Income tax (charge)

Ben Everitt Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), who spoke passionately about coastal communities. My beautiful constituency of Milton Keynes North is not famously coastal, although we apparently have more miles of shoreline than Jersey; the definition of shoreline is stretched somewhat to include the many beautiful lakes that Milton Keynes has.

[Neil Parish]

Milton Keynes may not have much coastline, but it does have a lot of people. My hon. Friend could promote the great fish we catch all around our coast. I urge him to go out and feed his constituents with our great British fish.

[Ben Everitt]

That is an excellent point and it is well made. The nutrition of the people of Milton Keynes is well served by the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

We find ourselves in a strange situation in this Budget debate. It is almost as if the rules have changed. As I stand to speak, we are digesting the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has launched a £330 billion fiscal bazooka at the coronavirus to support our businesses, many of which are in my beautiful constituency. In that context, it feels odd to be talking about last week’s Budget. It was going to be the levelling-up Budget. It was going to be the got-Brexit-done Budget. It was going to be the Budget of infrastructure. Of course, it was the first-swing-at-corona Budget. As we look at it now, it was last week’s Budget. These are indeed strange times. However, I am sure that many Members on the Conservative Benches, and possibly some others, were struck by the optimism, hope and positive spirit of the Budget. It was enthusiastic about our future. While we deal with the sheer scale of the coronavirus outbreak, we should take some joy from the fact that this is a Government who are looking forward beyond the coronavirus and into a world where we have levelled up and we will have a more equal, more productive and more aspirant, tolerant society. It is a Budget of hope and positivity.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Does my hon. Friend recall a poster from the 2010 election campaign? It had a picture of a baby and the slogan, “He’s got his mother’s eyes, his father’s hair and Gordon Brown’s debt”. Does he think that future generations will applaud us for the action that we are taking, or curse us?

[Ben Everitt]

My right hon. Friend refers to the bail-out of the banks over a decade ago, which cost our economy in the region of £860 billion. It proved 10 long years before we could get over its effects, during which the British people worked incredibly hard and everybody came together, putting us in a position now where we are dealing with the next crisis. Will we be left with a burden of debt? Undoubtedly. Is it the right thing to do? Given the context, it probably is.

Last week’s Budget was excellent for families, not just in my constituency, but across the country. As set out by the Chancellor of fiscal bazooka fame, it will level up the economy, raise our regions, increase investment and encourage growth across the country. On transport, I particularly welcome not the big flashy transport projects, but the smaller, almost overlooked projects that engage our transport networks on a more local level.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend, I welcome the wide range of investments, particularly in local transport, contained in the Budget. My constituency cannot boast an extensive coastal area, any more than Milton Keynes, although the outstanding natural beauty of the Ruislip lido, London’s only beach, is one of its most prominent features. I certainly urge all those with an interest in the coastal aspects of London to take an interest in that site.

To pick up on a point that several hon. Members have made, even London, which remains a buoyant part of the United Kingdom from the perspective of economic growth, high levels of employment and high levels of productivity, seems at risk of being overlooked in one key respect. It greatly concerns me that my in-laws, who live in the Chancellor’s constituency, are set to benefit significantly from the pothole fund. My parents in south Wales will also gain because of the Barnett consequentials. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a shame, though, that there is no plan for London to benefit from the pothole fund, as is a reasonable expectation?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. For future reference, we are not desperately stuck for time, and therefore I have allowed the hon. Member, who is new to this House, to make his intervention, but lest anyone be misled, it was far too long.

[Ben Everitt]

The intervention may have been long, but it was well put and I appreciate it. In broad terms, my hon. Friend’s point was that we must not forget the other traditionally more productive parts of our economy. Interestingly, Milton Keynes is part of the south-east and people overlook the fact that we sit as almost the gateway to the north. A journalist from The Economist telephoned me last week and told me that Milton Keynes was the most productive part of the UK. I said, “Do you mean not including London?” and he said, “No. When you look at the OECD measures, they take in the whole of London, which includes the suburbs in Greater London, and actually, Milton Keynes comes out as more productive.” I therefore welcome any intervention that draws attention to the fact that we should be investing in the productive parts of our economy as well as levelling up the slightly less productive parts.

