Budget Resolutions

Jeremy Quin Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). Given the remarks I am about to make I should declare that I am still an elected councillor in the London Borough of Redbridge, and, as seems to be the case with many other hon. Members in the Chamber, I am an honorary vice-president of the Local Government Association. Perhaps we should declare if we are not honorary vice-presidents of the LGA. I should also say that I am sorry I was not able to be here at the beginning to hear all of the speeches made by the shadow Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business. Unfortunately, I had to attend an extraordinary meeting of the Treasury Committee. I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to your predecessors in the Chair, for indulging me.

Yesterday we learned that the Chancellor has a sense of humour, but by the time he sat down my constituents and the country at large had very little to laugh about. In fact, I would wager that the Chancellor himself was not laughing when he read this morning’s newspapers. It is striking that there have been more Opposition Members than Government Members speaking in the Budget debate this afternoon. Presumably, this is because so few Tory MPs are willing to turn up to defend the Chancellor’s Budget: a Budget balanced on the backs of the self-employed; a Budget that failed to address the big challenges facing our schools and hospitals; and a Budget that failed to prepare Britain for Brexit.

This was a Budget that was bad for business: the high street business clobbered by a rise in business rates; the small businesses burdened by quarterly reporting to HMRC, even where they are not liable for VAT; and the self-employed saddled with higher national insurance, even where they earn as little as £16,250 a year. These are the people I was sent to Parliament to represent: the shopkeepers in Barkingside, Woodford, Hainault and Gants Hill who kept their businesses going even as other shops on the high streets were boarded up during the recession; and those who were brave enough to take the plunge and start a business even as the high street was still plagued by recession. I was sent to represent the family businesses wondering whether they will be able to pass on their firms to the next generation, because times are increasingly tough and they worry about the long-term future of the family trade; and the self-employed, who take the risk by taking the plunge and going it alone, taking an idea and turning it into a profit. This was a Budget that hit the traditional economy of the high street and the gig economy of the entrepreneurs. It was good for accountants and bad for small businesses. No wonder that, this morning, so many people woke to read the papers asking why on earth a Tory Chancellor would want to attack enterprise, entrepreneurialism and aspiration.

The Chancellor has said that this is an issue of fairness. Policy wonks in the Treasury and elsewhere in the world of think-tanks will argue that a class 4 national insurance increase is progressive. That is a powerful reminder of what happens when people who understand spreadsheets fail to understand the real economy.

The National Careers Service website suggests that London taxi drivers can earn between £14,000 and £20,000 a year. In a good year, if they are willing to put in excessive hours working the streets, as they often do these days, they may earn slightly more. A triple whammy of rising costs, increased congestion and unfair competition has driven down their wages. Is it progressive to ask taxi drivers, who are already struggling to pay the bills, to pay an extra £240 a year in national insurance? Is it progressive to ask the young tech entrepreneur starting out to find an extra £20, £30 or £45 a month in their early careers? Is it fair to ask people who receive no holiday pay, and who have little job security and the everyday pressures to bring home the bacon, to pay more to the Chancellor when it is small change for him and a big deal for them?

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman welcome, as I do, the improvement in the pension scenario for the people about whom he is speaking, which is worth about £1,800 a year, and which if bought could be worth about £50,000? It is not all one way.

[Wes Streeting]

There have been improvements at the margins, but that does not compensate for the loss of earnings that those on low to medium incomes will feel as a result of the decision taken by the Chancellor in the Budget.