Finance Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Zarah Sultana

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The need to rebuild from this crisis, and to rebuild better and greener, could hardly be more important for my constituency. Early analysis shows that unless bold further action is taken by the Government, the economic effects of the pandemic will hit Coventry and the west midlands particularly hard.

The effects are already being felt. Each week, new job losses are announced and more businesses close their doors. Rolls-Royce plans to cut thousands of staff, including at its nearby Ansty plant. Jaguar Land Rover has announced hundreds of redundancies in nearby Solihull, with a domino effect causing hundreds of job losses in car parts manufacturers in Coventry South. That will have a devastating knock-on effect for local suppliers and shops in the city, not to mention the dire impact of the crisis on hospitality, the arts and countless other industries in the city.

Even before the job retention scheme is wound down and the potential unemployment tsunami hits us, the human cost is already starting to build up. Pressure is growing on Coventry’s voluntary sector, on its food bank and on local services. It is estimated that without further action, across the country 1 million more people will fall into poverty this year alone.

We stand on the verge of an economic and social calamity. This is no time for the Government to sit on the sidelines, or to offer the same old answers, or to try to go back to the old normal. That system was broken and already failing working people, but the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday does not rise to the challenge. What he is proposing is barely even a sticking plaster. In the face of the worst recession for generations, the new deal the Prime Minister promises equates to less spending than the cost of two aircraft carriers. It is a drop in the ocean.

The challenge before us is not simply recovering from coronavirus, but combating the climate emergency as well, because the danger of ignoring warnings and delaying actions is now all too clear. We simply cannot afford to make the same mistakes with the climate. There is no planet B to fall back on. We do need a new deal, but it must be a green new deal—one that is bold and ambitious, that hardwires lasting change in our society, and that works for working people. It should be a new deal that creates 1 million green jobs, as the TUC has proposed; one that invests in green industries, renewable energy and home insulation, and builds a resilient health and care service. It should be a new deal that harnesses the skills and industry that we have in Coventry to make the city a world leader in the automotive industry once again, but now building the electric cars of the future. It should be a new deal that builds green public transport, with railways and bus networks expanded, owned and run for public benefit, not private profit.

It should be a new deal for our key workers. They kept society running through this crisis; now it is time to run the economy for them. Let us give them a new deal with the pay rise they deserve. With this new deal, let us ask the super-rich and the big corporations to pay their fair share—no more bail-outs for companies registered in tax havens, no more tax dodging or corporate excess.

As we emerge from this crisis, we stand at a crossroads that will determine our future, so let us learn from the lessons of the past. In 2008, bankers crashed the economy, but working people paid the price, with a decade of cuts and stagnant wages. We became a nation of food banks and zero-hours contracts. The Government missed deficit targets, but ripped up the social safety net. There is no doubt that that was a grave mistake, but even now we hear calls for more years of austerity.

In 1945, we took a different path. With mountains of debt and an economy in ruins, we planned and invested for the people. We built the national health service, the welfare state and 1 million council homes. We ran industries for the public good and we taxed the richest. Living standards rose, the economy grew and debts were repaid. Which path we take now is up to us.

In this crisis, we have seen the best of society, from the mutual aid groups that sprang up to the outpouring of love for the NHS and its heroic workers. We have seen how deeply we care for one another. Across divides and differences, we pulled together, so let us pull together again and build back better and greener with a green new deal, tackling social injustices and the climate crisis and building a Britain fit for our key workers and for the future.

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

There has been much talk of Roosevelt and the new deal but, as the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) said, the Roosevelt new deal comprised 40% of US GDP and the Prime Minister’s announcement 0.2% of UK GDP. The new deal rhetoric is right—let us congratulate the Government on that—but the reality is utterly limp.

We stand on the precipice of a recession, probably the worst of our lifetimes, and so it is good to hear Conservatives, for the first time in generations, looking to the great liberal economist John Maynard Keynes for inspiration. This is a time to boost demand and economic activity, to create jobs by direct Government intervention. We will do that by borrowing to invest, and we should do so on a colossal and ambitious scale. Yesterday’s announcement of £5 billion investment would transform Cumbria, if all of it was spent there. No serious person thinks it will even make a dent in the UK-wide economic situation.

