Cost of Living and Brexit
Debate between David Duguid and Angus Brendan MacNeil(1 year, 10 months ago)
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David Duguid
That is an excellent point, but it has to be taken wholly in the round with the concerns of our own food and drink producers. It is not just about what we pay to get food on our plate. If our primary food producers do not make enough profit at the farm gate, we will not have any food produced in this country at all.
Decisions taken in the 2022 autumn statement and the 2023 spring Budget have resulted in an increase of more than £1.8 billion in Barnett consequential funding for the Scottish Government. That takes the total UK Government funding for the Scottish Government to £37.1 billion annually by 2024-25.
Under this Conservative UK Government, the economy is improving in a range of different ways. There are a record 33 million people in work in the UK, which is up 382,000 over the past year and by 4 million since the Conservatives came into power in 2010. The employment rate of 76% is near record highs and is up by 0.3 points over the past year and by 5.8 points since 2010. Figures show that the unemployment rate is at 3.8%, which is near its lowest rate since 1974 and down by 4.4 percentage points since 2010.
The benefits of Brexit include removing unnecessary red tape and regulatory burdens, ensuring that rules and regulations work for British businesses and consumers. The first package in a series of deregulation announcements expected this year is expected to save employers more than £1 billion a year in today’s money. Our first post- Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand have already come into effect. The deals will—[Interruption.] Again, SNP Members are grumbling about trade deals. They have never, ever voted for a trade deal, either in this place or in the European Parliament. They are anti-trade, and they make no secret about it. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) said earlier, they voted against our deal with the EU after we left. In effect, they voted for a no-deal Brexit.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Angus Brendan MacNeil
A few moments ago the hon. Gentleman said that border checks are important for food producers. In a sign of there being no joined-up government, does not the Australia trade agreement kick away the stool he was standing on only a couple of minutes ago?
David Duguid
Again, everything needs to be looked at in the round. Our fantastic food and drink producers have export opportunities, and not just with Australia and New Zealand. Our trade deals with Australia and New Zealand are a stepping-stone to—[Interruption.] In fact, I was just about to come to this point. We will become the first European country to join the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, which is now worth £12 trillion.
David Duguid
I will come back to the hon. Gentleman once I have finished this point. With 500 million people, trade with CPTPP countries will boost our economy by billions and support thousands of jobs in this country. Of course, no discussion of the benefits of leaving the EU could pass without mentioning fishing, but before I do so I will give way again to the hon. Gentleman.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising CPTPP. He will be aware that his own Government’s figures show that Brexit has damaged UK GDP by 5%, but the gain from CPTPP is 0.08%. That is equivalent to going to a horse race with £500, coming back with £8 and telling everybody that you backed a winner—but you have lost, and you have lost big style.
David Duguid
The 5% has gone up from the 4% that was reported previously, but what is not taken into account when those calculations are made is what it would cost for the UK to be in the EU. We are not in the EU any more, but we have a comprehensive trade agreement with the EU.
As I was saying, we have left the common fisheries policy and taken our place as an independent coastal state, which is well established as having been of great benefit to the fishing industry. [Interruption.] I would be delighted to take any argument on that. If SNP Members do not want to believe me, they can believe Elspeth Macdonald, the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, which has confirmed that the UK Government and Scottish Government Ministers have a far stronger negotiating position at bilateral negotiations than we ever would have had as one of 28 member states of the EU.
David Duguid
The hon. Lady has spoken on behalf of her constituents, so I am sure she will forgive me for speaking on behalf mine. There are a large number of pelagic and white fish vessels in my constituency, and lobster and other static gear fishing industries are also represented. They experience the same problems with access to exports as anyone else on these islands. I was in the Scotland Office at the time we left the EU and there were initial issues with access to markets. There was new paperwork that everyone had to get used to. Many in the seafood export industry got established and were ready for the new conditions, but many were not. If the hon. Lady would like to intervene again, I would love to know what the SNP Scottish Government did with the £180 million Brexit preparation funding. How much of it was spent on actually helping our Scottish fishermen prepare?
David Duguid
If the hon. Member would like to comment on that, I welcome him to do so.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
How far does the hon. Gentleman think £180 million would go given that the cost of moving product to the European Union from my constituency off the west coast of Scotland has trebled? It was about 30p a kilo, but it is now over £1 a kilo. That is down to the red tape of Brexit. How far would £180 million go to mitigate that? It would not get anywhere near it, and this is costing people a lot.
