Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady was a Minister in the last Government, and she will know that in her own constituency there are fewer young unemployed people now than there were in the last year of the Government of whom she was a member. I am surprised that she has not taken the opportunity to refer to the fact that the rate of youth unemployment in Hackney South and Shoreditch has fallen by 20% over the last 12 months.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

May I tell my right hon. Friend that under the last two Labour Governments, the youth unemployment claimant count in South West Bedfordshire rose by 180%, whereas it has fallen by 6% since we have been in office? Does that not show that, in difficult times, although there is, of course, further to go, we are moving in the right direction?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why it is important for us to maintain the course, pay down the deficit and build confidence in the labour market. We know what happened under the previous Government: in their last two years, long-term youth unemployment doubled.

Autumn Statement

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My right hon. Friend the Business Secretary will set out more detail about the business bank. What I have confirmed today is the £1 billion of additional capital. Our ambition is that this will help to lever in private sector capital as well. Through the business finance partnership, which is not included in this £1 billion, we have already undertaken work to get more non-bank financing to medium-sized companies in particular. We are looking at similar models for the business bank, and my right hon. Friend will make an announcement on that. We are also going to use the opportunity to bring together all the myriad schemes announced by various Governments on business finance, finance for SMEs and the like, which are sometimes confusing, so that the business community has just one place to go to. As I have said, I have announced £1 billion extra for the business bank.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I thank the Chancellor profusely for ending the appalling delay in the building of the A5-M1 link, the construction of which was first announced by the previous Government in 2003. That road will contribute massively to the south Bedfordshire economy, enabling us to contribute to the regeneration of UK plc.

[Mr Osborne]

I thank my hon. Friend for campaigning assiduously for that project. He has made a strong case for how the new link road will open up the prospect of real economic development as well as dealing with traffic congestion. That is exactly the kind of programme that we can undertake—it did not happen under the last Labour Government—because we have made the switch from current spending to capital spending. Again, I congratulate him on the campaign that he has fought, which I think has involved quite a few Adjournment debates in the House.

Transferable Tax Allowances

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) on securing this important debate.

My contention is that marriage is too important an issue for us to be neutral about. We need to be unashamedly positive about its benefits. In doing so, we are not in any way being negative about people who have any other lifestyle. As has already been said, the tax system sends a multitude of messages about things that we approve of and disapprove of. We send positive signals about bicycling to work and Christmas parties—this morning, there is talk about putting up the unit cost of alcohol—and that is all done through the tax system. It is perfectly logical and sensible to do the same on an issue as important as marriage, which has such profound effects on family life, on outcomes for children and on social justice in this country.

I shall briefly repeat the benefits of marriage. When parents split up, their children are 75% more likely to fail at school, 50% more likely to have alcohol problems and 40% more likely to have serious debt problems. It is a shocking fact that by the age of 15, a child is more likely to have a television in their bedroom than a father who still lives at home. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton said, for children aged 15 who still live with both parents, 97% of the couples in question are married.

In 1972, there were 426,000 marriages in England and Wales. By 2010, that number had declined by 43% to 241,000. We should not brush that aside, because it is a matter of great concern. We need to try to reverse the trend in order to achieve positive outcomes for children. If we look at other developed countries, we find that Britain is unusual in not having some form of transferable allowance. We have had a lot of statistics already, but the one that stands out for me is that single-earner couples in the United Kingdom are paying over a third more in tax than those in any other major developed country. It is Britain that is the odd one out. If we were to bring in the transferable tax allowance, which is in the coalition agreement, we would be getting the United Kingdom back in line with almost all of our major international competitors.

The Heritage Foundation in the United States has published some interesting data, based on US Census Bureau figures, which show that married school leavers have a lower poverty rate than that of single university graduates. That is a powerful figure. We rightly tell children in this country that it is good for their future to finish school; we would think it extraordinary if people said anything else. We know that people will have better life chances and higher incomes if they complete their schooling, but, as I said earlier, we need to be unashamedly positive about marriage and we need to send out the signal about the beneficial effects of marrying before having children. Bringing in the transferable tax allowance is just one part of sending that message to society.

