Autumn Statement

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

It is a privilege to report today on an economy that the International Monetary Fund predicts will be the fastest-growing major advanced economy in the world this year. It is an economy with employment at a record high and unemployment at an 11-year low; and an economy that, through the hard work of the British people, has bounced back from the depths of Labour’s recession. It is an economy that has confounded commentators at home and abroad with its strength and resilience since the British people decided, exactly five months ago today, to leave the European Union and chart a new future for our country.

That decision will change the course of Britain’s history. It has thrown into sharp relief the fundamental strengths of the British economy that will ensure our future success: the global reach of our services industries; the strength of our science and high-tech manufacturing base; and the cutting-edge British businesses that are leading the world in disruptive technologies. But it is a decision that also makes more urgent than ever the need to tackle our economy’s long-term weaknesses such as the productivity gap, the housing challenge, and the damaging imbalance in economic growth and prosperity across our country. We resolve today to confront those challenges head on, to prepare our country to seize the opportunities ahead, and, in doing so, to build an economy that works for everyone—an economy where every corner of this United Kingdom is part of our national success.

I want to pay tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne). My style will, of course, be different from his. I suspect that I will prove no more adept at pulling rabbits from hats than my successor as Foreign Secretary has been at retrieving balls from the back of scrums, but my focus on building Britain’s long-term future will be the same. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton took over an economy on the brink of collapse, with the highest budget deficit in our post-war history, and brought that down by two thirds. That is a record of which he can be proud.

But times have moved on, and our task now is to prepare our economy to be resilient as we exit the EU and to be match-fit for the transition that will follow. So we will maintain our commitment to fiscal discipline while recognising the need for investment to drive productivity, and for fiscal headroom to support the economy through the transition.

Let me turn now to the forecasts. Since 2010, the Office for Budget Responsibility has provided an independent economic and fiscal forecast to which the Government must respond—gone are the days when the Chancellor could mark his own homework—and I thank Robert Chote and his team for their hard work. Today’s OBR forecast is for growth to be 2.1% in 2016—higher than forecast in March. In 2017, the OBR forecasts growth to slow to 1.4%, which it attributes to lower investment and weaker consumer demand driven, respectively, by greater uncertainty and by higher inflation resulting from sterling depreciation. That is slower, of course, than we would wish, but still equivalent to the IMF’s forecast for Germany, and higher than the forecast for growth in many of our European neighbours, including France and Italy. That fact will, no doubt, be a source of very considerable irritation to some.

As the effects of uncertainty diminish, the OBR forecasts growth recovering to 1.7% in 2018, 2.1% in 2019 and 2020, and 2% in 2021. While the OBR is clear that it cannot predict the deal the UK will strike with the EU, its current view is that the referendum decision means that potential growth over the forecast period is likely to be 2.4 percentage points lower than would otherwise have been the case. The OBR acknowledges that there is a higher degree of uncertainty around these figures than usual.

Despite slower growth, the UK labour market is forecast to remain robust. We have delivered over 2.7 million new jobs since 2010, and this forecast shows that number growing in every year—another 500,000 jobs created over the OBR forecast, providing security for working people across the length and breadth of Britain.

For those who claim that the recovery is just a south-east phenomenon, I have some news: over the past year employment grew fastest in the north-east, the claimant count fell fastest in Northern Ireland, pay grew most strongly in the west midlands, and every UK nation and region saw a record number of people in work. That is a labour market recovery that is working for everyone.

Monetary policy has played an important role in supporting growth since the referendum decision, but a credible fiscal policy remains essential for maintaining market confidence and restoring the economy to long-term health. In view of the uncertainty facing the economy, and in the face of slower growth forecasts, we no longer seek to deliver a surplus in 2019-20, but the Prime Minister and I remain firmly committed to seeing the public finances return to balance as soon as practicable, while leaving enough flexibility to support the economy in the near term.

