Coronavirus Grant Schemes: Fraud

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

This Government made a range of interventions to support people in different forms and in different ways. We were clear from the very start that we would not be able to help everyone. One of the issues we had to reconcile was verification of people’s identity and status, and this measure to prevent fraud arguably stopped some people accessing the benefits of some of these schemes. I do not accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware that in 2020-21, Companies House showed the greatest ever number of incorporations. Did the Government not sniff something going on? If they did, why did they not act? If they are honest, do we not face taxpayers everywhere having to pick up the £4.3 billion bill for their failing?

[John Glen]

No, I do not accept that, I am afraid. At every stage the Government took the best advice that we could on the flows of data that were available from HMRC and Companies House, which conditioned the design of the schemes. Subsequently, insights and input from Companies House, HMRC and the Insolvency Service have governed how we seek to tackle and recover moneys from fraud.

Household Energy Bills: VAT

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

It is vital that we make sure that we support households to make the changes to their homes that are needed to improve their energy efficiency. That is precisely why we have £471 million of spending, to date, on the social housing decarbonisation fund, which is worth £121 million, and the sustainable warmth programme, which is worth £350 million. Those are estimated to save households an average of £350 to £450 a year on their energy bills. In addition, the Government have consulted on expanding the energy company obligation to £1 billion a year of improvements for fuel-poor households. Those are precisely the kinds of things that we need to do to help with bills and deliver the net zero transition.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I am interested in the Government’s estimate of the cost of transitioning a typical three-bed semi to a zero-carbon home using that fund. How much would it cost to put in an air source heat pump and all the necessary insulation to make it effective in the way that the Chief Secretary described?

[Mr Clarke]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we need to be moving towards technologies such as air source heat pumps. That is why our heat and buildings strategy sets out a plan to bring parity with gas boilers by 2030. That is precisely what we want to see, because those costs need to come down, and that is what we are enabling through our net zero strategy.

The Government are focused on protecting jobs, incomes and livelihoods through, by common assent, one of the most challenging periods in our lifetimes. Nineteen months of furlough protected almost 12 million jobs across the UK. The self-employment income support scheme, worth £28 billion, benefited nearly 3 million people. We significantly increased the generosity of the local housing allowance for housing benefit, and more than 1.5 million households are benefiting from an additional £600 a year. For those who need extra help with their housing costs, we provided £140 million for discretionary housing payments. Four million families are getting help with their council tax bills. We have provided nearly £5 billion for schools catch-up and we are rewarding our valued NHS and care workers, with more than 1 million NHS workers receiving a 3% pay rise in a year of otherwise wider pay restraint.

It has been a goal of successive Conservative Governments since 2010 to keep down the cost of living for working families. I mentioned the increase in the national living wage from April, which represents an increase of more than £1,000 in the annual earnings of a full-time worker on the national living wage. That sort of thing matters in places such as Stoke. We are committed to going further so that the national living wage reaches two thirds of median earnings for those over 21 by 2024, providing economic conditions allow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

May I just put on record how much I miss Jack?

Working families everywhere are feeling the pinch. Energy prices are rocketing, housing is increasingly unaffordable and inefficient, food prices are rising and there is a global gas price crisis. Ten years of failed energy policy has left us particularly exposed, including through the closure of the Rough gas storage facility. It was vital to keep that open. That facility would have ensured some energy stability and resilience. Now, our storage capacity is only 2% of our annual usage, compared with 25% in France and Germany.

Meanwhile, in February Ofgem will announce a new price cap for April 2022 onwards, under which bills can rise by 46% or £600 a year. That compares with wage growth of 4.2%. How on earth are families going to survive this increase? Without Government support, they will not. Research from YouGov shows one in 10 Brits could not afford a £5 per month increase in their cost of living, a third could not afford a £25 per month increase, and half could not afford an additional £50 per month. Almost 4,000 households in my constituency are already in fuel poverty—that is 8.9% of all households—and they will be hit the hardest and have to choose between heating and eating.

Inflation is running away at over 5% and it is going to hit 7%, according to Goldman Sachs and the Bank of England. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) has said, we are facing a high inflation, high cost and low growth economy. That is why Labour is calling for measures now to reduce the expected energy price rise in April. Removing that price rise and increasing the warm home discount would save most households around £200. The lowest earners and the squeezed middle would save up to £600 on bills, preventing all the expected increases in energy bills.

Pensioners have also been abandoned by this Government through the Chancellor’s failure to protect the triple lock. That simple action would have avoided a short-term crisis but there is more to do to protect our constituents from future shocks. Our housing stock is poorly insulated, the worst in Europe. British homes leak heat up to three times more quickly than the more energy-efficient homes on the continent, resulting in higher bills and colder homes. The last Labour Government introduced a legal requirement for new homes to be zero carbon by 2016. We would have had a million homes built in the past five years if that had been allowed. Labour would make the green deal deliver 19 million warm and insulated homes, saving households an average of £400 a year, but the Government do not see the advantage of that. The Government have also failed to accelerate quickly enough to domestically produced clean energy, as we have heard. Then there is house price inflation and rent inflation, and the exorbitant costs that people living in this country face. I understand how hard this winter is going to be for my constituents, and I believe that the Government have to act urgently to address that.

