Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Jesse Norman

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the Minister is aware of the plans being developed at the University of Sheffield’s advanced manufacturing research centre, with Boeing, to research and potentially to manufacture ultra-lightweight materials for planes. If not, would he like to visit Sheffield to meet the relevant parties and better inform himself of a development that could be really exciting not just for Sheffield, but for the whole UK?

[Jesse Norman]

I am sure that the aviation Minister in the Lords will be interested. I certainly have an interest, as the former aviation Minister at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy who was responsible for the Aerospace Technology Institute. Let me assure the hon. Gentleman of my interest in the matter, and let us take it up further outside the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Jesse Norman

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

We take this issue extremely seriously. As my hon. Friend is aware, responsibility lies with the electricity network operators. Ofgem has allowed baseline funding of more than £22 billion, including the more than £3 billion proposed for network upgrades. We need to ensure that that money is put in place and that any blockages are addressed by the distribution network operators. We are also working closely with fleets and industry bodies to ensure that we can anticipate problems before they arise.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the Minister has been on a long journey in an electric car, but you can often travel for dozens of miles—perhaps more than 100—without finding a rapid charger. When you do get to one, you discover that “rapid charger” is a misnomer, because National Grid cannot deliver the necessary power. Even if you get to one that is working, it is often full because of the number of electric cars now on the road, so you end up waiting in a queue for half an hour or more. When will the Government develop a proper national network so that what should be a pleasant day out for motorists does not mean hours of planning in advance and then hours of frustration and delay on the journey?

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there were very specific problems over Christmas.

[Mr Betts]

Not just at Christmas.

[Jesse Norman]

We recognise that. Those problems had to do with adverse weather conditions, as well as with particular concerns of the season, but there is a wider problem and the hon. Gentleman is right to mention it. That is why in due course we will promote regulations that will require 99% reliability and other standards, as well as transparency across charge points, in order to address some of the points that he raises.

Health and Social Care Levy

Debate between Clive Betts and Jesse Norman

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Lady will be aware that, because of the employment allowance, the bottom 40% of businesses will pay nothing and the next 40% will pay an average of £450. So this does not fall heavily on the bottom end of businesses, and of course it comes in a context in which the Government have provided over £400 billion of support to business and to the nation as a whole in the course of fighting the pandemic. In that sense it is, and it has been recognised to be by reputable independent commentators, a broad-based approach.

From April 2023, once HMRC systems have been updated, a formal legal surcharge of 1.25% will replace the temporary increase in NICs rates, which will return to their previous level. Again, this revenue will be ring-fenced in law for health and for social care only. As the Chancellor stated yesterday, this levy is no stealth tax. That is why the exact amount that each employee pays will also be visible as a separate line on their payslip. Finally, the levy will be administered by HMRC, and collected by the current reporting and collection procedures for NICs—pay-as-you-earn and income tax self-assessment.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I want to ask the Minister: how much money is actually going to get to local authorities to deliver social care at the frontline? Can I refer him to paragraph 36 of the Government’s document, which we got yesterday? It says that £5.4 billion in adult social care will be provided from this levy, but that will be spent on the reforms that are in the document. It also says that all the other pressures on social care that local authorities have now, demographic and otherwise, will be paid for from council tax and the social care precept, which is council tax by another name. So are we expecting the pressures on social care to be funded not from this document, but actually from further rises in council tax? Is that the honest situation?

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I am also very grateful to him for actually reading the document, which many of his colleagues may not have done, and he is absolutely right to draw attention to that section. What the levy does, of course, is to provide a very substantial form of funding for social care. The question of the capacity of local authorities, which is of course a matter of great interest to Government and an area that we have supported significantly in the last year or two, will be considered in the Budget in the normal course of things.

If I may, I will now set out why a levy based on national insurance is the best way to raise the funds needed for the Government’s plan for health and social care. The first reason is that there is already a clear precedent. Indeed, in 2003 the then Labour Government increased these same NICs rates by 1% specifically to put more funding into the NHS. Within the NICs system there is, as Members across the House will know, already a long-standing ring-fenced proportion of receipts directed to the NHS.

The second reason is that this is a fair method. Businesses will play their part. In fact, the largest 1% of businesses will contribute 70% of the revenue. However, existing NICs reliefs and allowances will also apply to the levy. That will mean, as I have said, that 40% of all businesses will not be affected due to the employment allowance. When it comes to individuals, those earning more will pay more. Conversely, at least 6.2 million people earning less than the NICs primary threshold will not pay the levy at all.

The third reason why a levy based on NICs is the right approach is that it has worked elsewhere. France, Germany and Japan have all increased social security contributions to fund social care provision. Finally, the question of how to fund health and social care is one that applies to a whole nation. NICs are set on a UK-wide basis, and the levy therefore provides a clear UK-wide solution.

Additional Covid-19 Restrictions: Fair Economic Support

Debate between Clive Betts and Jesse Norman

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

We have had a lively, passionate and—what should I say?—vigorous debate across the House. We have heard a wide range of arguments and a considerable amount of passion. It is clear, however, that when we cut through the air being discharged on either side of the Chamber, there is a commonality of values across the House. In fact, the House is united on the most fundamental issues that we face, which are the need to combat this terrible covid-19 virus; the need to protect public health; the need to make every effort to prevent economic harm to our businesses, jobs and people; and the need to protect the fabric of our society. We all share those ambitions.

