Finance (No. 2) Bill

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I just want to be clear: is the hon. Gentleman asking for a further Government subsidy from either the Scottish Government or the UK Government for those institutions?

[Stephen Kerr]

I do not think that I have mentioned the word “subsidy”. I am talking about corporate social responsibility. [Interruption.] Corporate social responsibility has nothing to do with subsidy.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

All the financial plans of that shadow Government would have been about fiscal prudence, and the context would have been completely different. The Labour Government crashed the economy on every single front, which is why we are where we are today.

There is one final point I want to make. We had a wide-ranging discussion earlier about Marxism, which I thought particularly intriguing. We have to decide, as a country, whether we want to be a flourishing free enterprise economy or a centrally commanded one in which everything remains in, or is taken into, the public sector. When the banks were nationalised, they were bailed out on the basis of rescuing the economy from an extreme threat that could have left us resorting to barter. The point is that we have put the banks on a stable footing so that they can flourish again and become competitive businesses. The bank levy, to me, is about striking a balance but having a competitive financial services sector to drive our exports and growth, and that is why I will be voting to support it.

[Karin Smyth]

We have had an interesting, if not very factually correct, history lesson this evening. I want to bring us back to the question of how we spend £4.7 billion of taxpayers’ money, and the political choices that the Conservative party are making in this Finance Bill. Politics is about priorities, and I would like to talk, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) suggested we should, about the future and how we might spend the money differently. For my constituents in Bristol South, and, I think, for the country, the biggest issue in the Budget is productivity. I would like to think that we could use that money for something better, such as technical qualifications, to help to reduce the skills gap in my constituency.

Of all the constituencies in the country, mine sends the smallest number of young people into higher education, and only 24% have a level 4 qualification. For a city that contains two universities and has two more close by, that is scandalous. Because of that, I have followed the apprenticeship levy very closely and supported the Government in its introduction, but the figures are hugely disappointing. Large employers are using the levy to train current executives, and small employers simply do not know how to navigate the system. That has led to the 62% drop-off in apprenticeship starts since last July. It is outrageous that in the Budget, the Chancellor could only give a nod to the apprenticeship levy by saying that he would keep an eye on it, at the same time as deciding to grant the banks a tax giveaway of £4.7 billion.

T-levels have had very little debate in this House since they were announced in October, and they are mentioned only in passing in the Budget. I welcome the Government’s approach to trying to improve technical education as an alternative to the academic option, because it could really help social mobility in my constituency and those of many other hon. Members. The Government have said that T-levels were

“the most ambitious post-16 education reform since the introduction of A-levels”,

but if they are, the current signs are very worrying. Let us compare that £4.7 billion with the sums of money that the Government have committed to T-levels: £60 million in 2018-19, £445 million in 2021-22 and £500 million every year afterwards to ensure that the supposedly hugely ambitious T-levels are a success. However, while the overall investment is welcome, it pales into a rather small figure compared with the other sums we are talking about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Hardy]

You have been promoted, Mr Owen.

I want quickly to draw the House’s attention to the funding cuts to Hull City Council’s children’s services budget since 2010 and to argue that rather than reducing the bank levy the Government should be properly funding children’s services. The headline figures for Hull City Council are as follows. Spending on children’s and young people’s services is down by £19.5 million, with more than a quarter of its spending power cut since 2010. That is just half of the £37 million that the council has to cut before 2020. The time taken to get a diagnosis of autism is up, with the average waiting time now at 14 months. The number of Sure Start centres in the city is down since 2010. Those centres were instrumental in supporting me when I had my two girls.

[Karin Smyth]

Is that not simply incomprehensible at a time when productivity is such a major issue for our economy? Is not the proven, evidence-based value of Sure Start early intervention with children at the youngest age one of the biggest drivers for improving productivity, and is not cutting that totally detrimental?

[Emma Hardy]

I completely agree. The Education Committee has been looking into fostering. We know that in some of the most deprived areas of society the number of looked-after children is increasing, and we know that one of the reasons is that there is no money for social services departments to support families and give them the early intervention that they so desperately need. It is a false economy to pull funding away from early intervention, saying that that will save money. It will not; it will cost a lot more in the long run.

Those horrendous headlines do not tell the whole story. They do not tell of the worry experienced recently by breastfeeding mothers in Hull who panicked at the possibility that their peer-to-peer doula support would be cut because the council could not afford to pay for it. The council is having to make impossible choices. If it supports those breastfeeding mothers, it will have to pull funding from somewhere else. That is simply not fair.

Those headlines do not tell the story of the child in need who has fallen behind at school and finds it difficult to catch up again because of Government cuts in Sure Start’s speech, language and communication services. The Minister recently published an article in a newspaper complaining about the fact that children were starting school before they were school-ready. Why do the Government think that that is happening? It is happening because there is no money for the early intervention and Sure Start centres that are so desperately needed. Again, more potential is being missed and more opportunity wasted.

As I said in my maiden speech, I do not want a single child to have their life story written on the day they are born. Can we really say that the Bill will create the conditions in which all children can be given the support that they need and the opportunity to fulfil their potential? Does it, as the Prime Minister said on the steps of Downing Street just after taking office,

“do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you”?

Until we can answer yes to those questions, a reduction in the bank levy is a luxury that we cannot afford. I urge Members to back Labour’s new clauses 1, 2 and 3, because the future of our economy, and our children, depends on them.