Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I commend my hon. Friend for his campaign in his local high streets and for the work he is doing with local businesses. I agree with him on the importance of high streets and the businesses on them, which is why we are supporting high street businesses with our 50% business rate cut for thousands of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses; our freeze to the business rates multiplier; and funding through the community renewal fund, towns fund and levelling-up fund.

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

I hope the Minister is aware that one problem facing small and medium-sized employers in Cumbria and elsewhere, certainly in rural Britain, is a serious lack of workforce. Cumbria Tourism reported that 63% of its members last year had to operate below capacity because they could not find sufficient staff to keep going and so they missed out on vital demand. Does she agree that the two key areas are a lack of affordable housing so that people can live close to the place where they need to work in rural communities, and the fact that the Government have yet to come up with adequate visa provisions to allow employers to supplement a local workforce with an overseas one? What action will she take to support small and medium-sized businesses, especially in hospitality, in Cumbria and elsewhere?

[Helen Whately]

There was a great deal in that question, but broadly it was about access to the workforce for businesses. We have a really successful story on jobs, with record numbers of people in payroll employment, but I also hear about the work that businesses are doing to fill vacancies. We are supporting businesses, for instance, with our successful Way to Work scheme and the investment we are making in people’s skills to ensure that they align to the vacancies that employers are looking to fill.

Cost of Living: Fiscal Approach

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on his excellent opening remarks and on securing this debate.

There is a tide of poverty, terrifyingly large, growing in every single community in our country. I wonder what the point of this place is if we do not seek to meet the needs of people who literally cannot see how they can put food on the table for their children, pay their bills or pay their rent or mortgage. It is a crisis like no other facing this country.

I will focus my remarks on how that tide of poverty is affecting rural communities such as mine in Cumbria and elsewhere in the country. In my constituency, we have incredibly low unemployment—very low. Pretty much everybody I know, particularly those on low wages, are working multiple jobs. The idea that they can do extra hours or get a better-paid job is a colossal insult to them, as they work tirelessly to provide for their families. The massive majority of people in receipt of universal credit in our communities in Westmoreland, South Lakeland and Eden are in work. They work incredibly hard, but their wages do not keep pace with the rapidly rising cost of living.

The cost of living in an area such as our is exacerbated by the cost of housing. The average house price in my constituency is about £270,000 and the average household income is about £26,000. Do the maths: nobody on an average income can afford anything like an average home in our community. There is extra pressure, because the pandemic has massively increased the housing need in our area. We have seen the absolute evaporation of the long-term private rented market into the holiday let market. In my community, there has been a 32% rise in one year in the number of homes going into the holiday let sector. What were those holiday lets beforehand? They were people’s homes—family homes. People were evicted via section 21s—something the Government said they would abolish in their manifesto—and the availability of properties for those families to live in was diminished.

In parts of Devon, there has been a 70% reduction in the availability of long-term lets that are affordable to local families. It feels like the lakeland clearances are going on in our community. In Ambleside, a couple, both of whom worked, with children in the local school, were given their marching orders—they were evicted via section 21 from the rented property they had lived in for several years. There was nowhere else available in their community to rent, as everything else had gone to Airbnb or become a second home, so they had to give up their jobs, their children had to be removed from their school, and the family had to move to the next county in order to start all over again. It is miserable, and the consequence for our economy is huge.

What does it mean for our workforce? In the dales town of Sedbergh, which is a relatively small place, with fewer than 2,000 houses, there were 103 job vacancies as of last week because there is nowhere affordable for anybody on a modest, moderate, average or low income to rent, never mind buy—that is for the birds in the current era. That impacts on business. Some of the poorest people I know in communities such as mine run their own businesses. They pay and keep their staff—they cannot recruit enough staff—and they pay themselves less than the minimum wage. They live on next to nothing; they live in poverty.

Another huge problem that affects rural communities such as mine is fuel costs. Many of my constituents are not on the mains, so there are no energy price caps, no matter how high and ridiculous the prices are for people who run their property off liquid gas or oil. If someone wants to get the bus just one way from Kendal to Ambleside to get to their job, they have to spend more than an hour’s pay. Likewise, fuel costs are much more impactful when people have to travel miles and miles. My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) also mentioned the huge impact on the care sector. We cannot recruit people to care for people in their homes.

