Finance (No. 2) Bill

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield]

Absolutely. We have heard a lot about Marxism and some filibustering speeches, but the real people watching today are interested in cuts to services such as children’s services. That is why I am speaking about them.

We know that two thirds of councillors from 101 local authorities that were surveyed said that not enough money was available to provide universal services such as children’s centres and youth clubs. How does the short-sighted and drastic cutting of the funding that children’s services need help the children and families of tomorrow? This short-term, household budget-style approach will leave a generation of communities bereft, isolated and without the many essential services that are so needed by parents and children.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I wish to support Labour’s new clauses 1 to 3, which call for a review of the change in the scope and rate of the bank levy, the funds from which should be invested in young people’s and children’s services. Given the desperate state of young people’s and children’s services across the country, I am surprised that the Chancellor has chosen to reduce the bank levy, effectively depriving the Government of funds that could be spent on those vital services.

It has now been 26 days since the Chancellor delivered his Budget—his second Budget, and the 10th since the Tories took office in 2010, which is now nearly eight years ago. By coincidence, it is also nearly eight years since my baby was born, who is still my baby despite being eight years old. Every parent wants the best for their child and wants them to have every opportunity to fulfil their potential, but for the almost eight years of her life, we have seen her opportunity rationed and funding for children’s and young people’s services slashed. Sir Roger, I will quickly—[Interruption.] I am so sorry, Mr Owen.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Sir Mr Owen.

[Emma Hardy]

You have been promoted, Mr Owen.

I want quickly to draw the House’s attention to the funding cuts to Hull City Council’s children’s services budget since 2010 and to argue that rather than reducing the bank levy the Government should be properly funding children’s services. The headline figures for Hull City Council are as follows. Spending on children’s and young people’s services is down by £19.5 million, with more than a quarter of its spending power cut since 2010. That is just half of the £37 million that the council has to cut before 2020. The time taken to get a diagnosis of autism is up, with the average waiting time now at 14 months. The number of Sure Start centres in the city is down since 2010. Those centres were instrumental in supporting me when I had my two girls.

[Karin Smyth]

Is that not simply incomprehensible at a time when productivity is such a major issue for our economy? Is not the proven, evidence-based value of Sure Start early intervention with children at the youngest age one of the biggest drivers for improving productivity, and is not cutting that totally detrimental?

[Emma Hardy]

I completely agree. The Education Committee has been looking into fostering. We know that in some of the most deprived areas of society the number of looked-after children is increasing, and we know that one of the reasons is that there is no money for social services departments to support families and give them the early intervention that they so desperately need. It is a false economy to pull funding away from early intervention, saying that that will save money. It will not; it will cost a lot more in the long run.

Those horrendous headlines do not tell the whole story. They do not tell of the worry experienced recently by breastfeeding mothers in Hull who panicked at the possibility that their peer-to-peer doula support would be cut because the council could not afford to pay for it. The council is having to make impossible choices. If it supports those breastfeeding mothers, it will have to pull funding from somewhere else. That is simply not fair.

Those headlines do not tell the story of the child in need who has fallen behind at school and finds it difficult to catch up again because of Government cuts in Sure Start’s speech, language and communication services. The Minister recently published an article in a newspaper complaining about the fact that children were starting school before they were school-ready. Why do the Government think that that is happening? It is happening because there is no money for the early intervention and Sure Start centres that are so desperately needed. Again, more potential is being missed and more opportunity wasted.

As I said in my maiden speech, I do not want a single child to have their life story written on the day they are born. Can we really say that the Bill will create the conditions in which all children can be given the support that they need and the opportunity to fulfil their potential? Does it, as the Prime Minister said on the steps of Downing Street just after taking office,

“do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you”?

Until we can answer yes to those questions, a reduction in the bank levy is a luxury that we cannot afford. I urge Members to back Labour’s new clauses 1, 2 and 3, because the future of our economy, and our children, depends on them.

[Mel Stride]

We have had a very wide-ranging debate. On occasion, we even touched on the matter at hand—the bank levy.

The hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) was very generous in giving way, but less generous and less forthcoming in his answers. He was asked whether he recognised that we would be raising more tax from the banks. He said he would come back to that, but I do not think he did. He was asked why Labour had voted against the bank levy in the first place. On two or three occasions he said he would come back to that, but I am not sure he did. When he was asked whether he supported the overthrow of capitalism, he declined to answer. When he was asked by how much Labour would increase corporation tax, he told his interlocutor to go away and look it up. He was asked whether he was a Marxist. He was swamped by red herrings at one point, which caused my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) to say that he was the victim of too many interventions “on the trot”—boom boom!

My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) stressed the importance of a fair playing field, which is exactly what the Bill is introducing for the banks. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) talked about the importance of less risky behaviour by banks. I certainly subscribe to that, which is why the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee has been conducting the stress tests to which I referred earlier. They have all been very successful, including one that is based on a no-deal Brexit scenario.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk also took us through the amount of tax that has been raised from the banks under the Conservatives. He slightly ruined it all by saying that he had once written an article for The Guardian, and that he was, indeed, a closet Marxist at least.

The hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) talked about the importance of productivity while my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) highlighted the importance of a balanced approach to tax so that the banks could lend and stay healthy. The final two contributions were on childcare support, on which this Government have a proud record: by 2019-20 we will spending a record £6 billion per year supporting childcare. On that note, I commend clause 33 and schedule 9 to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 33 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 9

Bank Levy

Question put, That the schedule be the Ninth schedule to the Bill.