Downing Street Garden Event

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

This morning, I received a phone call from Jill McCulloch in my constituency. She was greatly angered by the overnight news and by recent reports about parties in Downing Street. Her father, who would have been 100 this year, passed away in the summer of 2020. She was not able to visit him in May 2020 because, like so many people up and down the country, she was abiding by the rules. Is it not a simple fact that this Government live by one rule for themselves and another for the rest of us?

[Michael Ellis]

Certainly not. If that were the case, there would be no investigation. The very fact that there is an investigation in progress—the very fact that this matter is in the public domain and is being inquired into—is a clear indication that the same rules apply to everyone.

Downing Street Christmas Parties Investigation

Matt Western Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

Public trust is of paramount importance and it is necessary because we want to relay to the public the need for caution in dealing with this pandemic and the necessity of getting a booster vaccination—more than 20 million people have now had a booster vaccination. It is of paramount importance that the general public continue to exercise caution in all their dealings because the effects of this pandemic are what we know them to be, and I offer my condolences to the hon. Lady’s constituents on the loss they have suffered. We need to focus on ensuring the pandemic, which has robbed this country of so many precious lives, is dealt with as effectively and as efficiently as possible. That is what the Government have done, that is what the Government are continuing to do and that is what the Government will do.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

The Government are supposed to be lawmakers, not lawbreakers. When these gatherings, parties or whatever were happening, across Coventry and Warwickshire we have had 5,000 incidents in the last 20 months in which people have been fined for breaking the law: a bar in Leamington was fined £10,000 for having a gathering; 200 Warwick University students were fined for holding various events; and another pub landlord was fined £1,000. “Party” is a synonym for “gathering.” These were not business meetings, were they?

[Michael Ellis]

That is exactly what the investigation seeks to uncover. If there was a gathering, it seeks to uncover the nature of that gathering.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Matt Western Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

The Bill and the Budget that it follows do little to respond to the scale of the challenges facing our country, many of which have been brought into sharp focus by how the coronavirus pandemic has hit our society, not to mention the long-term hit on our gross domestic product because of Brexit—a 4% hit to the economy, on top of a 2% hit from the pandemic, as forecast by the Government’s own Office for Budget Responsibility.

Nor does the Bill respond to the climate emergency, as hon. Members have pointed out. Despite the fact that the UK has just hosted the COP26 summit in Glasgow, the Government have no plan for growth. Growth would put more money in people’s pockets and increase tax revenues, but what we are seeing is a low-growth, high-taxes approach, meaning a greater burden on working people because of the Budget.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Does she agree that the lack of stimulus from the Government contrasts with what is happening in the US? The Government seem to be making the same mistakes as after the financial crash in 2008-09.

[Rushanara Ali]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The US has already returned to pre-pandemic levels of growth, as have a number of European countries, whereas the UK is still playing catch-up. We need to learn lessons from what happened after the global financial crisis so that we can get growth back up to the level that we need.

The UK faces the additional challenge of making up for the long-term hit on our economy as a result of the trade that we are losing because of our exit from the European Union. Given that we have exited the European Union, we need to know how the Government will make up for the 4% hit on our GDP in the long term, alongside the 2% hit that I mentioned.

Under this Government, taxes will reach their highest level since the Clement Attlee Government in the post-war era. Clement Attlee had a lot to show for the increase: the national health service, our education system and the welfare state, much of which we have benefited from for generations and continue to benefit from. This Government have poor living standards, a poor economic outlook and weak economic growth to show for their tax rises. While the pockets of working people are being hit, this Bill, shockingly, allows a tax cut for banks. It cuts the surcharge on their profits from 2023, which, as I mentioned earlier, will cost taxpayers £1 billion a year. Nowhere is it clearer where this Government’s priorities lie, and where they think the tax burden should lie: the Bill gives a tax rise to workers and tax cuts to the banks.

The Government have wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money by brazenly giving out PPE contracts to a number of people who are linked to the Conservative party. As the National Audit Office has pointed out, a significant amount of money has been wasted and a “high-priority” channel was provided for Government contracts linked to people in Government and they were 10 times more likely to be successful. Some estimates suggest that nearly £2 billion of contracts went to people with links to the Conservative party.

According to the Public Accounts Committee, the test and trace scheme, which cost billions of pounds, has not shown a benefit commensurate with the amount of money spent. If the Government had spent that money wisely, many billions would not have been wasted on crony contracts, and some of the money could have been spent on dealing with the loss of income that many have experienced and the poverty and inequality that people are facing in our country.

This Bill does nothing to improve our country’s bleak economic outlook. As the Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed, the UK is suffering the slowest recovery in any major advanced economy. GDP in the UK at the end of this year is further below the 2019 level than it is in any other G7 country, and any future economic growth in the medium term is likely to be anaemic: the OBR forecasts an average growth rate of just 1.5% a year between 2024 and 2026. Meanwhile, our long-term growth rate fares little better. Brexit is forecast to reduce the UK’s GDP by a staggering 4%, and the OBR has drawn attention to a 2% hit as a result of the pandemic. If the Conservative Government had grown our economy at the same rate as other countries with advanced economies since 2010, the economy would have been £100 billion larger by 2019, leaving over £30 billion more to spend on public services without the need to raise taxes.

