Budget Resolutions

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The Government are supporting creativity across the country. In June, I announced £50 million, which we know from experience will leverage £250 million of investment, for creative clusters across the UK. Only recently, I was at Aviva Studios in Manchester. The £100 million invested in Manchester is the biggest investment since the Tate Modern. The hon. Member will have heard in the Chancellor’s statement about the significant investment in Teesside, particularly in the creative industries.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

But the Tories have truly wrecked the nation’s public finances. Under the Conservatives, debt has tripled from £1 trillion to almost £2.6 trillion. Does the Secretary of State agree that according to respected independent statistics, despite the Chancellor’s Budget, households in Slough and across our country will be £870 worse off on average under the Chancellor’s tax plan?

[Lucy Frazer]

The Chancellor’s tax plan is allowing people across the country to benefit from around £900 if they are an average earner, and we know that every time the Labour party leaves office there is higher unemployment. Last time the Labour party was in government, it left a note that said there was “no money left”.

Let me tell the House what impact the Conservative plan has delivered over the last decade. As I said, there have been tax reliefs in every Budget over the past 10 years, and every time they were voted down by the Labour party. The impact of that year-on-year investment is clear. Statistics show that more than 1 million jobs in the creative industries have been created since 2010. There has been almost a doubling of the economic value of creative industries to more than £124 billion since 2010, with exports up 210% in that time. Recently published figures confirm that the sector has grown by more than 10% since the pandemic. The Conservative party is powering one of our world-leading industries.

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[Lucy Frazer]

I am delighted that the Northern Ireland Executive are up and running, and keen to continue engagement with them to ensure that we continue to boost the economy in Northern Ireland.

Our creative industries are not just life enhancing and entertaining, and they are not just part of our personal and national identities; they are an economic powerhouse that is dominating the world stage. In the past year, we have built on the huge success of the decade of investment that I spoke about with an industry-led sector vision that sets out a plan to unlock £50 billion of growth, 1 million more jobs and a pipeline of talent by 2030. Both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister recognise that the way we will extend our excellence long into the future is with sustained investment and commitment to those sectors. That is why the Budget that the Chancellor set out last week continued that support and built on that recognition with a package of measures to cement our status as a cultural superpower.

Members should not just take my word for it. The reliefs announced represent a

“once-in-a-generation transformational change that will ensure Britain remains the global capital of creativity”,

according to Lord Lloyd Webber. They include

“the most significant policy intervention since the 1990s”,

according to Ben Roberts, the chief executive of the British Film Institute. They are “game changing” according to “James Bond” producer Barbara Broccoli. Those people are all correct.

There will be £1 billion in additional tax relief for the creative industries over the next five years. We have set permanent high rates of cultural tax relief: of 45% for touring and 40% for non-touring theatre productions and gallery exhibitions, and of 45% for all orchestra productions. There is a new 53% tax credit for UK independent films with budgets of under £15 million, a 40% tax relief on business rates for film studios, and an increased tax relief for the visual effects sector. There is £26.4 million for the National Theatre to modernise its stages and new funding for an extension of the National Film and Television School.

The funding and tax breaks will unlock huge investment in our economy, secure the long-term future of some of our great cultural institutions and help us build a pipeline of talent for the future. We are only five days on from the Budget and the measures are paying dividends already. Later this year, the filming of “Jurassic World 4” will begin at Sky’s Elstree studios. As Sir William Sargent, chief executive of the visual effects company Framestore, said, it is likely that our decision to remove the 80% cap on what productions can claim on visual effects has stopped the visual effects for “Jurassic World 4” from being made abroad. That is our long-term plan for growth, and it is delivering growth within days of the Budget.

However, our ambitions rightly stretch far beyond our world-class creative industries. At the last autumn statement, the Chancellor unveiled 119 growth measures which, taken together, could raise business investment by around £20 billion per year in a decade’s time. He has followed that up with a Budget designed to deliver an economic gear shift for businesses across different industries—from life sciences, to manufacturing, to AI.

There is over £270 million of combined Government and industry investment into cutting-edge automotive and aerospace R&D projects. There are grants of £92 million of joint Government and industry investment into the life sciences and up to £100 million in the Alan Turing Institute, our national institute for AI and data science, over the next five years. There are strategic investments designed to unlock growth and propel our economy forward. These long-term decisions will place us at the vanguard of these pioneering industries of the future, where we belong.

The Government recognise how hard the last few years have been on people’s and families’ finances. That is why the Prime Minister set five clear and unambiguous priorities, consistent with those of people across the country who have battled with the rising cost of living. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the entire Cabinet have been laser focused on those priorities, and we have made significant progress in delivering on them.

[Mr Dhesi]

rose—

[Lucy Frazer]

I am very happy to give way.

[Mr Dhesi]

The Secretary of State speaks about tax reliefs and long-term decisions, but thanks to this Government we now have the highest tax burden since the second world war. Will she confirm the Office for National Statistics figures showing seven consecutive quarters of falls in GDP per capita since 2022? Does she agree that that is the longest period of stagnation since the 1950s?

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Member makes a number of points. On taxes, we are sticking with the plan, which is to get taxes down. We are doing that by yet again reducing national insurance contributions. There are reductions for 29 million people and tax cuts for 27 million working people from April. He mentioned the tax-to-GDP ratio, where the UK tax system remains competitive: we have a lower tax-to-GDP ratio than any other European country in the G7. Germany’s is at 39.3%, France’s is at 46.1% and Italy’s is at 42.9%, based on 2022 figures.

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[Wes Streeting]

We have never doubted the challenges that the pandemic has placed on the public finances or our public services, but that does not explain the fundamental weakness of the British economy going into the pandemic or the fact that NHS waiting lists were at record levels before the pandemic. Nevertheless, it is good to see the Conservative party at least acknowledge that major crises do have an impact on public finances.

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I also thank the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for his intervention about what happened during the covid crisis. Does my hon. Friend agree that we would have had a lot more money for our public finances, for more doctors and nurses, if the Conservative Government had not been busy handing out billions of pounds’ worth of contracts to their friends and chums? That is one of the reasons we need a covid corruption commissioner. [Interruption.] Does my hon. Friend agree that the Chancellor failed to announce a covid corruption commissioner during his Budget?