Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend, the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, speaks with enormous sense and knowledge. He is, of course, absolutely right. It is much better to engage the industry than arbitrarily to impose a levy, especially one with such great uncertainty. The OBR states:

“The tax will operate with a specific revenue target of £500 million for the second year of implementation”.

It goes on—here is some real Budget gobbledegook—to say:

“From a pre-behavioural yield of over £900 million, the behavioural responses lower the yield to around £500 million a year. As a new tax likely to prompt a large behavioural response, these estimates are clearly subject to significant uncertainty.”

Well, there we have it—not a clue at all.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

Surely the two-year lead-in for the sugar levy is the right approach because that tells the manufacturers to reformulate. Surely the future and health of our children are more important than anything else.

[Richard Fuller]

The health of our children is, of course, extremely important, but, as I said, the sector is already innovating. There have been remarkable reductions in the sugar content of soft drinks compared with what has happened in other sectors, in which there has been no change in the amount of sugar that people consume. There are question marks over whether the levy will have the impact on health it is supposed to achieve. In Mexico, for example, where a sugar tax was recently introduced, the calorie reduction amounted to six calories a day. This regressive measure goes much against the principles that the Chancellor himself rightly outlined as the overarching ethos of the Budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

I am delighted to contribute to today’s Budget debate and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on continuing to deliver a long-term economic plan that has seen unemployment in my constituency fall by a record 63% since 2010.

I have always been a passionate believer that for those who can work, work is the only real way to get on in life and succeed. This is not just a personal view but one that is shared by people up and down the country, and I am proud to belong to a Government who support a strong work ethic and are helping more families to keep more of what they have worked hard for. As a result of the measures announced in the Budget, in Erewash alone more than 45,000 people received an income tax cut and around 2,000 people were taken out of tax altogether.

Turning to business support, I warmly welcome the huge boost to the midlands engine, which includes £16 million of investment in our world-class aerospace industry, including support for Rolls-Royce, which has just announced that it is to create 350 new jobs locally as it prepares to ramp up the production of the new Trent XWB engine. Locally, SMEs and those who are self-employed stand to gain significantly from changes to small business rate relief and the abolition of class 2 national insurance contributions. These measures not only provide a welcome boost to the Erewash economy, where many of our businesses are small furniture manufacturers or engineering firms, but recognise the fact that those businesses are the real backbone of the British economy.

As chair of the all-party group on adult and childhood obesity and as a member of the Select Committee on Health, I want briefly to address the new sugar levy. The atrocities in Brussels today are a sharp reminder that the first duty of any Government is the protection of their citizens, but we rarely consider that phrase from anything other than a national security point of view. There is no doubt that obesity and the problems that arise from being obese, such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease, are becoming a serious issue within our society. Responsibility for tackling that lies on many heads—manufacturers, retailers, Governments, educators, health professionals—and, of course, on people taking individual and personal responsibility for the matter. By introducing the sugar levy, the Government are accepting their duty to protect the health of our citizens and of generations to come. In that, I must disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), who is no longer in his place.

I urge drinks manufacturers to step up to the mark and play their part in tackling the obesity crisis by reformulating drinks and recipes over the next two years to reduce added sugars. We cannot tackle the obesity crisis by a sugar levy alone, and I look forward to the Department of Health announcing further measures in the forthcoming weeks and months.

In my view, this is a fiscally responsible Budget for the long term, supporting workers, businesses and our future generations. More importantly, it is a one nation Budget that truly puts the health and wellbeing of our nation first and I commend it to the House.

Tax Credits

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

I am delighted to speak in this debate as it gives me the opportunity to speak up for the hard-working families I meet on the doorsteps of Erewash. My constituents tell me that they want a fair welfare system, one that is there for the most vulnerable in our society and provides a safety net when things do not work out. They tell me that when they pay their taxes, they want the money to be spent on the NHS, education and social care, not on subsidising employers who think they can get away with paying just the bare minimum wage. They also tell me they want to be paid a fair wage for the work they do and do not want to be dependent on state handouts. The people of Erewash are a proud people and I am proud of them.

That reflects the way in which I was brought up. My parents did not expect handouts from the state, but looked for ways to boost the household income. My dad worked hard during the day and took on a second job in the evening. Even when my mum was entitled to attendance allowance in her later years, she did not want to claim it because she thought that someone else would need it more.

The tax credit system is so complex that it is not fit for purpose. I am sure that my casework is no different from that of other hon. Members. Time and again, residents who receive tax credits get a pay rise and inform HMRC, but then find that they rack up huge debts with HMRC. Those people tell me that they would much rather earn more money than have to claim tax credits. That is exactly the environment that the Government’s changes are bringing about. We are introducing a national living wage between now and 2020, and are continuing to increase the income tax threshold.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maggie Throup]

We are short of time, so I will move on.

