Energy (oil and gas) profits levy

Paul Girvan Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Opening yesterday’s debate, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that this was not a return to austerity. That made me wonder what the Government call a forecast drop of 7% per person in household living standards. Over the past 12 years, we have had Tory Prime Minister after Tory Prime Minister after Tory Prime Minister—I could go on, because there have been quite a few of them—telling us that this is the end of austerity, but in that time what we have seen is growing inequality and mortgages rising, and now we have record inflation and energy costs are skyrocketing.

This Tory Government have presided over nothing but austerity, and they offer people no hope of anything else. They have presided over the continued chaotic mismanagement of the UK economy that forces ordinary people to pay the price. That view is shared by many people. When preparing for this speech, I looked at all the different resources—people who have made contact to comment on the Budget statement and the events of the past few months. It was really difficult to narrow them down, because so many people representing so many organisations across business and charities have been critical of the way the Government have handled and are handling things. I will pick out just a few. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said:

“The truth is we just got a lot poorer. We are in for a long, hard, unpleasant journey…that has been made more arduous than it might have been by a series of economic own goals”.

He went on to mention the disastrous mini-Budget of course, but he also stated:

“Very clearly, Brexit was an economic own goal. Economically speaking that has been very bad news indeed”.

I notice that no one else dares to speak of Brexit in this Chamber, but the damage is real and has been done. Scotland voted resolutely against Brexit; we voted to remain in the EU and were ignored, and now we are paying the price. In a very impressive speech, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) made a lot of persuasive arguments, but I noticed again that Labour dares not go there, because when it comes to Brexit, they have taken the clothes off the beach and put them on themselves. It is not good enough.

Let me go further and quote the UN Human Rights Council, which includes nations such as Brazil and which has urged the UK Government to implement an energy poverty strategy that addresses the impact of rising costs on child poverty targets. It has gone further still and asked the UK Government to

“improve food security, in particular for children, adolescents and persons with disabilities”.

Does that make the Tories feel proud? It is almost unbelievable. Scotland deserves much better than that.

The Food Standards Agency consumer insights tracker points out that the proportion of people who cannot afford to eat a healthy balanced diet rose to more than a third in October. More than a third of people cannot afford to eat a healthy balanced diet. A quarter of people reported eating cold food because they could not afford to cook. About a fifth are turning off fridges and freezers with food inside them because they reckon they cannot afford the energy to run those appliances. That is a disgrace. All the nations of the UK deserve better. The people I represent in my constituency and across Scotland definitely deserve better.

The Resolution Foundation points out that, far from the Government taxing the rich, as we have heard in this Chamber—taxing those who can most afford it—it is the people in the middle who will be squeezed by a near 4% hit on their income, which is a bigger hit than high earners will experience. The Resolution Foundation warns that the statement means nearly 20 years of wage stagnation between 2008 and 2027 due to the weak forecast for pay and the effects of inflation, hurting people in their homes, hurting families and hurting children. The foundation further points out that households living in harder-to-heat homes with larger families are particularly hard hit by energy bills—nearly a quarter of them are affected. It is worse for people who live off the gas grid—a large number of people in rural communities of the sort that I and many others represent. Look at what they have been offered. Yes, it is great to see a doubling from £100 to £200 in the support for off-gas-grid households, but that is nowhere near enough. Are Ministers living in the real world? At the moment, the minimum oil or kerosene delivery is £500. The amounts offered will not touch the sides, and people living in off-gas-grid households will pay far more than £4,000 for their average energy bill.

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

In mainland UK, heating oil can be bought for 82p per litre, but we in Northern Ireland are paying £1.08 per litre. Fuel poverty is a major problem in Northern Ireland.

[Drew Hendry]

The hon. Member makes a good point about affordability for his constituents. This is a major issue for people in rural communities across the nations of the UK, especially Scotland, although Northern Ireland fares similarly in having a colder climate. These are big, big issues for people. There is no real acknowledgement in the autumn statement of the difficulties for people living their real lives in that type of accommodation in those areas.

The OBR pointed out that Westminster’s Brexit

“will result in the UK’s trade intensity being 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU.”

The Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said the UK has suffered a “dramatically” worse recovery than the US or the EU. Government Members like to pretend that the only things that have happened are the war in Ukraine and the global pandemic, but they must take responsibility for the economic self-harm they have imposed on people across the UK and in Scotland through their Brexit ideology, which is resolutely failing and being proved to fail on a daily basis. Scotland deserves better than that.

The CBI director general says of the situation:

“There was really nothing there to tell us that the economy is going to avoid another decade of low productivity and low growth”.

On labour shortages, he called for a practical approach to immigration and urged the UK Government—he might do the same for the Labour party—to be “honest” with people over the UK’s “vast” labour shortages, and said:

“we don’t have the people we need, nor do we have the productivity.”

Scotland deserves better than this.

Business after business ignored. Organisation after organisation ignored. Expert after expert ignored. The UK Tory Government ignore them all. We have seen non-doms protected. Bankers’ bonuses are now unlimited. Many companies are still avoiding their tax responsibilities and public services are facing their most brutal cuts. The Health Foundation pointed out that the whole health budget amounts to only a 1.2% increase in real terms over the next two years, which is well below the historic average of 3.8%. For Scotland, that means having to draw back on the services we can provide. We are focused on trying to support people with fair pay settlements, so they can navigate the cost of living crisis. The Health Foundation also shows that if spending per person had matched the EU average, the UK would have spent £40 billion more than it has done.

On the climate, where have all the good promises gone? Where have all the warm words gone on taking the global climate crisis seriously? In fact, the autumn statement undermines Scotland’s climate change goals and underlined the dangers of Scotland being held back. The UK Government are pushing ahead with nuclear, which is the most costly and the slowest form of energy to deliver, and has the highest environmental impact. The UK already has the most poorly insulated homes in western Europe. There is nothing to change that situation. They still have not delivered, after a number of betrayals, the Peterhead carbon capture and storage project. They have put a higher—higher!—windfall tax on renewable energy producers than they have on oil and gas. That is quite incredible. They have deterred and deferred the uptake of electric vehicles. At a time when momentum was growing for people to invest in an electric vehicle to be better for the climate, what do this Government do? They introduce a pretty high tax to put people off doing that. People will persevere with their petrol and diesel for a bit longer, and burn more carbon-intensive fuels.

In Scotland, the Scottish Government have been working to protect people, despite a real-terms cut of 10% since December due to inflation. Any Westminster increase as a result of the autumn statement will more than be wiped out by inflation. We prioritised public sector fair pay and are prioritising funding to help households, businesses and people to get through this period, but we are reaching the limit. In fact, the limit of what can be done, without borrowing powers and the powers we need to look after our people properly, has already been reached, in sharp contrast to this place. Under Westminster, we continue to see growing inequality, mortgages rising, inflation rising and energy costs skyrocketing. When we compare countries of Scotland’s size or smaller, we find that, for them, independence works. Compared to the UK, those countries are wealthier and more equal, and have higher productivity, lower poverty, lower child poverty and lower pensioner poverty. They have higher social mobility and higher business investment.

Scotland has not voted Tory for nearly 70 years, yet we are saddled with this. Scotland did not vote for Brexit, and we do not want it. Scottish people, families and children are bearing the brunt of Westminster’s legacy. Scotland is being denied the people it needs to strengthen its communities, its businesses and our country. Scotland has voted time and time again to have its say on its future. It cannot be denied. The choice is between the toxic approach here in Westminster, or a normal independent country.