The Growth Plan

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a huge pool of talent that needs to be brought into the labour market. Every Government, and our Government in particular, should be focused on trying to bring more people into the labour market.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The Chancellor is a midwife to profiteering by energy companies on the public’s credit card. He has done very little, as my friend the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) said, about rural and island places that depend on heating oil. People in my consistency have an electricity unit rate of 33p, which is 10% higher than the 29.6p in London. The standing charge is 51p in my constituency, a staggering 60% higher than the 32p in London. Those are yesterday’s figures from E.ON. This UK Government are highwaymen stealing from energy-rich Scotland. It is a disgrace, and this Chancellor should conduct himself far more fairly. As has been said, this statement is something for the rich and not for the deserving.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I reject that. The hon. Gentleman will know that, when I was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, I was very focused on bringing the renewables pot to remote island wind. We achieved great things by working together, and I hope we can continue that dialogue in my new office.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

In recent years, the UK Government have printed and borrowed hundreds of billions of pounds, which have been gathered—I emphasise the word “gathered”—not earned by billionaires and the already wealthy. As a result, we have a cost of living crisis that makes energy price rises an acute crisis. Kerosene central heating oil has seen some of the biggest price differences, which especially hits rural and island areas where there is no mains gas. Do the Government have any plan to give people in such places a hand, which would cost a damn sight less than the bailout money that the billionaires have raked in from the Treasury?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extensive package of support only a few weeks ago worth £9.1 billion—that included a £150 council tax rebate for bands A to D and £144 million in discretionary funding for local authorities—which affects everybody in this country. I am also very happy to engage with him on the specific issue of oil prices.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

First, the hon. Gentleman will understand that the coalmine is a matter of an independent planning decision. Secondly, I completely deny his assertion that somehow COP26 was a failure. It was not. It was a great success, thanks to the COP26 President, my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma). Huge commitments were made, which everyone is supporting.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Tapadh leibh. Scotland’s offshore islands could produce as much energy each day as some EU countries are sending to the United Kingdom. When will we see contract for difference levels match interconnector requirements? The Secretary of State knows about this subject. Will that come soon, especially for the Hebrides? I say gently to him that, as he knows, probably no other country in Europe would be squandering this opportunity.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I am fully committed to remote island wind. In fact, when I was Energy Minister, I spearheaded the move to have a separate pot for renewable island wind. He lobbied successfully, and I am happy to speak to him about that at any time of his choosing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

It was welcome that the Hebridean renewable project won 240 MW in the contracts for difference allocation round, but we need 370 MW to 400 MW for an interconnector. I know that the Scottish island group has enough CfDs to build an interconnector for clean green energy. Is it only the UK that could design a system under which we secure CfDs but Ofgem then says that that is not enough to build an interconnector? Will the Minister ensure that, in these days of climate change, the clean green energy of the Saudi Arabia of renewables—the Hebrides, Shetland and Orkney—is taken advantage of?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm and passion for this technology, but it is wrong to suggest that the CfD auction was a failure, or that it somehow constituted a defeat. In fact, it was extremely successful. As I have said, the price was £39 per megawatt-hour, two thirds lower than the 2015 price of £115. Obviously we are looking at interconnectors, which will be part of the solution to the issue of net zero carbon.

Refugee Family Reunion

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend—my very good friend—is absolutely right, and that shows how complicated and variegated the problem is. In Libya, there are all three: economic migrants, people from sub-Saharan Africa fleeing real persecution outside Libya, and people who are being mercilessly trafficked for gain. It is a complicated picture and it is not easy to say which is which. In some instances, an individual or family might have two or three different reasons why they should leave their home or why they were forced out of their home. It is not particularly helpful to come to this question with a simple, preconceived notion of what a refugee is, what an economic migrant is or what someone who is being trafficked is, because the real world is a lot more complicated than that. We cannot simply put people, families and children in such neatly defined silos. We have to be much more flexible in our approach.

