Income Tax (Charge)

Max Wilkinson Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for saving the best till last, as Cheltenham is always.

Because I am a liberal of generous spirit, I will begin by thanking Ministers. I thank them for listening to the many appeals I have made since my election that they study the case study for investment in Cheltenham’s cyber-security industry. After a lot of talk and being led a merry dance by the previous Government, we finally have guaranteed funding of £20 million for the Golden Valley development. My wholehearted thanks go to Ministers. On a broader point about cyber-security, I look forward to hearing more about the future cyber resilience funding in due course. Ministers know that the growth in our economy will stick much more easily if it is underpinned by cyber-security.

Alongside being a cyber-security hub, my constituency also benefits from a thriving hospitality industry. Sadly—and this is not such good news for Ministers—many of those businesses are now fearing the impact of changes to national insurance. They fear becoming a vessel for money to make its way from customers to the Exchequer, with little left over to pay their own wages.

The £22 billion of investment for the NHS is to be welcomed, and I hope that in Cheltenham it will ensure the reopening of our birth unit and a reduction in A&E waiting times at Cheltenham General and Gloucestershire Royal hospitals. Representatives of the care sector have been in touch with me over the weekend: local authority fees, they tell me, are expected to rise by less than 5% —below the minimum wage increase, and that is before national insurance rises are accounted for. One chief executive told me that

“providers will close down and reduce residential and nursing capacity”

at a time when we need exactly the opposite to happen.

There are also concerns from the primary care sector. I heard this weekend from Dr Bob Hodges, the chair of the Gloucestershire local medical committee, who said that the most likely result of the Budget changes to national insurance was that the money to fund increased national insurance costs was likely to come

“straight out of the pot from which GPs are paid”.

He said that risked burning good will, with knock-on impacts on morale and working practices, and he feared that over time it would reduce the number of working GPs.

I started with thanks. Let me end by urging Ministers to reconsider some of those points.