Energy (oil and gas) profits levy
Drew Hendry Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
James Cartlidge
It is not a stock answer. How could it be a stock answer when I have not taken an intervention like that before?
The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) will I am sure forgive me but, on his substantive point, we have delivered a significant windfall tax, but with the investment allowance that balances the interests of investment in the sector against needing to raise revenue. I repeat, where is that revenue going? It is to help families throughout the United Kingdom, including in Scotland, because we are stronger together when the support of the Treasury, at the heart of the United Kingdom, helps everyone in every part of this country.
The final issue to address with regard to taxation is business rates, which I know many colleagues feel strongly about. We believe that bills for business rates should accurately reflect market values, so we will proceed with the revaluation of business properties from April 2023. However, we will soften the impact on businesses with a £13.6 billion support package over the next five years. Nearly two thirds of properties will not pay a penny more next year and thousands of pubs, restaurants and small high street shops will benefit. Furthermore, we are extending and increasing the retail, hospitality and leisure relief scheme from 50% to 75% in 2023-24, showing that this is a Government committed to protecting the businesses that make our high streets and town centres successful.
These are not easy times to bring in these sorts of measures, but that does not mean the Government will shy away from difficult decisions. Our priorities, expressed through the autumn statement, are stability, growth and public services. Today, we are debating specific tax measures and the importance of sustainable public finances, but what the Government are delivering is much more comprehensive than that—an integrated response to what the Chancellor last week called
“a global energy crisis, a global inflation crisis and a global economic crisis”.—[Official Report, 17 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 855.]
The bottom line is this: because of the difficult decisions that I have outlined today—the decisions this Government are not afraid to take—the OBR confirms we will see less severe inflation and a shallower recession, but perhaps most importantly, unemployment is forecast to be 70,000 lower than would otherwise have been the case. That is 70,000 real families who will benefit. At the same time, when growth returns, we will be in a better position to pay our debts, ensuring those are not simply passed on to future generations. That is the promise of this autumn statement—a statement that is balanced, honest and fair—and I commend it to the House.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Opening yesterday’s debate, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that this was not a return to austerity. That made me wonder what the Government call a forecast drop of 7% per person in household living standards. Over the past 12 years, we have had Tory Prime Minister after Tory Prime Minister after Tory Prime Minister—I could go on, because there have been quite a few of them—telling us that this is the end of austerity, but in that time what we have seen is growing inequality and mortgages rising, and now we have record inflation and energy costs are skyrocketing.
This Tory Government have presided over nothing but austerity, and they offer people no hope of anything else. They have presided over the continued chaotic mismanagement of the UK economy that forces ordinary people to pay the price. That view is shared by many people. When preparing for this speech, I looked at all the different resources—people who have made contact to comment on the Budget statement and the events of the past few months. It was really difficult to narrow them down, because so many people representing so many organisations across business and charities have been critical of the way the Government have handled and are handling things. I will pick out just a few. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said:
“The truth is we just got a lot poorer. We are in for a long, hard, unpleasant journey…that has been made more arduous than it might have been by a series of economic own goals”.
He went on to mention the disastrous mini-Budget of course, but he also stated:
“Very clearly, Brexit was an economic own goal. Economically speaking that has been very bad news indeed”.
I notice that no one else dares to speak of Brexit in this Chamber, but the damage is real and has been done. Scotland voted resolutely against Brexit; we voted to remain in the EU and were ignored, and now we are paying the price. In a very impressive speech, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) made a lot of persuasive arguments, but I noticed again that Labour dares not go there, because when it comes to Brexit, they have taken the clothes off the beach and put them on themselves. It is not good enough.
Let me go further and quote the UN Human Rights Council, which includes nations such as Brazil and which has urged the UK Government to implement an energy poverty strategy that addresses the impact of rising costs on child poverty targets. It has gone further still and asked the UK Government to
“improve food security, in particular for children, adolescents and persons with disabilities”.
Does that make the Tories feel proud? It is almost unbelievable. Scotland deserves much better than that.
The Food Standards Agency consumer insights tracker points out that the proportion of people who cannot afford to eat a healthy balanced diet rose to more than a third in October. More than a third of people cannot afford to eat a healthy balanced diet. A quarter of people reported eating cold food because they could not afford to cook. About a fifth are turning off fridges and freezers with food inside them because they reckon they cannot afford the energy to run those appliances. That is a disgrace. All the nations of the UK deserve better. The people I represent in my constituency and across Scotland definitely deserve better.
The Resolution Foundation points out that, far from the Government taxing the rich, as we have heard in this Chamber—taxing those who can most afford it—it is the people in the middle who will be squeezed by a near 4% hit on their income, which is a bigger hit than high earners will experience. The Resolution Foundation warns that the statement means nearly 20 years of wage stagnation between 2008 and 2027 due to the weak forecast for pay and the effects of inflation, hurting people in their homes, hurting families and hurting children. The foundation further points out that households living in harder-to-heat homes with larger families are particularly hard hit by energy bills—nearly a quarter of them are affected. It is worse for people who live off the gas grid—a large number of people in rural communities of the sort that I and many others represent. Look at what they have been offered. Yes, it is great to see a doubling from £100 to £200 in the support for off-gas-grid households, but that is nowhere near enough. Are Ministers living in the real world? At the moment, the minimum oil or kerosene delivery is £500. The amounts offered will not touch the sides, and people living in off-gas-grid households will pay far more than £4,000 for their average energy bill.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
In mainland UK, heating oil can be bought for 82p per litre, but we in Northern Ireland are paying £1.08 per litre. Fuel poverty is a major problem in Northern Ireland.
