Lindsay Hoyle
Main Page: Lindsay Hoyle (Speaker - Chorley)
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
The reality is that, whatever the Chancellor claims today, austerity is not over. Far from building a strong economy, eight years of austerity has damaged our economy, delayed and weakened the recovery, and endlessly postponed fixing the deficit. Unnecessary austerity has caused real hardship to millions of our fellow citizens, held down living standards for the majority and failed on its own terms. People have had enough—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer; I expect to hear the Leader of the Opposition. To those who may have sat where they think I cannot see them, yes I can, and I do not want to hear any more. I want to hear the Leader of the Opposition in the same way that your constituents do.
Jeremy Corbyn
The Prime Minister pledged that austerity is over. This is a broken-promise Budget. What we have heard today are half-measures and quick fixes, while austerity grinds on. Far from people’s hard work and sacrifices having paid off, as the Chancellor claims, this Government have frittered them away in ideological tax cuts to the richest in our society. This Budget will not undo the damage done by eight years of austerity and does not begin to measure up to the scale of the job that needs to be done to rebuild Britain.
The Government claim that austerity has worked, so now they can end it, but that is absolutely the opposite of the truth. Austerity needs to end because it has failed. Just two years ago, the Chancellor forecast growth of 2.1% next year and the year after. Today he boasts that he has created robust economic growth, but the forecasts have been dropped to just 1.6% next year and 1.4% the year after. Economic growth in the first half of this year was the slowest since 2011, the last year that we had the lowest growth of any major economy. This is not a strong economy but a weak one, with chronically low investment, low wages and low productivity, and the uncertainty caused by this Government’s shambolic handling of Brexit is making things even worse. The warnings come—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Mr Bowie, Mr Philp, I expect better. You are very obviously right in my sight, so I suggest that you go quietly out of the Chamber if you cannot behave.
Jeremy Corbyn
The warnings come from across the economy: the car industry; farming and food; road haulage. UK manufacturing is currently in recession. So much for the much-vaunted “march of the makers”.
The Government said that austerity would mean that the deficit would close by 2015. Today the Chancellor has confirmed that it will still be there nine years later, in 2024. Even now, great chunks of the deficit have simply been palmed off to others, not eradicated—moved into the accounts of NHS trusts; shuffled on to the books of local councils that have collapsed, with many more on the brink; and most worryingly, and frighteningly for many people, loaded on to the very fast-rising levels of personal and household debt.
For too long, the Conservatives have peddled the myth that the last Labour Government crashed the economy by overspending on public services—as if investing to bring health spending up to European levels, as the last Labour Government did, had caused the global financial crash. Labour Members believe that spending on public services is an investment that benefits the health of our people and the economy of our country. This morning the Health Secretary said that it would take a generation to achieve parity of esteem of mental health and refused to say whether the money was ring-fenced—and that money is only half of what leading mental health experts say is necessary.
But the impact of austerity on our people’s health is about more than NHS funding. Improvements in life expectancy are stalling for the first time in modern history, and in the poorest areas of our country life expectancy is actually falling and child mortality is rising. The national health service—our precious national health service—is a thermometer of the wellbeing of our society. But the illness is austerity: cuts to social care, failure to invest in housing, and slashing of real social security. It has one inevitable consequence: people’s health has got worse and demands on the national health service have increased, with 1.4 million elderly people not getting the care they need. Tory cuts have taken £7 billion—£7 billion—from social care budgets. Today’s announcement is a drop in the ocean both for adult and child social care. At this time of rising demand, nurse numbers are falling, GP numbers are falling, health visitor numbers are falling, and there are 10,000 vacancies for doctors in our national health service.
Under the last Labour Government, NHS budgets averaged an increase of 6% a year. That has been slashed to just 1.4% under this Government. The Health Foundation says that the Government’s much-heralded extra money for the national health service is “simply not enough”, while the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that funding at this level will only “maintain…current levels”. And let us remember what the current levels are in the NHS: record waiting times in accident and emergency—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Mr Hoare, I think you know better. We caught each other’s eye before, and I will not want to catch it again—seriously. You might think Halloween is for screaming, but it is not what I want to hear in this Chamber.
