Budget Resolutions

George Freeman Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I hope the hon. Gentleman was listening when the Chancellor delivered his Budget. He highlighted that debt will be reducing next year, with the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasting that we will meet our fiscal rule to have debt falling as a share of the economy.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

It merits recording that the debt figure we are dealing with comes from a £500 billion bail-out of the banks under Gordon Brown, £375 billion of quantitative easing, £70 billion of Brexit relief, £400 billion of pandemic relief, and £40 billion of cost of living relief. That is a significant injection of money by this Government, and the previous one, to help people through tough times.

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend, as always, makes an excellent point. It is difficult to forget how this Government, and the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor, supported the livelihoods and economies of people up and down the country. In the creative industries alone, a covid recovery fund of £1.57 billion went to ensure that those industries continued to survive. The International Monetary Fund and others said that that was the fastest and most effective package coming out of covid.

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[Wes Streeting]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. We should not be complacent about that, because slipping down international league tables is not just a missed opportunity, but a missed chance to save lives, improve outcomes and generate income for our national health service. Everyone wins when we have our national health service and life sciences sector working together in partnership to ensure we are developing the latest treatments and technologies in this country, to ensure we are manufacturing those treatments and technologies in this country, and to ensure patients get the benefit in this country. Should Labour win the next general election, I have no doubt that she and I will do a great deal together to improve outcomes, particularly in relation to brain cancer, which we are both passionate about—not least because of the late great Margaret McDonagh, who remains an inspiration to us all—but also in so many other areas where that kind of groundbreaking science has the potential to improve our economy and save lives.

[George Freeman]

rose—

[Wes Streeting]

I will certainly give way to the former Minister.

[George Freeman]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am enjoying his knockabout speech, but does he welcome the £650 million package we put out last spring to reverse the covid damage to life sciences, and, more importantly, does he respect the way that several of us have pursued this issue in a non-partisan way? The sector needs to know we are working together. I invite him to say that he intends to build on that legacy and continue to keep it as a sector that goes beyond politics.

[Wes Streeting]

I certainly give the former Minister this assurance: where the Government have had good ideas and where the life sciences strategy is in the right place, we do not intend to tear things up just because there are Conservative fingerprints. Indeed, we welcome aspects of reviews the Government have undertaken—particularly that conducted by Lord O’Shaughnessy, and we welcome the Government’s commitment to implement it in full—but there is more to do. I remain frustrated that when I talk to UK life sciences, in particular start-ups and medtech entrepreneurs, they describe the NHS in pretty poor terms as a partner. That culture and practice must change.

[George Freeman]

indicated assent.

[Wes Streeting]

I can see the former Minister nodding emphatically. Even amidst this rowdy Budget debate, we have managed to achieve some consensus. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is very welcome to join us on the Labour Benches should he wish to help us in the task.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) is another Member who will be absolutely delighted to have his fingerprints on the Budget. How will he explain to his constituents, getting by on £20,000 a year, that he is an architect of the Budget that will leave them paying £447 more in tax this year? They will all walk through the Lobby to raise taxes on working people, but they will not defend their decision in the House.

It is no surprise that the Conservatives are ashamed of what they have done to the country. Fred Thomas, Labour’s candidate in Plymouth, Moor View, told me about Izzy Cioffi. Izzy left the Royal Marines last year after eight years of service. He has been working hard as a telecoms engineer, in a good job which a few years ago would have enabled him to get by and even put some money aside each month. He wants to train for a commercial diving qualification, but the cost of all his basics—fuel, food, mortgage and energy bills—has risen so much that he cannot afford to put any money aside. This is a young man with no dependants, in a good job. He should have his entire future before him, but the state of the economy is holding him back from opportunity. That is the cost of what people in the country are calling “Rishi’s recession”.

What about the Conservatives’ record on non-doms? We know that Conservative Members do not support the abolition of non-dom tax status, because they have been telling us so for the past decade. The howls of protest from the Benches opposite were deafening from the moment Labour first proposed what is a simple policy and principle—that people who live and work in Britain should pay their taxes here too. The right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) said that it would be “anti-aspirational”. If only he had as much aspiration for our NHS and schoolchildren as he has for people avoiding their taxes. His constituents will remember that he fought for non-doms, not nurses. In stark contrast, Labour’s candidate Lucy Rigby, whose mum worked in the NHS, is committed to getting the NHS in Northampton back on its feet and fit for the future. That is the choice that voters in Northampton face.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) suggested that the money raised would drop year on year, as non-doms would leave the country. Why does he have so little faith in Britain? Why does he think that the only reason people would want to live in this country is to avoid paying taxes? If he cannot see that Stoke-on-Trent has so much more going for it than non-dom tax status, I suggest that his constituents might prefer an MP who has some pride in his city and some pride in his country, and elect David Williams at the general election.

During the election campaign, when the Conservatives are touring the broadcast studios to criticise Labour’s plans, we must never forget that the Chancellor said that abolishing the non-dom tax status would not benefit the taxpayer, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said that it would lead to “talent flight”, the Health Secretary said that it would put 230,000 nurses at risk and put in jeopardy Britain’s place as the filming location for the “Barbie” movie, and the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), said that it was

“as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2023; Vol. 728, c. 710.]

Now each and every one of them is preparing to vote for Labour’s plan. The bright glow coming from the red-faced Members opposite is blinding. We must never forget that they criticised our policy, they criticised our costings, they have adopted our policy and they have adopted our costings. They do not have any credibility left.

