Budget Resolutions

Debate between Norman Lamb and Simon Clarke

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. I had been misled into thinking that my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) would be next, but I am delighted to be called.

I welcome the Budget and in particular the fact that over 70,000 more people are in work in the north-east than when Labour left office—the equivalent of every man and woman in my constituency. This Budget ensures that there will be more.

The £14 million of direct investment in the South Tees Development Corporation brings the total pledged to the site over the last year to £137 million. Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen will now be able to deliver two major new metals projects, which will create 1,500 high-quality jobs. Despite the worst efforts of the Labour party, people recognise that something special is stirring in my region and that new hope is being kindled on the banks of the Tees.

There is social justice, too. The hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) mentioned mental health in her speech and I agree with her completely that it is a major crisis for many young people. I would add that £2 billion was committed to mental health in the Budget. That is an important investment, which it is important to note.

On universal credit, a fortnight ago, I visited my local jobcentre in Loftus. The team there were passionately committed to supporting people into work. The billions committed by the Chancellor means that Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation was able to state unequivocally that

“the Government’s flagship welfare reform is now more generous than the benefit system that it is replacing.”

On Hallowe’en, let us put an end to the scaremongering that we keep hearing about that vital programme. As a nation, let us embrace the principle that everyone will now be better off in work than on welfare.

We also need to look to the future in other ways. Boldness and bravery must be our watchwords. On housing, the fundamental problem is Government-induced restriction on supply. Delivering demand-side policies without addressing the artificial constraints on the availability of land will serve only to increase taxes and inflate housing costs still further. Last month, in my paper for Freer, I called for us to lift the restrictions on development within half a mile of stations in the green belt.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Resolution Foundation. Does he also recognise that it identified that better-off households, the top 10%, will be £410 a year better off, whereas the poorest households will only gain £30 a year? Does he support that?

[Mr Clarke]

I support tax cuts for hard-working people throughout our country. They had to put up with the highest burden of taxation in this country for generations.

To go back to housing—I am conscious of time—the small release of land that I am proposing would create enough land supply for at least 1.5 million new homes, while leaving 98% of all existing green belt land entirely untouched. Indeed, the remaining area of the green belt would still be over 115% larger than it was in 1979. There is growing cross-party consensus on this topic. I pay tribute to the campaigning work by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). We should also be looking at innovative proposals such as those from London YIMBY, which set out how we could empower individual streets to set their own design codes and build upwards rather than outwards.

We also need to look to Brexit. We must stop looking at our leaving a dysfunctional and anti-democratic EU as a problem to be mitigated, rather than as an opportunity to be seized. Trying to cling desperately to the skirts of the customs union is frankly unworthy of the world’s fifth-biggest economy. The announcement that there will be a special economic area in the Tees valley is genuinely welcome news. I hope that it will become the first free port in the UK after Brexit, and, indeed, the first of many. But if that free zone is to be a success, it will need meaningful powers. I refer Ministers to the speech I gave in Westminster Hall in the debate I secured with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). As we sit here today, we do not know the precise nature of our future trading relationship with Europe. I can say with confidence, however, that half measures and a lack of national self-belief must be rejected utterly as we forge our new path in the world.