Budget Resolutions

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will keep this as brief as I can.

This Budget demonstrates the decisions that the Government have taken since 2010 that have allowed 800 jobs to be created every day for 14 years—and there is a self-respect that people get with a job. The furlough scheme protected 11.7 million of those jobs. Job creation and preservation means that we do not need to take away money from public services to deliver tax cuts to hard-working people. It also shows that the Conservatives can be trusted with public money, and will reverse high taxes on the individual, while spending record amounts on public services. 5.That is taking back control of our money.

The Budget included £2.45 billion for the NHS for 2025, which will help to cut waiting times. I visited Hereford County Hospital a fortnight ago. The chief executive proudly outlined some of the hospital’s achievements, including a new diagnostics centre and a planned training suite—part of the transformation to improve staff training in Hereford, as well as ensure better outcomes for patients. It was not a message of misery at all. However, the NHS should continue to focus on staff training. More training places have been created at the University of Worcester. Having highly trained staff increases performance and reduces the need for agency staff, which is the cost we should focus on. Perhaps the NHS needs golden handcuffs. Healthcare professionals work in a global market, so the taxpayer, who trains new entrants, ought to have some hope of payback post graduation, and entrants should be discouraged from relocating elsewhere, such as Canada.

Speaking of waiting lists, perhaps GPs should be paid according to the number of people they see. The system is currently based on the number of patients on the books. There is a guideline for the amount of time the GP should spend with each patient, but doctors understand that people sometimes need considerably longer. I do not think recommending that they see only 25 patients a day is the way forward. In Herefordshire, GPs believe they could be paid according to the number of people they see. I hope the Minister will pilot such a scheme to prove that waiting lists can be cut by primary care activity, although we will have to pay for that extra effort.

In 2023, the number of small boat arrivals was 36% less than the year before, and there was 17% less asylum applications, so the plan is working. We should be thinking about reducing the cost of border enforcement and the cost of processing asylum claims. In Leominster, the Talbot Hotel is no longer being used to house asylum seekers. I have written to the local authority stating my support for the compulsory purchase of that hotel and the Royal Oak to boost local tourism. We need to see our hotels filled with tourists who pay to visit.

We should look carefully at the issue of paying the French to stop the crossings. We have pledged millions to support that, but when the Rwanda scheme is under way, it should deter crossings; perhaps we will not need to pay the money to the French. We must ensure that the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill is passed. I was dismayed to learn that Labour peers blocked the Bill. Some 64 migrants have died in the English channel since 2018. Every day that goes by is another day someone could die in the channel. If the Lords continue to block the Bill, the House should consider looking at elements of the Human Rights Act. I wonder how their Lordships will feel—or indeed how asylum applicants will feel—as migrants drown. Human rights are not much use if you are dead, so it is important that we deliver on the will of the people by stopping the boats. We do not need to leave the European Court of Human Rights, but we do need to say that we will no longer allow illegal channel crossers to be eligible for asylum. The ECHR can sling us out if it wants, but I do not believe that it will, just as it did not when we stopped prisoners voting. We need to protect innocent asylum seekers from being put at risk by people traffickers before more lives are lost.

On agriculture and the environment, English farmers are sore, but not in the same way as Welsh, Belgian, Dutch or French farmers, or all the EU farmers who blockade EU buildings and burn bales on the motorway. We need to support British farmers through tax breaks instead of grants. The recent announcement of a £427 million grant for farming is welcome, but tax breaks are a more efficient and better tool for food production. Such grants do not allow farmers to buy the second-hand machinery they want, but tax breaks do.

We could save more money by merging the Environment Agency and Natural England. Those organisations are responsible for a great deal of pressure on the mental health of farmers. We need to look at their scope and cut the number of suicides in agriculture. In my constituency, there have been six such suicides. On average, there are three suicides in the agricultural industry each week. That is far too high, so taking the pressure off farmers would be a tremendous step forward.

I am delighted by the 8.5% increase for pensions to match the triple lock. We need clever pension policy that covers not just old age, but care. We need to think about the way we pay the state pension and ensure that it is not taxed. We need to look at the furnished holiday lets tax breaks too, because holiday lets cause a great deal of unrest in the countryside. We understand insurance, pensions, care and funding, but do not seem to be able to manage the whole lot when we put them together. We need to do better as we get older to deliver on all our ambitions to help our children, to save money in case we need long-term care, and to deliver peace of mind to pensioners worrying about those challenges.

On transport, the Government’s recent reallocation of funds from High Speed 2 has been a resounding success; it is an example of the Government’s plan working. In Herefordshire alone, we have received £106 million in additional funding for road resurfacing, and £101 million for local transport. That funding has been reallocated from HS2, which people could be forgiven for forgetting that I voted against in 2013. This shows how public funds can be used strategically to deliver public goods without increasing the tax burden.

I have had my allocation of time. The Government have done a great deal of good, reversing the damage that covid did. Inflation, the cost of living and national insurance are down. Only electricity suppliers, such as Scottish Power, continue to prey on people; I hope Ofgem will investigate that. If we are united and stick together, we can show that our plan is working, and that there is a brighter future for us all.