Oral Answers to Questions

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Elizabeth Truss)]

People’s disposable income is now 4.6% higher in real terms than in 2010. That is because we have turned around the economy and held taxes down.

[Trudy Harrison]

According to recent figures from the Office for National Statistics, real household disposable income is £1,600 higher than in 2008, while the proportion of lower paid workers has fallen to its lowest level for 35 years due to the national living wage. Does my right hon. Friend think that those statistics would be as positive if we had taken the advice of the Labour party?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As my hon. Friend knows, the advice of the Labour party is that we need to “overthrow capitalism”. If we were to do that, there would be fewer businesses, fewer jobs, higher taxes and higher mortgage rates—and we would all be queuing for food, as people are in Venezuela.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Families with three children are at a greater risk of poverty than other families, and next year the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will take £1.2 billion away from them. Does she agree that this is the least family-friendly Government in history?

[Elizabeth Truss]

What we have done for families is make sure that more parents and families are in work than ever before, enabling them to look after and support their children. We are also investing a record amount in childcare—£6 billion a year—to help more parents into work.

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

19. Increases in the personal allowance and the national living wage, and the freeze to fuel duty, have helped my constituents with the cost of living. However, things are still tough and too many are just about managing. What further plans does my right hon. Friend have to continue to support my hardworking constituents?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is right that we need to keep taxes down, but we also need to recognise the role that free enterprise and free markets play in encouraging competition, allowing new products to come to the market and keeping prices low. The reason why we have low food prices and cheap air fares is because we have successfully kept those markets open. The Labour party advocates abandoning that.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Tory austerity will result in annual social security cuts of £4 billion in Scotland by 2020. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that 1 million more children will be pushed into poverty across the UK. With planned devolution covering only 15% of social security spending, the blame lies firmly at the Chancellor’s door. Does the Minister think that is acceptable?

[Elizabeth Truss]

What I find incredible is that the Scottish National party, which has been in power in Scotland for many years, presiding over declining education standards and now raising taxes in Scotland, has the audacity not to take responsibility for its own policies and actions.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The Chief Secretary did not answer my question. Once a fortnight someone comes into my office with so little income that we have to refer them to a food bank. When will the Chancellor realise how much harm he is causing? When will he reverse the cuts and when will he end the hunger?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The reality is that we have seen more people in work in Scotland, as we have across the country, and that is delivering more real income. We have held taxes down across the country, to the tune of £1,000 per basic rate taxpayer, which means that people have more disposable income to spend.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Well, that was fascinating.

The Chief Secretary knows full well that 67% of children in poverty live in working households. The Child Poverty Action Group expects cuts within universal credit to push up to 1 million children into poverty by 2020. When all the Government’s policy changes are included, lone parents have lost an average of £5,250 a year since 2010. Families with three or more children have lost £5,600 a year. Families with a disabled parent and a disabled child have £6,500 less every single year. Is she complacent or just callous?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Surprise, surprise: we have not heard Labour acknowledge the excellent news from the Resolution Foundation that we now have the lowest share of low-paid employees for 35 years—before the Labour Government were in power. Under Labour, we saw rising unemployment and more people left on the scrapheap. We saw a welfare system that did not support people into work.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We need to make faster progress. If people could keep their questions brief, and if answers could focus, as constitutionally they must, on the policies of the Government, that would be the proper procedure in the House. The right hon. Lady is very experienced and I know she knows that extremely well.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

3. If he will bring forward proposals for a multi-year funding plan for the NHS and adult social care.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Elizabeth Truss)]

We will come forward with a new long-term plan for the NHS and provide a new multi-year funding settlement in support of that plan. What is also important is that we are developing policies on artificial intelligence and digital services to make sure that our NHS delivers better outcomes for patients.

[Wera Hobhouse]

To raise the amount we need for long-term sustainable services for my constituents and people across the country, will the Chief Secretary consider introducing a ring-fenced health and social care tax that would bring together spending on both services into a collective budget?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As the hon. Lady knows, the problem with such hypothecated taxes is that if the revenues from them go down, the consequence is a reduction in support for our NHS or our social care services. That is why we believe in funding those services out of general taxation. We put an extra £6.3 billion into the health service at the Budget. We are looking at the longer-term settlement, but it is important to note that this is about not just the money we spend, but how we spend it.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

4. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department’s procedure for authorising and monitoring private finance initiative contracts.

