amendment of the law

Charles Kennedy Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

I wish to deliver a few remarks on the two broad themes that have been outlined for today’s Budget debate—families and communities.

May I add my condolences to those expressed to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn)? I first met his late father when I was at Glasgow university and on a train going to Bristol. He was with the late Eric Heffer. We were in the final of a debating tournament at Bristol, with Eric Heffer as the guest speaker on our side which was against proportional representation—and we won. David Steel, who was on the other side of the argument with the Bristol team, was none too happy about that. The right hon. Gentleman’s father was always very kind to me throughout the following 35 years of respect and, indeed, friendship that we enjoyed.

I have been critical of the welfare cap in the past, and I remain anxious about it. I have opposed the bedroom tax. I share the concerns expressed by the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) about student finance issues, and voted against such provisions earlier in this Parliament. Nevertheless, it would be churlish not to welcome the progress indicated in this Budget as regards families. Looking at the figures from my own constituency, this Budget represents an £800 tax cut for some 27,390 people—a significant achievement. The pensions overhaul is leaving pensioners £650 better off. Alongside the tax-free child care initiatives, that means that both ends of the age spectrum are being addressed. That is the mark of a society heading in the right direction. I think we would all agree that the emblem of a decent society is that it gives a sense of opportunity to people in their youth and a sense of security, dignity and comfort to people at the other end of their lifespan. All those measures are welcome.

I also welcome the measures on fuel duty, which are particularly important in my area of the highlands and islands of Scotland, which, geographically, is the largest constituency in the UK. The cost of fuel permeates everything in an area where the motor vehicle is not a luxury but an absolute necessity, and where, in days gone by, we have seen punitive increases. Fuel prices remain pitched at punitive levels in many parts of the highlands, particularly in the more remote—and therefore, by definition, more vulnerable—communities for whom access to fuel and transport is absolutely fundamental. The fuel duty freeze confirmed by the Chancellor is welcome, although, as he would expect, many of us would argue instead for a real-terms cut, which we would see as social fairness on a UK-wide basis.

When I first started out 31 years ago, the state of the Scotch whisky industry was dire. Distilleries were being mothballed and people were being made unemployed. The industry did not have a long-term, viable global future; it was losing out to the white spirits industry, in particular. An amazing turnaround has taken place, to the extent that there are now plans in progress, in my constituency alone, for the building of two new distilleries —one on the Isle of Skye and one on the Ardnamurchan peninsula. That is a remarkable development. The freezing of the duty on whisky is welcome for this industry, which is vitally important for the well-being of the whole UK economy.

My next point is about start-up support for regional airports. Transport links, and the communications arising from them, are vital to an area such as the highlands and islands. Dalcross, Inverness’s airport, is located in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, but it serves as the hub for us all. He has worked hard on achieving the start-up support that has been announced, which removes red tape on new routes and develops the social and commercial arteries that regional airports are. That must be welcomed, although I would go one step further and give Treasury Ministers a nudge about the developments afoot to reopen the airstrip at Broadford on the Isle of Skye, as we have gone backwards in one respect. Thirty-plus years ago, I could leave central London on a Friday morning, take the British Airways shuttle, as it then was, to Glasgow, connect to a Loganair flight, and be in Portree on the Isle of Skye ready to hold a surgery by Friday lunchtime. Thirty years later, I can no longer do that. Things have gone back in that respect, so if the Government are thinking imaginatively about our airports, I hope they will not just look at existing airports, but consider revitalising some of the airstrips and airports that previously existed and served such a good purpose.

In general I welcome the Budget. Scotland should welcome the Budget. That is a message that those of us who want to keep the United Kingdom better together will convey not just in the House, but across the whole country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Charles Kennedy Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is right to say that wages and salaries suffered their fastest drop between 2007 and 2009, and that drop started in 2004, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) has already admitted. Interestingly, the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury could not answer the question about whether Labour’s calculation of wages and household disposable income includes the tax changes we have made, and therefore does not reflect the fact that we are putting more money into people’s pockets.

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

2. What progress he has made in extending the rural fuel rebate pilot scheme; and if he will make a statement.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)]

I have been asked to reply on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor who is at ECOFIN in Brussels.

On 8 November, the Government launched a supplementary call for information that gave fuel retailers in remote areas a further opportunity to submit information to the Treasury as part of our plan to extend the fuel discount to mainland rural areas. That call for information closed on Friday, although we extended the deadline until yesterday for areas affected by the recent severe weather. We received information from a further 42 filling stations. We are analysing the data at the moment, and will make a full application to Brussels in January.

[Mr Kennedy]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, and for the helpful way his Department and officials have taken account of local factors that have led to such an upsurge in feedback. Does he agree that one of the real lessons of the previous discount scheme and its success is that, despite a lot of scepticism at home at a European level, when we engage positively and constructively with the European Commission—and do so punching our weight as the United Kingdom—we are much more likely to deliver the results our constituents need and want?

[Danny Alexander]

I wholeheartedly agree—as I usually do—with my right hon. Friend about that. It is a statement of fact that British leadership as a strong and committed member of the European Union is hugely to our country’s benefit. The scheme for communities in remote areas across the United Kingdom shows the benefits we get from positive engagement at European level, and that is the way we will take the proposal forward.