Given poor growth and high taxes, it is no wonder that the outlook for living standards is so dire. The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has described the outlook for living standards as “actually awful”, with the country facing

“five more years of stagnant living standards at best”—

and that is in the context of a decade of stagnant wages. How are people meant to cope with all that has happened over the last decade as well as the impact of the pandemic and the increase in fuel prices and the cost of food caused by disruptions in supply chains?

In-work poverty has reached record levels under the Conservative Government. There are now 2 million more people from working households living in poverty than there were in 2010. Of the 6 million families who were hit by the £20-a-week cut in universal credit, fewer than a third will benefit from the changes in the universal credit taper rate. While those changes are welcome, 4 million other people will not be given the help that they need. As the Minister herself admitted, many of those people have caring responsibilities or serious disabilities, and are not in a position to return to work. Their incomes will fall dramatically: they will lose £1,000 a year, and that will force more of them into severe poverty.

In my constituency the child poverty rate has increased over the years, and now stands at 60%. Nearly 20,000 households, which include 11,000 children, have been hit further by the universal credit cut. According to the Independent Food Aid Network, there has already been a 66% increase in demand at food banks across the country since the cut, after only a few weeks. As we approach Christmas, the food bank queues are growing longer and longer in constituencies such as mine, and food banks are struggling desperately to cope with the spike in demand. That is only set to become worse. It seems that the Government have learnt nothing from the lessons taught by campaigners such as Marcus Rashford; in fact, they have made matters worse for people who desperately need support.

The Government have also failed to deliver on their net zero promises. There has been plenty of rhetoric and little substance, and, indeed, a cut in domestic air passenger duty was announced in the run-up to COP26. We have a Government who are treating the climate emergency as an afterthought rather than something that is central to what we do in the future. We need a green jobs and a green investment revolution, and, as has already been said, we need a focus on a just transition. The Government do not seem to have the commitment or the ambition to deal with a climate emergency.

The Bill lands tax rises on working people while giving tax cuts to banks, and this feels like groundhog day because a decade ago, when the Government first came to power, their instincts were very similar. There were tax breaks for bankers and austerity for the rest of the country, and that has continued: the Government have reverted to their worst instincts. There is evidently no plan for economic growth, and we are facing a terrible future with low growth and high taxes. What we need is a Government who will stimulate growth, invest in improving people’s living standards, and ensure that there is more fairness in the distribution of income and opportunity across our country.

If the Government were serious about growth and improving our productivity, which has been poor for a very long time on their watch, they would invest significant sums in school catch-up, so that our economy can benefit from the investment in skills in creating an economic future that addresses the challenges we face now. We have a long way to go to catch up with other countries because of the twin hit on our economy from the pandemic and the long-term impact of leaving the EU. That is why we needed this Government to be creative and innovative in their policy announcements, and bold in terms of investment in our businesses, small, medium and large. They need to do that on a greater scale than we have seen if we are to recover from what has happened in recent years in our country.

Budget: Pre-announcement of Provisions

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

Leaving aside tired clichés about our attitude to Scotland, which I am afraid is all we ever get from SNP Members, we are of course a Government committed to the success of the whole of the United Kingdom. The Budget will contain within it many things that reflect the major benefits of the Union for Scotland just as much as for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As a proud British citizen, I would not accept the sense of what the hon. Gentleman says. On carbon capture, utilisation and storage, the Scottish project remains the first reserve, as he will know. We intend to take this project forward, alongside a flourishing North sea oil and gas sector, offshore wind and all the things that will go together to reflect the £30 billion-worth of commitments made as part of our net zero strategy.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Thank you for agreeing to this urgent question, Mr Speaker, because this is getting out of hand, as I am sure you will agree. Only yesterday, I asked the Universities Minister if she would announce the decision on the Augar review and the Government’s response publicly in the Chamber, and she would not commit to that. Perhaps, Mr Speaker, you could follow that up with the Department for Education and make sure that the announcement actually is delivered here in the Chamber. In the past few days we have had more announcements than you get on the Clapham omnibus about the Budget, much of it commercially sensitive. When were the newspapers given details of the announcements the Government were making in the Budget, and when was the advisory board of the Conservative party made aware of some of these announcements?

[Mr Clarke]

I really do not know what the hon. Gentleman is implying with his question, but clearly no impropriety has occurred. All announcements are made as usual through the normal Treasury and cross-Government processes to make sure that those announcements are released to the media.

Working People’s Finances: Government Policy

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend is right. For the first time, any adult without a level 3 qualification will be fully funded by the Government to access three courses worth £3,600 per person. There are 11 million adults across this country without level 3 qualifications; this policy is directly targeted to support them.

We have invested £2.3 billion to hire and retain work coaches, doubling the number to 27,000, a feat that we have achieved in just eight months, and we are spending over £200 million on providing unemployed people with tailored help with CV writing, interview skills and job search advice. [Interruption.] We have doubled free childcare for working families—we can carry this on all day. This is a comprehensive solution to a very challenging series of problems. The plan for jobs is not about quick fixes; it is about creating sustainable employment so that people can be confident about being able to support themselves over the longer term.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point about job applications and employment but, as we have heard, this debate is about the cost of living. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House how much the average family has had to pay in increased petrol costs per year, as well as the average cost of filling up a car?

