Autumn Statement Resolutions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

You tempt me in the wrong direction, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sure that, in a few minutes, those on the Government Front Bench will wish that I had had fewer minutes.

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). He always speaks a lot of sense in the House, and I listened with interest to what he said. It is also a pleasure to welcome the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami), to his place. I am sure he will do a fantastic job in the Treasury, as will the rest of the team.

I congratulate the Chancellor, because at the start of this debate the Opposition were struggling to have anything to say about what was in his statement. They talked about things that the Chancellor was not doing, and then they tried desperately not to sound too enthusiastic about the things that he was doing. That is part of the success of the Chancellor’s statement. I therefore congratulate him on making a reasonable and good start, but we have a very long way to go to get back to Conservative principles in public financing.

I want to draw attention to three charts that the Institute for Fiscal Studies prepared. The first shows public spending increases in real terms, going back all the way to 1985-86. As one gets older, one likes looking at longer-term trends in things. The chart shows that in this Parliament there was a significant increase in public expenditure in two fiscal years. As Ministers have said, those were caused by exceptional items: the covid response and the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Those one-off increases should have been followed by significant real reductions in public expenditure, to get it back to where it was. If we have real increases, we are then at a higher level, and we get back to where we were before the one-offs only if we have real reductions. There was nothing in the announcements today that indicated that the Government have got to grips with that essential point about public spending.

The second chart from the IFS looks at tax rises across Parliaments. I do not want to get into the nitty-gritty, although it is true that, at the moment, this is the largest tax-raising Parliament of any, and that will be extremely difficult for me to explain to my constituents, but if we look over the longer term, four of the six Parliaments from 1970 to 1997 were tax-cutting Parliaments, and only two were tax-increasing. Of the seven Parliaments since 1997, five have increased taxes and only two have reduced them. We have a political-class problem: whichever party is in power, we are biased towards increasing the burden on taxpayers to increase the state. That is not a Conservative approach to the economy.

Thirdly, the IFS looked at the proportion of taxpayers now captured in the higher and additional rate. Lots of sensible words have been said by Members in all parts of the House about thresholds and the drag. When this rate was brought in, 4% of adults paid that higher rate. With measures not reversed today—it is important that we say to the Treasury, “You did not reverse this today”—that number will rise to 16% by 2027-28. That is not 16% of taxpayers, but 16% of all adults and so it includes people who are not working and it includes pensioners. The actual number will be nearly one in four taxpayers paying the higher rate of tax. That is not a Conservative way to run the economy.

There are some specific hopes in what the Government have put in. I particularly welcome some of the measures, including those set out in paragraphs 5.95, 5.96 and 5.97 in the Green Book, which form part of the Chancellor’s 110 measures. They seek to strengthen economic regulation and impose, or introduce, a growth duty on Ofwat, Ofcom and Ofgem. Those important measures will stimulate growth, but my point would be: is that it? Regulators cover 25% of the productive part of our economy. Members in all parts of the House have pointed out numerous times the failures of our regulators to manage their sectors effectively, be it water or energy. What on earth are the Government doing to make regulators make more effort to stimulate growth? I ask the regulators, please, not only to stick with current efforts but to do more of what they can. I know that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary feels similarly.

The Financial Secretary is not here, but he has responsibility for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The Green Book contains an interesting item at paragraph 5.57, which is heroically called:

“Investment in HMRC debt management capability”.

I have a background in venture capital and this measure, for £163 million, promises an annual return of more than £1 billion. We put £163 million of extra resources into HMRC to chase on this issue and we get £1 billion back, according to the Government’s numbers. How does that happen? It is because this measure

“will allow HMRC to better distinguish between those who can afford to settle their tax debts, but choose not to, from those who are temporarily unable to pay and need support.”

That is a massive extension of the roles and responsibility of HMRC into the personal finances or the corporate finances of small businesses. Clearly, that may be a good measure, whereby we can close the tax gap. I worry, however, that HMRC is extending itself a little too far and not focusing on the bread and butter issues, such as picking up the phone and answering the inquiries of taxpayers day to day.

