The Growth Plan

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Mike Kane

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The growth plan is about growing the economy, and we are not going to grow the economy by increasing taxes indefinitely.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The Chancellor mentioned that his energy package would cost £60 billion for just six months, but the Prime Minister promised that the package would go on until 2024—a £240 billion borrowing requirement to fix the broken energy market today, saddled on future generations. Does the Chancellor think that is a price well worth paying?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I think the hon. Gentleman has got the mathematics slightly wrong. The business support is for six months, and the household support is for two years. Those are two things that need to be disaggregated. On long-term pricing, of course, nobody in this room—indeed, nobody in the world—has any idea what the price will be in two years, so it would be misleading to put a price on that.

Russian Oil Import Ban

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Mike Kane

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who consistently and ably defends his constituents’ interests. The red diesel phase-out was announced two years ago, and I would be happy to talk to him to see how we can manage that transition.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

To follow on from the question of the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), many businesses, such as aviation, which has a massive impact on my constituency, hedge their future fuel costs, but many will be hugely exposed because they have not hedged those costs. Is the Department doing some analysis of the exposure of such businesses?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman raises a critical point. The Department is always looking, particularly at a time of extreme price volatility, at how prices affect the supply chain and businesses. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), was speaking to energy intensive industries this morning, as I was, and we are fully alive to their plight.

European Council: Article 50 Extension

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Mike Kane

Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

In all this noise and debate, the course outlined by my hon. Friend is the most secure one. It is the best one for delivering on certainty for our businesses. I, along with him, will continue to support the deal.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

In an age of polemics, I like to think of myself as a meek politician, but, in the biblical sense, meekness is a continuum from outright rage to outright apathy. As I listened to the Prime Minister’s statement on Wednesday night, I was filled with nothing but wrath for it. This is a person who holds an office that technically has an immense power and who has promised to leave the European Union on 108 occasions in this House yet has failed to deliver. Does the Minister think that the Prime Minister helped her cause in any way whatever with that statement on Wednesday night?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister expressed the frustration that millions of people across this country feel at the inability of this House to move the debate forward and to honour its commitments to leave the EU and to honour the referendum of 2016.

Education Funding

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Mike Kane

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Labour Members are shouting because they do not like to hear the truth—it is embarrassing to them.

We looked at reading statistics and we looked at mathematics. The coalition Government that came in in 2010 not only managed to begin to reduce the deficit but drove up standards through the admirable work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). When he was Secretary of State for four years, he managed to begin to drive up standards in schools. He reorganised a lot of the qualifications. On that note, I am delighted about the introduction of the new T-levels, showing innovation and a new approach. We introduced free schools, which have been very successful.

[Mike Kane]

How many have?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

There have been more than 400, and each of them has been—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman scoffs, but each of them has been extremely successful and is driving up standards in its locality.

I was particularly surprised to hear that the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), is actually campaigning to try to preserve the free school in his borough because it is a beacon of excellence. This is the kind of hypocrisy—“Do as I say, not as I do”—that we have learned to expect from Labour. It is an absolute scandal that someone like the right hon. Gentleman should be against free schools but actually support one in his own constituency. That school is an excellent initiative. He is being a very good constituency MP, and I am delighted to see that he is supporting a free school in his constituency.

The facts of the matter are very clear. What the coalition Government and the current Conservative Government have managed to do is to bring some degree of order to the public finances while driving standards higher in education. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has suggested that we have 1.9 million more pupils in outstanding schools. [Interruption.] These are facts. I know that Labour Members do not want to hear those facts. We have also heard—[Interruption.] I am surprised that I am eliciting a running commentary from the shadow Secretary of State. It is absolutely extraordinary. She does not like hearing the truth, does she? [Interruption.] She really does not like it, so she will not let me continue my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Will my hon. Friend enlighten the House about the fact that all these plans would make no sense if the economy was wrecked once again, as the Labour party is too often wont to do?

[Mike Kane]

One hit wonder!