Drew Hendry
The hon. Member makes a good point about affordability for his constituents. This is a major issue for people in rural communities across the nations of the UK, especially Scotland, although Northern Ireland fares similarly in having a colder climate. These are big, big issues for people. There is no real acknowledgement in the autumn statement of the difficulties for people living their real lives in that type of accommodation in those areas.
The OBR pointed out that Westminster’s Brexit
“will result in the UK’s trade intensity being 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU.”
The Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said the UK has suffered a “dramatically” worse recovery than the US or the EU. Government Members like to pretend that the only things that have happened are the war in Ukraine and the global pandemic, but they must take responsibility for the economic self-harm they have imposed on people across the UK and in Scotland through their Brexit ideology, which is resolutely failing and being proved to fail on a daily basis. Scotland deserves better than that.
The CBI director general says of the situation:
“There was really nothing there to tell us that the economy is going to avoid another decade of low productivity and low growth”.
On labour shortages, he called for a practical approach to immigration and urged the UK Government—he might do the same for the Labour party—to be “honest” with people over the UK’s “vast” labour shortages, and said:
“we don’t have the people we need, nor do we have the productivity.”
Scotland deserves better than this.
Business after business ignored. Organisation after organisation ignored. Expert after expert ignored. The UK Tory Government ignore them all. We have seen non-doms protected. Bankers’ bonuses are now unlimited. Many companies are still avoiding their tax responsibilities and public services are facing their most brutal cuts. The Health Foundation pointed out that the whole health budget amounts to only a 1.2% increase in real terms over the next two years, which is well below the historic average of 3.8%. For Scotland, that means having to draw back on the services we can provide. We are focused on trying to support people with fair pay settlements, so they can navigate the cost of living crisis. The Health Foundation also shows that if spending per person had matched the EU average, the UK would have spent £40 billion more than it has done.
On the climate, where have all the good promises gone? Where have all the warm words gone on taking the global climate crisis seriously? In fact, the autumn statement undermines Scotland’s climate change goals and underlined the dangers of Scotland being held back. The UK Government are pushing ahead with nuclear, which is the most costly and the slowest form of energy to deliver, and has the highest environmental impact. The UK already has the most poorly insulated homes in western Europe. There is nothing to change that situation. They still have not delivered, after a number of betrayals, the Peterhead carbon capture and storage project. They have put a higher—higher!—windfall tax on renewable energy producers than they have on oil and gas. That is quite incredible. They have deterred and deferred the uptake of electric vehicles. At a time when momentum was growing for people to invest in an electric vehicle to be better for the climate, what do this Government do? They introduce a pretty high tax to put people off doing that. People will persevere with their petrol and diesel for a bit longer, and burn more carbon-intensive fuels.
In Scotland, the Scottish Government have been working to protect people, despite a real-terms cut of 10% since December due to inflation. Any Westminster increase as a result of the autumn statement will more than be wiped out by inflation. We prioritised public sector fair pay and are prioritising funding to help households, businesses and people to get through this period, but we are reaching the limit. In fact, the limit of what can be done, without borrowing powers and the powers we need to look after our people properly, has already been reached, in sharp contrast to this place. Under Westminster, we continue to see growing inequality, mortgages rising, inflation rising and energy costs skyrocketing. When we compare countries of Scotland’s size or smaller, we find that, for them, independence works. Compared to the UK, those countries are wealthier and more equal, and have higher productivity, lower poverty, lower child poverty and lower pensioner poverty. They have higher social mobility and higher business investment.
Scotland has not voted Tory for nearly 70 years, yet we are saddled with this. Scotland did not vote for Brexit, and we do not want it. Scottish people, families and children are bearing the brunt of Westminster’s legacy. Scotland is being denied the people it needs to strengthen its communities, its businesses and our country. Scotland has voted time and time again to have its say on its future. It cannot be denied. The choice is between the toxic approach here in Westminster, or a normal independent country.
Chris Stephens
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, because we should be looking at an excess profits tax across the board. It is quite right to mention the oil and gas companies, but they are not the only ones who benefited from the pandemic. We now seem to be being told by the Government that tax avoidance and evasion somehow disappeared during the pandemic. That is the only conclusion we can reach when we look at the figures in these documents.
In addition, the Government seem to be making no attempt to discuss how we tackle energy prices. People have a very real perception that the regulators are on the side of the energy companies, not the consumers. That is exactly what the people on the streets believe when they talk about energy. We should start giving the regulators more teeth and encourage them to use their powers to go after the energy companies that are making excess profits, as well as to bring prices down for consumers, because that has to happen.
Drew Hendry
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point about the absolutely crushing effect that energy costs are having on families and communities. Does he agree that off-gas grid supplies should be regulated as well? For too long they have been ignored, and people are paying substantially more to heat their homes than people on the gas grid do.
Chris Stephens
I agree, and my hon. Friend made powerful points earlier about costs, as did the hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan). Poverty is a real issue across the UK—it is not just an urban, but a rural issue—and it affects all the communities across these islands.
As much as I welcome the fact that benefits were uprated in line with inflation, it has always been regarded as a political fact that that should happen anyway, so we should not give the Government any kudos just for following what should take place. However, as the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) rightly argued, food inflation has gone up by 16%, and we are seeing a rise in the use of food banks and affordable food projects, which are the next level above food banks. Pantries and larders are opening up in many of our communities to help people move away from food banks, and I am involved in many such projects in Glasgow South West.
Chris Stephens
I will in a second, but I want to talk about poverty and the Department for Work and Pensions—I am on the Work and Pensions Committee.
The DWP is closing offices and laying off its workers. Incredibly, the Department that is responsible for employment and social security is saying to its workforce, “You are no longer required,” because it is closing offices. That position is absolutely risible, and it is made even more risible by its refusal of home working for people who are under threat of redundancy. One thing that did work during the pandemic was home working; it helped people to get into the workplace. As we heard in my exchange with the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), when we encourage home working, we encourage people into paid employment.
