been explicit with the public about what the costs of that may be, although I think we understand that substantial investments will be required to achieve it. I gently prod my right hon. Friend the Minister: in the longer term, beyond the five-year frame that we have right now, my expectation is that there will be a need to provide additional incentives in the form of capital allowances or other allowances to enable the private sector to achieve the net zero goals and the investments required for that if we proceed with the increase, as we will, in overall headline corporation tax. I leave him to mull over that point.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

I agree with almost everything my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) said about corporation tax. It is a tax on success, and on this side of the House we are all naturally low-tax Conservatives—we believe fundamentally that businesses are most successful when they are left to innovate and grow, and can keep more of the money they earn. However, we also have to accept that that is not the only thing that drives businesses. Globally adaptable businesses that look around the world at where they are going to locate their next manufacturing plant or innovation look at myriad factors: the support available; the skills of the local population; and the infrastructure in place. All of those things cost money. As we have seen during the past 12 months, the Government have gone to great lengths to support businesses. In my constituency, 11,000 jobs have been supported by the furlough scheme. That is money that has helped businesses across Burnley and Padiham prepare and stay ready for when the economy reopens. We are also talking about £20 million in grants so that those same businesses can restart as soon as the economy opens up. All businesses understand that; they understand that responsibility comes with this and the taxation they pay enables them to take part in society in a meaningful way.

With all that in mind, I agree with the measures my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out on corporation tax, as a low-tax Conservative. I do so because the Chancellor has struck exactly the right balance in making sure we secure the economic recovery first: we do not look at businesses now as they are just starting to reopen and get trading again and say, “Just because you are profitable, we are going to increase your tax rate immediately”; we look ahead and say, “When the economy has recovered and you are trading as you were pre-pandemic, that is when we will look for you to make a fair contribution to repay some of the support we have been able to put in place.”

In Burnley and Padiham, we are heavily reliant on small and medium-sized enterprises—those small innovators. As we recover from the pandemic, we often see the most SMEs and new businesses start up; people who used to work for one company and who may have been made redundant—something may have happened—then start their own businesses. That is why the small profits rate of corporation tax is so important, because it is the incentive those innovators and entrepreneurs need to start their business, to grow, to employ someone else.

We also have to recognise that one thing we have suffered from historically in the UK, for many, many years, is low productivity, and that has come from a huge lack of investment from businesses. If we are really going to level up across the country, we need to drive investment in growth and utilise the power the private sector has through whatever means are available to us. We know that since 2007-08 there has been a systemic lack of investment, driven by the uncertainty we have had, so that there is a pot of money that so many businesses are sitting on, waiting to be unlocked. That is where the super deduction will prove so important, because it encourages those businesses that have had a stockpile—that have lived with uncertainty for the best part of a decade and so have not been able to invest, as they have not had that confidence. As we emerge from the pandemic, the super deduction gives them the confidence to invest.

In Burnley, we are talking about aerospace manufacturers, automotive manufacturers and textile makers. The super deduction will help businesses transition to green technology, as we have spoken about. It will help aerospace businesses to move into HS2 and textile companies to move into weaving—we do still make textiles here in the UK.

All of these things will result in a high-skill, high-wage manufacturing economy here in the UK. So, yes, we need to keep the UK attractive to investment, job creation and new businesses, but we do that through a fair corporation tax system, lower rates for new businesses and using schemes such as the super deduction to drive investment into manufacturing jobs, which are going to be so vital for our future.

[Rebecca Long Bailey [V]]

I will limit my comments to the super deduction which, as we have already heard today, will be one of the largest single-year tax giveaways ever enacted in the UK. Arguably, some companies’ corporation tax bills will be wiped out entirely for a couple of years.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has already said that the Public Accounts Committee found that tax reliefs cost more than £100 billion a year in forgone tax, but HMRC does not know how many reliefs exist; nor does it monitor the efficacy of such reliefs. That is staggering. Can we be confident that HMRC will know what effect the super deduction will have, and who will actually benefit from it? Many of my small and medium-sized enterprises in Salford would love a super deduction, but sadly it will not benefit them. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury told the House last year that the enhanced annual investment allowance of £1 million already covers the capital expenses of 99% of businesses in the UK, so it seems that this super-relief will overwhelmingly benefit only 1% of extremely large businesses.

I would have no problem if such businesses desperately required the relief in order to protect jobs or to invest in our local economies, but let us look at some of the potential beneficiaries. Amazon has benefited from the pandemic, seeing its sales jump by 50%. According to TaxWatch, the company’s latest accounts show that they spent £66.8 million on plant and machinery, £80.4 million on office equipment and £15.3 million on computer equipment in the same year, so the 130% super deduction could entirely account for the pre-tax profits of the company even before any deductions of staff pay awards.

