Economic Responsibility and a Plan for Growth

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). I speak in support of the points made by the shadow Chancellor and a number of hon. Members from across the House. I will cover three brief points in the time available: reflect on the seriousness of the crisis of the past few weeks, which is unprecedented; consider the serious effects on families and pensioners across the country; and consider the pressing and serious problems facing businesses, whether large or small.

To put the last few weeks into some sort of context, this truly is a crisis made in Downing Street and one that is absolutely dreadful for the country on so many levels. I am utterly staggered that a Prime Minister and Chancellor could have taken those steps, and I cannot understand why they made such serious mistakes.

The unfunded, reckless tax cuts, leading to significant increases in mortgage costs and other business costs, are absolutely dreadful for the whole country. My feelings after these weeks, and at certain points during the journey that we have been on—the zig-zag of U-turns and mismanagement—is one of disbelief. I am sick and tired of waking up to the “Today” programme telling me of some dramatic change in Government policy leading to awful effects on the country. I am also fed up with the evening news reporting on the latest rumours and difficulties facing the Government. I would like to see a period of stability, as I think we all would. Certainly, our businesses would, and families and pensioners would.

Moreover, this deeply saddens me, because the Government’s inept mismanagement has deeply damaged the country’s long-held reputation. It is dreadful that the then Chancellor was at the IMF in Washington at the very time when senior figures in the organisation were criticising British policy. We had the completely unprecedented experience of the US President commenting on UK economic policy and mismanagement by the Government, and the former Governor of the Bank of England criticising Government policy.

I wish to move on from all that but, in the time I have, I will draw Members’ attention to the very real effects on working people who will now be paying the cost of this very serious crisis for months and years to come. I want to explain some of the work I have been doing in my constituency, which covers Reading and Woodley, and the visits I have made to local centres to see the effects for myself and to see quite how awful it has been.

I am lucky to represent a relatively prosperous area in south-east England, but we have serious poverty which is being made dramatically worse. We have a large number of families and pensioners who are struggling and who are very concerned about mortgage and rental costs. I visited the Weller Centre in the last few days, which is a wonderful community centre in Caversham in my constituency. Amazing work is being done there to support people on so many different levels by a charity. It was worrying to see how many people are now having to rely on food banks. That has been a constant for some time, but it is getting much, much worse. In addition, to make things worse still, fewer supplies are now being donated because of the pressures on the retailers and households who have generously donated. As a result, the community fridge at the centre is not as full as it was. The boxes of fruit, vegetables, other produce and dry goods are not as full as they were and there are real impacts on people in desperate need. The centre is trying to provide cheap, hot food to pensioners—often things like baked potatoes and basic food—to help them to make ends meet. It also offers a warm bank.

All that is to be commended, but that scale of support would not be needed were it not for the Government’s mismanagement. In Reading and Woodley town centres, and in other local centres across the constituency, we can see very clearly the effects of the Government’s mismanagement. Other colleagues have mentioned them, too. There are empty shops and business units because of the effects of that mismanagement. My area is a regional hub for business and shopping in the central belt of southern England, so it is disturbing to see that level of empty property.

I strongly suspect that many small businesses—I have had businesses contact me—are having real worries about their energy bills. They are also concerned about the rising price of borrowing and other business costs. They are putting off vital investment and other vital decisions because of the Government’s mismanagement, and that has a real effect on employment and business growth across the country. It shows the scale of the Government’s mistakes.

I found some solace—it is a salutary warning to Ministers—in the fact that business leaders are increasingly looking to the Labour party for leadership and to what I hope will be an incoming Labour Government in the not-too-distant future. I thought it particularly interesting that the CEO of Tesco praised Labour’s economic plan. In fact, I think he said that only Labour had an economic plan to take us out of current difficulties.

To conclude, we have seen today that the Government have made serious mistakes that working people will be paying for, for months and years to come. There needs to be a completely new approach. We need, ultimately, a new Government to take things forward for this country.

The Growth Plan

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the opportunities presented by investment zones and our other policies.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

The Chancellor has clearly put the interests of large energy firms ahead of those of families and small businesses. Is that not why he is unwilling to publish the OBR’s report?

Delivery of Public Services

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes]

It happened partly because we were investing in services. The hon. Gentleman said in his speech that the Government were woefully in debt. I take it, then, that he did not back the action that we had to take during the unprecedented pandemic and global situation to protect his constituents and the businesses in his constituency. The people out there will take what they need to from his speech.