When we include the extra childcare that is being provided by Government, virtually zero inflation and mortgage rates at an all-time low, it can easily be seen that we are putting families at the heart of our welfare changes. I also believe that we are putting women at the heart of our changes. The extra free childcare will allow more women to get back into work, and those who are already in work will be able to do more hours. That will definitely boost family incomes. Wrongly in my opinion, women tend to be in lower-paid jobs, partly owing to the sacrifices that they make to bring up their families. The introduction of the national living wage and the increases in the income tax threshold will disproportionately benefit working women.

I am not saying that everything is perfect. We need to continue to narrow the skills gap between men and women. That is why I am backing a project spearheaded by the Erewash Partnership in my constituency, which aims to help women to set up their own business and realise their dreams. Some may question why we need women-only support. It is well recognised that some women lack self-confidence when it comes to going it alone in business and having the self-belief that they can do it. The support is tailored to meet those specific needs and it is working.

I want to finish by reminding people of the principle that was set out by John Bird, who founded The Big Issue: it is far more effective to offer a hand up than a handout. The culture of tax credits has become too much of a handout, rather than a hand up. I am confident that the proposed changes will create the hand up that Erewash residents want and deserve.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

It is with immense pride that I stand before the House today as the new Conservative Member of Parliament for Erewash, working within a Conservative majority Government, making my maiden speech.

I would like to begin by putting on record my personal tribute to my predecessor, Jessica Lee, who served the residents of Erewash with great distinction. Although she served only one term, she achieved much, most notably securing the funding needed to build a new train station in Ilkeston and establishing an annual jobs fair that I now intend to build on.

When thinking about my constituency, we have to start with the question that I am sure is on the lips of all right hon. and hon. Members: where exactly is Erewash, a place that nobody can pronounce, let alone point to on a map? The answer to this conundrum is quite straightforward: it does not exist. In fact, my constituency is one of only three to be named after a river, and perhaps the only one to be named after both a river and a canal.

Like many Members whose constituencies cover more than one town, I have encountered the age-old problem of which place holds the coveted title of “top dog”. As anyone from Ilkeston, or Ilson as it is more commonly known, will tell you, despite the fact that it is the second largest town in Derbyshire, and notwithstanding the fact that it has one of the oldest working cinemas in the country, or has held a royal charter for a weekly market and an annual fair since 1252, it is the southern neighbour, Long Eaton, that gets—I quote many residents—“everything”. Down south, however, the residents of Long Eaton are all too quick to tell you a different but all-too-familiar story. Despite being a global leader in upholstery and furniture manufacture, and once leading the way in the production of Nottingham lace, and despite the fact that it is the birthplace of Dame Laura Knight, the famed war artist, and plays host to one of the finest silver prize bands in the midlands, it is really Ilkeston that gets all the care and attention.

Located between the diplomatic stand-off of those two towns, less than 10 miles apart, there is Erewash’s smallest town, Sandiacre, as well as the villages of Breaston, Draycott, Risley, Sawley and Stanton by Dale. Each one has its own quirks and charms. They could all quite rightly claim to be Erewash’s superior settlement, and I, for one, would be hard pushed to dispute their case. So I have come up with a simple solution to this very real problem—for the sake of my political career, I have to concede that every one of them is right.

Erewash is the land of opportunity and aspiration. We make practically anything that Members care to name, from textiles, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics to furniture, drainage pipes and even beer. In addition to supplying some of this country’s biggest names, including Rolls-Royce, Boots and John Lewis, Erewash is truly a global brand, with many of our engineering and manufacturing firms exporting their goods. We have even managed to design and manufacture our own unique dialect, helpfully recorded in the book “Ey Up Mi Duck!”, a copy of which is available to Members in my office.

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor often talks about the midlands as the country’s engine for growth. This is certainly true of Erewash, and I would go even further by saying that we are the fuel that powers that engine. However, like all constituencies, Erewash does have its challenges, and I take the line that these should not just be swept under the carpet. Ilkeston, Long Eaton and Sandiacre suffer from traffic gridlock throughout the day. The proximity to the M1 motorway and the midlands main line does not solve this problem but appears to cause even more congestion. This is bad for business and bad for Erewash. As the result of a proposed brownfield development of 2,000 houses and industrial units on the site of an old ironworks, thousands more cars will need to use our already heavily congested roads. I believe that without proper planning Erewash will become just one huge car park. We need to be bold with our vision, not just provide a piecemeal solution. That is why I welcome the announcement in the Budget to create a new roads fund, and I intend to be knocking on the Chancellor’s door to get my fair share for Erewash. The same brownfield development offers the ideal opportunity for a number of starter homes to be built, helping the aspiring local people who back our higher-wage, lower-tax, lower-welfare economy to get on the housing ladder.

I come to this House not with a lifelong desire to be a politician but as a result of a series of successful community campaigns. Through these campaigns, I realised I had a choice: just continue to get on with my life or put my head above the parapet. I shall continue to use all the skills gained through my community campaigning to benefit Erewash residents, as I already have done through my campaign to protect the green belt around Breaston from the HS2 hub. Throughout my time in this place, I shall continue to put my head above the parapet and fight for what is right for my constituents and what is right for Erewash.