Cost of Living
Debate between Andrew Selous and Sheila Gilmore
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
I think that all of us on the Government Benches absolutely recognise the increase in people’s bills, whether it is their gas bill, their electricity bill, the bill to fill up their car with petrol or diesel when they go to a garage, or their weekly food bill. We absolutely recognise the squeeze that our constituents are experiencing and the fact that wages have not gone up to compensate, and in many cases we have been extremely clear about that.
Nevertheless, because of the decisions that the Government have taken, it now costs people £7 less to fill up their cars than it would if we had gone ahead with all the price increases that Labour legislated to introduce before they left office. Also, we heard from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change that our energy bills are 5% lower than they would have been, again because of the decisions we have taken. We know that Labour would have added £193 a year to our energy bills, because they would have funded the renewable heat incentive and carbon capture and storage through levies on people’s energy bills, whereas we are funding those things from general taxation.
Council tax is another area where the Government have done fantastic work to reduce the impact of the cost of living. Under the previous Government, council tax more than doubled—it went up by 109%. Thanks to the excellent stewardship of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, we have managed to freeze council tax—certainly for principal authorities—for three years in a row. I remember that pensioners regularly came to see me in my surgeries, and some would complain that they were spending up to a third of their income on their council tax. I have not had pensioners coming to see me about that in the last three years, because in real terms we have cut council tax by 10%. In fact, my own council tax bill has gone down in cash terms in the last two years, thanks to the excellent stewardship of Central Bedfordshire council and Studham parish council. We are talking about a council that has taken £52 million out of its budget and improved services. We now have a better leisure centre in Houghton Regis, the gutters are sprayed three times a year rather than twice a year and more potholes are being filled, despite £52 million being taken out of the budget, which shows that it can be done.
We have an immigration Bill in the Queen’s Speech, which is absolutely necessary. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) is no longer in his place, because I would have liked to remind him that the Migration Advisory Committee—an independent body from the UK Border Agency that advises the Government—has pointed out that the 2 million extra net migrants who came to this country under the previous Government decreased wages for working people and meant that fewer UK citizens went into jobs. That is something that we need to be mindful of when many of our constituents are looking for work. Only two days ago, one of my constituents wrote to tell me that on the construction site he was on in London he was virtually the only British worker; all the others were Albanian. I am not sure why they were there, given that Albania is not a member of the European Union. These are genuine issues for our constituents. The people of this country are speaking to us loud and clear, and we would do well to heed what they are saying.
I hugely welcome the national insurance contributions Bill. We are talking about a tax off jobs. Up to 2.5 million employers will benefit and 450,000 of our smallest businesses will no longer pay national insurance contributions. That means that every business could take on one extra employee on a salary of up to £22,400 or four more on the minimum wage without paying any more national insurance contributions. That is just the thing that we should be doing.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
How many businesses benefited from the Government’s previous attempt to use national insurance to stimulate the economy? My understanding is that very few did so. Why does the hon. Gentleman think that the current proposal will be any more successful? He is talking about the future, but what about the past three years?