The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar stressed how Britain is very welcoming, but he also mentioned the fact that the climate has been hostile in many instances, particularly in respect of tabloid newspapers. I am not someone openly to praise tabloid newspapers in this country—they have many strengths and many weaknesses—but it is easy in this House to pour scorn on what used to be called the popular press. The tabloids respond to the very real concerns of people throughout the country. If I speak to my constituents in Spelthorne, they express extremely generous sentiments towards genuine refugees, but there is also genuine concern that Britain’s hospitality and generosity can be abused, and it can be abused by some of the unscrupulous traffickers we talked about.

I wish to talk a little more about trafficking, because it is a problem that perhaps absorbs too little attention in this House. I was in Libya a year ago, when I was told that an individual needs to pay $1,000 to be transported from Libya to, in the first instance, Italy, which is the most common country of destination for these migrants. It does not take a mathematician to work out that if each person pays $1,000 to be trafficked, or transported, and there are—I was told—up to something like 1,000 migrants a day in the high season, when trafficking is at its peak the business of trafficking is potentially worth around $1 million a day. Such a huge amount of money that is potentially being distributed, or is part of the revenues of this business, attracts all kinds of people. When I was there, people talked about the Sicilian mafia, various eastern European mafiosi and the Russian mafia. Lots and lots of unscrupulous people are involved in this terrible trafficking.

We must look not only at the political instability and the relative disturbances in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, but at the sources of the trafficking. We must clamp down on the criminal activities of these gangs, because they are the people who are driving this trade. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) suggested, this is a problem that will not go away. I assure the House that, if it does not go away, there will be unscrupulous gangs and criminal elements all over this trafficking and this way of making money. If that is the case, any European Government will have to focus much more closely on stopping the criminality.

When we talk about refugees, we understand the humanitarian concerns of our constituents, but there is another side to this issue. I see the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) shaking his head, but we cannot simply stick our heads in the sand and ignore this terrible trade.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting case. On a wider point of information, I think it was the Swedish academic, Hans Rosling—I might have the name wrong—who pointed out first that the reason why many people go overland is that air transportation is closed to them because of our rules that will send them back again. We have other difficulties and other issues in and among that, so, sometimes, our own policies are actually creating the free market business that he describes of people trafficking at £1,000 a head.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

That is a legitimate point, but this trafficking has not come from British policy. I do not think that people who are trafficking Nigerians from the western coast of Libya into Italy, as the first port, are doing so because of the policies of the British Government. I do not really see a direct link. All I am trying to suggest is that there is a far a wider range of problems on which this issue touches.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who will not be surprised to know that I have noticed the difference that the Government’s policies have made. I am proud that the unemployment rate in my constituency is now less than 1%, having been about 3% at the beginning of the last Parliament. That is a signal improvement about which everyone in my constituency is pleased. The idea of aspiration can sometimes sound woolly, but in my constituency people really understand what it means. There are huge numbers of people in employment; there is a burgeoning private sector; and there are many who successfully aspire to be entrepreneurs. I am grateful to the Government and the people of Spelthorne for that. All the Government have done is to allow people to realise their own ambitions and to unlock their spirit of enterprise. I have certainly found that to be the case in my constituency.

I am pleased to follow on from my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) who spoke eloquently about the need for more entrepreneurialism and for a Government that interfere less in the workings of the private sector and of people who want to better themselves, go into small business and set up their own businesses. That should absolutely be commended and applauded. Frankly, it was depressing and disappointing during the campaign to note that Opposition Members—not SNP Members, but Labour Members—failed to mention wealth creation. They never talked about how this country was supposed to pay its way. They were deficit deniers, and I hope that they will come to appreciate that in the course of this Parliament.

I was struck by the fact that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw still refers to Britain as a socialist country—even after this crushing defeat. In returning a majority Conservative Government, the general election was surely an extraordinary way of showing that Britain was socialist. The result was unexpected, but it belies the hon. Gentleman’s attempts to characterise this country in that way.

More broadly, the Government have not only delivered on job creation, but have focused on distributing wealth and the spirit of wealth creation across the country. In that context, I am particularly happy that the Government will push ahead with HS2 and the northern powerhouse. That is exciting, and Conservative Members will look on it with approval. We are enthused by the broad plan for economic development, which will not be concentrated solely on the south-east.

