Amendment of the Law

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I would like to congratulate the Chancellor and his team on producing an innovative Budget in difficult times, but none the less a Budget for business and hard-working families. We need more jobs, more employment and more businesses set-up, because we cannot borrow our way out of a crisis, as Labour would like us to do. Rather, we have to earn our way out of this situation.

I find it strange that Opposition Members are so miserable all the time. All they can do is pour scorn and misery on what is a very good Budget. There are so many things in the Budget that are good for Britain and good for hard-working families, but Opposition Members never seem to be able to see it. The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) is no longer in his place, but I was pleased that he mentioned the measures dealing with future armed forces spending, such as the doubling of the service accommodation relief for families and the welfare grant, along with council tax relief. I am sure that everybody in the House, including Opposition Members, will welcome anything that helps our hard-working service people, who are out there fighting for this country. However, apart from the hon. Gentleman, I have not heard anybody else mention the fact that the Chancellor is doing that.

There are so many positive things in the Budget that it is difficult to pick them out.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Do try.

[Pauline Latham]

The hon. Gentleman should not worry; I will try, although I am disappointed that I have only five minutes to do so.

The Growing Places fund for the local enterprise partnership in my area will bring in an additional £8.5 million, which will be a tremendous boost to the area. Nobody over there on the Opposition Benches really seems to be all that pleased about the largest increase in the personal allowance for 30 years, which I find staggering. I would have thought that they would support the measure, which will take a lot of people out of tax altogether; indeed, 24 million people in this country will benefit from that.

[Mr Iain Wright]

The hon. Lady has mentioned the personal allowance and talked about those of us on the Opposition Benches being miserable. Does she think that the 16,994 pensioners in her constituency will be miserable as a result of the actions in yesterday’s Budget?

[Pauline Latham]

I do not know how you have calculated that for my constituency, because I am not even sure you know where it is. We are looking after pensioners. They will not be losing what you are talking about. They are getting a bigger increase than ever from the triple lock, and we are increasing their allowances. There will possibly be a year when some people will have to pay slightly more tax, but not the majority. Most people will not be spending any more money, and they will certainly not be losing any more money next year compared with this year, so you might like to look a little more carefully at what we are doing.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I gently remind the hon. Lady, as I did the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) earlier, that we direct debate through the Chair. I am not involved in these arguments.

[Pauline Latham]

I do apologise, Mr Speaker.

The change to child benefit is also something that we should welcome, as it shows that the Chancellor has listened to what people out there have been saying. There will not be a cliff edge, as people have suggested, and no one earning £50,000 or less will lose anything. Only when people earn more than £60,000, which is quite a lot of money, will they lose their child benefit.

[Kate Green]

None the less, would the hon. Lady acknowledge that the Chancellor has been unable to resolve the anomaly whereby a couple earning £98,000 between them might be able to keep their child benefit, while a single parent on an income of £49,500 would not?

[Pauline Latham]

What the Chancellor has done is prevented us from having to go through a huge amount of paperwork that would have cost the country an awful lot of money. People might say, “Oh, but we don’t live together. We used to, but we are no longer together.” There will be so many loopholes, but he has done a good thing by going up to £60,000. I think that the majority of people in this country would agree with that, although of course Labour Members will not.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pauline Latham]

I will not, as I do not have much time left.

We have not heard much about the rate of corporation tax going down significantly, yet that will benefit small businesses in particular. We need those businesses to thrive and to employ more people. The Chancellor has also introduced the new enterprise allowance and enterprise loans, which will help more people, particularly women, to start up businesses. That will give those businesses an opportunity to flourish and to take on more people to work for them.

No one has mentioned the fact that the national planning policy framework is to be published shortly. The increase in construction that that will bring will significantly help the country to move out of recession. There will be protections for the countryside, for the green belt, for national parks, for sites of special scientific interest and for areas of outstanding natural beauty, despite the doom-makers on the Opposition Benches trying to persuade people otherwise.

I am very pleased to see the introduction of an above-the-line research and development tax credit. In my area, Rolls-Royce, Toyota, JCB and Bombardier employ a lot of people from my constituency, and they will benefit from such a measure. We must remember that Rolls-Royce is doing exceptionally well in the aerospace industry in our area. We have not heard much about the investment decision by GlaxoSmithKline, which is a direct result of the Government’s policies. It would not have decided to spend that money in this country if the Government had not come up with the solutions that they put forward yesterday.

I would, however, like to put in two pleas to the Ministers. I would like Derby and the area of Derbyshire around it to be considered as one of the areas that will benefit from high-speed broadband. There is a part of my constituency in Derby that used to be the largest private housing estate in Europe, and it has some of the slowest broadband speeds around. I would like to put in a bid for Derby to be a recipient of any improvements. I should also like to point out that the electrification of the midland main line was missing from the Budget statement. I would have liked to have heard that in this Budget, but perhaps it is in the pipeline and the Chancellor will bring forward those plans in the future.