Additional Covid-19 Restrictions: Fair Economic Support

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I am really pleased that the Government have listened to my representations and those of my city region colleagues about reopening gyms. That is so important to the mental and physical wellbeing of my constituents in Halton. It will also save jobs that would otherwise have been lost.

Despite the business support the Government have already put in place, there are over 2,000 more people unemployed in my constituency than there were in March, and youth unemployment has doubled. Placing Halton in tier 3, which I opposed, has hit the hospitality sector particularly hard, impacting especially badly on low-paid and young people. Even those businesses that have managed to remain open, such as restaurants and pubs that serve food, are struggling. The 10 pm curfew has been damaging and no one supports it. Then there are the restrictions on households meeting, which have also impacted those hospitality businesses that are still open. They have had to cut staff hours and lay staff off. Those businesses also need financial support from the Government.

Tier 3 restrictions will massively impact the supply chain that serves the hospitality industry, with the loss of more jobs. Taxi drivers are also impacted by a loss of income. The Government introduced the tiered approach to restrictions and, as we have seen in Manchester, they will be imposed if local leaders do not agree. Therefore, the Government have a clear moral responsibility to provide funding that properly supports businesses affected by tier 3 restrictions.

I have been contacted by self-employed constituents who have received little or no support, often because they do not work out of a business premises. I want the Minister to listen to some of the ordinary voices of my constituency. This is from a musician and songwriter:

“Since my last gig in February 2020 I have received absolutely NO financial aid from the various schemes put in place by this govt. Although I applied for everything, I and hundreds of thousands like me who have a limited company but no permanent work premises…are unable to access any grants, furlough or indeed support from the various systems put in place.”

This is from a sound engineer:

“I work as a freelance audio engineer and rigger. I have my own Personal Service Company of which I am the only Director and contractor and I am employed on an event by event basis in the live entertainment industry. My skills and services contribute to the creative industries which include live events, TV, film, dance and theatre and which were worth £110bn to the annual economy as evidenced in the Government’s”

own figures. He goes on to say:

“I do not see how I will be able to survive financially.”

This is from a fitness instructor:

“I would be grateful if you could highlight the fact that the majority of fitness instructors, who deliver the group exercise classes, and personal trainers are self employed and fall into the group that are hardest hit in the climate. The governments 3rd stage grant of 20% leaves a massive shortfall for people in this field.”

This is from another type of business—a coach travel business. Its owner says:

“Unfortunately whilst many of the schemes are welcome the coach industry doesn’t seem to have any sector support that it qualifies for despite being an industry hit the hardest. Companies that genuinely need a helping hand and would otherwise be successful are forgotten.”

People live to what they earn. Thousands of my constituents face massive cuts in their income without proper support. I remind the Minister that the package of support that the city region asked for was £709 million. The funding package given so far has not met the need. The Government need to provide a much more realistic package of funding and support for businesses and jobs in Halton.

I repeat what I said in the Chamber a couple of weeks ago: in order to get us through this unprecedented crisis in modern times, we need everybody to work together. I believe that we need a cross-party covid war Cabinet that at the very least has my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of Opposition in it. Constituents tell me that they want politicians to work together to find a way forward and do the right thing. We need to look again at the shielding policy, given that it is older and the most vulnerable people who are being admitted to hospital, and gain public consent again for the best, most common-sense measures, as well as washing our hands, wearing a mask and keeping a 2-metre distance.

I find it heartbreaking to see constituents who have no money, who are desperate and find it really difficult to pay bills. It really is time for the Government to step up to the mark and provide proper and better help to everybody in my constituency who needs it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of good childcare and he is right to highlight that the Government support people with 20% of their childcare costs up to a cap of £2,000 through tax-free childcare. I can also tell him that, in recognition of the importance of this issue, we made some adjustments to how tax-free childcare operated during the pandemic, so that if someone’s income fell below the minimum income requirement as a result of what was happening they would continue to receive financial support up until the end of October.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

At the end of August in my constituency, there were 2,000 more people unemployed than there were in March. The number of 18 to 24-year-old claimants has almost doubled. If history teaches us anything, it is that young people and those living in deprived areas will be more adversely affected by any downturn in the economy. What special measures is the Chancellor considering putting in place for young people in areas like mine, which are the most deprived?

