Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I wish my hon. Friend and all members of the Treasury Committee a merry Christmas. I have read a summary of their report, but I have saved the entire document for my Christmas reading, and I am immensely looking forward to that. The most important thing is that we are offering extra support for people who are vulnerable—support that amounts to £13 billion next year—and that comes before the support with people’s energy bills and a lot of other measures. My hon. Friend makes a very important point about cliff edges, which we will reflect on carefully.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

15. What steps he is taking to increase funding for the education sector.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

At spending review 2021, the Department for Education was allocated a total of £87 billion, providing a cash increase to our education system of about £18 billion by 2024-25. Young people and adults benefited from the biggest long-term settlement for post-16 education in England since 2015. Of course, at the recent autumn statement, an additional cash increase of £2 billion was provided for both 2023-24 and 2024-25.

[Tom Hunt]

There have been significant improvements in special educational needs and disabilities provision in Ipswich in the last few years. Just last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), was at the Sir Bobby Robson School, which has 66 new places. Suffolk has had 1,000 new SEND places since 2019, and all of that is because of the investment that my right hon. Friend just mentioned. However, it is ever so slightly frustrating that Suffolk is still unfairly funded compared with other areas, including not just London but Norfolk, where a SEND pupil will get £99 more per head than those in Suffolk. I want young people with SEND in Norfolk to have every chance, but there is no reason why young and vulnerable people in Suffolk and Ipswich should get any less funding and investment. Will he commit to reviewing the bizarre quirk that means that Suffolk SEND kids get less than kids elsewhere?

[John Glen]

My hon. Friend is somewhat of an expert in the subject. I agree that it is critical that we get it right. Decisions on the distribution of high-needs funding are a matter for the Department for Education, but I reassure him that, as a result of the additional funding announced at the autumn statement, Suffolk’s high-needs funding is increasing by 11% per pupil in 2023-24 compared with this year. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), who has responsibility for children, families and wellbeing, will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to describe and discuss the different mechanisms of allocation and, indeed, how the high-needs formula works across different local authorities.

Finance Bill

Tom Hunt Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

On the point that has just been made that those of us on the Conservative Benches have some kind of income threshold in mind when we talk about hard-working people, I can assure the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), who made the comment, that that certainly is not the case for me. When I think about hard-working people and hard-working constituents in my patch, I recognise that some of those on the lowest incomes are among the hardest working. They make the decision to get up in the morning, scrape the ice off their windscreen and go to work because they think that is the right thing to do, so that certainly is not my view, and I do not think it is the view of many of my colleagues either.

On the point about Brexit, I think it is beyond the debate in this place, in that we have had Brexit and then afterwards we have had the pandemic and the biggest war in mainland Europe since the second world war. The reality is that it will be a long time before we can truly assess whether Brexit was the right thing to do and come to a conclusion. Coming to a conclusion two to three years after it has been delivered, given that we have just come through a pandemic and we are grappling with the biggest war in mainland Europe since the end of the second world war, is quite childish and not the right thing to do.

I spoke last week about the fiscal statement, and I welcomed many of the measures. I welcomed the fact that universal credit has gone up in line with inflation, I welcomed the protection of the triple lock, and I welcomed the fact that the national living wage is going up. I also spoke about the international context in which this debate is happening, and the fact that when we look around the world, particularly at comparable countries, we see countries that are all grappling with levels of inflation that those countries have not seen for many decades. That is something we have to bear in mind, but at the same time I think we have to be open and honest about some of the mistakes that were made by the previous Administration.

However, it is high time that the Opposition started dealing with what is in front of us, and by what is in front of us I mean the statement that was delivered only a few weeks ago. More often than not, I hear the Opposition engaging with the previous Administration, not the current Administration. The longer this current Administration get going with their package of reform, the harder that will be for the Opposition to do, because the current Prime Minister was of course the one who predicted many of the negative consequences of what the previous Administration did. When it comes to economic credibility, I say that the Prime Minister, in lockstep with the Chancellor, has by far and away the highest capital when it comes to these issues.

