Budget Resolutions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I will make a bit of progress and then try to take more interventions, if that is okay.

It is also important to recognise that the Budget statement saw a significant increase in public spending overall. It is the case that no Government can be judged purely by how much they spend. How that money is spent is critical. Additional public spending without reform and without a focus on value for money is money wasted. But I do not think that anyone across the House can deny that, with reform and with a focus on value for money, additional public spending, appropriately targeted, can help to transform public services for the better. In this Budget statement, £150 billion more will be spent over the spending review period. That is a 3.8% growth, in real terms, and in the Department for which I am responsible there is a 4.7% increase. Alongside that, there are the biggest increases in capital investment from any Government for 50 years; the biggest block grants ever given, since the dawn of devolution, to the Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; and an increase of 6.6% in the national living wage, which takes it to £9.50 an hour. All Governments can face criticism and all Chancellors can be attacked, but I do not think it credible for anyone in this House to say that the package that the Chancellor unveiled last week is any way not equal to the challenges that we face.

The question for Opposition Members, including those on the Front Bench, is what they would do differently. If they argue that we should spend even more, where would they spend it? Which budgets would they prioritise? If they were to spend more, which budgets would they deprioritise? What would they cut to fund the additional spending? If they would not cut, would they borrow more? If so, how much more? With what impact on our credibility in international markets, on interest rates and on our capacity to fund our debt and deficit? Let us bear in mind that debt is falling and the deficit is being reduced as a result of the Chancellor’s shrewd approach.

If the Opposition were to borrow more, would they tax more? If so, whom would they tax? What credibility can they have on tax when we introduced a specific one-off increase to fund the national health service and social care—and the Labour party voted against it?

Those are all questions that Opposition Front Benchers want to avoid. To what lengths have they gone to avoid it? Well, earlier today I spent a few seconds on Twitter, not tweeting, but studying that social platform. In particular, I studied the tweets of my opposite number, the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), who has been tweeting promiscuously and vociferously over the weekend—but what has he been tweeting promiscuously and vociferously about? Has he been tweeting about the spending review? Has he been putting forward alternative plans for local government, alternative propositions on levelling up, a new plan for housing or perhaps a new proposition on communities?

No. The hon. Member has only one tweet about the spending review. In contrast, he has tweeted five times as often about Crystal Palace football club. We are all, I think, in awe of Patrick Vieira’s success in ensuring that Crystal Palace could beat Manchester City 2-0 at the weekend, but however historic and unprecedented that victory is, I think we all have a right to ask whether, if Labour is silent on the spending review—if it has nothing to say by way of criticism or alternative—that is perhaps an indication of the success of the Chancellor in framing a Budget and a spending review right for this country.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

To get back to some serious points for a moment, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told Glasgow’s COP26 today that the world’s

“addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink.”

Will the Secretary of State use his planning powers to protect the beautiful parts of his own county of Surrey and prevent it from being turned into a British Texas? Why are Conservative Ministers prepared to allow new oil drilling in the Surrey hills and the north of Scotland when we are in a climate crisis?

[Michael Gove]

I have huge respect and affection for the right hon. Member, but I remember when we sat in Cabinet together and he was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. I remember when he spoke to the Liberal Democrat conference, when such a thing occurred —when there were enough Liberal Democrats to get together to fill a conference hall. I remember him telling that Liberal Democrat conference hall that it was time—please forgive my language, ladies and gentlemen—to get fracking. Now that he is no longer in government and is in opposition, he seems, curiously enough, to have reversed his position, an unprecedented thing for a Liberal Democrat to do.[Laughter.] Saying one thing to one constituency and another thing to another? Remarkable!

I should say that my own views on fracking in Surrey—and indeed elsewhere—are on the record, and the right hon. Member can be reassured that my opposition to fracking in Surrey, particularly in a case that came up in my constituency, is on the record; but because my views are on the record of the past, I should say no more about the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

The Budget proved one thing about this Conservative Government: they are totally out of touch. They are out of touch with the cost-of-living crisis: despite people struggling with rising heating, food and mortgage bills, the Conservatives’ response is to raise their taxes. They are out of touch with the crisis facing our children: despite the dramatic loss of learning, thanks to covid, the Conservatives plan to spend less than a third of what their own catch-up expert recommended. They are totally out of touch when it comes to climate change: despite the Budget taking place on the eve of the most important set of climate talks ever, the Chancellor had literally nothing to offer on positive action for the climate. Instead, he offered tax cuts for people using fossil fuels, not least on short-haul flights.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It was such a missed opportunity and such an own goal. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there were other things that the Government could have done, such as the electrification of east-west rail, which would have affected my constituency? That would have shown that the Government were serious about decarbonisation, but what they did was encourage people to fly when they should not be flying.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ed Davey]

My hon. Friend is a real campaigner when it comes to the environment and climate change, and she is absolutely right. I make a prediction to her: this continuing concerted love-in with fossil fuels will be seen by our children as criminally negligent.

