Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to increase wages and support the lowest-income households.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)]

As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has announced, we are increasing the national living wage to £9.50 an hour for workers aged 23 and over from this April. That means a pay increase of £1,000 a year for a full-time worker earning the national living wage, and keeps us on track to meet our target to end low pay by the financial year 2024-25. As we have heard, we have taken further decisive action by cutting the universal credit taper rate and increasing the universal credit work allowances.

[Tom Hunt]

When it comes to high-paid jobs in the Ipswich area, Freeport East has generated great interest. However, my constituents are keen to see meat on the bones, and for that exciting principle to become a reality. Currently, the plan is to put in the full business case this April. Clearly, that is a most exciting prospect, being near to Ipswich. Will my right hon. Friend give me a firm guarantee that rocket boosters will be put under the plans, to ensure that the benefits of Brexit and the benefits of the freeport can be realised for my constituents as soon as possible?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. In the week that we announced the Brexit freedoms Bill, that is a really good example of why our decision on the Government Benches to honour the people’s decision to leave the European Union was the right one, and why the Labour party was so wrong to oppose it. The Prime Minister was at Tilbury only yesterday to identify the benefits of freeports, and I can reassure my hon. Friend that we are putting rocket boosters under this policy, for the benefit of places like Ipswich.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the Minister agree that some of the ways in which low-income families could be helped would be to drop the national insurance increase, which is wiping out part of the increase in the national living wage anyhow, and to drop many of the green levies, which have a massive impact on electricity bills—up to 20%?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He knows the high regard that I have for him. I do, however, respectfully disagree with him on these points. There is no other responsible way for us to finance the 9 million more checks, scans and operations that the health and social care levy will unlock than through a broad-based tax increase, which is highly designed to ensure that we protect vulnerable families, so that the 6 million lowest-paid will pay no extra tax at all as a result of the levy.

When it comes to the green levies, it is worth noting that we have reduced our reliance on natural gas, as a country, by 26% since 2010. That is saving taxpayers now, in an era of ultra-high gas prices. It is also worth noting that clean technologies are now the cheapest form of new energy to procure—cheaper than new gas.

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

Lower-paid, and especially young part-time workers, do not currently benefit from tax relief or employers’ contributions towards pensions under the auto-enrolment scheme. Will the Minister speak to colleagues across Government to look at extending auto-enrolment to lower-paid workers, to ensure that they get the long-term benefits?

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend has campaigned consistently on this theme. I would certainly be very happy to have further discussions with him about it. It is worth noting, and celebrating, the fact that the proportion of people who are in low-paid work is actually at its lowest since records began in 1997.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Trussell Trust finds that three out of four referrals are disabled people, and the Office for National Statistics finds that people who work online at home are more likely to work longer and not retire early, particularly if they are disabled. So will the Chancellor, the Treasury and the Minister look at the idea of promoting working from home after the pandemic, to help enable people with disabilities and other people to be more productive, and at the same time target more support for those in greatest need, as we have found from the Trussell Trust?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and for the spirit in which he asks it. Over the course of the spending review we are investing £1 billion in disability-related programmes, and that is an aspect that I am happy to look at further. More broadly, the Government as a whole spend £58 billion a year on wider disability support, so we certainly take that area very seriously.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Some of the lowest-income households are made up of pensioners, and important extra help for the most vulnerable is already available and budgeted for through pension credit, yet up to 1 million people—including, potentially, 4,500 pensioners in north Northamptonshire—are failing to claim up to £1.8 billion in pension credit. Please will the Government do more to promote the take-up of pension credit?

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. The state pension and pension credit are rising by 3.1%, which is helping to protect more than 12 million pensioners from cost of living increases. It is vital that people get the help to which they are entitled. If any Member has any practical suggestions to bring to our attention, we will happily look at those, and I will task officials to make sure that we are doing all we can.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

10. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of increasing council tax on second homes.

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[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

16. What assessment he has made of the progress of the kickstart scheme.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)]

We know that young people have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. I am delighted that, to date, more than 122,000 kickstart jobs have been started by young people across Great Britain, including in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall). Youth unemployment fell by 11.1% in the three months to November 2021 and is lower than it was prior to the pandemic, and in December there were half a million more employees aged under 25 than in December 2020.