I have already given the figures for the decline in marriages, which is steep and alarming and needs to be reversed. However, we need to measure such matters more carefully. I contacted Central Bedfordshire council before this debate to get the marriage figures in the two registry offices in my constituency. In 2011-12, in Leighton Buzzard and Dunstable, there were 183 marriages, which was slightly more than the year before and fewer than the figure in 2009-10. Those are the sort of figures that Members of Parliament should be aware of, because it is very true that we value what we measure and we measure what we value. I am proud to be here supporting my hon. Friend the Minister, and asking him to fulfil what was in our election manifesto, which he and I stood on, and which is in the coalition agreement. Publicly, the Government have said that they will do this; it is the right thing to do, and I am pleased that so many colleagues are here this morning to make this important case.

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[Mr Burrowes]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is a time-limited contract, unlike other marriages, but the issue is that there are also good fiscal reasons why this partnership, or relationship, should seek to have as a priority the implementation of this promise, despite the differing views in the coalition.

We need to tackle the Deputy Prime Minister’s argument; he freely expressed his views in one way, so we are free to express our views in another. As has already been mentioned, he said in December 2011:

“we should not take a particular version of the family institution, such as the 1950s model of suit-wearing, breadwinning dad and aproned, homemaking mother, and try and preserve it in aspic.”

It is important for us to make the point very clearly and to emphasise, as hon. Friends do, that the Deputy Prime Minister and others, such as the Opposition, are wrong about the two-parent family and wrong about the motives of others. Indeed, their arguments are old and very much out of touch with the British public, and they are themselves increasingly preserved in aspic. We are not harking back to the outdated 1950s model, and it is very condescending to caricature not only our views in that way but the married people up and down the country and those who want very much to support marriage. Marriage is a popular institution—increasingly so—and it is one that the public welcome.

We simply believe that marriage is best for children and for society, and the evidence supports us. A review by the Institute for Fiscal Studies of the research in this area, which has already been mentioned, shows unequivocally that

“children raised by two happily and continuously married parents have the best chance of developing into competent and successful adults.”

The evidence provides clear support for implementing policies that encourage couples to stay together, and shows that married couples with children are far more likely to stay together than their unmarried counterparts.

It has already been quoted, but it is important to keep repeating the evidence of the “Breakthrough Britain” report, which was published by the Centre for Social Justice. It demonstrated that children born to unmarried parents have a nearly one in two chance of seeing their parents split up by the age of five, whereas for children whose parents are married the figure is only one in 12. That is a huge difference that the state cannot ignore; indeed, the state needs to recognise it properly.

We all recognise that stability clearly matters. Most single parents undoubtedly do a fantastic job raising their children in difficult circumstances. We are not here to judge or to make moral judgments on people’s relationships, but the evidence is very clear that on every significant measure children who are brought up in married families do better on average than those brought up in other relationships.

[Andrew Selous]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is particularly an issue of social justice for poorer people? Wealthier people—if they are able to do so—can of course transfer their unearned income to their spouse in the form of dividends, rents, interest and income, and make use of a transferable allowance, whereas poor people cannot. This is therefore about doing the right thing by poor people, because wealthier people can already take advantage of what we want for everyone.

[Mr Burrowes]

I agree, and it is very important that we recognise the clear data that make that point. The Centre for Social Justice has said that the difference in family breakdown risk between married and cohabiting couples is such that even the poorest 20% of married couples are more stable than all but the richest 20% of cohabiting couples. It is very important to recognise that this issue is one of social justice.

We recognise that most of the serious social problems that face us have their roots in the breakdown of the family. It is important for Conservatives to recognise and to make the point clearly that we support marriage. Far from making the case for the 1950s model of supporting marriage that I referred to earlier, we want a thoroughly modern and progressive measure that is underpinned by social justice.

As my hon. Friends have said, we are out of step with the majority of other developed countries. Most of the individuals living in OECD countries who are in a system that does not recognise spousal obligations are in either the United Kingdom or Mexico—and that cannot be right. Among highly developed economies, the UK is on its own in operating a tax system that ignores spousal obligations.

As my hon. Friends and I have said, this is an issue of social justice. The Institute for Fiscal Studies and others have made it very clear that, if a transferable allowance were implemented, 70% of the benefit accrued would go to those who are currently in the lower half of the income distribution level. The introduction of a transferable allowance would also reduce the number of children living in households below 60% of the median income, and that is where we want to be.

