Oral Answers to Questions
Tom Hunt Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Grant Shapps
This Government have a very proud record when it comes to renewables. When we came to power, barely 10% was from renewables; now the figure is 42%. In fact, on one day the week before last over half of this country’s energy was produced from offshore wind alone. The SNP does not like the answers I am giving because the amounts of money we are spending supporting people, including Scots, with energy bills this year means that, for example, the average single parent on means-tested benefit will be £1,050 better off because of the energy bills support scheme. Yes, we are doing our part, and perhaps it is time the SNP looked at its own policy to make sure it is encouraging energy production.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Grant Shapps)
I visited the site yesterday and was delighted to confirm the nearly £700 million investment in Sizewell C pledged in the autumn statement.
Tom Hunt
There are clearly significant national benefits to Sizewell C in terms of national security, but as a Suffolk MP I am particularly interested in potential jobs creation. I understand that about 10,000 new jobs could be created. I previously worked closely with EDF and Suffolk New College to see how we can ensure that as many local people—and my constituents in Ipswich—benefit from Sizewell C as possible. Will the Secretary of State, in his own time—when he has a little availability—meet me, the principal of Suffolk New College, other education sector leaders and EDF to see how Ipswich people can benefit in a real, tangible way from Sizewell C?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend will be interested and happy to learn that I met two apprentices at Sizewell yesterday, who have two of what we expect to be 1,500 new apprentice jobs. He is right to mention 10,000 jobs in the immediate area—perhaps there will be 20,000 across the country—and we expect more than 70% of investment in the project to come to the UK. I will gladly meet him and his colleagues to discuss that further.
Energy Prices: Support for Business
Tom Hunt Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
I very much welcome this package of support for business, as I welcomed the support for domestic users. However, I was contacted yesterday by Alan, a resident of Orwell Quay, who said he had experienced a 300% increase in the service charge for heating the communal areas. He wanted to know whether the Government have a plan to support leaseholders in places such as Orwell Quay in Ipswich.
Mr Rees-Mogg
We will legislate to ensure that the reduction in the wholesale cost is fed through to people in mansion blocks or whose energy is bought centrally and who are then charged through a service charge. That will be a fundamental part of these proposals.
Fairness at Work and Power in Communities
Tom Hunt Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I think it was correct for the Prime Minister to make the cost of living so central to the Queen’s Speech. I appreciate that some steps have been taken by the Government already, and I appreciate the fiscal position that the Government face is challenging, but I am of the view that more needs to be done, and I am glad that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have indicated that this will be the case. I will be watching the situation with interest. Like many colleagues, I have knocked on huge numbers of doors across my constituency and other local areas in the last few weeks, and we have had conversations with people who are struggling to get by at the moment. Of course, that will also be supplemented with our surgeries and casework, so I think we really need to grapple that.
There was much I welcomed in the Queen’s Speech. One of the other issues that always comes up for me is our town centre. It is of great concern to many of my constituents, who feel that the town centre has gone downhill. It is our main civic place, and it is something of great passion. The most frustrating thing about the town centre at the moment is that it does not quite seem to work, even though we have so many brilliant small independent businesspeople and entrepreneurs trying to make it work. Just this Monday, I was fortunate enough to have the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ipswich, and he met a number of those business owners. We went to Microshops in Carr Street, which is basically a pop-up facility so that local people who have an idea can get a foothold and try it out. If it works, it works, and if it does not, it is less high risk. For most of them it has worked, and 17 small independent businesses are now in there, and a number have got other premises in the town or are expanding. I was very pleased that the Chancellor was able to meet them.
There are too many significant buildings in Ipswich that are empty and have been allowed to collect dust for far too long. It is very pleasing to see that, in the old post office building that had been empty for years, the Botanist, a quite high-end cocktail bar, has opened up. Speaking of al fresco, it has lovely outdoor seating spilling on to the Cornhill. I was pleased to be able to attend its soft launch and its hard launch. At the first one I had completely non-alcoholic cocktails, and at the second one I was convinced to have one alcoholic cocktail. I very much advise everybody to go there if they are in Ipswich.
I welcome the measures relating to compulsory rental auctions and the powers that local authorities can use. Sadly, it has been too difficult to get many of these important buildings back into use, and as much as I would like to just blame the Labour council for all that, it would be wrong for me to do so because it is far more complicated than that. Often it is the owners of these buildings who, frankly, have not done enough. The owners of the building on Carr Street that is now the home of Microshops deserve credit for showing the initiative to get that going, but it is frustrating that it has taken so long to get off the ground.
