Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Barry Gardiner Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
It would be churlish not to welcome some aspects of this Budget. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Yes, absolutely. The extra money for childcare is not comprehensive and it does not recreate the life-changing Sure Start of the last Labour Government, but it will make a real difference to parents of young children. But what chutzpah! What chutzpah of the Chancellor to steal some of the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) and take credit for addressing childcare costs, but then delay implementation of the policy until the middle of next year, in time for a Labour Government to pay for it.
I welcome the action taken on prepayment meters, which will make a real difference to some of the poorest families in our country. But again, what chutzpah. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), my constituency neighbour, has been urging every Chancellor since George Osborne to resolve this inequality. I welcome the action taken to allocate £20 billion—over 20 years—for carbon capture, use and storage. But again, what chutzpah. Thirteen years ago, the incoming Tory-Liberal Government inherited £4 billion already allocated to CCUS, and they cut it.
Too often, debate in Parliament degenerates into set speeches, but the Budget debate is one of those occasions when we really can take on each other’s speeches and respond to what has been said. I listened very carefully to the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), who attacked the Chancellor and pointed out the failures of his party to adopt a consistent economic policy to lower the overall tax take. He said that they should have thought through the tax take policy in
“a way that would actually work”.
It is just a pity that he was not part of any Government who could have done anything about it.
The question my constituents would ask is: work for whom? I have spoken before in this Chamber of the queues that stretch down the Ealing Road in my constituency and around the corner, where I live, in Chaplin Road—extending over half a mile—waiting for the food bank at the Shri Sanatan Mandir to open. For the past 13 years, the economy has not actually been working for them. It has been working for the individuals who have managed to amass a pension pot in excess of the £1,060,000 lifetime allowance limit. After today, it will work even more for those people, as they can shelter even more money from tax.
The right hon. Member also posed what I thought was a rather rhetorical question to the House. He asked:
“But who knows best how to spend their money—the businesses or the Government?”
He did not stay for an answer, but my constituents might have replied: best to achieve what? If it is to spend that money in such a way as to maximise the return to their shareholders, the right hon. Member is correct: the answer is business. However, if it is to spend that money in such a way as to achieve the maximum public good, it is undoubtably the Government, by using the money paid in tax to keep us safe by paying our armed forces; to keep us healthy by paying for our NHS; or to keep us wealthy by investing in education and apprenticeships, so that those businesses have the supply of skills and labour they need to make that profit in the first place.
I also support the Government’s desire to boost enterprise and to grow wealth in our country. I understand the case for R&D tax credits, even at the level of 100%, but they should not contradict the Government’s other objectives. If they pay those credits to international companies such as Amazon, which will pay no tax in the UK while siphoning its profits out of the country, it is not our economy that they are growing.
Equally, it makes no sense to be paying 100% of the cost of oil and gas companies such as BP and Shell for exploitation of new fossil fuel reserves in the North sea, which will contradict our net zero objectives. These companies are already making record profits on the backs of bill payers in the UK. I would ask the Chancellor to put a green filter on R&D tax credits.
At a time when our household energy bills are the highest in history, the OBR says that real household disposable income is decreasing by 4.3% this year and by 5.7% over the next two years. That is the largest decline since the year before I was born—and I, though I may feel like one, am no spring chicken.
The Chancellor had four E’s, but he missed out the most pressing E of all: the environment. The Committee on Climate Change set out that we will not achieve our net zero target without a strategic programme to reform our regulatory frameworks and market design that galvanises between £300 billion and £430 billion of investment and removes the barriers to the construction of a new renewable energy infrastructure. I am afraid this Budget simply does not measure up.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Gardiner Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Douglas Ross)
The decision on a revised date for COP26 in 2021 will be taken by the COP Bureau of the United Nations framework convention on climate change, in co-operation with the UK and Italy.
Barry Gardiner
As a man born and bred in Glasgow, I welcome the fact that COP26 is going to be hosted there. However, the original plan included a proposal to house 30,000 delegates in cruise liners docked in the Clyde. Not only was that ludicrously expensive, but the pollution from the diesel from those vessels would have sent entirely the wrong message from the COP. What assurance can the Minister give that more suitable accommodation is now being prepared?
Douglas Ross
Clearly, decisions will continue to be taken on COP26 when it is rescheduled. The point about the 30,000 delegates is important, because that will make COP26 in Glasgow—a UK-secured summit—the biggest-ever summit, delegate-wise, in the United Kingdom, and that is something we should celebrate. We will continue to work on the valuable point that the hon. Gentleman has made. Glasgow will be ready to host this outstanding international conference.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Gardiner Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
First, I commend my hon. Friend for this campaign that she is fighting for openness, transparency and clarity in our NHS. She makes an important point, which is that there was a culture under the previous Government of not revealing problems in the NHS. The former Health Secretary is shaking his head, but this is what the former head of the CQC, Baroness Young, appointed by the previous Government, said—[Interruption.] I know the Opposition do not want to hear it, but they are going to have to hear it, because it is important that we understand the culture that went wrong under Labour. She said this:
“There was huge government pressure, because the government hated the idea that—that a regulator would criticise it by dint of criticising one of the hospitals or one of the services that it was responsible for.”
That is what Barbara Young said. And she said:
“We were under more pressure. . . when”—
the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham)—
“became minister, from the politics.”
There was a culture problem under Labour, and the sooner the Opposition admit it, the better.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Q8. We now know from the latest Office for National Statistics figures that borrowing did rise last year, and the Prime Minister will recall that the Chancellor of the Exchequer two years ago said, “We have asked the British people for all that is needed, there is no need to ask for more.” Today, why is he asking for more?
The Prime Minister
We have to have a spending review to cover the year 2015-16, which was not covered by previous spending reviews. We have got the deficit down by a third. It is hard, painful and difficult work but we are clearing up the mess left when the hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the previous Government.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Gardiner Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I do not always agree with what the hon. Gentleman says, but on this occasion he is absolutely right and the House should heed what he says: we should be doing much more to encourage cycling. The report has many good points. I commend what the Mayor of London has done in London to promote cycling, and I hope local authorities can follow his lead in making sure that we do more.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Can the Prime Minister tell the House whether the deep shade of red he turned when asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) whether he had been consulted on the appointment of Tanni Grey-Thompson was actually in place of the answer “Yes”?
The Prime Minister
We have an excellent new head of both Sport England and UK Sport—that is what matters. These are decisions for the Secretary of State, and it is absolutely right that she takes them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Gardiner Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is entirely right that every single person in this country is now carrying £22,000 of debt because of the mess that the last Labour Government left us. The fact is this: if we do not do something about it, by the end of this Parliament, we will be paying £70 billion in debt interest. That is more than we spend on schools and more than we spend on defence. It would be a tragic waste of money. That is why, however painful it is, we have to get to grips with the deficit that we were left by the last Labour Government.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Can the Prime Minister explain why the changes to local government funding last week mean that, in Witney in Oxfordshire, people will see an uplift of 1.7%, while children in Brent will see a loss from their education budget of £1.88 million? Can it have anything to do with last week’s statement by the Minister with responsibility for local government, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who said:
“Those in greatest need ultimately bear the burden of paying off the debt”?—[Official Report, 10 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 450.]
The Prime Minister
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that we are going to introduce the pupil premium, so that the money follows our country’s poorest children to the schools that they go to. That is what is going to happen. That is what he should support and I will look forward to him supporting it when it comes.