Today I am publishing a new draft charter for budget responsibility with three fiscal rules: first, that the public finances should be returned to balance as early as possible in the next Parliament and, in the interim, cyclically adjusted borrowing should be below 2% by the end of this Parliament; secondly, that public sector net debt as a share of GDP must be falling by the end of this Parliament; and, thirdly, that welfare spending must be within a cap set by the Government and monitored by the OBR. In the absence of an effective framework, the welfare bill in our country spiralled out of control, with spending on working-age benefits trebling in real terms between 1980 and 2010. As a result of the action that we have taken since 2010, that spending has now stabilised. The cap I am announcing today takes into account the policy changes made since the last Budget, setting a realistic baseline reflecting all announced welfare policies. I confirm again today that the Government have no plans to introduce further welfare savings measures in this Parliament beyond those already announced.

I now turn to the OBR’s fiscal forecasts, but first I will set out the key drivers of changes since the Budget: the post-Budget changes that were made to welfare and housing policies cost the Exchequer £8.6 billion over the forecast period; expected Office for National Statistics classification changes have added £12 billion since the Budget; and tax receipts have been lower than expected this year, causing the OBR to revise down projected revenues in the future. Added to this is a structural effect of rapidly rising incorporation and self-employment, which further erodes revenues.

Combining those pressures with the impact of forecast weaker growth, and taking account of the measures I shall announce today, the OBR now forecasts that, in cash terms, borrowing is set to be £68.2 billion this year, falling to £59 billion next year and £46.5 billion in 2018-19, and then £21.9 billion, £20.7 billion, and finally £17.2 billion in 2021-22. Overall, public sector net borrowing as a percentage of GDP will fall from 4% last year to 3.5% this year, and it will continue to fall over the Parliament, reaching 0.7% in 2021-22. This will be the lowest deficit as a share of GDP in two decades. The OBR expects cyclically adjusted public sector net borrowing to be 0.8% of GDP in 2020-21, comfortably meeting our target to reduce it to less than 2% and, importantly, leaving significant flexibility to respond to any headwinds that the economy may encounter.

The OBR’s forecast of higher borrowing and slower asset sales, together with the temporary effect of the Bank of England’s action to stimulate growth, translates into an increased forecast for debt in the near term. The OBR forecasts that debt will rise from 84.2% of GDP last year to 87.3% this year, peaking at 90.2% in 2017-18 as the Bank of England’s monetary policy interventions approach their full effect. In 2018-19, debt is projected to fall to 89.7% of national income—the first fall in the national debt as a share of GDP since 2001-02—and it is forecast to continue falling thereafter. Members might be interested to know that after stripping out the effects of the Bank of England interventions, underlying debt peaks this year at 82.4% of GDP and falls thereafter to 77.7% by 2021-22.

It is customary in the run-up to the autumn statement to hear representations from the shadow Chancellor of the day, usually for untenable levels of spending and borrowing. Conservative Members used to think that Ed Balls’ demands were an extreme example, but I have to say that the current shadow Chancellor has outperformed him in the fiscal incontinence sweepstake. What we do not know, of course, is whether the shadow Chancellor can also dance—[Interruption.] He can. Good; a second career awaits him.

I have received some more measured representations from a range of external bodies. Some have called for fiscal expansion, while others have suggested that there is no need at all to respond to a changed economic outlook. That reflects, to be fair, the challenge that we face of resolving how best to protect the recovery and build on the economy’s manifest strengths, yet at the same time respond appropriately to the warnings of a more difficult period ahead.

But with our debt forecast to peak at over 90% next year, and a deficit this year of 3.5%, I have reached my own judgment. It is a judgment based on a sober analysis of our fiscal position, and also on a realistic appraisal of the weakness of UK productivity and the urgent need to address our fiscal challenge from both ends—continuing to control public expenditure, but also growing the potential of the economy and protecting the tax base. So we choose in this autumn statement to prioritise additional high-value investment, specifically in infrastructure and innovation, that will directly contribute to raising Britain’s productivity. The key judgment we make today is that our hard-won credibility on public spending means that we can fund this commitment in the short term from additional borrowing, while funding all other new policies announced in this autumn statement through additional tax and spending measures. That is the responsible way to secure our economy for the long term.

