Income Tax (Charge)

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Clive Lewis

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab) [V]]

As we know, the context of the Budget yesterday was a debilitating global pandemic. It was also the last Budget before the UK hosts the COP26 climate conference. It was therefore arguably the most critical Budget since the second world war. I say “critical” because my friends, my family and my community matter to me, and having a viable future for them and myself matters to me. I saw so many of them struggling before the pandemic because of this Government, and now even more are struggling because of this Government.

What the people of this country needed from the Chancellor’s Budget yesterday was so much more than simply a reaction to the crisis at hand. What the people of this country needed was a strategy that would support all people and businesses struggling amid the pandemic, tackle the rising epidemic of inequality and debt, initiate a massive programme of decarbonisation, invest in local authorities and public services—the backbone of the successful part of the pandemic response—and rebuild our town and city centres as the vibrant hubs of sustainable communities and community activity. By those measures, the Chancellor’s Budget has failed on every single metric.

What I have seen in the pandemic is the best of the British people and the worst of this Conservative Government. In my constituency of Norwich South, I have seen care and compassion in the face of adversity, and I have seen the power of collective action in public services such as our NHS and schools, which stepped up to carry this country through extreme circumstances. In this Conservative Government, I have seen corruption and cronyism as well as indifference to growing inequality and climate change. That is ingrained in the detail of this Budget, which is going to punish the public and our public services, instead of taking the transformative action needed to support the livelihoods of all people and businesses, not just today but for generations to come.

What we needed from the Budget was a massive green economic stimulus on the scale of that in the United States, if not larger. We did not get it. Instead, we got the decision to freeze fossil fuel duty. What we needed was investment in the very public services that have seen us through this pandemic, such as our NHS, which is delivering a world-leading vaccine roll-out, and our schools, which have set up virtual learning under extreme pressure and with their resources cut to the bone. We did not get it. Instead, the Chancellor buried a £30 billion cut to the health and social care budget while local authorities such as Norwich face a collective £10 billion black hole that will mean yet more cuts to vital jobs and services. What we needed was a remedy to the crisis in our privatised and failing social care system. We did not get it. Instead, we got platitudes about needing a cross-party consensus.

The Conservatives have had 10 years to sort this out. We got nothing on our broken social security system, and nothing on statutory sick pay so low that it has helped to fuel this pandemic. A nothing Budget from a nothing Government with nothing of worth to say about the future of this country. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) said in his Budget response:

“That is not levelling up; it is giving up.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2021; Vol. 690, c. 265.]

The Chancellor said he would do “whatever it takes”, so why did he do nothing for those in rent arrears and nothing to deal with the inequality and the 4 million children living in poverty? He paid only lip service to tackling mass youth unemployment. He told the people of this country he was being honest with them, so why did he choose to hide billions of pounds of cuts to our frontline NHS services?

We came into this pandemic with an economy akin to a dilapidated house built on collapsing foundations. Ten years of Conservative austerity have delivered the UK’s worst decade for improvements in living standards in 200 years, and now our house has been hit by an earthquake and turned to rubble with 130,000 dead because the Government failed to invest in resilient foundations. So why on earth does the Chancellor now want to rebuild the same rubbish house on the same shaky foundations? If he wanted to protect the livelihoods of people and businesses in this country and in my city of Norwich, he could and should have made different choices yesterday. It is far better to invest in new design with stronger foundations.

The Chancellor must listen to the public consensus forming on the back of the pandemic, provide support for a universal basic income and universal services and prioritise our health and wellbeing over GDP, with direct intervention to make society fairer. He could have taken the public’s lead yesterday. He could have forgiven the debts of people in rent arrears and students burdened by high interest rates. We got none of that yesterday. Now 130,000 people are dead and the UK has the highest per capita death rate from covid-19 in the world.

This Budget will entrench inequality and it failed to tackle the climate crisis. It will be the job of those of us on this side of the House to remind the public in the years to come that these were the choices of this Government and this Chancellor.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am very keen to ensure that we get everybody in, so after the next speaker I will reduce the time limit to four minutes.