Ian Blackford
Main Page: Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party - Ross, Skye and Lochaber)
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
It is disappointing in some respects that the statement this afternoon was affected by a protest in the Gallery, but we all recognise that what we saw was very much in the spirit of the suffragettes. SNP Members understand the suffering of the women born in the 1950s who have been betrayed by this Government. When women pay national insurance, they do it on the basis that they will get a pension, and to find that they have had their pension entitlement taken from them, in some cases for six years, with only 14 months’ notice—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State for Education seems to be suggesting that the Scottish Government can fix this. I say to him: it is a reserved matter. The UK Government are the only people who should be fixing this.
I can understand the frustration of these 1950s women, many of whom are suffering in poverty, and it is about time they got what is rightly theirs. The behaviour of this Conservative Government is shameful. The Chancellor does not even have the good grace to stay and listen to the speech by the third party’s spokesperson. That is the contempt he shows for Parliament and these 1950s women. [Interruption.] He’s not the Chancellor and he never will be. The Chancellor stated that this was the first Monday Budget since 1962. I remind him that his predecessor who gave that Budget was gone in three months. We know the Prime Minister has little time for him and that he will no doubt be gone soon.
We hear much about the ending of austerity, including from the Prime Minister, but there was no sign of it in the Chancellor’s statement, and then we are told there will be investment in universal credit, and it is trumpeted and cheered to the rafters by Tory Members. Of course, we welcome the additional money, but when we look at the Red Book—[Interruption.] This is serious—this is about people who are really suffering—and all the Secretary of State for Education can do is chunter from a sedentary position. Show some respect for people in this country for once! According to the Red Book, the investment in universal credit through the work allowance next year will be £545 million, but the Joseph Rowntree Foundation tells us that £2 billion is required, and at the same time there is a tax cut through the increase in the higher rate worth £2.8 billion. That is the reality and those are the priorities of this Conservative Government. Austerity coming to an end? Don’t kid us!
The Budget statement shows a chronic lack of understanding of the threats we face and the storm clouds ahead. The icy blast this weekend was a foretaste of the dark winter to come—a winter that the Tory Government are ill prepared for. Ten years since the Labour party presided over the financial crash, the Conservative party today risks another. Ten years on from the onset of the last recession—[Interruption.] I wish that people in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom could see the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) sitting there and laughing as we discuss matters of great importance to the people of this country.
Ian Blackford
The Scottish Conservatives are a disgrace to the people of Scotland and should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
Ian Blackford
He can shout all he likes. I will tell him what is shocking: the Budget from the Chancellor today.
Ten years after the onset of the last recession, history tells us that, statistically, we are likely to be closer to the next recession than to the last. The UK’s preparedness and ability to respond is impacted by the failure of leadership of the Chancellor and his Government. How ill-prepared has the Chancellor come to the Dispatch Box today! It is a pity he is not here; what disrespect he has shown.
Over the weekend, the Chancellor said that he might have to change his forecast if there was a no-deal Brexit. Can we even believe this Budget? What price will we all have to pay for a no-deal Brexit? Perhaps the Prime Minister does not believe it. Hours after the Chancellor made his announcement that a no deal would require a change in forecast, No. 10 said that it would not. What an utter shambles. Whose Budget is this, the Chancellor’s or the Prime Minister’s?
The Chancellor comes before us today without adequate planning to give us any of the assurances that his Government can protect our economy over the next few months, never mind the next few years. To add insult to injury, we were promised £350 million a week as the Brexit dividend—it was on the side of a bus—
Ian Blackford
Instead, we are getting 50p: a shiny new 50p to distract us from the devastation that the Government walk blindly into, as they railroad ahead with their Brexit plan.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Mr Philp, it is up to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) whether he wishes to give way, and I think it is quite clear that he is not giving way.
Ian Blackford
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that there is a precedent for the third party speech on a Budget to be made without intervention.
It is not just a no-deal Brexit that will cost families. Even if the UK gets a deal, it will cost families. The whole Brexit process will hit the economy. There is no such thing as a good Brexit, and the House must wake up to that reality. The hon. Member for Gordon (Colin Clark) can carry on gesticulating. He really is the village idiot.
