Budget Resolutions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I did not know that, but I will add it to my repertoire of boasts about our national capability, and I am very pleased to learn it.

We are now the leading country not just in Europe but in the world for deploying offshore wind energy. The cost of production has fallen by half since 2015, and factories and jobs are springing up all around our coasts, from Belfast to Hull, from Machrihanish to the Isle of Wight. I see that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon) is present; he played an important role in setting the strategy that has resulted in that investment.

Also, having been the place where the genome was sequenced, we are the place where the secrets that it unlocked are being discovered and applied to the benefit of patients.

Our modern industrial strategy reinforces Britain’s future as a place of competition, innovation and challenge where new ideas can take flight and where any incumbent can be challenged by the newest start-up. Monday’s Budget pressed home the advantages and continued the progress we are making, including in addressing areas in which we need to improve. We have the biggest increase in public investment in research and development that this country has had in its history, with £1 billion more for the industrial strategy challenge fund.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

This morning, leaders in genomics met in the House of Commons. They are world leaders based in Britain, and they told us how cures and treatments are being delivered to patients in the NHS today. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is this Government’s investment in science and research that has led to us being a world leader in this area?

[Greg Clark]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I had a good meeting with the global chief executives of some of the most important life sciences companies around the world, in which it was readily acknowledged that the strength of our science base, and the visibility of our commitment to reinforce it, to invest in it and to apply it in manufacturing, is causing investment to be made here. The global pharma and life sciences company MSD has announced that its new research centre is going to be here in the UK, and I had the pleasure of opening the Novo Nordisk facility just a few months ago. It is evident that there is more to come. One of the benefits of a long-term strategy and commitment is that it can have short-term results because people invest on the back of it.

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[Vicky Ford]

What was eye watering was the debt under the previous Labour Government. Does the hon. Lady not agree that growth of over 1.5% going hand in hand with public spending is a phenomenal achievement and is thanks to a balanced economy?

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Lady should finally recognise that the economic crisis—the crash—was caused by casino capitalism and reckless bankers, and the Conservative party chose to make the poorest people pay for it, and they continue to pay, given the slowest recovery since the Napoleonic era.

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[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and I look forward to the Government’s response.

[Vicky Ford]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Chi Onwurah]

I will now make some progress, as I am sure Mr Speaker will not indulge me much longer.

I am not sure what is needed for the Conservative Government to see that their economic policies are causing more harm than good. Rising prices and stagnating wages mean that people are now £800 a year worse off than they were a decade ago. Just under half a million young people are still unemployed, and one in nine are in insecure agency work, on a zero-hours contract or in low-paid self-employment. That is the everyday reality for millions of working people—the people behind the supposed record levels of employment bandied about by the Government as the marker of a successful labour market.

The truth is that there are real issues in our labour market—rising insecurity, stagnating wages and a productivity crisis—so it is disappointing to see so little to address them in the Budget. There are increases to the minimum wage or, as the Government have rebranded it, the national living wage, but it is still significantly below the rate set for the real living wage. One in five people earn less than the wage they need to get by, according to the Living Wage Foundation, and the increases will not change that. In addition, unlike the Government’s minimum wage, the real living wage is based on a review of the evidence on what is happening to people’s living standards right now.

The Government’s failure to immediately reform the IR35 rules, which govern how much tax those working as contractors pay, shows that they are refusing to take tax avoidance seriously. By pushing back those reforms to 2020, the Government are denying themselves much-needed revenue, which could be used to properly fund our schools and the NHS, or to pay workers a decent wage. How many more people need to take to the streets protesting about their precarious working conditions? How bad do things have to get before the Government finally take action?

We have heard lots of warm words about defence spending, but they are cold comfort to many of the workers in the shipbuilding industry, such as at Cammell Laird and Appledore, who are facing real uncertainty as to whether their jobs are safe. It is disappointing that the Government failed to announce any support for our manufacturing or shipbuilding industries, which are vital to our long-term economic success.

In the same month that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading authority on climate change, set out the devastating consequences for human civilisation of a business-as-usual approach and the scale of ambition needed to avoid dangerous climate change, what did the Chancellor do? He did not even mention climate change, and the Red Book was little better. The Chancellor left the carbon price support unchanged and said that the Government would seek to reduce the rate if the total carbon price remains high—that is as clear as mud. The Chancellor tinkered at the edges of the climate change levy, a policy introduced by Labour but undermined by his predecessor, George Osborne, who removed exemptions for renewable energy. The Government did announce a £315 million industrial energy transformation fund to support businesses to increase their energy-efficiency. That sounds good, but when we realise that it will be paid for entirely by money saved from scrapping capital allowances for energy and water efficiency, which enabled businesses to claim back the costs of investments, we see that it is really just rearranging the furniture.

