amendment of the law

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I am grateful to follow the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson). I think it was the late Harold Macmillan who talked about economists telling people this and that, and about statistics. However, there are some realities in this Budget, which other Members have referred to, and I will also do so in terms of the impact on my constituency.

Let me begin with the general point about the £10,000 income tax threshold for next year. That is reality; that is not statistical. It means that next year, 4,000 individuals in my constituency will not be paying tax. More important for hon. Members to understand is the fact that the average total family income across Lancashire is approximately £26,600, and next year those people will pay no tax on their first £10,000 of income. To me, that is a huge selling point in increasing confidence. People will be able to go out to work and the Government will promise that we will not touch the first £10,000. It seems remarkable that we are in such a state that we can say that that is marvellous, but compared with what has gone on before it is extremely good news for constituents across Lancaster and Fleetwood.

Fuel duty has been frozen. In a huge rural area such as my constituency, where people have no choice, whatever their income, but to be dependent on their car to travel to work and to the shops, the ending of Labour’s plans to increase fuel duty provides massive support for the local economy.

There is the new employment allowance. Most businesses in my area are small, made up of two or three—if not six—people. The national insurance promises in the Budget will be a massive fillip to new employment and to encouraging people to get out there, set up their own business and start moving with the support of this Government.

Hon. Members will bear with me while I discuss a local theme that they would expect me to mention: shale gas. Many hon. Members have looked at shale gas as the great nirvana and something that will fill the energy gap, but that will affect Lancashire. Let me underline yet again that we in Lancashire are still not satisfied that the regulatory regime is right. We welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to an office for unconventional gas and the tightening up of those regulations, but people in Lancashire need to see that the regulations are thorough and tight. Given that farmers still take water directly from the water table through boreholes, Members will be able to imagine the worries in parts of my constituency.

More important than that is the question of who will earn money from shale gas. Lancashire people are quite generous, like me, in their commitment—[Interruption.] Well, we are far more generous than the people from the other side of the Pennines. We are generous in our commitment to the United Kingdom and in our willingness to support it, but as the law stands, the people who own the land, including the farmers on whose land this fracking might—I still say might—take place will earn precious little from it.

[Mr MacNeil]

Is the hon. Gentleman advocating an equivalent to a sovereign wealth fund for Lancashire? That was the source of the reason why all Norwegians feel they own the oil; is there a similar feeling in Lancashire towards this gas?

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates me and for once—in fact, not for the first time—we agree. If Lancashire is to be used to fill the energy gap and if Lancashire will see fracking across the county, we need to understand that it is not Texas and landowners in Lancashire do not own the mineral rights. The Chancellor will gain through the tax system, companies will gain through their profits and, presumably, the Duchy of Lancaster or the Crown Estate will gain through the tax on mineral rights, but the local councils will gain precious little. I was pleased that the Chancellor said in his Budget that there would be specific proposals to allow local communities to benefit, but I tell the Ministers on the Front Bench that Lancashire expects more than one or two parish hall roofs to be fixed. We want to see something that will return money to Lancashire when the gas has been fracked, if that fracking is to go ahead. I need to make that clear.

Finally, on infrastructure, hon. Members talked about growth. For me, the key point was the Chancellor’s phrase about “clearing the economic arteries”. In the north-west, that means something substantial and we have had that from this Government. We have had the biggest investment in rail for the last 30, 40 or 50 years. It was all right Opposition Members saying that that would happen in future—it is happening now. I point to my own station in Lancaster, where £8.5 million is already being spent to vary the signalling so that trains can turn around in Lancaster and more platforms can be used. That is the small-scale work. Only last week, the Department for Transport finally agreed the M6 link road, which will be a bypass for Lancaster to the port of Heysham. It will bring thousands of jobs through a scheme for which the first plans were produced in 1948—that is perhaps a lesson to us all. It has taken this coalition Government to agree the money to get things moving and get the growth.

As the Secretary of State mentioned, there is still a great deal more for local councils to do. I am pleased that the Conservative councils in my area, Wyre borough council and Lancashire county council, have kept the council tax frozen. Not only that, but Lancashire has cut it by 2%—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.