Budget Resolutions

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

As I listened to the Chancellor talk about driverless cars in the Budget speech last week, what struck me was how few of his measures will help the residents in St Helens, Whiston and Prescot in my constituency. He said nothing about the fact that we are facing the longest fall in our living standards on record. A reasonably waged family in my constituency with two children will be £800 worse off every year after 2021.

There was nothing in the Chancellor’s speech about securing a long-term solution for funding care for our older and vulnerable people. There was no additional funding for care packages, and our elderly and disabled still face savage cuts from the £10 million general grant reduction announced in previous Budgets. Despite the council raising the social care precept of 3% for this year and next year, with £2.5 million from previous years, there was no additional funding to meet the ever growing demand for social care year on year. The slight increase in funding to help cope with the annual winter crisis at A&Es was welcome, but even with the pioneering work of St Helens Council and St Helens and Whiston Hospitals, it will not ward off the increase in the number of elderly and infirm people at A&Es.

I asked the Prime Minister how she would use the Budget to address police funding, but the Chancellor said nothing about funding for the police—he did not mention the police—or about how to fight the 20% rise in violent crime given the 22% cuts to frontline policing in Merseyside. He ignored the increases of 19%, in domestic abuse, of 20% in violence and of 26.5%. in rape. There are outstanding prison recalls, and gun and knife crime is increasing. There have been two candlelit vigils for murdered young people in my constituency this weekend. Merseyside exports more organised crime groups and county line issues than any other area in the country. Merseyside police dealt with 8,729 missing people, of whom 64% or 5,601 were aged 16 and under. These children and vulnerable adults are at high risk of extreme physical and sexual violence, gang recriminations and trafficking. My constituents fully support our police and are trying to rebuild their communities as safe places free of knives, guns and exploitation, and my constituents are petitioning for more police.

We need a Government who support the public and public services—a Government who care. The Chancellor said nothing about the ongoing 3% real annual cut in benefits. Of course, nothing was said about replacing the eye-watering £94 million funding taken from St Helens Council services by 2020. Yes, there is some hope for those poor individuals sleeping rough on the streets, although the money will not go that far.

The help for a few young people to buy homes is welcome, but we need to be clear that the Chancellor’s housing proposals will not work in St Helens and Knowsley. None of my people earns anything like enough to buy a property worth £300,000. The stamp duty cut for first-time buyers only works if they are one of the small number of households who can afford such a property. Help with the deposit for a mortgage is no use to people who have already bought a small terraced house that their growing family can no longer fit into. The stamp duty change will channel much of our hard-earned income to those in the south. Less than 0.5% of my constituents would be able to buy a property at £300,000, and because the Chancellor has abolished brownfield land regeneration funding, the Government are not acting now against companies that hoard building land and their advisers.

The Budget feels a bit like the Government’s new cars: driverless and heading down the wrong road and on to reckless destruction—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

Britain’s future is indeed a global one. As the Foreign Secretary made clear today, we are leaving the European Union but not retreating in on ourselves; there is a whole world of opportunities that we can and must pursue. That will, in the words of the Red Book,

“see the UK becoming a world leader in new and emerging technologies, creating better paid and highly skilled jobs.”

Nowhere will that future be more welcome than in Stoke-on-Trent, and the key to our success in that global future lies in our building on the strengths of Stoke-on-Trent’s unique local history, not least as a world leader in ceramics, design, technology and manufacturing.

My constituents were very clear in the EU referendum—they voted by 70% to leave—and they think that Brexit should indeed mean Brexit; that it should mean something manifestly different from the status quo. Many people in Stoke-on-Trent South felt strongly that EU membership had not been enough to benefit traditional working-class areas, that it had not been enough to bring improvements in our quality of life, and that it had not been enough to realise the huge potential for a major revival of our world-class ceramics industry.

The Budget has a firm emphasis on skills, cutting-edge technology, infrastructure and a sustainable cost of living. I hope that the Government’s national commitment can be capitalised upon locally by existing manufacturers, and by new or even returning manufacturers, especially in our world-class household ceramics, giftware and, of course, bricks and tiles, across the Potteries.

The modern industrial strategy will mean that Stoke-on-Trent and Britain are fit for a global future. Critical to that is ensuring that Stoke-on-Trent can benefit from capital investment, with projects such as HS2 delivering lasting local benefits. It is essential to maintain our enviable connectivity at the heart of the UK as a globally important centre of manufacturing and distribution.

In Stoke-on-Trent, we make art from dirt, and we sell our incredible products right around the world. “Made in Stoke-on-Trent” and “Made in Britain” are huge marks of quality, and these back stamps can command a premium price in the international ceramics markets. They are the soft power behind hard cash. The link between industry, design and art is what makes Stoke-on-Trent such a culturally unique place. Winning the 2021 city of culture bid would transform the opportunities from these industries, promoting Stoke-on-Trent as a more attractive place to live, work and visit.

For areas that have a strong manufacturing tradition, such as Stoke-on-Trent, and not just in ceramics but in a whole number of industries, opportunities will flow from Britain’s becoming a truly global trading nation. Working in tandem with our modern industrial strategy, we can champion new trade agreements beyond our shores, with our partners in the EU and with the wider world.

By getting T-Levels and apprenticeships right, by investing in success and by ensuring prestige, we are providing clear routes to employment—tangible career paths in the global economy—and providing opportunities to our aspiring manufacturers and technicians of the future. The Government’s role as the driver of global Britain must be to open world markets to our local manufacturing excellence and to continue to push our industries to become more internationally competitive. Investing in infrastructure, skills and innovative research will mean greater prosperity, improving the quality of jobs in places such as Stoke-on-Trent.

The Government have worked hard to increase our international tax competitiveness, and to enable smaller businesses to grow and compete with the global players—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I call Angela Smith.