The storm is coming, and the Government have not even brought an umbrella, never mind the shelter that we need. This Budget leaves us wholly unprepared for the Brexit bombshell that is heading towards us. It fails to protect current and future generations. “An end to austerity”, said the Prime Minister. Scotland’s budget will have been slashed by £1.9 billion since the Tories came to power. This from a Tory Government who are ideologically obsessed with austerity—because, after all, austerity is a political choice.
We hear about the Government’s hands having been tied by the debt burden, yet over the past nine years, the Government have found £435 billion of new money for quantitative easing. Those with money and assets were rewarded with rising house prices and financial asset prices. Ordinary working folk—the poor and the disabled—were rewarded with austerity. They paid the price for the financial crash. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has made clear that even the mildest version of “ending austerity” would cost a minimum of £19 billion, the equivalent of a penny on income tax, national insurance and VAT.
An analysis published by the Resolution Foundation stated that we needed to see a boost in annual spending of £31 billion by 2022-23 to end austerity, so let us not kid ourselves that the Tories are going to end austerity. It simply is not going to happen. There is no such boost. Austerity has not ended; austerity remains under this Tory Government. This Tory Government continue to balance the books on the shoulders of the poorest and the most vulnerable, yet they continue to give away tax cuts. That is the reality. That is why austerity is purely and simply a political choice of this Conservative Government.
To end austerity, the Chancellor would need to cancel the final year of the four-year freeze on benefits and reverse cuts in in-work benefits introduced as part of the roll-out of the new universal credit system. That would cost a combined £5.1 billion by 2022-23. We already know that cuts to social security since 2010 will cost £39 billion by 2021-22; that is £39 billion taken out of the pockets of those who would spend cash on goods and services. Cutting the incomes of the poorest in our society has depressed growth in the economy; the only people who cannot see it are the Conservatives. [Interruption.] What about the living wage? If they were to bring in the real living wage, we would support them, but they are miles away from doing that.
Over the same period that the Women’s Budget Group has calculated that tax giveaways will cost the Treasury £47 billion, £39 billion was taken out of the pockets of the poorest and £47 billion given in tax cuts—robbing Sarah to pay John. This heartless Conservative Government have utterly failed to do the right thing, robbing citizens across the United Kingdom of a chance of increased living standards and the prosperity our communities deserve from economic growth. Austerity is hurting and this Budget will continue to hurt citizens through Tory austerity. Again, with a Tory Government we get cheap promises. Well, we have had enough of broken promises. The SNP will not support a Budget that will make our economy smaller and weaker and make our people poorer.
From 2010 consecutive UK Governments have delivered empty promises and robbed Scotland, limiting the opportunities for our Parliament and our people. This year, the Scottish Government’s fiscal budget will be £1.9 billion lower in real terms than it was in 2010-11. This is about more than the statistics, however; it is about the harsh impact on those who depend on our public services—the young, those in work, the elderly, and the disabled. We all pay a price for Tory austerity.
With Brexit coming down the tracks, this Government have picked up where Labour left off and abandoned the people of Scotland. Instead of arming themselves with a Budget that would protect jobs, drive investment and boost growth, the UK Government have delivered a Budget that will leave the communities of the United Kingdom frozen in failure. Time and again, we were told that the economy in Scotland would be stronger if we stayed with the United Kingdom—that the Union would protect jobs and that the Union would protect the Scottish economy. Well, the Union is threatening to destroy our economy by dragging us out of the European Union against our will.
Closing the door on the single market and the customs union is risking 80,000 jobs and risks losses of £2,300 on average from every person in Scotland. This Budget—this Union—has placed at the foot of the people of Scotland a choice of two futures: a future tied to a Union with the UK that will lead to further hardship and a deepening of austerity, or a future with Scotland in the EU, filled with opportunity, prosperity and economic growth, with an outward-looking Scotland and our destination within Europe, or our destination within an inward-looking United Kingdom.