To get our town centre thriving again, we also need to try to address my constituents’ concerns about the persistent antisocial behaviour in the town centre. Many of my long-term Ipswich residents do not go into the town centre, particularly at certain times of night, because they do not feel safe or secure. Having a good, high police presence in key parts of the town is important. If large groups, invariably of young men, are gathering and drinking alcohol when they ought not to be, and making inappropriate lurid comments to women of all ages going into the town centre, we need the police to be incredibly hands-on and interventionist to disperse and disrupt those groups and enforce the no-alcohol zones. That has not been happening to the extent that I would like, and that desperately needs to be addressed. Our town centre is of immense importance to my constituents.
Another key point that I was pleased to see in the Queen’s Speech was the issue of the small boat crossings. It is right that as a country we are being as generous as we are to refugees fleeing from Ukraine, as we were to those from Afghanistan. A number of constituents have taken in Ukrainian families, and it is the same for colleagues across this House. That is a tribute to them. It is the right thing to do, but of course it will place significant pressure on many of our public services. That is just a reality. We already have quite a long council housing waiting list in the borough, and the pressure on that over time will likely go up as a consequence of this, but it is still the right thing to do. The extra money we provided for school places was the right thing to do.
The challenge is made much more difficult when we have a parallel illegal flow of, invariably, young men arriving here from another safe European country. The reality is that those individuals who are coming here illegally and not claiming asylum in the other numerous safe countries they have come through are working directly against the interests of some of the most desperate families who are fleeing persecution. The more we can state that, the better. That is very much my view, and it is important that the Government have gripped that. Actually, I think it is the view of most of the country, who make the distinction between those fleeing areas of persecution and coming here and those who have refused to apply for asylum in France and other safe countries. It is important that we draw that distinction.
Tom Hunt
I will not be taking an intervention on this topic from the SNP. [Interruption.] I am so terrified of their illogical arguments that I could not possibly counter them.
The movement away from the Human Rights Act is also very welcome. A British Bill of Rights is a step in the right direction. Frankly, if we are subscribed to an international treaty that prevents us from being able to control our borders and therefore be a sovereign country, of course we need to review our membership of it—[Interruption.] I understand that Labour Members will find that difficult to understand, because most of them support open borders and do not believe in border controls, but I think that this is where most of my constituents are at.
I also want quickly to touch on the Public Order Bill, which I think builds on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. I was immensely frustrated by the Just Stop Oil protests, as I know most of us were—at least on this side of the House. People who were trying to get to work and go about their daily business were being disrupted by those self-righteous individuals who had no concern for the effect their reckless behaviour was having on others. I really struggle to explain to my constituents why, when individuals are carrying out criminal damage at petrol stations or chaining themselves to public buildings, our police force cannot just get in there and immediately remove them. Why are we dancing around? Just get on with it! Frankly, the stronger we can be in that area, the better.
The Public Order Bill is the right thing to do, but of course it would be voted against by the Opposition, who do not support it and who probably side with the reckless behaviour of those individuals. I know for a fact that the eastern region was one of the worst affected parts of the country during the recent protests. Only the seventh petrol station I went to had petrol, because of that behaviour. I had vulnerable constituents contacting me whose carers could not get to them because they could not fill up their motor vehicles. We should be completely intolerant of these reckless protesters, and I am pleased that the Public Order Bill will get us closer to that.
On a final note, I was pleased to see the point about education and opportunity for all. That is an objective that I, and the vast majority of Members in this place, believe in. On the topic of special educational needs, we have obviously had the Green Paper, which has been published. I have heard it referred to by some as a very, very Green Paper, which took a very, very long time to bring forward. The SEND review took too long, but we are where we are; we have a Green Paper in front of us and there is much in it that is positive. My desire is for that to happen as quickly as possible, so I urge the Government to place a huge priority on the SEN Green Paper, having the consultation and talking to stakeholders, but putting the action in place as soon as possible. Certainly in Suffolk, and in other parts of the country, there is a postcode lottery when it comes to SEN provision, and too many young people with great potential who have learning disabilities are being let down. We can never put enough money into SEN, as far as I am concerned. It is always an investment.
On the whole, I welcome this Queen’s Speech.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
Out there in the country, a crisis is unfolding. We have the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s, pensioners boarding buses to keep warm and food banks handing out cold boxes to families where both parents grind for a living that pays so little they cannot even heat the food handed out to them by charity, when it should be given as a right. We have had an uprising across the north of England and demands for more power in Scotland, in Wales, in the midlands and the south. We need to rewrite the script, ditch old orthodoxies and end the injustice of whole communities being written off and written out of the national story by Governments with far too little ambition.
In every corner of this country, people are crying out for change, and this Government’s big idea is referendums on street names and an alfresco dining revolution. Is this it? Seriously, is this it? Can they not see how absurd it is to tour TV studios talking about a Medici-style renaissance of our towns, villages and cities when high streets are falling apart, when many town centres in every part of this country are now no-go areas for people who live there, and when homes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) said, are cold and damp, and communities are broken apart by policies that force people to move into insecure housing miles away from friends and families? While they tour the country, reading out lists of leisure centres that have had a lick of paint funded by a small refund of our money that has been taken from us over a decade, on every measure—wages, homes, transport and life expectancy —the gap is growing and Britain is going backwards.