It is important that we properly urge the Chancellor—my hon. Friends and I have clearly done that this morning—to make good our collective promise and introduce a transferable allowance for married couples with young children. That is where the focus is. We recognise that it is not adequate simply—in a minimalist way—to have a partial transferable allowance that would be worth—what?—£150 a year, or £3 a week. That would also open us up to some criticism. We need to focus on and target married couples with young children.

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[Catherine McKinnell]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman; I was going to pay tribute to his comments a little later. I am facing the Conservative Benches, and I take his point.

Many Members have mentioned the Liberal Democrat party, which was very ready to abandon its principles on tuition fees and the VAT bombshell, which it campaigned so hard against. However, Liberal Democrat Members have said clearly that they refuse to support this policy in principle, although no concrete proposals have come forward, so we still do not entirely know what they will do or whether they will support the proposal in its final form. We await clarification on that too.

At a time when families up and down the country are being hit hard by cuts to tax credits, a squeeze on their living standards, rising prices and frozen wages, with pensioners losing their tapered relief, and young people finding it harder than ever to get into work, many people will find it regrettable that Conservative Members’ focus today is on securing a tax break for a limited number of married couples. The previous Labour Government based their help for families on need and on a clear and targeted approach to alleviating child poverty, rather than on distinguishing between particular family structures.

If the policy the Government announce is the same as that set out in the Conservative party’s manifesto, it will, as Members have acknowledged, be worth just £2.88 a week. Furthermore, it has been targeted at an extremely narrow group: the only people who will be able to claim this tax benefit will be married couples where one partner earns above the income tax threshold and the other does not; whether the couple has children will be entirely irrelevant.

[Andrew Selous]

rose—

[Catherine McKinnell]

I know the hon. Gentleman has raised concerns about that matter.

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[Andrew Selous]

The previous Labour Government recognised family breakdown as a cause of child poverty; indeed, the Treasury Minister and I were shadow Ministers when the Child Poverty Act 2010 went through the House. Would the hon. Lady like to confirm that now? Will she acknowledge that family breakdown is a significant cause of child poverty?

[Catherine McKinnell]

What is rather counter-intuitive about the arguments being put forward today is that this tax incentive, small though it is, would be targeted at the very families that are not in dire straits. Members seem to be turning their backs on children in families that are facing the difficulties they have described. Unmarried couples, including those with children, have lost out on tax credits—many have had their tax credits cut because they cannot find more hours of work—or have been hit with housing benefit cuts, but they will not benefit from these changes. If a marriage ends for circumstances entirely out of somebody’s control, or if they are widowed or have to flee the marriage because of violence, they will lose the proposed benefit, but it could still be available to the perpetrator of the domestic violence, who could get married again. Nor would this benefit be available to married couples where both partners are working, unemployed or low earners.

Hon. Members have mentioned analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, but that analysis shows that this benefit will be available to only 32% of married couples. This policy is meant to recognise marriage in the tax system and to send an important signal that we value couples and the commitment people make when they are married. Do Members believe that only 32% of marriages should be valued, while the other 68% are of less value and less worthy?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Unfortunately, I do not have much time. I appreciate this is an important subject, and I would like to give Members more time, but I want to finish my comments.

I strongly disagree with the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate, who attempted to dismiss out of hand any notion that this policy recognises not marriage in general but just one type of marriage, where one partner is the breadwinner and the other stays at home. He dismissed the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments that such things are a throwback to the Edwardian era, but that is a sincere concern for many people.

I appreciate the comments of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and the sincere manner in which he made them, but I disagree with him. Designing the system in a way that penalises all couples and families that do not fit in with one specific model, regardless of need, sends out a strong signal—intentionally, it would seem—that one type of family is worth more than another and that one type of parent is worth less than another. That is a very dangerous signal to send to children. It is unfair and out of touch, and is not the best way to support families in the tough times of 2012.

[Andrew Selous]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I do not have much time, and I wanted to make a final point. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) made a powerful point, which I would make too: the Government, while talking about promoting or supporting marriage in the tax system, are removing valuable child benefit for many families and children.

Unfortunately I have run out of time, but I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say in response to my concerns and those of other hon. Members.

Fuel Duty

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson]

I shall give way to the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who I am sure is going to tell me that he supports our motion.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady tell the House how many times her Government put up fuel duty?