I want to talk about two issues that I did not really talk about last week to do with the Finance Bill. The first is education. I do think it was an achievement: the Government had to make some incredibly difficult decisions to get our public finances on a surer footing, but, even despite that, they were able to bring forward £2 billion of extra funding in education for schools. This is something that I care passionately about. I would, however, say that I have been contacted by Suffolk New College, the principal further education college in Ipswich, which does fantastic work that not just our local area but the country will rely on to equip local people with the skills necessary to make a success of Sizewell C and also of the freeport at Felixstowe and Harwich. I would like to bring forward its request that the further education sector is considered for any potential underspend in the school system between the years 16 and 18. It is right that the Government highlight the importance of skills, apprenticeships and further education. Of course, we have an Education Secretary who was an apprentice herself, and I am confident that the Government will bring forward, in time, solutions to the way in which we fund our further education sector. I made a promise to Viv from Suffolk New College that I would make that point in this speech today, and I have just done so.

I have spoken constantly since I was elected about the importance of special educational needs. I have also spoken about the fact that there are ways in which we can improve special educational needs provision, and it does not all involve more money and more spending. I have come up with ways in which that can happen by reforming the way Ofsted assesses schools, so that it is always an incentive for schools to prioritise first-rate special educational needs and disabilities provision, but a lot of it is to do with resources.

Only recently, I was in the constituency of the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). He allowed me to step foot in his constituency. There is a part of his constituency that is essentially Ipswich—he is incredibly lucky to have a little bit of Ipswich in his constituency—and he allowed me to step foot in a very special school called the Bridge School. I went there to see a community café that has been opened by the Bridge School, and the whole purpose of that café is to increase the opportunities for the pupils at that school to interact with members of the community to build their confidence and their ability to integrate and play a positive role within their community.

I went into the school afterwards, and I saw some fantastic best practice in supporting some of the most vulnerable young people. For example, it has an indoor swimming pool, and I saw the way that that was used. The reality is, though, that all of this costs money, and some of the most powerful interventions for the main special educational needs cost money. My argument would be that this is an investment; it is always an investment. Utilising the talent and the ability of young people with very special needs—neurodiverse thinkers—is an investment. When we look at some of the depressing statistics when it comes to how many people in the criminal justice system have special educational needs because they have not got the support they need, we know that investment is morally the right thing to do, but it is also the right thing to do from the point of view of the Exchequer. I would also say that at some point I would like to look at the way that Suffolk SEND in particular is funded, because I still think that, when we are compared to other areas, we do not get a fair deal in SEND funding.

Secondly, I would like to talk about devolution. The Suffolk devolution package was announced as part of the fiscal statement, which has confirmed £480 million over a 30-year period. I think this is really good news, and what I quite like about the Suffolk devolution package is that it will not be creating a new tier of bureaucracy. I have intimate or a lot of experience of mayoral combined authorities—I worked at a mayoral combined authority in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough —and I have to say that the structure in place is not working. I think that plonking a new level of bureaucracy on top of an existing local government structure created unnecessary tensions, and having a way of delivering devolution that does not create another tier of bureaucracy, but actually devolves power and funding directly into the existing county council, is the right thing to do. It will save the Exchequer money, it will lead to better and more streamlined decision making, and it will avoid some of tensions and the conflicts that have come about as result of the devolution in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, so I welcome that.

I also welcome a key aspect: the devolution of the adult education budget. Adult education often does not get the attention it deserves in the educational sphere. I saw the way adult education was devolved in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, when decision making was put into the hands of local politicians and local specialists, and the difference that can make. Money was directed into the areas where it could make the biggest difference, and I saw the transformative effect that that was having in the most deprived parts of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

I think it is important, when we talk about the fiscal statement, that Suffolk was at the heart of it, and it was at the heart of it because of Sizewell C, which could potentially bring forward 10,000 new jobs. So we in Suffolk need the Government’s help to ensure we can step up for our education sector to get the high-skill people necessary to make a success of Sizewell C, which will have huge implications at national level. There is an opportunity therefore, and it is almost uncanny that we have the news about Sizewell C while at the same time we have the devolution of skills associated with Suffolk devolution, because by devolving those budgets and powers we are better able to deliver for the country the skills we need to make a success of Sizewell C.