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane]

I will not give way now because I want to get through the vote of thanks.

Normally I would thank people on my side of the House—I thank you all; well done, the lot of you—but what I really want to do is to thank some Conservative Members, such as the Secretary of State himself. He fails to stand up and say “little extras” to anyone. Just to let him know: the cuts in Hampshire are £16.8 million, Damian. [Interruption.]

May I concur with the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) about how well schools and schoolteachers have done to commemorate the armistice brilliantly this weekend and over the past few months? However, I also tell him that the cuts to his local authority are £14.2 million since 2015.

I now come to the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng)—this is my favourite bit—who makes the same speech every time. Honestly, there is a sparsity of facts, and he does need to mix it up once or twice.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The reason why I make the same speech every time is that the hon. Gentleman finds it very difficult to appreciate the force of the argument, which he never addresses.

[Mike Kane]

Following a speech that lacked so many facts, I will give the hon. Gentleman one: Surrey, which covers his constituency, has faced £14.2 million of cuts since 2015.

My good friend the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) was a great left winger on the parliamentary football team as we beat the military veterans today, but he was no left winger in this Chamber. He needs to mix it up as well, because there was a sparsity of facts. Suffolk is suffering from £7.8 million of cuts.

The hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) actually spoke quite eloquently and has a good grasp of schools and what is needed in his constituency, but Devon is facing £16.3 million of cuts.

amendment of the law

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Mike Kane

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the apolitical speech of the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng).

The Chancellor got it completely wrong. Ebbsfleet is not the first new garden city in 100 years: he is welcome to visit Wythenshawe, which was built in the 1930s and ’40s, any time. He should cross his border and see it in all its glory. I also say to the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) that there are possible twinning opportunities for us; he knows where my office is.

I give a cautious welcome to the reform in the Budget of air passenger duty. The current rules are crazy and unjust, as the Chancellor rightly said. He said that there would be support for new routes from regional airports, but we need more detail. His statement did not go far enough. The Government could go further and grant exemptions for new long-haul services from regional airports. That would make a huge difference at Manchester airport, in my constituency, attracting flights from cities such as Beijing. Eventually, that would link up with High Speed 2 and with the £800 million Chinese investment in the new airport city we are building in my constituency. It is an important measure, and I will challenge the Chancellor further on it in the weeks and months to come.

We are facing a cost of living crisis, and Labour Members will keep pointing that out. No one could have fought the by-election that I have just fought without speaking to the many people who had stories to tell in that regard. As was pointed out earlier, real wages are down by £1,600 a year compared with 2010, and the OBR has confirmed that all our constituents will be worse off in 2015 than they were in 2010. To compound the problem, people’s energy bills have risen by almost £300, on average, since the election. It is no wonder that many of my constituents are increasingly reliant on food banks such as that run by the Dandelion Community, which I visited on Friday.

I want to focus on three key things that would benefit my constituents, the first of which is freezing energy bills. I am reminded of the story of a former Member of this place, Richard Cobden, a Liberal campaigner from Manchester who was part of the Anti-Corn Law League. He stood up against the Peel Government of the time and brought working people and intellectuals together because the landed aristocracy who were running this place controlled the price of wheat bushels by not allowing external competition and free trade. He eventually won that argument, because millions of poor working people across the country were going hungry. Our energy providers are doing exactly the same thing today. The big conglomerates are controlling the markets. It is not a free market; it is not fair. The prices go up, and the energy providers never lose. The hon. Member for Spelthorne goes on about business, and he is right to do so, but those businesses take no risks. Whenever their costs go up, the prices go up. We would freeze those bills—

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Kane]

Of course I will. This will be the first intervention that I have taken in the House, so I ask the hon. Gentleman to be gentle.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I will bear that in mind. I was just wondering what the hon. Gentleman thinks Richard Cobden would have thought about the proposed energy price freeze.

[Mike Kane]

Poor working people were going hungry, and he campaigned for them, so I think he would understand that poor working people are now cold, and that he would campaign for them as well.