[Cathy Jamieson]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that on about 13 occasions the Labour Government decided not to put up fuel duty, to delay an increase or to change it because of economic circumstances, which was absolutely the right thing to do. We looked at the economic circumstances, and made decisions to delay or cancel when that was the right thing to do, including at the height of the economic crisis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

I think that the hon. Lady needs to study the figures and understand what “percentage of GDP” means.

[Andrew Selous]

On tax avoidance, will my hon. Friend confirm that this Government have done far more than Labour ever did to reclaim tax due to the Exchequer, and does he agree that the Opposition should give credit where it is due?

[Sajid Javid]

As always, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come to that later.

In the Budgets of 2009 and 2010, the shadow Chancellor and his colleagues endorsed seven rises in fuel duty between 2010 and 2014.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that to the House’s attention, and I am not surprised to learn it, given Labour’s opposition to the benefit cap. The Government are determined to make the welfare system work in order to help people find employment, and that includes the benefit cap as well as the introduction of universal credit.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that it was virtually impossible to be long-term unemployed under the last Government, because they used to take people off the register, put them on a short-term course, and then put them back again, and is he pleased that we are being more straightforward?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. A number of people have made those accusations. The important thing is that youth unemployment is falling—down by 62,000 in the last quarter.

Public Service Pensions Bill

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman will know that Lord Hutton addressed that issue. The costs of such a transition would have been enormous and very disruptive, and I think that the recommendation on the career average revalued earnings scheme is preferable from that point of view. He will also know that the new whole of Government accounts presentation of the public finances takes detailed account of the unfunded liabilities in public service pension schemes. That means that the public and the House have precisely the information that he wants transparently available, so I hope that he regards that as progress.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

On the issue of fairness, does the Chief Secretary agree that private sector workers can only look at guaranteed retirement benefits with envy, especially because most of them would have to pay more than one third of their income to achieve equivalent benefits?

[Danny Alexander]

Yes, I agree. We need better pension provision across the work force. That is why I think the national employment savings trust scheme is an important step forward. That basic pension scheme, which is available to the 12 million or so members of the country’s work force who do not have any pension provision, was recently launched by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), and had its origins under the previous Government. It is a good thing all round that we have agreed a reform to public service pensions that makes significant cost savings and ensures that public servants continue to have access to among the best pension schemes available.

We all wanted to find a solution that was sustainable, affordable and fair, as did the vast majority of trade unions and negotiators for the non-unionised work force. Thanks to both sides’ commitment to constructive talks, I am pleased to say that the final proposed designs have been issued for all major public service schemes. I thank Brendan Barber and his TUC negotiating team for the mature and constructive way in which they approached these talks. It has taken many hours of discussion to get where we are today, and I am grateful that the majority of trade unions brought sensible, workable solutions to the negotiating table, rather than grandstanding. The final scheme designs reflect that hard work.

The trade unions took those scheme designs to their memberships as the best that could be achieved through discussion, and the majority of the unions have accepted the proposed agreements. The turnout in the ballots held by the unions that rejected reform was low—less than 30% in most cases—which is hardly a compelling mandate for an ongoing dispute. The Public and Commercial Services Union decided to reject the offer before it was finalised, without first seeking the views of its membership, which was not a reasonable way to approach a set of reforms affecting more than six million public servants.

There is no point in further dispute or threats of strikes regarding public service pensions. We have set out a good and fair deal that protects those rights already earned and puts fairness at the heart of future pension provisions.

LIBOR (FSA Investigation)

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

First, I hope the hon. Gentleman does not mind me saying on behalf of the whole House that we very much welcome him to his place. He has the deepest sympathy of the whole House for the tragedy in his family. It is good to see him back here.

There is no estimate of the cost to individuals or consumers, and it would be very difficult to construct one. We are talking about the daily rate set, in the case of these abuses, over a three or four-year period, and it was used to set mortgage rates, loan rates and all sorts of other things. Sometimes the rate was manipulated to be too low and sometimes it was manipulated to be too high compared with the true market price. We do not have an estimate, but it is clear that, as the FSA says, the manipulation contributed to the risk to the entire financial system, which then, in effect, collapsed, not because of that, but as part of the culture we have been talking about, and the country has paid many billions for that.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I agree with what the Chancellor said about the failure of the previous regulatory regime, but as far as the senior management of the banks are concerned, does he agree that ignorance is absolutely no defence? They should have known what was going on.