My final point on devolution is that, even with the steps we have made on devolution over the last decade or so, we remain one of the most centralised democracies in the world. Not all my colleagues are supporters of devolution, but I am; I think there is something to be said for the American expression, “Laboratories of democracy”. To have proper devolution, we must have an element of fiscal devolution; I know some in the Treasury would be cautious of this movement, but that should at some point be explored. Devolution can work, because ultimately it is about putting power closer to people, and in principle that is a good thing that no one can disagree with, but we need to do it in the right way.

I have gone on for far longer than I anticipated—11 minutes in total; a precedent was set before my speech. I welcome the fiscal statement and the Finance Bill, which represents a fair and compassionate approach and which, even in the most challenging times, finds a way to invest in education, and that will always have my support.

Autumn Statement Resolutions

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I have been waiting eagerly to make my contribution, Madam Deputy Speaker. Obviously, there is a policy to keep the best speakers until last, which I welcome, and I will try to live up to that reputation.

In terms of the context in which the autumn statement was made last week, I think it was a fair and reasonable statement, but I do not think that many of us left the Chamber with a huge spring in our step. How could we, when we looked at some of the forecasts? These are grim economic times, and when we look at the global factors, which are primarily the driver of where we are, we just do not know when they are going to abate. It is very difficult to predict. That is why I treat with a degree of scepticism some economic forecasts that seek to accurately predict what a particular complex economy will be like in two and a half years’ time. We simply do not know how a number of crucial factors will develop between now and then, such as the war in Ukraine and its impact on energy prices.

Two events that would usually happen once every 100 years have happened in the space of two years: the global pandemic, which we had to spend £400 billion on tackling, and the biggest war in mainland Europe since the second world war. To try to pretend that those are not the primary factors for where we are is borderline ludicrous. We can make our comments about the mini-Budget and point out some of its shortcomings—I think that some of them are right—but to try to pretend that we are the only country that finds ourselves in a uniquely challenging position is simply not accurate.

When I knock on doors in my constituency and I talk to constituents, they see that there is a very difficult global situation and that difficult decisions have to be made. They have said to me to please ensure that fairness is at the heart of the decisions that are made. I have to say that I think that in some respects, the mini-Budget fell short in that regard, so I am pleased that last week’s statement did in many different ways speak to those values of fairness and compassion. I have a large number of universal credit claimants in my constituency, so I was pleased that universal credit payments will go up in line with inflation. I was pleased to see the national living wage increase. I was also pleased to see the wealthiest in society share more of the tax burden. The threshold for paying 45p has been decreased—I support that. I also think that there is a case for a windfall tax from time to time. Though I understand the cyclical nature of how energy companies make profit, it was the right thing to do.

We hear some people in the country say that this is not a Conservative statement and that these are not Conservative values. The Conservative party is a broad church, and my understanding of conservatism is that it should speak to compassion and to fairness. I feel very comfortable with the broad thrust of the statement. I am not a rampant libertarian. What I am is somebody who wants to represent my constituents as best I can. I know that for many of them, this is the most difficult time they will ever face, getting through the challenges ahead and managing to put food on the table and keep their homes warm. Wanting to stand for that is the right thing to do.

The focus on inflation is also the right thing to do. This Saturday at 8 am I was at my local food bank with FIND—Families in Need—talking to Maureen, who runs it. She said, “Tom, from the moment you were elected it has been a difficult period.” The pandemic hit three months later and it has not stopped being difficult, but she said that we might be about to enter the most difficult period. She welcomed the increase in universal credit in line with inflation, but she raised a particular issue about single men, because she is concerned that they might fall through the cracks. Many of the clients she talks to are ineligible for a lot of the support announced. She feels that a lot of them do not always feel able to ask for help and come forward. We know that that is often an issue with mental health and wellbeing, but perhaps there is a specific issue when it comes to reaching out for help within the community. I think that should be looked at.

