Danny Alexander
Main Page: Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)Department Debates - View all Danny Alexander's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years, 11 months ago)
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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.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
17. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that those who will benefit from the rural fuel rebate scheme will also benefit from the Chancellor’s freeze on fuel duty? What benefits in pence per litre will that bring to rural people, compared with the Labour party’s plans?
Danny Alexander
It is noteworthy that no one from the Labour Benches wanted to comment on cutting fuel duty in remote and rural areas. I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend, and by the end of this Parliament, motorists will be paying 20p a litre less every time they fill up their tank than they would have paid had Labour’s fuel duty escalator been allowed to go forward.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
4. What steps he has taken to increase infrastructure investment.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
6. What steps he has taken to increase infrastructure investment.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
Average annual investment in infrastructure has risen to £45 billion per year under this Government, compared with just £41 billion during the last five years of the previous Government. Last week we published an updated national infrastructure plan that set out our long-term plan for meeting those ambitions for the next decade and beyond. That included a pipeline of £375 billion-worth of projects, building on the announcements we made in June.
Nicola Blackwood
I thank the Chief Secretary for his answer. Does he agree that investing in strategic roads such as the A34 in my constituency can be key to unlocking vital growth and inward investment in priority sectors? Will he investigate the economic case for urgent investment in the A34?
Danny Alexander
I agree about the importance of the A34, which is why, through the national pinch-point programme announced in the 2011 autumn statement, we committed to a scheme to improve links between the A34 and the M40. Work on that scheme will start in March, and I am sure the hon. Lady will agree that it will make a significant difference to the economy in her part of the country.
Andrew Selous
Does the Chief Secretary agree that if we are to compete internationally it is essential that we build our infrastructure more quickly? Over the past decade or so, progress has been glacially slow. In my constituency, the A5-M1 link road was announced 10 years ago, in 2003, and a shovel has yet to hit the ground.
Danny Alexander
I agree very much with my hon. Friend, and that is why part of our national infrastructure plan last week included further improvements to the planning system for major infrastructure projects. The A5-M1 link road has been prioritised as a key project and I understand that funding was announced last year and work will start next spring.
Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Is the Chief Secretary aware that figures from the Office for National Statistics show that infrastructure work, since this Government came to power, has dropped by 15%? Given its importance as a motor for growth, why is he now planning to cut it yet again in 2015?
Danny Alexander
I gave the figures for investment in infrastructure in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood). We set them out in our national infrastructure plan and, what is more, with public and private investment taken together over the next decade or so, we have a pipeline of £375 billion-worth of projects. This is the first time that this country has had a serious long-term plan for investing in infrastructure. If the hon. Gentleman believes in the long-term health of the British economy, he should support our national infrastructure plan, not criticise it.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Can the Chief Secretary confirm that the cost of High Speed 2 has increased by £10 billion under this Government, and can he tell the House when he will get a grip on the costs of this huge infrastructure project?
Danny Alexander
I do not recognise those figures. Back in the spending round in June, I set a cap on the costs of HS2 at £42.6 billion. We intend that it will be delivered substantially under that budget. The question for Labour Members is whether they support this project or not. Frankly, given the enormous benefits it will provide for cities across the north, Labour Members should support the scheme, not constantly undermine it.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to establish the great eastern main line taskforce, so can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that in this era of record capital spending on infrastructure he will look favourably on investing in measures that the taskforce proposes?
Danny Alexander
I certainly will. I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned assiduously for this, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright) and many other Members in that part of the country, and the ambition that the taskforce has set out is a good one. It is very much in keeping with the direction of travel in our national infrastructure plan, so I look forward with interest to the proposals from the taskforce and to taking them forward in due course.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I refer the Chief Secretary to the graph on page 6 of his new infrastructure plan, which looks like one of those dodgy “Labour can’t win here” graphics on a Lib Dem “Focus” leaflet. The graph apparently shows, as he has boasted this morning, that annual infrastructure investment is up under the coalition, but in the footnote it says that the Treasury had “challenges” putting the graph together and that the data are “not comparable” with the rest of the document. Will he agree to submit the figures to independent scrutiny by the UK Statistics Authority or the Office for Budget Responsibility?
Danny Alexander
After the shadow Chancellor’s performance last week, “Labour can’t win here” is a good description of the Chamber of the House of Commons.
Any Member of this House can submit statistics to the UK Statistics Authority, but I think that those statistics present an accurate picture of the level of overall infrastructure investment in this country. I welcome the strong interest that the right hon. Gentleman has shown in infrastructure and the commitment that he has made to taking these proposals forward. I wish that other members of his party showed a similarly constructive attitude.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
5. How many of the lowest paid workers have been taken out of income tax since 2010.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
This year 2.4 million low earners have been taken out of income tax since 2010. The number will increase further to 2.7 million next April, once the personal allowance reaches the £10,000 goal that we set in our election manifesto. By next year, the Government’s increases to the personal allowance will have reduced income tax bills by up to £705 a year for 26 million working people in this country.
