Budget Resolutions

Callum McCaig Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the previous Parliament, the Opposition opposed every single reform made by the then Government, and they have also opposed all the reforms of the current Government. They call our approach austerity; I call it living within one’s means. We have to take the difficult decisions. Judging by the £30 billion black hole in the Opposition’s counter-proposals, however, they have forgotten the mistakes of the past.

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

While talking about the need to balance the books, the hon. Gentleman made a bizarre analogy comparing the country with a family. When he is sitting at the dinner table, can he raise interest rates, print money and quantitatively ease? His analogy is completely and utterly defunct.

[Graham Evans]

I did not catch the hon. Gentleman’s final word, but I use that analogy because when I was at school we used to have home economics, and we have to make difficult decisions at home. I was merely making the point that we all have difficult decisions to make. That analogy applies not only to families throughout the country, but to the Government. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not feel it is a good analogy. Perhaps I shall wait to hear his speech and comment on it.

I welcome the Chancellor’s steps to return balance to the country’s finances and to continue the Government’s commitment to take the lowest earners out of tax altogether by raising the personal allowance to £11,500. I sat on the Work and Pensions Committee in the previous Parliament, when the Government’s mantra was helping to make work pay. That is the right course of action to take.

I come to a subject that is very close to my heart, and I declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party group on beer. I welcome the relief of £1,000 for pubs with a rateable value of less than £100,000, which will benefit 90% of pubs. I also welcome the discretionary fund, which enables local authorities to make awards to businesses in their areas on a case-by-case basis. However, I am somewhat disappointed about the inflationary rise in beer duty, which is now 43% higher than it was a decade ago, 13 times higher than the rate in Germany, and significantly higher than those of our major brewing neighbours in Europe. None the less, the Government do have a proud track record of three reductions in beer duty, a beer duty freeze and the removal of the hated beer duty escalator. Although I welcome the introduction of duty bands to target high alcohol-by-volume white ciders to encourage responsible drinking, it is important to remember that 70% of the drinks bought in pubs are beer.

The current bracket for reduced-rate beer sits at 1.2% to 2.8% ABV. However, current HMRC duty receipts demonstrate that, in the six years since the policy was introduced, such beer represents just 0.15% of the market. I know that the Minister will be aware of the cross-industry campaign to split general beer duty rate into two tiers— 2.8% to 3.5%, and 3.5% to 7.5%—and to reduce the duty rate for 3.5% ABV beers, which have much less alcohol in them than the UK average and are highly drinkable for UK consumers. I hope that we can work together on this matter over the coming month to encourage a broader selection of lower strength beers to become part of the norm in UK drinking culture. I will be encouraging the industry to step up to the plate with lower strength beers that can be drunk and enjoyed in the great British pub.

This Government have a plan to build an economy that works for everyone, and the Budget continues with that plan by building on the foundation of our fundamental economic strength. It makes sure that our economy remains strong so that we can properly fund our public services, it helps ordinary working families to make ends meet, and it makes it clear that Britain is open for business.

--- Later in debate ---

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

As the Scottish National party’s spokesperson on business, energy and industrial strategy, may I too admonish my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) for missing Business questions this morning? Nevertheless, I agree wholeheartedly with what he says on whisky duty, national insurance and WASPI women. I will come on to talk about national insurance contributions in a moment.

The Budget was dressed up as something a little bit different and a little bit bland. It really was bland, but parts of it did not ring true. The Chancellor seemed to think he could demonstrate that Tory austerity has not been felt most keenly by those who do not have the means to bear it. That may be true if we look at it in a very narrow sense—the top 10% of earners, when all things are taken into consideration, have borne a slightly greater share—but the lowest three deciles have borne a similar percentage decline in their income as a result of the Government’s policies. It may be easy to say that those in the top decile have taken the greatest hit, but the reality is that a 1% or 2% fall in income will mean considerably more to those in the bottom three deciles than it will for those in the top 10%.

The Chancellor said in his Budget speech:

“As a result of the changes we have made since 2010, the top 1% of income tax payers now pay 27% of all income tax”.—[Official Report, 8 March 2017; Vol. 622, c. 813.]

