Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
James Paice Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Like so many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I expect this to be my last speech as a Member of this House. I can reflect over 28 years not least on the fact that, as I began, here I am being called towards the end of a debate and speaking to a Chamber that is virtually empty. In that regard, I am finishing in a situation similar to that in which I started.
I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It will not surprise hon. Members that I wish to refer to one of my interests—agriculture. I welcome the Government’s decision to allow farmers to average their profits over five years rather than two. One of the great unnoticed issues relating to agriculture, which most Members have not registered, is that for the past 10 years there has been no direct market support. Farmers are now quite rightly—this is no criticism of policy, but a reflection on the change—dependent on world markets for the prices they receive for their products. One consequence of that, however, is massive market and price volatility; hence the logic of averaging taxes over five years. I urge the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who I assume will respond to the debate, to look carefully at the start date. The situation is dire today. Farmers, particularly those in the dairy sector are losing a lot of money, and if the new system does not start until April 2016 it will miss the people who need help now. I hope she will look again at the start date.
I welcome the announcement in the Budget of investment in a centre for agricultural informatics. Farming is now a highly technical industry. Much of the credit for the research involved goes to, as has been said, my right hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Willetts), who spoke earlier. He, of course, comes from the intellectual wing of the Conservative party—not an accusation that has ever been made about me—and he has done a fantastic job in government to support science and research. He has been probably one of the best Ministers in this Government and in the whole period I have been in this House.
My other general interest is in rural communities. I, like others, strongly welcomed the announcement on rural broadband. When I saw the reference in the Red Book to ultrafast broadband, I could not help but reflect on the fact that much of my constituency would be very happy to have any broadband at all, never mind ultrafast. I then read the next paragraph, which said that the Government are considering the introduction of the universal service obligation. Much as I dislike that level of compulsion in principle, I fear it is essential. I hope the Government will implement it. It is particularly important, given how many public services are now delivered online. It is not only the tax changes announced by the Government; farmers also have to submit all their applications and reports online.
I have had the joy and privilege of representing my constituency of South East Cambridgeshire for 28 years, and there were some specific gems in the Budget that I welcome and are relevant to my constituency. The establishment of a horserace betting right is of huge value to the racing industry around Newmarket, which is the local economy I share with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock). It is a vital part of our economy. It is estimated that about 7,000 jobs in the immediate vicinity are dependent on the racing industry, so I welcome that.
As a Cambridgeshire MP, I strongly welcome the announcement that Cambridgeshire will, along with Greater Manchester, pilot the retention of extra business rates. Cambridgeshire has been one of the powerhouses of Britain’s economy for the past 20 years, a spin-off from science. The Cambridge science park in my constituency is tremendously successful, with cutting edge research into biotech, IT and virtually every, often unfathomable, aspect of science. The spin-offs, and the advent of other businesses moving into the area, have been tremendous. It is right that Cambridgeshire, which is one of the lowest-funded authorities in the country, should have the ability to keep that extra business rate retention. On the same front, I hope the next Conservative Government after 7 May will introduce fairer funding for schools so that those counties, including Cambridgeshire, right at the bottom of the pupil funding figures will get a far fairer allocation of resources.
Another aspect of the Budget relating directly to my constituency is the confirmation of improvements to the A14, due to start in 2017. We have been here before, but I will give the Government the benefit of the doubt this time. It is only two years away and therefore more likely to happen. I hope it will. This comes hard on the heels of the announcement, in the last round of growth funding, that we will have the money for the Ely bypass in my constituency. Again, I hoped that that would have started before 7 May. Unfortunately it will not, but I hope that that is very much unstoppable.
I shall now turn to a couple of wider issues, if I may, in this my swansong, Madam Deputy Speaker. One of the issues raised today—we are of course discussing aspects of the Budget relating to local government—is housing and planning. The one issue that has not really been addressed—I fear it has not been addressed for many, many years—is how to ensure that the huge bank of outstanding planning permissions that have been granted are actually implemented. If that were to happen, many of our immediate housing issues could be resolved. That is a huge challenge for the Government. I am not an advocate of taxation as a weapon—I will come to that in a moment—but I cannot help feeling that those businesses, or anybody who has a property or land with existing planning applications, should suffer some sort of ascending tax until they carry out the development for which they have consent.
