Finance (No. 2) Bill

Richard Holden Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I also want to highlight, as other Members have done, the tribute from my constituents following the death of His Royal Highness, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. I know that the thoughts of so many have been with Her Majesty the Queen over the past few days.

I speak today in huge support of the Finance Bill. It is absolutely fundamental in the steps that we are taking for constituencies such as mine both in the short and the long term. I would like to associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson). She made a really fundamental point, which is that we politicians in Westminster do not create the wealth; that is down to the businesses, entrepreneurs and workers in North West Durham and across the country, but we can help to set the pitch and enable them to succeed. The Government’s work recently, particularly in relation to continuing the business rate holiday and the VAT holiday, has been helpful and will really help some of my businesses rebound.

The broader point is that this Budget sets out some really good things for the long term, particularly around productivity, as highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami). Technology adaptation, along with the Help to Grow scheme, needs to happen for those productivity gains in businesses. The super deduction gives a real opportunity, particularly for the manufacturing centre, which is so capital intensive, to invest for the long term, knowing that that cash will be repaid in spades and also that there will be a tax break. That will also help to counter some of the issues that we are bound to see around unemployment because of the covid pandemic.

More broadly, we are now seeing the levelling up start to take shape. The finance for lifelong learning is provided for in the Bill. That is hugely important for constituencies such as mine, where a far higher than average number of people do not have the level 3 skills that we know make the real difference to people’s earning capacity. Last year, we saw the great motor homes tax cut from the Chancellor in the Budget. That has had a real, direct impact on my constituents this year in our manufacturing centre.

On the levelling-up fund, it has been great to see that £4.6 billion was announced. The Treasury need to be aware that I will be putting in bids for both Consett and the three-town area of Crook, Willington and Tow Law. I have already had conversations with some of the other council candidates and the local council about that, so I am really hoping that we can get some of that cash into our areas to help to boost them and the towns that have felt left behind for too long.

I felt that a couple of comments from the Opposition on higher council tax being forced on to councils did beggar belief to a degree, especially when, in Durham, we are seeing our Labour-controlled council—Labour-run for 102 years—spending £50 million on a new county hall on a floodplain with a roof terrace, at the same time as raising council tax, which is currently the eighth highest in the country out of 340 councils.

I would particularly like to pick up on one other thing, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young): the really great news about the freeport. It just goes to show what great local MPs working with the superb Mayor of Teesside, Ben Houchen, can do. That is exactly what we need to see in County Durham as well—great, entrepreneurial, business-focused local government working with local MPs. I was somewhat alarmed by the comments from the hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray) from the Opposition Front Bench. He suggested that these freeports would be places for smuggling and organised crime to thrive. He made it sound a bit like “Pirates of the Caribbean” is coming to Teesside, when the truth is actually quite different. We have already seen thousands of jobs being created locally and huge numbers of Government jobs both from the Treasury and the Department for International Trade moving to the north-east. That is incredibly welcome not just for Teesside and the constituents there, but the entire north-east region.

There is a lot to commend in this Budget, but the financial responsibility and the need for fiscal responsibility have not gone away. It really matters in the long term, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), the Chair of the Treasury Committee, said at the start. We have to ensure that we maintain that financial responsibility because any rise in interest rates will see serious issues for the economy and Government spending in the long term. I think this is a really balanced approach. It has some short-term measures in there to restart the economy and some of the long-term measures that my constituents voted for at the general election. And crucially, it is a proper Conservative Budget, because at the heart of it is long-term fiscal responsibility.