The Chancellor today has made the case for the SNP. Like their Labour predecessors, this UK Government have shown their incompetence. Distracted and divided by the chaos of Brexit, the Government have not prepared for the future. Where is the vision? Where is the plan to create the circumstances that will encourage investment, drive up productivity and result in real wage growth? The fact that we have had the worst decade for wage growth in over 200 years should have sparked action by the Government to deal with that, but what do we have? We have inaction.
The Prime Minister famously talked about those who were just about managing. They have been shown to be hollow words from the Prime Minister and her do-nothing Chancellor. This is a Budget that cannot weather the Brexit storm. This is a Brexit bombshell Budget, with the clock ticking down to deliver absolute economic chaos to households right across the country. Conservative Members of Parliament sit and laugh; we talk about people who are going to be in economic hardship and Tory MPs laugh about the impact of a hard Brexit. That is the reality.
The Chancellor came before us today—he came and went—with his trick or treat Budget. He came in the hope that we would be distracted from the bigger picture by the small number of welcome announcements, most of which are undoing his Government’s shoddy policies, but we are not. He might trick some of his more gullible Back Benchers, but he will not trick us. The UK is facing a significant social, economic and political crisis with Brexit, but this Budget utterly fails to build a safety net for our economy’s future after our exit from the European Union.
We have made it clear that, short of remaining in the EU, only membership of the single market and the customs union will best protect our economic future, yet the Government blunder on, leading us to a no-deal Brexit that will be an economic catastrophe. It is widely accepted by economists that, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, there will be material economic disruption. We are already seeing a weakened currency, higher inflation and lower business investment growth as a result of instability and a lack of security.
The EU is the largest market for Scotland’s international exports, worth £12.7 billion in 2016. The UK Government’s own analysis shows that reverting to World Trade Organisation trading rules would reduce growth by 8%. The Scottish Government’s analysis shows that a hard Brexit threatens to cost our economy £12.7 billion a year by 2030, compared with remaining in the EU. Worse still, even if the UK signed a free trade agreement with the EU, Scotland’s GDP would be £1,610 per person lower by 2030. Households are already paying the price. Mark Carney told the Treasury Committee:
“Real household incomes are about £900…lower than we forecast in 2016. The question is why and what drove that difference. Some of it is ascribed to Brexit.”
That is the reality for Mark Carney.
The only solution to offset economic disaster, short of staying in the European Union, is to stay in the single market and the customs union. I am pleased to see that some on the Labour Benches agree with us on that, but does the Leader of the Opposition agree? We need to get real. The Chancellor has not insulated our economy to deal with Brexit, and the Prime Minister is hamstrung by the extreme Brexiteers in her own party. We must not allow the extreme Brexiteers to hold the UK to ransom. We must unite across the House to protect our economic future. I call on the Leader of the Opposition today. If he is true to his word, and if he agrees with me that this Budget is unfit for the future, he will join with the Scottish National party, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats to keep us in the single market and the customs union. Today, Labour must show that it can be an Opposition. It must join the effective Opposition to tell the Prime Minister that she will not get a deal through this House that does not keep us in the single market and the customs union. The stakes are high. We have time, but not much. The Chancellor still has time to rethink his fiscally flawed decisions in order to help to protect our economy.
Many will study the detail of what is in the Budget, but we must also examine what is not. The UK Government should rethink and back SNP and Institute of Directors demands to introduce a small and medium-sized enterprise support service to help firms to map out and prepare their supply chains to deal with Brexit. There is so much missing from this Budget. Where is the removal of residency fees for EU citizens applying to remain in the UK? It is morally reprehensible that those living here are, through no fault of their own, facing a charge to protect their residency. That is not making EU citizens who live here welcome. It is, by extension, yet another impact of the Prime Minister’s hostile environment. The Chancellor could have waived those fees today.