It seems daft that Government Departments are telling their workforce, “Come into the office, come into these workplaces, but you can’t work from home.” The Government have to show a bit more creativity if they are serious about dealing with long-term unemployment, turning around people’s lives and getting them into work. It seems completely contradictory for them to say to their workforce, “You cannae work from home.” The position they find themselves in is completely and utterly risible.
I hope that the Minister will answer this question: of the 6,000 additional employees that the state is going to employ, what will the ratio be between the DWP and HMRC? I will make an educated guess: the overwhelming majority will end up in the DWP chasing social security fraud and error, not in HMRC tackling tax avoidance and evasion.
Finally, there was nothing in the statement about public sector pay policy. So many workers have taken the view that they have no alternative other than to withdraw their labour because of the low pay offers that they get from employers, including many in the public sector. The overwhelming majority of civil servants are not covered by pay review bodies, yet we do not know the Government’s policy on public sector pay. Public sector workers spend that money in the economy and there could be an economic boost if we give public sector workers the pay rise that they deserve. I hope that we will get an answer to that, because public sector workers deserve better than to be treated as the Government are treating them.
Victoria Atkins
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, the OBR—the independent OBR—again confirms that because of our plans the recession is shallower, and inflation is reduced because of these very difficult decisions we have taken. Unemployment is also lower, with about 70,000 jobs protected as a result of our decisions.
Drew Hendry
The Minister is very keen to lay inflationary pressures globally, but how does she explain the OECD figures showing that, for market interest rates, the UK is at the very top of the tree?
Victoria Atkins
As the Governor of the Bank of England has explained, disruption in the markets has subsided, and the impact of that has flushed through the system. I would emphasise to the hon. Member the evidence we are seeing in other countries. I do not shy away from that; I offer it as an example of the pressures we are all facing internationally. It is precisely that international picture that the Government are addressing.
The hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) laid down in, if I may say so, a rather loud speech that there was no help for his constituents with the cost of living. It was passionate, I am told. It is fair to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) expressed astonishment at his passion, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) said that some Opposition Members were living in a different galaxy.
On a serious note, I do want to help colleagues across the House understand the help that is available, because I know that hon. Members will be responding to their constituents’ worries. Any constituent who is on benefits or paid pensions will have them increased by 10.1%. Any constituent on means-tested benefits will have a one-off payment of £900. Any constituent on pension credit will have a one-off payment of £300 on top of their winter payment, and those who are living with disabilities will have a one-off payment of £150. Any constituent on the national living wage will see an increase to their salary, with the hourly rate going up to £10.42. Every single one of our constituents will see help through the energy price guarantee, which is worth on average £900 this year and will be worth £500 next year, and it helps to lower inflation by 2%.
Economic Responsibility and a Plan for Growth
Drew Hendry Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
A report out today shows that 60% of people across the nations of the UK are worried about their household financial prospects. The same report shows that nine in 10 people have delayed putting on the heating due to concern about the cost.
Members across the House will have received emails and calls from people who have never before been moved to contact their MP and who are now feeling those concerns for themselves. When those who have felt relatively comfortable start feeling the pinch, imagine what it means for those on the rungs of the ladder below. Then imagine what it means for those who were not getting by at all, who were already suffering from poverty and who had £20 a week cut from their universal credit. It is crushing them. It is destroying families. It is clearing out food banks. It is moving third-sector and support service staff to tears with the feeling of futility. And it is destroying the health of children.
The actions of this Westminster Government have left vulnerable households abandoned, betrayed and cast aside. This Government laid bare their ideology during the chaotic period of the so-called mini-Budget. Make no mistake, while they were doing that damage, they simply pulled back the curtain on their core ideology. Their error was being so obvious, so blunt, that political spin could not cover it. Their focus has always been on making the rich richer. When their key policies result in poverty but mean £40,000 extra each year for those earning £1 million a year it is a bit of a giveaway, is it not? Only those earning more than £155,000 a year were net beneficiaries of the mini-Budget.
Of course, this month’s Chancellor has had to scrap this unfunded giveaway to the most well-off, not through genuine contrition but because he was forced to do so. Limp and clearly insincere apologies do not fool anyone. The parachute Chancellor has dropped in to try to close the curtain and return to the drip, drip of chronic austerity that is the usual modus operandi. People now see through it.
With inflation above 10%, the poor are facing the hardest choices. Food inflation is higher than 10%, which means they have really tough choices. The Chancellor has taken away the two-year energy price cap. Although the cap is welcome, it still means a doubling of prices from last year. Ominously, there will be a review in six months. There is no certainty for increasingly desperate people, while rich bankers will still see their wages rocket, as the cap on their bonuses has been removed.
James Cartlidge
On the subject of banking, can the hon. Gentleman confirm that current SNP policy is that Scotland, were it to become independent, would have a currency with no lender of last resort?
Drew Hendry
Let me deal with two issues. First, no amount of deflection by Conservative Members will take away from the fact that they are punishing the poor and they have trashed the economy in recent weeks. Secondly, on the prospectus for independence, people in Scotland should have a choice: to have those questions put before them and to vote on them. It is the hon. Gentleman’s Government who are denying democracy in that case.
Drew Hendry
No, I am going to make some progress.