The fact that the Conservatives have finally relented is further evidence that Labour is winning the battle of ideas again today. Never again can the Conservatives claim with a straight face that Labour does not have a plan. They would not have the first idea what to do if they did not have our plans to pinch. In fact, it seems to me that the Labour party has replaced the Institute of Economic Affairs as the Conservatives’ most influential and favoured think-tank. Look at the impact that we are having on Government policy. Labour’s NHS workforce plan: nicked. Labour’s plan to recruit dentists to the most under-served areas: nicked. Labour’s plan for a progressive ban on tobacco: nicked. Labour’s plan for a windfall tax on oil and gas giants: nicked. And now Labour’s plans to abolish the non-dom tax status: nicked. If the Conservatives are so desperate to see Labour’s manifesto implemented, they should just call a general election.

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[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), not least to inject a little context into this afternoon’s debate. The truth is that this country is reeling, but it is not reeling from 14 years of Tory cuts. It is reeling from the most extraordinary period of economic shocks that this country has ever seen.

I remind Opposition Members that the City crash in 2007-08 cost us £875 billion in quantitative easing under the then right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. Brexit cost us £70 billion in QE, the pandemic cost us £400 billion and the support that the Government put in place to help hard-pressed families with the energy crisis following the war in Ukraine cost £40 billion. This country has been through a perfect storm of unprecedented, once in 400-year or 500-year events with which we are all struggling.

I welcome this Budget. I will say something about the cost of living relief for rural areas such as Mid Norfolk, and something about growth and how we can get this country out of the huge risk of stagflation arising from the sequence of events that I have just described. In a global race for science and technology investment, we have to move faster and be bolder to unlock that investment.

The pandemic and the Ukraine war have been unprecedented shocks, particularly to the rural economy. Unbelievable cost of living inflation has hit rural areas particularly hard. How much harder? The Treasury calculates that the differential cost impact is about 150% harder in rural areas because of higher transport costs; higher heating costs; higher dependence on agriculture, food processing and high-energy industries; lower incomes; marginality and rurality; a very high proportion of retired pensioners on fixed incomes; and rural councils that have been structurally underfunded for decades by a Whitehall that does not understand rural areas. We put up with it for years during an era of cheap energy, but high energy costs have hit our public services, our charities, our businesses and our households hard.

I am very grateful for the support that the Chancellor has provided, but I will continue to make the case that rural areas deserve more support and more targeted support for a very particular set of rural problems. In this Budget, I welcome the fuel duty freeze, the household support fund, the cost of childcare relief, the child benefit measures, the alcohol duty freeze, the national insurance cut worth £800 for the average worker—including the self-employed—the SME recovery loan scheme, the SME VAT threshold move and the pension triple lock being fixed at 8.6%, which is four times the forecast rate of inflation. This is a Chancellor doing everything he possibly can to help the most vulnerable and the most deserving in our society.

In Norfolk, I particularly welcome the investment in new special free schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities—that cause is close to my heart—the accelerated east-west rail delivery that is crucial to unlocking our region’s potential, and the 10 sports facilities in rural Mid Norfolk. There was good news in a very tough Budget.

Most of all, I welcome the Chancellor’s measures to support growth in the innovation economy, including the £2.5 billion for the NHS, in addition to the £3.4 billion productivity plan, that will unlock an extra £30 billion according to the NHS. There is funding for the Faraday discovery fellowships; this country’s low Earth orbit leadership; the expert advisory group on R&D tax relief; the £100 million for the Alan Turing Institute; the £45 million for our life science research charities; the £5 million for the agrifood launchpad; and the £10 million for the Cambridge cluster. That is investment in the long-term growth of tomorrow, on which we all depend in order to get out of this extraordinary 15-year triple whammy of crises that this country has gone through.

Opposition Members do not seem to understand that we cannot tax our way to prosperity and we cannot spend our way to it. [Interruption.] I know they do not want to hear it, but it is the truth. For prosperity, we need to do two big things, the first of which is reform our public sector to tackle the productivity crisis properly. I am proud to say that this Government, in the 14 years I have been here, have increased health spending by a third, but we cannot see that outcome on the ground. That is because the healthcare system is structurally geared—it is not any one party’s fault—in a way that says, “If you deliver more for less, we give you less from the Treasury.” We punish innovation and we reward inefficiency, and that has to change. I welcome quite a lot that the shadow Health Secretary has said about reforming it.

The real key, however, is growth. As I have consistently argued for 14 years, we have to do more to support innovation-led growth, as that is the only form of growth that drives up productivity, creates new industries and drives global inward investment. With stubborn debt and the risk from all of the shocks that I have outlined still with us, that is more urgent than ever. We will never get out of this crisis by short-term house price booms, short-term consumer booms and booms in the City. We have to do it by attracting private sector investment into the high-growth sectors of life science, agritech, bioengineering, clean tech, fusion energy, semiconductors, robotics, tidal energy, satellite manufacturing and quantum computing. We are a powerhouse in science and research, but we are not yet a powerhouse in attracting the global billions into those sectors and turning them into solutions around the world. That innovation is the key, both to private sector recovery and, of course, to public sector reform, particularly in health, which is the biggest public service driving the structural deficit. We need to introduce a much faster wave of innovation in artificial intelligence and all sorts of digital health, with earlier prevention and better diagnosis. In that way, we can reduce the appalling problem of pouring money in and getting less out on the ground.

Time is very short, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I want just to conclude—[Interruption.] My time is up, but let me conclude by saying that—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. As the hon. Gentleman said, time is up. I am terribly sorry. I call Sir Chris Bryant.