Global Economy

Charles Kennedy Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

In the past 12 months. So that is all good news. Where does the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) expect the money to come from for additional Government borrowing? Who in the world would lend to a country that abandoned its deficit reduction plan at a time like this, especially a country such as Britain which, unfortunately, has the highest budget deficit in the G20?

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

Given that we are all still hearing that the banks are not making sufficient funds available to small and medium private enterprises in our constituencies and that that is the fulcrum on which the Government’s strategy has been based to make up the deficit from the loss of jobs in the public sector as a result of the strategy being pursued, and that we now have a downward estimate for growth, what did the Business Secretary mean when he said that we would have to find more imaginative ways of getting the money through? What did he mean by that and does the Chancellor agree?

Amendment of the Law

Charles Kennedy Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

The hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) has had to leave the Chamber, but for reasons that I well appreciate he went to the heart of much of the economic debate since the general election, which has been about whether the pace and depth of the Government’s public expenditure cutting strategy is too far and too fast, and what implications it will have for other indicators. I suspect that that debate will go on for the remainder of this Parliament and for many years into the future.

The hon. Gentleman knows that, as something of an unreconstructed Keynesian myself, I have every sympathy with his side of the argument and have expressed my view on many occasions over the past year about the rapidity and depth of the public expenditure constraint and cutting strategy. None the less, whether or not it is too far and too fast, reading into it quite what he did is too much, too soon. The Government set sail so firmly last year that they and their economic policy are tightly lashed to the mast this year and will remain so in the years ahead. Their consistency of purpose has shown that. The Budget should be seen in that context.

The coalition Government’s economic fate will be sealed in the third to fourth year of the Parliament, when so many of the genuine longer-term implications of the strategy that is being pursued become clear. Despite the views that I have expressed in the Chamber and elsewhere in the past year, it must be acknowledged—I genuinely do so—that, within the severe self-constraints that the Government have imposed, there is much welcome ingenuity in the Budget.

I want to draw particular attention to the continuing pressure and policy direction on income tax personal allowances. I would like to underscore that, because the Liberal Democrats have been wedded to the principle and policy for many years. As a result of the proposals that the Chancellor outlined yesterday, in the financial year 2011-12, more than 1 million people will be lifted out of income tax altogether, and 25 million people will be better off. Women and part-time workers will be the primary beneficiaries of such a policy. I welcome that. Those figures have been verified today by our most authoritative independent source in this place—the House of Commons Library—in an excellent briefing note on the Budget, which has been circulated. It is important to place that on the record and demonstrate that, thanks to the Liberal Democrat input into the coalition Government, social conscience is continuing to be emphasised at the heart of Government policy.

I want to make two specific points from a constituency viewpoint. First, I welcome the fuel policy measures. Some 20 years ago, when Jim Wallace, a long-standing friend, was still a Member of the House, he and I embarked on a series of meetings and visits with the European Commission in Brussels. We were astounded to discover that a derogation was available to member states—it was a much smaller European Union in those days—on fuel policy. For the best part of those two decades, I and many others have hammered away at successive Governments, Conservative and Labour, to pursue such a policy, only to meet, every time, a brick wall. The Treasury hates that sort of thing, and I have no doubt that the Treasury institutionally continues to hate it and is not rubbing its hands with glee at the commitment that was given in the Budget. However, at last, the Government are applying for the scheme, which will be introduced for the most peripheral island communities as a means of lowering fuel prices. That is great.

Having argued for such a policy for nearly 20 years, it would be churlish not to welcome it. I simply make the point that the Government have to start somewhere, and self-defined island communities make sense. Equally, many more remote mainland communities have problems that are not essentially dissimilar, but for obvious reasons of definition, they cannot be included in the scheme. In my area, there are such communities around Lochalsh and Wester Ross. I hope that when the analysis of the scheme is examined, the impact on those areas will not be overlooked and that their continuing needs will be taken into account in the years ahead.

Secondly, the acceleration of the policy on the green investment bank through the Budget is welcome. An increase of £2 billion in the start-up funds that will be available to the bank was announced, and it continues to be a big priority for the Government. I say that because the Kishorn site in Wester Ross, a remote part of the western highlands, is a prime UK site to take advantage of the potential in offshore renewable technology. I have raised that issue many times, and the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Energy and Climate Change are taking a great interest, which I welcome. The impetus that the Government give to the green investment bank will be critical in that respect.

Other aspects of oil policy in the Budget are controversial, but I offer one reflection from my constituency in conclusion. A great concrete platform—a classic historical example—for the North sea was built at Kishorn. To this day it extracts oil, but it was a case of boom and bust. The opportunity from renewables would mean sustained employment in that community, and that technology harvests natural resources, which can continue, essentially, in perpetuity. It is important that the Government continue to emphasise that.

In welcoming those important developments in this week’s Budget, and their potential impact on the economy, social fairness and areas such as mine, I hope that we can look forward to continuing resolve from the Government.