Oral Answers to Questions

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

On a recent visit, I was pleased to see for myself that my hon. Friend is a great champion for his constituents. I was very pleased to see the thriving local technology and manufacturing industry, which will help us deliver on our ambitions to make the UK a science and technology superpower. He is right that we have a record 1 million fewer workless households, and unemployment near record lows. He is also right that we need to stick to the plan, because that is how we will deliver the long-term change that our country needs and a brighter future for families up and down the country, including in his constituency.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Q11. Hypocrisy needs to be called out. Everyone in this House will recall the former Irish Prime Minister in Brussels with a photograph of a bombed customs post, lamenting that any border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was unworkable, in breach of the Belfast agreement and could result in such troubles again. The hypocrisy of the Irish Government position has not been not lost on us, with the Irish police now tasked to patrol the border to protect from the unsubstantiated, unfounded 80% of asylum seekers who supposedly—actually, the reverse is true—make their way to the Republic of Ireland from the UK via Northern Ireland. Will the Prime Minister challenge and call out those actions, and confirm what representations he has made to the Irish Prime Minister and the Irish Justice Minister about the integrity of our UK border?

[The Prime Minister]

The House will be aware that we have made commitments to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. The hon. Lady makes a very important point that the Irish Government must uphold their promises, too. We cannot have cherry-picking of important international agreements. The Secretary of State is seeking urgent clarification that there will be no disruption or police checkpoints at or near the border. I can confirm that the United Kingdom has no legal obligation to accept returns of illegal migrants from Ireland. It is no surprise that our robust approach to illegal migration is providing a deterrent, but the answer is not to send police to villages in Donegal but to work with us in partnership to strengthen our external borders all around the common travel area that we share.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

There is much to be welcomed in this Budget, but as we have found time and again, when we delve into the detail after listening to the rosy rhetoric from the Dispatch Box, some of the gloss comes off the picture that has been painted.

Let us look at some of the detail in this Budget. I welcome many of the measures that the Government have indicated, but although they quite rightly say that they want to give people an incentive to get back to work, we find that the personal income tax take over the next two years will be going up by nearly 20% because many people are being dragged into the tax regime—the allowances are not being changed, so they are going into a higher tax bracket. That is hardly an incentive for people to work.

We are told that the Government want to help businesses to invest, so £9 billion will be given in tax allowances to attract investment, yet according to the OBR forecast the increase in corporation tax will be twice as much. The Government want to help small businesses, and there have been announcements about various hon. Members’ high street schemes, yet the take from business rates will increase by 25% over the next two years. Overall tax receipts across the economy will go up by 10% in the next two years, but that is not due to economic growth—in fact, we expect growth to be negative in the first year and to be about 1.8% in the second.

The real tax burden on households, on businesses and on the economy is increasing. The Chancellor made much of the fact that he wants to help firms with energy costs, yet we find that the costs placed on high-energy users by the emissions trading scheme are going up from £1 billion to £6 billion. We already know the result: many businesses in energy-intensive industries are simply going overseas.

The Government cannot tax their way to growth. When we look at the rhetoric and then look at the detail, we find that rather than being a Budget for growth, this is a Budget that will impede growth. If we are to finance public services, get our debt down and finance our debt, and if we are to make people better off, we have to grow the economy, so let us look at the detail before we give a blanket welcome to this Budget.

I happen to belong to a party that believes that low taxation is the best way of growing an economy. It is right that we allow people and businesses to spend their money as they see fit and make the wise decisions that they believe will suit them, rather than the state making those decisions where that can be avoided. Of course, we have to spend money on essential services; for example, at this time of geopolitical turbulence in Ukraine and other parts of the world, I support the increase in defence spending. I think it is right that a country is prepared to defend itself and has the ability to do so.

As a supporter of FairFuelUK, I am pleased that the Chancellor has taken the wise decision to freeze fuel duty again. It is a way of reducing inflation and a way of helping small businesses and consumers who are finding that the increase in the cost of living is hurting their pockets, and, of course, it helps to reduce costs in places such as Northern Ireland which are heavily dependent on supplies being delivered by, for instance, lorries.

I agreed with what was said by the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) about the childcare proposals. They will help, and no doubt they will be welcomed by many childcare providers and users, but I know from my experience in Northern Ireland that there are many places where it is not possible to buy in childcare from the bodies that have been set up. In many cases the allowance does not cover the cost, and families find themselves still out of pocket. There is not enough flexibility when the Government finance this, because people are relying on there being a network in the local area.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The proposals are certainly welcome for England, but would it not have been more sensible to introduce a tax-free allowance increase to help families throughout the United Kingdom with children older than between three and five? Childcare does not stop at the age of five.

[Sammy Wilson]

As the hon. Member for North East Hampshire said, a tax-free allowance provides much more flexibility in the system, and I agree that that would have been a better way of dealing with the issue.