Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Rachel Reeves

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Indeed, Citizens Advice said that the change

“has to be considered in terms of the cumulative impact. Fuel prices continue to rise, and that is a key worry; 43% of the people who come to us are worried that they will not be able to meet their fuel bills. We have examples of people coming into our bureaux who do not heat their homes because they are worried about not being able to afford it... This group of people very often have to rely on their savings in order to live in their retirement, and they are getting very low interest on them.”

My hon. Friends have therefore made good points, which represent their constituents’ very real concerns.

Moreover, pensioners have already been hit hard by the Government. The winter fuel allowance has been cut; pensions have been indexed to a lower measure of inflation; the raising of the state pension age for women has been brought forward, and last year’s VAT rise has added £275 to the costs that an average pensioner couple faces. Evidence from the Institute for Fiscal Studies to the Treasury Committee confirms that, as a result of the tax and benefit changes that the Government have implemented, the incomes of pensioner households have fallen by 1.4%, and most have little prospect or opportunity of making up that loss.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

I have a very simple question: will the hon. Lady reverse the policy on the allowance?

[Rachel Reeves]

We do not know what the economy will look like in three weeks, let alone in three years. The Government’s choices are making our economic prospects worse and worse. In the past year, the Office for Budget Responsibility has had to revise down its forecast for UK growth three times. It is now expected to be a third less than it was a year ago. We will publish our manifesto before the next election, but it will be very different from Government Members’ manifestos because we prioritise hard-working families, not a tax cut of £40,000 for 14,000 millionaires. That is why we will vote against the provision this evening.

Youth Unemployment and Bank Bonuses

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Rachel Reeves

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

Youth unemployment in my constituency, like in most of our constituencies, is rising fast, whereas it was falling at the time of the last election.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

May I share with the hon. Lady the figures for her own constituency? Youth unemployment rose by 625 between 2005 and 2010, which was a 103% rise, yet rose by 25 between 2010 and 2011, which was a 2% rise. Can she explain why it rose so much between 2005 and 2010?

Industry (Government Support)

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Rachel Reeves

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry for my enthusiasm.

I welcome the clarification from the hon. Member for West Suffolk that regions will be able to make their own decisions, but that was not my understanding of what the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said earlier. [Interruption.] If he did say that, I think that everyone on the Opposition Benches would welcome that. If our regions will be able to make the decisions about our regional development agencies and their future, I welcome that. I am grateful for that clarification, but that was not my understanding of what the Business Secretary said in his statement.

I know that Conservative Members will disagree with this, but I am sorry to say that we do not hear enough from them about growth. They cite the G20 advice about reducing deficits while consistently forgetting about or ignoring the advice in the G20 communiqué for

“credible, growth-friendly measures, to deliver fiscal sustainability”.

That omission on growth is worrying from the perspective of industry and jobs—the subject of today’s debate—because the greatest risk we face is that of a double-dip recession, with the job losses, business failures and higher budget deficits that that would bring.

On Monday, the Chancellor dismissed the possibility of a second recession, but businesses in my constituency are less certain that we are out of the woods. Key to the recovery and to bringing down the budget deficit—we hear a lot about that from Conservative Members—are growth and having a regionally strong and diverse economy. That will not happen by chance; it depends on a strategic Government policy supporting industry in all our regions.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

What does the hon. Lady think about scrapping the national insurance hike for employers? A lot of employers in my constituency will say that the really harmful thing to do to growth is to add to the cost of employing people, thus reducing the net income of a business. What does she think about that?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. What he describes perhaps comes up less in my constituency than in some others, because average earnings in my constituency are £16,000 a year and the national insurance increase proposed by the previous Labour Government was to apply only to wages of more than £20,000 a year. So that was less of a concern in my constituency.

Britain is the sixth largest manufacturer in the world. If one believed some of the statements made by those on the Government Benches, one would think that the UK did not have a manufacturing industry at all—that is not the case. People in Yorkshire have huge pride in our industrial past. From wool to coal and steel, and to retail and finance, our industries have enriched the region—more than that, jobs and industry in Leeds and Yorkshire have helped to power the UK economy.

The true test of this Government’s strategy and their woolly words about local economic partnerships will be whether they can give local people and businesses a true sense of control over their economic future. That is what Yorkshire Forward and other RDAs have been doing; they have been promoting enterprise and driving economic growth across Britain.

We now know—I am reading what I wrote before the intervention by the hon. Member for West Suffolk—that the RDAs are to be scrapped. Or are they? That wind-down has already started in Yorkshire. The Yorkshire Evening Post today revealed that the proposed cuts to Yorkshire Forward mean that no fewer than 109 projects will see their support slashed and that that will affect 24,160 separate companies our region. Some £1 million that would have been used to help small and medium-sized enterprises to access finance is to be cut. Some £1.4 million that would have helped businesses and universities with research and development is to be cut. Some £2.4 million that would have been spent on Tower Works in Leeds to support the digital and creative industries in my city is to be scrapped.