The Chancellor was right to introduce productivity targets for the public, as it is clear that since the pandemic the private sector has roared ahead with productivity improvements and the public sector has done absolutely nothing to improve productivity. But why go for 0.5%? What institution cannot achieve more than a 0.5% improvement in productivity year on year? The Chancellor should look at strengthening that target. While he is at it, why does he not go through all the capital projects that do not have a positive benefit-to-cost ratio, on proper discounted cash-flow terms, and cancel the lot of them? If they are going to waste public money, let us not spend the public money in the first place.

Unlike some Opposition Members, I welcome the triple lock and the living wage increase. Those long-term Conservative policies have been put in place and year on year they have done so much to take working people and many pensioners out of poverty. Those measures are expensive for the state—of course, we need to understand that—but they are crucial parts of making our society more equal. I have one point to raise: I do not think anyone in this House is confident about introducing a regional living wage, as there are lots of problems with that. However, we must note that the living wage is rising to £11.44 and that is nearly 80% of median wages in Wales. There becomes an issue in certain regions as to whether this very strong push on the national living wage will have a distributional effect on unemployment.

Although I may not sound it, I am pleased that the Chancellor has announced these measures. It is clear we live in a world where forecasters now have the whip hand—how on earth we got here, I do not know. One year there is no headroom, but then they spin the forecast around and a year later there is. Who knows where this will end? Whatever that headroom has been, the Chancellor has pointed the ship of state in the right direction and I wish him full speed ahead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Lady is exactly right on that. We have to have the courage to understand that there are different pressures in labour markets. As we push forward the national living wage increases, we need to take those pressures into account if we are to get the right balance for employment.

[Catherine West]

As you will know with your lifetime of experience in social care and other sorts of public services, Madam Deputy Speaker, the good councils—I have to say they are mainly Labour councils—have introduced the living wage for all their contracting and subcontracting. That makes an enormous difference in the local economy. I challenge every single council to try to push for more from its procurement pound.

In the survey results from all the places that I visited over the summer with my wonderful staff and an ex-BBC journalist who helped me to get the survey right, some 55% felt that their quality of life had deteriorated since the pandemic. The British Red Cross research reports “Life after lockdown” and “Lonely and left behind” found that 41% of UK adults feel lonelier since the start of the initial lockdown. Millions are going a fortnight without having a meaningful conversation. The pandemic showed the importance of tackling loneliness, and it is clear that the Government strategy on loneliness simply is not working. The Red Cross said that

“tackling loneliness should be built into Covid-19 recovery plans”,

and:

“Governments should ensure those most at risk of loneliness are able to access the mental health and emotional support they need to cope and recover from Covid-19.”

These are the very people whom the Chancellor was trying to address when he said that there were increased rates of worklessness in people over the age of 50. I am sure that access to mental health services and emotional support is very much a part of that puzzle.

As well as mental and physical health and wellbeing, we must also consider the impact that grief, bereavement and the economic struggles that people are facing have on people’s sense of wellbeing. Some 51% of respondents to my survey said that they are unable to participate in events because they are online, and that also needs to be looked at, because the digital divide is real and desperately needs to be addressed by local authorities and all Departments. Some 45% said that it was harder to see their GP than before the pandemic. Some 48% said they had experienced a reduction in NHS services, particularly in podiatry, chiropody and physio. Those are crucial services that people need to keep mobile, which reduces the cost to the NHS and the queue of people waiting for care in the NHS.

Before I conclude, I will make one point on the importance of primary care and that relationship with a GP. If individuals are not on the internet and they go to see their GP, eight minutes is not really enough. In some cases, they are not even getting eight minutes every six months. So many people are living without seeing a human being day-to-day. For 13 years now, social care has lacked the funding and attention that it deserves, with £8 billion lost from adult social care budgets. In my constituency, I hear from residents having to pay thousands of pounds for their care or care for a loved one. There are high levels of unmet or under-met care needs. The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services estimated that around 246,000 people were waiting for a care assessment in August 2022.

The final finding from my survey is that 60% of the people I spoke to in all different sorts of care settings said that they felt lonely or isolated, and 34% rarely had visitors. The loneliness strategy simply is not working. It is having a real effect on our economy and on our older folk. I hope that can be addressed as this debate goes forward.