Budget Resolutions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

Very quickly—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Everybody wishes to speak and that is not a problem, but the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) must understand that this would be her second intervention. I will keep moving her down the list, because that is the way that we will move forward.

[Lucy Powell]

I will not take any more interventions, Mr Deputy Speaker.

There was nothing at all about school budgets, which was one of the key issues in the general election, and they are still falling in real terms. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that, after the Secretary of State’s announcement in the summer, there was still a 5% cut in real terms, because the number of pupils is going up. We need a much bigger conversation about what education and skills are for in this country. They need to be about delivering for the economy and the society of the future.

Nearly 60% of graduates are working in non-graduate jobs. That is the third highest level among OECD countries, exceeded only by Greece and Estonia. I know that we have many debates in this place about tuition fees, but it is no wonder that they are not being repaid when so many people are not working at the level at which they are qualified to work.

We are in the bottom four of the OECD countries for literacy and numeracy to 18. T-levels are welcome, but with the huge cuts to further education, they will be difficult to deliver. Given that the maths GCSE contains more A-level content, we must ask about the desirability of prioritising compulsory and ongoing GCSE resits over looking at the curriculum and functional skills.

The Government are right to identify maths as the future. The future is about algorithms, matrices, digitisation and automation. Even for the most able, however, our curriculum is going in the wrong direction, which is why the OECD has said that it is

“a mile wide and an inch deep”.

By going down a route of rote learning rather than conceptual understanding, we are moving in the opposite direction to all our competitor countries.

There was absolutely nothing about social mobility in the Budget—in fact, the Chancellor did not even mention that in his statement. Social mobility is especially crucial in the early years if we are looking to close the productivity gap. Development at the age of five is still the biggest indicator of how a person will do in their GCSEs and beyond, yet we are also going in the wrong direction there. As others have said, these are political choices. Of the £9 billion the Government are spending over this Parliament on the early years, 75% will be for the top half of earners, with less than 3% going to the lowest. That is just wrong. This ticking time bomb entrenches social advantage.

Childcare is, yes, about increasing productivity, but the design of the current system under this Government means that we will fail to deliver some of the productivity gains that can come with childcare. We really need a social mobility strategy right across Government to tackle these issues.

Finally, let me talk about regional inequalities and disparities within regions, which are all connected to the points that I have raised. It is even more urgent that we get our fairer share of spending on infrastructure outside London and the south-east, and that we develop even stronger place-based solutions to deal with local job markets and skills. For example, if the Government wanted to be ambitious—this is not a difficult thing to do—they could devolve post-16 further education to places such as Greater Manchester. They could do a lot more to devolve early years solutions for transforming school readiness, as we are attempting to do in Greater Manchester. It is high time that places outside London got their fair share of transport infrastructure expenditure. We absolutely need to see the northern powerhouse rail connecting Liverpool to Hull via Leeds and Manchester. Critical to that is ensuring that we have a future-proofed Manchester Piccadilly station.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

After the next speech, the time limit will go down to three minutes.

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[Mrs Badenoch]

I wanted to mention the enterprise investment scheme earlier, but I did not have time. Saffron Walden is right next to the Oxford-Cambridge corridor and houses many knowledge-intensive industries. Does my hon. Friend agree that increasing the allowance for the EIS will provide a boost to the small and medium-sized companies that are the backbone of this country—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Lady had a good go when she spoke earlier, and a lot of Members have been waiting a long time to speak. Interventions must be very short. I also ask Members to be restrained in giving way; otherwise, it is not fair to all those who are waiting.

[Bim Afolami]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I would add to her point by saying that the EIS funnels private capital that might otherwise be sitting in housing assets or on a bank balance sheet into our most early-stage, innovative and risky creative businesses. That is the magic of the EIS. Such tax reliefs and allowances are beneficial to the country because they effectively mitigate the risk for private investors in risky, early-stage businesses. We need to recognise that fact and welcome the doubling of this investment allowance, alongside the addition of a new test to ensure that the money is going not into lazy, low-risk ventures, but into high-risk, creative businesses.

A point I often make about tax schemes such as the EIS and entrepreneurs relief, which this Government introduced to ensure that we remain one of the best places in the world to develop early-stage businesses, is that they ensure that we do not have to ask our banks to make risky investments. One of the reasons why we found ourselves in the financial crisis was that the banks were making very risky investments, as we discovered from their balance sheets. The EIS allows private capital to be used in productive ways. Many of my hon. Friends have already described the Budget as balanced and reasonable, and I hope that it is also the beginning of a long-term process of a radical entrepreneurial vision for the British economy.

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[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way? [Hon. Members: “ Oh.”] I will be very quick. Is my hon. Friend also thankful for the £21 million—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Two people cannot be stood at the same time.

Come on, Nusrat!

[Ms Ghani]

Is my hon. Friend also thankful for the extra £21 million that will be invested in science and tech, helping us to create the jobs of the future?