Autumn Statement Resolutions
Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts(8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope that you will not mind me saying, as someone born and raised in the north-east of England, not too far from Stockton, that it is unequivocally a beautiful part of this country. Anyone on the Government Benches who is not aware of that should visit it for themselves.
Yesterday’s autumn statement felt a bit like the season finale of this Conservative Government. While we might have been hoping for an uplifting twist in the tale, sadly what we were left with was a pitiful ending to an underwhelming story. It was an autumn statement made of pure fantasy: the Government Benches cheering a tax cut, when in fact taxes are higher than they have ever been; a Chancellor claiming to have delivered for working people, when in reality living standards face an unprecedented fall; the Conservatives desperately trying to address business investment, when in fact their chaos was what caused business investment to collapse to begin with.
I understand that it is tempting for Conservatives to buy into the Chancellor’s fiction, but in the real world people can see the cost of the Conservatives in their bank balance, mortgage bill, high street and public services. This country desperately needs hope for the future and a change of course. For all the spin from the Chancellor, people know that they are worse off after 13 years of the Conservatives. The statement confirmed that nothing that the Government will now do will change that. The Conservatives promised that it would be a statement for growth, but the reality is that growth will be down next year, the year after that, and the year after that. The Chancellor said that we have turned a corner, but all we got was confirmation that Britain has hit a brick wall.
Let us get one thing clear at the beginning of this debate: when inflation went up after the invasion of Ukraine, the Government said, “It’s nothing to do with us; it’s all global pressures.” Now, when some of those pressures have reduced and the Bank of England has operated monetary policy in the way we would expect, the Prime Minister wants personal credit for inflation falling. Do the Government really think they can get away with that?
On inflation, the Government oppose the single most important thing they could do, which is to reduce our exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices so that we are never again so vulnerable and exposed. Labour has a plan for energy independence and security so that Britain is never again so badly exposed to those volatile fossil fuel prices. That is the lesson we need to learn.
Let us also not forget that, while we all welcome lower inflation, it is still high, particularly food inflation. When I do the big shop in my local supermarket in Stalybridge, I wince when I see the price of some food items. Families are working harder than ever before, only to have to put the little things that they treat themselves with back on the shelf, or to cut back on what they would once have considered essentials. This is no time for Conservative Ministers to go around asking for a pat on the back.
On the Chancellor’s central claim that lower inflation means he can now spend money, he is simply not being straight with people. The public finances have not meaningfully improved. It is high inflation, not a stronger economy, that has led to higher tax receipts. It is the fiscal illusion of higher tax receipts caused by high inflation, but rather than using that to meet higher costs in the public sector caused by that inflation, he has chosen to spend it. The Minister mentioned his own business career and, as he knows, I personally admire him very much for that career, but if he had run his businesses in the same way that this Chancellor is running the national finances, I think he knows he would have gone out of business very quickly indeed.
There has to be a reckoning for what that will mean for schools, the NHS, the police and the criminal justice system. While the Prime Minister and the Chancellor may live in a different world, our constituents can see the public realm literally crumbling around them. That is the reality of Conservative Britain, and some fiscal trickery will not be enough to convince people that everything is fine. It is also important to say that the Chancellor’s fiscal headroom is now entirely dependent on things such as a large rise in fuel duty next year—and I imagine that very few Conservative MPs have come to the debate today to say that they support that.
Another major focus of the Chancellor’s speech was business investment, and I welcomed that. I enjoyed that bit of the statement because, as I have made clear, I believe that is a fundamental weakness that we must address. The UK, as the Minister knows, has the lowest business investment in the G7. When British innovation is so abundant, that is an appalling effort from this Government. Full expensing is not perfect, because there are issues with the scope of what is covered by the policy as it stands, but not making it permanent would have been untenable and our relative position in the ranking of attractiveness as a place to invest would have fallen off a cliff.
However, if the Government think that is enough to restore the business confidence that they have frittered away over the last 13 years, they are mistaken. The No. 1 thing that business leaders tell me they need is stability. I have been our shadow Business Secretary for two years, and in that time I have shadowed five different Business Secretaries, we have had four Chancellors and I think we have had three Prime Ministers. In the last 13 years, by my count, we have had 11 different growth strategies, and now it appears we are on to the 12th. We see that lack of consistency across every bit of Government.