[Tom Randall]

I recently visited Severn Trent Water in Gedling, and staff told me how impressed they were with the kickstarters that the company had taken on. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that he is working hard to encourage more companies and organisations to get involved in the kickstart scheme, to get even more people back into work?

[Mr Clarke]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Kickstart is delivering valuable jobs and work experience to young jobseekers at risk of long-term unemployment. Although kickstart closed to new applications on 17 December, we are genuinely delighted at the response from employers. As I noted, more than 122,000 kickstart jobs have been started so far, and we expect more between now and the end of March. Employers should continue to engage with Department for Work and Pensions jobcentres and support the new way to work campaign to get more people into work.

[Danny Kruger]

In my constituency, 130 new jobs for young people have been created. A group of young people started this week at Ball Aerocan in my constituency. The company is very pleased with the scheme and the young people it found but said it took a little while to get through the system. What can the Government do to encourage businesses to make use of the scheme before it ends in March?

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we want to encourage maximum uptake. Kickstart is only one part of the comprehensive package of support available to young people and, following the closure of this scheme, young jobseekers will still be able to benefit from the DWP’s wider youth offer, while work coaches across the country are working to support young people into jobs.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Young people who lost jobs during the pandemic have returned to less secure jobs, typically gig economy roles. The Resolution Foundation report published yesterday showed that one third of 18 to 34-year-olds who have returned to work have returned to atypical, insecure jobs. Almost 18 months ago, the Chancellor launched his kickstart programme, setting a target of 250,000. The Minister has said how many have found jobs, but, on the evidence of the Resolution Foundation report, those jobs just are not there and they are typically insecure.

[Mr Clarke]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman confuses what he is talking about. The fact that we have not hit the target is precisely a reflection of the fact that the wider economic recovery has been so strong. It is a measure of the success of the wider recovery that we simply do not need to offer those opportunities and that the regular economy is generating them.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have heard from so many on the Government Benches how good the kickstart scheme is. It has huge potential, but I keep telling the Treasury Bench to get their finger out and get on with it. It needs to be bigger and better; it must be linked to green skills and real opportunities for getting young people to roll up their sleeves and work in the community. It could be backed by a windfall profit tax on supermarkets and others, or on the gambling industry. Get on with it!

[Mr Clarke]

We are getting on with it. I remind the hon. Gentleman that when we compare the scheme to the last Labour Government’s future jobs fund, we see that we have already comfortably exceeded the number of young people it supported into work. Those are good, well-paying jobs in sectors that, he rightly highlights, are some of those of the future.

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

12. What recent steps he has taken to help ensure value for money in public spending.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)]

I will comment specifically on some of the fraud relating to Government economic support schemes put in place during the pandemic. My colleagues and I share the anger and frustration of hon. Members across this House and of people across this country that schemes designed to help businesses to get through an unprecedented crisis were exploited by a minority. We rightly placed an emphasis on speed when introducing those schemes, but we will robustly pursue anyone who has taken advantage of the Exchequer.

[Kate Hollern]

I welcome the Minister’s response, but does he realise that people in Blackburn are really concerned about our cost-of-living crisis? They have a right to expect this Government to be prudent with the public purse, but what they find is that this Government simply do not operate under normal rules. They have hit working people and ordinary businesses with tax rises, yet wasted billions of pounds on contracts, fraud and outsourcing. Does the Minister accept that people should not have to pay for a Conservative tax rise when billions in taxpayers’ money has been leaked due to fraud and mistakes—or, as Lord Agnew said last week, “schoolboy errors”?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I completely agree that we want to pursue fraud whenever it has occurred. That is why, at the March 2021 Budget, we established a £100 million taskforce with more than 1,000 employees, designed precisely to go after every penny that has been taken by people not entitled to it. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has already recovered and prevented £743 million-worth of loss; the taskforce is expected to recover £800 million to £1 billion from fraudulent or incorrect payments over the two years of its existence, and HMRC reserves the right to carry on for as long as it takes.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I welcome the Chancellor’s clear confirmation last week that, far from writing off any of that money, the Government are going after everyone who has claimed it fraudulently. However, it is important to remember the context. The businesses in my constituency know the jobs that were saved by the rapid roll-out of bounce back loans and furlough and know that the Chancellor had to balance those constraints: while it is right to go after criminals, it was also right to make fast, smart decisions to protect thousands of jobs across our nation.