On the wider issue of tax, one of my big regrets of my time in the House is that there is still not a common recognition that tax optimisation—in other words maximising the yield of income tax, which most of us want to see to pay for the public services we all espouse—is not the same as automatically raising tax levels. In fact, there are countless examples—under Conservative Governments, particularly those of Margaret Thatcher—where cutting tax levels has led to an increase in yield and in the contribution of the better off who were being forced to pay the higher tax rates. That has happened time and time again, yet still we hear from the Labour Benches ongoing claptrap about the ramping up of tax rates automatically yielding more money and that the rich should pay more. I do not believe that tax is a weapon for social engineering. It is a vital mechanism to pay for our public services, but all forms of taxation should be set at a level that optimises yield, does not deter reward and investment, and does not detract from future yields. It is all very well saying, “We’re going to increase it this year.” because the yield probably will go up, but in ensuing years, as people find alternative ways to handle their money, it will go down and that revenue will be lost.
I have never really envisaged leaving this place, not that I suppose anybody does. It has been a very short 28 years. I have been proud and privileged to represent a constituency that has been vibrant economically through all of that time, with science parks and research, and the traditional industries of agriculture and engineering. Virtually every sector of British industry is represented in my constituency, including the horseracing industry. I believe the essential values that brought me here—care and concern for rural communities, and the value of enterprise in generating wealth for the betterment of all of us—have served my constituency well. They have guided me through the past 28 years. I believe they have guided the Conservative Governments I have been proud to have been a part of on two different occasions. I believe they will guide the Conservative party, which I hope and believe will be elected to govern on 7 May.
Finance (No.2) Bill
James Paice Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Jonathan Edwards
That is a fair point. We are making the case for a review. Let us have the figures divulged further. As I say, they are projections.
Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman want a review or does he want a higher tax rate? What would he do if that review demonstrated that 45p, 47p or 48p—anything less than 50p—was the point at which the Laffer curve tipped over? Is he interested in maximum receipts to the Treasury or in some sort of moral argument about equalising the distribution of income?
Jonathan Edwards
That is a very valid intervention. My political position would be to support a 50p rate, but let us have the evidence to make the decision. As I am outlining, the evidence suggests to me that 50p would be a better top rate than 45p, and certainly better than 40p.
Summer Adjournment
James Paice Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
I thank all the hon. Members who have contributed to this debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) suggests, I am surprised by some of the issues about which it has fallen to me to respond, and which have—at least for today—fallen under the DEFRA umbrella. I will do my utmost to respond to the points that have been made, in the order in which hon. Members spoke.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), whom I have always respected for his knowledge of waste and renewables policies, rightly raised the issue of landfill bans. I hope that he will understand that I answer on behalf of Lord Henley, who leads on this issue and is therefore far more acquainted with it than I am. We have immense sympathy with the hon. Gentleman—and in fact there is very little difference in what we are trying to achieve. I know that he chided us a little, and I will try to answer him, but we are trying to prioritise efforts to manage all our waste—not just domestic waste, but also industrial waste. We tend to concentrate on worrying about what councils do with domestic waste and ignore the wider issues of industrial waste, but we are trying to prioritise our efforts in line with the waste hierarchy and reduce the carbon impact of our waste, as well as considering what sort of inheritance we are leaving for future generations in terms of the contents of holes in the ground.
We are rightly concentrating on the higher levels of the hierarchy, including reducing waste in the first place, and then working through reuse, recycling and energy recovery before we end up at landfill. Clearly we want to move to a zero-waste economy in which all our material resources are fully valued or used in one way or another. The hon. Gentleman talked particularly about landfill, and I am sure the House will agree that landfill should be the option of last resort for most waste, especially for biodegradable waste.
We need to move towards eliminating landfill, and landfill volumes have fallen by a third in the last three years. That must be good news and the waste review, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, will play a substantial role in pushing wastes up the hierarchy and away from landfill. We are going further, and that is why we are maintaining landfill tax increases towards a floor of £80 per tonne in 2014-15.
On the specific issue of the consultation on restricting wood waste being sent to landfill, I can say from a personal perspective that I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is a huge waste of a valuable resource. There have been times when I have been known to fumble around some skips to fetch decent bits of timber out for a bit of DIY at home. I commend that approach to other hon. Members—if we all did our bit, perhaps we would not need to ban landfill.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the consultation that was begun under the previous Government—one of a number that they set in train in the last few weeks of their life and left to the new Government to resolve.