Take HS2, which is a national embarrassment: billions of pounds wasted, businesses let down, regeneration plans lost, and a flagship Government policy that goes overnight when Parliament is not even sitting and is unable to ask the most basic of questions by way of scrutiny. Or take the phasing out of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030. There was a major announcement on the headline date, one not made at the request of business, that hugely undermines investment certainty, but without a corresponding change to the rest of the policy environment—the zero-emission vehicle mandate—that leads up to 2030. Therefore they lose the certainty and credibility of keeping the target, but do not gain any flexibility from moving it either. Businesses say to me time and again that they cannot rely on a word any Conservative Minister says, and they are right. What businesses need is a real industrial strategy that gives them certainty and co-ordination. They need real commitments on planning, to get Britain building again. They need politicians who are willing to say, “We need new homes and infrastructure, and we are willing to commit our political capital to deliver it.” They need reform of the apprenticeship levy, so that they have more flexibility over skills and training. They need a better trade and co-operation agreement with the European Union than the one we have at present.
On the energy transition, the Chancellor and the Minister spent some time attacking what Labour call our “green prosperity plan”—our policy commitment to ensure not only that the transition happens, but that the UK gets maximum economic benefits from it. We on the Labour Benches love wind turbines, but we are sick of seeing them built overseas. We love cars and vans, but we know that unless we build batteries for electric vehicles in the UK, we will not have an automotive sector in the long term. We want green steel, but we are not prepared to close down our blast furnaces and import virgin steel from the far east, as the Conservatives plan to do.
The key point is that the Government do not entirely disagree with us. In the last year, £0.5 billion in subsidy has been allocated to Tata Steel in Somerset. Similar sums have been promised for other steel. But what we want to know is what the Government will get for it. How do they get value for money if those are just ad hoc bilateral negotiations? How is public money protected? The difference between us is not the principle that the state will need to co-invest to deliver some of that private investment; it is a huge difference of ambition, transparency and effectiveness.
Labour will not respond to the challenges that we face through such panicked ad hoc announcements. We will face the future with confidence and with a full plan that delivers for British industry. That is what our national wealth fund will do: manage the investments that we will make and ensure that the British people see their money being well looked after. Fundamentally, we want to get the transition right rather than repeat the mistakes of the 1980s and 1990s, which still haunt many parts of the UK today.
Alan Brown
I agree with the principle of a sovereign wealth or investment fund. Look at Norway, which has a £1.1 trillion sovereign wealth fund—the largest in the world. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Westminster has missed a trick for successive decades by not creating an oil and gas fund, and is that not a damning legacy?
Jonathan Reynolds
Unsurprisingly, I agree with part of what the hon. Member said. We could have a lengthy and robust debate on the weaknesses of Conservative Governments in the 1980s and the consequences of their short-term decisions. I would—
Jonathan Reynolds
I would simply say to SNP colleagues that their own independence White Paper made the fair case for a UK-wide energy market. That is because, as in many areas of policy, a UK-wide energy market is the best way to deliver for my constituents in England and for the constituents of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) in Scotland. That is a reality that I think SNP colleagues do not accept.
I think the Minister would like a second bite, so let us bring him in to see what he has to say.
Kevin Hollinrake
On the point about industrial strategy, can the hon. Gentleman answer a simple question with a yes or no? Will he reinstate the plans for HS2?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I have not sold anything.
Jonathan Reynolds
Absolutely. I apologise in full, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The Government not only made that decision in their own short-term interests, which compares very poorly even with previous Conservative Governments, but by selling the land, they did so in such a way as to prevent a future Government from trying to correct it. That is the controversy that the Minister makes. Of course, we are still very much committed to Northern Powerhouse Rail—the Crossrail project for the north of England—which would be important for my constituency, but of course, that plan itself relies partly on what was going to be HS2 infrastructure.
As the Minister knows, his Government are making a series of quite bizarre short-term decisions, and trying to use those decisions to present themselves as the party of change at the next election. We all face the consequences, which is regrettable. If the Minister were being totally candid in private, I think he would acknowledge that the north of England has really suffered from those short-term decisions, which we should all very much regret.
The Chancellor spoke at length about long-term sickness yesterday, and again, he was right to do so. We are the only country in the G7 where the participation rate is still below pre-pandemic levels, with long-term sickness at an all-time high of 2.6 million. Unfortunately, all we got was the same old rhetoric and the same old policies. What we needed to hear are two things. First, we need to have some efforts to get people off NHS waiting lists. That is what we would do, by providing 2 million more NHS appointments from the revenue we would get from abolishing the non-dom rule.
Secondly, we need to focus on mental health. That is why we would guarantee people a mental health appointment within a month and make mental health support available in schools, paid for by ending the tax breaks for private education. That would be real support. They are better choices than those the Government have chosen to make, because we in the Opposition know that a strong economy, good public services and social justice are not competing demands; they are all integral to one another.
Peter Grant
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the need for further investment in the NHS, which we on the SNP Benches would certainly support, but can he confirm the words of the shadow Health Secretary, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting)? Is it the intention of the Labour party to fight the next election on a manifesto that says it will
“hold the door wide open”
to the private sector in our NHS?
