Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Stephen Williams and John Healey

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman has said that he welcomes a single pot. Is that not exactly what the regional development agencies had, including the south-west RDA? They had a single pot with no strings attached from the centre, and decisions on the spending of that pot were made in the regions, for the regions. Was it not a mistake to abolish the RDAs and then to wait three years before reintroducing that important flexible funding arrangement?

[Stephen Williams]

The right hon. Gentleman is one of the most thoughtful Members of the Opposition, but on this occasion I must respectfully disagree with him. My experience in Bristol suggests that no one misses the south-west regional development agency, but everyone in the greater Bristol area recognises the extraordinarily good work done by the West of England local enterprise partnership. [Interruption.] I hear a chorus of agreement from my west midlands colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt). It seems that the experience is the same in that area.

We want to rebalance the economy, away from the south-east and to our city regions, and also—as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert)—to decarbonise the economy. I want to raise an issue that has not been the subject of much comment, but which I know is tucked away among the Budget details. I think that we should consider how we can provide further incentives for the setting up of social enterprises around the country in order to produce sustainable micro-growth in all our communities, and devise innovative ways of bringing people into business on a not-for-profit basis. That would contribute to a fairer society as well, but the biggest contribution to a fairer society that any Government can make is putting more money into people’s own pockets and purses, so that they can decide for themselves how to spend the money for which they have worked so hard.

At the last general election, all my Liberal Democrat colleagues stood on the basis of their No. 1 priority: the delivery of £10,000 of tax-free pay by whatever Government we were to become a part. That promise will have been delivered in full by April 2014. During his speech today, the Leader of the Opposition urged people to put their hands up in favour of a different tax measure, but 24 million people around the country will be able to put their hands up and say, “I am receiving a tax cut because of this coalition Government, and, in particular, because of the Liberal Democrat participation in that coalition Government.”

Since we came to office, the personal allowance has risen by £3,525. That is an increase of more than 50% in the amount of money that people can take home without income tax being deducted from it. A total of 2.7 million people will have been taken out of tax altogether, and £700 of extra income will land in the pockets and purses of 24.5 million workers up and down the country. That is an extraordinary achievement on the part of the coalition Government, and I am very proud of the role that my own party has played in developing a tax change that is a landmark in the history of our country.

A young person working on the minimum wage has already been lifted out of the income tax net altogether. Members should contrast that with the lamentable record of the Labour party, which introduced the 10p tax rate and then abolished it in order to fund a tax cut for people who were earning much more. Despite what Labour Members say now, Labour’s record in office was one of cutting taxes for the wealthy and raising them for the poorest. The coalition is doing the reverse of that.

We are also delivering further help for families up and down the country who are trying to balance their budgets. Many of my colleagues, particularly those representing rural seats—the Chancellor referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) earlier—will welcome the fact that a fuel duty increase planned by the previous Government has been cancelled, yet again. I say, speaking for myself, that we cannot go on doing this indefinitely; I would prefer us to be much more radical and to scrap fuel duty altogether. It is an extremely blunt instrument of taxation that is long past its sell-by date, and a more economically sensible system of road-user pricing in the long term should replace it.

In pubs and clubs up and down the country, including the Prince of Wales in Gloucester road in my constituency, people will be raising a glass to the Chancellor tonight for the cancellation of another duty escalator—that on beer. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), who has badgered me and everyone else involved in this area for the past two and a half years to try to do something to get rid of it.