Income Tax (Charge)

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab) [V]]

This was a Budget for politics, not economics—a way of polishing the Chancellor’s image and that of his party. In the real world, key workers face the real-terms cut of a pay freeze. Households face a council tax hike, and businesses with zero revenues face loan repayments when they needed an overhaul of business rates.

The OBR has confirmed that the UK had the worst economic performance of any major country and that the approach to the public health crisis made the economic crisis worse. We have had longer lockdowns because of delays going into lockdown; £22 billion on the failed outsourcing of test and trace; cronyism in contracting for unusable personal protective equipment; hopelessly inadequate self-isolation payments and sick pay; delays in announcing and extending furlough and self-employment support; and repeatedly slow decision making by the Government. Those things have played their part in the scale of the dual health and economic crises we face.

Shamefully, yesterday’s Budget offered precious little to the millions of people—owner-managers, pregnant women and freelancers—excluded from support throughout, including Alison Powell in my constituency, who was denied support because her tax return showed £10 more income in employment than while self-employed. Meanwhile, countless others who filed tax returns for 2019-20 had to wait a whole year to qualify for any support. Unfortunately, previous Conservative announcements have not matched the price of the headlines: only 13 jobs are created by kickstart each day, while 292 are lost; just 2,500 homes benefit from green housing grants, against the stated target of 600,000; and self-isolation payments are denied to seven out of eight people. It is no wonder that only three in 10 people self-isolate when asked to do so. Work on rail for the north has been announced 60 times, and 60 times it has been forgotten.

Will the announcements from yesterday deliver on Conservative promises? Will they be more than headline-grabbing gimmicks, which will be quickly forgotten when the Chancellor’s shiny caravan of self-promotion moves on? The country needed a Budget for jobs and recovery. The planet needed investment in low-carbon industries. Instead, the Government showed their lack of commitment by scrapping the industrial strategy council. The Chancellor is ambitious, yes, but he is ambitious for himself. Yesterday’s Budget promises may have given the Chancellor’s brand a short-term boost, but the lack of long-term investment does not match the scale of the challenge that we face.