Annette Brooke
The policy is important for a fairer society, and it incentivises work. Does my right hon. Friend share my aspiration to raise the tax threshold to £10,500 and achieve equality up to the age of 74, and, in due course, further increase the threshold for all age groups to incentivise both work and savings for lower and middle-income groups?
Danny Alexander
I very much share my hon. Friend’s ambition for this policy. We should consider a threshold of at least £10,500 in this Parliament, and that will be an objective of my Liberal Democrat party. It would be right for the age-related threshold and the main threshold, once they are aligned, to rise in tandem thereafter.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
18. Does the Chief Secretary share the concerns of Citizens Advice that changes to the threshold are more than swamped by the changes to benefits in other areas?
Danny Alexander
No, I do not share that analysis. It ignores the fact that increases to the personal allowance, along with many of our reforms to the welfare system, increase substantially the incentives for people to go into work. The private sector has created a net 1.4 million jobs since 2010, so there are more job opportunities to go around too.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
The Chancellor last week published evidence showing that his bold cuts to corporation tax more or less paid for themselves because of the extra economic activity they generated. Can a similar piece of work not be done to demonstrate that further cuts in income tax will also pay for themselves in a similar way?
Danny Alexander
I think that is rather a good idea and I will take it up in the Treasury.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
What does the Chief Secretary intend to do to help low-paid workers who are below the tax threshold? They will not gain from a further increase in the tax threshold and have seen previous gains wiped out by the loss of tax credits. How will it help low-paid workers?
Danny Alexander
I intend to stick to our economic plan, which is leading to economic growth, job creation and a sustainable economic recovery matched by rising productivity. That is the only way to raise living standards and that is what we intend to do.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Does the deputy Chancellor agree that we make a lot of the number of people taken out of tax, but do not say enough on how everybody benefits from the personal allowance increase? It is effectively a cut in income tax.
Danny Alexander
I am grateful, as always, to my hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right: it is a huge cut in income tax. In fact, over the course of this Parliament and before we take any decisions on next year’s Budget, we are already committed to spending £38 billion to reduce the income tax of working people. That is a massive commitment from this Government to cut income tax for the working people of the United Kingdom.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
7. What recent representations he has received on reform of the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)
9. What fiscal steps the Government are taking to encourage the building of social housing.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for his contribution on the housing issue while a Minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, particularly on helping to ensure that the £4.5 billion affordable homes programme is on track to deliver 170,000 new affordable homes by March 2015—100,000 are completed so far—and to fund an extra 165,000 houses over three years from 2015.
Sir Andrew Stunell
That is a remarkable contrast with Labour’s disgraceful approach, which got rid of those houses. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that highly successful arm’s length management organisations, such as Stockport Homes, which just opened the 4 millionth social home in the housing stock, will have an opportunity, under the Chancellor’s proposals, to build more social housing to meet the urgent need of my constituents?
Danny Alexander
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I congratulate Stockport Homes on its success—I think it was recently voted one of the best landlords in the country. The 4 millionth social home was part of the Government’s commitment to reverse the trend under Labour, where the social housing stock in this country fell by 421,000. Over the term of our housing plan, we will build at least 315,000 new social homes, and he will also have noted that in the autumn statement we announced an increase of £300 million in headroom under the housing revenue account precisely to allow local authorities to build more social homes in this country.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
24. The Government have presided over the lowest level of house building since the 1920s—[Interruption.] Is it not clear that we need bold action to boost housing supply, especially social housing, and to deal with housing demand?
Mr Speaker
Order. Insofar as the Chief Secretary was having trouble hearing what the hon. Lady was saying, it was because of extreme and frankly discourteous noise from his own Benches, a fact of which I know the Government’s deputy Chief Whip will have taken full note.
Danny Alexander
Wherever the noise was coming from, I should say that, of course, house building and construction is important in every sector, social and private. That is why, in the autumn statement last week, we announced both the increase in the housing revenue account—something for which my party, the Liberal Democrats, has campaigned for some time—and the extra funding for large sites to unlock another 250,000 new homes in the private sector.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
As well as supporting the building of social housing, will my right hon. Friend continue to support the right to buy, given that over 30,000 tenants have benefited from right to buy, including many in Harlow?