Jeremy Corbyn
There are 4.3 million people on national health service waiting lists and longer waits to start cancer treatment. We need to go further—which is why, as we pledged in our manifesto, Labour will raise taxes on the highest earners to fund an increase above the Government’s baseline.
But it is not only the national health service that is in crisis. Defence spending has actually been cut; the size of the Army has been cut by a fifth. However, we welcome the donation based on VAT gains to commemorate the Armistice and £1.7 million more for educational programmes to ensure that people learn about the horrors of the holocaust. I join the Chancellor in absolutely condemning the horrific and vile anti-Semitic and racist attack that occurred in Pittsburgh over the weekend. We stand together with those under threat from the far right, wherever it may be, anywhere on this planet.
The Conservatives used to claim to be the party of law and order. Now they cannot even maintain law and order in our prisons, with assaults at record levels as depleted staff try to cope with the difficult situation. Our streets are less safe too. Police numbers are down, violent crime is up, and convictions are down. Chief constables are warning that criminals are taking advantage, and police officers are having to take the Government to court just to get a pay rise.
After eight years of austerity, firefighters today are paid £6,700 less than they were 10 years ago, nurses are paid £4,750 less and teachers £4,650 less. Every public sector worker deserves a decent pay rise, but 60% of teachers are not getting it, and neither are the police, nor the Government’s own civil service workers. Cleaners and security guards in the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy still are not even getting the London living wage.
The gap between those at the very top and the rest is not closing; it is growing. The pay of the chief executives of our biggest companies rose by 11% this year. They are paying themselves 145 times more than the workers in the companies that they lead. At the other end of the scale, 6.3 million workers are paid less than the real living wage—up 300,000 in the last year alone. The very lowest earners and insecure workers on zero-hours contracts or short-hours contracts will not benefit from the increase in the threshold, and they are the very people being punished by the cuts still hardwired into universal credit.
The Chancellor boasts of a “balanced approach”, but what is balanced about cutting social security for disabled people or slashing services to the bone, when by the end of this Parliament the Government will have doled out £110 billion in tax giveaways to corporations and the super-rich? Meanwhile, in the real world, homelessness has more than doubled, fewer people are able to buy a home, household debt is rising, child poverty is up to over 4 million and rising, and more disabled people are living in poverty.
Far from tackling the “burning injustices”, as the Prime Minister said her Government were going to do, they have actually made them worse and increased the injustices in our society. The Equality and Human Rights Commission warned just last week that Britain is becoming a “two-speed society”—all right for the richest few and failing the many. This Government are harsh on the weak and feeble with the strong. They labelled good people “scroungers” and “skivers” while they imposed punitive sanctions, demeaning assessments and a benefits freeze, none of which has been reversed today.
Universal credit is causing increases in poverty, food bank use, rent arrears and homelessness. When even the Work and Pensions Secretary admits that some people will be worse off, and the architect of universal credit says the system is underfunded, it was inevitable that the Chancellor would have to act, though he is only reversing barely half the cuts made. However, the problems with universal credit are also structural, harming the self-employed, lone parents, people with larger families and survivors of domestic abuse. That is why we believe the roll-out must be halted immediately.
Since 2010, 86% of the cuts through tax and benefit measures have come from women. There was not even a recognition of, let alone money set aside for, the women born in the 1950s who have been denied pension justice. Women in Britain today have just one fifth of the pension wealth of men, in part because of the grotesque gender pay gap, which at current rates will not close until 2073. And there was no extra money to fund women’s refuges—a lifeline for women fleeing from domestic abuse. Since 2010, almost a fifth of all refuges have been forced to close.
Months after the scale of the Windrush scandal became clear, the Chancellor has failed to set up a hardship fund for those affected, let alone the compensation scheme for the hundreds of people wronged by the Prime Minister’s nasty and perverse “hostile environment”. We have heard no guarantees for older people, and free TV licences for the over-75s remain at risk from the Government who have threatened to tear up the triple lock, take away the winter fuel allowance from millions and force people in need to pay for care at home.