In terms of the focus on public services, bearing in mind how often and repeatedly I have banged on about special educational needs and the importance of increasing funding, it is no surprise that I welcome the fact that, despite the huge challenges they fact, the Government have still been able to find extra funding for education, which I hope will include special educational needs. I also welcome the focus on skills and apprenticeships, and more money for the NHS.

On local points, I understand that the levelling-up fund has been widely subscribed to and that there is a limited pot of money. We know that the bid from Ipswich is one of the stronger bids, and focuses squarely on getting Ipswich active. We are one of the least active towns and that has a big impact on health outcomes. The bid that we are putting forward, for £80 million in some of the most deprived parts of town, would dramatically improve health outcomes for individuals in those communities. I am pleased that that pot of money is protected. The next thing is to make sure that a good amount of it goes to Ipswich.

On the Sizewell announcement, in terms of energy security, at a national level many of us will welcome it; at a local level it could mean 10,000 new local jobs. It will not be a success without Ipswich people being given the opportunity and the pathways to take apprenticeships and jobs to support Sizewell both during its construction and afterwards. I would like to talk to the Government about how we could make that a practical reality and how it could benefit my constituents.

I have a final point. Over the weekend I saw some things about fuel duty. I urge the Government to continue to do what they can to keep fuel duty at the same level, and if not, perhaps even cut it. That is a tangible thing that can be done to help some of those who work—they get up every morning, scrape the ice off the windscreen and go into work—but who are often on low incomes and struggling to get by. It is a direct and real way in which we can help those people, many of whom are my constituents.

On the whole, last week’s statement was fair and balanced. We are in a difficult position and, whether or not the mini-Budget had happened, we would still have been in the position last week of having to make very difficult decisions. Ultimately, yes, I want to see tax lower—that is one reason why I am a Conservative—but we can deliver sustainable tax cuts only on a foundation or platform of sound money. That is proper conservatism. The Conservative party needs to be a party of fairness, decency, hard work and sustainable tax cuts linked to sound public finances. For all those reasons, I welcome the financial statement.

Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Appointment

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

Every Department of Government, without exception, does everything it can do to support the Union of this country.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I must confirm that I am more interested in having a debate about delivery and the role of the chief of staff in delivering the priorities of my constituents, and less in process. I would also say that a criticism of No. 10 is that it can be overly metropolitan in its focus and Westminster bubble-orientated. Does my right hon. and learned Friend think it is actually an advantage to have a Member of Parliament, especially an engaged one, from the Fens, no less? As a Fen boy, I can confirm there is no less metropolitan place than the Fens, and there could be an advantage in that.

[Michael Ellis]

I have no doubt that my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

The Government are committed to ensuring that the whole of the United Kingdom benefits from our investment in renewables and our transition to net zero and the growth that that affords us, and I am happy to look into the matter that the hon. Gentleman raised.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to increase wages and support the lowest-income households.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)]

As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has announced, we are increasing the national living wage to £9.50 an hour for workers aged 23 and over from this April. That means a pay increase of £1,000 a year for a full-time worker earning the national living wage, and keeps us on track to meet our target to end low pay by the financial year 2024-25. As we have heard, we have taken further decisive action by cutting the universal credit taper rate and increasing the universal credit work allowances.

[Tom Hunt]

When it comes to high-paid jobs in the Ipswich area, Freeport East has generated great interest. However, my constituents are keen to see meat on the bones, and for that exciting principle to become a reality. Currently, the plan is to put in the full business case this April. Clearly, that is a most exciting prospect, being near to Ipswich. Will my right hon. Friend give me a firm guarantee that rocket boosters will be put under the plans, to ensure that the benefits of Brexit and the benefits of the freeport can be realised for my constituents as soon as possible?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. In the week that we announced the Brexit freedoms Bill, that is a really good example of why our decision on the Government Benches to honour the people’s decision to leave the European Union was the right one, and why the Labour party was so wrong to oppose it. The Prime Minister was at Tilbury only yesterday to identify the benefits of freeports, and I can reassure my hon. Friend that we are putting rocket boosters under this policy, for the benefit of places like Ipswich.

