Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

I understand why people regret the result. What I do not understand is why the response to that should be to erect even more trading barriers inside the United Kingdom, as the hon. Member wants to do.

Even if the fall in living standards is at its most severe this year and next, it is not just a short-term dip, because since the Government took office, real-terms wages have not risen and are not expected to get to their pre-2010 levels until 2026. That is what people feel in their lives—that year after year, it gets harder to make ends meet and harder to pay the bills. The question that people are asking themselves is the one that has been posed by the shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves). Are my family and I better off? The answer is no. Are our public services in better shape now than when the Tories took office in 2010? Time after time, once again, the answer is no.

When he made his statement last week, I thought there was one significant thing about the way the Chancellor spoke: he was happy to own the whole 13 years that his party have been in office.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Jeremy Hunt)]

I’m proud of it.

[Mr McFadden]

He confirms that now—he is proud of it. He obviously did not get the memo that says every time the Tories ditch a leader, they are supposed to pretend it is year zero. Not for him the pretence that this is a brand-new Government. Not for him the pretence that whatever was inflicted by his predecessors had nothing to do with him.

I welcome the Chancellor’s honesty about that, because that means the Tories can own the annual tax rises faced by every taxpayer over the coming years. They can own the 24 tax rises they have imposed in the last few years. They can own the NHS waiting lists of 7 million people. They can own the biggest drop in living standards on record. They can own all the waste and all the fraud. They can own the mortgage rate rises faced by hard-working families this year and next, which were driven up by their own reckless economic irresponsibility. They can own the whole cycle of low growth, increasing taxes, declining living standards and creaking public services. I am grateful to the Chancellor for his honesty and candour in embracing his party’s 13 years in power. That is a rare thing in politics these days and he deserves credit for it.

There were measures in this Budget that we liked and supported—those were the Labour bits. The extension of the energy price cap, the freeze in fuel duty, the investment allowances for industry and more help for childcare were all called for by Labour. Of course we welcome them, and we knew they were coming because most of the Budget was leaked in advance.

Planning and House Building

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for securing this debate and for his superb speech. I used to be generally against development, but since being elected I have come to see just how difficult it is for young people to get on to the housing ladder, and I have changed my views. Many of my constituents have changed theirs, too. However, like them, I have grave reservations about these proposals.

My first reservation is about the undermining of local democracy. In 2017, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) introduced new housing targets. The people of Farnham in my constituency, to give an example, did the right thing; they did not really want more houses, but they found the places to put those houses. Councillor Carole Cockburn undertook painstaking local consensus building, and 88% of the town supported the neighbourhood plan in a referendum. But then we were told the local plan was not ambitious enough, and they had to go back to square one. Once again, they painstakingly found where to put new houses and put it to the people of Farnham, and this year they got 95% support. Now they are about to be told that that is not good enough. Increasingly, it looks like the Government are not interested in what local people think at all. I urge the Minister to think about the impact of showing contempt for local democracy. In the end, if we want more houses, we have to carry people with us.

My second concern is about affordable housing. The average income in my constituency is £39,000, much higher than in many parts of the country, but the average house price is £447,000, so someone needs to be on £60,000 to afford an entry-level house. That is way out of the reach of a nurse, a police officer or a teacher. However, simply increasing the housing targets does not help them, because the price of new stock is set by the price of existing stock, and all that happens is land banking, which is why in my constituency currently, only 28% of all the housing permissions granted are actually being built out. These proposals will make that problem worse, not better.

Finally, I am concerned for the local countryside. Some 77% of my constituency is green belt, area of outstanding natural beauty or area of great landscape value. Upping the housing targets by more than 20% will inevitably force the local council to encroach on those beautiful areas. People sometimes say that the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 was a sort of mistake in planning policy, but we should be incredibly proud that we can drive in virtually any direction from this place for an hour and be in the most beautiful countryside. That is an enormous achievement for our country. One of the best things about our country is the beauty of the English countryside, and we lose that at our peril.

In short, I am concerned that these proposals do not recognise serious risks. The argument for building new houses has been won, but what is on the table risks eroding local democracy, reducing affordable housing and encroaching on our beautiful countryside. The Government must think again.