Amendment of the Law

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) who is the authentic voice of Conservatism in this place, and blue in tooth and claw. He will be sorely missed, and I wish him well in whatever he chooses to do in the future—somehow I cannot see him retiring quietly to a rocking chair.

When I listened to the Business Secretary introducing this debate, at times I wondered which Budget he was talking about since he seemed to flip between the Budget presented by the Chancellor yesterday, and the fantasy Budget presented by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury this morning, and it was a bit difficult to follow his line of thinking. In response to a question from the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), he spoke about possible changes in banking and protection for the “last bank in the village”, as he put it, but I am afraid that in many communities that ship has long since sailed.

Banks have been pulling out of rural communities for many years, and substantial communities in my constituency no longer have a bank. Indeed, the Royal Bank of Scotland recently closed a branch and when questioned about it said, “Well you can use the post office”. Unfortunately, the Post Office is also undergoing a procedure at the moment. There may no longer be closure programmes, but many post offices are “changing”—or rather closing—and business is being transferred to other local businesses. In many ways I see the logic of that from its point of view, but it means that many businesses are now running the “post office local model”, which is a much reduced service. In many communities in my constituency, including substantial communities, that is the only post office service left—a counter in another business, which is a small shop or, as in one case, a card and paper shop. That does not give confidence in the service—notwithstanding the service that such shops can provide and the extent they go to—especially for business banking, and that needs to be looked at.

If we contact any of our major banks, they will try to get us to go online and work through the computer. That is fine, but many of our elderly people cannot do that, and many people with small businesses do not want to invest in the extra equipment. To pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), there is also a serious problem with broadband provision in many parts of our country.

In my constituency many of the towns now have a good broadband service that has been upgraded, but one does not have to go far outside the town for it to disappear altogether. Part of the reason for that is that many small exchanges that serve the country in village areas desperately need upgrading and can no longer take any more broadband lines. I have had situations where people have moved house, cancelled their broadband contract, and when they went to get a contract for their new house they were told they could not get one any more because the line they used had been allocated to someone else.

The Budget has missed a huge opportunity to invest in that infrastructure for the future. If we are to be a successful nation and increase business, we need the infrastructure to do that. I have talked often in the House about a rural area such as mine where many businesses are taking advantage of the internet where they can. It is not always a bad thing. A business in a rural area can get a niche market, survive on the internet and have quite a good business, but it needs an internet connection, good broadband, and a good postal service to deliver the goods to the rest of the country.

Since the privatisation of Royal Mail we have seen an erosion of that service in some parts of the country. In some parts of Scotland, as I am sure is the case in other parts of the country, it has announced that it will not be picking up so often from post boxes—there might be one pick-up first thing in the morning, but nothing else for the rest of the day. That is hopeless for a business. Furthermore, many of the new post office locals do not have sufficient room for proper business mail to be left for Royal Mail to pick up. Again, that was a missed opportunity in the Budget.

Unfortunately, the real message of the Budget is that massive cuts are coming our way, which will have a terrible impact on many of our local communities and businesses. The OBR has described the coming years as a rollercoaster for public expenditure and said it will return the level of Government expenditure to that of 1964. This morning, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who presumably had a hand in writing the Budget, as well as his alternative Budget, said it would take us back to the era of “Cathy Come Home”. That film brought home to many people the extent of the housing crisis in the 1960s, but that housing crisis is coming back to haunt many of our communities.

Many Members have talked about the need to build more houses, and I entirely agree, but I was concerned that the only specific announcement about this in the Budget was the new ISA to help get younger people on the housing ladder. That is good news for those who can afford to put money into an ISA, and I am sure that well-off parents around the country will be preparing to open such accounts for their children, but it is just another variation on the bank of mum and dad and does nothing to help the many young people who can only dream of renting their own home, let alone owning one.

The only boost to local businesses is likely to be for estate agents, as this measure fuels a housing bubble in our cities and communities—houses are expensive all over the country. If we are to tackle the housing crisis, we need a boost to build new affordable homes and homes for rent. Not only would that give young people a real chance to get a home of their own without needing well-off parents to finance it, but it would give a boost to local economies by providing work for those who build the homes and the businesses supplying the needs of new home owners.

The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) commented on why we had reached this situation. In Scotland, we are now building new homes and have removed the right to buy introduced by the last Tory Government. Whatever people thought of the policy at the time, it is no longer appropriate for the current market because it acts as a disincentive to councils to build new houses—because they might have to sell them off fairly quickly at reduced rates. In Scotland, new houses for rent are being built for the first time in many years. When I read the leaks of the proposed Budget, I was concerned at the suggestion that the Chancellor would introduce a new right to buy for housing associations. I think we should all be grateful that he did not do that, although it would not have applied in Scotland anyway, since we have taken a different route.

Many of the cuts, however, will make things much worse for our young people. Many people, particularly under-25s, will no longer be able to get housing benefit and will be forced to continue to live with their parents, but in many cases, either that will not be practical or for some other reason they will not be able to do it, and they will end up sofa surfing with friends and relatives. It is all very easy, as Government all too often seem to do, to announce crackdowns on welfare and go for cheap headlines in the more rabid tabloids. As we all know, however, in reality many of those in receipt of benefits are working, and the benefits are not their income but top up the income they receive from their employment. In my constituency, on the latest figures, the unemployment rate is 2.5%. On the face of it, that is excellent news, but it is also a low-wage economy, and that is the difficulty. Many people rely on benefits to top up their income and enable them to live.

Many of us will be spending more hours than is healthy over the next few weeks knocking on constituents’ doors, and I am sure that many have had the same experience as me of finding it difficult to find people in, mainly because so many work long hours, split shifts or more than one job to make ends meet. That is the reality of modern Britain, with so many people still relying on food banks to feed their families.

The assault on the welfare state has a dramatic effect on our local businesses. Those who are less well off will tend to spend their money—and to spend it in local businesses. Cuts not only attack those on benefits, but remove a substantial amount of money from local economies, hitting businesses. Is it any wonder that so many businesses on our high streets are closing?

In Scotland, the Government have made determined efforts to halt the decline in small businesses with policies such as the business bonus scheme, which has abolished or reduced business rates for many small businesses. The Chancellor announced a scheme for business rates retention, but the Scottish Government introduced such a scheme in Scotland back in 2011. These schemes help, but more needs to be done to boost local businesses.

We already know that some of the poorest in society will bear the brunt of the misery of the austerity programme. The proportion of tax cuts to tax rises has moved from 4:1 to 9:1, and this will have a dramatic effect on many households. As others have said, we do not yet know the details of the coming cuts and benefits, but this is all money being sucked out of our local economies and will impact directly on our local businesses.

Before I finish, let me say that it is not all bad news. I welcome the Government’s changes to North sea oil taxation. I called for it, the Scottish Government called for it, and there is widespread support for it across all parties. This industry is going through a downturn at the moment—not for the first time, and I dare say it will not be for the last. It is worth noting that the reduction in the supplementary charge will take us back to the position in 2011, when the decision to increase it, taken without consultation with the industry, was hugely damaging.

On a more positive note, the Bank of Scotland did an oil survey last week, showing that 90% of firms are optimistic about the future. Many of them were looking to diversify into such things as renewables. Here, again, however, the Government have missed the chance—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) for delivering his speech in reasonable time and for not taking the allotted 12 minutes. I am afraid that the arithmetic does not allow 12 minutes per person from now on and I must reduce the time limit to nine minutes, thereby allowing everyone who has indicated they wish to speak the opportunity to do so.