Last year, the Chancellor righted a wrong when he announced that Scotland’s emergency services were no longer to be charged VAT, but where is the £175 billion that had already been paid? We want it back to invest in our emergency services—[Interruption.] I expect Scottish Tory MPs to back us on this so that we can get Scotland’s money back to invest in our public services. Yet again, this Government have ignored SNP calls to support the Scottish oil and gas industry at a time of recovery. Why has the Chancellor again sat on his hands? The UK Government are once again not stepping up to support the sector.
I come now to farmers and crofters, and I declare an interest as an active crofter, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil)—
Ian Blackford
I am just a simple crofter with 10 acres—[Interruption.] Let me deal with the seriousness of the situation. The European Union recognised the underfunding of hill crofters and farmers in 2013, creating a new fund from which payments were to be made between 2016 and 2020. Almost 90% of the fund was meant to come to Scotland, but we have been short-changed. We have been given only 16.5% of the funds. Some £160 million that should be going to Scottish farmers and crofters has not materialised. Where is it, Chancellor? Why has he not given Scottish crofters and farmers the money that they were due? Why has he withheld funds that were explicitly meant for Scotland? Why does he think it is right to hold back EU funds that he was meant to pass over? It is little wonder that our crofters and farmers should worry about funding post Brexit; this UK Government have form. Make no mistake that not passing over funds the EU earmarked for Scotland is a serious breach of trust. I would even go so far as to say that the UK Government have stolen that money from the pockets of crofters and farmers.
Let me turn to what the Chancellor has done in this Budget. With Brexit having pushed inflation above its 2% target for each month since February 2017, I welcome that he has frozen fuel duty. I also welcome the fact that the UK Government have finally lived up to their responsibility on broadband, which is, after all, a reserved matter. Despite a few welcome gimmicks, Scotland’s promised £600 million in NHS consequentials, we are getting only £550 million. We have been short-changed again—£50 million should be coming to Scotland for health; we are not getting it.
Those at the bottom of the pile will continue to struggle while the Tories fail to put dignity and respect at the heart of their social security policies. By 2021, low-paid women stand to lose £1,400 a year from changes to universal credit, according to the Women’s Budget Group. A couple with two children will be £832 a year worse off due to the benefit freeze, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Some 600,000 three-child families will see £2,500 a year robbed from their budgets, and those with four or more children will lose around £7,000 a year. The Chancellor could have done the right thing today. He could have halted and fixed universal credit. Instead, he failed to go far enough to put money into the pockets of those who desperately need it.
The SNP has long championed the case against cuts to the work allowances, and another U-turn from the Tories is welcome, but it does not go far enough. The Chancellor’s increased spending on universal credit is nothing but a drop in the ocean. He is putting a sticking plaster on a wound that needs to be redressed. His failure to halt and review universal credit means that more people will be left behind, left in poverty, left in hardship and left struggling by a Tory Government.
Now, I do not think that there is a magic money tree, but political choices can be made: to deliver a society where the sick or unemployed can be helped out of hardship; or a society that punishes the poor and abandons those who are out of work. Why has the Chancellor failed again to end age discrimination and give young people, as well as other workers, a real living wage?
Since Brexit, electricity bills have gone up by 17.1% and gas bills by 4.3%—young people continue to be left behind with those higher prices. All workers should be treated fairly, yet this Government continue to underpay young people. Young people have again been short-changed, as the Chancellor has failed to pay a real living wage. Young people in Scotland deserve better. The Chancellor should immediately devolve the powers so that the SNP Scottish Government can uplift young people and end this discrimination.
But it is not just young people. Women born in the 1950s have seen their pensionable age increase by as much as six years, in some cases with only 14 months’ notice. We in the SNP have long accepted that the equalisation of men and women’s pensionable age should happen, but the women affected by the changes had paid national insurance on the condition that they would get their state pension earlier than many of them now are. They have been short-changed. Women’s pensionable age has increased too quickly, and many are living in poverty, relying on benefits. Of course, in a Westminster Hall debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), ludicrously suggested that the women affected should think about going on apprenticeship schemes. Talk about a lack of humanity. Absolutely outrageous. This is a Government who simply do not get it and do not accept their responsibility.