The Government were committed to a waste review, which is why we had to respond to the earlier consultation, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. That consultation—on banning individual items from landfill—was very general, unlike the specific and more targeted consultation on wood waste, which we are talking about now. That consultation allows us to explore in much greater detail the practical implications of dealing with different types of wood. For instance, some wood waste might be treated with toxic materials that we cannot burn. There is a raft of issues. However, he raised a specific point about the previous consultation and criticised us for putting it in the archive. This is not an issue of secrecy; it is just where these things eventually belong. The DEFRA website has been refreshed over the past year under the new Government. The material has not been buried—or even put in landfill—but is freely available in the archive. I can assure him that we take this seriously.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Chris Kelly) referred to the problem of roaming horses. I am sure that that is an issue of which most of us, whether we have urban or rural constituencies, have some understanding, although perhaps not in the fine detail to which he referred. He referred to fly-grazing—horses being chained on the verge. I suspect that virtually every Member has witnessed that and, if nothing else, questioned the welfare of those horses. He rightly listed the three pieces of legislation to which DEFRA Ministers usually refer—in fact, he virtually delivered my speech. I am not going to waste time, or insult him, by repeating them. He also rightly referred to the innovative use of other legislation, particularly by Dudley metropolitan borough council. I congratulate it on that sort of innovation; it is what we expect from local government. However, if he can think of other areas, we would be happy to consider them. He specifically referred to putting guidance online, and I am happy to consider that and respond to him when we have had time to reflect further.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) was not on my list of speakers—so, not for the first time, I will have to wing it. Fortunately, he spoke about a subject extremely close to my heart, and I could not disagree with any of his points about the value of country sports, not just to the country’s heritage, but to the economy and job creation. There was one important point that he did not make but which I feel strongly about: although country sports might provide only a handful of jobs in a particular area, in a rural area a handful of jobs can be very important. We need to understand that point. He referred to the racing industry. As he knows, I represent the area surrounding Newmarket, where about 7,000 jobs are dependent on the racing industry. I can assure him that the Government strongly support the continuity of country sports and recognise their economic contribution.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) had the good fortune to raise an issue that we have largely answered today already, so I hope that he will forgive me if I do not wax too lyrical about bovine TB, as it was discussed earlier in the Chamber. I would make one critical point, however. He spoke about the trauma to families of disease breakdown. For the past four years, more than a quarter of the herds in Devon have been under restriction at some time during the year. That is a huge proportion, and demonstrates just how bad the problem is in Devon. Unusually, he underestimated the seriousness of the situation. I think that he said that about 2,000 cattle were slaughtered in Devon, but the actual figure is 5,700. That, too, demonstrates the seriousness of the situation. I cannot tell him the location of the pilots because we have not got to that stage yet. We expect applications for licences to be made, but as I have said in the media today, I would be astonished if one of them was not in the south-west somewhere.
Mr Paice
Even I do not think that Shropshire is in the south-west. Two suitable sites will be selected.
My hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) referred to the green belt. Let me make it absolutely clear that this Government will maintain the green belt, despite some spurious reports about how the national policy planning framework will weaken it. It will not. The Government have no intention of weakening the key protections for the green belt. Inappropriate development should not be approved in the green belt except in very special circumstances. This is a matter for local planning authorities, through the planning process. Clearly my hon. Friend has differences of opinion—on the face of it, it sounds as if I would entirely agree—with his local council about the number of houses. I need to stress, as he did, that our commitment to abolish regional spatial strategies means that there is absolutely no obligation for local authorities to pursue the planning policies that they may have been forced into by the previous Government. Local authorities can stop, as mine has, and start again if they so wish. I wish him success in persuading his local authority to do that.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) spoke about the bioethanol industry. In answer to his final point, the Department that is primarily responsible is the Department for Transport, as he probably knows. The Government strongly support the use of biofuels, as long as they are sustainable. The industry—particularly the ethanol sector, to which he referred—has done a considerable amount to improve its greenhouse gas savings. The latest data suggest that bioethanol from home-grown wheat and sugar beet achieved direct emissions savings of 60% and 77% respectively, compared with fossil fuels, which is a significant gain. However, there are concerns, particularly about the indirect effects of displacing food production, which is why sustainability is so important.
I can also assure my hon. Friend that we are looking carefully at the issue of tariffs, to which he referred. I fully understand what he was saying; it always amazes me that although the United States is very good at telling others to practise free trade, it then introduces its own domestic support—in this case for the ethanol sector, taking something like a third of the corn production in the United States for that purpose. As he said, other countries in the EU have not allowed the use of the chemical tariff for fuel ethanol, which attracts lower duty than the other categories. At present the British Government are examining the legality of that and looking into whether we can learn lessons from the approach taken by other EU countries. Let me conclude by assuring my hon. Friend that we support the domestic bioethanol industry, which has shown the way forward. Clearly sustainability is at the heart of it, but so too is fair and free trade. We must ensure that that does not work against our own domestic industry.
I thank you for the opportunity to respond on DEFRA issues, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wish you and all Members of the House present a very pleasant summer recess.
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