Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Priti Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I open my remarks by welcoming you back to the Chair and saying how wonderful it is to hear you, as well as see you, in robust form?

As a former Treasury Minister, I understand the challenges that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, his Treasury colleagues and all their officials have been confronted with, as well as the relentless lobbying from Back Benchers that they have faced in putting this important Budget together. I pay tribute to them all, and to the Chancellor in particular. The work that takes place in balancing the different, contrasting interests and representations received is difficult and challenging. Of course, no Budget will please everyone—there is no doubt about that. There will always be more demands for more resources, more simplicity and so on: I could read out a list, but I am not going to do that now.

Importantly, a key test for any Budget is whether it ensures that a robust framework is in place for sound money. Of course, that is what this Conservative party stands for in government; we believe in sound money, balancing the books, growing our economy and giving people the freedom to succeed, through many of the measures that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has spoken about today. That test includes whether the Budget maintains a strong fiscal position and stability, and whether it delivers fiscal and supply-side reforms to enable the private sector to grow and flourish. He mentioned today a former Chancellor, Lord Lawson, who did exactly that. Those pillars are fundamental to the health, wellbeing and integrity of any sound policy, be it fiscal or monetary, for growing the economy, which then leads to supporting new jobs and creating wealth in our country in order to sustain public services. We should all dwell on that in considering what the Opposition parties are advocating, which would lead to greater instability and, I am afraid, more debt—I do not, however, want to get too party political at this early stage of my remarks.

I do believe that this Budget has combined many of those elements. We must bear in mind that we still face the challenges of the pandemic and of global inflationary pressures, which have disrupted our economy. Sometimes I feel that in this House Opposition parties fail to realise the extent of that disruption and the displacement it has led to in our Government’s fiscal position. It is very significant.

What I like to see, and have seen today, is a Government who are not fearful when it comes to pursuing an ambitious, pro-growth agenda that seeks to reduce the tax burden; I will turn to that shortly. This Budget also makes good progress towards economic growth—this being a Budget for growth—which is also about investment in people, our economy and the long-term future of our country. I will mention a few issues in that regard. First, I ask the Chancellor to keep the wider approach to corporation tax under review. I am personally grateful to him for having heard me on this matter, and I absolutely heard what he said today about the £9 billion of tax incentives that will be put in place, which I understand will be tapered depending on businesses and their level of investment.

There is an important message here that we all know but perhaps have not spoken about enough: many businesses—although not all, because it depends on their size—have been sitting on vast levels of investment that they have not had the confidence to release for investment purposes. I have no doubt that today’s measures will lead to them doing so, but as an Essex MP I have to think of the bulk of small and medium-sized businesses, to which we must put out the hand of support in particular. Thanks to previous policies under Conservative Governments, our country has seen the flowering of many thousands and millions of SMEs; I come from that background myself, as do so many others. We need those businesses to be the lifeblood of our economy, and to grow jobs and employment. Taxing businesses’ profits, the increase in corporation tax and the changes that have been brought in will seem attractive but the devil will be in the detail, and we must continue to work through that.

We do not want to do anything to frustrate business investment. We believe in growth, which is why I was delighted to hear the Chancellor go back to 2010, reminding this House and the country of the struggles and difficulties we faced back then, which led to the start of the corporation tax cuts to help businesses grow. That overall direction of travel was supported on the Government side of the House, while the Opposition obviously had quite a different legacy. I believe that there is more we can do to unleash a wave of pro-growth business reforms and transform our economy even more, particularly post Brexit. Britain post Brexit is about international partnerships and bilateral agreements, but also about showing that we are the place to come and invest. It is about leveraging our markets—our capital markets in particular—demonstrating that we have the financial capabilities to continue to grow, and getting investment back into our country.

When it comes to the wider prospectus of the minimum rate of corporation tax, which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has heard me and other colleagues speak about many times, we know that the introduction of the minimum effective tax rate will be delayed in Washington and in other countries, so I would just ask him again to think carefully about the timing of this. Why now? Let us focus on the budgetary measures he has announced today and ensure we do everything possible to unleash the business potential and economic growth that we desperately and rightly want to see. I will continue to work with him on that issue.

Let me turn to everything that has been announced today regarding enterprise zones, and unlocking the potential of our country and different regions in our economy, to which levelling up in particular, but also tax deductions, will be vital. This will help with future capital investment and supply-side reforms, which will help us to build our infrastructure, invest in people and disperse jobs around the country—and crucially among generations—in a way we have never seen before, or certainly not in my lifetime in Parliament.

