Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Greg Clark Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I have not come here to defend or rebut any of the wonderful measures that we took under my right hon. Friend’s leadership. I am very conscious of the fact that many people want to take part in this debate, and I am afraid that I have to press on.

The researchers and manufacturers have done an extremely good job, as my right hon. Friend says, in shoring up our response to the crisis. The Budget provides an additional £65 billion of measures in response to covid, designed to support the economy this year. It covers an extension of the furlough scheme, which has already supported 1.3 million employers and more than 11 million jobs, providing vital funds to households and communities throughout our country. It has added to the near £20 billion of support that the Treasury has paid out to support 2.7 million self-employed people.

The Budget presents a dynamic and generous plan to help businesses to get up to speed. We are providing restart grants of up to £18,000 to more than 680,000 business premises. We are also providing further support for hospitality and retail businesses who may be more affected by restrictions when they reopen. While our plan for jobs has been given a £126 million boost supporting 40,000 more traineeships and doubling the cash incentive for firms taking on new apprentices, the Budget ensures that more people are able to access secure, skilled work.

Of course, there can be no denial that the jobs market has changed profoundly over the past year.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am very conscious, as I am sure my right hon. Friend I, that many, many Back Benchers want to take part in the debate. I understand that he is on the call list, so I am afraid I am going to have to make more progress.

It is no secret that over the years, and even in years of strong growth, prosperity has not been spread fairly between the regions and nations that make up our United Kingdom. That is an imbalance that this Budget seeks to correct, with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy leading the charge. Where regions have been left behind by the decline of old industries, we will create new industries and support sectors as they transition to a low-carbon, sustainable and competitive future.

[Greg Clark]

Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I must press on. Lots of Back Benchers want to speak. However eminent and distinguished my right hon. Friend is, there are lots of other people who want to speak.

We are backing the development of hydrogen hubs in the Tees Valley and Holyhead, to breathe new life into coastal and post-industrial communities while we drive a new clean energy transition. We are establishing four carbon capture and storage clusters across the next two decades, and we hope that they will play their part in decarbonising our industrial processes. We are investing tens of millions of pounds in the Aberdeen energy transition zone and the global underwater hub.

We are providing a support package of more than £2 billion to Britain’s incredible auto industry, with £500 million going towards the growth of our electric vehicle supply chain. That package will help to support and safeguard nearly 170,000 jobs in the UK auto sector, including in the north of England, the west midlands and Wales. We intend fully to deliver a boost to the ambition to build at least one UK gigafactory before the end of this Parliament, and we hope to secure investment for others in the longer term.

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and successor for giving way. Will he acknowledge that the battery manufacturing innovation centre and the Faraday challenge, which galvanised the move to providing batteries for electric vehicles, were part of the industrial strategy, as was vaccine manufacturing? Can he explain why it is thought appropriate to abolish that strategy? Is it not better to have a plan, rather than no plan?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I hear my right hon. Friend’s passionate defence of his own work, and I commend a lot of his work. I have read the industrial strategy comprehensively, and it was a pudding without a theme, in my view. I feel very strongly that the conditions of 2017 do not apply to 2021, and I am very pleased to announce to the House that we are morphing and changing the industrial strategy into the plan for growth. I am happy to take further interventions on that, should they arise.

What we have announced in these packages is levelling up in action. There will be new investment in new industries, creating new jobs and driving real change in communities across the UK. With these examples, we are talking about a vision for the future of the kind of country we want to be: a country that hosts good-quality, high-skilled, long-term jobs in every community and that takes its commitment to net zero extremely seriously. I would like to commend the work of my right hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) in passing the net zero legislation in 2019. That was a signal piece of legislation for which I commend them heartily. As Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—which is still the name of the Department—I am very pleased that we are committed to net zero in the way that we are.

Because of all the profound changes that we have seen over the last three or four years, as well as our departure from the EU, our legislation to end our contribution to climate change by 2050 and the unprecedented impact of the coronavirus, I believe that we must take a fresh look at our plans for industrial policy and long-term economic growth. As a consequence of all this, alongside the Budget, we have published “Build Back Better: our plan for growth”. Our cross-government plan for growth signals a departure from the industrial strategy brand and details a renewed focus on infrastructure, skills and innovation. It reflects new opportunities available to us following our exit from the European Union, which was successfully achieved as a consequence of the deal that we struck at the end of last year. This opens up new ways to drive growth, build on our competitive advantage and support a vision for a truly global Britain. We will draw on the valuable lessons we have learnt from the 2017 industrial strategy as we transition to this new, more focused and more ambitious plan for growth.

I want to reassure the House that the energy of my Department is entirely focused on building back better after the coronavirus pandemic. It is leading the Government’s work on supporting British industry and priority sectors, and I am happy to acknowledge that we are building on the incredibly dynamic and good work that was pursued by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells. We will publish our innovation strategy in the summer. We will set out details of our approach to supporting sectors, places and technologies in the innovation strategy. Those will give a clear indication and sense of purpose as we seek to shape the UK’s future. My Department is already leading on strategies with respect to net zero, hydrogen and, of course, innovation itself, as well as the space strategy. We are engaging on a comprehensive programme of work to protect and create jobs as we transition to net zero.

The principle underlying all this effort is, of course, the green recovery. We fully intend to end, and we will end, our contribution to climate change by 2050, and we will do so through investments and innovations such as the ones I have just mentioned. Last week’s Budget builds on the framework set out by the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan, as well as on the support announced at the spending review and in the national infrastructure strategy.

I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor spoke fulsomely about the UK infrastructure bank. The bank will target investment in green projects, which will help us meet our net zero targets in the public and private sectors throughout the country. It will provide a global centre of excellence and advisory support for net zero projects across the country.

We have committed an initial £12 billion of capital and £10 billion of guarantees. By crowding in— attracting—private investment, we fully expect the bank to support at least £40 billion of investment in our precious infrastructure. This investment will help us to amplify success in decreasing emissions, which we have already reduced by 44% against 1990 levels. That is by far the best performance in the G7.

With our strengths in many sectors, from offshore wind to hydrogen, carbon capture technologies and zero-emission vehicles, we are well placed to seize the opportunity of the green transition and lead a global green industrial revolution. The 10-point plan, which the Budget expands on, puts us in a very good position to achieve that goal.

Backed by £12 billion of public investment, the 10-point plan will reinvigorate our industrial heartlands in the north-east, the north-west, Yorkshire, the Humber, the midlands, Scotland, Wales and elsewhere. It will support the creation of hundreds of thousands of green jobs across the UK by 2030. It represents a really exciting and dynamic vision for the development of economic opportunity throughout this country.

This is a Budget that is timely in its interventions, entirely realistic in its ambitions and, above all, remorselessly and unapologetically optimistic about the future of the United Kingdom. It outlines an investment-led recovery, with a targeted, laser-like approach to levelling up every nation and region.

Thanks to the actions of the Government, we will emerge from this virus sooner and stronger than many would have anticipated. Thanks to the Budget, we have the means and the tools necessary to continue our trajectory towards recovery in the next year. We will be embracing innovation, we will be creating green jobs and we will be rejuvenating our industrial heartlands and spreading opportunities. We look forward to building back better throughout the entirety of the United Kingdom.