Danny Alexander
The right to buy is an important part of the coalition Government’s housing programme. It has been substantially improved by the commitment to one-for-one replacement for social housing when each house is sold. If that policy had been in place under the previous Government, we would not have seen a net loss of 421,000 social homes throughout their time in office.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
Why is it that, over the last 18 months, 11,000 homes have been sold under right to buy, but fewer than 2,000 replacements have been started? That does not seem to me to be one-for-one replacement. How does the Minister explain it?
Mr Speaker
Order. I said a moment ago that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) should be heard. The Chief Secretary similarly must be heard.
Danny Alexander
We have made a commitment to one-for-one replacement. Housing starts, under the planning system, cannot be started instantly, which is surely a lesson that the hon. Gentleman should have learned during his many years in this House. The commitment is there and every one of those homes sold will be replaced by a newly built home.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
10. What assessment he has made of the current level of the national deficit.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The core purpose of the Treasury is to ensure the stability and prosperity of the economy.
Mr Watts
The Chief Secretary seems to be spending most of his time feathering his own nest in his constituency, but can he take some time out from that important work to confirm that energy bills will go up by more than £50 and that energy companies, who are making fat profits, will not pay one penny to reduce bills?
Danny Alexander
I can confirm to the House that the action the Government are taking will ensure there is £50 off people’s bills this year. That is as a result of serious-minded work to ensure we reduce the pressure the Government are putting on people’s bills. That includes taking the warm homes discount, which helps 2 million low-income people in this country, on to the Government’s balance sheet. That is the right option, compared with the complete con that unfortunately is still being peddled by the Opposition.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
T3. Will the Financial Secretary provide any more detail on last week’s announcement that the Government will later this month provide payment for people who bought pre-September 1992 with-profits annuities from Equitable Life?
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
On Thursday the Chancellor claimed in this House that living standards are rising, on Friday the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that living standards are falling, so who is right?
Danny Alexander
First, may I say what a great pleasure it is for those on this side of the House to see the shadow Chancellor in his place, and may I join him in condemning the unattributable briefing against him from the people behind him—something that never happened in his day?
The whole reason millions of Britons—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. At the moment I cannot hear the Chief Secretary’s reply, but I intend to do so, however long it takes; it is very straightforward.
Danny Alexander
I would like you to be able to hear it as well, Mr Speaker.
The whole reason millions of Britons are under financial pressure is that Labour’s economic mess cost every household in this country £3,000. Because our plan is working, we can cut income tax, we can cut fuel duty, we can put the triple-lock on pensions, we can freeze council tax and we can take money off people’s energy bills. The only way to raise people’s living standards in this country is to have a sustainable economic recovery.
Ed Balls
The right hon. Gentleman is as bad as the Chancellor. Why can he not admit the truth: this Government’s economic policy is not working for working people? That is the truth. This is what the IFS said after the autumn statement—[Interruption.] Members on the Government Benches do not want to hear it. People are worse off under the Tories; that is the truth. Here is what the IFS said:
“real median household incomes will be substantially lower in 2015-16 than in 2009-10.”
And where is the Chancellor? He is in Brussels, where the Government are taking legal action to stop a cap on bank bonuses. How out of touch can they get? Let me ask the Chief Secretary: are the Liberal Democrats really right behind the Conservatives on this one, too—on stopping the bank bonus cap?
Danny Alexander
I know that the shadow Chancellor has made one change since last week. He has appointed a new special adviser on hand gestures: Greg Dyke. [Interruption.] That is the gesture the shadow Chancellor’s colleagues are making every time they hear him in this House of Commons. The fact is that the Liberal Democrats, as part of this coalition Government, are delivering a sustainable economic recovery. We are part of a Government who are delivering £700 for every single working person in this country and who are delivering a proactive approach in the European Union, including by ensuring that the integrity of the European treaties is maintained, and that is what this legal action is all about.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
T4. I welcome the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s ambitious plans for capital investment for a stronger economy that were set out last week. He will have heard me urging the Prime Minister to make up for the previous Government’s failure to rebuild Wiltshire college’s Chippenham campus. Could my right hon. Friend see his way clear to making that investment, so as to equip our young people with the skills that will enable them to get on in life?
Danny Alexander
I know how important that project is for the college that my hon. Friend mentions. I can confirm that the Skills Funding Agency has told the college that it is prepared to make grant funding available for the project, subject to some additional assurances being received. Those assurances are being sought this week, and the agency hopes to respond to the college by the end of this week.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
T2. Housing costs represent one of the biggest pressures on the cost of living, and a new study by Oxford Economics suggests that, by 2020, house prices will have risen by 35% and rents by 39%. What are the Government going to do about that?
