Budget Resolutions

Debate between Desmond Swayne and Andrew Mitchell

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), although I fear that my speech will take a slightly different view. I draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register.

The Chancellor faced a pretty difficult task today—he was said to be between a rock and a hard place—but this is a sensible and pragmatic Budget. I think he will be well content with that analysis.

I want to start with the midlands, because I represent part of that area. We are very pleased that we now have the second devolution deal. The support for the automobile industry—for driverless and electric cars—is enormously important. You will understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, how much that matters in the west midlands. The midlands is at the centre of this industry. We are leaders in technology, design and production internationally. We very much welcome that support, more of which I think is to be announced later this week.

The £200 million that we receive for cleaning up brownfield land is now being spent, thanks to the vigour and effort of Andy Street, our Mayor. He is doing a very good job. I hope the Treasury will consider providing more funding when that £200 million has been used. The importance of spending money on cleaning up brownfield land is immense, because it means that we do not have to build on the green belt. We should only ever do that as a last resort. We in the west midlands are delighted that we are to be part of a national pilot of Housing First, which is a particular priority of our Mayor, Andy Street. The pilot will allow us decisively to address rough sleeping across the west midlands, and we are determined to do so.

I express my gratitude to the Government for the announcement that resources will be made available for the children’s emergency medicine and paediatric care centre at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. Many of us have campaigned for that, and the news is excellent.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

If I may, I will take my right hon. Friend back to housing for a moment. Does he agree that the Budget needs to be seen in the round with other Government announcements, particularly the opportunities in the White Paper for local authorities to build once again?

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend makes his point exceedingly eloquently.

I want to underline to the House the fact that free enterprise and open markets have been, and continue to be, the greatest engines of social and economic advancement known to man. We need to stand up for those things more than we have done recently, against the opposing views espoused by the shadow Chancellor and, indeed, by large numbers of young people who were not around to learn some of the pretty basic economic truths that many of us learned in the 1970s and ’80s.

Having said that, capitalism has always required Governments and regulators to set boundaries to human activity and, inevitably, human greed, and that point chimes in very well with the activist views that our Prime Minister has expressed since she took up the job. I want to point briefly to three areas in which I think such regulation of capitalism is of the greatest importance. The first, which we have debated in the House, concerns open ownership registers, particularly for the British overseas territories. That was an initiative of the Cameron Government. We in Britain have imposed such transparency on ourselves, and we need to do so for the overseas territories. Many in this House care deeply about the matter, including my hon. Friends the Members for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), and the right hon. Members for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). It is important that the Treasury recognises that point in the Finance Bill, and I very much hope that it will do so.

Energy prices are the second area in which regulation is important. The Government are absolutely right to pursue that, because the current monopolistic situation works against the interests of consumers. The right way to deal with it is by regulation rather than by nationalisation, which is entirely unnecessary because of the regulatory regime.

Other Members have mentioned the third area in which regulation is required, but I will make the point again. A recent study of the annual reports of FTSE 100 companies shows that average pay for chief executives rose from £5 million a head in 2014 to £5.5 million in 2015. I find it offensive and totally unjustifiable that that is 140 times the average salary of their employees. It is noteworthy that only a quarter of FTSE 100 companies pay the voluntary living wage to their employees. The scale of that inequality, which is vastly greater than it was, gives capitalism a bad name. At a time when inequality more generally has fallen, with income inequality at its lowest rate for 30 years, this is something that the Government need to address through regulation.