amendment of the law

Jeremy Browne Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr McKenzie]

I will not give way, as I am just about to finish. We will also introduce a Budget that recognises and addresses the cost of living crisis that people up and down this country face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend must have read my notes. I slipped out for a while so I suspect that he had a look at them.

[Mr Jeremy Browne]

Will the hon. Gentleman consider the alternative perspective from a personal liberty viewpoint? People can decide for themselves how much they wish to drink. The hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) identified households’ problems with affording their budgets. Is it a good idea to penalise poorer people by making alcohol more expensive for them to buy?

[Jim Shannon]

As I said, there is a health issue to be addressed and whether we like it not, we have to do that. I am an advocate of using whatever we can within the health process to do so. The scrapping of the alcohol duty escalator and the reduction in beer duty, coupled with the Government’s U-turn on plans to introduce a minimum unit price, show that the Government have abandoned any serious efforts to tackle alcohol-related harm, which cost £20 billion in England alone last year, £2 billion of which was on health care. We cannot ignore those figures because people are involved and they are clearly affected. We will continue to call on the Government to introduce a minimum unit price because we know that minimum pricing reduces alcohol-related harm among the heaviest drinkers while leaving responsible drinkers largely unaffected.

In debates on the Care Bill, I, along with many others, raised the issue of free social care at the end of life. It would be inappropriate to go into everything that was outlined during those debates, but the key statistic is that the quality, innovation, productivity and prevention —QIPP—data suggest that net savings of £958 could be made for every person who dies in the community rather than in hospital. Health Ministers support such a move, but I would appreciate it if the Treasury, which has not yet made its stance clear in the Budget, indicated its intentions on the matter for future reference.

Finally, I wish to highlight issues in relation to the welfare spending cap. For many people, the financial impact of cancer is a major issue, as they face a loss of income as well as having to cope with additional costs. Research commissioned by Macmillan Cancer Support has found that 83% lose an average of £570 a month, which is comparable to the average monthly mortgage payment in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is, therefore, no surprise that people calling the Macmillan helpline are 25 times more likely to seek help with financial issues than with end-of-life issues. Although in many cases they are dying, they are more concerned about their finances and the position for their families. That is what Macmillan Cancer Support says, and it is important that that matter is dealt with. Will the Chief Secretary to the Treasury clarify and explain how the Government intend to ensure that the cap on welfare spending does not impact negatively on people with cancer? The welfare system provides thousands of cancer patients with a financial lifeline at a time when they most need it, and spending should be determined in no other way.

There are many other issues that I should like to raise, but I shall express great disappointment at not seeing a drop in fuel tax for Northern Ireland, which has the highest fuel costs in the United Kingdom. I represent a rural area, and there are many Members in the Chamber who are not from Northern Ireland but are from rural areas, who would make the point that the impact of fuel costs is greater in rural communities than anywhere else. My colleagues who represent constituencies in Northern Ireland would all adhere to that statement. We would like a reduction in fuel tax and a pilot scheme for Northern Ireland. I understand that there is such a scheme for Mid and South Down, and it should be extended to the whole of Northern Ireland, because we deserve that opportunity. Perhaps we will see that in future.

We must have a Budget that helps to reduce our outgoings, but that should not be done at the expense of our health service and vulnerable people. Macmillan Cancer Support, Cancer Research UK and the British Medical Association have all outlined suggestions for saving money that can benefit those most in need, and again I suggest that the Chief Secretary and Chancellor give that serious consideration.

In conclusion, I give this Budget the grade that I often saw in my school reports, “C-plus, Chancellor: easily distracted; could do much better.”

Jobs and Business

Jeremy Browne Excerpts

Friday 10th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise to speak about jobs and businesses, and in particular about those serious issues in our country that the Queen’s Speech has done—and will do—little to alleviate. Unemployment in Preston is currently about 7%, and a great deal of existing employment is low paid. With the measures that the Government are trying to introduce to make issues of health and safety less important and make things easier for employers, being in employment will clearly be a risky business. We recently commemorated the international recognition of workers who have lost their lives or fallen ill while in employment, yet we also have a Government who are making it more likely that employees will fall ill while in work.

At its lowest point, about 1,400 people in Preston were on jobseeker’s allowance. There are now about 4,000, which is very bad. Lots of young people are coming to my surgery complaining about being sanctioned, supposedly for not trying hard enough to find a job, but in fact very few vacancies are available in Preston. For those who are applying for jobs to be told that they are not trying hard enough is, in my view, adding insult to injury.

There are good industries—the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) mentioned aerospace, which is a good industry in north-west England, focused particularly on Lancashire. It is doing great things to train young people and get them into work. Westinghouse provides nuclear rods for the nuclear industry, but there are not enough such companies. Although I welcome the Government’s aerospace strategy and we are doing well in that area, we have unfortunately seen a gradual decline in many industries, particularly in consumer electronics and for a lot of consumer goods, and those industries and jobs have left this country to go to other shores.

The Business Secretary said that we cannot legislate our way to economic growth, but is not the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 a way of legislating to promote economic growth? We must be able to create the conditions to allow that growth, and the Business Secretary’s earlier response on the creation of more than 1 million private sector jobs was interesting. Why has that not resulted in any significant growth? He did not say—this was left to one of my colleagues—that it is because many of those jobs are low paid or part time, and that is why they are not contributing to the growth we would like to see in this country.

As we teeter, as we saw, on the brink of a triple-dip recession, let us cast our minds back to before the general election in 2010. The Labour party had a programme that would have got rid of the deficit over two terms, and halved it after the first. This Government promised to wipe out the deficit in one term. What we saw beforehand was a programme that would have benefited this country in a great way being pooh-poohed. When we said there would be a double-dip recession—[Interruption.] The Minister is chuntering from a sedentary position. If he would like to intervene, I invite him to do so.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

I am grateful for this unexpected opportunity. I was pointing out that the previous Prime Minister promised the House that he had abolished boom and bust. I therefore do not understand how the hon. Gentleman can be talking about a bust, given that the previous Government eradicated the possibility of Britain ever having a bust again, according to the previous Prime Minister.

[Mark Hendrick]

I thank the Minister for his intervention and he will, of course, note that the last recession in 2008—[Interruption.] Again, he is chuntering from a sedentary position, but I will try to answer his question. He will remember that the economic crisis and recession in 2008 was caused by external shocks, principally starting in the US housing market where financial products were wrapped up in very unsafe debts. That caused financial contagion around the world. The recession was an international one, not a home-grown one, such as the ones under previous Conservative Governments and the coalition Government. That is how the deficit came about. In the Labour Government’s wisdom, they thought it right to bail out the banks. Otherwise, people would have gone to cash tills and no money would have come out, and there would have been no finance to keep the economy moving. They now get the blame for an international problem—the problem was not home grown, unlike the recessions under the previous Conservative Government.

The Labour Government were accused—[Interruption.] The Minister chunters again from a sedentary position, but I will let him intervene.

[Mr Browne]

I am grateful for a second opportunity to intervene. The previous Prime Minister did not say, “I have abolished boom and bust,” adding in brackets, “Unless there are people who lend irresponsible mortgages in the United States of America.” He said, “Labour has abolished boom and bust.” I remember sitting in the House hearing him make that boast the whole time. We now hear that boom and bust is all about international factors. Why does the Labour party not take responsibility for building up the massive deficit when it promised it had abolished boom and bust, no caveats, full stop?