Amendment of the Law

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

I am listening to what the hon. Lady says about young people not being given the skills they need and about NEETs. I do not know whether she was here earlier this afternoon when the Chancellor announced £200 million for 50,000 extra apprenticeships, which are targeted specifically at those young people who need training and skills to be able to get on the employment ladder.

[Diana Johnson]

Like all hon. Members, I think apprenticeships are an excellent idea. Employers in Hull, however, will tell anyone that the new criteria that have to be fulfilled to take on an apprentice mean that many of the young people cannot get into the workplace. They may be with a training provider, but actually finding an apprenticeship with a business is proving very difficult. I do not know where these 250,000 apprenticeships are going to come from. If the Government can do this, I say “Excellent, we are all supportive,” but to be honest, you are in la-la land—[Interruption.]—or, indeed, in the land of green ginger, which is another very good example.

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[Mr Jones]

I do know that, Mr Deputy Speaker, but it is important to get these things on the record.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) makes a good point. The two enterprise zones for the north-east will be in Tyneside and the Tees valley. That important piece of infrastructure is somehow supposed to be funded by the private sector, but that is exactly the kind of public expenditure that should be going into the region to create jobs and regenerate infrastructure. My concern about the enterprise zones is that places such as Durham and Northumberland have been left out. If we look back at the old enterprise zones, we see that all we got from them was a shovelling around of businesses and artificial borders. The zones will make it very difficult to attract inward investment to Durham and Northumberland.

As has been said, page 42 of the Red Book shows that funding for the 22 enterprise zones will add up to about £1 million each over their lifetime, which will not in any way help the regeneration of either Tyneside or Teesside. We will have the talking shops of the local enterprise partnerships, but no real money to do anything. The disastrous situation at the moment is that we have £106 million of European regional development fund but no money for One North East, local authorities or universities to match fund projects. The Government’s regional strategy is in a complete and utter mess, and the Budget will do nothing to assist.

One issue that has already been raised is—

[Mr Gyimah]

So why raise it again?

[Mr Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman want to intervene?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman said that the point he was about to make had already been raised a number of times, so I was asking why he was raising it again.

[Mr Jones]

If the hon. Gentleman continues, I might go on for a bit longer, so he must be clever and not do so.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) said, it has been billed that the Government have somehow saved the motorist by reducing tax by 1p, but the effects of paying for that will be disastrous for the oil industry in this country, including Scotland. They will be disastrous for the north-east, as it relies heavily on Teesside and Tyneside to supply the expanding gas and oil fields, which need long-term investment. It is completely and utterly irresponsible to throw a spanner into the works of the investment in developing some of the most difficult oil and gas fields in the North sea.

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[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

May I draw your attention, Mr Deputy Speaker, and that of other hon. Members to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my interests in venture capital and small businesses? I would also like to join others in praising the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for his maiden speech, which I thought was eloquent, relevant and insightful.

Unfortunately, I cannot apply those three adjectives to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, which is a great shame. When I listened to the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) during Monday’s debate on the UN resolution, I thought he spoke as a serious statesman on behalf of not only his own party, but the whole country. Today, however, I am afraid that his speech was more like a pantomime act than a serious contribution. I hope that the shadow Chancellor will provide a better and more insightful response tomorrow. It is a shame because the people of Bedford and Kempston want to hear not what is not going to be done, but what is going to be done. They heard very clearly from the Chancellor what he was going to do.

It is not my job to tell Opposition Members to do their job, but I think it is time that we heard from them what they would do, which I did not hear. Up until the last speech by the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), I had not heard that at all. If Members are challenged and accept that there is a deficit, it is important for them honestly to come forward and say what steps and measures they would cut. They should not just throw out the next unfunded commitment in response. That does not help achieve consensus in what are very difficult times.

In addition, we are done a disservice because Labour Members’ failure to atone makes their constant outcries sound like a masquerade of keening by discredited professional mourners of the past. It would be much more insightful if they were able credibly to engage in the issue of how to get the deficit back under control. As their own unofficial website, labour uncut says, their current strategy of

“Hang on, I haven’t decided”

does not answer the needs of the time.

[Mr Gyimah]

I think that Labour has a plan. As we discovered from its press conference last week, the plan is to repeat last year’s bank bonus tax and spend the £2 billion that it raises in 10 different ways.

[Richard Fuller]

I shall be interested to see how Opposition Members respond to what my hon. Friend has said.

I would subject the Budget to the tests specified by the hon. Member for Barnsley Central: the impact that it will have on the most vulnerable, and what it will do for growth. It is difficult to introduce deficit reduction measures that do not disadvantage the poorest. What the hon. Member for Wirral South said about the impact of rising prices on people who were not receiving increases in their pay packets was absolutely right. I say to Ministers that—not necessarily for the purposes of the current year, but certainly as we look forward to next year and the year after that—we must think very carefully about what we will do for public sector workers who have experienced a pay freeze in at least one year, and in some cases in a number of years. Members on both sides of the House will want to hear a little more about that.

As I said earlier when I intervened on the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), the issue of the mobility component of disability living allowance is also of vital interest to Members in all parts of the House. We must ensure that we protect the most vulnerable people in our care homes. I have met the Minister responsible for the disabled—the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller)—on many occasions, and I know that she shares my passionate interest in that subject.

In the context of protecting the most vulnerable, let me first urge Ministers to continue to give full support to the welfare reform measures that are being pushed through by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. The universal credit will be of major, long-term, significant and beneficial advantage to low-paid and poor people in our country, and it is a measure that those on the Treasury Bench should support in the years ahead.

Secondly, I should have liked to hear a little more about support for our charities. I was very pleased to hear about the £550 million of support that the Chancellor was offering to them in the form of various benefits, but I should have liked him to be more radical. There are many steps that we can take to ease the rules and regulations and break down some of the barriers that prevent social investment from various sources. We should be a bit more open in relation to the way in which money can flow from social investment to outcomes and social impact bonds. I should have liked to hear about personal tax deductions for charitable donations, and I should very much like the Treasury—either directly or through the big society bank—to help charities to procure local government services. They need that support to arm them in their continuing battles with bureaucracies.

The Budget expresses strong support for those who wish to invest in our small businesses. It strongly supports angel investment and mentoring. Small businesses and entrepreneurs want support from people—from local people who may have started up their own businesses—and we will seek to provide it in Bedford and Kempston. We will seek to bring together successful local business people who can provide financial support through the advantages offered by the Budget in terms of angel investment, and through mentoring to provide guidance and advice so that small businesses can grow.

The Budget challenges us. As many other Members have said, we are about to be tested, and to go through very difficult times. It is important for Members on both sides of the House to argue constructively, but we should also rest on the great creativity and ingenuity of our small business people and entrepreneurs, because they offer the future that will achieve growth in this country.