Income tax (charge)

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The right hon. Lady makes an excellent point, as ever. The reality is that, because of social distancing, it might well be desirable to have more space between people so that they can keep some distance. Yes, that absolutely needs to be taken into account as we consider the timetabling.

We will get through this crisis together as a nation. Working in this great national effort, we will ensure that we come through on the other side and provide hope for all our citizens. The Budget shows that we are serious about the pledges we have made and about the trust that the electorate put in us only three months ago. We intend to deliver on those infrastructure pledges.

The Department for Transport has already been working hard to deliver on those pledges. For example, in recent weeks we have taken decisive action to improve journeys for millions of Northern rail commuters by putting the franchise into the operator of last resort. We have announced plans to extend discounted train travel to more than 830,000 veterans. The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), has kickstarted work on reversing the Beeching cuts, which have so blighted the nation in decades past and prevented people from being interconnected. In January we announced the preferred route for the east-west rail link that will connect Oxford and Cambridge, which will increase access to jobs and make it easier and cheaper to travel, creating a region that has been dubbed the UK’s silicon valley. We are not only making journeys more efficient and easier; we are also making them cleaner. We are consulting on bringing forward the end of fossil fuel cars and vans to 2035, or earlier if practical. We are taking enormous steps forward.

The Chancellor has delivered a Budget that includes some of the most ambitious infrastructure programmes seen since the 1950s. It will help to level up this country. Infrastructure that is unreliable, overcrowded and no longer fit for purpose acts as a drag anchor on our entire economy. When it is efficient and gets people where they need to be, it can turn around the fortunes of our towns and cities. With interest rates at an historic low, now is the time to get Britain building.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend knows, I am pressing for a better deal for the Isle of Wight. What are the criteria for the levelling up agenda? The Island is part of the wealthy south-east, but our economy has more in common with the north, or indeed with parts of east Devon and Cornwall, so what does levelling up look like for us? Is it part of the funding settlement or is it infrastructure projects?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As many Members across the House will know, people often think that just because a constituency is in a certain part of the country—the south-east in his case—it must be enormously prosperous. Many of us represent enormously deprived communities, perhaps just an individual ward, within an otherwise prosperous area, so it is very important that the criteria for levelling up take that all into account. That is why the Green Book is being rewritten as a result of last week’s Budget. We look forward to hearing more about that in due course.

With interest rates at an historic low, it is time to get Britain building. That is why the Chancellor set out plans to inject £640 billion by 2024-25 into roads, railways, hospitals, broadband, housing and research, to modernise the fabric of our country, turbo-charge our economy—perhaps to electrically charge our economy —and get every single region of the UK growing, not matter where it is.