Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Swales]

When I stood in Redcar, I had not seen the note left by the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), saying that there was no money left.

I am pleased that the Government will give further support to apprenticeships. There have been 1.5 million of them in the country, with more than 4,000 in my constituency, and I welcome today’s news about an extra 100,000 apprenticeships. I welcome the cut in beer duty, and I pay tribute to my hon.—he ought to be right hon. one day—Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) for his relentless campaigning on the issue. I also welcome the cut in fuel duty, which will help hard-working people all over the country. We would certainly have paid a lot more under the Labour party’s plans.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend also welcome the scrapping of the duty escalator for wine? Certain Liberal Democrat Members like a glass of wine, but that is beside the point. The wine industry has suffered, but it will be much better off under the new move.

[Ian Swales]

I am well aware that my hon. Friend enjoys a glass of wine. It is clearly good news for the wine industry that taxes will be frozen.

Players at Beacon Bingo in Redcar—they had to endure my calling the numbers a few weeks ago as part of the Boost Bingo campaign—will be delighted not only that their campaign to cut the duty from 20% to 15% has been successful, but that the Chancellor has gone further by cutting it to 10%. Bingo is a harmless social form of gambling and, from having talked to many players that day, it seems to me exactly the kind of thing that we should not penalise too heavily, as opposed to the high-stakes fixed odds betting terminals visited on us by the Labour party. I totally support the rise in taxes on those machines, of which we would like to see less.

I have a race course in my constituency and have campaigned in this House for the past three years for offshore bookmakers to be charged the betting levy. I am delighted to see that that is in today’s Budget. It will be a huge boost to the racing industry.

Other speakers have mentioned the measures on savings and annuities. I will not say much on those, except that the measures on annuities will be warmly welcomed. I receive a lot of correspondence from constituents who feel locked into products that have a very poor return. In some cases, they are not able to draw down the amounts that they want. Loosening all that is the right thing to do. As the Chancellor said, people should be able to access their own money. I welcome the safeguards in the small print to avoid people spending all their money and becoming dependent on the state. There is a threshold in the detail.

There is a lot of manufacturing in my constituency. We must remember that manufacturing supports many of the service industries. If one looks at the classification of industries, one will see that industries such as logistics exist mainly because of manufacturing. Those who say that the manufacturing industry is only a small part of the economy forget all the service industries that depend on it. The previous Government had a shameful record on manufacturing. It halved as a proportion of the economy and my constituency felt that particularly badly. I am pleased to see the growth that is happening.

I am pleased about the measures on energy-intensive industries. My constituency has not only a steel industry, but a large chemical complex. The employers will welcome those moves. I also welcome the moves on combined heat and power plants, which are relevant to my constituency. All those measures will help Britain to be more competitive and they are certainly needed.

We worry about the amount of money that sits on companies’ balance sheets and is not invested, so we should all welcome the increase in capital allowances. They were raised from £25,000 two years ago to £250,000 and are now being increased to £500,000. That is a huge incentive for people to invest in new equipment, plant and facilities. I have a special reason for welcoming the £60 million for new technology to support carbon capture, which is mentioned in the Red Book, because it is extremely relevant to my constituency.