Budget Resolutions
Debate between Clive Betts and Meg Hillier
Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend raises an important point. It is a matter of concern when too many free schools do not fill their places and in many cases are not required to pay back to the Government—indeed to the taxpayer—for those empty spaces. Some 46 secondary free schools—a fifth or 21% of the total—are in local authority areas in which no new capacity is needed up to 2020. Free school places are also much more expensive than places provided by local authorities, mainly because of the land purchasing that the EFA is pursuing.
A place in a primary free school opening in 2014-15 cost an average of £14,400—a third more than one created by a local authority through a more planned programme. A place in a secondary free school cost £19,100, 50% more than a local authority place. Taxpayers’ money is being overspent, and it is not delivering results. We have seen a number of failures of free schools, and we have seen free schools undersubscribed. In Suffolk, for instance, more than half the total number of places in three free schools have not been filled. Two schools in Greater Manchester are also having problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) mentioned Collective Spirit, which is set to be broken up because of educational and financial failings.
In Hackney, what has worked is good leadership, good education and committed pupils and parents. The structure of a school is much less important than those things. However, spending this amount of money on a hell-for-leather delivery of 500 schools, a numerical target that must be met by 2020 whatever the cost, is not sensible, and spending money on selective free schools—grammar schools—on top of that beggars belief.
Business rates are a big issue in my inner London constituency. There were more than 10,000 signatures to a petition from small businesses throughout east London that we presented to Downing Street yesterday. Those businesses are concerned about the impact of business rate increases of up to 250%. It is very difficult for someone who is running a bike shop, a coffee shop or a small jewellery company to increase prices to cover such overheads. The reliefs are welcome, but we need to know more about the long-term review and what it will mean for businesses. One year of relief will do no more than stave off problems and save them up for the future.
The problem is that the Government have banked that money in their local government settlement, and councils cannot then reduce business rates themselves. There is no magic pot of money, and they did not see this coming. In our area, we are proud of our diverse high streets with their many small independent businesses. More than 96% of businesses in my constituency employ fewer than six people, and most employ only one or two. Because they are so small, the business rate increases are a real issue for them.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is right: these measures may be welcome, but they are temporary. The Government have said that they will compensate local authorities for any loss of income resulting from the changes. Will the Public Accounts Committee try to ensure that the compensation does not last for only one year or two years, but is permanently built into the system?
Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend has raised a very important point. In the coming weeks, the Public Accounts Committee will be looking into the proposal for retention of business rates, and how effective and efficient that would be. I will keep my hon. Friend and other Members informed, because this is a cross-party issue that concerns many of us. I welcome the changes, but I worry that they do not go far enough and that there may be hidden costs.
The Chancellor mentioned tax, but I was disappointed that he did not say whether the Government would be considering tax reliefs. The Public Accounts Committee does a fair amount of work on tax, as does the Treasury Committee. There are many tax reliefs out there that cost more than was budgeted for them, some of which lie fallow in the system for too long without challenge. When we have challenged HMRC to publish its list of reliefs, it has been very reluctant to do so. We find that extraordinary, because transparency would enable effective and serious change to take place. It is possible that, quite often, industries, individuals and companies point out that some of the tax reliefs are no longer fit for purpose. I believe that the black beer tax relief, which had been on the statute book for more than 100 years, was dropped only recently. Perhaps that is the pace at which some of these matters are considered, and perhaps we should urge the Government to think a bit faster about whether tax reliefs are delivering what they set out to deliver.
The Chancellor talked a great deal about the security and dignity of people at work. I echo what some of my hon. Friends have said about the impact on the self-employed, of whom there are a large number in my constituency, but I was particularly disappointed that the Chancellor did not refer to people in low-paid, part-time jobs. Many of them want to work more hours, but their employers do not create full-time jobs because of disincentives in the tax system and, in particular, the national insurance system.
Those people, many of whom are doing multiple part-time jobs, are at the difficult end of the scale. They are working hard, and they are paying tax because they are over the threshold, so they do not receive free benefits such as dental care. They are struggling to survive: “just about managing” barely covers it. They find it very hard to reach the next rung of the ladder. I think that it behoves the Treasury to have a close look at that situation, and I intend to take it up with the Minister outside the Chamber.
The national living wage is very welcome in my constituency, but we do need to look at the knock-on effects. It is already causing huge challenges—for example, in delivering social care. I hope the Treasury is working across government to look at how it can ameliorate the impact on the costs of provision in some sectors.
This is not a Budget that is really on the side of ordinary people, because of the impact on the self-employed, the lack of action on the lowest paid, the smoke and mirrors on funding for the NHS and social care, and the facts that there are too many short-term cash injections into the NHS, that it is not looking at the evidence before injecting more money into programmes like the free school programme and that there are no measures to support stability in low-paid jobs. The Budget therefore leaves many questions unanswered. In particular, there is the fact that, as many Members have pointed out, the Chancellor did not really address the elephant in the room: how will Brexit affect our economy and what measures will he take at the Treasury to make sure he provides a buffer?