The action that I have outlined led us to have 7.5% of economic growth in 2021, which was the largest increase in economic growth anywhere in the G7. That has now stalled, but that is because of the global situation in which we find ourselves. Let us remember that if the Opposition had been in charge, we would have come out of the pandemic more slowly, because they wanted to keep us in lockdown. We would have had a slower vaccine rollout—this Government spent the money necessary to get the vaccines onboard—and lower economic growth. Opposition Members now have the cheek to absent themselves from acknowledging the pandemic and the global situation. Once again, they present a vision full of hindsight that is lacking in any reality whatsoever.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the pandemic and growth as we come out of it. Will he comment on how the Government failed to lock down quickly at various key points, which prolonged the pandemic and made the related reduction in economic activity deeper and worse?

[Paul Holmes]

My comment to the hon. Gentleman is that this country lifted back up while his party was still calling for us to be in lockdown. We lifted up quicker than the Leader of the Opposition wanted us to; he wanted us to lock down again, so I will not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman about what the Government have done in lifting us up and getting the economy moving.

The action I was outlining means that £37 billion has been invested in the economy; at no stage today was that acknowledged by the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). It means £650 for recipients of means-tested benefits, £300 for pensioners in receipt of the winter fuel payment and £150 for people in receipt of disability benefits—and we have cut taxes for 30 million people to the tune of £330 a year.

However, there is an issue on which I have some sympathy with Members and those outside this House. I am a Conservative—I do not think that I need to declare that in the House—but I am a Conservative who believes that we can grow the economy if we keep more money in people’s pockets. I gently say to the Chief Secretary that people are looking to him for tax cuts—for the economy, the middle classes and vulnerable people. We need to go further with tax cuts, so that we get the economic growth that we need.

The Labour party should not be allowed to be disingenuous with this motion; the Government have invested in public services. I want to pick up on two points that the shadow Minister outlined. What kind of world do we live in when the Labour party, the supposed party of the NHS, moans that we are under-investing in the NHS while consistently voting against the Government’s record investment in it? The Liberal Democrats voted against it, too. We put £36 billion of funding into the NHS, which is £12 billion a year of extra funding, and they opposed it at every turn. They opposed us in every Division we had on NHS spending, and now they say that we are not doing anything. That is not a consistent approach from the Labour party. There are record numbers of doctors—124,000 of them—as well as 300,000 extra nurses, and I remind the House that Labour Members, the Liberal Democrats and those from other parties voted against those measures.

In the passports debate two weeks ago, I said to the shadow Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), that although the Opposition say that the Government are not taking any action on passports, 700 extra staff are being recruited to the passport service. There are 500 already, and they are not privatised staff, but staff of Her Majesty’s Passport Office, whom we are investing in, so that passport applications are completed on time. Some 90% of applications are completed within six weeks; 98.5% are completed within 10 weeks; and 1 million passports were processed in March 2022. Seven million would be processed in a normal year. I say today what I said then: there is a lack of acknowledgment of the effect that the pandemic and lockdown have had on international travel. They have meant that more people are applying. However, we are taking the action necessary to make sure that passport applications are completed on time.

Today we have heard about Labour failure in Wales and Manchester. As this debate has gone on, we have heard about Labour failure in London; the Metropolitan Police Service is being put into special measures. It is controlled by a Labour politician, but nobody on the Labour side of the House criticises the Labour party, or those in power who have the budgets and the means to make the changes that the people they represent need. The Labour party attacks us. The public see that the party has no vision for this country, and that it does not play on a level playing field, given that its elected politicians are failing because of the same circumstances that Labour Members have mentioned today. What we see here is what the public will see, which once again is a carping Opposition with no practical, constructive or sensible solutions for the unprecedented problems of the day. They need to stop voting against measures that tackle the problems that they complain about. They complain about us not taking action, but why do they not march through the Division Lobby and vote with this Government for record amounts of money for public services, and then come up with a constructive solution afterwards? They have not done that at all.

Finally, it would be nice if, just once—even if they disagree with the core principles of this Government—Labour Members told the truth: that they would not, and could not, have done much differently, given the circumstances we faced in the pandemic, and with the global economic crisis. The public would respect this Parliament a lot more if we genuinely worked together, instead of Labour Members carping from the sidelines. This Government are taking action on the NHS and passports, and are making sure that the most vulnerable people in this country are looked after. That is why I was elected to this House, and why the Government were elected to office in 2019. Labour Members should stop criticising. They should come to the table and provide solutions, but I doubt we will ever hear them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth).