We cannot miss the impact that the Government’s fiscal policies are having on farming. This year the Government are taking 20% of farm incomes without replacing them for 98% of the farmers in my community. That has an impact on rural poverty in communities such as mine throughout Cumbria. It also impacts on our ability as a country to produce food, and that means rising food prices for everybody else. It is morally wrong and incredibly stupid.

Of course the Government should be taxing the energy companies and redistributing that money to ensure that people are not in penury. Of course they should be cutting VAT to help people. The bottom line is that press releases will not pay bills. The Government need to act now.

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

I will now impose a four-minute limit on Back Benchers, and I will call the SNP spokesman no later than 3.41 pm.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

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

After London, the Lake district is the most popular visitor destination in the United Kingdom, with 19 million visitors a year, yet its only direct rail link has a single track from the main line at Oxenholme to Windermere, known as the Lakes line. There is a proposal on the table to effectively dual that line by means of a passing loop at Burneside. Will the Minister agree to meet me and folks from the local authority to ensure that—no pun intended—we can fast-track the dualling of the Lakes line?

[Mr Speaker]

Tell him yes!

Financial Statement

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and puts the point eloquently: the best way to help people is to get them into work. That is why we are creating record numbers of jobs and then making sure that not only are those jobs well paid, but people keep more of the money they earn. That is the approach of this Conservative Government.

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

There appears to be no plan from the Chancellor, glossy or otherwise, for farming and food security. Is he aware that hundreds and hundreds of farmers are leaving the industry because of the botching of the transition from the old basic payment scheme to the new system? If he were to peg the basic payment scheme at its current rate, rather than halving it over the next two years, he would at least give time for farmers to be able to catch up and get into the new schemes. As it stands, farmers are leaving the industry just at the moment when we are facing an international food security crisis. Will he rethink and back British farmers?

[Rishi Sunak]

As the hon. Gentleman knows well, given that we are constituency neighbours, I also represent plenty of farmers and I listen to their concerns. The Agriculture Secretary is doing an excellent job of transitioning from the old system to the new. The overall funding for farming has been protected by this Government and the same level of funding is available, as we promised it would be. I want to see more British food grown here and to see us supporting British food—of course I do, and I think the British public will as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I know he is knowledgeable about this sector. It is important to remember that financial services are to the benefit of the whole country, with two thirds of jobs in financial services being outside London and the south-east. Financial services are absolutely an important part of our ambitions for levelling up.

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

In rural communities, especially Cumbria, we are deeply concerned about the Government’s apparent lack of concern about growth in the rural parts of this country. Is the Minister aware of the enormous damage being done to farming in the UK, just at the moment when we need our farmers the most, by the reduction in basic payments? That started in December when farmers lost between 5% and 25% of their basic payment, without any availability of anything to replace it for years to come. Will she intervene now to keep basic payments where they currently are, so that we can keep Britain farming?

National Insurance Contributions Increase

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls on the Government to cancel its planned 1.25 percentage point rise in National Insurance Contributions that will cost families an average of £500 per year from April 2022.

Six months ago today in this Chamber, I set out Labour’s opposition to the Conservatives’ national insurance tax hike. It was clear to us then that this was going to be a heavy burden on working people and businesses who could ill afford it. Since that time, the situation has worsened, but the Conservative party has not altered its wrong course. Filling up the car with petrol is more expensive, energy bills are soaring, and the cost of the weekly food shop is rising. It all adds up. Inflation is now 5.5%, the highest level since 1992, and is forecast to reach a massive 8% next month, outpacing people’s pay rises—if they get one at all. Growth is expected to slow further. The stark reality is that over the past 12 years, the Tories have become the party of high taxes because they are now the party of low growth.

This morning’s report by the Resolution Foundation finds that the average household will experience a £1,000 hit from tax rises and energy price increases this year under the Conservative Government. The Treasury Committee rightly highlighted the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast, which stated that

“the policy mix chosen by the Chancellor”

at the last Budget

“will act as a boost to inflation”.

Just focus on that for a moment: the Chancellor’s own policy choices are boosting inflation. The Government should have acted when the cost of living crisis started growing last September and well before it spiralled out of control in December, with costs soaring and inflation heating up.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is devastating lives and livelihoods, and we must do all we can to stop Putin’s aggression. What is happening in Ukraine will have a cost of living effect here at home, too. When the facts change, so should the Government’s policies; people cannot afford Ministers carrying on regardless of worsening circumstances. The Chancellor must show some understanding of the real-world consequences of his policies for working people and businesses.