A country that fails its young people is failing its own future. Schools funding per pupil has been cut by 8%, the college budget has been slashed and the adult skills budget has been hacked by 45%. There are 123,000 children in this country living in temporary accommodation, causing them unbelievable levels of stress and uncertainty, and consequently often underachievement in schools. Children’s services face a £2 billion funding gap, and we now have the highest number of children being taken into care since 1985.
Last Saturday, I visited North City children’s centre in Norwich, which is threatened with closure due to council cuts. With too many children whose Sure Start centres have already closed, the users of that wonderful centre are very frightened about their future. They have benefited, like so many others have in so many other parts of the country, from the great achievement of the last Labour Government, which was children’s centres and the Sure Start initiative all over the country. Spending on youth services has fallen by 62%, while 600 youth centres have closed and there are 3,500 fewer youth workers.
The UK is the only major global economy in which investment is falling. UK business investment is the lowest in the G7. This failure to invest means Britain’s productivity is 15% lower than that of major economies. Public sector investment is over £18 billion lower than it was in 2010. Britain is the most regionally unequal country in Europe, with six of the 10 poorest regions in northern Europe in this country. The Government reinforce these disparities. Let us just take an example: when it comes to transport funding, the north receives £2,500 less per person than London, while people in the midlands get £1,900 less—so much for the northern powerhouse and the midlands engine.
Local economies are also struggling. Over 100,000 retail jobs have been lost in the past three years, and there are 25,000 boarded-up premises across Britain. To visit many of our high streets is to see roller-blind shutters on shops that have been closed because of job losses and the problems they have faced. The Chancellor’s business rates announcement today only unpicks his own disastrous revaluation last year, and he has again delayed slashing the maximum stake on fixed odds betting terminals.
First, the Chancellor will not solve the crisis on our high streets until he tackles the institutionalised tax avoidance of big online retailers. His digital services tax, announced today, is too little, and too late. Secondly, the Chancellor must tackle the level of household debt, which is driven by low wages. High streets will not thrive until people have money to spend, so we hope he will endorse our call for the minimum wage to be a real living wage of at least £10 an hour by 2020, and to remove the discriminatory youth rates from the system.
This Chancellor has again failed to back Labour’s plan to create a national investment bank, with regional development banks. Today’s announcement on broadband investment is a very small step, but Britain ranks 35th in the global rankings of broadband speeds. Currently, just 2% of UK premises have full-fibre broadband compared with 80% in Spain and 100% in South Korea.
The Government still lack any meaningful strategy for creating high-skilled jobs in every region and nation, and they are failing abysmally to invest in the industries of the future necessary to tackle climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report this month was clear on the consequences: we can avoid climate catastrophe only if we act now. The Government’s response has been to: cut support for our solar industries, losing 12,000 jobs in the process; slash building of onshore wind; cut subsidies for electric vehicles; and sell off the UK Green Investment Bank, and instead to back fracking in the face of overwhelming local and scientific opposition.
Ten years ago, a Labour Government passed the Climate Change Act 2008—world-leading legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. This Government are not even on target to do that. Clean energy investment fell 56% last year, and the UK produces less of our energy from renewables than Germany, Spain, France or Italy. This Government are, I believe, failing to protect our environment, and in doing so failing to protect the future of us all.
The extra £500 million announced today to help the Government to cope with Brexit is not about planning, but about panic, and that panic is very deep rooted. Yesterday, the Chancellor said that another Budget would be necessary to set out a new economic strategy in the event of a no-deal Brexit; this morning, the Prime Minister said that all these spending commitments are funded, irrespective of a deal. It is clear: if they cannot agree a good deal with the EU, it is because they cannot agree a deal amongst themselves in the Cabinet or in the Tory party.