I wish to speak in favour of the motion and to pick up on some of the serious concerns about backlog Britain, illustrating how it is linked to the long period of low growth and under-investment in key public services that goes back to the austerity period and the decisions made by Governments since 2010. Before I do, I wish to pay tribute to our public sector and public service workers, who have done the most incredible job for a very long time—for their whole careers—but particularly in the past couple of years, during this unprecedented crisis the country has faced. I am sure that all of us, across the House, want to wish them the very best and show our support for them. We respect them and think they do the most wonderful job for our communities across this country.

While I touch on the work that those workers have carried out, I want to ask Ministers to think seriously about what it feels like to be a frontline public sector worker. I ask them to imagine themselves into the position of a nurse in the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, of a local GP or of many other local public sector workers in my constituency. I ask them to think about that and respond in the fullness of time.

In particular, I ask Ministers to think about not only the pressures caused by the pandemic, but the long effect of austerity, the lack of funding and particular local problems we face in our area. For example, two GP practices have closed in my constituency and others are under severe pressure. We have a problem with looming GP retirements and other pressures arising from severe shortages of skilled staff. We have problems with numbers being reduced in Thames Valley police. Admittedly, the Government are recruiting more police, but they are doing so belatedly and there are questions as to whether they will be able to replace the officers who have been lost. There are serious problems with school funding and pressures on school budgets, because of the misunderstanding of the way in which the teachers’ pensions need to be funded by schools. There is a series of serious problems, and I ask Ministers to think deeply about that and address them when they respond to us later today. I hope they can learn the lessons of these mistakes and rethink Government policy.

In the time available, I wish to focus on one service that has caused serious problems in my constituency. I refer to the mismanagement of the passport service during the past few months, as we have come out of the pandemic. Let me illustrate some of the problems that I have encountered as a constituency MP. I have dealt with 59 cases in recent weeks of people waiting for passports, sometimes for up to 12 or 14 weeks. Those affected include not just families who want to go on holiday and rightly deserve to do so after the awful time of the pandemic, but people waiting to see terminally ill relatives and people who need to go abroad for urgent reasons. The delays are lengthy and there is a lack of communication with residents in my area, and I understand that colleagues from across the House have suffered with this as well. People are not being given updates. I have often had residents come to me saying, “I am about to go on holiday. I am due to go in two weeks but I still have not heard anything from the Passport Office.” That is not good enough and it reflects a wider lack of planning, which I want to pick up on in a moment.

[Margaret Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. We know that the Government want to cut 91,000 jobs from the civil service. On 2021 figures, that would mean the loss of almost a fifth of all civil servants. Those cuts could mean more than 11,000 job losses in the north-west, where my constituency is based, with 3,500 in Merseyside and 400 in Wirral. Does he agree that if the Government go ahead with these job cuts, my constituents, the region’s economy and the level of services that people receive will suffer?

[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. She is highlighting clearly the issues in her area, and the same applies across the whole country. The Government are expecting public service workers to catch up and deal with an unprecedented backlog, while threatening deep cuts. As she has rightly said, many of the services provided by the civil service are in Government agencies rather than in Whitehall, which employs only a tiny proportion of the overall headcount.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. To add to his point, it is foolish to suggest that there is somehow some unnecessary flabbiness in the civil service or in local service delivery, because so much that has been added was driven by the need to make trade deals, with teams being brought in to negotiate those deals, and to support the Afghan situation and now the Ukraine situation. That is why we have so many people in our civil service right now.

[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the need to respond to crises and the pressure on the public sector as a whole.

I thank the Minister for Security and Borders, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who is in his place, because he and his colleagues have been generous in supporting me in dealing with some of my constituency cases. However, the fact that Ministers have to intervene illustrates some of the management failures in the system, which ultimately reflect poorly on them and their colleagues in government.

I ask Ministers to think about the case study of the Passport Agency. It provides a vital public service, and it has been expected to catch up with a large backlog very suddenly. Why, when the pandemic was clearly coming to an end, was there not more planning, more foresight and a more strategic look ahead at the likely implications for the head count needed in the offices that process passports, as well as the implications for the public and the economy of severe delays in that vital public service? I am afraid that the Government have been found very wanting in that instance, and it illustrates the wider failure of leadership and management in the current Administration that dates all the way back to their election in 2010. I urge the Government to think carefully about the implications of the problems we now face.