[Mr Clarke]

This Government have frozen fuel duty for 11 years, so we do not need to take any lessons on that.

It is vital that we keep bearing down on the skills crunch we have been talking about. Our employment strategy is supporting people through a variety of means to gain the knowledge, attributes and qualifications to find work in high-value sectors. Insofar as we achieve that, we will be achieving a much more sustainable, robust economy for the future. Our employment strategy is supporting the finances of people up and down the country, helping them back into work, and helping them earn more and succeed in the jobs of tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Labour offers absolutely no plan to tackle the challenges that the country faces. There is no plan to take the tough decisions on covid; the amounts of money to be raised that are talked about are a fraction of those required to support the demands they are making of the Exchequer. There is no plan to create the high-skilled, high-wage economy, no plan—they voted against it last week—to tackle the NHS backlogs. While we wait for the Opposition to reveal how they would do this, we are taking action.

In April we took definitive action, increasing the national living wage by 2.2% to £8.91 an hour, an increase worth more than £345 a year to a full-time worker on the NLW, and at the same time we extended the NLW to those aged 23 and over. Last year we took action to tackle rent costs by boosting the local housing allowance to the 30th percentile of market rates, and we are keeping cash levels at those higher rates going forward. That will cost more than £950 million this year and has meant that more than 1.5 million households benefited from an additional £600 last year compared with before the crisis. We have protected people from excessive council tax increases and given councils £670 million this year to provide families with help with their bills.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), who is a good friend. He put his arguments so forcefully and cogently. So many of the contributions this afternoon, certainly from Opposition Members, have been impressive and consistent in their criticism of the Government’s attitude and policies for addressing a fundamental problem in our society.

That perhaps comes as no surprise. When someone has their lunch hand-delivered to them every day by a company based in the Cotswolds, they might not be totally in touch with what is going on out in the economy—the price of food, the price of sandwiches and so on—but as I understand it, that is exactly what happens for the Prime Minister; one of his donors delivers a sandwich to him every day. It is a very reputable and nice business, based in the Cotswolds; I actually visited it myself once.

That kind of out-of-touch-ness is at the heart of this Government. They are divorced from the harsh impacts of what is going on in our economy—of inflation and the real cost of living. We must think about what has happened in the past 15 or 18 months for our nurses, hairdressers, decorators, plumbers, brickies, care workers—all those who are now facing the severe impacts of really high inflation, with wage growth not keeping up.

Those of us who are in touch with the weekly shop, as was evidenced by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), know how much we are seeing in price increases—not just the standard price increases that are going on, but the price gouging that is happening on our high streets. I have seen that at first hand. We have a Tesco store on the Parade in Leamington, and there is sometimes a 60% price difference between what people pay in the Tesco superstore a mile and a half away and what the vulnerable, the elderly and so on pay in that store on the high street.

I am not sure how this computes. If someone’s real concerns are about buying Lulu Lytle wallpaper at £840 a roll, I do not think that necessarily puts them in touch with what is really going on at the local DIY store, or the cost of timber down the timber merchant to build themselves a shed. I think that is at the heart of the policy and the Government’s inaction in addressing inflation and the pressures on families up and down our country. Certainly, the hard-working people in Warwick and Leamington are being very hard hit by rising costs. We are all facing the rising prices of energy, food, travel and housing, all of which are contributing to rising inflation, not to mention, as has been said repeatedly from the Opposition Benches, the sledgehammer of the universal credit cut and the pressure on pensions. When we put all that into the mix, together with tax increases, we realise how hard it will be for people and families up and down the country.

Looking at inflation—sadly, I am one of those who takes a real interest in this sort of stuff—the biggest jump on record was in August. The Bank of England expects inflation to peak at 4%. I think it is slightly underestimating the impact of what could happen—personally, I think it might exceed that—but even 4% is double the Bank of England inflation target of 2%. The Government, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor seem to be acting surprised that inflation will be peaking at 4%, but surely they will have access to briefings from the Bank of England and the senior economists—the likes of Andy Haldane and others—who will be saying what is happening to the UK and global economy and where the price pressures are that will impact on ordinary households. They track the data and get input data from businesses in the regions—in the west midlands, all the businesses will be feeding that information into the Bank of England’s regional office.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point about inflation. He and I may be of a similar age and remember how, perhaps in our younger years, inflation was such an important issue that we were mindful of almost daily. However, there is a generation that does not really understand, or perhaps has not experienced, what inflation means to the daily and weekly cost of living for ordinary families. By not being up-front or public about this, the Government are perhaps not educating people on how to manage the coming crisis.

[Matt Western]

I thank my hon. Friend; she is incredibly generous to suggest that I might be of a similar age, but I will take that compliment from her. Of course, I agree. Certainly, I think about my generation and what happened to inflation in, say, 1990 and 1991, as someone who was paying a mortgage at the time and seeing 60% of my income going on the mortgage because of the excessive interest. Those on tracker mortgages and so on will be really worried about what is happening, because their incomes are certainly not keeping up with that kind of increase. I speak as someone who suffered—okay, I am nowhere near, and never have been, the sharp edge of the sort of extreme poverty that we are here to talk about. However, we should realise the pressure that that puts people under emotionally and psychologically, and the impact on mental health. What inflation can do, in eroding pensions and impacting on household budgets, should be a real concern to everyone in this House.