Danny Alexander
I know that the hon. Lady takes a close interest in these matters, and she will have seen the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts, which suggest that even by the end of the forecast period, house prices in this country will be below their level at the peak of the financial crisis in real terms. The action we are taking includes the large-scale investment in affordable housing that I described earlier, which will help people with those problems.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
T5. What assessment has the Chief Secretary to the Treasury made of the relationship between consistently falling real wages and the rapid growth of zero-hours contracts?
Danny Alexander
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has been acting on zero-hours contracts; it is a subject that is currently under review in his Department. I have made a strong assessment of the connection between sustainable economic growth of the kind that this Government are delivering and the availability of jobs in the private sector, 1.4 million of which have been created since 2010.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
T7. Given that the autumn statement contained further encouragement for companies to get involved in shale gas production through lower taxes, is there any chance of the Government giving further encouragement to local communities to accept the shale gas industry by offering somewhat more than the 1% that is now on the table?
Danny Alexander
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The shale gas industry has the potential to bring jobs and growth to communities across the country. In addition, the industry will give £100,000 to communities in which fracking is taking place, as well as 1% of all production revenues. However, we will of course listen to any suggestions from my hon. Friend about how that regime could be improved.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Chief Secretary to the Treasury accept that, since the financial crash, productivity in the UK has fallen 5% but has gone up 8% in the United States, and that lending to business is down 13% and lending to mortgages is at 2008 levels? What is he doing about this? It is too little, too late.
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman is right in his description of the fall in productivity in this country. That is related to the fact that this country was hit the hardest of almost any country in the world by the financial crisis, precisely because of the unpreparedness of his party. On the whole, however, the fact that a significant number of jobs have been created in our economy in recent years, even at the cost of falling productivity, represents a preferable balance from a welfare point of view.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary might like to reflect on the very poor answer he gave my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) earlier, because I have in front of me Office for National Statistics Table 1A, which clearly shows that infrastructure construction output to September 2013 has fallen by 15%. What went wrong, or is he seriously disagreeing with the Office for National Statistics?
Danny Alexander
What this—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) should pipe down. What this Government recognise is that infrastructure relies on both public and private sector investment. The Labour party seems to have forgotten that the private sector is involved in delivering infrastructure. Total infrastructure investment in this country is higher in this Parliament than it was in the last.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
T9. Individuals, households and businesses in my constituency must live within their means. Does the Chief Secretary agree that that is exactly what Governments need to do and that one of the reasons for our current budget deficit is the fact that the previous Government did not run a surplus in the good years?
Danny Alexander
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend that Governments must live within their means. It is because the previous Labour Government did not do so that we have had to make so many difficult decisions to get this country back on the right track, which is what we are doing.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Her Majesty’s Exchequer and the Republic of Ireland’s Revenue services lose hundreds of millions of pounds every year as a result of fuel fraud. When will the Government, in partnership with the Republic of Ireland, implement a new fuel marker to frustrate the criminals engaged in that theft?
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I ask the Chief Secretary to ponder the fact that when I talk with my constituents, the thing they always talk about first is, “Housing, housing, housing.” When are we going to give young people, and increasingly older people, the chance that many of us in this House have had to get their own homes, because we are not building enough houses? He knows that is true—get on with it.
Danny Alexander
In many ways I agree with the hon. Gentleman. My constituents say exactly the same thing to me. That is why we are reforming the planning system to enable housing to be built more quickly, why we are increasing substantially the number of social homes in this country, compared with his party’s lamentable record, and why we have introduced the Help to Buy scheme to help people who cannot afford a large deposit to get on the housing ladder, all of which is leading to new houses being built in this country.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
Narrow measures of money show that there has been no significant growth in the money supply. However, broader measures, such as the Divisia money measure, show that there has been a significant and sharp increase since late 2011. Does that concern the Treasury, and can my hon. Friend assure the House that the monetary authorities are not cooking up yet another credit-induced boom?
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The World Bank and the independent TEEB—the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity—report both state that 7% of global GDP could be lost by the devaluation of natural capital by 2050. Will the Government investigate what percentage of UK GDP is being lost through the depletion of natural capital?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point. We in the Treasury and this Government have been examining the issue of natural capital, which we have taken forward in a way that previous Governments have not. I will certainly get the Minister responsible to reply in more detail on the specific point that the hon. Gentleman raises, because it is very important.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
In the autumn statement, in addition to very welcome changes to tax and spending in relation to housing, the Government announced a proposal to look at local authorities’ opportunities to develop much more public sector housing. How soon will that initiative see the light of day?
Danny Alexander
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has been a doughty campaigner on these issues for many years. I am sure that he welcomes the increase in housing revenue account headroom for which local authorities will be able to bid to build more houses. We have also undertaken to carry out a wider review of this issue, and I will set out the terms and the process for that in the coming weeks.