The Chancellor has ominously set that cap up for a review in six months, providing no certainty for increasingly desperate people, while rich bankers will still be able to see their wages rocket, as I said, with the cap on their bonuses removed. The energy crisis is even more galling for my constituents, and many more across Scotland, as they see their energy being produced from their backyards, yet folk in the colder climate of the highlands pay more per unit for electricity than people anywhere else in the UK—renewable energy suppliers are charged more to connect to the grid than those anywhere else in the UK, and the picture is particularly bleak for those who are off the gas grid.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
My hon. Friend will be aware that even on the Government’s own estimates heating oil has gone up by 147% since January, and in constituencies such as ours it is costing more than £1,200 to fill a tank, and sometimes this is with a minimum delivery of 500 litres. Does he share my concern that in these colder, rural and more economically fragile areas of the UK not everyone has £500 to replenish their oil tank? This will not be a choice of turning their heating on or not; they simply will not have the choice, because they will not have the oil or the means to replenish the tank when they need it. This is a crisis.
Drew Hendry
My hon. Friend is completely right and he represents a constituency with many off gas grid constituents, as I do. He makes a telling point about the cost of that. What support are the UK Government giving to these people who face twice the bills that other people will? They are giving a measly £100.
Imran Hussain
Even today, the Minister refuses to give us figures on the expected windfall revenue. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the simple fact remains that this Government always side with the energy giants as opposed to ordinary British people?
Drew Hendry
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. As I said in my opening remarks, the Government’s ideology is that the rich will get richer while the poor will suffer. That has been underlined over the past few weeks like at no other time in this place. The scales have fallen away—
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
I tried to intervene on the Minister on this broad point. Both he and his friends refer continually to growth, but I do not think I have heard any indication from him this afternoon, or elsewhere, as to how that growth will be spread beyond London and the south-east. Is that not a gaping gap in the Government’s policy? It will certainly affect the constituents of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), as it will my constituents and those in Wales, the north of England and Scotland.
Drew Hendry
Again, the hon. Gentleman makes a fantastic point. The growth we are seeing from this Government is the growth in poverty and in inequality. That continues to rise and the Government are very good at driving it forward.
As I was saying, those off gas grid consumers are being given £100. Scotland is energy rich and a net exporter of energy. Renewable energy is six to nine times cheaper than the gas-fired power our prices are linked to. In Scotland we have the energy, but until we have the power our people will continue to be ignored over their basic needs and their potential.
After the Chancellor’s statement, the Scottish National party, through my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), tried to introduce some certainty for households terrified by the rising energy prices by tabling an amendment to the Energy Prices Bill that would have required Ministers to outline within 28 days how support after April would be provided to households. Labour failed to support that amendment. The Chancellor says that more difficult decisions will have to be made, which means cutting the funding for things that ordinary families and the most vulnerable rely on. We should note that the threat for those struggling by, many of them working people relying on universal credit, has not been lifted; there may be further reductions, on top of the fact that inflation has been three times higher than their last increase. Common decency demands that benefits must be fully uprated. Are the Government capable of that?
We should also remember that this Government still have not reversed the pernicious £20 a week cut to UC, yet the Chancellor had the cheek to say—this has been repeated today—that the Government’s priority will always be the most vulnerable. Does that include pensioners? This week, he was briefing journalists, including Robert Peston, who said this today, that the Government were abandoning the triple lock. With inflation rampant—today’s figure is 10.1%—this means further hardship for Scotland’s older people. Yet today, the Prime Minister says no. Is this another U-turn? Or is it like when she says that the energy cap will mean no family would pay more than £2,500 per year? Is it just—let me find some parliamentary language—questionable?
If the Government really mean that they care, they would reinstate the £20 a week to UC, scrap the bedroom tax, get rid of the odious rape clause and uprate benefits in line with inflation. They could choose to follow the progressive lead of the Scottish Government, who have brought in, among a wide package—[Interruption.] The Minister is laughing. The Scottish Government have brought in the Scottish child payment, which has risen now to £25 a week. That is helping to mitigate the callous cut made by his Government. They could choose to follow that progressive lead and to follow what the Scottish Government have done in doubling the December bridging payment from £130 to £260, at a time when families will need it most, in the depth of winter and at Christmas. The Government could pay for much of this by taxing the excess profits of companies that are clearly making them.
Alan Brown
My hon. Friend was talking about the Tories not keeping their pledge to protect the most vulnerable, and he has highlighted some awful policies that are making people more vulnerable. In addition, under this Government fuel poverty has increased by more than 50% and now affects 6.7 million households. So to say that the Government are protecting the vulnerable is, unfortunately, a sick joke.
Drew Hendry
My hon. Friend has said it all there—it is clear. To hear laughter this afternoon from Government Front Benchers about measures to mitigate poverty is shameful.
The Government could have taxed some of the excess profits, and companies are daring them to do so. Sometimes, as with the boss of Shell, they are asking the Government to do this. The Government could do this but they will not, because protecting the vulnerable is not what Tories do. It gets worse, because now the Bank of England will react with further interest rate rises, pushing mortgages to unaffordable heights for some homeowners and prospective buyers. As we have heard again today, the Government want to lay all the blame on the illegal war in Ukraine and on global conditions, but everybody knows that much of this is Tory-inflicted. A big part of that is Brexit. It has hamstrung businesses by starving them of vital staff; it has pushed inflation higher through import prices; the UK’s shocking balance of trade has been exposed; and it has ushered in a raft of new tax costs for businesses across the nations of the UK. As the former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney pointed out:
“In 2016 the British economy was 90% the size of Germany’s. Now it is…70%.”
That was before the clusterbùrach of the mini-Budget. Labour, with all the backbone of a squid, joined at the tentacles with this Tory ideology, is trying to pretend that somehow it will make Brexit work. Most Labour Members do not believe that, and it flies in the face of all the logic and informed opinion.
