Budget Resolutions

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Evans]

My hon. Friend speaks from experience as the chairman of the Co-operative party, and he is absolutely right that we need a thriving co-operative sector in this country. Again, if we want to talk about the past and the reason why we do not have a strong mutual sector in this country, it is because of the raid that the Tory Government of the 1980s allowed on many of these institutions, with the most famous example being Bradford & Bingley. We allowed people to become members, and then turned these institutions into plcs—and look where that got us. We need fundamental reform from this Government.

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the worst decisions of the Conservatives in the 1980s was destroying the great regional institutions that were building societies? Great organisations such as the Leeds Permanent and the Halifax building society, which created wealth and retained it in the regions, were destroyed.

[Chris Evans]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. If ever anything tore into the very fabric of British society, it was that. It is terrible when we walk down the street now and see that so many of the famous building societies we grew up with are no longer there. That needs to be changed. We need to start talking about alternative co-operative models. As business finds it more difficult to borrow from traditional areas, we need to talk about the mutual sector, and about having more mutuality in our society and in our businesses, including employee share ownership schemes.

As I am running short of time, I must talk about the NHS. Our nurses do a fantastic job at the frontline. When someone is in need, our nurses are there, but very often this Government have not been there for them. Instead of nurses being given a pay rise, which I think we all agree they deserve, again today we got a very vague statement of “maybe, if and but”. That is not good enough for the most vital service workers in this country. I think, too, about all the people on universal credit. Again, this is all a sop to those who are in need. There should have been an announcement today about pausing universal credit so that it could be looked at and eventually changed. There is no good in plunging our most vulnerable people into abject poverty, but that is what this Government are about. They are very good at warm words.

Of course, every Chancellor’s speech has to end with a flourish, and we saw that today, with Conservative Members waving papers and cheering as the Chancellor announced, in his uninspiring tone, that he was going to abolish stamp duty on houses worth less than £300,000 in order, he said, to help millennials on to the housing ladder. Then minutes afterwards, as has happened in all his speeches—last time it was about national insurance contributions—we get the real story. Hidden away on page 154 of the OBR report is the clear statement that the temporary holiday on stamp duty will increase house prices by 0.3%. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) is shouting at me. Judging by the OBR’s ability to predict the future, does he honestly think that house prices are going to go up by only 0.3%? I do not think so.

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[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson); this is the first time in a while that we have debated in the Chamber together.

I commend my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the Budget. From my ministerial apprenticeship at the Treasury three years ago, I recall the great efforts that the then Chancellor and the entire team made to put the Budget together, particularly as Ministers were lobbied constantly by a whole range of interests. It is, of course, a challenge to balance the needs with the responsibility to keep the public finances in good, sound, solid order. The Treasury should be commended for navigating those pressures and for continuing to put stability at the core of the Budget. Economic stability should rightly stand at the core of every Budget.

It is worth reminding Members, especially those on the Opposition Benches, of the progress that has been made in putting the public finances back in order after the appalling situation in 2010. Back then, the budget deficit exceeded £150 billion—more than our spending on health, education, policing and the armed forces. The level of public spending was financed by borrowing that was totally unsustainable. We know that the Opposition, who are chuntering away, never want to take responsibility for how they mishandled the public finances and love to point the finger of blame elsewhere, but it is a fact that before the financial crisis, the Labour Government racked up an eye-watering level of debt.

[Ian C. Lucas]

In 2010, the Conservative Government said they would eliminate the deficit by 2015. They were aware of the deficit at that stage, so why did they fail?

[Priti Patel]

The obvious answer is the scale of Labour’s economic mismanagement. The hon. Gentleman will recall that his party’s 2008 Budget planned for a £43 billion deficit, which is more than all the revenues raised in excise duty. That says everything we need to know about Labour’s financial economic management.

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[Joan Ryan]

If the right hon. Lady sat in my advice surgery and listened to what was said by families in Enfield, where over a third of children live in poverty, she would find that the amount of disposable income that people have is a major problem, and that most families feel that rising costs, particularly due to rent, have wiped out any possible gains.

Almost six in 10 Londoners in poverty live in a working family, so the picture of poverty has changed. Those people are not “scroungers,” as they are sometimes referred to; they are working people who are trying to get on in life. A third of all jobs in Enfield are classed as low paid and are below the London living wage, as recent research by the Trust for London has shown. The Government’s failure to address these issues has meant that many families are unable to just about manage today, let alone build for tomorrow.

