Edward Leigh
Main Page: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)Department Debates - View all Edward Leigh's debates with the HM Treasury
(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow the robust Conservative good sense of the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). Most of the time, I agree with everything he says. Of course I acknowledge the difficulties facing the Government from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, although many of those difficulties were exacerbated by our over-intrusive attitude to regulation during the pandemic—successive lockdowns, furloughs and all the rest, for which we are now paying the price.
I am also very worried about the disincentives to work, particularly for the lower paid. We have heard a lot about those on benefit. I understand that this is an extremely complex area. We have to help those genuinely in need—those with genuine long-term sickness issues, disabled people—but we do have a massive problem in this country, with more and more people choosing not to work. If benefits are increasing with inflation, which is very high, while public sector pay is being kept down, that is a disincentive to work. Many people who are striving—working very hard, perhaps in low-paid jobs—wonder why their pay is being kept down, while those on benefits who could work see their benefits rising with inflation. It is a complex area; there is no easy solution. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) has done some wonderful work with the Social Justice Institute that he heads, but we have to find a way forward.
Sir Edward Leigh
No, we have heard from the hon. Lady. I want to get through my remarks as quickly as possible.
As there are these disincentives to work, people say that we need mass migration. We are told by the bosses of the NHS that they cannot fill all the vacancies, so we need more mass migration. Mass migration is deeply unpopular with the British public. It is particularly unpopular with those who are working hard, particularly those on relatively low wages. They see their wages are kept down by employers who will always get people in from abroad. We have to defeat this argument as a Conservative Government that the way to achieve growth is through mass migration. That is the easy way to achieve growth. The best way to achieve growth is through high productivity, encouraging people to work.
May I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) on the subject of channel migration? Frankly, the Government must grip this. It is utterly destabilising. We have thousands of people pouring across the channel, making the Government look incredibly foolish. We could solve the problem: we need to get out of the Human Rights Act and out of the refugee convention. We need to have our own Bill of Rights and ensure that when people land on these shores, they can be detained, arrested, dealt with quickly and deported, because it is utterly debilitating to our reputation.
We have heard a lot about the NHS. The fact is that the country has been increasingly weighed down by an ever-increasing benefit bill, and we are pouring, every year, more and more of our gross national product into the NHS. I do not have private health insurance; I rely entirely on the NHS, as does my family. People of my age are now frightened. Up to now, Conservative Governments have assumed that the NHS was very popular. I can assure Members that it is not very popular at the moment when we are facing these enormous delays. If a person has a non-urgent condition, they can be required to wait for up to two years. Then we are told that the NHS is the supreme example of healthcare in the world. We all recognise the wonderful work that our doctors and nurses do, but I read today that perhaps up to 50,000 people working in NHS quangos and other NHS bodies never actually see a patient. That organisation is riddled with low productivity, waste and incompetence, and we must learn from what other countries are doing, because someone elderly is much better looked after in Italy, France, Germany and Sweden. Indeed, in his statement the Chancellor recommended what is happening in Sweden and Singapore, and all those nations have social insurance policies. Under our system, someone pays taxes all their life, and when they get to a certain age and have a medical condition they are told to join the back of the queue. In France, Germany, Italy or Sweden, they have rights, and the Government have to address that. We cannot just go on repeating the mantra that the NHS is the best health system in the world. It simply is not. Its outcomes on cancer and in many other areas are lagging behind those of similar nations.
As well as considering social insurance, one simple thing that the Government could do—I have suggested it many times—is what Ken Clarke did in the last Conservative Government and provide tax relief for those of pensionable age who take out private health insurance. We could at least give some guarantee that if the NHS fails to deal with someone’s case within a year, or two years, the Government will fund them to go private.
Rob Roberts
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the NHS is a problem generally? We have three different Governments in charge of the NHS in the UK, with Labour in Wales having the worst record of them all. Does he agree that it is not a problem of Government funding or who is in charge, but the fact that the structure and the way that we run the NHS generally across the whole UK is just not workable in modern times?
Sir Edward Leigh
No, it is not workable, and I welcome the fact that the Health and Social Care Secretary appears to be trying to think creatively about that. We need radical surgery in the NHS. We pay taxes all our life, and we demand that when we have a health condition, we are not required to wait for two years. There must be a way forward. We cannot just put more and more sticking plasters on the NHS when NHS bosses ask for an ever greater proportion of national wealth. We have to take tough decisions.
Of course pensions have to keep pace with inflation. I benefit from the triple lock, but long-term the triple lock is utterly unaffordable and will bankrupt the nation. Of course pensions this year should go up with inflation, but what happens next year or the year after, when we deal with inflation and earnings start rocketing up? Will pensions then keep pace with earnings? We have to be honest with people, and I think people are prepared to listen to Conservative Governments who are prepared to take difficult decisions.
Why are we still proceeding with vanity projects such as HS2? Why are we not prepared to take difficult decisions to maximise energy resources, for instance with fracking? Why are we delaying spending cuts? Apparently the autumn statement is responsible and we are dealing with inflation, but the spending cuts are not happening this year. They are happening the year after next—why is that? We cannot postpone difficult spending decisions until after the next election. We should be moving towards a more dynamic and—dare I say it?—a more Conservative direction. People who voted Conservative in 2010 voted for a low-tax, deregulated economy.
We have heard a lot of people talking about benefits, but I want to speak on behalf of middle England, and people who spend all their life saving for their mortgage and their pension pot—striving. More and more—8 million—have now been dragged into being higher taxpayers. Those people should also have a voice, and people in this Chamber should represent the strivers of this nation, and those who work hard and pay tax all their life, with an ever greater burden falling on their shoulders. These are not rich people or people with the broadest shoulders.
I am now going to say something even more unpopular. We cannot load a marginal tax rate of 60% on the people who earn, say, between £100,000 and £125,000—middle managers, consultants and young entrepreneurs—and say we are going to create wealth. That is not what the Conservative Party is about. We are the heirs, not of Gordon Brown, but of Margaret Thatcher.
Decline is not inevitable. Brexit gave us the freedom to deregulate our economy, to make it a dynamic, low-tax, Conservative economy. That is the challenge we face. We must have confidence in ourselves and not accept that we are going to just stagnate forever into a kind of sub-social democratic and poor economy.