All this chaos is a timely reminder for the people of Scotland about why they should choose a different path. I say to people back home: look at what the Government are doing to you, to your communities, to your businesses, to your families and to your children’s futures. Let us make comparisons with the UK. Other countries similar to Scotland are wealthier and more equal, and have higher productivity, lower poverty, lower child poverty and lower pensioner poverty. Democracy can and will triumph. Scotland has the right to choose a very different path from this one, to build a better future as an independent nation and as an equal partner in the European Union—one that seeks to lift people up, not keep them down, and to live by the values of a welcoming, diverse and compassionate nation.
Tackling Short-term and Long-term Cost of Living Increases
Drew Hendry Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Since I was first elected in 2015, I have seen things go from bad to worse for struggling people and families under the Tories in this Chamber. I used to say that people should not have to choose between heating and eating; I did not expect the Tories to take away even that option from people. We hear today that people are self-disconnecting from gas and electricity, or storing food outside their refrigerator to save money by switching it off, in dangerous circumstances. This is a dreadful time and people are facing dreadful conditions. They are unable to wash clothes or wash themselves, use cookers, or even switch on the lights. People are struggling. They are seeing energy companies put up their bills, sometimes increasing direct debits by hundreds of pounds per month, even though there is little evidence that that is required.
All this is happening, yet this Government and a complacent Ofgem are doing next to nothing. They should be doing everything in their power, yet their inaction can only lead to the conclusion that they just do not care. They ought to step in to help off-gas grid customers and businesses, because they face an even heavier burden: unregulated liquified petroleum gas and heating oil prices are rocketing, and they face cost rises three to four times greater than everyone else. Businesses off-grid are hammered, as are small and medium-sized businesses in general, who have no cap to protect them. What is the point in having a regulator that will not regulate and a Government lost in their own rhetoric?
At this time my constituents are noting a £20 per week increase in their weekly shop, which is another £80 a month that families can ill afford. Was it lunacy that this Government, knowing that people were facing rising inflation and rocketing energy prices, moved to cut the £20 a week from universal credit, or was it ideological cruelty? I will leave that to others to decide.
In Scotland, the Scottish Government have already been mitigating the imposed costs on families, spending £350 million to nullify the bedroom tax and, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), spending four times more per head on insulating houses and properties. When the UK Government took away £20 a week from families, the Scottish Government gave them the Scottish child payment of £20 a week, soon to rise to £25, providing real help through very limited powers.
What does this Chancellor do? He gives a tiny council tax cut and a payday loan. As the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) said, the UK Government do have choices. Norway, for example, an independent country similar in size to Scotland in terms of resources, will reimburse households for 80% of all their electricity costs above an affordability level. Why are the UK Government not using their powers, reserved to this place, to take meaningful action? It is because they just do not care.
Scotland is at the moment stuck with the bad choices that this place makes. The people of Scotland can now see even more clearly that when the powers lie in Scotland their Scottish Government will make the choices to protect and support them, in contrast to what happens in this place. There is a hope, however: they can see that the change our people, our families and our communities need is coming. The powers of a normal independent country are needed more than ever, and they are coming soon.
Cost of Living Increases
Drew Hendry Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stephen Flynn
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention and he is absolutely right. The Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change is present and I am sure he will address those remarks if he comes to the Dispatch Box later, as I see that he will.
It is not just the money towards the council tax rebate that the Government have put forward, of course, because they have gone so much further: they have given people a buy-back loan for their energy bills—buy now, pay later. That is the best they can do in this time of crisis, and of course that was predicated on the basis that energy prices would reduce over time but the situation has changed and many experts and analysts now suggest that is not going to happen. So the Government need to get real on this matter.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a point about energy price increases, which will be devastating for many families, but people who live in off-gas-grid areas will be crucified by the price increases, because they rely on bottled gas, oil or wood, all of which are going up in price, and they are of course currently using more of that expensive energy. Does my hon. Friend agree that this Government need to take action now to adopt regulation for people who live off the gas grid, so that they are treated more fairly and before there is a crisis for rural communities?
Stephen Flynn
Absolutely—I could not agree more wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend on that. He makes an extremely important point, which he has been making for many months, and it is time the Government listened and took action in that regard.
Stephen Flynn
It is interesting to hear that we are short of gas when I regularly hear the opposite from the Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change. That is the important point: Government Members can try to disagree with their own Government on these matters, but in real terms we are self-sufficient. Scotland is self-sufficient when it comes to oil and gas, but we can and must go so much further on renewables. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to hang around, he will hear me speak about that in due course.
Drew Hendry
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for generously giving way again. Is it not the case that Scotland, which is a net exporter of energy—I think we produce around 153% of our needs over the course of a year—would have been able to do much, much more had this Government not stood in the face of more cheap, reliable and green renewable energy by standing for many years against allowing solar and onshore wind power when it came to the contracts for difference? We could have been much further ahead. Is it not now this Government’s responsibility to help people with the cost of living crisis, which they and the energy price increase have caused?
Stephen Flynn
Yes, absolutely. The reason why we are in the current situation is that the Government have not planned ahead. They have chosen to sit on their seat when they should have been looking to where we could go in future. I hope the Minister will address that point when he sums up the debate.
Customs (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2022
Drew Hendry Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma.
The fact that the regulations are a technical amendment has been laid out. I do not intend to ask any questions on the detail further to those that have already been asked. It would be wrong, however, to let the opportunity pass without commenting on the process.
More than a year on from the signing of the Brexit UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement, the House is still finding and amending existing legislation to implement Brexit changes. What an absolute bùrach this is. It is messy and time consuming. It has been a drawn-out process, rather than an event. Brexit, it should be noted, has served absolutely no benefits to Scotland—quite the reverse—and yet the time of MPs is taken up with these issues, rather than with passing meaningful legislation to tackle the vital issues such as the cost of living crisis or the energy crisis. That does not shine a good light on this House or on the decisions that have been made on this issue.
