Finance (No. 2) Bill

Ben Lake Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

Diolch, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali). Last month’s Budget was a missed opportunity to protect jobs and incomes, support struggling employers, and set out a clear vision for a green, sustainable and fairer post-pandemic economy that works for all four nations of the United Kingdom. Instead, the Budget became an exercise in political showmanship, which further undermined devolution and put party politics above the collective good. Supposedly new spending pledges were proven to be nothing of the sort, most clearly at Wales’s expense, where only 5% of the spending announced was new and unconditional. That disappointment was compounded by the proposals unveiled for the so-called levelling-up fund, which I am afraid does a disservice to Wales and to devolution.

The Bill confirms some of the most damaging elements of that Budget-day display. It prematurely ends the VAT reduction to help hospitality businesses across the UK. It neglects fully to correct the exclusionary failures of the self-employment income support scheme, and it fails to guarantee the permanency of the £20 a week universal credit uplift. Those measures alone suggest that the Bill will hamper rather than encourage our short-term recovery.

Equally worrying is the Government’s clear determination to re-establish the pre-pandemic dysfunctional UK economic model through a “Westminster knows best” approach that is openly hostile to devolution. That is why, to ensure that Westminster works with rather than against the devolved nations on policy issues such as freeports, Plaid Cymru will table amendments requiring the consent of the devolved Parliaments before freeports can be established in their respective nations. That such amendments are necessary is sadly indicative of the Government’s centralising tendencies over the economy, despite their appalling record on delivering schemes such as tax reliefs, which worsen rather than address regional inequality in the UK.

For instance, through the UK Government’s two main innovation investment reliefs—the enterprise investment scheme and the seed enterprise investment scheme—between 2015 and 2018, start-ups in London received four times more per head of population than businesses elsewhere. In contrast, only 1.3% of UK-wide investment through the enterprise investment scheme was in Wales.

Noting the significant risk that the proposed capital allowance super deduction might turbocharge regional inequality in the UK, Plaid Cymru will also table an amendment requiring the Government to consider the impact and geographical reach of that super deduction. Given the pressing challenge of climate change, and the need to recapitalise our economy to further decarbonisation efforts, our amendment will require the Government to consider the impact of a super deduction on climate change mitigation efforts. I sincerely hope that the Government will be supportive of that amendment, particularly given the Bill’s overall lack of measures and support for the green transition—except, it is worth noting, a welcome change to the Bank of England’s mandate.

Although I welcome the proposed plastic packaging tax, even that illustrates Westminster’s inability adequately to act on the pressing issues facing society across the four nations of the UK. Only days ago it was reported that the much vaunted deposit return scheme has been further delayed until 2024. Having been unnecessarily tied to Westminster inaction on that issue, Wales will by then have waited six years for such a scheme to come to pass. That outcome is made even worse by the Government’s United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, which undermines Welsh efforts to counter plastic pollution, and pales in comparison to Scotland’s ability to deliver a bespoke system by next year.

In conclusion, this Bill fails to correct the flaws in the Government’s pandemic response, fails to live up to their rhetoric on levelling up and fails to match ambitious climate rhetoric with policy action to further the green transition. Instead, the Bill not only reflects the deeply misguided sense that the Treasury knows best when it comes to regional inequality, but misses an opportunity to provide a long-term plan for our post-pandemic recovery.