David Duguid
I apologise, but the most engagement I have with the fishing industry is with that in my own constituency. I am sure that nobody would want to debate that. Remember that it was during the months after we left the EU that covid hit us, and it is covid, above all else, that has had the biggest impact on exports because the whole hospitality sector across the continent—the biggest market for our langoustines, lobster and other shellfish—had shut down.
I want to move on because I know that you want us to be relatively brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. On the motion’s proposal for the formation of a Committee, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), who is no longer in his place, made a very good point that the Education Committee is not included on the list. It might be possible to argue that there is no good reason for it to be included, but as he pointed out, our young people and skills are extremely important for the recovery of this economy. We need the overall economy to recover if we are going to get a hold of our cost of living issues. I was surprised when the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) said that the Education Committee should not be there because education is a devolved issue. I thought that this motion was a motion for this Parliament, which represents the whole United Kingdom, so I found that a strange justification. I agree with the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, and would like to hear what other justifications there may be.
Finally and in conclusion, as everyone will be pleased to hear, I will finish with a few more benefits of having left the EU. I must re-emphasise—we are still trading with the EU. We did not leave without a deal, as was predicted. In fact, as I said earlier and as others have said, at the time of the referendum, SNP Members voted to not have a deal when we left the EU at the end of 2019.
Scottish Independence and the Scottish Economy
Debate between David Duguid and Angus Brendan MacNeil(2 years, 6 months ago)
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David Duguid
I have previously debated this issue with SNP Members. Every Member is elected to this House by a plurality of their constituents, but the majority of voters across the whole of Scotland did not vote for the SNP. [Interruption.] SNP Members are indignant in their incredulity. They may have more Members in this House, but that is not how referendums work. The referendum they dearly want would be based on a majority of voters across the whole of Scotland. I will not debate that point, as it is not the subject of this debate.
In response to the challenges faced by the whole country, this UK Government have taken action to support domestic and business customers, particularly the most vulnerable and the hardest hit. The energy price guarantee is expected to save a typical household in Great Britain at least £700 a year. The energy bill relief scheme will protect businesses and other non-domestic energy users, including charities and public sector organisations, by providing a discount on wholesale gas and electricity prices of roughly a third of what they would have paid without the intervention. That is on top of the energy bill support scheme announced earlier this year, which provides at least £400 to every household with a domestic electricity supply. There is also a further £9 billion of targeted support to the most vulnerable households, including pensioners.
There is a £650 cost of living payment to every household on means-tested benefits, paid out to more than 8 million households in two instalments—one in July and one in the autumn—which works out at roughly a third of all households in Great Britain. There is a £300 cost of living payment to the approximately 8 million pensioner households in receipt of the winter fuel payment, and a £150 cost of living payment to the nearly 6 million people in receipt of disability payments.
David Duguid
Before I give way, I remind the hon. Gentleman that these measures were taken by the UK Government.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman talks of the pressures and challenges. He will be aware that mortgages are, on average, two percentage points cheaper in Ireland, that Irish pensions are higher and that the poorest 5% of people in Ireland are 63% better off than the poorest 5% in the UK. Does he think Ireland would want to rejoin the UK, or does he think Ireland is happy with its independence?
David Duguid
I am not here to speak on behalf of the people of the Republic of Ireland or, indeed, the people of Scotland, unlike the hon. Gentleman. I am here to speak on behalf of my constituents in Banff and Buchan, who I continue to argue have benefited greatly from being part of the United Kingdom.
David Duguid
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will continue listing the many benefits of being in this United Kingdom for the people of Scotland and everyone else.
The household support fund, which was launched at the 2021 autumn Budget, provided £500 million from October 2021 to March 2022. It was extended by the 2022 spring statement for the period from April to October this year, and the latest extension will cover the period from October 2022 to March 2023, bringing the total amount provided to £1.5 billion since October 2021. This is a devolved area of policy, but it has generated Barnett consequentials for the Scottish Government of £41 million in the last financial year and a further £82 million in the current financial year. As hon. Members have described, it is for the Scottish Government to decide how to fund mechanisms in Scotland as they see fit.
That £1.5 billion package is in addition to the more than £22 billion of UK Government support announced previously, including the £9.1 billion energy support package announced in February 2022, which had £296 million in Barnett consequentials for the Scottish Government as a result of the council tax rebate payment and the discretionary funding for local authorities in England.
The reduction in the universal credit taper rate and the increase in the work allowance announced in the 2021 autumn Budget meant an extra £1,000 to those on the lowest incomes. An increase in the national insurance primary threshold to £12,570, making it the same as the threshold for income tax from July 2022, and a lowering of the earnings limit were also announced in the 2022 spring statement. A fuel duty freeze was announced in the 2021 autumn Budget, and a 5p cut to fuel duty was announced at this year’s spring statement.