The spring Budget will take place two weeks tomorrow, on 23 March. If the Government cannot commit to halting the national insurance rise today, they must do so then, two weeks before it comes in on 6 April and hits working people and employers hard. Today is an opportunity for the Conservatives to show that they get it, and do not want to make the cost of living crisis even worse than it already is.

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

The hon. Lady is making an important speech. She is right that the national insurance rise will cripple families who are already struggling to get by, but does she agree that what makes it worse is that not a penny of the money raised will go into the hands of hard-working carers who desperately need it? In a community such as mine that is above the national average age, with a need for more carers, that means people without care or with inadequate care.

[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is the great deceit at the heart of this national insurance tax rise. I will address some of those details in a moment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Frazer)]

I am aware that the hon. Gentleman raised a similar question with the Chancellor when the Chancellor was a Local Government junior Minister. The hon. Gentleman will know that we announced in the middle of last month that we are closing a tax loophole that allowed owners of second homes who claimed that their often-empty properties were holiday lets to receive small business rates relief instead of paying council tax. We are also committed to ensuring that first-time buyers are able to get on and move up the housing ladder.

[Tim Farron]

Rural Britain’s housing crisis has become a catastrophe over the last two years of the pandemic. The Chancellor will know all about that, given the kind of constituency he represents. Some 80% of all house sales in the lakes and dales in Cumbria have been to the second home market, and in some rural communities there has been a reduction in the private-rented affordable market of 70%. Local families are being forced out of our communities. The need for drastic and immediate action is obvious, well over and above what has been said. Will the Minister agree—or will she agree to persuade her right hon. Friend the Chancellor—to meet me, as the Chancellor’s constituency neighbour, to sit down and look at seven steps for saving our rural communities, so that we can prevent our towns and villages being emptied of their full-time populations? That will surely include giving councils the freedom to double council tax on second homes.

[Lucy Frazer]

I am happy to meet the hon. Member to discuss the points he raises. We have taken a number of steps to ensure that people pay the full rate of council tax on second homes—96% of second home owners pay the full rate of council tax. He will know that the Government introduced the higher rate of stamp duty land tax for those purchasing additional properties, and only last year introduced a new SDLT surcharge of 2%, to ensure that houses are available for local people at reasonable prices. I am happy to discuss this further with him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

Banking hubs will absolutely be a part of the solution, alongside a whole range of other interventions. The Government have committed to legislate on this matter, but in the meantime, I am very hopeful that industry will come forward with meaningful proposals for a range of options to deal with the declining use of cash and ensure access is available everywhere.

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

The colossal economic inequality facing rural communities is something that I hope the Government take seriously. Is the Minister aware of the collapse of local housing in communities such as mine—and indeed in the Chancellor’s next-door constituency—into the second-home and holiday-let markets? Following the Welsh Assembly Government’s example, will the Minister look at doubling council tax on second-home properties, so that communities such as mine do not lose their local populations and become riddled with ghost towns?

[John Glen]

The Government are looking at tightening up the rules around second homes and council tax. We would be very happy to engage with the hon. Gentleman on the matter.

Health and Social Care Levy Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I probably agreed with at least three quarters of what the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) just said. One thing I did not agree with him on was his belief that the Government have grasped the nettle. I believe they have walked past the nettle, barely nodding at it, and the people who will be stung are the people still in social care, the people working in social care, and the people who will disproportionately pay for what the Government are proposing.

Conservative MPs and the Conservative press are concerned about the Prime Minister breaking his promise on taxation, but the promise he has most definitely broken is the one he made during the leadership contest in 2019, when he said he would

“fix the crisis in social care once and for all”.

He has done no such thing; that proposal is not before the House today. There was a promise not to raise taxes. If the Government chose to break that promise, I would be happy to provide them with cover for that. Labour may have dodged the issue, but I am clear that we should raise income tax so that this is paid for by people who have the wealth and ability to pay for it—not by national insurance, which often will disproportionately fall on younger working-age people. What do those people tend to have in common? They cannot afford a home, or at least a house that they own. What will we be asking them to do? To fund those who have a home to have the right to leave it to those who come after them.