Jonathan Reynolds
No, and I think the hon. Member is being a little bit mischievous there, and he is aware of that. What my hon. Friend the shadow Health Secretary has reaffirmed is Labour’s historic and enduring commitment to a national health service that is free at the point of use and is managed and run as a national public service. He has also said that there clearly needs to be reform of the NHS to take advantage of new treatments and new ways of doing things; some incredibly exciting developments in life sciences and genomics have to be part of that. I think we would all recognise from our own constituency experiences that the NHS could do better in terms of how it interacts with people and how it gets people the treatment they need in a timely fashion.
What is relevant to this debate in particular is that, as well as being important issues about people needing healthcare and how they get it, these are economic issues. We want to get waiting lists down because we want people to have the medical treatment they need, but we also recognise that with so many people out of work and wanting to get back to work when they are waiting for treatment, it is imperative to get those waiting lists down. Under the last Labour Government, we saw tremendous progress in using the capacity available out there as part of a nationally run and nationally managed national health service to deliver that. Having successfully done that before in government, we believe we can successfully do it again, and that is what we intend to do.
Yesterday really lifted the lid on 13 years of Conservative economic failure. It laid bare the full scale of the damage that this Conservative party has done to our economy, and nothing that has been announced will remotely compensate for those 13 years. Only the Conservatives could preside over the greatest fall in living standards and call it a victory. Only the Conservatives could burden the country with the highest tax bill since the war and then pat themselves on the back for a cursory 2p national insurance cut. Only the Conservatives could crash the economy and send mortgages, food bills and energy costs rocketing and have the audacity to ask the country to trust them on the economy ever again.
As the credits roll on 13 years of Conservative failure, the reviews are in too: business has lost confidence in them, the public have lost patience with them, and even those on their own Benches know that this will not be enough to save them. While the Tories try to kid themselves, I do not believe the British public will be taken for fools. They know that after 13 years, we are all worse off under the Conservatives, and the only way we can truly turn the corner on this litany of failure is with a new and Labour Government—a Government who would put working people first, get energy bills down and get wages up; a Government who would give business the confidence to choose Britain again; a Government rebuilding our crumbling public services and getting waiting lists down; a Labour Government with the ambition, the ideas and the energy to get Britain’s economy really moving and deliver the real change our country is crying out for.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts(10 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
The loss of Wilko is a significant blow to the nation’s high streets. However, more concerning is that no rescue has proved possible because several bidders have said that town centre retail is no longer a viable business model. In the light of that, do the Government really believe that their current policy environment is sufficient for British high streets to thrive?
Kevin Hollinrake
We are very concerned for the families affected by Wilko’s demise. The world of retail is a very competitive marketplace. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s premise that the high street is dead—not at all. It is reshaping itself, and while it does so we will help it, such as with the £13.6 billion of rates relief over the next five years.
Jonathan Reynolds
Ministers’ answers do not match the scale of the problem; 12,500 Wilko workers alone are at risk of redundancy. Labour’s plans for the high street are about reforming business rates, tackling late payment, cracking down on antisocial behaviour and stopping premises being left empty, with councils having more powers. The problem demands a response from Ministers. Based on their answers today, this Government have simply given up on the British high street.
Kevin Hollinrake
That is complete nonsense. This week, I met Helen Dickenson from the Retail Sector Council to discuss this matter closely. There are certain situations in certain companies of course. I guard the hon. Gentleman against political opportunism on the back of those 12,500 jobs, many of which have been picked up by other retailers such as Poundland in rescues of stores. On his point about business rates, which I hear time and again, all the Labour party has done is say that it will cancel £22 billion of business rates, without saying how it will replace those taxation receipts. Where is the money coming from?
Oral Answers to Questions
Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts(1 year ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
It is now over 12 months since the audit reform Bill was promised in what was then the Queen’s Speech, and it is over two years since the Business Department’s final consultation on these matters closed. There is widespread agreement on the need for reform, which began following the devastating collapse of Carillion five years ago, yet the draft Bill has not even been published, despite Parliament regularly rising early due to the Government’s light agenda. Does the Secretary of State support reform, and does she accept the recommendations of the Kingman review, the Brydon review and the CMA market study? If she does, when will we finally see some action?
Mr Speaker
Can I say to the Front Benchers that a lot of Members are standing? These are topical questions, which are meant to be short. If you want a long question, come in early, please. Help me to help our Back Benchers.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
It has now been 100 days since we first welcomed the right hon. Lady to her new post. In that time, we have seen steel production fall to record lows; the automotive sector has issued warning cry after warning cry that Government policy risks shipping jobs overseas; and the US has seen incredible sums invested under the Inflation Reduction Act and the EU has put forward its own significant response. Meanwhile, the UK remains trapped in the Conservatives’ low growth, high tax loop, with the lowest business investment in the G7. This morning, three of her predecessors, each from a different political party, have said that the Government need an explicit industrial strategy. Does the current Business Secretary agree with them?