[Kirsty Blackman]

On that point, we got our first mortgage in 2009. People who have had a mortgage for as long as I have had, which is about 12 years, have never really seen interest rate hikes. There are people in the group that the hon. Member is talking about who are not worried because they have never met this in the face, and they are going to get such a shock when interest rates rise, as he is describing.

[Matt Western]

I thank the hon. Member, or perhaps I can suggest friend. Indeed, we have been insulated these past 10 years from the ravages of inflation that some of us know—perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) would say this—can erode business confidence and have an extreme impact on household budgets.

[Alex Cunningham]

I well remember the Thatcher Government, when interest rates went up and up and up and up. Even those on good wages were struggling, so it was even more difficult for others. There is a storm ahead for many people. Does my hon. Friend agree that savings are very important? The average savings for a low-income household are £95, while a high-income person is likely to have £63,000 in savings. Who is going to come off worse?

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We all have to understand that it is easy to talk about numbers and statistics in the abstract, but the reality for so many people, as he illustrates, is that they do not just have the uncertainty and insecurity of zero-hours contracts and the pressures of the cut to universal credit, but having so little money in the bank brings pressures on households. And here we have inflation about to rip into those households through the energy price increases I am going to come on to talk about.

I talked about the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. Those in corporate business and in senior positions in Government must know what is happening to inflation. They must know what forecasters are saying. When commodities are bought, all energy costs are forward priced—they know what is coming down the track—so the Chancellor could suggest only a 1% increase for nurses when he knew all along that there was likely to be a significant spike in inflation coming. Energy costs are a major issue, one that has perhaps been the driver to this particular debate, alongside the cut in universal credit. We have long known for months that there was going to be an increase in gas prices of 12% in October. That will have a significant impact on household bills. The average gas and electricity bill for customers will go up by £139 a year to just under £1,300. Now, we have to rely on the Government to get a grip to avoid further increases as a result of this unfolding crisis.

It is fundamentally a failure of long-term Government planning over the past decade that we, as a country, are so exposed and vulnerable to rising gas prices. We should have been building energy resilience, instead of being one of the countries most reliant on foreign gas. We should have been investing in domestically produced renewable energy. Instead, we squandered 10 years burning fossil fuels. When I was working on Warwick District Council as a councillor seven years ago, I proposed the Warwickshire energy plan to save people money, create energy resilience and address energy poverty. Sadly, there was not the gumption to follow through on that, and I am disappointed it never materialised.

[Mark Tami]

A perfect example of the point my hon. Friend is making is Wylfa nuclear power station in north Wales, in Anglesey. Building could have started on that and it would have been part of a growing nuclear programme, but the Government failed to support it. A spin-off would have been high-tech jobs, but the Government are not interested—they just step back.

[Matt Western]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that point. I think the important thing is that the Cameron-Osborne Government in particular became obsessed with fracking and took their eye off the ball with other energy sources. In Warwickshire, we had Algy Cluff come and visit; he was a significant donor to the Conservative party, I think, and he was really interested in having blocks under Warwickshire that he would frack. That undermined long-term planning for projects like the one that my right hon. Friend mentions.

If the Government had followed through, we could have been building zero-carbon homes since 2016. Instead, the Cameron, Osborne and—dare I say it—Liberal Democrat Government scrapped the regulations for housing developer donors. A million homes could have been built since 2016, but something like 10% of households in my constituency are in fuel poverty already and I can only see that figure rising. Several thousand homes in my constituency could have benefited from forward-thinking house building and zero-carbon homes, because we have seen such an explosion in house building across south Warwick and south Leamington.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend might not know this, but I was in the gas industry for many years, as I mentioned earlier, and I was involved in a warm homes system. We went door to door, systematically insulating people’s homes and windows doing all manner of other things, but the current Government have done away with that. They have also done away with much of the responsibility on energy companies to do more in that space. Does he agree that energy companies could be expected to do much more to insulate our homes?

[Matt Western]

I absolutely agree—it is such a key point. There are so many schemes that could be introduced, and there is some excellent practice across Europe; I think it is currently beyond the wit of the Government, but as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for council housing I am certainly keen that we should push for it.

On energy costs, I go back to the point about heavy manufacturing. I am passionate about our manufacturing sector—not just the automotive sector, which I have talked about often, but chemicals, aerospace and steel. We have heard the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) made about the impact on steel, but the impact will be felt throughout our manufacturing: steel goes into the food and drink sector as much as into automotive and elsewhere.

The reality is that the price varies for energy. For gas in the UK, I think that I am right in saying that there is a 40% premium against the average in Europe, which is making us uncompetitive in comparison and will have an impact on future investment and, ultimately, on jobs.

Food prices are another big driver of inflation. The price of food and drink in shops and supermarkets has risen by more than 1% in August, the highest growth since 2008. Food commodity prices have increased by 17% since the start of the year. The Food and Drink Federation says that the cost per household of food and drink shopping will increase by more than £160 per year because of Government policies—that is the federation speaking, not me.

Various hon. Members have mentioned the supply chain disruption, which will lead to higher prices. We have heard about the shortages of heavy goods vehicle drivers, but there are also shortages of refrigerants and carbon dioxide, and of course there is the additional complexity of delays at borders and ports.

