Budget Resolutions

Debate between Michael Shanks and Nigel Evans

Thursday 7th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I did say not to mention the name of current sitting Members.

[Michael Shanks]

I forgot she was a sitting Member, Mr Deputy Speaker; I apologise.

The Government are putting off any long-term spending plans to the next Government to avoid facing up to the reality that public services are crumbling. Shamefully, they are not putting aside a penny for the victims of the contaminated blood scandal or the victims of the Post Office scandal.

Minutes after the Chancellor sat down, we had the spectacle of the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) refusing to say whether he would back his own Government’s plan to expand the windfall tax on the oil and gas industry. I am not sure if he is still on resignation watch or whether his chat with the Chancellor has moved him back to a stronger position, but yesterday, the Tories in the Scottish Parliament had a debate denouncing expanding the windfall tax, and the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) has said he will vote against it. This morning, the Chancellor said it would present a little local difficulty. This is utter chaos, less than a day after he delivered the Budget. With any other Government, at any other time, they would be the laughing stock of the country, but so low have our expectations fallen that it is not even getting the attention it should.

We should welcome the Government’s conversion to Labour’s economic plans, following where Labour has led on the non-dom tax loophole or expanding the windfall tax. Now it is only the SNP that is out on a limb, saying that it does not support increasing a tax on the £1 billion a week profits from oil and gas, while happily putting up taxes for those earning £29,000 a year. In SNP Scotland, teachers, plumbers, police officers and nurses pay more; oil and gas giants do not.

[Michael Shanks]

I know I am in a different party to the hon. Member, but I am in the same country, so it concerns me how nurses in Scotland are treated, and they are paying more tax than their colleagues in England. That is the reality of the SNP’s budget.

The truth is that a lack of economic growth across the UK means less for public services, despite the Scottish Government receiving almost £300 million in consequentials, including £237 million from increased spending in the NHS. I hope that the Scottish Government use that to invest directly in public services, and especially in Scotland’s NHS, where statistics this week have shown a damning picture of the SNP’s 17 years in power. The list of in-patients waiting more than 12 weeks has gone up 125 times in a decade. Cancer treatment within 31 days is three times worse than a decade ago. All the while, taxes are going up in Scotland and wage growth is stagnating.

The House of Commons Library has carried out some research that shows that weekly real earnings are lower today than in 2007 when Labour left office in Scotland and the SNP first came to power. The analysis shows that real wages continued to rise until 2010, when the Labour Government left power in the UK, but under the Tories and the SNP, the average Scot earns less in real terms now than they did in 2007. EY this week found that average employment growth in Scotland between 2024 and 2027 is expected to be just 0.8%, lagging beyond all other parts of the UK.

There are some really tough long-term issues in Scotland’s labour market that we must wrestle with. Long-term sickness appears to be a particular factor in economic inactivity in Scotland, accounting for nearly 32% of inactivity compared with 27% across the UK. There are difficult demographic trends, too. These issues are not easily resolved, but they require a Government with a laser focus on the problem, not one from a hopelessly distracted party.

The Secretary of State spoke about levels of employment in the UK. Recent research by the Work Foundation and Lancaster University found that of those in employment, 21% are in extreme job insecurity—workers who experience involuntary part-time work, involuntary temporary forms of work and precarious work—and a further 33% suffer from low or moderate insecurity. In other words, more than half of people currently employed have a degree of insecurity in their work. The UK is becoming a less secure, precarious place for people to work, and part of the cause of low productivity and rising levels of in-work property is that problem. It is a challenge for us to wrestle with, but we must do so.

The Tories are the architects of this economic mess, ably assisted by the growing incompetence of the SNP. Neither can be the solution. Scots will rightly ask themselves after 14 years of the Tories and after 17 years of the SNP whether they feel any better off. The answer will come back: no. They will ask if public services and the NHS are better now in Scotland than they were 17 years ago, and the answer will be no.

The only way out of this doom loop of economic chaos, higher taxes and stagnant living standards is real change, with a Government focused on growing the economy, making work pay and turning the UK into a green energy superpower. That is the change that Scotland needs. That is the change that the UK needs. That is the change that Labour will deliver. We need a general election so that we can get on and do it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Liz Twist will make the last Back-Bench contribution, so anyone who has taken part in the debate should make their way to the Chamber now.