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady’s statistics are wrong. It is not right to say that every region will be worse off. Every region under every scenario will be better off. The UK economy will continue growing. [Interruption.] The UK economy will continue growing. There is no doubt, as the published cross-Government analysis shows, that leaving with a deal will best protect the UK economy and will be in the interests of all our constituents. I urge the hon. Lady to get behind the deal.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Given what the Chancellor has said, why do large numbers of families in my constituency have to go to food banks? Many of them are on universal credit. Working families are having to use food banks in my constituency. What is he doing for them?

[Mr Hammond]

The measures we have taken to increase the national living wage, combined with the increases in the personal tax allowance, mean that a single person on national minimum wage will be £4,500 better off in terms of take-home pay than they would have been in 2010.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The latest statistics show that we have had the best run of productivity growth since before the financial crisis, but we are certainly not complacent. The national productivity investment fund is improving passenger journeys, our roads and our broadband connections and delivering more homes, all of which are key to raising the wages and living standards of people in Southport and across the country.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The problem is that the national productivity investment fund is not doing anything to stop the disrepair on our roads and motorways. The Government are simply not putting in enough money for local councils and the national agency to make sure that repairs on motorways and local roads are brought up to standard. We now have a greater crisis than we have seen for some time.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis. The Government have put a record amount of investment into our roads and rail. As the Chancellor announced in the autumn, there is further money for transport projects in the north. There is £13 billion in total to improve transport across the north of England.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Income inequality is lower than it was in 2010. In fact, it remains lower than at any point under the last Labour Government. The Gini coefficient, which is an internationally recognised measure of income inequality, is now 3% lower than in 2010. Since my autumn statement in 2016, we have increased the tax contributions of the highest earners while those on the lowest incomes have gained overall.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The problem is in constituencies like mine, which is one of the most deprived in the country, where more and more people are having to go to food banks. What is the Chancellor doing, in terms of the economic development of the country, to ensure that we get better-paid jobs, especially in places that are severely deprived such as Halton?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman makes an absolutely correct point. In the long run, higher wages can be delivered only through increased productivity. That means investment in infrastructure, investment in skills and training, and investment in research and development—with both public funding and tax incentives for private funding—and it means ensuring that capital is available for businesses to invest in the equipment that will raise the productivity of their workers. The Government’s ambition is for a high-wage, high-skill economy, and we are investing to deliver that.

Business of the House

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

Lancashire is blessed with a range of potential lines to reopen, but it is important to stress to all hon. Members that the best vehicle to seek to promote a line reopening is through their local enterprise partnership or local council. The Government will look favourably on schemes where there are opportunities for economic growth and housing. More information will be released in due course on the best methods for going about promoting such opportunities.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

A number of my constituents have contacted me over the leasehold scandal, whereby people have found that their leasehold has been sold on to unscrupulous financiers. The Government have said that they are going to do something about it, but what about the people already caught in the trap? May we have a debate in Government time to hear what the Government intend to do about the people who have already been affected?

[Paul Maynard]

I recognise that those concerns are shared across the House, and we have already committed to making progress on the matter. The hon. Gentleman will have heard what the Prime Minister had to say about addressing the concerns, and I am sure that he will have the opportunity to secure an Adjournment or Westminster Hall debate to raise this important issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We have received the Hendry review report and we are considering the merits of the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon project, including discussions with the Welsh Government.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Does the Chancellor believe that the balance of infrastructure spending between the north and the south-east is fair?

[Mr Hammond]

First, I should say that the Government are committed to addressing infrastructure needs across the UK. We will look at how best to use the available infrastructure funds based on the value for money of the projects that are brought forward, and different regions of the country will receive different allocations according to the projects that are available for development. The hon. Gentleman’s constituency has done well out of infrastructure funding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

The Government are reviewing the potential options to support regional airports, following the discussion paper that was published last year, and of course we will set out full details of our response in due course. We received 53 responses to the consultation. They were good, constructive, valuable responses and we are looking carefully at them.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

What is the Chancellor’s assessment of the effect of inflationary pressures on the prices of goods and food over the next 12 months?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

Clearly, the decline in the value of sterling will have an inflationary impact. How quickly that passes through into the UK economy is a subject of modelling by all economists who carry out these types of analyses. The Bank of England will very shortly be publishing its next inflation report, and that should give an indication of the forward trajectory.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I am going to make some progress.