As we approach the crucial stage of the Government’s bungled Brexit negotiations, we face a choice about the sort of economy we want. Some on the Government Benches fantasise about taking Britain down the path to being a Singapore-style tax haven, with a race to the bottom in rights and protections. That must be rejected outright. What we need is an active Government who will invest in our people in every region and every nation of our country and who will use the wealth we create to fund world-class public services. What is needed is a real break with austerity and a Government committed to raising investment across the board to rebuild our economy, communities and public services. That is a route to a country that could work for all. Austerity is not over, and the quick fixes and half measures we have heard today do not begin to measure up to the scale of the job that needs to be done to rebuild Britain.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Barely two weeks ago, the world’s scientists issued their most stark warning yet that we have just 12 years in which to tackle climate change and avoid climate catastrophe, yet there was not a single word from the Chancellor about climate change, nothing about clean energy, nothing about green energy. Does the right hon. Lady agree—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Interventions are meant to be short. I think the hon. Lady has got her message across.
Nicky Morgan
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I heard the Chancellor mention climate change. The hon. Lady will have her own opportunity to speak later on in this debate.
It is time to look at the next iteration of the Government’s plan to ensure that public services have the funding they need while keeping borrowing and debt under control. The Chancellor made a welcome start on that plan today by setting out how the boost to NHS spending will be funded and indicating the overall envelope for the forthcoming spending review. The Treasury Committee will of course take a close look at the detail of the plan. I particularly welcome the NHS spending on mental health. I declare an interest as a trustee of a small mental health charity in my constituency. The fact is that it is this Government who have made a clear commitment to parity of esteem for mental and physical health.
With sustainable public finances comes the resilience to deal with the challenges and risks that may lie ahead. Brexit is of course the greatest and most imminent source of uncertainty looming over the Budget. It is just stating the obvious to say that the nature of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU could up-end the economic forecast on which the Budget is based. The Office for Budget Responsibility is still playing its cards close to its chest. It is still forecasting a relatively benign Brexit with a smooth transition that has no implications for productivity. I am sure that is what we all hope for. However, its forecast of continued reductions in public borrowing depend on those benign assumptions becoming a reality. None the less, the OBR has begun to make some of its thinking about Brexit clearer. Its view of the implications of a no-deal Brexit has become very clear indeed. The nearest precedent the OBR could think of was the three-day week, which it says knocked 3% off our economy that quarter. But even assuming a smooth transition, the OBR also says that increased trade barriers with the EU, not just tariffs, will likely leave our economy smaller and reduce long-run productivity growth.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Before I call the leader of the Scottish National party, I should tell people now that I expect to start off with a speech limit of eight minutes.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Mr Philp, it is up to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) whether he wishes to give way, and I think it is quite clear that he is not giving way.
Ian Blackford
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that there is a precedent for the third party speech on a Budget to be made without intervention.
It is not just a no-deal Brexit that will cost families. Even if the UK gets a deal, it will cost families. The whole Brexit process will hit the economy. There is no such thing as a good Brexit, and the House must wake up to that reality. The hon. Member for Gordon (Colin Clark) can carry on gesticulating. He really is the village idiot.
The storm is coming, and the Government have not even brought an umbrella, never mind the shelter that we need. This Budget leaves us wholly unprepared for the Brexit bombshell that is heading towards us. It fails to protect current and future generations. “An end to austerity”, said the Prime Minister. Scotland’s budget will have been slashed by £1.9 billion since the Tories came to power. This from a Tory Government who are ideologically obsessed with austerity—because, after all, austerity is a political choice.
We hear about the Government’s hands having been tied by the debt burden, yet over the past nine years, the Government have found £435 billion of new money for quantitative easing. Those with money and assets were rewarded with rising house prices and financial asset prices. Ordinary working folk—the poor and the disabled—were rewarded with austerity. They paid the price for the financial crash. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has made clear that even the mildest version of “ending austerity” would cost a minimum of £19 billion, the equivalent of a penny on income tax, national insurance and VAT.