To do that, we need to do achieve a balance, as the Chancellor discussed last week. In the words of the deputy chief medical officer last night, we are trying to walk “a very fine line” between getting the virus under control in areas where it is surging and incurring minimal damage to the daily lives and livelihoods of people across the country. It was noticeable that the deputy chief medical officer also made it explicit that he did not support a national lockdown, that he backed a local approach and that it would not be appropriate to impose the strictest restrictions across the country. I thought that was an important and telling point from an independent adviser.

For the same reasons, it is clear that no Government, in any normal circumstances, would wish to impose the restrictions that we are discussing today. I can only express my thanks and recognition to the people of Liverpool, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire for the fortitude that they have demonstrated, are demonstrating and will demonstrate.

The evidence shows that the most successful countries in combating covid-19 are those that have adopted localised measures to protect their populations. That is why we launched the three covid alert levels for England based on the prevalence of the virus in those areas. Although it is vital that we take decisive action to control the virus where it is surging, as we did yesterday in Manchester, we must also recognise that covid-19 is spreading in different ways and at different speeds across the country.

Covid-19 is a virus that we do not fully understand in epidemiological terms, or indeed in medical terms, but we know enough to say that the epidemiological evidence simply does not justify introducing a national circuit breaker. The costs of such an approach would be absolutely huge.

I vigorously support the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), who said that there were weaknesses in the Welsh Government’s decision to impose a circuit breaker because it would put tremendous strain on areas where there had been no great upsurge in the virus. That point was also made by the former Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns). It falls in fact into the category of being unnecessarily damaging to the economic fabric of our country.

The idea that the Welsh Government have done that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South put it, without adequate scrutiny, is a sharp contrast to here where the Opposition have been vigorous in holding the Government to account, and rightly so. Having said that, it is important to say, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said last week, that these are not virtual costs: every day that a national lockdown was in place would bring very real costs in jobs lost, businesses closed and children’s education harmed. The costs can be measured and weighed in permanent damage to the economy, which in turn undermines our ability to fund our public services.

Let me briefly remind the House of what we are doing to support, in a broad, deep and consistent way, areas that face higher restrictions. We are helping businesses with fixed costs such as rents and bills through a new business grant scheme. We are supporting local authorities in tier 2 or 3 with significant new funding. We have introduced a national funding formula of £1 per head in tier 1 areas with a high incidence, going up to £3 and £8. Of course, that is just a covid-outbreak-combat measure —it is dedicated to a small part of a much wider pattern of programmes of support totalling, as the House will know, more than £200 billion in total. To give the House a sense of scale, that means that areas in high or very high alert are receiving, or will receive, up to half a billion pounds just focused on public health activities to do with combating the virus, such as local enforcement and contact tracing. That comes on top of the £6 billion that we have already provided to local authorities since the start of the crisis.

The third element is extra support for local authorities in tier 3—

[Mr Betts]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jesse Norman]

I would but I have been given so little time and have so much material to get through. I hope the hon. Gentleman does not mind if I press on.

As the House will know, we have provided one-off grants to Lancashire and Liverpool and will continue to do so for other authorities. Finally, we are expanding the job support scheme: businesses that have been legally required to close, whether in tier 3 areas or elsewhere, will be able to claim a direct wage subsidy.

Let me say a couple of things on the issue more widely before I finish. The hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) quite rightly said at the outset of this pandemic that it would be, in her words, “completely inappropriate” to engage in party politics on these desperately important issues of human life and human wellbeing. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said that we should not be having “political games”. I am afraid that an awful lot of what we have seen in the past 48 hours has been political games and party politics. It is a terrible, terrible shame.

Love Manchester though I do, I am afraid there is no reason why it should be treated as a special case and any differently from any other part of the country. Every country faces the potential of being struck down by covid and every part of this country should be supported in a proper way that is consistent across the piece. When the Mayor of Birmingham says, by contrast, that he will not put lives at risk, we have to recognise the sincerity and importance of his view.

Let me pick up a couple of other points that have been made. The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) spoke of Abraham Lincoln; she may also remember that Lincoln said that the gentleman he spoke of compressed the smallest amount of thought into the largest number of words. I am afraid we have seen a bit of that today.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) called for rationality and a truly national strategy; that is exactly what we are offering. That is what the Government are giving to her.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) was absolutely right to highlight the danger of theatrics and the importance of our not making this a north-south issue. It is absolutely not that. This is an issue in respect of which we are all desperately concerned to do the same thing: to protect people’s livelihoods, to protect their health and to protect the fabric of our economy and our society. What is the Labour alternative? A national firebreak? A circuit break? We should do everything that we possibly can to avoid that because of the unfairness of striking down areas that do not have high virus levels and suppressing their businesses. We all recognise the economic costs associated with that.

I do not think it is consistent with the Labour party’s commitment to avoid party politics to have descriptions from the Opposition Benches of, in one phrase, “screwing people over” heard in this Chamber, or, indeed, to hear references to a Member of this Chamber as scum from the Labour Front Bench.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.