In order to make these investments, we need to continue to make savings. The failure to control current expenditure means not just more borrowing, but that less is available for capital expenditure—a double dose of debt for our children and grandchildren, with financial debt compounded by infrastructure debt. The decisions that we make must be for the long-term good of the nation. This Government are therefore determined to draw upon the very best advice available, including that of Lord Heseltine, who will chair the Thames Estuary 2050 Growth Commission, and that of Lord Adonis, the chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, whose excellent work has informed many of the decisions made in this Budget.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Further to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), on which page and in which paragraph is the compensation issue referred to?

--- Later in debate ---

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

If we go back to 2010, when Labour left office, the economy was growing and unemployment was falling. Unfortunately, the Chancellor’s inept handling of the economy meant that we had a longer recession and lower growth for quite some period after that. In terms of his record in the last Parliament, he failed on his borrowing target and he failed on his deficit target. In this Parliament, he has missed his debt-to-GDP target and his welfare cap target. His surplus forecast for 2019-20 will be achieved only with some very creative accounting and sketchy assumptions. In fact, Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that the chance of the Chancellor hitting his target was

“only about a 50-50 shot”,

and that he would need to impose “proper” tax rises or spending cuts if there was any further downgrade in public finances.

In relation to today’s discussion about cuts for the disabled, we have already heard that there have been £24 billion of cuts for disabled people since 2010. Under cuts to the ESA work-related activity group, which were forced through Parliament recently, 500,000 disabled people will lose £1,500 a year. The real reason why the Government have today backtracked on their further cuts, particularly to PIP, is that they were going to lose the vote. A number of their Members were already rebelling, and they have also been hammered by what the Labour party and the public have said in recent days and over the weekend. I cannot believe that the Government actually had the face to try to push through the cuts in the first place. It is quite incredible that they thought they could get away with it.

One thing the Government failed to address in the Budget is the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign for women born in the 1950s and the disastrous way in which the Government have handled raising the retirement age. The Government should go back and look further at that.

The Government have once again left the future of local government very uncertain. The Budget announced £3.5 billion of efficiency savings in non-protected areas. It is unclear whether this will fall on local government. We also want to know whether the £4 billion that was going to come from cuts in PIP will fall on local government.

The total reduction in Government grant funding for Halton Borough Council in my constituency is £59 million, or 57%, between 2010-11 and 2017-18. Halton has a very low tax base, with 68% of properties in bands A and B. Only 1,629 properties have been built in the past five years, despite the fact that many more have been given planning permission, against a housing requirement of 2,700. There is little scope to grow the borough’s tax base in the near future. A shortfall of £4.2 million in adult social care funding has been identified, compared with only £800,000 per annum that the new 2% social care precept would generate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) asked, where is the compensation for the business rate changes? The council in Halton is not an inefficient council; it is a very efficient council. In its last external audit report by Grant Thornton, the auditors assessed the council’s financial performance as showing strong financial management and delivering value for money.

In the few seconds I have left, I want to turn to the NHS. The Budget said nothing about, and had no answers for, solving the growing crisis in the NHS. Doctors’ leaders have accused the Conservatives of deceiving the public by giving the NHS less than half the extra £10 billion that Ministers regularly cite as proof of their support for the service. The fact is that the Government have no answers to solve the crisis in the NHS. The former Liberal Democrat Minister, David Laws, said on Sunday that those in Downing Street dismissed NHS boss Simon Stevens’s bid for the £15 billion to £16 billion more because they believed he was mad and that it was unaffordable, and they told him to make do with much less instead. The Government are not looking at the real crisis in the NHS, which includes the payment by results mechanism, with ridiculous demands for efficiency being made of the NHS and hospitals. There are no answers in this Budget for the NHS.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has noted, the best outcome for the UK economy is that we achieve major economic reform of the EU. We want the UK to play a leading role in creating a dynamic, competitive and outward-focused Europe, delivering prosperity and security for every country in the EU, particularly by accelerating the integration of the single market.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

One important factor in increasing productivity is ensuring that companies are able to invest in new plant and machinery. Is the Minister convinced that banks are doing all they can to lend to companies to ensure that they can make such investment to improve productivity?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the importance of private investment. It is one reason why we have brought in the highest ever permanent level of the annual investment allowance, and of course banks play a crucial role in identifying those opportunities.