He wears that as a badge of pride, but that is not an indication of a fair society. It is the very opposite and it demonstrates that we live in an incredibly unfair society where 27% of income tax is being paid by 1% of the population. That is because they earn, unjustifiably, more than the rest of the population. That is not a badge of honour; that should be a badge of shame for this Government.

We have heard talk about how the Government want to use technical education and reforms in the Budget to put entrepreneurship and technical skills at the heart of the British economy, yet the single key announcement in the Budget was the change to national insurance contributions for the self-employed. They are the entrepreneurs. They are the folks with the technical skills we need in our economy. As we have heard from Member after Member today, those people do not enjoy the same benefits and protections enjoyed by those of us who are employed. That is why they deserve a differential in terms of their national insurance contributions. To dress this up as anything other than a naked tax grab is entirely disingenuous. This will not help our economy and it is coming at precisely the worst time. It must not just be stopped, but cancelled entirely.

The most disappointing aspect of the Budget for me was the utter silence on the energy challenges we as a country face. Next to nothing was said on renewables. There was nothing on how we decarbonise our economy. There was nothing on how we tap the massive potential in Scotland, particularly in our rural communities. There was nothing on how we can get contracts for difference for our island communities or how we tap the massive potential of our tidal streams. We heard nothing on the implementation of carbon capture and storage, which we will need if we are going to be able to afford, in both a financial and technical sense, to meet the carbon budgets we as a Parliament agreed.

[Hannah Bardell]

rose—

[Callum McCaig]

I will not give way, as others still wish to speak.

The privatisation of the Green Investment Bank is pushing ahead at precisely the wrong time. As part of this, I hope that the Government will reflect on the challenges they face and cancel that sale.

Oil and gas has raised its head as an issue, given the changing dynamic in Scottish political debate. In 2014, the then Prime Minister promised Scotland a £200 billion oil bonanza if we voted no. He told us that the industry relied on the broad shoulders of this United Kingdom. Well, those shoulders have barely shrugged in defence of the 65,000 people, many of them in my constituency, who have lost their jobs while the Government have been asleep at the wheel.

I and my party will take no lectures from folks over there on the oil and gas industry. We have seen an absolute dereliction of duty; the Government have been asleep at the wheel. This Budget provided an opportunity to right that wrong, but what did the Government do? Did they come forward with the exploration incentives that the industry needs? No, they did not. They simply reheated a previous commitment from the last Budget and said that they would set up a discussion group. Frankly, that is not good enough. When people are losing their jobs, it is not enough to sit down and have a chat over a cup of tea. An independent Scotland would undoubtedly have acted; it would have acted swiftly and decisively to save these people’s jobs.

National College for Wind Energy

Callum McCaig Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) on securing the debate and on putting forward a compelling case for why the proposals for the college should go ahead. I am not going to get involved in the discussion about whether it should be in Great Grimsby or Cleethorpes, largely because I do not know what I am talking about when it comes to that—not that that has ever stopped me in the past.

Education is devolved in Scotland, so that side of the debate has no implications for Scotland. However, the industrial side of things, including the ability to provide the marketplace with enough skilled folk, very much resonates with Scotland. Energy policy, which is a reserved matter, also has an impact on the general attractiveness of the whole United Kingdom as a destination for investment in renewable energy. In the past few weeks, we have slipped further down the Ernst and Young rankings for countries with renewable energy attractiveness—from 13th to 14th—after not being out of the top 10 for a decade or so. That is regrettable.

I will not talk about the educational merits. National colleges are not a model that we have used in Scotland; our investment is through existing educational providers. However, I will talk about the message sent to the investment community, young people and the whole industry by announcing something like the college and then not funding it once it has gone ahead. This is another of the substantial number of announcements that the Government have made in the realms of renewable energy that have been unhelpful and that have probably added to the UK’s diminished investment attractiveness.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby mentioned that it was unfortunate—I do not think that that was her exact word, as it is probably worse than that—that the Department for Energy and Climate Change has been abolished. I share that frustration. The justification for abolishing the Department was to put industrial strategy back into the political lexicon. Well, taking climate change out of the political lexicon was particularly short-sighted. The biggest challenge facing us as a species perhaps deserves a bit of recognition by the Government.

