amendment of the law

James Morris Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

I welcome this responsible Budget, which targets help to individuals and businesses intelligently. Our time is short, so I wish to focus on three points: personal allowances, the employment allowance and exports.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), I welcome the raising of personal allowances to £10,000. That is being delivered by a Conservative Chancellor and, as a result, more than 42,000 people in my constituency will be paying less tax and more than 4,000 will be taken out of paying tax altogether. Before the Budget, I suggested to the Treasury that we set an aspiration for future years that nobody on the minimum wage should pay income tax. I know that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who is not in his place, shares that aspiration. It will take some years to deliver and it will be an expensive measure, but it is fair and it is the right thing to do. I hope that aspiration will be set and I hope it will be in the 2015 Conservative manifesto.

Small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency welcome the employment allowance, which is a big boost to job creation. The private sector is the engine of growth, and Reading, the town I represent, is an economic powerhouse in the south-east. No matter what the Opposition may say, the private sector is creating jobs. This morning, I met the chief executive of Huawei, a Chinese IT and telecoms group, which is opening its head office in my constituency in the next few months. It is bringing hundreds of new jobs to Reading and creating several hundred more over the next few years.

In the past few weeks, Tesco has confirmed that it is starting recruitment at a new distribution centre in my constituency, and I am pleased that this brownfield redevelopment is taking place. I have been discussing it with Tesco and its advisers since 2011, and it means more than 1,000 new jobs in my constituency.

A couple of months ago, I met Ross Snape, the chief executive officer of United Asphalt, a successful independent business located in Theale in my constituency. He said:

“All too often we hear politicians and the press talking down the economy, which can have really negative effects on business and the decisions we make on investment and employing people…it is time to move on and face the challenges we have with confidence.”

I could not agree more. Many billions of pounds have been sitting on UK corporate balance sheets as deleveraging has been going on, but businesses based in my constituency have decided that it is now time to invest. They realise there are no easy fixes to the economy because of the problems that had built up.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is giving good local examples of job creation. Does he agree that as the Budget contains one of the proposals relating to the single pot of funding, a recommendation of the Heseltine review, his local area will be helped to develop even further?

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that proposal, which will help not only my local area, but other areas. It also advances the whole aspect of localism, on which this Government are very keen, as I am. As I was saying, companies in my constituency have decided that it is time to start investing, and I hope that many others up and down the country will follow suit.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Few things are as natural as the aspiration to own a home, but for too many of our constituents, the aspiration is too often out of reach. The high cost of housing is one of the most frequently raised issues at my surgery. The problem affects not only would-be first-time buyers, but many going through family breakdown. The deposit typically required for a mortgage on even a small starter home is higher than many working families’ annual income. Without parental support, raising that sort of money can be nearly impossible. The “help to buy” schemes announced last week will help to put home ownership back within the reach of hundreds of thousands of our constituents.

I am delighted that the Chancellor is extending right to buy further, so that council tenants can buy the homes in which their families live and local authorities will receive receipts from the sales, to be used to build new social housing. I am proud that, while under Conservative leadership, Dudley built some of the first new council housing in the area for a generation. Right-to-buy receipts, and the doubling of the affordable homes guarantee programme, will mean that more councils and housing associations will be able to build new social housing for local residents.

Last week’s jobs figures showed another increase in the number of people in work—the number in Halesowen and Rowley Regis is now the highest ever—but the fact remains that many people aspire more than anything else to a job that will give them more independence and create a better life for themselves and their families. I remember from when I was setting up my own small businesses that nothing was more rewarding than being able to offer somebody their first job, or to offer work to a person who had been unemployed for some time. Hon. Members know that Governments cannot magically create sustainable jobs, but they have a responsibility to do everything possible to avoid putting barriers in the way of those who can. Every £1 that we add to non-wage costs represents an additional barrier to small and medium-sized businesses taking on extra employees. That is why I am pleased that the Chancellor has launched his scheme. The £2,000 employment allowance is a direct boost for new jobs. It will help to bring more people into work and open up a new set of possibilities and aspirations.

Shortly before the Budget, I attended the launch of the youth budget in Parliament with a number of other right hon. and hon. Members, including the Chancellor. Fourteen to 18-year-olds from around the country came together to discuss young people’s priorities, which were drawn up following a national vote. That generation wants to get on, and the conclusion they came to in their youth budget could not have been clearer: they want the Government to bring down the deficit more quickly.

The House spends a lot of time talking about the economic effects of unsustainable deficits. The continuing turmoil in the eurozone is a current reminder of the dangers of failing to address the deficit. However, the young people gathered together for the youth budget remind us that, as well as being economically foolish, it is morally wrong for one generation to expect the next to pay for its overspending.

Members on both sides of the House will recognise that growth remains weaker than had been hoped for or expected, as it does in most other developed countries. There was much in the Budget and the Chancellor’s autumn statement that will help wealth creators to deliver the economic activity that we need to provide growth, but there is also much to help to make things that little bit easier for the millions of families who are working hard to get on and build a better life for themselves and their families. I believe that those who strive and those who aspire will see this Budget as a Budget for them.