[Mr Osborne]

I completely agree. One of the things that has shocked the entire country in the aftermath of the financial crisis is how little people appeared to know about what was going on in their banks. That is why it is very important that Mr Diamond accounts for himself and his management and explains what they knew and when they knew it.

Jobs and Growth

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

I will make some progress.

Is it not the reality that we have an economy in recession and a Queen’s Speech that entirely failed to deliver on growth, jobs and investment? The Chancellor’s economic strategy is now in tatters, but have we had any admission in recent weeks that he got it wrong? We have had none. The Foreign Secretary says that British business needs to work harder, but it is this Chancellor who needs to work harder to get things right.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Ed Balls]

I will not give way.

Let me say this to the Chancellor. We all know why he has wanted to be a part-time Chancellor: in order to make room for his other role as the Conservative party’s part-time political strategist. But with the Budget botched, the Queen’s Speech a flop, the local elections a disaster for his party, and the economy back in recession, it is now dawning on all of us—I think it is dawning on many Conservative Members too—that he is not a very good Chancellor and not a very good political strategist either. Although should we really be surprised? This is the Chancellor who claimed to his colleagues that hiring Andy Coulson would be a triumph; that taking away child benefit from middle-incomes families would be a masterstroke; that saying that the economy was “out of the danger zone” was smart forecasting; and that cutting the top rate of tax in this Budget would wrong-foot Labour, and outfox his leadership rival Boris Johnson too. With judgment like that, perhaps the Conservative party does not need just a new political strategist; perhaps it needs a new Chancellor too.

[Andrew Selous]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ed Balls]

No, I will not.

What an eight weeks it has been! The transformation has been startling, with the Chancellor’s long-held dreams turning to dust. He dreamed that his brilliant economic plan would bring unprecedented growth and finally deliver a Tory majority in 2015, and that a grateful Prime Minister would then stand aside, as he was finally cheered into 10 Downing street. How far away those dreams seem now!

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[Mr Osborne]

The Labour party certainly does have a different whipping operation: it sends all its information to the other political parties.

Let us get back to discussing the economy. The central argument that the shadow Chancellor was trying to make, and the argument he makes in the amendment, is that the British economy is not as strong as the German economy—that is what we are all being asked to vote on tonight. He is absolutely right about that. The British economy is not as strong as the German economy, and I will tell hon. Members why. It is because for the past decade, in the good years, Germany fixed the roof when the sun was shining and he did not when he was in government.

I will tell hon. Members what happened when the right hon. Gentleman was in government. Over the decade before the crash, Germany maintained its share of world exports while Britain’s share almost halved; Germany was selling more than £10 billion of goods a year to China while Britain was exporting one fifth of that—indeed we were exporting more to Ireland than to Brazil, India, China and Russia put together; and Germany’s manufacturing sector grew by 34%, whereas our manufacturing sector not only did not grow but halved as a share of our total output, while our over-leveraged banking sector grew by 100%. Germany, after years of sustainable economic growth, entered the financial crisis with a budget surplus. Britain, in the years that he was in charge, led a debt-fuelled consumption that drove an expansion in deficit and in debt. Under Labour we entered the financial crisis with the largest budget deficit in the G7 and left it with the largest in the G20.

Instead of making us more like Germany, the right hon. Gentleman made us more like Greece when he was in the Treasury. Britain’s economy became over-borrowed, unbalanced and unsustainable. The person more responsible for that than anyone else active in politics today, the person who encouraged the borrowing, dismantled the banking regulation and gambled the futures of 60 million people on the City of London, is sitting right over there—the shadow Chancellor. It is the people on this side of the House who are clearing up the mess he left behind.

[Andrew Selous]

Does the Chancellor agree that one of the infrastructure failures left by the previous Government was the lack of direct flights from this country to the big, growing cities of China—there are many more flights from German cities to China—and that the Government will put that right in due course?

[Mr Osborne]

I certainly think that a lack of airport capacity is a challenge for this country, but one of the good things that may emerge from the bmi merger is that more slots may become available at Heathrow to open up routes to those cities in China. My hon. Friend makes the very good observation that we have to do much more to expand our exports and our links with the Chinas and Indias of this world. One of the good things that has happened in the past few years is that our exports to China and India are up by a third, and we need to see more of that.