Health and Social Care Levy

Tom Hunt Excerpts

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

One thing that concerns me is that I saw some polling earlier this week showing that only about 25% of the population know that social care has to be paid for. That in itself is something we need to address through a certain level of engagement. If a lot of the people who are dismissing and opposing the national insurance rise truly understood and comprehended the devastating consequences of out-of-control social care costs, they might think differently.

Where are we right now? We are in a situation where we have spent £400 billion since the start of the pandemic. We have waiting lists growing and spiralling out of control as a result of the pandemic. We all have constituents who are waiting in pain for hip and knee replacements and more serious operations. We have constituents, including mine, who are not able to see their GP face to face and all the consequences of that. That needs to be addressed urgently. My constituents should be able to see their GP face to face when they need to do that.

We are in this appalling situation, and I take issue with the dismissive way that Opposition Members have spoken about many of the individuals who could benefit from the social care cap, referring to them all as millionaires in Surrey. The people I know who have been clobbered by social care bills are not millionaires in Surrey; they are people who have worked hard their entire life, paid tax on what they earned and at the end of their life, they have something to show for it. It is not just bricks and mortar; it is a home that they love and that they raised their kids in. Not unreasonably, they want to pass that on to their kids. When their mental and physical health is deteriorating, to see everything they have worked hard for whittled away in a matter of years is utterly depressing and morally wrong. I am proud to support a cap that addresses that, and I make no apology for doing so.

In terms of the manifesto point, I stood on a manifesto—we all did—and there was a pandemic straight after we had the election. This is an extraordinary situation, and probably nothing has happened since the second world war that has had such a dramatic effect on cost and spend. We spent £400 billion. People make this inaccurate comparison with George H.W. Bush and “read my lips”. Over the summer, I had a few days off, and I read a very long book about George H.W. Bush. He did not have a pandemic happen a year after he stood for election. It just simply did not happen. It is like writing a manifesto in 1938 and then realising that thousands of Spitfires have to be built because the second world war is starting. The money has to be raised somehow, and to say, “We cannot possibly do that, because we cannot change the manifesto we stood on a year ago”, would be absolutely absurd.

What are we dealing with right now? We are dealing with a situation where we have a cap of £86,000. We need to know more. We need to know more particularly about those with £20,000 to £100,000 and how their care costs will be subsidised. We understand that the councils will help with that. I need to know more about how that will work in practice. I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) and others who represent areas with hard-working constituents where house prices are very different from those in London. We need to know more about that.

Ultimately, we have seen the Prime Minister speak on this issue, and we have seen his passion. He is right to be passionate about this. The easy thing for him to do would be to use the pandemic as an excuse to push this issue into the long grass, but he has not done that. He has done the difficult thing and grasped the nettle. I am proud that he is our leader and our Prime Minister. He is doing that. What else was in the manifesto? Sorting out social care. No one should suggest we push that into the long grass. The Labour party does not want to decrease international aid, it wants us to make the universal credit increase permanent and it wants us to spend £16 billion on this and that. Labour never says no to a pay increase. I know what will be in my manifesto: you voted against—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and to what was initially my home county, I hope it is just one year that Ipswich will have a local derby against Cambridge and that very soon we will be at least a couple of divisions higher than Cambridge.

There is a huge amount to welcome in the Queen’s Speech, but I only have a short period of time to speak. It is right that we are robust in tackling illegal immigration. There is nothing compassionate about sending out a message that it is worth the risk, fuelling an evil trade in human lives and limiting the capacity of this country to help the most genuine refugees who are fleeing actual areas of conflict, not other safe European countries such as France. I welcome that, but we really do need to deliver, because—like many other Members, I imagine—my inbox is pretty full of emails from constituents who are quite angry about that.

