Income tax (charge)

Richard Baker Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak about how this Budget is fixing the foundations of our economy, which could not be more important for my constituents. I listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) about the last Labour Government. Let us remember that the last Labour Government lifted 900,000 children out of poverty. What costs to our economy are caused by poverty, rather than getting people into work and securing for them the quality of life and living standards that they deserve?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Baker]

Of course, because I have just mentioned the hon. Gentleman in my speech.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

One hon. Member complained about food banks. Actually, food banks started under Tony Blair. I think that we need to share these problems and concerns. We need to understand each other’s different approaches to economic policy if we are eventually to have a solid approach to reviving the economy of this country, but I am afraid that this Budget does not do that. There will be more poor people as a result of this Budget.

[Richard Baker]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. In Scotland we say, “Facts are cheils that winna ding.” The fact of the matter is that 900,000 additional children were lifted out of poverty by the previous Labour Government, and the rise and use of food banks under this Administration has been exponential —to the extent that, now we as a Government are dealing with food banks running out of food because of the level of poverty that we have inherited. This Budget will fix the foundations of our economy. It will redistribute wealth, tackle poverty and invest in growth. That is why we can look forward to what will be achieved by this Government, thanks to the decisions taken by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Anybody looking at events in Scotland will see that my constituents have suffered from two Governments failing to deliver on investment and failing to deliver on growth. Their mismanagement of the public finances stands in sharp contrast to the measures that have been bought forward by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has taken some challenging decisions on taxation, to ensure that there is no return to austerity and that we can invest in growth.

The Budget gives us the chance to move on from the reckless incompetence of the Tories here in Westminster and of the SNP in Holyrood. It is a chance to move on from the catastrophic mini-Budget of Liz Truss—a mini- Budget that caused so much damage to my constituents. The hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) conjured up images of Halloween in her speech, but the economic nightmare was caused by the Conservative party, and our constituents paid the price in their living standards.

Those of us in Scotland cannot underestimate the impact of the shambolic stewardship of Scotland’s finances by the SNP. It is one thing for the SNP to crash the finances of its own party, but quite another to crash the finances of our country. The SNP Government have completely mishandled contracts for much-needed new ferries. Other public sector projects have been overspent by millions, while others have been delayed or cancelled. They have also failed to spend hundreds of millions of pounds which had been allocated to them in structural funds. Funding for our local authorities has been slashed. The housing budget has been cut, and the Institute of Fiscal Studies assessed that the Scottish health budget faced a real-terms cut under the SNP in this financial year.

While we know that this Budget is fixing the foundations, so that we can deal with the reckless approach of the previous Government here, the SNP cannot simply blame everyone else for its own mistakes, as, yet again, it has attempted to do over the past 24 hours.

[Mims Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech, not least because he has mentioned both me and my constituency, so I am grateful to him for that. On that point about the SNP blaming everyone else, he has just blamed the SNP and then blamed us. While he is looking at all this guilt, he should consider the merry-go-round operating under Labour with its jobs for the boys. Perhaps he might like to address that issue.

[Richard Baker]

I think the guilt should be felt by those on the Conservative Benches. The fact is that we have inherited a £22 billion black hole in the country’s finances, and that has been assessed independently by the OBR. That is how blame should be apportioned.

I was talking about matters in Scotland, which I am sure will be of interest to the hon. Lady and her constituents. The Scottish Fiscal Commission stated that much of the pressure in Scotland comes from the Scottish Government’s own decisions on cuts in its last Budget. I very much welcome the additional £3.4 billion that will come to Scotland and our public services through this Budget. It is vital that the SNP learns from its mistakes, and undoes the damage that it has caused. I do not know where the SNP Members are today. Perhaps they are travelling back to Scotland in their own party campervan.

My constituents cannot put up any longer with lengthening waits for hospital treatment, with finding it so difficult to register for an NHS dentist, and with a housing crisis where so many people do not have the homes they need or cannot get a foot on the housing ladder. In my constituency, there can also now be no excuse for further delays by the Scottish Government in constructing a new health centre for Lochgelly. The SNP has promised to deliver this for over a decade, but has failed to do so.

In contrast, this Budget sets out a different vision for our public services. This Government will invest in homes and in our schools. Having worked with the disability charity, Enable, prior to taking my seat in this place, I am delighted with the announcements on social care and special educational needs. It is astonishing to hear some Members talk about our plans for wages in the social care sector. They seem to imply that our hard-working social care staff, who play such a huge role in our communities, should not get fair pay for that vital role that they carry out for us and for our loved ones.

The pension triple lock is protected. Representing a constituency where there are so many former miners— 849 members of the mineworkers’ pension scheme are living in Glenrothes and Mid Fife—I am delighted that this Government are ensuring that more than £1 billion owed to them will be returned, which will be an average of £29 a week more for each member, as my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) highlighted in his excellent maiden speech—one of so many excellent maiden speeches from Labour Members.

As many of my constituents benefit from this Government’s ending an injustice of the past, more can look to investment in the future. The Budget is redistributive, but it is a Budget for growth, too, boosting public investment by £100 billion over the next five years. A total of £125 million is immediately being invested in GB Energy, headquartered in Aberdeen. It was extraordinary, Madam Deputy Speaker, that when it came to the vote this week, SNP Members failed to back the establishment of GB Energy. Far from standing up for Scotland, the ones who were actually here were sitting on their hands.

Renewables is a key and growing part not only of the Scottish economy, but of our local economy in Glenrothes and Mid Fife. Along with GB Energy focused on establishing Scotland and the UK as a green energy powerhouse, the National Wealth Fund opens up the potential for us to invest in our renewables infrastructure. As we seek to secure a long-term future for the Methil fabrication yard in my constituency, investment in the facilities of that yard would ensure that the 200-strong skilled workforce can play a vital role in taking forward our ambitions for our renewables sector.

The election of Anas Sarwar as Scotland’s First Minister will be required for my constituency to reap all the rewards that the Budget has set the foundations for, but with £3.4 billion extra for Scotland in it, as the Scottish Trades Union Congress has said:

“The task now falls to the Scottish Government to take the decisions needed to invest, through progressive taxation, into our communities and public services. The Westminster blame game is finished.”

This is a Budget for our public services, and a Budget to boost investment. This is a Budget for Scotland.