I am delighted with the announcements on pensions, lifetime tax allowances, and childcare in particular; I was the Treasury Minister who, back in the day, worked to bring in tax-free childcare. It is important that we focus on low-income households—those who struggle to get their foot on the ladder when it comes to childcare, and even to get sustainable employment. When I was Employment Minister, I worked with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) in the Department for Work and Pensions, where we saw so many challenges with the introduction of universal credit and wanted to make reforms to work capability assessments. Today’s announcements are vital labour market reforms that will help to get more people back into work. I endorse the work of the Chancellor and colleagues across Government in that regard.

The Chancellor will not be surprised that I welcome his announcement that he is freezing fuel duty and keeping the reduction that was introduced last year. He understands the difficulties and pressures on household budgets, which he has spoken strongly about today. We are on the side of hard-pressed motorists and hard-pressed taxpayers; we have to stand up for them, as times have been tough. November’s Office for Budget Responsibility report alone caused families concern, so the headroom that has now transpired is welcome. This is an important, welcome and great buffer for motorists and for the country.

Keeping fuel duty down will also help the Government to meet their ambitious target of reducing inflation. Everybody wants to see inflation come down for the right reasons. That is how we grow the economy. This measure will save hard-pressed families, as well as businesses, hundreds of pounds a year. I represent Witham, which is full of logistics firms. We have ports surrounding us, and we are very proud of their work. They will absolutely benefit from the freeze. We have a proud record of supporting the nation’s motorists, including hard-pressed people, for 13 years—a record of which we should always remind everyone across the country. That, of course, compares favourably with the record of previous Governments. Families and businesses in London, Essex and the surrounding areas will look at what we have done on fuel duty against what the Mayor of London is proposing with the ultra low emission zone. That is absolutely something else; it is a charge that will hit low-income families. While Conservatives are constantly tackling issues around high taxes, we should also be pushing out this challenge.

I will make a few other observations, including on infrastructure needs, which are particularly down to supply-side reforms. Essex is a county of entrepreneurs, and our road network is vital. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has heard me speak about the A120, the A12 and all the fantastic roads that, I am afraid, are gridlocked. We need wider investment, because it is the only way to keep our haulage moving and our motorists travelling, and particularly to ensure that our transport is fit for the future. That comes from Treasury investment as well.

In the interests of time, I will conclude my remarks. I commend my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for the way in which he has approached this Budget. Last year, he said to me, “We will have a Budget for growth.” He is true to his word. There are areas on which I would like to follow up with him and Ministers, but I thank him for having engaged constructively, and for having listened to commuters and motorists, as well as to the voice of Essex and others around the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Priti Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady raises an important issue, which I understand dates back two years to schemes run by the previous Government. As I understand it, it was the company itself that raised the issue with the relevant authorities. There is an ongoing police investigation, so it would be inappropriate for me to comment much further. All I would say is that the investigation needs to be thorough and needs to get to the truth, and then we can take its findings into account.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

Q8. Generations of young people have benefited from work experience schemes through getting experience of the working world. Will the Prime Minister praise those companies that are doing everything they possibly can to encourage work experience schemes—unlike the militant hard left, who have not only shut down these schemes, but would rather see people get a handout as opposed to a hand-up in life?

[The Prime Minister]

I think my hon. Friend speaks for many in this House and the overwhelming majority in this country who think that companies offering work experience schemes to those on unemployment benefit is a thoroughly good thing. Let us be clear: this is not a compulsory scheme, but one that young people ask to go on. The findings are that around half of them are actually getting work at the end of these schemes. That is a far better outcome than the future jobs fund had—and at about a 20th of the cost. I think we should encourage companies and young people to expand work experience because it gives people the chance to see work and all it involves, and gives them a better chance to get a job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Priti Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point. Every country should obey the Geneva convention and the other conventions that it has signed, and Israel should be no exception to that. Ministers in the Government I lead raise those issues with Israeli Ministers, as we should, and that is extremely important. The fact is, what we really need is a long-term settlement of the Palestinian issue, and we want a two-state solution. It is very important that we put pressure on both sides at all times to ensure that we make progress. The lack of progress only plays into the hands of the extremists, and we can see that all the moderates in the middle east who are trying to make progress are being undermined by our failure to do better.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

Q15. If the Human Rights Act is “a glaring example of what is going wrong in our country”,when will the Government put the human rights of the law-abiding majority above those of dangerous convicted criminals?

[The Prime Minister]

It is right that we should be replacing the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. I have personally looked at the matter long and hard and believe that there is no better solution than that. We are committed to starting a process of looking at that to see whether we can remove some of the nonsenses that have grown up over recent years and show that we can have a commitment to proper rights, but they should be written down here in this country.