Enfield now ranks as the London borough with the fourth highest food bank usage. Last year, 5,974 three-day emergency food supplies were provided to people in Enfield, with 2,434 given to children. The roll-out of universal credit in Enfield, which started this month, will make a bad situation even worse. The Trussell Trust has said that demand for emergency food parcels is 30% higher in areas where universal credit is being implemented. Week in, week out, I see many hard-working families at my constituency advice surgery who are living on or below the breadline.

I want to say a few words about housing. A great many constituents come to see me about problems that are related in some way to housing, particularly those living in the insecure private rented sector. The threat of falling into rent arrears, and of families being put at risk of eviction and long-term debt due to the roll-out of universal credit, has only added to their concerns. Stagnant wages, fast-rising rents and a crisis in housing supply have created a perfect storm in Enfield, which now has the highest eviction rate in the capital. Homelessness acceptances have risen by a staggering 82% over the past two years. Enfield has the second highest number of temporary accommodation placements in London, which puts even more pressure on an already strained housing market. Again, that is not a record of which the Chancellor can be proud.

Today the Chancellor said, “House prices are increasingly out of reach for many”—yes, they are. He continued: “It takes too long to save for a deposit”—yes, it does, if someone can save at all—“and rents absorb too high a portion of monthly income”. But the OBR report makes it clear that house prices will rise as a result of the measures announced today. When the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) intervened on the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) to ask about houses for social rent, the right hon. Gentleman insisted that the Budget statement referred to that. I listened to the Chancellor’s speech and I have read through the printed copy, but I heard and read nothing about that. He did say that the Government would increase supply “including nearly 350,000 affordable homes”, but the question is: affordable for whom? There is nothing about houses at a social rent. I think that is a disgrace, completely ignoring the desperate need.

[Ian C. Lucas]

A Conservative Member said earlier that we should learn lessons from how bad things were in the 1970s. I was brought up in a council house during the 1970s, and that gave me a tremendous base in my life. We should be proud of that. The Conservative party should learn a lesson from that and treat people with some respect.

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[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) for his courtesy in allowing those of us who have been here since 11.30 am to speak.

I want to talk about regional policy. My speaking time is restricted, but I am glad that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is here as I want to raise a particular issue to do with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in my constituency of Wrexham; it is directly connected to regional policy. There was a time when the Conservative party talked about rebalancing the economy and there seemed to be a commitment to something called the northern powerhouse. I recall attending a meeting a couple of years ago with the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord O’Neill, who both talked with enthusiasm about investing in the north of England.

I have had some time to read the Red Book while I have been waiting to speak. There is a large section about investment in the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford corridor—one of the most affluent areas of the United Kingdom. I believe in an economy that serves the whole of this country. I want to tell the Chief Secretary to the Treasury about another corridor, which exists between Manchester and Holyhead and contains some of the world-leading companies in the UK, including Airbus, JCB and the Wylfa 2 nuclear project.

The private sector is investing in that area of the country. Virgin Media is investing in a superfast broadband network in my constituency of Wrexham, and a company announced last week that it was moving there, creating 250 jobs. They have confidence in the area. Unbelievably, the Government are moving the local HMRC office in Wrexham to central Cardiff. The only HMRC office in Wales will be in the centre of the city of Cardiff—the most expensive place in Wales. How any sane Government can pursue such a regional policy is completely beyond me. It is not only wrong in terms of regional policy, but it is taking wealth away from another part of Wales.

Any sensible Government would do the exact opposite. The Welsh Government, who are sensible, are setting up a development bank for Wales in Wrexham as opposed to Cardiff. I would like the Chief Secretary to go away and rethink what I think is the worst, most incomprehensible decision that any Government Department has made during my 16 years in the House. The Government need to reflect on whether they really believe in the United Kingdom and in investment in our regions and nations. Every indication that I have seen is that they do not support investment in infrastructure in the regions and nations of the United Kingdom.

In three separate Budgets, north Wales has been told that the plans for the north Wales growth deal are in hand—this is the hat-trick Budget. We have yet to see a penny piece of UK Government investment in north Wales transport infrastructure, including our rail network, for which the Government have had responsibility since 2010. They ought to be ashamed. It is about time they pulled their finger out. They need to do things differently.