Nobody should be forced to sell their home to pay for care. Just a few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend of mine who sadly has cancer. This was a terrible thing to say, but he said, “I feared cancer and I feared dementia, but I’ve got the least bad of the two.” He is living with cancer now. The reality is that, for many reasons, his care is paid for, but for those like my father-in-law, my grandfather and others who suffer from dementia, that care is not provided for. So it is right to have radical reform of social care, but this is not it. It is right that all the parties should get together to ensure we have a common approach to this, but this proposal has been dreamt up and issued as a press release—it is not the reform of social care we need.

This reform of social care does nothing to tackle the 120,000 care assistant vacancies in our country, or to give social care staff the pay and esteem they deserve. One reason there is a crisis is that wonderful people can earn more money stacking shelves than they can caring for our loved ones, of whatever age. This plan will do nothing to give local authorities the money they need to backfill the terrible backlog and black holes that the Government have left them. Again, they are taking unpaid carers for granted and—the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) rightly mentioned this earlier—not addressing the needs of those in care who are not of retirement age but significantly younger. This is a massive missed opportunity that will be paid for by people who have the least.

In my community in Cumbria, we are about 10 years above the national average age. We have a smaller working-age population and a disproportionately large population in need of care. We have colossal staffing shortages as things are. This measure does nothing to meet the needs of the people in my community, because it does nothing to invest in the quality and standard of the care that they will receive.

[Dr Murrison]

I am loth to give the hon. Gentleman an extra minute, but I must ask him how much he would put on income tax. I know that his party was famously keen on putting a penny on income tax, but he has just made a whole load of spending commitments—particularly raising incomes for care staff. I assume he has costed that. If so, will he say how many pennies on income tax he proposes to burden our constituents with?

[Tim Farron]

We would need to raise income tax to do what the hon. Gentleman’s Government say they need to do in the short term to get through, and then we would have a ring-fenced, bespoke tax that would deal with social care. If people had lived to the age they do now when Lord Beveridge, the fine Liberal who came up with the welfare state and the NHS in the first place, wrote his plan, there is no doubt that social care would have been part of that package, and we would be paying more tax now as a consequence. I say we should be doing what we were doing around Dilnot a few years ago, when we were moving in the right direction, sworking often across the House, and coming up with a package that we would pay for. In the short term, though, we would immediately raise a tax that is affordable and fair and does not just clobber those people on low wages and people of working age. That is the right thing to do.

That is why this measure is not just the wrong way of going about this but a colossal missed opportunity. We were promised something like the Beveridge report, and we ended up with something written on the back of a fag packet. We need something that means people will look back on this generation the way people still do on the generation of politicians post war who built the welfare state in the first place.

Levelling-up Agenda

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Westminster Hall

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

It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on leading this important debate.

Levelling up is a concept that I strongly support. For it to work, we have to identify disadvantage and take action to tackle it. There is a lot that I could ask the Minister to consider today, but he will be delighted to hear that what I am asking for will not cost very much money and could be absolutely transformational in much of rural Britain.

Over the last 15 months of the covid crisis, a housing crisis in areas such as mine in the lakes and dales of Cumbria has turned from crisis to catastrophe. Members who have been monitoring the housing market will have noticed things similar to what has happened in my communities. We have seen an increase in the number of holiday lets in my constituency of 32%. From talking to dozens of estate agents across the county, I know that the proportion of houses purchased during this period that are going into the second-home market is anything from 40% to 80%. At the beginning of the crisis South Lakeland had an average household income of £26,000 and an average house price of £250,000, which shows a serious problem from the start. That problem has been massively exacerbated during this time.

What does that mean for our communities? Hospitality and tourism are critical to our economy and I am proud to stand behind them, but people involved in that industry know that vibrant communities are vital to the survival and strength of the lakes, the dales and the rest of Cumbria. The increasing proportion of homes in the second-home or holiday-let market means no permanent population. No permanent population means no kids at the local school, so the school closes. It means the loss of the post office, the pub and bus services. We end up with beautiful places that are empty. We must surely recognise that as utterly unacceptable.

I have provided some top-line statistics, but on an anecdotal level, people who pay £600 a month for a flat in a lakeland village are being kicked out so that the landlord can charge £1,000 a week for a holiday let. That is happening, and many people are calling it the lakeland clearances. Extreme circumstances require drastic responses if we are to level up here and not leave rural Britain behind.