I turn to travel. I asked the Minister about the price of petrol, but in July petrol prices hit their highest level in almost eight years. It now costs £74.26 to fill a 55-litre family car with petrol, a 17% increase—17% seems to be a repeating figure—since the start of the year, by the Government’s own data. Diesel, by comparison, has risen by just 14%.

Rail fares are not faring any better. The Government are planning fare rises of 4.8% next year, way ahead of inflation. The average commuter faces paying £3,300 for an annual season ticket, 50% more than in 2010. An annual season ticket from Leamington to London, incidentally, now costs £8,700, a significant amount of money.

As for housing, rents have risen at their fastest rate since 2008, at a time when we are seeing declining home ownership, and the vulnerability that confronts so many people as more and more are living in the private rental sector. Rents in the west midlands are now £1,192 higher than they were in 2011, and incomes have certainly not kept pace with that.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I think those who are listening will appreciate that for some families the combination of rising prices, rising rents and rising costs of travel to work will lead to absolute desperation—and, of course, this does not just have an impact on individuals and families; it has a wider societal impact. If people are unable to pay their rent, if they are made homeless and if that affects their mental health, an enormous strain will be placed on our public services and on society more broadly. Measures such as the cut in universal credit are complete madness, because the longer-term costs for the Government will be even higher than the costs of maintaining the uplift.

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend is spot on. Short-term thinking often costs much more in the long term, and impacts of that kind will have very long-term consequences on people. We all know about the impact on mental health and how that can then affect people’s home lives, social lives and family lives, but it can also affect their working lives, which can have an economic consequence too, as well as increasing costs in the national health service and elsewhere.

We need to build more social housing for rent. Just 21 social rent council homes have been built in the Warwick district since 2010.

Let me now turn to the unimaginable and, I think, inadmissible cut in universal credit. It just underlines how out of touch this Government are that they are cutting the £20 uplift. Reversing that decision would prevent families from experiencing an even sharper hit during this cost of living crisis. I think it shameful that the very workers who got us through the crisis are now in the firing line for a £1,000 cut in their income every year. I think about the carers, the shop workers and the delivery drivers—all the people who kept the wheels of the economy turning through such difficult times. Data from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that in Warwick and Leamington, which I think many people would assume to be a prosperous area, 13% of working-age families—6,300—and 29% of working-age families with children will be affected by the cut. This really is a poverty policy.

We have heard a great many claims about levelling up, but the one area in which the Government seem to be succeeding is levelling up on taxes which are more regressive than ever. We may think back to the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20%; now we are seeing a rise in national insurance and rises in council tax across our local authorities. The average band D council tax set by authorities in England in 2021-22 is just under £1,900, a 4.4% increase on the 2020-21 figure. These are real costs to people. As we have heard, the national insurance increase is the biggest tax rise for families—the most significant change—in 50 years. Graduates now face a marginal tax rate of nearly 50%: that, surely, is a tax on aspiration.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend talks about tax rates. He will be interested to know that a tweet has just come in from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation saying that

“191 Conservative seats will see more than a third of working-age families with children affected by the cut to #Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit. There’s still time for the Government to listen to the huge opposition to this cut and change course”.

I know that my hon. Friend will agree.

[Matt Western]

I can assure my hon. Friend that I absolutely agree with that. It was so telling that five or six former Conservative Work and Pensions Ministers said that they were absolutely against this cut. Of course, everyone on this side of the House is against it. It is also quite obvious to economists that the uplift should not be cut but left in place. The cost is £6 billion, I think, and in the context of some of the overspends that the Government have been guilty of during the pandemic, that is actually very little.

The cost of living tsunami that families will face in Warwick and Leamington and across the country this winter shows just how out of touch this Government are. Instead of making positive plans to tackle it, I am afraid that they are simply making it worse. We have the national insurance and council tax increases, and now we have the universal credit cut. The Government are failing to tackle the supply chain disruption that has been exacerbated by covid and Brexit, and we now have rising energy prices, rail fare increases and rising rents. The Government seem to be happy to waste huge amounts of taxpayers’ money on outsourcing and crony contracts, and I just feel that they are really out of touch. They seem to know little about the true cost of living.

We have a Prime Minister who spends—or rather, gets his donor friends to spend—tens of thousands of pounds on the refurbishment of his flat, and a Chancellor who is happy to spend a significant amount of money on a swimming pool, but they will seemingly not listen to all of us saying that there is a need to retain the £20 uplift. I was really surprised when the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), did not know how much it cost to fill up a car. I will tell him: it is 77 quid. He had no idea how much people spent on petrol a year. I can tell him that it is 17% more than it was at the beginning of the year.

0.7% Official Development Assistance Target

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

This should not be about political advantage. It is about hundreds of millions of people around the globe whose lives, already fragile existences, are made more vulnerable now by the political calculations, as we have heard, of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. That is their decision. It is a choice for them to claim that this nation is now free to forge its own future, but they are demeaning our international stature by this decision—a reputation reduced at a stroke, as is so often the case under this Government.

This comes at a time when the world would ordinarily be hoping for greater leadership, as we host the G7 as well as COP26 later this year. As we have heard, we are the only G7 country to cut its ODA budget, while others, such as the US, Germany and France, are increasing theirs. I am afraid that cutting the ODA budget at a time when less developed nations are the most vulnerable globally to the pandemic will be seen as one of the most callous choices made by a Chancellor in our lifetime.

