Tom Tugendhat
Main Page: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge and Malling)
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
What we have here is a Budget that sets out a transformational moment in our history. As many people have mentioned, we have spoken a lot about Brexit—about leaving the European Union—not just today, but over many of the weeks and months past. The idea that the Chancellor has somehow dodged the question is therefore frankly a little odd, in the same way that it would be odd to describe how we speak about democracy in that way—of course, the whole element is democratic. It is absolutely absurd to pick out bits and pretend they have not been picked on.
There are a few areas of the Budget I would like to pick out, which I am particularly keen on. The digital infrastructure budget of £740 million—much of it going into 5G and broadband—will be absolutely essential in constituencies such as mine. Rural communities such as mine have huge amounts of innovation and enterprise but little of the infrastructure to hold them together, and this money will allow them to communicate with not just each other but the world. As we open ourselves up to the world, and as the Department for International Trade makes such extraordinary efforts to link us very much to communities on the other side of the planet, it seems quite absurd that I could get 3G and 4G signals very easily in Kabul and Khartoum, but that, in Kent, getting a phone call at all is pretty tricky.
That money is very welcome, and so too is the spending on national roads infrastructure, because, of course, we do need to communicate internally. However, one area I have not heard enough about, which I would like to hear more about, is rail. So often, we focus on the economics of rail as though rail paid for itself through the ticket prices, but, of course, it does not. Trains pay for themselves not through the ticket prices paid by the travelling public but through the economic development they allow. I therefore hope very much that we will look again at rail infrastructure and look very seriously at how much more we can put in.
There are, of course, other areas. As an investor in a few start-ups in this country—I refer you to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am pleased to see the £100 million for the global research talent pool and the £250 million of talent funding going to PhDs and suchlike. Attracting the best and the brightest to our community is about starting those businesses and generating that enterprise and innovation that will turn us into not just a more advanced, better and richer society but the think-tank and the start-up capital of the world, and I think that we can get there.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The case the hon. Gentleman is making about attracting the brightest and the best is a good one, and I agree with him on that, but does he agree that the Home Office has to play its part? In my constituency, I have two entrepreneurs who were brought here on entrepreneurial visas to start their business, and they are now being thrown out.
Tom Tugendhat
I am not going to comment, obviously, on the individual case the hon. Lady raises, but she is absolutely right that we will have to look with imagination at how we bring migrants into this country. As she will know, I was on the remain side of the argument, but many people on the leave side would say the same as I say now, which is that we must be open and much freer in how we look at this. Instead of focusing so much on European migration, we should perhaps go more global. I understand the argument, and I would rather have had freer European migration as well, but we are, as they say, where we are, and the vote has been cast. So, yes, the hon. Lady is absolutely right that the Home Office must play its part.
As we look through the various areas in which investment will happen, there are a few I would like to highlight a little more. First, I want to highlight the combating of domestic violence. Domestic Abuse Volunteer Support Services, which operates out of Tunbridge Wells, does a great deal to help victims of domestic violence to present themselves to court, to ensure that they get appropriate legal representation and to defend their interests properly against their abusers.
If we look in greater detail at devolution, we see that there is a lot of talk in the Red Book about city deals and about extra money going to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all of which I welcome, but there is not so much on devolution to Kent, for example. There is not so much on devolution to our boroughs and parishes, where a lot of our centralised efforts could be placed.
I want to highlight a few areas that contain perhaps a small element that I would work on. The Budget is not simply a collection of numbers; it is not an exercise in accounting; and it is not a spreadsheet. It is a political document, and it speaks to the areas in which we as a community, a Government and a nation wish to see investment and effort. It is a political work. That is why I find the emphasis on national insurance slightly concerning. I come from a political tradition that believes in small government and low taxes and that seeks to encourage entrepreneurship and enterprise. Although the figures that we are discussing are very minor—a percentage point here and there, or two over two years—they speak to a tone that is not entirely helpful, and in that I urge a rethink. We should be encouraging the self-employed, start-ups and people who are taking risks and carrying those risks themselves. We should recognise that through support, yes, but we should do so particularly through taxation.
That brings me to quarterly tax returns. I understand that the Chancellor has been generous in delaying their introduction by a year, but let us not kid ourselves that £85,000 a year is a particularly large turnover for a business; it is not. I would very much welcome a rethink about how we can assist those who do not have large budgets to pay accountants and who are not running businesses that will definitely generate millions in the future. We are talking about people who are experimenting. It may be two or three friends trying out an innovative idea, or two or three business partners experimenting with a new area of technology, who may indeed be the next Google but who are now in a garage somewhere in Manchester. It is worth thinking about what we can do to make sure that they have opportunities.
If we start putting burdens on businesses at a sum as low as £85,000, we will have to be careful that we do not discourage qualities that we Conservatives value—I know that the Chancellor, in his youth, demonstrated these—the innovation, the entrepreneurialism and the talent to succeed in this now-liberated Britain.