That issue also links to the way the Government operate at a political level. It is interesting that many of the problems are occurring at the very time when we see turmoil in the governing party. All too often it suggests that Ministers are more bothered about the internal factional issues in their party—the Prime Minister’s survival or demise—than about managing public services in a responsible, sensible way. I ask them to get back to the day job and get a grip on those vital services, support public service professionals, provide them with the correct amount of resource, and encourage them in their vital work.

Cost of Living: Fiscal Approach

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Westminster Hall

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for his excellent work in securing the debate, and for his powerful speech.

In the time allowed, I would like to raise three key points about the cost of living crisis that is facing families and pensioners throughout the country—first, to raise some matters relating to my constituency; secondly, to point out some of the additional pressures on public service workers and key workers; and thirdly, to call for a robust response from the Government.

I will start with the points about my constituency. For Members who do not know Reading and the neighbouring town of Woodley, we are lucky to have a buoyant local economy. However, wealth is not spread evenly throughout our community, and many people live in older properties, which are very hard to heat. We have a large number of Victorian terraces, which are attractive to look at but very costly to the residents.

I want to highlight a couple of powerful cases that have come into my office. More than 60 people have contacted me and my team in the past few weeks about the cost of living crisis, which illustrates that this crisis is being felt everywhere, including in the south-east of England.

The first instance is of a woman who is a teaching assistant, who contacted my team in February in deep financial distress. Before the hike in energy bills, she was already struggling to make ends meet. Her take-home pay at that point was around £1,600 a month, but the cost of renting in our area was £1,150. She is extremely worried about the dramatic rise in her energy bills and, as a single parent, is very concerned about looking after her son.

I heard from another constituent—a young man living in a shared house—who is also single. He describes himself as working full time “on an OK wage,” meaning that he is not entitled to any kind of benefits. With rising costs, especially after the update in energy prices, his monthly bills are already above his earnings. He has spoken to his employer, who has very kindly listened and tried to respond, and he is due to get a pay rise. However, that will still not be enough to make ends meet. At the moment he is having to dip into his savings to cope, which is obviously not sustainable.

These cases show the scale of what we are facing around the country, including in areas with quite a buoyant economy. They highlight the need for urgent Government action.

My second point is about the particular pressures facing public service workers and key workers. I am sure that everyone across the House would agree on the vital role that those workers have played during the past couple of years. Whether that is our wonderful NHS, teachers, police officers or people working in supermarkets, it is absolutely incredible what they have taken us through, and I ask the Minister to consider the position they face.

National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point. My right hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary will do her best to provide an answer based on the information that our officials can provide. It is important, obviously, that we answer questions correctly. It is worth noting that the universal credit taper rate has been reduced from 63% to 55% and the universal credit work allowance has been increased by £500 a year to help make work pay. That is a tax cut for the lowest paid in society worth around £1.9 billion in the financial year that is just about to begin. It means that 1.7 million households will on average keep around an extra £1,000. We will do our best to respond to the specific question that the right hon. Gentleman raises.

The effect on an individual’s ability to access contributory benefits and to build up state pension entitlement will be unaffected as a result of the changes to class 2 NICs. Taken together with the increase in the primary threshold and the lower profits limit, we will meet in full our commitment to ensure that the first £12,500 an individual earns is free of tax, clearly illustrating that this is a Government who make good on their promises to the people of this country.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I thank the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for giving way and for his reassurance to people contributing towards the state pension. The Chancellor did not actually mention the word “pensioners” yesterday. Does he recognise the enormous pressure on many pensioners who are struggling to get by on very modest incomes at a time of significant inflation? Is it not time that the Government looked again at their support for pensioners, in particular on heating bills?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and I recognise the sincere spirit in which he asks it. We are, of course, determined to deliver for our pensioners. That is why the Government have done so much to help to make sure that pensioners’ standard of living was not affected during the very difficult years we have just gone through, including spending £111 billion a year on the state pension, which is more generous that it has ever been. Many of the measures we are undertaking, for example our energy package, will benefit pensioners hugely. People will be getting £150 off their energy bill next month as a rebate on council tax if they live in bands A to D, with councils having a further £144 million available for discretionary payments to people who live in higher council tax bands who need further support. As I set out earlier, if the forecasts of very high inflation for this year do indeed come to pass, that will be captured in the uprating figures that will be delivered this autumn for the 2023 benefit uprating.

