Budget Resolutions

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers). Like him, I want to see a levelling up of investment in the north of England to benefit places such as Stockton, but also places such as Leeds. He mentioned Tetley tea, but I think he knows that the Chancellor prefers Yorkshire Tea. However, apart from that, I am sure they will work together to achieve what we all want to achieve for our country.

Let me start by talking about the measures the Government have taken today to tackle the pandemic of coronavirus. I very much welcome additional support for the national health service, which is much needed. I also support the investment and support for businesses, which will be welcomed by small businesses in all our constituencies. However, I want to say something about the support that has been offered to workers. At Prime Minister’s questions today, the Prime Minister said no one will be penalised for doing the right thing, and I think we can all agree in the House that that must absolutely be the case if we are to protect the health of not only individuals but all of us in wider society.

However, I am afraid that today’s announcements on statutory sick pay and access to benefits for people who have to self-isolate do not rise to meet the mission set out by the Prime Minister. At £94.25 a week, statutory sick pay is about 40% of what someone would take home if they were earning the minimum wage. We all know that living on the minimum wage is hard enough, but living on £94.25 a week is almost impossible. If people are to be penalised for self-isolating, I am afraid that the number of people who self-isolate will not be as high as we need to see. If people are given the choice between self-isolating—protecting themselves—and putting food on the table, paying their rent and paying their mortgage, we have to worry about the choices they will make as they are put in an impossible situation for themselves and their family. I urge the Government to think again about the level of statutory sick pay if we want people to take it.

We know that 16 million people in this country have savings of less than £100, and we know that 60% of people on low and middle incomes have no savings whatsoever. How people will survive on such a meagre amount of money, I just do now know, but many people will not even be eligible for statutory sick pay—those who are self-employed or who earn less than £118 a week. The Government are telling them to draw on ESA or universal credit, but there is a waiting period and conditionality involved. People with even meagre savings or a partner who works may not be eligible for that support, so I urge the Government to think again about the support we give to people who are doing the right thing and protecting all of us by self-isolating if they feel the need to do so.

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown into sharp relief what is happening in our labour market today. We have 4.7 million people in self-employment—many of them by choice, but many of them have no option but to take that route—and 1 million people on zero-hours contracts, many of them not earning enough to make ends meet. They will also be caught out by the coronavirus. Ahead of the employment Bill, this is an opportunity for the Government to reflect on what sort of economy we are creating and on the conditions in which many working people in all our constituencies find themselves.

Beyond that, despite support for the national health service, there is nothing in the Budget about support for local councils, which are often on the frontline of public health and social care. I am sure this is not the last time we will hear from the Chancellor as the pandemic grows, as many expect, in the weeks and months to come, so I urge the Government to look again at support for local government to support our communities.

The Chancellor also announced an increase in the immigration surcharge for the national health service, which will also apply to EU citizens. He says it will raise £1.5 billion, but at what cost? We need people to access our national health service. It is in all our interests that people access the national health service to get the support and treatment they need. If they do not and they take decisions that put all our health and safety at risk, the Government will have to ask why they have taken this decision today.

I urge the Government to think again about support for workers, about support for local councils and about the immigration surcharge, which seems incredibly misjudged at this time. I also urge them to make more multinational efforts, particularly to help the poorest countries in the world that do not have the health service we are lucky to have in our country, to ensure that they, too, can deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

On the economic outlook, we have now had 10 years of Conservative government, and what do we have to show for it? The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts growth to be 1.1% this year, which is before taking the impact of the coronavirus into account. By 2024, the end of the forecast period, the OBR expects growth of 1.4%. At the same time, the national debt is forecast to be £2 trillion by the end of this Parliament. That is double what the Conservatives inherited from the last Labour Government in 2010, and the truth is that stunting growth, by cutting Government spending, by discouraging businesses to invest and by allowing productivity to stagnate, chokes off the growth we need to raise living standards, reduce our budget deficit and pay back the national debt. Ten years of austerity has been a failed experiment and, frankly, we are all paying the price.

Today’s Budget should have been a green Budget. It should have been the greenest Budget ever because, in eight months’ time, we have the privilege and responsibility of hosting COP26 in Glasgow. This is an opportunity for Britain to show global leadership and to show our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that have done all we can to tackle the climate emergency. Yet what have we had in the Budget today? We have had £27 billion to invest in 4,000 miles of roads, and the fuel duty freeze, which costs £2.7 billion, but just £6 billion for local transport and a mere £140 million for a one-year extension of the electric vehicle grants. Frankly, that does not speak of a Government who recognise the scale of the challenge we face, and I urge them to ensure that in the spending review and the national infrastructure plan we are much more ambitious in tackling the climate emergency.

The Government announced £800 million for carbon capture and storage today. Those of us who served on the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in the last Parliament will very much welcome that, but there is a lot of fanfare when the Government make these announcements and not so much when they cancel them. Just four years ago, the Government cancelled £1 billion of investment in CCS, yet they expect us to stand up and cheer when they announce £800 million today. We could be well on the way in delivering CCS, but instead we are four years behind, allowing other countries to steal a lead on us and take advantage in the global market for these new technologies.

I welcome the investment in flood defences that the Chancellor announced today, and well I might, as my constituency was badly affected by Storm Eva and the floods in 2015. We are spending £5.2 billion on flood defences and I am sure that we will be spending much more than that in years to come, because as the climate emergency worsens, we are going to be at greater risk of extreme weather events and flooding. It would be much better to be spending more to tackle the climate emergency, in order to ensure that we do not have these extreme weather events and flooding. So, again, I urge the Government, ahead of COP26, to ensure that we are doing everything we can to tackle the climate emergency that we face.

I shall end by saying that we have waited a long time for this Budget, but I expect we will be hearing a lot more from the Chancellor in the weeks and months ahead, as he has to come back to this House with a range of projects on national infrastructure, on the spending review and, possibly, on tackling the coronavirus as well. When he gets it right, he will get support from our side of the House, as he does on flood defences and the investment in the national health service today, but it is the Opposition’s role to scrutinise the Government and push them to go further to support all of our constituents, be it on coronavirus or the climate emergency.

[Several hon. Members rose—]