National Insurance Contributions Increase
Drew Hendry Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
In an intervention earlier, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, talked about the 1.25 percentage point increase having the potential to break the back of families—being the last straw, as it were—and he was right. I often look across at Government Members and wonder whether they have any capacity for understanding the pressures that families face. Under a previous leader they used to talk about the just about managing, but those who were just about managing—the JAM—are toast under the circumstances that people currently face. On International Women’s Day, we should spare a thought for those mothers who are already struggling—now, before the increase comes in—to feed their children and heat their homes.
The Office for National Statistics says that those who earn below the average wage will pay up to £255 a year. That is a significant amount of money for people who do not have it. If someone’s household budget is already blown, £255 a year is devastating. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) pointed out the disproportionate effect of the national insurance increase on young people and the lowest-paid, and that is the case, but it will also hit business. The Federation of Small Businesses has pointed out that the increase will affect businesses by, on average, around £3,000 per year. It says that will put the brakes on investment, upskilling, apprenticeships and, of course, community growth.
Government Members like to say that Brexit has nothing to do with the crisis we are currently in but the ONS points out that since Brexit—incidentally, a Brexit that Scotland did not vote for and roundly rejected—the cost of producing goods has gone up by 13%. That is forcing up prices, increasing inflation and sucking the oxygen out of exports. Some 4,300 fewer businesses are exporting now than were exporting in 2019. That is a shocking figure. These are UK companies that are no longer exporting. Their exports to the EU are down £20 billion. All of this means less money in the economy and less money getting through to our communities—especially in Scotland and especially in places such as the highlands and the north of Scotland where we rely on Europe for fishing, seafood, fruit and veg and clothing. Many small and medium-sized enterprises are losing market and money. It is no wonder that the FSB has described this act as “chilling”.
This national insurance increase, which will stall planned wage increases, comes on top of household pressures gradually crushing ordinary households across the nations of the UK. As the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) pointed out, rural constituencies are disproportionately affected. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that we are seeing inflation of 8%, but for basic foodstuffs it is even higher. Things such as margarine are up 45%. Rice, one of the cheapest foods, has seen an increase of 344%. These are real effects on real people in real households, and they will be facing these pressures every day.
In the colder climate in rural areas, the costs are higher for fuel and for transport. For those in off-gas grid areas, it is not only about the £800 increase—as it was. It will now be more. It may cost £2,000 a year for the average household, but it could be £4,300 a year for energy costs. That is an astonishingly hard bill to pay for people who do not have a lot of money. This is another straw that will hurt them. An often used phrase is that people have to choose between heating or eating. Many of my constituents do not have that choice any more. They cannot choose the heating because there is just no money for it in the budget. People are being pushed into extreme fuel poverty and actual poverty, and they no longer have a choice.
The Government should scrap the national insurance hike. The Chancellor’s payday loan will not help, as it has to be repaid and, as we have just heard, that just exacerbates the problem. Council tax help is not enough. People need an emergency package. The Government should turn that £200 payday loan back into a grant that is paid to people directly. The £1,040 universal credit cut should be reversed. The Government should adopt the Scottish child payment across the nations of the UK and bring in a real living wage, not the “pretendy” one, as it was called earlier. They should scrap the bedroom tax; Scotland is having to mitigate that at the moment, but it should not be there. Let us scrap it.
I call on Members to support my ten-minute rule Bill to regulate off-grid gas supplies. The Government should make the changes: scrap the benefit cap; take away the hideous rape clause; and remove the barriers so that people are able to afford their very existence.
There is a lot more that we could cover today. This subject affects people’s income, affects their livelihood, affects the development and the growth of their children and affects their families into the future, but there is no time to cover it all. The one thing that this Government could do today, because they know that it is unpopular with their own Back Benchers, is to scrap this national insurance hike.
Downing Street Parties: Police Investigation
Drew Hendry Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
The Paymaster General does not want to speak about the specifics of the investigation. So, for all the dodgy coronavirus contracts, the cash for honours for the Tories, the stated intention to break international law, illegally proroguing Parliament and the many other crimes and misdemeanours of this Government, does he find it a tad ironic that it is the parties in which they demonstrated their contempt for the public that finally prompted the police to investigate?
Michael Ellis
If there is anything ironic, it is the Scottish National party.
Cost of Living Increases
Drew Hendry Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
David Linden
It is on the record that the SNP supported a number of those schemes. For example, the furlough scheme was hugely important, certainly at the beginning of the pandemic; about 13,000 of my constituents were involved in that scheme and it was something the SNP called for. However, we profoundly disagreed with the Government winding the scheme down too early, and there was such a lack of clarity on that; I know personally many constituents who lost their job in the intervening period from the Government saying it would be wound down to then extending it. The Government could have continued with a number of other schemes, too. We know fine well that as we come out of the teeth of this pandemic the economy is incredibly fragile, and my criticism, which I would reflect back to the hon. Gentleman, is that so many of these schemes were wound down far too early and that has led to the difficult financial pressures many of our constituents feel right now.
I was telling the House about some of the rising costs our constituents are facing in their average supermarket shop. Canned spaghetti was 13p and is now 35p, a price increase of 169%. These price changes will force more people towards food banks, and more people towards having to make that horrendous decision between heating and eating.