It is telling that so many across this House concur with former Prime Ministers of all hues. As we have heard, we are talking about a humanitarian aid cut of 70%. That includes funding to Yemen, considered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, cut by 60%; life-saving water sanitation and hygiene projects in developing nations cut by 80%; aid going to education cut by 40%, which will result in 700,000 fewer girls receiving education according Save the Children’s analysis; and funding for the global polio eradication initiative cut by 95%. On the micro scale, the small British charity Dhaka Ahsania Mission UK has had its FCDO grant for work in northern Bangladesh cut by 100%. That programme was to bring basic education to some of the poorest and hardest-to-reach rural children in Bangladesh, whose families live and work on some of the most marginal land within the flood areas of the north of the country.

The Government’s drastic cut to overseas aid also risk damaging the world’s ability to fight the next global health disaster, which in turn, in self-interest, would keep Britain safe. In an open letter, 3,000 UK academics and global health experts highlighted how critical our interdependencies are across our world. The health risks and vulnerabilities are shared globally, and so should be the solutions if we are to address the emerging health threats. Just over 2% of Africans have been vaccinated, whereas more than 75% of all vaccines have been administered in just 10 countries.

The decision to cut official development assistance funding means that UK Research and Innovation needs to find savings of £120 million in allocated funds in 2021-22, hitting more than 800 Global Challenges Research Fund projects—for example, Warwick Medical School’s work in Africa on digital health and the introduction of remote consulting. In response to the pandemic, clinics have been contacting patients by phone, rather than offering in-person visits, for the first time in the continent. There is also the example of Newcastle University—perhaps the hardest-hit of all—which is doing leading work on water security and resilience to climate change, and on river deltas, flooding and rainwater. It is working with 90 partners in 20 countries, helping them and stemming migration.

Those projects have shown Britain at its best. They have shown it as reasonable and reliable—but no longer, due to the cuts. We are happy to see an aircraft carrier travel around the world, but at the same time cut projects to the most deserving. Perhaps the most depressing thing was hearing from the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who said that this is something of a political gambit to win votes.

Government's Management of the Economy

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I am left bemused by some of the contributions today. Perhaps some Conservative Members are auditioning for roles on university campuses as champions of free, if not historically accurate, speech.

I will start with a few facts. The 2008 crisis was a global financial crash. Thank goodness we had some adults leading the country at the time, with Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling working in concert with Angela Merkel and Barack Obama to avert more serious disaster. They acted, while David Cameron and George Osborne suggested that markets be allowed to run their course. When there was a run on banks such as Northern Rock—we remember the scenes well—they said, “Let them go to the wall.” That is easy to say when one’s savings are in the Cayman Islands, as was the case according to the Panama papers.

The coalition Government claimed they were a roofing contractor—probably one hired as a mate of the Health Secretary—but they and the Conservative Government that followed simply undermined the foundations of our economy, our communities and our health and social care services. That is why the UK was the G7 country least prepared to face the pandemic—that and the Government’s failure to prepare or to act. Listening to John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, one realises what a blundering, blagging Government we have.

This is the Prime Minister’s failure. He missed five Cobra meetings a year ago that could have set us on a different course. He had two weeks more to prepare than France, Spain or Germany, yet here we are with the worst economic performance for 300 years. Gross domestic product is down 10% compared with 2019. Compare that to Germany on minus 5%, France on minus 8%, Italy on minus 9% and the US on minus 3.5%. I repeat: the Conservative Government managed to cause a drop in growth three times that of the US and twice that of Germany. That is some crash in prosperity. Let me put that into some tangible, understandable stats. In my question to the Prime Minister in December, I used car sales as a proxy, as they are the bellwether of our economy. Car sales were down 29% in the UK, down 25% in France and down 19% in Germany; that is a loss of 180,000 car sales versus Germany. That is the reality behind the Government’s mishandling of the crisis and the economy.

There are many other indicators. For example, the premier league reopened a full month after Germany’s Bundesliga. Why? There is the damage to and the underlying challenges for our hospitality sector, including the penalty of business rates. For 11 years, the Government have failed to address the desperate need for fundamental change to those unfair and disproportionate taxes. No wonder the UK high streets are looking so terrible.

There is one positive; the Government did listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) and introduce the furlough scheme, but the statistics are crystal clear: this Government have failed the economy, they are failing our communities and they are failing our people. Sadly, it is the people who will end up paying for the Government’s mistakes.

Taxation (Post-transition Period) Bill

Matt Western Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 15th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Flynn]

No, the hon. Gentleman has had plenty of opportunities to intervene and, indeed, speak today, and I think I will be doing everyone a favour if I just continue. I see that the Minister is laughing as well.

On the purpose of the Bill, I would like to reflect on the comments of the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), because what he said was incredibly important. I apologise if I am misquoting him but I think he talked about the Bill hovering as a threat. That is an important point to reflect on, particularly as we look at what was being undertaken last week and the entire process that we have gone through.

