BT Broadband Provision: Local Businesses

Debate between James Cartlidge and Helen Goodman

Thursday 10th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Helen Goodman]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and his constituency of Ashford is not even particularly rural; it is not as if the company has to travel dozens or hundreds of miles to make the connections in his constituency. It seems to me that it has a particular problem with the small business sector and it has a problem the minute someone is outside one of the large urban areas. Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), it is obvious that the benefits of good internet access are greater in rural areas than in big urban areas, because, as anyone with a rural or semi-rural constituency knows, vast amounts of resource go into transport and moving stuff and people around.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I am sure that every hon. Member present is getting a feeling of déjà vu and agreeing with pretty much everything that the hon. Lady is saying. I have a similar case. Stoke by Nayland golf club in my constituency ended up doing a self-dig in March last year. It dug its own line, with the agreement of Openreach, after many months waiting for BT Openreach to come and put down a line. Recently, an engineer finally turned up, offering to put down a line. That company in my constituency had already dug into the ground itself. Does not that prove that there is a massive breakdown in communication between Openreach and whoever the actual supplier is?

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Now, the Minister made a rather good speech yesterday in a similar debate, in which he said that BT was spending far too much time buying sporting rights and not enough dealing with the problems. He is right. BT needs to concentrate on the day job but it is not doing that. This infrastructure is vital to the country’s productivity.

National Insurance Contributions (Rate Ceilings) Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Helen Goodman

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am pleased to take part in this debate, even though it is on a gimmick, and we are not so used to debating gimmicks in the Chamber. The Chancellor is a paradox. He constantly wants legislation that prevents him from doing things—measures in the Finance Bill to avoid taking further decisions on income tax or VAT, today’s legislation on not making any changes to NICs, and legislation at some point in the future on the fiscal stance and his proposals to have a permanent budget surplus.

I am afraid that this Bill is completely unnecessary. As the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) said, the truth of the matter is that if there were a crisis and the Chancellor suddenly needed to raise more money, he could repeal this Bill. It does not give us the stability and certainty that the Government claim.

[James Cartlidge]

If we reach that point and the provisions have to be repealed, that will be a public act. This is an open and transparent Government. If we make this promise and then legislate, it is extremely difficult to repeal it on the sly. The Labour Government broke promises on the sly, hoping that we would not notice. It is impossible to do that with this type of approach.

[Helen Goodman]

I am afraid that I do not accept that. This is purely weak willed on the part of the Chancellor. I thought that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury did not give us nearly as good a defence of the Bill as the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). He managed to situate it within the needs of the business community and give some rationale for it. The more the Minister spoke, the clearer it became that this is indeed a gimmick. I find that odd, because I thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanted to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to take decisions, but clearly he does not. He just wants to tie his hands behind his back at every verse end.

I think it would be a good idea to vote against the Bill, and I am slightly disappointed that we are not opposing it. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] It is not for me to say what the official Front-Bench position is, unfortunately. I want to point out to Conservative Members that we live in a world where the Chancellor has a desire to bring the deficit down very quickly. That is a difficult thing to do, as we saw when he failed comprehensively to achieve his target during the last Parliament. He is now having to go through some very choppy waters to get this done. He made a promise to introduce this legislation to fix VAT, income tax and national insurance because he thought that that would make him a low-tax Chancellor in the eyes of the British public. The fact is, however, that since then he has increased VAT to 20%, increased vehicle excise duty and increased the insurance premium tax, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) pointed out. He is not a low-tax Chancellor.