Are the Government not ashamed to stand there and say that they are getting the country firing on all cylinders, spreading prosperity and widening opportunity when Bloomberg this week showed that in nine out of 10 constituencies, the salary gap is widening, almost everywhere homes are unaffordable and public spending has fallen behind London in every single region of England in the two years since this Government were elected and took office with a promise to level us up? Are they not ashamed?
I thought it was pretty brave of this Government to enshrine the levelling-up missions in law, given that appalling record, but then I read the small print, and it turns out they are not even doing that. They are not even delivering the big flagship promise. Tucked away in this 325-page Bill, it states:
“The Minister…may revise the current statement of levelling-up missions so as to change the mission progress methodology and metrics or…target date”.
This is exactly what we have come to expect. They say they will build 300,000 houses a year, and then they do not. They promise Northern Powerhouse Rail 60 times in 60 press releases over seven years, and then they ditch it. They have given more money to fraudsters than they have to the whole of the north of England in the past year.
The bus subsidy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) said quite rightly, was quietly halved when no one was watching. The Government have closed Department for Work and Pensions offices across our regions. Remember that promise that when we left the European Union, we would take back control and the money that used to flow freely back to us through Brussels would be protected? That promise has been thrown in the bin.
The Cabinet is meeting in Stafford today. Frankly, I do not know how they have the nerve. Stafford is one of those places. Some £35 million has been lost from Stafford because of this Government’s decision to hold on to money that belongs to us. A billion pounds has been taken from communities in England. I am starting to think that the Government are just incapable of keeping any simple promise. After all the talk and all the spin, the only people who seem to have taken back control are a small group of Ministers in Whitehall. Any Government worth having would have used this Queen’s Speech to get money into people’s pockets, scrapping business rates and bringing in a windfall tax on the big oil and gas producers to get money off people’s energy bills.
It is not just that the Government do not back us when companies are making record profits and we are struggling to heat our homes; it is that they are actively working against us. This is the only Government in any G7 economy to put up taxes on workers during a cost of living crisis. I gave up looking for this Government’s moral compass a very long time ago, but the economic stupidity of that is breath-taking. Next year, we are forecast to have the slowest growth of any G7 country, which is why levelling up matters more, not less, at a time such as this. We should be turbocharging this programme and investing in our communities.
In the nine years leading up to the pandemic—in almost a decade of Tory rule—only two of the 38 OECD countries invested less than Britain, which is how we got high tax, low growth and a cost of living crisis. It turns out that if the Government slash solar, ban onshore wind and degrade gas storage, we get an energy bills crisis. It turns out that if an Education Secretary axes the scheme to build schools fit for the future, we end up with an £11-billion repair bill and one in six kids being in schools that are falling apart. Now the Government tell us that they want to raise school standards and enshrine them in law—give me a break!
The difference between us and the Conservatives is that we believe in our communities and we are prepared to back them. We would invest £28 billion a year, every year, for a decade to bring back the good jobs that underpin our local economies, so that kids from Barnsley to Aberdeen have choices: the chance to leave if they wish, and the chance to stay and contribute if they can. That way, geography is no longer destiny—do hon. Members remember that phrase?—and young people do not have to get out to get on.
This Bill is not a plan; it is a 325-page obituary of the Government’s levelling-up programme. The press release promises real power, but I think we have learned by now not to trust the spin. The Secretary of State promised to throw open the doors to welcome refugees from Ukraine, but he did not, did he? Some 200,000 families came forward in Britain to provide a home to people fleeing Vladimir Putin, but only 26,000 have been able to make a home here. After years of delay and agony for leaseholders, the Secretary of State said that he would make developers pay, but he did not, did he? We got a meeting, then another press release, but for all that, the agony continues.
What does the promise to implement the
“biggest shift of power from Whitehall in modern times”
actually amount to? The right to a better home was published literally—I am not joking—while the Secretary of State was on TV abandoning his commitment to build them. What on earth is the point of a right to something that does not exist? There was an announcement to make it easier for councils to bring boarded-up properties back into use, which is an idea so good that when we called for it back in September, the Government said that it was a “rehashed and failed” policy first proposed by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—I did not realise that the Secretary of State took advice from him. They went on to say that it
“goes to show Labour…have absolutely nothing new to offer our country”.
I am pleased to see that they have come round to our way of thinking.
Seriously, how many times do the Government think they can do this? They make a flashy headline-grabbing offer, but then people read the small print. The “power” in question is a share of the infrastructure levy, but only if people set up a town or parish council; and more powers, but only if people have a Mayor and live in an area that the Chancellor has deemed “economically viable” and has not written off, as he has done large swathes of the country. Even then, only a privileged few friends of the Secretary of State seem to get any powers that they need. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) was an outstanding Mayor, but let us imagine what he could have delivered for the people of South Yorkshire if he had had the powers that he clamoured for throughout his entire time in office.