[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. Friend puts it extremely well. We must remember the context: the economy was going through a heart attack at that time, owing to the necessary steps we took to support wider public health. I would remind the Opposition Benches that the shadow Chancellor wrote to the Chancellor at the time, describing the loan scheme application process as “cumbersome” and calling for access to be made easier. We were operating in that context of needing to ensure that businesses could access the support to which they were legitimately entitled.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

What does the Minister think would happen to an employee in the private sector who lost more than £4 billion of someone else’s money to fraud, having ignored numerous warnings? Would they really be eyeing up a possible promotion, or is it more likely that they would be sacked on the spot?

[Mr Clarke]

We are running the Government of the United Kingdom, and we needed to respond at speed to an unprecedented public health emergency. If we had failed to provide the £400 billion of support that we gave, we would have seen the worst fears, with millions of people unemployed and thousands of companies closing. We struck the right balance in getting that support out to firms and then building in the protections needed to protect the taxpayer interest, and we are, as I have said, going to go after anybody who has defrauded the Exchequer.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

T8. I have heard a great deal from the local authorities that serve my constituency about the benefits of early intervention, especially when it comes to tackling poverty and disadvantage. What assessment is the Treasury planning to undertake to establish the benefits to taxpayers of that investment in vital services?

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor worked closely with him in his previous post as a local government Minister. The supporting families programme provides funding for local authorities to deliver early intervention in children’s services. The programme was the subject of a robust national evaluation between 2015 and 2020, which demonstrated that in addition to improved outcomes for children and families, it delivered a return on investment of £2.28 of economic benefits for every £1 spent.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

T6. Government Ministers will know that bus manufacture is an important skilled employment base in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The zero-emission bus regional areas programme, which is due to bring in innovation in engine technology, is supposed to be technologically neutral, even though we know that hydrogen buses almost certainly create more jobs in the UK. In that context, can the Chancellor tell us why every scheme so far has been for electric vehicles and not hydrogen technology? Is that a Treasury bias or a bias in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy?

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[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

The Budget confirmed that total funding through the UK shared prosperity fund will, at a minimum, match the size of EU funds in each nation, and in Cornwall. If the Treasury were to do the same with all the other less-developed regions, as it should, South Yorkshire would be on course to receive £900 million of investment over the next seven years. Will the Chief Secretary to the Treasury give an assurance that we will get our fair share?

[Mr Simon Clarke]

I have the highest regard for the hon. Gentleman, and he is a doughty champion for the people of South Yorkshire. The levelling up White Paper will be a key moment in setting out our plans in that space, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be coming to the House shortly to set out our plans in that regard.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s intent that levelling up should be measured by more than simply spending money. Indeed, the data that is collected across the UK to measure its effect varies. What is my right hon. Friend doing to address that, and will he reassure Aberconwy residents of an effective UK-wide levelling up?

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[Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)]

The Wrexham Gateway levelling-up fund bid attracts around £35 million of private finance. However, that investment in Wrexham will depend on a successful levelling-up fund bid the next time round. Will the Minister explain what considerations are made for bids with substantial private investment?

[Mr Simon Clarke]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic advocate for Wrexham, and for wider pride in north Wales, which is incredibly important. I am happy to meet her to discuss any aspect of the bid process that it would be helpful to discuss further.

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

Will the Chancellor confirm or deny that millions of pounds of taxpayers’ funds have been sunk into an online gambling company with the Government’s start-up scheme? If so, is this the right time to invest in a private gambling firm, since a review of the Gambling Act 2005 is already being undertaken?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. This relates to the future fund, a rules-based scheme that means that any firm is eligible for funding, providing it meets the required eligibility criteria for the scheme and passes the necessary checks. Neither the Government nor the British Business Bank chose specific investments; it is about helping innovative equity-backed companies to weather the economic disruption caused by covid and continue their long-term growth projection.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for the steps he has taken to level up in Darlington, with the establishment of the Darlington economic campus. Will he update the House on the progress to bring high-quality, well-paid jobs to my constituency?