Cost of Living and Brexit

James Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Dr James Davies)]

I thank Members across the Chamber for their contributions to this debate on the cost of living. We have heard extensive and thoughtful contributions from those on the Front Benches, as well as from an array of Beck Benchers, including my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) and the hon. Members for Midlothian (Owen Thompson), for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter), for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar), for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara), for Glasgow East (David Linden), for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), and for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry)—I agreed with some of them more than with others.

Although I am pleased that we are having this debate, I emphasise that the cost of living challenges faced by people across the United Kingdom are a global challenge. We are not alone, and countries across western Europe and, indeed, the rest of the world are seeing the same trends, driven largely by Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, and the aftermath of the covid pandemic—that has been acknowledged by many if not all Members.

The Conservative Government have been taking action to help people by providing cost of living payments. This year, we have provided £900 for households on means-tested benefits, £300 for pensioner households and a £150 payment for people receiving disability benefits. In Wales, those payments have supported more than 400,000 people through some challenging times. In fact, last winter, the UK Government paid almost half of household energy bills through the energy price guarantee and by providing £400 off those energy bills. In addition, last year we provided £650 for households receiving means-tested benefits, £300 for pensioner households, £150 for the disabled, a £150 council tax rebate for households in council tax bands A to D, a 5p cut to fuel duty, which has been extended to 2023-24, and a permanent increase in the amount that someone can earn before national insurance contributions are charged. That is, of course, on top of a 40% real-terms increase in the personal allowance since 2010. Going forward, the removal of the premium paid by those on prepayment meters will save 4 million of the poorest households £45 a year. All in all, the Government’s cost of living support amounts to an estimated £94 billion.

Of course, we as Conservatives believe that work is the best way out of poverty. We are extending the support that our jobcentres offer to low-paid workers so that they can increase their hours and move into better paid, higher quality jobs. In the Budget, we on the Conservative Benches confirmed the biggest expansion of free childcare in living memory. That will reduce costs for parents, who can get back to work, and ensure that a career break does not become a career end. Alongside that, we will see universal credit provide childcare costs up front. We are supporting people with the largest ever increase to the national living wage.

[Alan Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Davies]

I will have to be strict because of time, but yes.

[Alan Brown]

I thank him for giving way. Rather than just reading his pre-prepared speech, will he answer any of the points raised in the debate? For example, I pointed out that Energy UK has observed that post-Brexit energy trading arrangements are adding £1 billion to our energy bills. What Brexit dividends are offsetting that £1 billion that has been added to our bills?

[Dr Davies]

I will come to the benefits of Brexit in due course, if the hon. Member will kindly wait.

We have increased the national living wage to £10.42 an hour in recent times, which is an increase of 9.7%. We have also cut the universal credit taper rate and increased the work allowance. We are supporting those on the state pension and those receiving pension credit and working age and disability benefits with a 10.1% uplift to match inflation.

What have the Opposition parties done? The SNP’s motion fails to recognise the support given by the UK Government to people across Scotland and commits instead to spending almost half a million pounds of taxpayers’ money every year on an unnecessary Select Committee. SNP Members say that they want to investigate matters relating to increases in prices, but while we know that global factors are at play, they seem to blame Brexit alone. That is the same Brexit that has enabled us to take back control of our laws, our money and our borders, and the same Brexit that is enabling UK fishermen to catch an additional £146 million-worth of fish a year.

[David Duguid]

Without rehearsing the earlier debate on whether Brexit is good or bad for fisherman, does my hon. Friend agree with the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation who has said that

“whatever issues the industry has with Brexit and labour issues”—

those were mentioned earlier—

“these pale into insignificance if fishermen are banned from fishing”,

as they would be through the SNP and Green Scottish Government’s shambolic plans for highly protected marine areas?

[Dr Davies]

My hon. Friend is quite right. He champions the Scottish fishing industry, and rightly so.

The Procurement Bill, which we considered yesterday, will allow SMEs across the UK more easily to access £3 billion-worth of revenue and let us rewrite the rules on support for places and regions—including in Wales and Scotland—to deliver levelling up. The same Brexit has allowed two new freeports each for Wales and Scotland, and allowed the UK to lead the way in the roll-out of the covid vaccine, saving lives and putting the country back on track.

[Dr Whitford]

The hon. Gentleman must be aware that June Raine, the head of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, pointed out in December 2020 that covid licensing was done under the rules of the European Medicines Agency and was nothing to do with Brexit.

[Dr Davies]

We will have to disagree. This country showed the way on the management of the pandemic and the development of vaccines.

The SNP wants to discuss the cost of living, but it would rather import oil and gas from overseas than support tens of thousands of jobs in Scotland.

I would also like to look at the solutions proposed by the Labour Government in Wales. They seem to think that charging people to use motorways, bringing in a tourism tax and scrapping meal deals is the way to help people. Let us not forget the money squandered by the Welsh Government on a racing circuit never to be built, an airport where barely any planes take off and £150 million on a report into the M4 relief road which was then axed. And let us never forget Labour’s record on the economy. No Labour Government have ever left office with unemployment lower than when they came to power. It would perhaps be remiss of me not to remind the House that when Labour left office in 2010, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury wrote, “I’m afraid there’s no money left.”

We will take no lectures on tackling the cost of living crisis from the Opposition parties. The UK Government are delivering an unprecedented package of support across the whole of Britain. The Prime Minister has been clear that it is his priority to halve inflation, ease the cost of living and give people the financial security they want and deserve. While the Opposition play politics, we are getting on with the job and delivering for the people of the United Kingdom.

Question put.