The productivity gap is well known to hon. and right hon. Members, but shocking none the less—it bears repeating. We lag the US and Germany by some 30 percentage points in productivity, but we also lag France by over 20 points and Italy by 8 points, which means, in the real world, that it takes a German worker four days to produce what we make in five. That means, in turn, that too many British workers work longer hours for lower pay than their counterparts, and that has to change if we are to build an economy that works for everyone. Raising productivity is essential for the high-wage, high-skill economy that will deliver higher living standards for working people across this country.

As a result of decisions taken by my predecessor, public investment is higher over this decade than it was over the whole of the period of the last Labour Government, but today I can go further. I can announce that we are forming a new national productivity investment fund of £23 billion to be spent on innovation and infrastructure over the next five years—investing today for the economy of the future.

Let me set out for the House how this money will be used. We do not invest enough in research, development and innovation. As the pace of technology advances and competition from the rest of the world increases, we must build on our strengths in science and tech innovation to ensure that the next generation of discoveries is not only made here, but developed and produced in Britain. So today I can confirm the additional investment in R and D, rising to an extra £2 billion per year by 2020-21, that was announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on Monday.

Economically productive infrastructure directly benefits businesses, but families, too, rely on roads, rail, telecoms and, especially, housing. We have made good progress, with the number of new homes being built last year hitting an eight-year high, but for too many the goal of home ownership remains out of reach. In October, my right hon. Friend the Communities and Local Government Secretary launched the £3 billion home building fund to unlock over 200,000 homes and up to £2 billion to accelerate construction on public sector land, but we must go further still. The challenge of delivering the housing we so desperately need in the places where it is currently least affordable is not, of course, a new one, but the effect of unaffordable housing on our nation’s productivity makes it an urgent one. My right hon. Friend will bring forward a housing White Paper in due course to address these long-term challenges but, in the meantime, we can take further steps.

One of the biggest objections to housing development, as hon. and right hon. Members will know from their constituencies, is often the impact on local infrastructure, so we will focus Government infrastructure investment to unlock land for housing with a new £2.3 billion housing infrastructure fund to deliver infrastructure for up to 100,000 new homes in areas of high demand. To provide affordable housing that supports a wide range of need, we will invest a further £1.4 billion to deliver 40,000 additional affordable homes. I will also relax restrictions on Government grant to allow providers to deliver a wider range of housing types. I can also announce a large-scale regional pilot of right to buy for housing association tenants, and continued support for home ownership through the Help to Buy equity loan scheme and the Help to Buy ISA.

This package means that over the course of this Parliament, the Government expect to more than double, in real terms, annual capital spending on housing. Coupled with our resolve to tackle the long-term challenges of land supply, this commitment to housing delivery represents a step change in our ambition to increase the supply of homes for sale and for rent to deliver a housing market that works for everyone.

Reliable transport networks are essential to growth and productivity, so this autumn statement commits significant additional funding to help to keep Britain moving now, and to invest in the transport networks and vehicles of the future. I will commit: an additional £1.1 billion of investment in English local transport networks, where small investments can often offer big wins; £220 million additionally to address traffic pinch points on strategic roads; £450 million to trial digital signalling on our railways to achieve a step change in reliability and to squeeze more capacity out of our existing rail infrastructure—I know the Leader of the Opposition will welcome that—and, finally, £390 million to build on our competitive advantage in low-emission vehicles and the development of connected autonomous vehicles, plus a 100% first year capital allowance for the installation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

The Department for Transport will continue to work with Transport for the North to develop detailed options for northern powerhouse rail. My right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary will set out more details of specific projects and priorities over the coming weeks.

Our future transport, business and lifestyle needs will require world-class digital infrastructure to underpin them, so my ambition—

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It says here.

[Mr Hammond]

Yes—it says here because I wrote it here.

My ambition is for the UK to be a world leader in 5G. That means a full-fibre network; a step change in speed, security and reliability. So we will invest over £1 billion in our digital infrastructure to catalyse private investment in fibre networks and to support 5G trials. From April, we will introduce 100% business rates relief for a five-year period on new fibre infrastructure, supporting further roll-out of fibre to homes and businesses.