In his speech, the shadow Chancellor dismissed the Governor of the Bank of England as plain wrong. Who appointed the Governor? Did the recommendation ever come across the desk of the shadow Chancellor when he was the political adviser in the Treasury? [Interruption.] We will find out. Yesterday the Governor said:

“We have been through…the biggest downturn in world output since the 1930s, the biggest banking crisis in this country’s history, the biggest fiscal deficit in our peacetime history, and our biggest trading partner, the euro area, is tearing itself apart”.

My message to the House today is that addressing those problems is not easy, but nor is it impossible. I will come on to talk about the eurozone, but first we must put our own house in order, and we are making progress on doing so.

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[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Up until 2007, the Government were running unsustainable deficits and had an escalating level of debt, and that was before the financial crisis hit. Governments have a choice: they can either run their finances sustainably or give up the right to economic self-government, and there are lots of examples of that in Europe at the moment.

In tough times, this Government have created 600,000 new private sector jobs. There are 370,000 more people in work now than there were at the general election and 70,000 fewer people on out-of-work benefits than when we were elected. As from last month, we have the youth contract coming into play, which will also make a difference. Furthermore, we have made progress on the deficit, which we have already cut by a quarter. That has led to low interest rates; and we should remember that every 1% increase in interest rates puts £1,000 on an average family mortgage.

Business taxes are coming down to 22%, which will be one of the lowest rates in the G20. With the patent box, we have, in effect, 10% corporation tax rates on patents that are exploited here in the UK.

I am glad to see the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), on the Front Bench. I pay tribute to the work that he is doing to improve school standards. What with his work, the 457,200 extra apprenticeships—an increase of 63%—and the new university technical colleges that are being rolled out, we are well on the way to building up the educated, flexible work force that this country will need for it to be an economic success in future.

People need hope and confidence in tough times, and I, for one, am fed up with the diet of gloom coming from the media about the eurozone. Yes, 48% of our trade is with the European Union, and therefore it matters, but the EU comprises only 19% of the world economy, and we need to remember that the other 81%—Asia, the Americas and Africa—is growing strongly, in some cases by 10%. The world economy is due to triple over the next 30 years, and that provides fantastic opportunities. I pay tribute to the work of UK Trade & Investment and the role of the Foreign Office in helping exporters. Last week, I spoke to people from local businesses in my constituency, and they confirmed that that help is real, practical and available on the ground.

I am well aware of the difficulties that businesses have trying to raise credit to expand. That is why the £20 billion loan guarantee scheme is helpful. I heard only yesterday that Santander will be putting 650 managers back into local branches to take local decisions. That link between the local manager and local business is very important. It has been broken by many banks in the past, and I am glad that that is being dealt with. New methods of raising finance for business, including crowd-financing and websites such as Kickstarter.com, can help as well.

The UK is one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the EU. We have 4.5 million small businesses; in 1989, there were only 2 million. However, if we were as entrepreneurial as the United States of America, there would be another 900,000 small businesses in the UK, and many of the Government’s problems would be over. We need to make the UK an enterprise hub for the whole of Europe. There is evidence that many of the small businesses that are being created naturally end up exporting, which they can do very easily through the power of the internet.

Finally, I pay credit to the Government for focusing on infrastructure funding. As I look at my constituency, I see roads being built for which we have waited years, a new busway coming, a business innovation centre, and a new university technical college.

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[Mr Byrne]

I will not give way, because there are so many points to respond to.

We know that this recession was not made by British business. It is not down to the weather, the snow or the royal wedding; it is down to the failed policy of this Government. Despite the good news we had on unemployment this week—there was a glimmer of hope—Britain’s jobs crisis has now gone on for too long. We now have more people working part time or becoming self-employed, because they will do anything to make ends meet. Long-term unemployment is surging towards the 1 million mark, the number of people out of work for two years is up to 500,000, 100,000 more people are signing on than last year, redundancies are up by 50,000, and vacancies are down by more than 10,000. Families all over Britain are facing a disaster, because of the failed policies of this Government.

This afternoon we heard those stories from all over Britain. The point was made forcefully by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), and it was a story repeated by my hon. Friends the Members for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) and for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth). We heard in the debate this afternoon that we need growth and demand—a point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and for East Lothian. We heard how higher unemployment is hitting some communities and some regions harder than ever—that was the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). It is hitting ethnic minorities harder than ever—that was the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Oldham East and Saddleworth. It is now hitting young people harder—that was the message we heard from hon. Members from all parts of the House, and it was a point made with particular force by my hon. Friends the Members for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood).

