Helen Whately
Main Page: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)Department Debates - View all Helen Whately's debates with the HM Treasury
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberSmall and medium-sized businesses are at the heart of our economy, creating jobs and prosperity across the UK. We continue to give substantial support to SMEs by raising the employment allowance; extending the £1 million annual investment allowance; providing business rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses; and with the Help to Grow programme.
A couple of weeks ago, I met people from a number of hospitality businesses at Nailcote Hall. They expressed not only their gratitude for the support the Treasury gave during the pandemic, but their concerns about the cost of living and about supply-chain costs, which they cannot necessarily pass on to consumers. What assurances can my hon. Friend give the businesses in my constituency, especially those in the hospitality sector, that the Government will keep them in mind in terms of future support?
It is good to hear that my hon. Friend has been speaking to the hospitality sector in his constituency, no doubt drawing on his expertise in those conversations. As he said, we provided substantial support to that sector during the pandemic. We recognise the ongoing challenges for businesses as we recover, which is why we are giving thousands of hospitality, leisure and retail businesses a 50% cut in business rates this financial year—worth up to £110,000 per business.
There are more than 7,000 businesses in my constituency, producing excellent products and services in a range of industries. I have held several informative high street walkarounds in towns across my constituency, hearing at first hand from local entrepreneurs, many of whom are worried about competition from online businesses. Will my hon. Friend explain what steps the Department is taking to support our high street businesses in the face of online competition?
I commend my hon. Friend for his campaign in his local high streets and for the work he is doing with local businesses. I agree with him on the importance of high streets and the businesses on them, which is why we are supporting high street businesses with our 50% business rate cut for thousands of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses; our freeze to the business rates multiplier; and funding through the community renewal fund, towns fund and levelling-up fund.
I hope the Minister is aware that one problem facing small and medium-sized employers in Cumbria and elsewhere, certainly in rural Britain, is a serious lack of workforce. Cumbria Tourism reported that 63% of its members last year had to operate below capacity because they could not find sufficient staff to keep going and so they missed out on vital demand. Does she agree that the two key areas are a lack of affordable housing so that people can live close to the place where they need to work in rural communities, and the fact that the Government have yet to come up with adequate visa provisions to allow employers to supplement a local workforce with an overseas one? What action will she take to support small and medium-sized businesses, especially in hospitality, in Cumbria and elsewhere?
There was a great deal in that question, but broadly it was about access to the workforce for businesses. We have a really successful story on jobs, with record numbers of people in payroll employment, but I also hear about the work that businesses are doing to fill vacancies. We are supporting businesses, for instance, with our successful Way to Work scheme and the investment we are making in people’s skills to ensure that they align to the vacancies that employers are looking to fill.
A big concern for small businesses in my constituency, especially those in construction and engineering contract work, is that they finish the job, the main contractor gets paid, but the people who did the work sometimes wait months to get paid. If the main contractor fails during that time, the money disappears with it. Will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss the possibility of making sure that those moneys are kept in a protective bond, so that if we cannot prevent the main contractor from going bust, we can at least stop it dragging down hundreds of small businesses with it?
I do have conversations with the construction sector and more widely about infrastructure investment in this country. I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to talk about the specific suggestion he has to help the construction sector.
If the Chancellor really wanted to help British businesses, he would back Labour’s plan to scrap business rates and replace them with a fairer system. He could reverse his tax on jobs and scrap the national insurance hike, and he could use public procurement and other tools to buy, make and sell more in Britain. He has imitated Labour’s policies before: why not follow Labour’s lead again and help struggling businesses?
Business rates and national insurance are an important contribution to paying for public services, which I am sure the hon. Lady’s constituents, like mine, feel very strongly about. I remind her of the scale of support that we are providing to businesses, including a business rates cut worth £1.7 billion this year.
I appreciate that the Chancellor cut fuel duty by 5p per litre, but that did not really touch the sides. I urge him to be bolder and cut fuel duty by at least 20p per litre, as requested by FairFuelUK, which would make a huge difference to individuals and businesses in my patch, not least hauliers for whom the cost of running a single truck has increased by 17% in the past year.