Let me be crystal clear about the Glasgow COP. Having led the UK delegation to three past COPs—in Doha, Warsaw and Lima—when I was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and having prepared the UK’s negotiating position ahead of Paris, I desperately hope that Glasgow succeeds. But when I see the Government’s gross diplomatic mistakes ahead of COP26, and when I hear a Budget speech that does not even mention climate change, I fear for the outcome of Glasgow, and I am angry with this Government.

I regret to say that, as I watched the Prime Minister pose in Rome’s Colosseum, he reminded me less of Emperor Augustus than of Emperor Nero. He talks about ending coal use across the globe, while refusing to stop a new coal mine being opened in Cumbria. He asks world leaders for the political will to act on climate change, while allowing new drilling—new drilling!—for oil on land in Surrey and offshore in Scotland. With the Secretary of State for Levelling Up refusing to use the planning power that he has for climate action, I fear that the only levels that will go up under his leadership are the sea levels.

I have to say to the Secretary of State that I am proud to be the Minister who passed the regulation that did more to stop fracking under this Government and I am proud that I passed it under his own nose in the Cabinet. He was one of the people urging me to go on to fracking but, because I fooled him, I managed to make renewable energy the watchword of the Liberal Democrats in power. We nearly quadrupled renewable energy. We made Britain the world leader in offshore wind power, despite opposition from the Conservatives. I am so proud that it is the Liberal Democrats who were responsible for cutting coal use in this country more than any other party.

By failing to take tough action on fossil fuels, the Government have missed an opportunity to help people who are struggling with heating bills, and to help Britain’s industries which are struggling with high energy costs. Here is what the Liberal Democrats would have done. We would have brought in a one-year windfall tax, on the gas producers making an absolute killing with the rise in global gas prices. We would have used that windfall and shared it with Britain’s fuel-poor and with Britain’s struggling energy-intensive industries. We would have used the cash from our fossil fuel windfall tax to target help on low-income households having to choose between heating and eating. For this, we would have more than doubled the warm home discount, and doubled the number of people who benefit from it.

[Michael Gove]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ed Davey]

In a second.

We would have matched that immediate help with heating bills with a massive programme of home insulation, where this Government have so spectacularly failed. As I give way to the Secretary of State, I hope that he will say what investment there is under this Government for people to insulate their homes. The answer, by the way, is none.

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Gentleman boasted that he had deceived members of the Cabinet, raising questions, inevitably, about the reliability of any Liberal Democrat promise. In 2013, he said this:

“Shale gas represents a promising new potential energy resource for the UK. It could contribute significantly to our energy security, reducing our reliance on imported gas, as we move to a low carbon economy.

My decision is based on the evidence. It comes after detailed study of the latest scientific research available and advice from leading experts in the field.”

He also said that the US’s economy had benefited greatly from fracking, and that was why we could benefit here. Which of those words does he now enjoy eating?

[Ed Davey]

The Secretary of State is known very well for his debating skills, but he is also known for his political skills. My political skills were shown in my ensuring that his Ministers, and he, believed that we were taking real action on fracking when I was passing the regulation that did more to stop fracking—let him hear this. We did more to stop fracking than any other group of politicians. I am really proud that the Liberal Democrats did more on renewable energy—

[Michael Gove]

rose—

[Ed Davey]

No, I am not giving away to him again.

[Michael Gove]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The record must show that fracking was banned in the UK, but that it was the right hon. Gentleman who removed that ban because he was confident that the procedure would be safe from now on.

[Ed Davey]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I think I am supposed to respond to a point of order. That was not really a point of order, however; it was a matter of continued debate.

[Ed Davey]

I am very happy to debate fracking, and my record and the Government’s record on it. Thanks to the tough environmental regulation that we passed, particularly the seismicity regulation, we in the Liberal Democrats did more to stop fracking. I had Conservative Ministers shouting their case, day in and day out, saying that I should go faster, but I slowed it down and it is not happening. The record will show not only that there is no fracking industry in the UK but that there is a massive renewables industry, and that is thanks to the Liberal Democrats.

As we debate the need to level up—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order.

[Ed Davey]

Conservative Members do not like it, Madam Deputy Speaker, but they are going to have to learn to live with it.

As we debate the need to level up, anyone would have thought that the Government would want to save jobs in our energy-intensive industries, most of which are big employers outside London and the south-east. But no; there was no help at all in the Budget for the energy-intensive industries. The Government could have used money from a windfall tax on gas producers, as we would have done, to help those industries to decarbonise and to invest in the technologies of the future. This is yet another missed opportunity on climate change from the Conservatives. We can have a greener and fairer society, investing in climate action and helping the fuel poor, but we will not get it with this Conservative Chancellor and this Conservative Government.