An analysis published by the Resolution Foundation stated that we needed to see a boost in annual spending of £31 billion by 2022-23 to end austerity, so let us not kid ourselves that the Tories are going to end austerity. It simply is not going to happen. There is no such boost. Austerity has not ended; austerity remains under this Tory Government. This Tory Government continue to balance the books on the shoulders of the poorest and the most vulnerable, yet they continue to give away tax cuts. That is the reality. That is why austerity is purely and simply a political choice of this Conservative Government.
To end austerity, the Chancellor would need to cancel the final year of the four-year freeze on benefits and reverse cuts in in-work benefits introduced as part of the roll-out of the new universal credit system. That would cost a combined £5.1 billion by 2022-23. We already know that cuts to social security since 2010 will cost £39 billion by 2021-22; that is £39 billion taken out of the pockets of those who would spend cash on goods and services. Cutting the incomes of the poorest in our society has depressed growth in the economy; the only people who cannot see it are the Conservatives. [Interruption.] What about the living wage? If they were to bring in the real living wage, we would support them, but they are miles away from doing that.
Over the same period that the Women’s Budget Group has calculated that tax giveaways will cost the Treasury £47 billion, £39 billion was taken out of the pockets of the poorest and £47 billion given in tax cuts—robbing Sarah to pay John. This heartless Conservative Government have utterly failed to do the right thing, robbing citizens across the United Kingdom of a chance of increased living standards and the prosperity our communities deserve from economic growth. Austerity is hurting and this Budget will continue to hurt citizens through Tory austerity. Again, with a Tory Government we get cheap promises. Well, we have had enough of broken promises. The SNP will not support a Budget that will make our economy smaller and weaker and make our people poorer.
From 2010 consecutive UK Governments have delivered empty promises and robbed Scotland, limiting the opportunities for our Parliament and our people. This year, the Scottish Government’s fiscal budget will be £1.9 billion lower in real terms than it was in 2010-11. This is about more than the statistics, however; it is about the harsh impact on those who depend on our public services—the young, those in work, the elderly, and the disabled. We all pay a price for Tory austerity.
With Brexit coming down the tracks, this Government have picked up where Labour left off and abandoned the people of Scotland. Instead of arming themselves with a Budget that would protect jobs, drive investment and boost growth, the UK Government have delivered a Budget that will leave the communities of the United Kingdom frozen in failure. Time and again, we were told that the economy in Scotland would be stronger if we stayed with the United Kingdom—that the Union would protect jobs and that the Union would protect the Scottish economy. Well, the Union is threatening to destroy our economy by dragging us out of the European Union against our will.
Closing the door on the single market and the customs union is risking 80,000 jobs and risks losses of £2,300 on average from every person in Scotland. This Budget—this Union—has placed at the foot of the people of Scotland a choice of two futures: a future tied to a Union with the UK that will lead to further hardship and a deepening of austerity, or a future with Scotland in the EU, filled with opportunity, prosperity and economic growth, with an outward-looking Scotland and our destination within Europe, or our destination within an inward-looking United Kingdom.
The Chancellor today has made the case for the SNP. Like their Labour predecessors, this UK Government have shown their incompetence. Distracted and divided by the chaos of Brexit, the Government have not prepared for the future. Where is the vision? Where is the plan to create the circumstances that will encourage investment, drive up productivity and result in real wage growth? The fact that we have had the worst decade for wage growth in over 200 years should have sparked action by the Government to deal with that, but what do we have? We have inaction.
The Prime Minister famously talked about those who were just about managing. They have been shown to be hollow words from the Prime Minister and her do-nothing Chancellor. This is a Budget that cannot weather the Brexit storm. This is a Brexit bombshell Budget, with the clock ticking down to deliver absolute economic chaos to households right across the country. Conservative Members of Parliament sit and laugh; we talk about people who are going to be in economic hardship and Tory MPs laugh about the impact of a hard Brexit. That is the reality.