David Duguid
I was going to talk about the reversal of the health and social care levy, which will save 2.3 million people in Scotland an average of £285 in 2023-24. I will return to the question of tax coming in, payments going out and the terms of the Union dividend.
I will continue with the list, which is not exhaustive. I am listing just some of the highlights of what this UK Government have provided to everyone in this United Kingdom. The national living wage has been increased by the largest-ever cash amount, meaning that 2 million full-time workers will be £1,000 a year better off. Another benefit of Scotland being in the UK is that the rest of the UK accounts for £52 billion-worth of Scotland’s exports, which is three times larger than the amount going to the EU. Half a million Scottish jobs are supported by trade with the rest of the UK.
The Union dividend, for those who are not aware, is the combined value of higher public spending and lower tax revenues in Scotland. In 2021-22, the Union dividend reached a record high of £12 billion, which works out, as the Secretary of State said, at £2,184 per person, up from £1,925 per person the previous year. This includes Scotland’s geographical share of North sea revenues, and it is comprised of £1,963 of higher expenditure per person plus £221 in lower revenues generated per person in Scotland.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman is talking about identifiable spending, which is a bit like the two of us going for a pizza, throwing away a third of it and then saying, “You got slightly more of the two thirds.” There is loads of non-identifiable spending in London—there is Crossrail, there are MPs’ expenses here in the evening, and whatever else—and we are not seeing Barnett consequentials for that. When we talk about this expenditure, he is telling only part of the story, and it is a misleading part of the story. If he wants to tell the real story, he must talk about the whole lot, and those figures are hidden.
David Duguid
I think I heard an invitation to join the hon. Gentleman for a pizza one night.
David Duguid
I would be happy to take the hon. Gentleman up on that, where we can discuss this further. [Hon. Members: “You’ll be left with the bill!”] Quite possibly. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that it is a complex issue but, as has been highlighted by the shadow Secretary of State, the Scottish Government’s own figures point out the Union dividend. They recently published a paper on the economy for an independent Scotland. I am not going to get into the detail but, as has been mentioned, it contains vague claims about how a new Scottish pound would be created, despite the central bank being in a different country. More recently, we have had confirmation from the EU that not only would rejoining the EU not be as straightforward as the SNP would have us believe, but it certainly would not be able to rejoin without committing to join the euro.
Finally, on the subject of that paper, let me read out the following quote from the Institute for Fiscal Studies:
“it skirts around what achieving sustainability would likely require in the first decade of an independent Scotland: bigger tax rises or spending cuts than the UK government will have to pursue…Scotland’s public finances are therefore expected to weaken relative to the rest of the UK… Experience from recent weeks suggests the markets may not look favourably on fiscal plans built on the uncertain hope of a substantial future boost to growth.”
These are challenging times, but the breaking up of our 300-year-old Union of nations is not the answer to those challenges. The Scottish people want both of their Governments—both of our Governments—to work together on delivering economic stability and quality public services, rather than pursuing a cynical, divisive second independence referendum. But rather than working collaboratively with the UK Government, the SNP continues to waste taxpayers’ money—the £250 million on ferries is just one well-known issue, and I could go on, but I am not going to take up any more of Members’ time—undermining the quality of vital public services and holding Scotland back, while constantly using the calls for an independence referendum as a distraction.
I know that happened during my time as a Minister, and I am sure that the new Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who will be responding to the debate, will continue, along with the Secretary of State, to seek to work productively and collaboratively with the Scottish Government as we work to deliver economic stability and improve vital public services for the Scottish people. That collaboration in the national interest is what the people of Scotland desperately want, not a damaging, divisive and distracting independence referendum.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill
Debate between David Duguid and Angus Brendan MacNeilThursday 9th January 2020
(5 years, 4 months ago)
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David Duguid
I just want to gently correct the hon. Gentleman. I do enjoy hearing him speak, and we have been known to share a stage together, in fact, because I enjoy his entertainment that much. I will gently correct what he may have said inadvertently. He said that 80% of the vote in Scotland—
David Duguid
—80% of the seats—[Interruption.] Listen, I have absolutely no compunction about accepting that the SNP gained seats in Scotland during last month’s UK general election. We lost some seats, but it was ultimately a general election to form a Government in this place, not a general election in Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon is not the Prime Minister. On the percentage of the vote, I gently say that 55% of people in Scotland voted for Unionist parties, not for the SNP—[Interruption.] I have made my point.