As I went through the Bill, it turned out that the only thing that we get the right to decide for ourselves is what our Mayor is called—I am not joking. Three whole pages of the Bill are dedicated to giving us the right to pick a new name for our Mayors. A Medici-style renaissance it is not. In fact, it is just patronising nonsense or, as the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) said, a load of baloney.
In the Secretary of State’s quote accompanying the press release, he brags that he will allow
“every part of England which wants a London-style mayor to have one.”
May I gently say again to Ministers that not everywhere in this country wants to be London? We are proud of London—we love London—but not everywhere wants to be the same.
Lisa Nandy
If I were the hon. Gentleman, I would be very careful about trying to give the Opposition lessons on bullying, given the allegations that were found to have merit against the Home Secretary and many other Members on the Government Front Bench. As they say, if you wrestle with a pig, you get covered in—stuff. I would be careful, if I were him, about using this place to try to throw mud at us.
If only the Secretary of State had come to us and said that he could not do what had been proposed. If only he had just said to us, “Look, the Treasury has blocked it, No. 10 has ditched it, and the Cabinet Office has laughed at it.” If he had come to us and said, “Work with me, because together we might achieve this,” we would have been more sympathetic today. Instead, what we get is 325 pages marking the death of the Government’s levelling-up agenda. Well, if the Government will not do it, we will.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said, we will proactively defend and support the people who power this country. We will not stand aside when workers are thrown on the scrapheap. It really does make nonsense of claims of levelling up when we have a shower of Ministers who did not lift a finger to help hundreds of P&O workers until the news about P&O was made public. Today, the GMB and Deliveroo have shown that the jobs of the future can be jobs that people can raise a family on with dignity, security and respect. The hon. Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who is here to listen to the winding-up speeches, has run an admirable campaign to protect the tips of hard-working staff from unscrupulous employers, but where is the employment Bill that has been promised 20 times? Seriously, where is it?
We will put money back in people’s pockets through a windfall tax, so they can spend on our high streets, and our town centres can thrive again. We will aggressively chase down the jobs of the future, not have an empty Procurement Bill. We will not be a Government who promise to bring renewable jobs to Britain and then award a contract to build windfarms in Fife to a yard in Indonesia; instead, we will have a real strategy to make, buy and sell more in Britain. We will close the gap that has seen only two regions of the UK prosper in 19 of the last 20 years, and 12 years of managed decline of our nations and regions under the Tories.
By investing in good jobs in transport, digital and skills, as well as in tidal, hydrogen, solar and wind, we will rebuild our coastal and industrial communities. These places were once the engine room of Britain. Within living memory, we powered the world, and we will again. Whether in shipbuilding in Glasgow, textiles in Preston and Burnley, mining in Wales and Wigan, or fishing in Grimsby, the people that make our great towns and cities are the people who drove Britain forward, and they deserve so much better than this. Those jobs may have gone, but what remains is a fierce determination to contribute again—not to the history books, but to our future.
We deserve a Government who share our ambition for our communities and for Britain. That is why Labour will do this with the best asset we have—our people. If I have learned anything in the last 12 years, it is that people who have a stake in the outcome and skin in the game try harder, work longer, think more creatively and do more because so much is at stake. This Bill should have been the moment to hand real powers that we know will work for us to our community, so that we are no longer forced to go begging, cap in hand, to Whitehall for loose change and small powers. Every community in this country has the right to make a contribution to the national effort, not just some. It was George Orwell, who is forever associated with my town through “The Road to Wigan Pier”, who said that this is a country that lies “beneath the surface”, and it is time for that country
“to take charge of its own destiny.”
It is time for this tired Government—out of energy, out of ideas—to get out of the way, so that we can build it.
Income Tax (Charge)
Tom Hunt Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It has been quite painful to sit through some of the speeches today and hear how negative they have been about a Budget that has been put together in incredibly difficult circumstances. It is entirely wrong just to pour negativity on it and to say that it is pork barrel politics when there are so many examples of Opposition right hon. and hon. Members whose areas are benefiting from this funding. I was pleased to see a poll in which over 50% of the public approved of this Budget and 17% disapproved. Those are very positive numbers.
What is crucial here is economic credibility. One of the problems that Labour has is a lack of economic credibility. A lot of that goes back to the note that was left saying, “I’m sorry, there’s no money left.” That is still in the minds of millions of voters up and down the country. The thing about getting economic credibility is the need to be open and honest about the fact that there are difficult decisions that have to be made. If the Opposition pretend that there are no such difficult decisions, then it will be very difficult for them to gain any kind of credibility.