I very much welcome the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will introduce tougher sentences for some of the most serious offenders and has good stuff on protests. There is nothing that threatens peaceful protest, but it gives the police the powers they need to curb excessive protesting, which causes a huge nuisance and disrupts the lives of the law-abiding majority on far too many occasions.

There is a lot further to go on criminal justice. Many of my constituents feel that the system is not far away from being broken, and I cannot blame them, when we find out that the person responsible for killing Richard Day in Ipswich not long ago received only four years and will be let out automatically after only two years. This is an individual who punched my constituent in the neck, which led to his death, and was seen laughing over a dying man, going through his pockets and stealing his belongings. Understandably, my constituents are sickened by that, and I will take that up in the debates we have.

As for skills, we are in a great place to benefit from a freeport in Felixstowe, but I am determined that Ipswich people benefit from that freeport as much as possible. We have to have an ecosystem approach when it comes to skills and education. We need to create a framework for business, FE colleges and our university, and we need to start careers advice early, so that there is a clear sense early on that there are multiple pathways—there is an academic pathway but also a technical pathway—and that no one route is superior to any other. There needs to be that common sense of purpose.

The lifetime skills guarantee is a huge benefit and a huge plus. Ipswich will also benefit from a town deal. In Ipswich we have Spirit Yachts, which designs some of the world’s most in-demand, elegant yachts that are sold across the world, but in the past it has been people from outside the area coming to Ipswich to make them. The maritime skills funded by the town deal will make sure that it is local people who get those jobs and sell products from Ipswich—the greatest town in the country—around the world. I very much welcome this Queen’s Speech. I cannot say any more about it, but it is a good job.

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

That is a continuation of the question, as the hon. Lady knows.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I want to raise with the Minister concerns about certain organisations prejudging the Sewell report for political ends without fairly assessing the findings. One concerning example was the Runnymede Trust, which organised a campaign against the report over a week before it was published and broadcast a live-streamed event with Patrick Vernon, chair of Labour’s racial equality advisory group, where they argued that the report’s authors were equivalent to holocaust deniers who had been asked to develop a strategy on antisemitism. Does the Minister agree that not only does that kind of bad faith political action undermine the Runnymede Trust’s charitable objective of improved race relations, but that the shameful treatment of the report’s commissioners might actually discourage ethnic minorities from contributing to public life and public debate? I also thank her for her statement.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. What he has described is part of the climate of intimidation surrounding the report’s authors, which I condemned in my statement and which has just been demonstrated by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler).

I read in today’s paper that the Runnymede Trust is now the subject of a complaint to the Charity Commission. One complaint refers to the behaviour of the trust’s CEO and staff towards ethnic minorities who have a different approach to racial equality. Some of that behaviour includes calling a black Conservative a “house negro” and horrific views on mixed-race relationships expressed by one staff member, comparing white people having relationships with black people to slave masters sleeping with their slaves. I do not believe that these actions are appropriate for a charity committed to racial equality.

This is a good time to remind the House that the current chair of the Runnymede Trust applied to be the Labour candidate for Poplar and Limehouse in 2019, but failed to make the shortlist. I would be keen to know whether the shadow Minister condemns those sorts of remarks, or believes that they are acceptable so long as they are targeted at people she disagrees with.[Official Report, 22 April 2021, Vol. 692, c. 5MC.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Member for his question. Of course, he will be aware that the benefits of HS2 are not, by any means, just restricted to the cities that are on its route; it is a national project of significance. More widely, Wales has done very well in the last Budget, if I might remind him more generally, with accelerated funding for the Swansea bay, north Wales and mid-Wales city growth deals, money for the hydrogen hub and, of course, £30 million towards the global centre of rail excellence in Neath Port Talbot. What I would say, though, is that of course we do now have a UK infrastructure bank, which will be looking at issues of infrastructure across the country, including in the devolved Administrations.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

What fiscal steps his Department is taking to support businesses affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

What fiscal steps his Department is taking to support businesses affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)]

The Government are providing over £407 billion-worth of support for the UK economy over this year and next. Contained within that is considerable support for business, through discounted loans, cash grants, VAT reductions and tax deferrals, all designed to help business get through this crisis and protect as many jobs as possible.

