Income Tax (Charge)

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I was very pleased with the Budget yesterday. I signed a few letters, with colleagues, to call for various things, with a sort of 70% or 80% success rate. Universal credit has been extended for another six months and fuel duty has been frozen for the 10th year in a row. I called for beer duty to be cut; I do not think it was cut, but it was frozen, and there is other support for hospitality, which is very much welcome.

We heard a lot yesterday about levelling-up and what it means for the north of England and the midlands, but we also saw yesterday a demonstration from the Government that when they talk about levelling-up, they are not just talking about the midlands and the north of England. My own constituency of Ipswich has pockets of real deprivation; what did we get yesterday? We got the maximum £25 million from the towns deal fund, for 11 projects that will be a key boost for our town. What else did we get? We got Freeport East. Some 6,000 of my constituents are employed either directly or indirectly by the port of Felixstowe, so the success of that port matters for my constituency and for my constituents.

Let me look at the town deal and what it means in terms of skills and jobs. The health and social care academy, which the town deal will fund through £2 million to £3 million via the University of Suffolk, will train the next generation of nurses and social care workers in our town. The maritime skills academy will be on the Island site in Ipswich, where we have some of world’s most elegant yachts, which are made in Ipswich and exported around the world. With this academy, they will now be made and developed by craftsmen trained in Ipswich and from Ipswich. That is very much to be welcomed. There has been a bit of a hoo-hah and debate about these town deals over the last day. In some senses, Labour politicians in other parts of the country are a little bit bitter that they have not got a town deal like Ipswich has—for £25 million—but what is slightly surprising is the reaction of Ipswich Labour party, who surely, you would think, would be jumping for joy at the fact that it got this £25 million. I remember when the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government visited Ipswich before the general election and the town deal was dismissed as an election bribe that would never happen. I am glad to see that the leader of Ipswich Borough Council has now changed his ways and welcomes it, but it is a shame that not all of his councillor colleagues do, and they continue, even after yesterday’s news, to refer to it as a bribe and negatively.

The reality is that there are parts of the town that long supported the Labour party, but felt let down by it—I am talking about areas such as Chantry and Gainsborough. It was myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) who actually fought for a town deal to include a project to be entirely about investing in those communities—investing in local shopping parades in Chantry and Gainsborough and investing in keeping community assets. This is a Budget for the country and it is also a Budget for Ipswich, and it is to be welcomed.