Tackling Short-term and Long-term Cost of Living Increases

Debate between Edward Miliband and Aaron Bell

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

I will make some progress but then give way later.

The Chancellor did not act when he could have done. In February he had another chance, as the largest energy price rise in our history, at 52%, was announced. He could have responded in a way commensurate with the crisis—[Interruption.] Members say that he did, but let us look at this. What was his grand offer to the country? It was a £150 council tax discount based on outdated property values, which missed out hundreds of thousands of the poorest families, and of course there was his £200 “buy now, pay later” loan scheme. This is a loan scheme that he risibly claims is not a loan, although it has to be paid back, and it does not even come in until October. What are families supposed to do in the meantime while they wait for his loan? It is almost as though the Chancellor is so out of touch that he does not realise that 10 million families in our country have no savings at all.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

The £150 that was given out by Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council was gratefully received on the doorsteps, as was the money given out by Westminster City Council. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman should speak to his council leaders in Barrow, Hyndburn, South Derbyshire and Bassetlaw, all councils that failed to get that £150 out into people’s bank accounts. If he is so concerned about the cost of living, why are his council leaders holding that money in their bank accounts instead of returning it to the people?

[Edward Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates a later part of my speech. That is the Conservative party today: it will blame anyone else and never take responsibility. The hon. Gentleman should have been supporting our measures, because in his constituency 11,353 people would get our combination of a VAT cut and the warm home discount of £600. If he votes against us tonight, he will have to explain to them why he is denying them the help they need.

National Security and Investment Bill

Debate between Edward Miliband and Aaron Bell

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

I have such an array of options. I think the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) was first.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is perhaps proposing an industrial strategy Bill, rather than a national security Bill, but on innovation and science and technology, does he not worry about the chilling effect of what he is proposing? Individuals who may be setting up a scientific or technology company might prefer now to do that in the United States, where they have every option of going to California and setting up the company in the first place, rather than setting up in the UK, because they might fear that he, as a potential future Secretary of State, as he indicated earlier, might prevent them from cashing in on what they have done?

[Edward Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman makes the point that the United States has exactly the regime that I am talking about and does indeed have those wide powers of intervention, so the notion that people are going to set up in the United States rather than Britain, when they have much stronger powers than us, does not hold water.