Tom Hunt
The Opposition can agree to every kind of spending pledge under the sun, whether it is saying, “We don’t want to cut international aid from 0.7% to 0.5%”, or whatever else, but at no point actually prioritise and say, “We think this is particularly important, so we will make up the money in this way.”
Tom Hunt
All we get when the Opposition vote against the increase in national insurance, say, is vague strategies about wealth taxes, so we do not get any detail about how much will be raised in what way. Yesterday, the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer went on the attack against the independent schools sector as though that alone is going to start raising the billions of extra money we need to do. That is just typical Labour class warfare to no end whatsoever.
Tom Hunt
I am not going to take any interventions at the moment, okay, so stop trying.
In terms of the circumstances we face at the moment, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) asked why we broke a manifesto pledge on tax. The key reason was the pandemic, and actually we spent £407 billion on dealing with the pandemic. That is why we had to do what we did. It was remarkable—the furlough scheme was absolutely the right thing to do, and it was incredibly impressive how quickly it was put together and it saved millions of people’s jobs. But when we were coming to end of that scheme, I was concerned myself about what it would do to unemployment. The suggestion that it could have been 12% was not unreasonable, and I feared that it could be around that level. The fact that it is 5% at the moment is a significant achievement. Regardless of our politics, every Member in this House should be really pleased about that and the fact that there are huge numbers of people in work, in a secure job, who we feared might not be. A lot of that is to do with the ingenuity of the Treasury, the Chancellor and his team. I thank them for that because it saved many of my constituents’ jobs.
On help with the cost of living, I very much welcome the decrease in the universal credit taper by eight points. The key thing about universal credit is that it was to try to ensure that it always pays to work—that work pays. Decreasing the universal credit taper by eight percentage points furthers that aim and saves some of the people on the lowest incomes a significant amount of money. That is to be welcomed. We should probably work to try to reduce it even more in future, but in a sustainable way that matches up with being responsible with our public finances.
Freezing fuel duty is also to be welcomed, as is increasing the national living wage. Apparently we are stealing Labour’s clothes—that is what I have heard—but I would like to think we are doing so in a responsible, sustainable way. It is absolutely right that as a party and as a Government we are single-minded about trying to do everything we can to support some of those on the lowest incomes in society. Many of those people are in my constituency. They are on lower incomes but want to work to get a higher income, and want the support to do so. There is a lot in this Budget that does that.
I am very passionate about the hospitality sector in Ipswich. We have some of the country’s best pubs, and we have some great breweries in Suffolk. The biggest cut in beer duty for 50 years is to be welcomed. I was one of the 100 Conservative Members of Parliament who wrote to the Treasury requesting that this happened. Only recently I was at the Belstead Arms, with its fantastic landlord Steve, who started the pub up in January 2010 and has got through a remarkably difficult period. He, for one, is very happy about this decision, as are the other 40 to 50-odd landlords in Ipswich, some of whom I will be visiting this weekend, but not too many.
The business rate reduction is also very welcome. It is one of the biggest reforms of business rates we have seen. It is not just tinkering; it goes much further than that.
Many right hon. and hon. Members will know that special educational needs are one of the things I feel most strongly about, partly because I myself had learning difficulties. I know I am a bit of a broken record in talking about that. I had dyslexia and dyspraxia. When I was 12, I had the reading and writing age of an eight-year-old. I was very lucky to get the support that I needed, so I am acutely conscious that a huge number of young people who are in the same position that I was do not get the support that they need. Not everything about special educational needs is about money, but a lot of it is, because most of the most powerful interventions we can make in special educational needs are resource-intensive. It is incredibly welcome that that has been recognised by increasing the special educational needs and disabilities budget by £2.6 billion over the next three years, with 30,000 extra special needs places. Yes, special schools are part of this, but better provision within a mainstream setting is part of it as well.
I see extra money for SEND as an investment, whether it is for prisons, where about a third of prisoners have some kind of learning disability—I reckon it is actually more like 50% if we diagnosed everyone who went in—or for children in care, over 50% of whom have learning disabilities. There is often pressure on families when their children’s needs are not met. Recognising that is incredibly important, and that is what the Government have done.
I want to finish by talking about levelling up and whether it is working for Ipswich. I think that in many respects levelling up is working for Ipswich. When some of my constituents heard about levelling up they feared that it was all about the north and the midlands. They were concerned that deprived parts of East Anglia would be forgotten—I actually mentioned that in my maiden speech. There are many examples of where the Government do recognise that it is not just about the north and the midlands. Ipswich has received £25 million from the town deals, and there are 11 discrete projects, many of them focused on skills. They are at the heart of levelling up and they make a massive difference to the lives of many of my constituents. We have had safer streets funding—in particular, for two parts of town with the worst problems of antisocial behaviour. We have a freeport just down the road in Felixstowe—one of just eight—which will hopefully bring forward 10,000 new jobs. We also have an opportunity area in Ipswich—one of only 12.
