Finance (No. 2) Bill

Jo Gideon Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

The Bill recognises both the short-term demands of the covid crisis and the long-term needs of global Britain’s economic future, and I am delighted to support it. I shall keep my comments brief.

As we emerge from lockdown in a cautious and gradual way, it is right that provisions are made to extend furlough, reduce VAT for tourism, maintain the increased universal credit payments, support grants for the self-employed and so on. It will be some time yet before the economy is back to pre-covid levels of activity, although it may not be as far away as we had feared just six months ago. Those who have managed to save money over lockdown are keen to put their cash back into our national economy.

Stoke-on-Trent city centre business improvement district has ensured that we will play our local part in the resumption of consumer spending. Operation Sparkle is making our city centre smarter, cleaner and more inviting, but there is only so much that even the most dedicated local groups and bodies can do to fight against litter, so I welcome part 2 of the Bill for its potential to gear the tax system ever more against plastic waste.

There is a real problem with litter, particularly along Stoke-on-Trent’s beautiful watercourses and green spaces, made much worse by the thoughtlessness of those who fear no consequence from dropping bottles and wrappers that will not immediately biodegrade. It makes responsible residents across my constituency rightly angry. The tax system should not be neutral on litter. We have all seen the dramatic impact of the plastic bag tax. I hope that the plastic packaging tax is another step towards a tax system that increasingly targets problem litter and incentivises the reuse, return and recycling of packaging.

The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that the pre-covid level of GDP will be reached only one year from now. It further predicts that unemployment will be in its second quarter of decline by then, having peaked at 6.5% by the end of this year. That means that UK unemployment will still be 1.4 percentage points lower than when the Labour party left office in 2010. It is an extraordinary achievement. The balance of measures has been more or less right, just as the balance of measures is right in the Bill.

We were never going to escape a global pandemic unscathed. Now we must face the reality of once again looking for measures to bring the books back into balance in the medium and longer term. However, that should not mean reductions in productive investment. I particularly welcome the super deductions for new plant and machinery in clauses 9 to 14, together with the provision in clause 15 for an extension of the £1 million annual investment allowance. We are enabling the private sector to build back better.

It is often said that Chancellors are conjurors, pulling rabbits out of hats, but today’s Chancellor is more of a tightrope walker, trying to maintain a very delicate balance indeed. He is admirably succeeding. We are emerging from the international crisis with renewed national confidence in a long-term future of better days ahead.