I want to conclude, because I am aware that I am close to havering, and in Scotland, when someone starts doing that, they should probably sit down. As we look forward to what the Bill will do for online sales and the level playing field that it will create on VAT sales, which is important—I see the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) nodding his head, and it is worth repeating that we agree on this point—we know that that level playing field should go further, because Northern Ireland will, in effect, have a beneficial agreement compared with anywhere else in the United Kingdom, be that Wales, England or Scotland. The level playing field that the Government are putting in place for online sales should also apply to Scotland to help our ability to access EU markets, and I would encourage the Minister to reflect on that point.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to new clause 3 and amendments 1 and 2. Three years ago, we were given the advice that this deal was going to be the “easiest in human history”. As we have just heard in the past hour or so, it is not quite as easy as some expected, and here we are with just 16 days to go. I appreciate that the Government are trying to manage expectations by talking about no deal, but in the last 30 minutes or so there has been lots of speculation online about whether a deal may have actually been struck.

Yesterday, I was listening to someone from an independent freight haulage company based in Nuneaton in north Warwickshire, and they were saying how frustrated they were by the lack of clarity coming from the Government. They were talking about the 300% to 400% increase in paperwork that they were expecting, the mixed messages from the Government, the fact that they had had to invest in new software and the fact that the lorry parks were not ready. I guess this is why the amendments and new clause 3 that my honourable colleagues have tabled, which I support, are so important. Being so close to the end of the transition period, we urgently need clarity for our businesses.

We on the Labour Benches just want to get a deal done, contrary to what is being said by some in the Chamber, because at the end of the day this is all about ensuring that our businesses have a prosperous future—have a future, indeed—and that we protect people’s jobs and livelihoods. That is why no deal would be absolutely desperate for so much of our economy, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), I really do not understand why it has taken so long for this Bill to be published. It seems that the Government were holding it back as one of their cards—maybe again threatening to break international law and damaging our reputation—but businesses cannot plan on that basis. They cannot work on a last-minute approach. That might work in negotiations in the political sphere, but it has been damaging for business. Rather than having messages such as a “check, change, go”, they have been demanding the substantive advice from the Government which, sadly, businesses across my constituency have not been receiving.

I spoke earlier to one of those businesses—a retailer and importer—and it said, “This is utter chaos. We desperately need clarity and urgency, so that we can start planning, but at the moment we cannot get hold of the goods that we’re going to be able to sell in the first quarter of next year.” I understand what the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said about UK sovereignty, but the quid pro quo is about access to markets and obligations. I liken it to how businesses have to work. If they want to be in the app market and use the Apple platform, they have to pay to be part of that. If they want to be on the Sony PlayStation platform, they have to pay to access that. It is the same with the European market.

[John Redwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that, from 1 January, the EU and the UK are both full members of the World Trade Organisation, which does not allow its members to charge to trade, controls what tariffs can be levied and says to each of its members that they have to offer most favoured nation status to any other member of the WTO? That is how we do our trade with the whole of the rest of the world, which is bigger than our trade with the EU. Why can we not do that for everything?

[Matt Western]

Our biggest and nearest customer is the EU. It is a critical customer and supplier to so many businesses in the UK, particularly in our manufacturing sector.

Let me briefly turn to the Northern Ireland protocol. We were told that there would be no checks, but as of last week, we have seen the need to implement new checks and controls for goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and, to a lesser extent, from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. The Government have said rather vaguely that a significant majority of internal UK trade will be tariff-free. I would be interested to know what assessment the Government have made of the precise percentage of GB-Northern Ireland trade that will be and the volume and value that will be subject to tariffs.

That is why these amendments are important. They are aimed at injecting urgency, with just 16 days until the transition period ends. Businesses want clarity and certainty, and they need it urgently. The intention of new clause 3 and amendments 1 and 2 is simply to demand that the Government make clear when they will propose the secondary legislation flowing from the Bill, to help those businesses. The Food and Drink Federation has said that the guidance is being published too late, and 43% of its members that supply Northern Ireland have said that they will not be able to do so in the first three months of next year. Our amendments are very similar to those proposed and, sadly, voted down in Committee. They are vital to assist our businesses and are business-friendly, as the Opposition are.

I cite the disruption that we are in danger of allowing. We have seen what happened with Honda—one of the most efficient companies on the planet. That should be the canary in the mine. If Honda is not able to get parts from its supply chain here to the UK, what hope is there for small and medium-sized businesses across the UK? Whether they are a clothes retailer or a car manufacturer, they just want clarity and certainty. They want an uninterrupted supply of goods into the first quarter of next year. Given the damage already done by the pandemic, we cannot afford further economic disruption. The Government need to move swiftly. That is why new clause 3 and amendments 1 and 2 are so important, and that is why I am supporting them.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

I am grateful to everyone who has contributed to the debate. I will address the proposed amendments and then come to the specific points that have been raised.

New clauses 1 and 2, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), would, if adopted, mean that the provisions in the Bill would apply notwithstanding any domestic or international law. The House will be aware that on 17 September, the Government set out that Parliament would be asked to support the use of so-called “notwithstanding” provisions in clauses 44, 45 and 47 of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill and any similar subsequent provisions in a Finance Bill, but only in circumstances where the fundamental purposes of the Northern Ireland protocol would be undermined. Only in those circumstances would Parliament be asked to support the use of so-called “notwithstanding” provisions, as described.