Similarly, many energy and water companies find themselves also able to wipe out their tax bill. United Utilities spent £1.275 billion on property, plant and equipment in the past two years, compared with a current tax liability of just under £89 million. Electricity North West stated that covid has had a limited impact, and it had a tax bill of £45 million for 2019-20 while investing £449 million in property, plant and equipment. For both companies, it would only take a small proportion of the capital investment to be spent on plant and equipment to use the super deduction to eradicate their tax bill, too.

Do these buoyant companies really need a super deduction? The answer is no. In the absence of any clear conditions specifying the use of such savings or providing a wider social benefit, such as increasing salaries for workers, investing in decarbonisation or reducing costs for end consumers, I struggle to see the benefits being passed on to anyone other than shareholders.

I hope that the Government support amendment 11 and new clauses 1, 2 and 6 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington and others, as well as the Labour Front-Bench amendments, because there are companies that do need support to help them recover from the pandemic. There is a real need to support long-term, patient investment by industry, but the untargeted nature of this relief, without conditions, is not the best use of public money. In fact, it borders on the obscene.

Leaving the EU: Impact on the UK

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

In a debate about Brexit, we on the Government Benches talk about the positives. Unfortunately, all we have had from not only SNP Members but others, as we have just heard from the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), is doom and gloom.

In a debate on Brexit today, the one thing that I would have expected to hear about from either the SNP or Labour is the actions of the European Union. We have heard today that the EU is now threatening to block vaccines. We have been successful in the vaccine roll-out because we were able to act independently and flexibly. I say that not to gloat, but because we need to inject into this debate some realism about the freedoms we have and the way in which can be agile.

Typically, those on the SNP and Labour Benches will put anything positive to do with Brexit down to something else, but we can look at other things that have proven the benefit of the agility we now have. Scotland, as an integral part of the fifth largest economy in the world, is able to look out on the horizon as part of the four nations of the UK and strike new trade deals. Just next month the Prime Minister will lead a delegation to India, and I hope that Opposition Members will join us in hoping that we can find new ways to export our products and services around the world, including to the fast-growing markets in not only India but places like Brazil and South Africa.

Let me turn to a really important sector for Scotland: the Scotch whisky sector. When we were a member of the European Union, the sector was hit with a 25% tariff and sales to the US fell by 30%—that is £0.5 billion-worth of sales. It was this Government, exercising the rights that we have as an independent trading nation, who got those tariffs removed.

We have heard about the Erasmus scheme, but I am afraid it was not all that those on the Opposition Benches like to claim it was. The Turing scheme, however, will be something we can all be proud of. It does not strip opportunities but provides them. It is global in outlook and allows young people from my constituency and in Scotland—whether they are at school, college, university or another training provider—to look at the countries where they want to go and study and take up such opportunities. Really importantly, the Turing scheme has social mobility at its heart, which I would have hoped the Opposition parties would have welcomed.

All we have heard so far in this debate is doom and gloom, but the opportunities presented by Brexit go far and wide for every corner of our United Kingdom.

Additional Covid-19 Restrictions: Fair Economic Support

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

Lancashire has been hit incredibly hard by covid-19, and Burnley particularly so. Our case rate is among the highest in Lancashire and our economy is hurting, but we are also a hardy bunch. We have a “just get on with it” attitude, and that means we find industrial solutions for the future, we back our local businesses and we will come through this stronger than ever. In that vein, I thank local leaders from the county council and district councils for all their work to reach an agreement with the Government that sees our businesses and our people protected.

Today’s debate has been framed as though support is non-existent, but at every stage of this pandemic the Government have provided whatever support has been necessary. That is not because of those playing party politics; it is because of hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House who have fought for their constituents, working with the Chancellor and the whole Government.

I understand why the Opposition are trying to frame this debate as though they are standing up for left-behind communities, but let me remind them that it is they who left them behind. Year after year, decade after decade, they ignored the north of England, both in government and in opposition. That is why I sit here, because I promised never again to allow Burnley and Padiham, Worsthorne and Cliviger or Hapton and Dunnockshaw to languish as they allowed. I promised to level up, and that is exactly what I remain focused on.

Yes, that includes managing the covid-19 outbreak. I will never stop lobbying the Government, publicly and privately, to ensure that they understand my local economy and understand the support we need, particularly when their interventions hurt us. However, I remain convinced, just as I did at the start of this crisis, that we are doing the right thing.

Hundreds of millions of pounds have gone into Lancashire to support our businesses and our people. In the past week alone, £42 million has gone into the county to support businesses and people. That will support the landlord and landlady of the village pub and the entrepreneur who started their new business only a matter of weeks ago. There is another £12 million to support the public health response.

I say to all the businesses in Burnley that I am here to lobby for you, and I say to the Government that the support we have in place is welcome and essential, but I will never stop lobbying on behalf of the businesses that create the jobs on which local residents in Burnley rely.

Oral Answers to Questions

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Barclay]

[Antony Higginbotham]

[Steve Barclay]