What else was there? As has been said, the Government announced £20 million for nuclear fusion. I do not know whether the Chancellor’s understanding of nuclear fusion is as limited as his understanding of blockchain, but these figures should illustrate the challenge here: £20 million is 330 times smaller than the €6.6 billion the EU will contribute to one nuclear fusion experimental facility in France—this is not even a drop in the nuclear ocean. Of renewable energy—wind, solar and tidal—not a single mention was made, at a time when electricity and gas wholesale prices are rising, and we enter another winter with household bills surging and millions facing fuel poverty. There was £10 million for urban tree planting and a commitment to purchase £50 million-worth of carbon credits from tree planting, although it is unclear whether that is new funding. The lack of action on climate mitigations is disappointing.

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[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), a fellow scientist, albeit some of her evidence could have perhaps benefited from a peer review. May I ask her, on behalf of the whole House, to pass on our best wishes to the Secretary of State for a speedy recovery—

[Vicky Ford]

Shadow Secretary of State—

[Mr Davis]

Shadow Secretary of State, yes. I do not think my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State requires any help in recovery. He is a formidable champion for business, as I know, sometimes to my cost, from my old job. He has been a brilliant exponent and driver of the enabling of the modernisation of the British industrial estate. I wish to pick up on one point made by the hon. Lady. She talked about the treatment of employees, the so-called “gig economy” and so on. My right hon. Friend was the one who brought us the Matthew Taylor report, with all of its innovative ideas to improve the protection of employees in our country and at the same time not destroy the jobs that they enjoy. That is pretty formidable in its own right, so I commend my right hon. Friend for that, although I do not intend to take us down that route today.

I have only three quick points to make. I shall be brisk and I probably will not take any interventions. Traditionally, the Budget is dominated by the technical metrics of growth rates, inflation rates, taxation, deficits, debt levels and spending. All those things are incredibly important issues. Indeed, one reason why it would be a disaster to have a Labour Government is that they would ignore all those things and deliver us into national bankruptcy, with the economic crisis and the social crisis that would follow. What is important is to understand that a Conservative Government do take all those things seriously, as they are the box in which we deliver the Budget. The Budget is about improving people’s lives and delivering the best outcome for our nation. As Conservatives, we believe in a narrative of a property owning democracy encompassing opportunity, personal responsibility, economic freedom, fairness and social mobility. For most of my colleagues, our view of the right sort of society for us is one where there is no limit to which anyone might rise and a limit beneath which no person may fall.

With that, I want to measure this Budget against the aspirations of our citizens: does it meet their aspirations to have a good university education; to get a job and build a meaningful career; to buy a home and raise a family? Those are aspirations that everyone shares, across the House and across the nation—we share them with all our constituents. Everyone should have the opportunity to pursue them.

All political parties talk a good story when they are trying to persuade people that they are on their side, but it is what Governments do, not what they say, that matters to the people. Nowhere is that more true than in the Budget; the language of public finance is the language of priorities, which is why this is so important. Starting with the definition of a decent society, both the ladder of opportunity and the social safety net are determined for the least well-off by the benefits system—by the welfare system. That is the key that underpins the opportunities and security for all the least well-off.

For decades, the British welfare system has been a nightmare of complexity in which hard work was in effect penalised, sometimes to the point of it being not worth while at all from an economic point of view, although work is always worth while from a moral point of view. The coalition Government started the necessary reform by introducing the universal credit system. Much has been said about it—it has been controversial—but the whole system is a significant step in the right direction.

The tax credits and benefits system introduced by Gordon Brown all too often trapped people in a cycle of dependency, which was not unforeseeable. I was the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee when he introduced that system, which he copied from a system in America that was already failing, and it was clear what was going to happen. Many people who made the effort to go out and find work faced an effective tax and withdrawal rate of up to 95%.

A benefit system should seek to aid people’s return to work, not trap them in unemployment. Universal credit seeks to correct that problem by helping more people into work and enabling them to keep more of what they earn, but it absolutely has to be properly funded. I therefore welcome the most important part of the Chancellor’s Budget: his announcement on universal credit. We must make sure that those in most need, including single parents—those who know me will know that single parents are of particular importance to me—couples without children, and those who should not be economically dependent on their partners, are not left wanting by subsequent changes. Universal credit will need further funding beyond what is promised in the Budget, and I shall certainly watch out for that. Nevertheless, the Chancellor has taken excellent action, for which I commend him.