Nor does that investment, of course, comprise a green infrastructure revolution. Yet, if we really are to build an economy that is better, that is the revolution we would choose. An active, ambitious Government would invest not £5 billion, but the £150 billion that the Liberal Democrats propose, over the next three years. That way, we would stand a chance of ending the recession before it starts, protecting and creating jobs and preventing hardship. We would also stand a chance of leaving a legacy that future generations will thank us for.

In working together, in a collective national endeavour to build the sustainable infrastructure we need, we can generate the national unity and common purpose that has been absent ever since the debate about our relationship with the rest of Europe turned into a self-destructive culture war. We can unite the country, avert the recession and save the planet all in one go, but it will take an awful lot more than 0.2% of GDP.

So what should we do? We expect to see as few as 3,500 social rented homes built across the entire country this year, the lowest number in history. In my constituency alone, we have 3,000 people languishing on the housing list. We need new homes, genuinely affordable homes and zero-carbon homes. The Government must fast-track the affordable homes programme and spend it on building new, zero-carbon social rented homes.

The Government must also launch a nationwide programme of energy insulation, starting with the homes of those with the lowest incomes, and they must also use this time of fast-tracked legislation—since they are in the mood to do it—to reform the Land Compensation Act 1961 to prevent land values from being inflated, so that we can make zero-carbon homes more affordable to build and more likely to be built.

Transport is key to rural communities such as mine, and to the environment and the recovery. In the north-west, transport spend per head of the population is still barely half of what it is in London, despite the promises made when the northern powerhouse was established. Bus services in London receive a £722 million annual subsidy; in Cumbria, we receive nothing at all. What little money exists rarely makes it north of the M60—not much of a powerhouse, and not very northern.

Our communities in South Lakeland have done a spectacular job putting together community bus services, such as the Western Dales Bus service connecting Sedbergh and Dent with Kendal and the surrounding communities, to plug some of the gaps caused by the steady loss of services, but we should not have to do that. The lack of subsidy means that fares are extortionate, which is a huge challenge, especially for low-paid workers. The 5-mile journey from Ambleside to Grasmere costs £4.90; a journey of equivalent length in London costs £1.50.

Bus services are essential to life in rural communities such as ours—essential to boosting our economy, moving to zero carbon and tackling isolation. They are also key to Cumbria’s vital tourism industry. Between 16 million and 20 million people visit us each year, and 83% of those visitors travel to us by car. With the right interventions and conditions, our visitors will travel sustainably.

We ask for a comprehensive, affordable rural bus service connecting all our villages to our main towns regularly and reliably. We ask for a network of electric hire bike stations. There should be such stations at all railway stations, in village centres, and at major bus stops, and action to make cycling easier and safer throughout Cumbria. We ask for the Lakes line, which connects the English Lake district to the main line, to be electrified. It is shameful that the Government cancelled electrification plans in 2017 for utterly bogus reasons. Now is the time to keep that promise and electrify this iconic line, which serves Britain’s second-biggest visitor destination after London. We ask that there be a passing loop on the Lakes line at Burneside to enable a huge increase in capacity, and we ask for Staveley station to be made accessible, so that it is no longer out of reach of those with mobility difficulties, who cannot make it up the 41 steps.

We ask that the Government show their commitment to industrial renewal and to tackling the climate emergency by investing in wave, hydro and tidal power in the most beautiful but—let us be honest—wettest part of Britain. Why is it that the UK, with the highest tidal range on the planet after Canada, spends so little on the reliable power that water offers? We are proud to have Gilkes in Kendal, beacon to the hydro energy industry. Let us back it, and others like it, so that we can get Britain working, sustainably.

For Cumbria and Britain, building back better and greener is possible—essential—but it means doing more than just using Roosevelt’s name; it will mean deploying Roosevelt’s courage.