Why was this not addressed in the Budget? Where is the dignity? Where is the compassion for the millions of women who have given a lifetime of service? It is utterly shameful that that issue has not been addressed, and it is not going to go away. The Chancellor should have listened to the SNP on 1950s women and, more widely, on austerity.
The Scottish Government are already delivering £125 million of mitigation in this year alone to protect those hit by Tory austerity. We have established in law that social security is a human right, and I recommend that this House also thinks about that. We are building a social security system based on dignity and respect. Society is only as strong as its weakest link. Social security is not just a nice thing to provide; it is a necessity that we provide a safety net to those who need it.
We are also working to bolster our economy and society by supporting business and by working to boost job opportunities and growth: a 64% increase of £270 million in the economy, jobs and fair work budget, as part of a total investment of £2.4 billion in enterprise and skills; a 70% increase in investment in business research and development; £18 million as part of a £65 million package of investment in the National Manufacturing Institute; and £340 million of resources set aside to provide initial capitalisation for the Scottish national investment bank. The Leader of the Opposition called for a UK state investment bank; we are getting one in Scotland, courtesy of the SNP.
The Scottish Government have an ambitious programme of infrastructure investment for 2018-19 of more than £4 billion, in line with the “Programme for Government” commitment to invest £20 billion over the lifetime of our Scottish Parliament. That is our commitment to infrastructure investment.
In Scotland we are using the powers we have to change lives for the better and to strengthen our economy, and it is working. Scotland has strong economic fundamentals, with higher growth than the UK as a whole and the most inward investment anywhere in the UK outside London. Scotland’s economy grew by 0.5% in the second quarter of 2018, faster than the UK. Over the past 12 months, the Scottish economy has grown by 1.7%, faster than the 1.2% in the UK. The Scottish Government are delivering for the people of Scotland.
According to the Office for National Statistics, long-term pay growth has been highest in Scotland and lowest in Wales. Median pay for full-time workers is 87% higher in Scotland than it was in 1997. Fraser of Allander expects Scotland to have higher growth and lower unemployment than the UK in 2019 and 2020. Scotland’s female unemployment rate fell over the quarter and year to 3.2%, lower than the UK’s 4%. In the face of Tory austerity, the Scottish Government are building an economy of the future with measures to unlock innovation and drive increased productivity.
In Scotland, those measures, outlined in the “Programme for Government”, have been welcomed by the business sector. Scottish businesses, customers and our workforce rely on robust and reliable infrastructure, as the foundation which keeps our economy moving, and it is right to increase investment in that area—but it will not stop there. The Scottish growth commission’s report is clear that an independent Scotland can leave the broken economic model of the UK and deliver an inclusive, sustainable growth programme. If the approach to spending growth recommended by the commission had been applied by Westminster over the past decade, the £1.9 billion cut in real terms to Scotland’s budget would have been wiped out.
The report recommends adopting the following fiscal rules: that the deficit is reduced to below 3% of GDP within five to 10 years; that national debt does not increase beyond 50% of GDP and stabilises at that level; and that borrowing is undertaken for public investment only over the course of the economic cycle. Closing the per capita income gap to the median of the 12 best-performing small advanced economies, the report’s peer group, through a 21st century economic model focusing on productivity, population and participation would mean, in today’s values, an additional £22 billion in GDP and a potential additional £9 billion in tax revenues—that is £4,100 per person.
In Scotland, we are not just focusing on the now; we are focusing on the future. The Chancellor today attempts to pull the wool over our eyes and distract us from the bigger picture, but we are not distracted. This Budget is a typical Tory offering: giving with one hand and taking with another. The Budget exposes to the people of Scotland that there is a choice to build a better future—to turn away from the isolated, economically failed UK and instead look to a more prosperous Scotland in the European Union. Only with independence can we secure a strong future for the Scottish economy, and deliver for our communities and families, who are being left behind, scrambling to make ends meet, moving from crisis to crisis at the hands of consecutive failed UK Governments.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I tried to intervene on the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on a number of occasions. Could you confirm to the House whether or not there are any rules in place preventing the Scottish National party from taking such interventions?