I hear my right hon. Friend’s request. The combination of the freeze on fuel duty in the Budget and the cut in the spring statement is essentially a £5 billion tax cut. That is substantial support with the cost of fuel for businesses. As I have also said, we are taking further steps to support businesses with business rate cuts. I also remind her of our cut to national insurance, increasing the employment allowance by £1,000, supporting around 500,000 smaller businesses.
I call Clive Efford.
We have a slight problem. Can the Chancellor answer the question as if it has been asked?
We are driving economic growth through investment in infrastructure, innovation and skills. The Budget and spending review confirmed £100 billion of public investment in economic infrastructure to benefit every part of the UK. We are launching a UK infrastructure bank with a financial capacity of £22 billion to crowd in private finance to support more than £40 billion of investment in infrastructure over the next five years.
It is clear that when done right, the Government’s levelling-up programme can make a real difference to people’s lives. Does my hon. Friend share my enthusiasm for the proposed Atherton, Leigh and Tyldesley cycling upgrades that will connect local people to job opportunities right across the area, especially because there is such local support for it and it is not an anti-car programme?
Yes, I do share my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for helping his constituents to access jobs and for cycling as a way of getting to and from work. At the spending review we announced £710 million of new funding for schemes like the one he described, but Bolton is also receiving £30 million through the towns fund and the shared prosperity fund, and work on the electrification of the Wigan-Bolton line has begun, supporting economic growth for his constituency and the wide area.
In the integrated rail plan announced just six months ago, the Government promised to invest in the east coast main line—a vital route connecting London, Newcastle and Scotland and bringing high-skill, high-wage jobs to our area. However, Ministers are already backtracking on some of these investment promises in other parts of the country, so will the Government make a firm commitment today to fund the delivery of east coast upgrades to provide much-needed confidence and resilience in our line?
As the hon. Lady points out, with our investment in infrastructure—particularly rail, in the £96 billion integrated rail plan for the midlands and the north—we are showing how the Government are supporting the growth of the economy, including through providing the transport infrastructure that we need for that.
Labour welcomes the principle of a UK infrastructure bank moving to a statutory footing, but it is crucial to make sure that public money supports decent jobs that people can raise a family on. Will the Minister therefore support our proposals for all projects funded by the infrastructure bank to come with a good jobs plan and for working people to be given a voice on its board?
We have many measures in place to support people’s jobs. We know about the figures for record levels of payroll employment and also the increase in the national living wage earlier this year. I am glad to hear the hon. Gentleman’s support for the UK infrastructure bank that we are currently legislating for, which is a really important part of our determination to drive regional and local growth across the UK.
The hon. Member makes an important point about people living in park homes—I also have constituents who live in park homes—and we are determined to ensure that people receive the help that they need with the increase in energy costs. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been consulting on how we deliver support to people living in places such as park homes that do not have the same electricity or energy supply as others.
Small businesses in Ceredigion have told me how increasing electricity and fuel costs are having a direct impact on their operating costs in addition to an indirect impact in reduced demand for their goods and services. They are concerned that those costs are being disproportionately felt in rural areas. Does the Treasury share that assessment? Will it consider bringing forward bespoke measures to support the rural economy?
The hon. Member and I met recently to speak about the cost of fuel in rural areas. As I also represent a rural constituency, I appreciate his point. As he knows, the cut that we made to fuel duty is benefiting people in rural areas as well as those across the whole country. That, combined with the duty freeze, is £5 billion-worth of help for people. As we have discussed today, we are also providing targeted support to people: in particular, there is the £1,200 for 8 million households on benefits to help with the rising cost of living.
The rural fuel rebate was introduced 10 years ago at 5p a litre and remains unchanged. With inflation and the cost of living crisis, what thought has the Treasury given to increasing the rural fuel rebate to at least 10p a litre?
The hon. Gentleman is probably talking about the rural fuel relief scheme, which is specifically targeted at a small number of locations where fuel prices are much higher than the national average, perhaps because they are a long distance from the refinery. In proposing an extension to the scheme, he should consider the potential unintended consequences. For example, people might drive out of their way to go to a petrol station in these rural areas.
Thanks to this Government, we have record low unemployment and more job vacancies than jobseekers, but almost 9 million people are economically inactive, including many who can work and many who have worked in the recent past. Does my right hon. Friend agree that getting more of this group back into work is key to filling the labour shortages that many Members have spoken about today, and to strengthening our economy for the longer term?