That is why what we needed in the last Budget and in the Queen’s Speech was not excuses, but action. We needed action on bank lending—that was the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark), and by the hon. Members for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), for Northampton South (Mr Binley) and for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). We needed action on infrastructure spending, too—that point was made with great force by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), the hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee), and my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) and for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar). This absence of action is now costing this country a fortune.

[Andrew Selous]

rose—

[Mr Byrne]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us just how much the benefits bill is increasing as a result of that failure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

When the right hon. Gentleman wrote his famous note saying that there was “no money” left, what did he think the implications of that were?

[Mr Byrne]

The hon. Gentleman speaks for a party that has now put up borrowing by £150 billion more than projected. Does he know why? It is in large part because the benefits bill is not being capped by this Government—the benefits bill is going through the roof. It is set to be £25 billion higher than was projected by the end of this Parliament, with the cost of unemployment benefit set to be up by £5 billion and the cost of housing benefit set to be up by £6 billion by the end of this Parliament. I really do not know how he has the temerity to say what he has just said, given that it is his Government who are putting up debt.

The problem is that this Government have not learned the lesson that the way to bring the benefits bill down is by getting people into jobs—that is where this Government are failing. It is no wonder the people all across Britain are saying that this Prime Minister and this Chancellor have no idea how ordinary people live. The Prime Minister is riding on horses with editors of newspapers who are charged with perverting the course of justice while our young people cannot even afford a bus fare to college. We heard this afternoon just how much that bill has now become in a powerful speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband). We heard that youth unemployment will cost our country £30 billion over the years to come. When are this Government going to heed that lesson?

When will they look at the hit now being taken by working parents, who are struggling with child care? These parents are now losing £500 this year. No wonder 32,000 women have already had to give up work this year because they cannot afford the child care. We should look at what this Budget means for working parents—a point made with some eloquence by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury and by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). Such is the incompetence and such is the incoherence that families in this country are now better off on benefits than they are in a job—what a catastrophic failure of policy and what a catastrophic failure by this Chancellor.

Look at what these proposals mean for savers—people doing the right thing. Alongside the granny tax, the Government tried to sneak out in the Budget small print another £900 cut for pensioners by getting rid of the savings credit. Look at what the proposals mean for workers with disabilities. Some 11 million people in this country have disabilities. Disability Rights UK says that 25,000 people with disabilities have had to give up work this year because their support and help are being cut away from them. This Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is now administering reform of the incapacity benefit system with all the finesse of border control at Heathrow airport. It is now taking people up to 11 months to get a hearing and then, when they reach that tribunal, half the decisions are being overturned. That is not a result that he can be proud of.

Worst of all is the treatment being handed out to workers at Remploy. These are workers indirectly employed by the Secretary of State himself. Worst of all—worse than anything I have heard over the past few months—are the reported comments that he made to Remploy workers. Apparently he told them that they “are not doing any work at all. Just making cups of coffee.” That is not compassionate conservatism; it is the conservatism of contempt. The Secretary of State should apologise to those workers this afternoon. When he should have been launching a war on poverty, he has launched a war on decency.

This Government have no idea how these young people, these parents, these working mothers and these workers with disabilities are now living. They are failing on jobs, they are failing on growth, and they are out of touch, out of their depth and out of steam. We need a change of direction and Labour’s amendment today offers that. I commend it to the House.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Jonathan Edwards]

I will not give way; I am sure that the Front Benchers want to get on with their summing up.

My party and I do not support the freezing or scrapping of age-related thresholds—the so-called granny tax—or the introduction of means-tested child support benefits, whether we have a cliff-edge or a taper. The point of universal child benefit is that everybody with a child receives the benefit, irrespective of their income, because it costs additional money to raise a child.

Schedule 23 of the Bill allows Northern Ireland the right to vary air passenger duty on long-haul flights, but does not provide the same for Wales and Scotland. That appears to be an ad hoc arrangement. As my party has noted consistently, what is good for one part of the British state is good for other parts. For that reason, I have tabled an amendment to the schedule that will give Wales the same powers as Northern Ireland. I look forward to debating the issue on Wednesday—and to having the support of the official Opposition, in view of the position taken by the leader of the Labour party in the Assembly.