[Tom Hunt]

I very much welcome the £25 million that Ipswich will be getting through a town deal, and the creation of Freeport East. Some 6,000 of my constituents are employed, directly or indirectly, through the port of Felixstowe. The town deal will create a new tech campus and a maritime skills academy to feed jobs—high-skilled jobs—in the area. Therefore, does the Chancellor agree that both the town deal money and the new freeport, together, will be vital to the creation of new local skills in Ipswich and therefore crucial to supporting local business at this difficult time?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I congratulate him; he has long campaigned on the importance of a town deal for his local community and, indeed, a freeport. I am delighted that this Budget could deliver both of those for his constituents and I agree with him that it will deliver growth, jobs and prosperity to his local area.

Economic Update

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am happy to address directly the point about funding for Scotland and perhaps clear it up. In recognition of the very difficult circumstances that the devolved Administrations were grappling with—as we all are during this crisis—the UK Government made an unprecedented decision to provide an up-front funding guarantee to provide certainty and clarity for the Scottish Government so that they could make plans in advance of individual announcements being made and the appropriate Barnett sums being made available at that time. That was something that the Scottish Government had asked for, and it was welcomed. It is now clear that the hon. Lady seems to think that that is not a good thing. The point of doing that is to provide up-front certainty, but it is still also right to keep a tally of the various announcements, as they are made, about the additional sums that they trigger for Barnett, which will net against that guarantee, and then over time the guarantee will be adjusted. If I am hearing from the hon. Lady that she would prefer not to have up-front funding guarantees and would prefer the system of knowing Barnett consequentials only on an announcement- by-announcement basis, she should please write to me and let me know. But in aggregate this year £8.6 billion in up-front funding guarantees has been made available for the Scottish Government; the most recent announcement did trigger Barnett consequentials, which will net off against that guarantee. Over time, as we have done, that guarantee will be increased over the year as new announcements are made. I am not sure I could tell from the hon. Lady’s response whether businesses in Scotland have been offered an additional grant of up to £9,000 to help them get through the next few months. Perhaps she can clear that up for Scottish businesses, because that is what the UK Government are providing for businesses here in England. That money has been made available to the Scottish Government through the guarantee, and, of course, we look forward to seeing how they use it.

It is also important that this is not just about Barnett consequentials; we have always adopted a UK-wide approach to our support. Whether we are talking about the furlough scheme, all the things we have done on VAT, supporting people into employment or indeed our loans, many businesses and people in Scotland have been supported, because this is one United Kingdom Government and we will make sure that we provide support for our citizens in every single part of it.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

The hospitality sector in Ipswich certainly welcomes the grant support the Chancellor announced last week—that is very welcome—but about a month ago I held a virtual roundtable event for the sector in Ipswich and it was probably one of the most sobering virtual meetings I have taken part in since this pandemic started. It was very sad to hear about the extreme anxiety those in the sector have; they have poured their whole lives into the businesses where they are working and there is still concern even now. So will my right hon. Friend confirm that he will be reflecting on what further support might be provided ahead of the Budget? I am talking specifically about a potential extension of the business rates holiday throughout 2021 and also the support on VAT, because there is light at the end of the tunnel but when we go into that much better place I want to make sure that The Brickmakers Arms, The Kingfisher, the Belstead Arms, Pauls Social Club and the California Social Club, which I am now a member and stakeholder of—I own part of it now that I have become a member—are there with us.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It has to be a shorter question. We have put you on early to make sure you can get things mentioned, but you cannot make a speech in a question. I think we more or less have the drift of it.