Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Jacob Young Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

Today’s Budget comes as a strong sense of relief for the country, for my constituents and probably also for this House, as it never has to hear me ask for a freeport in Teesside again. I could not be more buzzing that we were successful in our freeport bid, and I thank the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for selecting Teesside. I also pay tribute to the enormous effort made by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), who has campaigned on this issue since he was elected. I also pay tribute to the officers of the Tees Valley Combined Authority, particularly Chris Rowell and Julie Gillespie, who I know have worked incredibly hard on our bid. The biggest thanks have to go to our Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen, without whom we would not have achieved the real transformation we have begun in Teesside over the past few years.

This is what this Budget means for my constituents in Redcar and Cleveland: a restart. I felt quite emotional listening to the Chancellor speak about my community in the way that he did, because it is a truth that every Teessider knows that when Gladstone called us “the infant Hercules”, he meant it—and it is not that we were the infant Hercules but that we are the infant Hercules.

Before coming into this role, I spent nine years working and training in Teesside’s chemical industry, so when we talk about protecting these jobs and creating more of them, those are not statistics to me—they are my former colleagues, and I am completely focused on securing their futures. The fatal blow that Redcar and Cleveland experienced just six years ago with the closure of SSI felt like something that we would never recover from. Now, six years on, the 4,500-acre site is going to be the centre point of the UK’s largest free port and home to 18,000 jobs over the next five years. That is levelling up in action; that is the transformation of Teesside.

But for Teesside this Budget is not just about a free port. It is about no personal tax rises in VAT, national insurance or income tax. It is about £150,000 for our council to look at ways to level up our area. I already know two things that they can look at: Eston swimming pool and a proper new pier in Redcar. It is about the Treasury moving to Darlington and having the most influential Government Department on our doorsteps—something I think the Leader of the Opposition will regret ridiculing in years to come. It is about the business restart grant of up to £18,000 to help us to reopen and never have to close again. It is about the 5% deposit mortgages that people can start to claim from next month, making it so much easier to buy a home. It is about the investment in Teesside airport to make sure we can fly again once the restrictions are lifted. It is about extending the VAT cut for hospitality and freezing alcohol duty so that we can all enjoy a cheap pint when this nightmare is over.

There are tough times ahead, but this is a Budget that spreads prosperity and helps us to genuinely level up while we recover from the pandemic. This is a Budget for Teesside delivered by a northern Chancellor, and I fully support him in it.