We have chosen to borrow to kick-start a transformation in infrastructure and innovation investment, but we must sustain this effort over the long term if we are to make a lasting difference to the UK’s productivity performance, so today I have written to the National Infrastructure Commission to ask it to make its recommendations on the future infrastructure needs of the country, using the assumption that the Government will invest between 1% and 1.2% of GDP every year from 2020 in economic infrastructure covered by the commission. To put that in context, we will spend around 0.8% of GDP on the same definition this year.

I am also backing the commission’s interim recommendations on the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, published last week, with £110 million of funding for east-west rail and a commitment to deliver the new Oxford-Cambridge expressway. That project can be more than just a transport link. It can become a transformational tech corridor, drawing on the world-class research strengths of our two best-known universities. I welcome the commission’s continuing work on delivery model options. We will carefully consider its final recommendations in due course.

The major increase in infrastructure spending I have announced today will represent a significant increase in funding through the Barnett formula, of more than £250 million to the Northern Ireland Executive, £400 million to the Welsh Government and £800 million to the Scottish Government.

Public investment is only part of the picture, however. About half of our economic infrastructure is financed by the private sector, and we will continue to support that investment through the UK guarantee scheme, which I am today extending until at least 2026. The new capital investment I have announced will provide the financial backbone for the Government’s industrial strategy that the Prime Minister spoke about on Monday, a firm foundation upon which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will work with industry to build our ambition of an economy that works for all.

I can announce four further measures to back business. I am doubling the UK export finance capacity to make it easier for British businesses to export. I am funding Charlie Mayfield’s business-led initiative to boost management skills across British businesses. I am taking a first step to tackle the long-standing problem of our fastest growing start-up tech firms being snapped up by bigger companies, rather than growing to scale, by injecting an additional £400 million into venture capital funds through the British Business Bank, unlocking £1 billion of new finance for growing firms. I am also launching today a Treasury-led review of the barriers to accessing patient capital in the UK, so that we can take further action to address them.

This Government recognise that, for too long, economic growth in our country has been too concentrated in London and the south-east. That is not just a social problem but an economic problem. London is one of the highest-productivity cities in the world and we should celebrate that fact. But no other major developed economy has such a gap between the productivity of its capital city and its second and third cities, so we must drive up the performance of our regional cities. Today we publish our strategy for addressing productivity barriers in the northern powerhouse, and give the go ahead to a programme of major roads schemes in the north. Our midlands engine strategy will follow shortly, but I am today providing funding so that the evaluation study for the midlands rail hub can go ahead.

In addition, we are investing in local infrastructure in every region of England. I can announce the allocation of £1.8 billion from the local growth fund to the English regions: £556 million to local enterprise partnerships in the north of England, £542 million to the midlands and east of England, and £683 million to LEPs in the south-west, south-east and London. We will announce the detailed breakdown of allocations to individual LEPs shortly.

Devolution remains at the heart of this Government’s approach to supporting local growth, and we recommit today to our city deals with Swansea, Edinburgh, north Wales and Tay cities. I can also announce today we are beginning negotiations on a city deal for Stirling so that every single city in Scotland will be on course to have a city deal. To support new mayoral combined authorities in England, I can announce that we will grant them new borrowing powers to reflect their new responsibilities.

While we continue discussions with London and the west midlands on possible devolution of further powers I can announce today that London will receive £3.15 billion as its share of national affordable housing funding, to deliver a commitment of more than 90,000 affordable homes. I can also announce that we are devolving to London the adult education budget, and giving London greater control over the delivery of employment support services for the hardest to help.

I have deliberately avoided making this statement into a long list of individual projects being supported, but I am going to make one exception. I will act today, with just seven days to spare, to save one of the UK’s most important historic houses, Wentworth Woodhouse near Rotherham. It is said to be the inspiration for Pemberley in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”. But in 1946, in an extraordinary act of cultural vandalism, the then Labour Government authorised extensive opencast coal mining virtually up to the front door of this precious property. Perhaps that is Labour’s idea of a northern powerhouse. Wentworth Woodhouse is now—[Interruption.]