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[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

13. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of wage growth for young people over the last 15 years.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Elizabeth Truss)]

From 2002 until the crisis, young people saw their real wages grow more slowly than the UK average. In fact, their wages fell more during the recession. Since 2014, young people’s wages have been rising faster than the UK average.

[Nic Dakin]

Young people are struggling to get a good start in the job market. They are earning less, working longer hours and commuting further than their parents’ generation. What are the Government going to do to transform their outcomes?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The most important thing is that those young people are in jobs, and under Labour we saw unemployment rise to 20%. Youth unemployment has reduced by 40% since 2010. I recognise that we need to see those young people get better skills. That is why we are investing in IT training, that is why we are developing the maths premium so that more students study science, technology, engineering and maths, and that is why we have developed the apprenticeship levy to get more people into apprenticeships.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

14. What recent estimate the Government have made of the cost to the economy of money laundering and criminal finance in the UK.

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[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

T2. Much champagne, or, in the more discerning households, English or Welsh sparkling wine, was drunk at the weekend, so what is the Chancellor doing financially to help promote and expand this excellent domestic wine industry? Post Brexit, will he address the anomaly whereby fizz is taxed more than still wine, which has a higher alcohol volume?

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Elizabeth Truss)]

I know that my hon. Friend represents some of the finest English sparkling wine vineyards, and I am pleased to say that some new ones have recently opened in Norfolk. We now have record exports of more than £100 million a year of our fantastic sparkling wine and we will continue to look at our policies to promote this brilliant product.

[Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)]

T9. Contrary to the out-of-touch outlook presented by the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), Eurostat figures show regional inequality in the UK, measured in output per hour, to be the worst in Europe. There is a massive disparity across England, with households in the south-east, the richest area of the UK, having more than double the wealth of those in the north-east, where my constituency is. When will the Treasury finally act to meaningfully tackle this ongoing injustice?

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[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

With child poverty set to increase by another 1.5 million by 2022, according to the Economic Council for Equality, what will the Treasury be doing to help the very poorest households?

[Elizabeth Truss]

What we have seen in the past few years, since 2015, is a 7% rise in the real wages of people on the lowest incomes, and a reduction in income inequality.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

T8. With the full phasing in of the residents’ nil-rate band for inheritance tax by 2020, a couple will potentially be able to leave £1 million free of inheritance tax to descendants. That is all very welcome, but having worked through the legislation in a real example, it seems unduly complex. Will my right hon. Friend now consider simplifying the law to make the overall IHT allowance a simple, no-nonsense £500,000 each and remove the complexity of the residents’ nil-rate band rules?

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

The TUC estimates that the number of working households in poverty has risen by 1 million since 2010. Inaction on low-paid, insecure work and punitive welfare reform measures have led to record numbers of people accessing food banks. A responsible Government would measure food insecurity to create policies that end hunger. My Food Insecurity Bill does that. Why will the Government not back it?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are the Government who have introduced the national living wage. We have reduced tax bills for those on the lowest incomes, and we are keeping our food market competitive and have some of the lowest food prices in Europe.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

The UK productivity and prosperity funds are meant to benefit all local authorities across the United Kingdom. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to talk about how Scottish local authorities can apply directly to those funds?

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[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

Today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal that we are at the lowest level of public borrowing since 2006. Will the Chief Secretary to the Treasury set out what that will mean for future investment in public services, as opposed to maxing out paying off the nation’s credit card?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is right that we have successfully turned the economy around. We have brought the deficit down, and next year, for the first time in many years, we will see debt fall as a proportion of GDP—[Interruption.] Some Members are laughing, but the same people are proposing that we increase our debt by half a trillion pounds and push our country into penury.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

What will ministers do to support the “Great Western Cities” initiative, which promotes collaboration between Bristol, Newport and Cardiff and has enormous potential for the wider region?