The Budget continues the UK’s inequalities and the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. We cannot accept a Budget that offers no prospect of growth, and a Finance Bill that reinforces inequality.

Amendment of the Law

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The Budget continues policies to deal with massive issues of intergenerational fairness so that we do not leave this generation’s collective credit card bill to our children and grandchildren. The OBR’s prediction of 1 million extra jobs in the next five years is one of the aspects of the Budget about which I am most pleased. We must also remember what the Prime Minister said in the Chamber today: fewer people are on out-of-work benefits now than at the time of the general election.

The Budget has put a significant tax cut for 24 million lower and middle-income earners at centre stage. Many are women and many work part time. That is a significant move by the Government and shows that our values are to help those at the lowest end of the income scale. It is a huge move in the right direction.

Opposition Members do not seem to realise that the 50p tax rate was doing real damage to our economy. Like it or not, there are some very rich entrepreneurs around the world who can choose the economy in which they set up their businesses. Given that that rate of tax was higher than it was in every other country in the G20, it is surely right to try to attract those people back to the United Kingdom to create the jobs to get our constituents out of poverty. Cutting that rate was therefore the right thing to do. Of course, the Chancellor also told the House that other increases on rich people mean that they will end up paying five times more tax than they would have done if we kept the 50p tax rate. I hope that Ken Livingstone will start paying the income tax that he should pay now, instead of doing it only if he becomes Mayor of London.

The Budget is pro-business, as it should be. It introduces the above-the-line R and D tax credit that all the business groups have been calling for, and a reduction in corporation tax this year, heading down to the 22% rate to make the UK an extremely competitive place to do business.

I was particularly pleased to see the pro-gas strategy, which will help us to create cleaner energy in future, which is vital given that we neglected to build the infrastructure that we need in this country.

There are lots of other practical measures in the Budget, including the Government’s wish to introduce duty stamps for alcohol. That is important, because there is a battle with the smugglers and a massive loss of income to the Exchequer, because the tax that should be paid is not paid on a lot of alcohol. It is absolutely correct that the Government are moving to capture that source of income for the Exchequer.

I welcome the extra focus on enterprise zones around the country. It is absolutely right. It simply cannot be acceptable that an area such as the west midlands experienced jobs shrinkage during the boom years.

We quite properly help young people to go to university in this country through the loans system, which we introduced, and is it not incredibly welcome that we will now help young people to set up their own businesses through the enterprise loan scheme introduced in the Budget?

I very much welcome the national loan guarantee scheme. The £20 billion-worth of guarantees that the Government will give to businesses will mean that they can borrow at a lower rate of interest—it will sometimes be 1% lower. That will be rolled out over the next few months and it is extremely welcome for businesses in all constituencies.

The announcements on the single-tier pension are excellent news for pensioners. Moving to a single-tier £140 a week pension is fantastic news for them. We should remember that very many of the poorest pensioners fail to receive the extra income to which they are entitled in pension credit because of the complicated means-testing system introduced by the previous Government. Single-tier is fairer and more just, it will deal with pensioner poverty much more effectively, and it is hugely to be welcomed.

I like the Government’s vision for addressing our infrastructure needs on a massive scale. This Government are committed to building the new roads that this country needs, as I have seen in my constituency, where an innovative public-private partnership deal will get a new bypass built. I waited in vain for the previous Government to build that, but it will be built under this Government. It is not only roads: we have a vision comparable with that of the Victorians for railways, and we are doing something about our water infrastructure and our energy infrastructure, which is incredibly important if we do not want the lights to go out in a few years.

What we are doing to improve the accommodation for our servicemen and women—increasing the families welfare grant and doubling council tax relief—is vital given the considerable burdens that they continue to bear on our behalf.

I am proud to be a member of a governing party that aims to double our exports in the next decade. It is shameful that this country has in the past exported more to Ireland than to Brazil, Russia, India and China combined. At a time when Germany is increasing its exports, we can, must and will—under this Government—do better.

It is right that we will tell taxpayers what their tax is going on. All our constituents will become much more engaged with tax issues when they see how much they are paying in total and where it goes. I welcome that further move for transparency by this Government.

The Chancellor summed up the Budget very well when he concluded his speech and said that we borrowed our way into trouble, and we are going to earn our way out of it.