On top of the increasing price of food bills, energy prices are surging, delivering yet another devastating blow to families who are already struggling. Household energy bills were the biggest driver of inflation after Ofgem, the energy regulator, lifted the price cap on domestic gas and electricity. That meant that gas bills rose by 28.1% in the year to October, while electricity climbed by 18.8%. National Energy Action estimates that there are already 4.5 million fuel-poor households in the UK, which is nothing short of a disgrace, and if the cap rises, as is predicted, the number will rise to 6 million. Only two weeks ago there was an Opposition day debate in this Chamber and I was highlighting the rising cost of energy to Ministers, yet still, two weeks on, no action has been taken; indeed, if press reports are to be believed, a meeting between the Chancellor and the Prime Minister on this issue was cancelled last Wednesday because they were both so busy courting Tory backbenchers. When I met with Age UK and Age Scotland after their snap survey, it was revealed that 96% of their respondents were worried about their energy bills.
Again, these statistics have real-life consequences. I have heard far too many stories of people in my constituency moving their beds into their sitting room so they will only have to heat or light one room over the winter months. That an image not of Victorian Britain but of 21st-century global Britain.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point about the poverty faced by people in this current cost of living crisis. The all-party parliamentary group for terminal illness last year produced a report that pointed out that the energy costs for people diagnosed as terminally ill double when they are at home. When people are struggling anyway, that is an absolutely damning statistic for people with a terminal illness, yet the Government have failed to move on bringing forward faster access to benefits to support them. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is just a disgrace from this Government?
David Linden
It is. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who very ably chairs the all-party group for terminal illness. It is one of the things that really sticks in the craw of many of us. My hon. Friend highlights some of the very real struggles facing people with a terminal illness. The idea that the biggest issue of the day—the cost of living crisis and spiralling energy bills, which people who are terminally ill are struggling with—is being overlooked at the expense of things like “Fizz with Liz”, and the Chancellor and the Prime Minister courting the Tea Room really is an absolute disgrace.
Mr Clarke
Contrary to that rendering of events, the challenges we face in relation to the supply of HGV drivers are those faced by countries across Europe. This workforce is predominantly elderly, and has been badly affected by the covid pandemic. Industries across the world, let alone Europe, continue to be affected by the same challenges that we all face of constrained supply and rising demand as the world wakes up from the pandemic. This has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, and it is fundamentally misleading to suggest otherwise.
As I said to the House earlier this month, we are focused on easing the pressures caused by the cost of living wherever and however we can, and of course we are constantly considering what more we can do. I should remind the House that we are providing support, worth about £12 billion in this financial year and next, to help families with those challenges.
Drew Hendry
The Minister has said that the Government will do whatever they can to help people. I have raised this point before. The Government promised people who have been diagnosed as terminally ill that they would ensure that the six-month rule was moved aside so that those people could gain access to their benefits and survive this cost of living crisis, but nothing has been done. The Government are dragging their heels yet again. Will the Minister give a commitment now to taking this issue back and making sure that it is sorted out once and for all, so that those people who are dying, and their families, can have the support they deserve?
Mr Clarke
I recognise the passion with which the hon. Gentleman speaks in this place. I am happy to take away the issue to which he alludes and to look at it with my Department. However, the wider point stands: we are providing £12 billion this year and next. That is a huge package of support, targeted precisely at the issues that face this country and countries around the world.
To help working people, we cut the universal credit taper rate from 63p to 55p—that is a huge reward for making work pay—and increased the work allowance by £500 a year. That is a tax cut for nearly 2 million low-income families, worth £2.2 billion in the next financial year, or, on average, about an extra £1,000 in their pockets. Furthermore, from this April we will increase the national living wage by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour, benefiting more than 2 million workers across the UK. We have also frozen fuel duty for the 12th year in a row, which means that the average UK car driver will save about £1,900 compared to the level in 2010. All that builds on the help we have already provided elsewhere, such as the increase in the local housing allowance. We have increased it significantly Great Britain-wide, so that it stands at the 30th percentile of market rates, and we have made a commitment to keep cash levels at those higher rates in the future.
For those who needed extra help with their housing costs, we provided £140 million for discretionary housing payments in England and Wales this year; about 4 million people are being given help with their council tax bills; and we are investing over £200 million a year to continue the holiday activities and food programme for disadvantaged children in England. We are providing nearly £5 billion to help children and young people catch up on lost learning. On top of that, we are taking a range of further steps to relieve the financial pressures on the most vulnerable: for instance, we are expanding the Great Britain-wide warm home discount to about 780,000 additional households. In September we announced the £500 million household support fund to help vulnerable people throughout the UK with essentials such as energy, clothing and food bills this winter. Of course, we are also giving NHS workers throughout the United Kingdom a 3% pay rise in recognition of their service during the pandemic.
As I have said, the Government are striving to shield families from the rises in the cost of living, but as I also said a moment ago, the best anti-poverty strategy is a jobs strategy. That is why we believe that supporting, protecting and creating employment opportunities, and giving people the skills that they need, is economically right for this country. That vision is being turned into reality through our investment in the plan for jobs, which is benefiting people in every part of the United Kingdom.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip
Drew Hendry Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Blackford
I agree with the hon. Member. [Interruption.] Perhaps we should just calm down; there will be opportunities for people to participate in the debate. This issue of leadership and conduct is important. This saddens me, but when we are facing a new variant, and we do not know what the scale of that challenge will be, the obvious thing for everyone to do is to seek to protect themselves, but more importantly to protect others and to lead by example and show leadership. I commend colleagues across the House who are sitting here wearing masks today, but my goodness, there are far too many who still do not get it and do not accept the responsibility they have for each other, and they are even laughing about it as I say that. It comes from the Prime Minister.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Ian Blackford
Let me just carry on for a second, because this is important. The way we conduct ourselves and interact with others is important. I commend the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), for the courtesies she always showed to Opposition parties, for how the protocols were followed and for the way we had a relationship with No. 10. It grieves me that I can tell the House that we as the third party and, I believe, the Leader of the Opposition have no relationship with No. 10. We are disrespected and disregarded by a Prime Minister who does not understand his obligations to public life, and that is yet another example.