Clearly, the Labour party has deep-seated problems, and I am surprised to see so many Labour Members here today. It is a tribute to their resilience and fortitude that they are here to participate in the debate. I am particularly impressed by the number of Scottish nationalists who are present. It is great that they are coming into the Chamber and making an impact. I am not sure what the flower is about, but I am sure that I will get to the bottom of that before long. Perhaps one of them will enlighten me. [Hon. Members: “It is royalist!”]

[Mr MacNeil]

It is the “white rose of Scotland” that is mentioned in a poem by Hugh MacDiarmid. I encourage the hon. Gentleman and others to Google it, because it is a very beautiful poem.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am very pleased to have been enlightened. I thought that it might have something to do with Yorkshire, but, although my knowledge of British geography is poor, I understand that Scotland is slightly further to the north.

I welcome the Scottish nationalists. The election result has clearly been fantastic for them, and it has done a signal service to us, because it has severely depleted the number of Labour Members of Parliament. I look forward to hearing the contributions of members of the other “party opposite” during the current Parliament.

I think that, during this Parliament, we should focus on the economic question. The deficit, to which I referred at the beginning of my speech, is still £90 billion. That is an awful lot of money, and it means that we, as a country, are borrowing nearly £2 billion a week. What was said by some of the other parties during the election period was an exercise in complete fantasy. It was as if the deficit did not exist. None of the Opposition parties addressed the fact that we must reduce Government spending over a Parliament, and I think that, ultimately, that was responsible for the Conservative majority and victory. As I said earlier, it was clear that one party was going to adopt a mature and balanced approach to deficit reduction. As far as I could see, all the other parties had their heads firmly in the sand, and were not addressing the big question.

Air Passenger Duty

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I intervened during the speech made by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) to ask what the Labour party’s policy on this issue actually was. The hon. Lady made a good speech, but she did not answer my question. She spoke for 17 minutes without providing any clarity on the Labour party’s position, and I remain unsure about the nature of her objections—if they are objections—to this tax.

It is important to review the tax’s history. It was introduced in 1994 by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), and at that time it was not a green tax. Like most taxes, it was brought in as a revenue-raising exercise and there was no mention whatever of its environmental impact. It was only under the previous Labour Government that the tax mutated into a green tax. It was doubled in 2007, and the banding was introduced in 2008. The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) have spoken of how their constituents who travel to the Caribbean are particularly affected by the banding, but we did not hear any mention that that banding was introduced by the Labour Government. It seems peculiar that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North has not mentioned that Government’s contribution to the development of the tax and nor has she set out the Labour party’s current position on it—that remains perfectly obscure.

We need to consider the deficit. As a free-market Conservative, I do not like taxation, and I yield to no one in my desire and enthusiasm to cut taxes and to stimulate the economy through reducing the burden of taxation to promote growth and enterprise, and to encourage risk-taking and other forms of business enterprise. However, I recognise that we have a deficit, and that deficit completely shapes the nature of our debates on taxation—[Interruption.] I sense an intervention coming on.

[Mr MacNeil]

I was trying to resist the urge to intervene, but the deficit in the UK has been in existence since 2001. The UK has been in a fiscal black hole since then, which was seven years before the economic crisis; it has not been able to pay its way since that time.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman shows an admirable grasp of our recent economic history; he is absolutely right. From 2001 to today, we have consistently run a deficit. Conservative Members have always been struck by the fact that, although the economy was actually growing during the first six of those years, between 2001 and 2007, the Government of the time saw fit to run a deficit in every one of those years. The present Government inherited a deficit of £160 billion—12% of our gross domestic product—and the fact that it has now been reduced by a third represents a remarkable success. It now stands at somewhere between £110 billion and £115 billion, depending on how the figure is calculated. In the context of deficit reduction, any Government would be reluctant to abolish air passenger duty in a peremptory way, as it brings in more than £3 billion a year. We all recognise that the deficit is a real thing—it is an ongoing annual sum that we have to close—and the £3 billion a year raised by APD makes a real contribution to its reduction.