But there is one area where I would like to see the Government go a lot further. If we are going to sort out levelling up, we need to look at the way in which we fund our public services, and more specifically the funding formulas that lie behind the way in which those public services are funded, principally in two areas: education, particularly special educational needs; and police funding, where I do think Ipswich gets a raw deal. In Suffolk, police spending per head is £114.20 while in London it is £298, but we also compare very unfavourably with similar counties.
On SEND, there is a multi-academy trust with one school in Tower Hamlets and one school in Ipswich, and spend in Tower Hamlets is four times higher for children with mild to moderate learning difficulties, two and a half times higher for moderate to significant, and two times higher for significant to severe. It does not matter where it is—whether a child with a learning difficulty is in Ipswich, Birmingham or London, they are of the same inherent worth and value. There is no reason why random historical funding formula anomalies should mean that they get less funding and support per head than any other young person. That needs to be looked at.
I welcome this Budget. It is focused on the cost of living, focused on levelling up, and focused on allowing us to recover from an unprecedented pandemic.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I remind everybody that, unlike yesterday, there are wind-ups at the end of the debate today. Members are expected to come back for the wind-ups if they have participated in today’s debate.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to respond to today’s debate on behalf of the Opposition. Although the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is not in his place, I begin by congratulating him on becoming a father for the first time. He would not tell us his age, but if he is an older dad, as I was, I suspect that he is learning the reason that people have children in their 20s and 30s. That is a lesson that we learn when we have them a little bit older in life, so I give him my full solidarity and best wishes on his new baby.
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to the debate, which were wide-ranging. Several hon. Members talked about the need for business rates reform in the longer term, which the Opposition very much support. Others raised continuing issues with universal credit and made the point that the changes made yesterday will benefit only a minority of those affected by the cut of £20 a week that was implemented a few weeks ago. There were also contributions on artificial intelligence, the return of inflation, bank closures and many other issues.
Several Welsh colleagues raised coal tip safety. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) rightly reminded us that it has been just over 55 years since the tragedy in Aberfan. I remember visiting the graveyard in Aberfan as a young man with my friend Huw Lewis, the former Assembly Member for the constituency: I will never forget the pictures of children on the graves, lovingly cared for and frozen in time forever. Fifty-five years on, I hope that the UK Government and the Welsh Government manage to reach agreement on securing the safety of coal tips for the future. I thank hon. Friends for raising the matter.
The Budget, like all Budgets, covered many things, but the stand-out feature was the Chancellor’s admission that taxes are set to rise to their highest levels since the early 1950s—higher than under Norman Lamont, higher than under Ken Clarke, higher than under Denis Healey, higher than under any of the Chancellor’s predecessors. Corporation tax, personal allowance freezes, national insurance, council tax—there is one tax rise after another. A new analysis today shows that the combination of them is set to mean £3,000 more in taxes per household than when the Prime Minister came into office.
The reason for all the tax rises is simple: the Tories have become the party of high taxation because they are the party of low growth. In the 11 years in which they have been in office, economic growth has averaged just 1.8%. In the previous decade, it averaged 2.3%.
Tom Hunt
I find it somewhat unbelievable that the right hon. Member cannot see that perhaps the £407 billion that we spent fighting the pandemic might have something to do with what he has just identified.
Mr McFadden
If the hon. Member reads the OBR report, he will find that it says very clearly that the effect of the pandemic is smaller in the long run than the effect of the low growth over which his party has presided for more than a decade.
As I was saying, in the decade before the Conservatives came to office, growth averaged 2.3%. Let us look at what the difference between those rates means to people. The difference, added up over the years, is worth £9,000 a year to every household in the country, and from the Exchequer’s point of view, the difference would be £30 billion a year more to fund our public services. It is that more than anything—that appalling record on economic growth—which has forced the Chancellor to raise taxes. The British people are being forced to pay the price of the Government’s long-term economic failures.
The long-term effect of this lack of growth is far greater than the impact of the pandemic. When we look beyond the huge fall in GDP last year, due to the pandemic, and the bounce back from it this year and next, the growth picture does not change. The OBR is predicting economic growth averaging about 1.5% between 2024 and 2026. It is that low growth which creates the projections of real wages barely rising in the coming years. In his dreams, the Prime Minister is Winston Churchill; in his rhetoric, the Chancellor is Margaret Thatcher; but in its actions, this Government is Ted Heath.
The Chancellor and the Prime Minister have trapped the country in a vicious circle of low growth, rising inflation, stagnating incomes and rising taxes. The economic legacy of this Chancellor will be a country on the path of low growth and high taxation, but his political legacy will be as the man who buried forever the Tories’ reputation as a low-tax party.
Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill
Tom Hunt Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Kevin Hollinrake
I think that there are two separate things entirely. Who would not agree with skilling up our workforce? Of course we need to skill up our workforce and good employers will do that to enhance productivity, particularly if we move to a higher-wage, higher-skilled economy. It is absolutely right that we should do that. However, the key question on whether the Bill should go forward to Committee is: is the Bill in any shape or form amendable so that it can do what the hon. Gentleman wants? [Interruption.] I accept that Opposition Members may feel that it is, but there are cogent arguments from Government Members that it is not and that there are better ways to do this.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
I look to my hon. Friend for guidance, as a wise head. There are certain turns of phrase that I perhaps do not understand. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), said that this about not banning the practice, but ending the practice. Does my more experienced colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), understand what he means by that?
Kevin Hollinrake
I was not legally trained, so I am struggling. The key point is this: if we can find a way to meet the objectives of the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) without legislation, I would prefer to see that, and I think we all would because life is tricky enough when someone is trying to run a business, so if there are better, non-legislative ways to do it, we should absolutely look at them. The danger is that this becomes hugely bureaucratic.
Supporting Small Business
Tom Hunt Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. I think we can all agree on the immense importance of our small businesses and high streets that we represent in our constituencies, but I must also add shopping parades. We do not hear a lot about shopping parades. They are not necessarily as glamorous as town centres, but I must say that the small businesses that operate in the shopping parades in Ipswich have played an absolutely vital role, particularly when restrictions were in place and people could not go far from their home. They worked incredibly hard to support many of my constituents during that key phase and I would like to mention them here today.
The word “churlish” has been used a fair bit in this debate so far, by the Minister and other colleagues, and I think it is correct to use that word. Overall, £407 billion has been spent by the Government, much of which has been to support businesses through the furlough scheme, which we think has protected about 12 million jobs. In my constituency alone, £7.6 million has been given in restart grants to support local businesses in my town, so I think it is a slight difference to say, “Well, maybe it could have been slightly better in this way or that way,” and try to pretend that we have not done anything significant. I believe this Government have moved heaven and earth to support businesses in my constituency.
One hon. Member said earlier in the debate that the Conservatives are no longer the party of business and that every businessperson he talks to is disparaging about the Government’s support. That is simply not the case. Time and time again I talk to constituents and businesses in my constituency, some of whom have never actually supported the Conservatives before but are now open to doing so precisely because of the support that has been provided. That is not to say that there are not businesses and people out there who are not so happy with the support. That is true. These are conversations that I have had—[Interruption.] These are real conversations, so I do not know why you are laughing at me. [Interruption.] Sorry—I know I must refer to Members through the Chair. I got slightly animated there; I am very, very sorry. I have been getting better at that but sometimes standards slip.
I would like to talk about the town deal, which has been incredibly welcome for many hon. Friends and hon. Members. Ipswich, of course, has benefited from getting £25 million through a town deal. There are 11 different projects as part of that town deal that are making, and will make, I believe, an enormous difference to our town centre and to many businesses. As part of that—I mentioned shopping parades—there is a £2.5 million local shopping parade regeneration fund to support our shopping parades. We have buildings that have collected dust and have sat there empty that are being brought back into use. I cannot believe that about £100,000 had to be spent removing pigeon poo from one of those buildings, but that is the case. One of those projects will bring the Paul’s silo building in Ipswich back into use. The old post office building will be brought back into use because of the money supported through the town deal.
If the Labour party was this new pro-business party, despite the fact that it was not long ago that many of you were going into a general election supporting a Communist to be Prime Minister—[Interruption.] Of course, it was not long—[Interruption.] Was he not? [Interruption.] Was he not? But, of course, I forget—“under new management”. I do not believe that the Labour party can credibly claim to be the party of business, but why is it that you pour scorn on the town deal, which is providing over £3 billion—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Can the hon. Gentleman please stop making it so personal? He keeps saying “you” and he knows he must not do that.
Tom Hunt
Over £3 billion has been provided through the town deal programme—something that I believe all hon. Members should welcome. This is vital support, but time and time again, scorn has been poured on it and I think that is regrettable, because I would have thought that the town deal is something that we can all get behind and look at all the different ways that it supports local business.
I would like to talk about crime and antisocial behaviour, which is something that I think must be tackled if we are to support businesses on our high streets as they recover from the covid pandemic. I mention this with respect to both the night-time economy and the fact that, time and time again, I come across and am contacted by businesses in Ipswich who are victims of persistent crime, including shoplifting and everything else. This is a blight on their existence, so we need to have, in my view, a zero-tolerance approach to this kind of, as some people might call it, “low-level antisocial behaviour and crime”, but there is nothing “low-level” about something that happens week after week and seriously affects your ability to operate as a business. We need to have that zero-tolerance approach.
