Budget Resolutions

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

He’s not listening.

[Nick Smith]

He isn’t, is he?

Have the Government assessed whether the independent financial adviser provision close to these steelworks has the capacity to deal with the demand? If it has not, can the Pensions Advisory Service help if there is a problem? Now that the FCA has visited Port Talbot, have the Government received evidence of financial sharks at the site, so that action can be taken? Given that these stories have broken so close to the deadline, do the Government think that the deadline is now appropriate and has any consideration been given to its possible delay? These pension law changes look set to provide a Treasury income stream for the years ahead, but there is a duty of care on us to make sure that this freedom of choice is backed up with guidance and support for these workers. Otherwise, I am afraid for the future of poorly advised steelworkers across the UK for the years ahead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

What we have seen over the past 24 hours is a great unravelling of the announcements made from the Dispatch Box yesterday. The £44 billion that was going to fund 300,000 extra houses was not £44 billion in extra spending. According to the OBR, it was £15 billion. The £1.2 billion promised to Wales—there was great fanfare from the Secretary of State for Wales—was not £1.2 billion: £1 billion of that was for capital projects, and 66% of it has to be repaid to London. The OBR said the £3 billion for stamp duty will see only an extra 3,500 new people buying houses for the first time—that is £900,000 per house. There is a great unravelling, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) said, once the Sunday newspapers have crawled all over these statistics over the next two or three days, we will see further unravelling over the weekend.

I turn to Wales and the capital projects that could have gone ahead but are not going ahead. The Tories have already let us down on rail electrification from Cardiff to Swansea. They had a chance to redeem themselves by announcing the go-ahead for the tidal lagoon. The Chancellor spoke about new British technologies. We had a chance of leading the way in the whole world on tidal lagoons. Six are planned for the UK, and four of those would be in Wales. The Government patently made no announcement yesterday and let down the people of Wales.

There was an announcement yesterday on the north Wales growth fund—negotiations will begin. Well, can I inform Ministers that those negotiations started three years ago? On a cross-party basis, Tory MPs, Plaid Cymru MPs and Labour MPs in north Wales went to see the former Chancellor, George Osborne, last year. They have also been to see other Ministers. Yet, all we get is talks about talks about talks. What we want in north Wales is delivery on the north Wales growth fund. We have had the city growth programme in England and in Wales. What we want in north Wales is investment in our community.

The biggest let-down yesterday was that the Government had a chance to end the pay freeze that has frozen this country and this economy over the past seven years. That has had an effect on people from all walks of life. Some 20% of police officers have lost their jobs as a result of a lack of investment in public services. Teachers have lost £5,000 on average over the past 10 years because of the pay freeze.

Then we have the debacle of universal credit. Food banks in my constituency are running out of food because there is compassion fatigue and because there is so much austerity. We have had seven years of austerity, and all we got promised is another five years of austerity. The people do not want more misery; they want a growing economy, and all the indicators point the other way.

The Local Government Association said in its briefing yesterday that there was not one mention of replacement EU funds. Some £8.4 billion a year comes from Europe into the UK. Wales is the biggest beneficiary of EU funds, and the Brexiteers on the Government Benches—I presume there are one or two left here—made proud proclamations in Wales that it would not suffer as a result of Brexit. Wales has been given £3 billion every seven years, but after 2020 that money will not be there, and there will be no tail-off funding. There are no guarantees of funding for Welsh local authorities and universities to tap into.

The Government announced that £28 million would be made available for three pilot projects on rough sleeping, in Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, but there is no need for a pilot project. We know what works, because Labour did it in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It got rid of rough sleeping by putting people in proper accommodation and looking after their needs. As has been said today, rough sleeping has gone up by 100% in the past seven years. This is a missed opportunity.

Yesterday’s Budget did not deliver on the economy or on equality, and it did not deliver a vision. All it delivered was letting the Chancellor stay on his life support machine for an extra six months to a year.