The Chancellor came before us today—he came and went—with his trick or treat Budget. He came in the hope that we would be distracted from the bigger picture by the small number of welcome announcements, most of which are undoing his Government’s shoddy policies, but we are not. He might trick some of his more gullible Back Benchers, but he will not trick us. The UK is facing a significant social, economic and political crisis with Brexit, but this Budget utterly fails to build a safety net for our economy’s future after our exit from the European Union.
We have made it clear that, short of remaining in the EU, only membership of the single market and the customs union will best protect our economic future, yet the Government blunder on, leading us to a no-deal Brexit that will be an economic catastrophe. It is widely accepted by economists that, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, there will be material economic disruption. We are already seeing a weakened currency, higher inflation and lower business investment growth as a result of instability and a lack of security.
The EU is the largest market for Scotland’s international exports, worth £12.7 billion in 2016. The UK Government’s own analysis shows that reverting to World Trade Organisation trading rules would reduce growth by 8%. The Scottish Government’s analysis shows that a hard Brexit threatens to cost our economy £12.7 billion a year by 2030, compared with remaining in the EU. Worse still, even if the UK signed a free trade agreement with the EU, Scotland’s GDP would be £1,610 per person lower by 2030. Households are already paying the price. Mark Carney told the Treasury Committee:
“Real household incomes are about £900…lower than we forecast in 2016. The question is why and what drove that difference. Some of it is ascribed to Brexit.”
That is the reality for Mark Carney.
The only solution to offset economic disaster, short of staying in the European Union, is to stay in the single market and the customs union. I am pleased to see that some on the Labour Benches agree with us on that, but does the Leader of the Opposition agree? We need to get real. The Chancellor has not insulated our economy to deal with Brexit, and the Prime Minister is hamstrung by the extreme Brexiteers in her own party. We must not allow the extreme Brexiteers to hold the UK to ransom. We must unite across the House to protect our economic future. I call on the Leader of the Opposition today. If he is true to his word, and if he agrees with me that this Budget is unfit for the future, he will join with the Scottish National party, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats to keep us in the single market and the customs union. Today, Labour must show that it can be an Opposition. It must join the effective Opposition to tell the Prime Minister that she will not get a deal through this House that does not keep us in the single market and the customs union. The stakes are high. We have time, but not much. The Chancellor still has time to rethink his fiscally flawed decisions in order to help to protect our economy.
Many will study the detail of what is in the Budget, but we must also examine what is not. The UK Government should rethink and back SNP and Institute of Directors demands to introduce a small and medium-sized enterprise support service to help firms to map out and prepare their supply chains to deal with Brexit. There is so much missing from this Budget. Where is the removal of residency fees for EU citizens applying to remain in the UK? It is morally reprehensible that those living here are, through no fault of their own, facing a charge to protect their residency. That is not making EU citizens who live here welcome. It is, by extension, yet another impact of the Prime Minister’s hostile environment. The Chancellor could have waived those fees today.
Last year, the Chancellor righted a wrong when he announced that Scotland’s emergency services were no longer to be charged VAT, but where is the £175 billion that had already been paid? We want it back to invest in our emergency services—[Interruption.] I expect Scottish Tory MPs to back us on this so that we can get Scotland’s money back to invest in our public services. Yet again, this Government have ignored SNP calls to support the Scottish oil and gas industry at a time of recovery. Why has the Chancellor again sat on his hands? The UK Government are once again not stepping up to support the sector.
I come now to farmers and crofters, and I declare an interest as an active crofter, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil)—
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I tried to intervene on the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on a number of occasions. Could you confirm to the House whether or not there are any rules in place preventing the Scottish National party from taking such interventions?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
It was up to the right hon. Gentleman whether he wanted to give way. At the beginning, he was very clear, saying, “I will be treating this like the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Leader of the Opposition.” It was up to him whether he wished to take interventions and he made it clear that he would not. I am sorry if that was missed—[Interruption.] Because she was not here, but I am not going to go into that. [Interruption.] Did you not hear him? It was quite clear. He said at the beginning that he was not giving way, and we all heard that. Let us make some progress because we have 38 speakers who want to get in today. I call Greg Hands, with an eight-minute limit.