We are getting 20,000 extra police officers, but I would like to see a review of the national police funding formula. In Suffolk, we are getting between 50 and 60 new police officers, but, if we were funded fairly, it would probably be closer to 100. We need to look at that and at the night-time economy, because we do have a problem in Ipswich with crime. We also have a problem with drugs—drug-dealing and drug-taking—in the town centre, particularly on a Friday and Saturday night. The concern that I have is that you do not have that positive police presence and positivity, so negative influence can come into the town centre. Tackling crime and antisocial behaviour in our town centres must be part of supporting businesses as they recover from the covid pandemic.
I support the opportunity to debate this, and I agree with many hon. Friends that business rates should be looked at. We should strive for a level playing field, and we are so far away from having that level playing field. We see businesses that are rooted in our constituencies, and could not be more local and more important to the functioning of our local communities, unable to co-operate.
I think we should strive for a situation in which our town centres continue to be key retail centres. There may be some that are more residential, but we should not give up on a significant component of town centres and city centres being retail. For that to happen, we need a serious look at business rates. I was pleased to see that beer duty may also be looked at, which would be vital to the hospitality sector in Ipswich.
I do think that there needs to be less churlishness, because the Government have provided unprecedented support for businesses throughout the pandemic. Over £400 billion has been spent—£7.6 million in Ipswich alone has been spent on restart grants and furlough—so we need to have that debate. There needs to be an appreciation that at some point there will have to be a reckoning when it comes to public finances.
It is one thing to say, whenever there is a spending commitment or a debate about spending money, that we will always agree to it, but we cannot at the same time vote against the move to withdraw restrictions, which at least gave businesses in my constituency an opportunity over the summer to breathe and recover from the trauma that they have experienced throughout the pandemic. There are challenges ahead when it comes to covid, but I think it was right to allow businesses to recover in the summer period.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tom Hunt Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)
We have made a commitment to level up all areas of the country. The plan for growth is a critical part of that, and we will go further with the publication of a levelling-up White Paper, led ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), later this year.
Kwasi Kwarteng
As my hon. Friend will appreciate, we are looking at many ideal locations at the moment. I was pleased to make an announcement last week about Darlington; that is a really good move for the Department. We are always looking at ways to create more employment and recruit really great talent for our Department across the country, and I am sure that his constituency will also—perhaps—be among those considered for such expansion.
Tom Hunt
My constituents are very proud of the north of England and the midlands, even though we are in East Anglia, but they want a firm commitment from the Government—it cannot be stressed enough—that the levelling-up agenda also covers Ipswich. Of course, we have the £25 million from the town deal, which goes some way to assuaging these concerns. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that the skills improvement plan pilot bid from Norfolk and Suffolk could be a fantastic example to prove to the people of Ipswich that we are in fact at the heart of the levelling-up agenda? Will he engage in discussions with the Department for Education about the possibility of that pilot scheme, which would also feed the new freeport east in Felixstowe, which already employs 6,000 of my constituents but could employ many more?
Kwasi Kwarteng
My hon. Friend is quite right. He was good enough to mention the fact that Ipswich has indeed been selected for a £25 million town deal, and he suggested that that was as a matter of course, but I think it is due to his keen advocacy and his eloquent and persuasive powers that the Government can provide help in that way. Clearly, skills are at the core of any levelling-up agenda, and I know that there are great ideas in Ipswich and great things being promoted in East Anglia. I look forward to engaging with him on that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tom Hunt Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Nadhim Zahawi)
My Department continues to deliver a wide range of measures to support UK business. We have extended our loan schemes across the board, which have already delivered over £62 billion of finance, until the end of January, and the new local authority grants will also offer further support to businesses affected by the national restrictions.
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. The current restrictions will expire on 2 December. After those restrictions have expired, we intend to return to the tiered system, as I just mentioned on an earlier question. Of course, we have to make sure that businesses have that clarity, hence why the Chancellor extended the furlough scheme all the way to the end of March for businesses. The British Chambers of Commerce made it very clear to me a few days ago in a phone call that that was incredibly important help at the right time.
Tom Hunt
The Arcade Tavern is one of the most popular pubs in Ipswich. It has insurance against income loss because of notifiable diseases, but its insurers, New India, is refusing to pay out, blaming the Government for the loss of income. This has left the business fighting this pandemic and for the money that it is entitled to. Will my hon. Friend assure me that the Government will look unfavourably on insurers that do not honour their contracts and that this is not the case of the little man being stitched up? I have the letter right here, so I am happy to share it with him after this.
Nadhim Zahawi
I will happily look at the letter, and it sounds incredibly concerning that any insurer would act in this way. Pubs, of course, are a valuable part of many local communities across the country. We are in continual dialogue with the insurance sector regarding its response to this unprecedented situation. I will happily look at the letter and the details of my hon. Friend’s case.