The next most important way to help people make the most of their lives is through education and training, which the Secretary of State has been a great exponent of in his role. However, today, the cost of getting a university education, plus the confusion around financing, act as a disincentive to getting one. I am afraid the policy on student loans has failed. Almost half the loans will never be repaid. They are a falsehood in the national accounts. Crucially, the loans system has failed to deliver a market in university education—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) should not be smiling: Labour basically invented the system and created the problems that I am about to talk about.

The loans system has failed to deliver a market in university education, with the least valuable courses at the worst universities costing precisely the same as the most valuable course at the most prestigious university. That is not a market. At least some of the money has gone not into world-class research but into overpaying some pretty second-rate vice-chancellors. The whole system needs to be revamped and turned into a proper graduate-contribution system with honest accounting, clear rules and no retrospective changes to the interest rates or other terms. In the long run, we should move away from loans all together; that would have a liberating psychological impact on young people.

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[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in favour of the Budget tonight. The decade since the financial crisis has been tough, and it is very good to know that the corner has been turned. The economy must come first, because without a strong economy we cannot afford other priorities such as healthcare, welfare, defence and education. Today in Chelmsford unemployment stands at 1.6%; we have record numbers of jobs and opportunities. We know that politicians do not make jobs—businesses do—but we can help. Businesses often tell me how low corporation taxes have helped them to invest here. Chelmsford businesses ask me for lower business rates, fixed VAT thresholds and a level playing field between online and offline trade, because tech giants should pay tax too. I am really glad that all three of those asks have been addressed in the Budget.

We know that innovation drives growth and keeps us ahead of the pack, and I am proud that this Government have increased investment in science and research by more than any Government in the past 40 years. We on this side do not underestimate the importance of collaboration in science, which is why our EU strategy keeps us in those European networks. I am glad that the Minister for Immigration is here. She knows that we need a fair and fast immigration system to enable scientists to continue to come here.

Fundamental research in science is key. Ideas involving liquid crystals, molecular machines and gas phase chemistry were once just intellectual curiosities, but they have now driven real transformational breakthroughs. We need to ensure that the ideas we have here are made into reality here. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) dismissed quantum technology as a “sexy” sector, but my biggest employer in Chelmsford has embraced the quantum revolution. It has made the cold atom trap—

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way in what is the final Back-Bench speech of the debate. I feel that it is wholly unjustified to say that I should not call technology sexy. One of the things I would like to do as an engineer is to show people how sexy and important technology and engineering are. Calling it sexy was not dismissing it. I was just saying that we need to celebrate all different types of technology, not just quantum technology.

[Vicky Ford]

Maybe it was the tone that felt dismissive. In my constituency, we have embraced quantum technology. We are making a cold atom trap and the oscillator for a quantum clock. There is nothing wrong with being in a “sexy” sector. Last week, that employer called in 120 of its lowest-paid workers and gave them a pay rise of between 8% and 18%. These are real products, real sales, real profits and real pay rises. That is what will drive our country’s future.

I thank the Treasury for the investment in infrastructure. People in my constituency spend too much time in traffic jams and on delayed trains. It is a waste of their personal time and it hits the country’s productivity. We are building tens of thousands of homes in my constituency, and we need the infrastructure too. We need the second railway station and the north-east bypass, and we have got our bids in to the housing infrastructure fund—it is great to see that fund being increased—and the local roads fund. We need money for main roads, cash for cycleways and pounds for our potholes, but in Chelmsford, my pinch point is the ancient Army and Navy flyover. I want our local roads fund to be Ford’s flyover fund, please.

There are three other things in the Budget that I would really like to praise. The first is the tax on virgin plastics. We need a game changer in the way we use plastics on this planet, and I am really glad that Britain is leading the way on this. The second is the improvement in universal credit. That is welcomed not only by us on this side of the Chamber but by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Trussell Trust and the Resolution Foundation. All those organisations are real experts in fighting poverty. The third thing is the massive boost for the NHS in the form of £20 billion for health and mental health, which is not funded through hiking up taxes. We are putting more money into the pockets of our lowest-paid workers by freezing and raising their tax thresholds.

There is a great deal in this Budget to be proud of, and I am proud to be the last Back-Bencher to speak in favour of it tonight.