Drew Hendry
Is it not telling about how complicit those on the Government Benches are that, when my right hon. Friend was reading out the list of untruths peddled by the Prime Minister, there was deathly silence? The only time they were animated was when my right hon. Friend called it for what it was.
Ian Blackford
I ask Government Members to reflect. Most people in this House are decent people. People come here to provide a public service, and I say to hon. and right hon. Members on the Government Benches that they are being let down, we are being let down and these islands are being let down by a Prime Minister who simply does not know how to behave. On that note, it will be interesting to see how the Scottish Tories vote tonight, and we will be watching. They are a group who never fail to see conspiracy at Holyrood, but somehow always fall deathly silent when it comes to sleaze and corruption overseen by their own Prime Minister.
In truth, this debate is not about the Scottish Tories—I will leave them to explain their own hypocrisy—but what the public expect when standards and rules are so clearly broken by their political representatives. They expect consequences, and they expect censure. Let us also be clear about this: if we fail to censure this Prime Minister today, we will have failed that public duty for accountability. Not only that, but it will reveal something very telling; it will show a Westminster system that is broken beyond repair and a Prime Minister who believes himself to be above the law of the land.
The only comfort I take is that fewer and fewer people in Scotland can possibly look at the broken, corrupt, self-serving Westminster system and conclude that it produces a secure basis for the future of Scotland. We all know that Scotland can do much better than this; we can do better than this broken Westminster system and we can do better than this Prime Minister. We will do so much better when our country chooses independence. I commend the motion in the name of myself and my hon. and right hon. colleagues.
Stewart Hosie
We are here. We did not make a unilateral declaration of independence. We have not rushed into a second referendum. What we have done is win another mandate, and we will hold the referendum in line with the wishes of the people, because that is what democracy actually means.
The proposed changes to the Electoral Commission will give this Government unprecedented and unchecked power by allowing Ministers to set the commission’s agenda and purview, thereby enabling them to change which organisations and campaign activities are permitted a year before an election. That is Executive interference in the electoral process, about which we should be deeply concerned.
On a related topic, we have a boundary review that will reduce the number of MPs in Scotland and Wales and increase the number in England. If every single vote were cast the same way, it would not affect the SNP. The polls say we would still return 48 Members, but in England the Tories would go up and everyone else would go down. Looking at the failure to tackle dark money, the boundary changes, the evisceration of the Electoral Commission and the voter suppression Bill, it is no wonder that the public smell a rat.
Then there is cash for honours. When my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) asked the Prime Minister whether such practices should end, he seemed to defend it. Rather bizarrely, he said:
“Until you get rid of the system by which the trades union barons”
whoever they are—
fund other parties, we have to…we have to go ahead.”
There is a world of difference between organisations coming together to campaign for things they believe in, and selling honours for cash, which is illegal. Of course, the Tories always defend their own, trying to get Owen Paterson off the hook and conflating his issue with a general change to the standards process. That was never going to wash.
Drew Hendry
My right hon. Friend is talking about illegality. We should never forget that it is this Prime Minister’s Government who introduced the phrase into the lexicon—into this House of Commons—that it is okay to break the law as long as it is in a “specific and limited” way.
Stewart Hosie
Limited and specific lawbreaking is still lawbreaking. I was also struck by the fact that the Government almost boasted about their intention to break international law, not by way of the “little Britlander” exceptionalism we are used to, but in a way that would have made the UK an international pariah.
I could add that this Government lost a key battle in the Tory covid cronyism row when the National Audit Office ordered them to name the VIP lane firms given public contracts. I could also talk about the disgraceful but, apparently, routine use of WhatsApp and Signal messaging systems, which have options to make messages disappear and which it appears have been used to avoid scrutiny of decisions made during the covid crisis. I could talk about the fact that the High Court granted a judicial review of the rules regarding the retention of records. But my favourite was when the Supreme Court ruled that the Prime Minister’s advice to the Queen that Parliament should be prorogued for five weeks at the height of the Brexit crisis was unlawful. Defeats in the courts, judicial reviews, trying to get Owen Paterson off the hook, cash for honours, voter suppression, weakening the Electoral Commission, ignoring dark money and unlawful prorogation—that is a pattern of self-serving, self-seeking behaviour, and an approach to governance that is grubby to say the least and smacks of dishonesty.
Budget: Pre-announcement of Provisions
Drew Hendry Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Clarke
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. Clearly, he might want to take this matter up with the leader of his own party, as I understand that it has been the subject of some disagreement. The Government are of course committed to ensuring that younger workers get fair pay. We obviously have to balance that against the wider commitment that we have to ensuring that we do not perpetuate the serious situation of youth unemployment that we inherited from the last Labour Government. There will be good news for younger workers in the Budget tomorrow.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
These decisions made by the Government deeply affect people’s lives: energy bills are rocketing; inflation is up; food and petrol prices are up; furlough has ended; and universal credit has been cut. It is no wonder that Citizens Advice Scotland is predicting that my constituents and others will face a really tough winter. They then face an increase in national insurance. With that in mind, is the Chancellor really going to give his old pals in the City a tax cut in the Budget tomorrow?
Mr Clarke
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the £500 million household support fund is being put in place precisely to ensure that we protect families through the winter that lies ahead. That comes on top of all the measures that we have put in place to ensure that we adjust for the cost of living. This Government tax people very fairly. The richest 1% and 5% are paying more tax than they did under the last Labour Government. That includes the banks, which pay their fair share as part of a wider economic settlement.