I understand the argument made by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) about the synergies that can be created by bringing the two Government Departments together. Unfortunately, it does not sound as though those synergies are working well, if the hon. Member for Great Grimsby cannot get a response to a letter for several months. I have also found that letters are going unanswered, and colleagues in the Scottish Government are having incredible difficulty getting proper information out of the new Department. We all understand that putting new Departments together takes time and will cause confusion for a while. We also understand that Brexit is eating up an awful lot of the Government’s time—for their thought process and to think about what can be done—but there is a day job that needs to be done properly, particularly when it comes to the investment and skills for vital industries that have a four-year lead-in time, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby mentioned.

The joined-up approach that is supposed to come from BEIS needs to come quickly, and the college is a particular example of where that could happen. The proposal is on the table. Put the money into it. Provide that incentive for others—a vote of confidence in an industry that will require significant investment in skills. We have huge question marks on the electricity supply in this country, which will get harder as a result of Brexit.

I am interested by the TUC’s argument, which the hon. Member for Great Grimsby mentioned, on adding the skills shortage as a fourth pillar of the trilemma. I have not previously heard that argument, but I think it is key. We have teased out that there are skills shortages in this area. Can the Minister provide us with more up-to-date figures on the skills shortage in the renewable energy industry, particularly in offshore wind? The problem is not going to get any easier with the expected restrictions to free movement of labour as a result of the Brexit process. As well as failing to attract folks from Germany or Denmark, whom the hon. Member for Cleethorpes mentioned, we are already losing skilled personnel from the industry. Skilled people are losing their jobs in the onshore wind sector—there are clearly significant synergies between onshore wind and offshore wind—because of the Government’s lack of investment.

The hon. Members for Great Grimsby and for Cleethorpes both touched on this but if I have one plea on the development of an industrial strategy, it is that Government expenditure, particularly in areas of deprivation—the Humber is not an area I know well, but I understand that there are issues of historical unemployment—boost the economy and provide long-term economic and societal benefits. Money spent by this Government need not just be seen as money going out the door; it needs to be seen as an investment in the future and in communities that need help from their Government for whatever reason. There will be a return on that investment. There will be a benefit if we invest, as a country, in areas such as Great Grimsby and in technologies and industries such as offshore and onshore wind. If we do not do those things, either the jobs will go unfilled or we will have to bring people in from Germany, Denmark or wherever. Electricity will still be needed if we do not build onshore or offshore wind, but we will get it from Norway, France or Holland.

Let us think about a joined-up approach, as BEIS is meant to do. If we invest in skills and provide certainty that we will build x amount of offshore wind and y amount of onshore wind, the money, the jobs and the energy security will follow. It is a pretty simple proposition, but it is one that the Government must get right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Callum McCaig Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am sure the hon. Lady will welcome the fact that under this Government the gender pay gap has fallen to its lowest since records began. Of course there is still much more to do, and at the heart of that is the fact that we will always require a strong economy, so I hope she will support tomorrow’s Budget.

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

2. What steps he is taking to help businesses increase their exports.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovations and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)]

We are mobilising the whole of Government to improve the UK’s export performance. A refocused UKTI will be at the centre of a co-ordinated approach and relevant Departments will share their expertise to get British businesses exporting.

[Callum McCaig]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but the reality is that the UK export story is one of declining market share in the global market. Does the Secretary of State agree with the assessment of the British Chambers of Commerce, and will he accept its calls for urgent and practical support for UK businesses to export?

[Sajid Javid]

What I do accept is that more needs to be done to get British businesses exporting. That includes the work of UKTI, but it also means that all Government Departments have a role to play. For example, UKTI works with the Great British Food Unit, an operation started by DEFRA. So I think a lot of Government can get behind exports by working more closely together.