I warmly welcome the £500 million to roll out a fast charging network for electric vehicles over the next five years, ensuring that drivers will never be more than 30 miles from a rapid charging station. During the general election I was privileged to have a visit from the Secretary of State for Transport. We visited a charging point so that he could charge his electric car—he is very on brand, is our Transport Secretary. After a photo-op, he said, “Show me some transport infrastructure that needs a bit of investment.” I took him to junction 14 of the M1, which really does need an upgrade. We stood there, watching the traffic go past, and then we went to an island in the middle to make a little video, saying how much it needed an upgrade. Then, like life imitating art, we having stood there saying that the transport infrastructure needed an upgrade, suddenly all the world’s traffic came off the M1 and zoomed up junction 14. We were marooned on that island in the middle of an M1 slip road.

Now, our Transport Secretary, being an energetic fellow, cannot be held down for long. After a few moments he set off down the slip road, running—in fact, our Transport Secretary does not run; he scampers. Fortunately, my social media adviser was there to film the entire thing. He pulled out his camera just as our right hon. Friend was sprinting down the road, merging with the traffic in order to cross it. The video is available for parties, for a small fee.

[Sir John Hayes]

As a Member who lacks a social media adviser, and as the pioneer of the Government’s electric car policy, I am delighted that my hon. Friend has welcomed the additional charging points, for which I take the lion’s share of the credit.

The point that my hon. Friend is making about productivity is critical. The Government’s commitment to skills and to research and development, through the Budget, will allow us to tackle the prevailing macro-economic challenge facing this country and most of the west: the productivity gap.

[Ben Everitt]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. Of course, the productivity gap is core to levelling up.

Speaking of gaps, I have to declare an interest before moving on to the next important section of my speech: I am a councillor. The next section includes the perennial election-winning issue of potholes. The Chancellor has announced additional funding—£2.5 billion over the next five years—to fill millions of potholes across the country, which will make a huge difference for the many people who spend hours each week travelling on poorly maintained roads. That will speed up journey times, reduce vehicle damage and make our roads safer.

The Government are investing record amounts in improving and expanding our transport infrastructure—triple the average of the past 60 years. The Chancellor has announced £640 billion of capital investment in roads, railways, communications, schools, hospitals and power networks over this Parliament. I know that many of my colleagues will join me in welcoming this investment not just for the large national infrastructure projects, but for local roads, regional railways and urban transport. We will be increasing bus journeys. We will be reducing the cost of transport for young people, workers and those in retirement. We will have a modern and well-maintained road network.

I am a big fan of this Budget, as Members have probably noticed, but there is one piece that I was surprised to see in there. It is my single criticism of the Budget, so please bear with me. The small print of the supporting documents for the Budget contained an allocation of £94.6 million for a housing infrastructure bid to build 5,000 homes east of the M1 in Milton Keynes. That housing infrastructure bid is an indicative commitment to fund, subject to continuing local commitment, which is how the bidding process works for housing infrastructure fund bids. “A continuing local commitment” is news to me. Anyone who looked at my postbag and my inbox would not find a continuing local commitment; they would find quite the opposite.

That is not to say that people in my constituency are anti-growth. Far from it: Milton Keynes is a growing place. It is growing because it is a great place in which to live and work, in which to grow a family and grow a business. However, we must have the right houses in the right place at the right time. There is a balance to be struck. We need to get this right. We have a choice between growing local jobs and becoming a dormitory. If we get the right houses in the right place at the right time, we will incentivise pure economic growth—local, productive growth—but if we get it wrong and build too many houses, Milton Keynes will be cursed by the very benefit of being only 32 minutes away from London on the train. If we build too many houses too quickly we will become a dormitory for jobs elsewhere, and that is not what we need.

[Jonathan Gullis]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need a good-quality mixture of housing, from one and two-bedroom homes to city centre living, and also the four and five-bedroom homes that the executives are seeking?

[Ben Everitt]

Absolutely. The point is well made, but I will not dwell on it, because, finally, I want to say this. We must also have the benefit of a university in our town, and I am proud to support a £100 million bid to make Milton Keynes a university town. The benefits will be fantastic.

With that I will sit down, having had a very good Budget, apart from that very small thing.