I fully understand all the supply-side arguments. I understand that, if we were to abolish the tax, we could perhaps reap economic rewards at some future date. However, those who promote reducing or abolishing it must tell us how they would replace that revenue from day one. Where would they find the £3 billion that APD currently brings in? Conservative Members are familiar with general tax-cutting arguments. One could argue for the abolition of most taxes on the basis that that would stimulate growth, and that the money would be recouped in the long run through increased tax revenues. However, we have to face the fact of a real deficit, which is something that Opposition Members never seem to acknowledge in their speeches.

I was entertained by the speech made by the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who put forward in a typically trenchant way his views on green taxes, the environment and all the rest of it. I have often heard such arguments in the pub in Staines among my constituents and others, so I am familiar with them, but I shall not touch on green taxes, because what I am concerned about is the deficit.

If we were balancing our books and if we had succeeded a fiscally responsible Government, I would be among the first to say that this APD tax should be abolished. I would absolutely recognise the compelling argument that lowering taxes increases business enterprise. However, because we run a deficit, I feel that the £3 billion coming into the Exchequer is too high an amount simply to discard and forget about.

We need to look at the effects of such taxation on the aviation industry. I think it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) who made the point that although APD is quite high, the industry is expanding and more people are flying. From the Government’s point of view, as a revenue collector, the tax is not impeding the growth of the industry, so it would be irresponsible for them to forgo such tax revenue, especially given our record deficit.

Going forward to a time when we are balancing the books under the next Conservative Government, I will be at the forefront of those arguing to abolish APD. Earlier in this Parliament, I wrote and often said that while, in principle, the tax might not be the best thing, there are specific budgetary requirements and conditions of the moment that make APD essential.

We have to consider corporation tax and taxation generally in the round. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) on her appointment as Economic Secretary. She cited the fact that our corporation tax rates are extremely competitive. The rate of 20% is among the lowest, if not the lowest, in the OECD. In that context, general taxation on companies and business has been reduced, and we are seeing flickerings of growth—we expect encouraging growth figures at the end of this week. In the round, we can therefore say that the Government’s policy is working. The deficit reduction is happening and growth is beginning to return to Britain. Now is not the time to slacken the deficit reduction plan, so I fully understand why APD is necessary: to further our principal aim of deficit reduction.

The Economy

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Absolutely. The former Prime Minister has said that on a number of occasions. I have been on record as saying that the first Labour Administration between 1997 and 2001 was, I freely admit, a very conservative fiscal Government. As the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West well knows, during those four years the budget was never in deficit. We ran two years of surpluses and the budget in the other years was balanced. It was only after 2001 that the disaster occurred, that the wheels spun off the car and we suffered under a profligate traditional Labour tax and spend regime. I use the phrase “tax and spend” very gingerly, because the taxation never covered the spending.

That was precisely the reason why the Government ran those deficits—to pay for their projects, to pay for greater spending. They were required to borrow money. I remember that in 2001 one of their favourite columnists, Polly Toynbee, said that Labour would have to tax more in order to spend the money. At least that was an honest position. She was suggesting that Labour should try and balance the budget at a higher level of spending. I and my colleagues might want to balance the budget at a lower rate of spending, but both Polly Toynbee and those on the Government Benches would accept is that it is a road to disaster to borrow yet more money in order to spend on grand projects or whatever utopia the Government want to build in this country. We now have the consequence of this recklessness—of Government Ministers at the time spending more and more money and running 3% deficits.

[Mr MacNeil]

Can the hon. Gentleman tell us for how many years since 2001 the UK has been able to pay its way?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I can answer the hon. Gentleman very directly. With reference to our public finances, we have been borrowing money every year—every single year. It is likely that even if we are able to eliminate the structural deficit by 2018, this country will have seen nearly 20 years of continual deficits. This is an appalling legacy that Labour has left the country. Since the end of the second world war, we have never run 20 years of continual deficits, which we will do as a consequence of Labour mismanagement and old-fashioned incompetence.