Kemi Badenoch
I thank the shadow Minister for highlighting that we have had 100 days as the Department for Business and Trade, during which we have been able to launch the biggest free trade agreement that the UK has seen since we left the EU and since the trade and co-operation agreement. He also mentions a lot of systemic issues, which have been faced globally. He rightly talks about the US IRA and the EU green deal industrial plan, but it is good for me to mention that we are doing a lot in this space. For example, the issue that the automotive industries are talking about relates to rules of origin. This is something that the EU is also worried out, because the costs of the components have risen. This is not to do with Brexit; it is to do with supply chain issues following the pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine. I have had meetings with my EU trade counterpart; we are discussing these things and looking at how we can review them, especially as the TCA will be coming into review soon.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
The automotive industry is a jewel in the crown of British manufacturing, but to keep that jewel we need to be building batteries for electric vehicles in the UK. So far we have one gigafactory up and running, while Germany already has 10 times our capacity. Alarm bells are ringing across the sector, and we recently had disappointing news with Ford announcing job cuts in Essex. The Faraday Institution estimates that the UK needs 10 battery factories by 2040 to retain our car industry. Does the Secretary of State agree with that assessment? If she does, how and when will she publish a clear plan for how the Government intend to hit that target?
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
We have a strategy in place to support the automotive industry, with £1.3 billion of innovative projects, including the Faraday factory challenge —[Interruption.] I have a response to the question. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that we have investment in place, so let me continue. With a budget of £544 million, the Driving the Electric Revolution scheme includes nearly £80 million of Government investment through the Innovate UK programme. I suggest that the Opposition Front Benchers flick through my “Critical Minerals Refresh” document, because there is a fantastic page on UK battery supply chains—not just the automotive transformation fund but the Envision AESC announcement, which is worth £1 billion for the north-east electric vehicle hub. Perhaps they will read it before the next Question Time, so that they have a tricker question for us to deal with.
Post Office: Horizon Compensation
Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for his statement and for advance sight of it.
I too begin by paying tribute to Alan Bates and the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, which has campaigned for decades for compensation, justice and the truth. In addition, I recognise the campaigning efforts of Members from across this House on behalf of their constituents, and join the Minister in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) in particular. There can be no doubt that he has played an instrumental role in helping to chart a route to justice for thousands of people. We all wholeheartedly thank him for that.
The House is in unanimous agreement that the Horizon scandal has been a shocking injustice. Indeed, I think it is no exaggeration to say that it is one of the greatest scandals of modern times. As we continue to hear in the public inquiry the accounts of lives torn apart by the scandal, we can never lose sight of how devastating its impact has been on those victims. Today’s announcement of the group litigation order compensation scheme is very welcome. I was pleased to hear about the appointment of claims facilitators and external legal advisers—in the interests of full transparency, I declare that I am a former employee of Addleshaw Goddard.
I thank the Minister and his predecessor, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), for their work on this matter. I am sure that the Minister will appreciate that I feel duty-bound to put on record the level of frustration that many people have felt about how protracted their fight for justice has been, particularly the 555 litigants excluded from the original historic shortfall scheme. Indeed, one of the first speeches that I made from this Dispatch Box as shadow Business Secretary was in support of calls for compensation to be expanded to them—a campaign that was established long before that exchange nearly 18 months ago. The most important step now is for that compensation to reach victims as quickly as possible, so may I press the Minister on the steps that we will all take to ensure that the process is completed as swiftly as possible?
I am also grateful for the update on the historic short- fall scheme. The Government’s ambition was for that scheme to be completed at the end of last year, but in December, the then Secretary of State said that 93% of eligible claimants had been issued offers of compensation. The Minister has given the figure of 98% today, so can he confirm that the scheme’s completion is imminent? I also was pleased that he raised the tax issue. Will he commit to coming back to the House when he can to provide more information on the work that he said he is doing?
Today’s announcement is certainly welcome, but as we all await the conclusion of the public inquiry, and its recommendations, surely this is one of many steps that we need to take to make amends for what has been the most insidious of injustices.
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words, and for welcoming the statement and the opening of the scheme. I absolutely concur that we should all be grateful for the work of my predecessors—not least, as he said, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully).
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we want to do this as quickly as possible. I am very pleased with the work of the advisory board, which is helping with the scheme. The scheme is based on a set of principles that should mean that compensation is delivered more rapidly and that there is a clear route to claims being settled quickly. We very much hope that that is the case—we want to get those payments out of the door at the earliest possible opportunity.
Again, we are working at pace on the tax issue. Clearly that is a matter of law as well as of tax policy, so getting that right is key. We have to work with the Treasury and HMRC to ensure that we get it right, but that is a determination and a commitment that I am very happy to make. We hope to make a further announcement on that work shortly.