I am pleased that the Government are closing the loophole that allows people to pretend that second homes are holiday lets, when they are not, and so avoid paying tax. That is a good thing. The Government, however, must accept some responsibility for the stamp duty holiday fuelling this crisis to a large degree, leading to a huge spike in purchases.

The really important thing for the Government to do is to change planning law. They need to ensure that holiday lets and second homes are distinct categories of planning use, so that local authorities can say that there are enough homes of that sort in the community and, therefore, protect it.

[Bob Seely]

I agree wholeheartedly. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on the Isle of Wight, although there are not that many second homes on the Island as a whole, in some communities 80% of villages are second homes? It is a thoroughly excellent idea to require change of use for a second home or holiday let.

[Tim Farron]

That is a free measure the Government could take to have real power. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

The Welsh Government have given local authorities the power to increase council tax on second homes. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) talked about Gwynedd, which has been able to double the council tax on second-home owners in those areas. What has that done? It has provided a disincentive in some areas for excessive second-home ownership. It has also led to revenue that can be spent on supporting schools, post offices, buses and other local services, which are losing resource because of the lack of a permanent population. I call on the Minister to do something free but powerful.

Extreme circumstances that come about quickly require a response equally extreme and quick. If the Government are not to get a reputation for taking their eye off rural Britain and leaving rural communities behind—for example, leaving areas such as mine in level three for levelling up—they need to act, not in autumn or winter, but before the summer, to save my communities from the new clearances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

Of course, my hon. Friend is right to point to this. In many cases, the core is going to be effective local leadership that brings the different elements together. As a Member of Parliament, he knows that the stronger towns fund has shown that energy can be brought in. For example, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government can have a view on the housing aspect of a stronger towns fund bid, and what expertise and expectation will be there. The same is true of other aspects of Government. It may be a bid with a heavy environmental component or a heavy transport component.

Government also need to be joined up. At the Treasury, I lead on the national infrastructure but on levelling up specifically it is the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), who leads—she would be here under normal circumstances, but she is in Committee at the moment. However, she and I work closely on this issue, as my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight would imagine.

I turn to some of the points that have been made. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight rightly highlighted aspects of his own bid, including East Cowes and Newport. I could not hear him talk about the development of the Isle of Wight without thinking about my own uncle Desmond, one of the founders of Britten-Norman, who designed the aircraft whose wings came off in “Spectre,” the James Bond movie, and that went skiing as a result, which was built on the Isle of Wight. Indeed, he was one of the developers of the first hovercraft, the Cushioncraft. I am well aware of the technology and the genius of the Islanders and the espoused Islanders, one of whom Desmond certainly was.

The hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) mentioned the importance of local authorities. She is right about that. They have been a very important part of stronger towns fund bids. It is quite interesting when local opinion is surveyed about the public services delivered locally. Whatever one may think about the local authority funding settlement, which was very generous in the past year and before that in many cases, it has not led to a perceived reduction in public services—quite the opposite. In many local areas, public services are regarded as having gone up in quality over the past 10 years.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) talked about skills. He was absolutely right and I thank him for that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke talked about the importance of women and gender equality. That was absolutely right and I salute what she said, because that is an important part of levelling up. There is some wonderful evidence from India, where they looked at the effect of women mayors and leaders in villages. It turns out that, based on the regressions that economists have done, women leaders in those contexts have been more co-operative, more effective and less prone to forms of corruption than their male alternatives. That is an important lesson that we will reflect on.

The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) invited Ministers to bed and breakfast —a very fine offer that will receive deep consideration in the Treasury—for which I thank him very much indeed. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) reminded us that Stonehenge would never have been built if they had to drag the stones down the A303. I fully concur, having been more or less parked outside Stonehenge, as have many others.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) talked about the bid that he is putting in for the levelling-up fund. I congratulate him on that and encourage all Members to do that, because the levelling-up funding will be a very important national initiative. I have touched on the remarks of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale. I am glad he mentioned cutting out the loophole on holiday lets, because that was important. I hope he also noticed the speed with which we acted on that, because the tax process is never an instant thing, but we have moved as quickly as we could, given the circumstances, to try to address the issue. Obviously, it has become particularly important in the context of covid.

[Tim Farron]

Once the announcement was made, they did act swiftly, but I first raised the issue with the then junior planning Minister, who is now the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It took quite a long time to get to the stage where they made the announcement, but I thank the Minister anyway.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Minister, could you please give the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) a couple of minutes to make his closing remarks?