I want to draw to a conclusion on some broader points that this issue alerts us to. Every day in my role as an MP representing one of the poorest towns in this country, I hear from families and individuals who are struggling with the rising cost of living. I am fully respectful of the fact that this is a genuinely difficult time for the people of this country. I want to issue the reassurance that just as the Government stood by people during the covid crisis by providing a £400 billion package of support, so we will stand behind the people of this country as they face these new challenges, too. It is important to do so in a spirit of total candour. No Government anywhere in the world directly has the ability to offset the impact of first the pandemic and then a reckless and illegal war on our continent, but we will do our utmost with the tools we have, within our overarching aim of making sure that the public finances are protected.

This financial year and next, we will provide over £20 billion to help people with the cost of living. That includes over £9 billion of direct support with high energy costs for around 28 million households. That is why yesterday we announced our wider package, including this Bill along with a range of other measures, to ease the pressure on hard-working families and secure long-term economic growth.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Rodda]

I am grateful for the work that my hon. Friend is carrying out on this important matter, because it seems fundamental to look at the impact on families. In my constituency of Reading East there is enormous pressure on families, many of whom are in work and on modest incomes, but are struggling to get by because of increased prices, so I thank my hon. Friend for his work.

[James Murray]

I know that my hon. Friend is a champion for his constituents, and in challenging the Government about the harm that their decisions will do to the people he represents.

National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

My anxiety at the moment is that the lack of that information is leading us to take decisions that will not resolve the issues of poverty and low pay and will in fact ensure a deterioration in the living conditions of many of our constituents. This is a simple measure, and I think it should now be standard Government practice to bring forward this sort of report, especially when we are in a cost of living crisis and so many of our constituents are already suffering and in many instances facing intolerable hardships.

[Matt Rodda]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate this afternoon. I would also like to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) for their new clauses, which I will speak to. I want to take this opportunity to talk about two groups of people, both of which are under real pressure due to the cost of living crisis. Those two groups are families in work, many of whom are on universal credit, and pensioners, many of whom have partners on universal credit.

First, I would like to give a bit of context. It is clear that we now face an unprecedented cost of living crisis due to soaring food and energy prices. Working families and pensioners are about to be confronted with the frightening prospect of the kind of cut to their standard of living not seen since the 1970s. Recent events in Ukraine have been shocking. However, the cost of living crisis predates Putin’s awful war and his vicious attack on the Ukrainian people. It was clear in the autumn that food and fuel prices were starting to rise steeply, but the Government have actually made matters worse despite those warning signs.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have made a series of choices that have made things worse. They decided to increase national insurance. They also decided to break the triple lock and failed to increase the state pension in line with inflation. To make matters even worse, they decided not to introduce a windfall tax, even when it was clear that such an approach would have provided cash to ease bills for families and pensioners. However, they did not have to take this damaging approach. They made a choice. They took the decision to act in this way, knowing full well the impact their policies would have. I contrast this with the approach set out by the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), whose windfall tax proposals would have helped those struggling to get by with a payment of up to £600 per household. Sadly, people across the country will now pay the price for the choices made by the Government.

I suggest to those on the Treasury Bench that it is worth looking at what is being said about the spring statement in the media and by commentators. For example, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation said that it was hard to make sense of the spring statement. With just a hint of irony, he said:

“This package only makes sense if your only test for policy choices was can you prove you’re a tax cutter and you’ve already announced a rise in national insurance”.

The FT was somewhat less diplomatic. It described the spring statement with these words:

“Chancellor builds war chest for 2024 but offers minimal help for families reeling from increasing household bills”.

These choices will all have a huge impact on local communities up and down the country. I have been thinking about many of my own residents in Reading and Woodley, such as people running small businesses, teaching assistants, nurses, IT consultants, residents who work in retail and manufacturing, and parents who are under real pressure to pay for the weekly shop. The Government’s policies will also hit those who are a little bit older, such as pensioners who are struggling with the high cost of heating in an area with many terraced houses that are difficult to insulate.

Even at this late stage, I ask the Chancellor and those on the Treasury Bench to reconsider their approach. There is no doubt that this country faces a real cost of living crisis. That has been clear since the autumn. The Chancellor and the Prime Minister had the opportunity to look at a number of policies, including a windfall tax on the energy companies, which would have offered up to £600 of much-needed help. Sadly, they chose to impose extra costs on families and pensioners at the worst possible time.

[Richard Thomson]

The SNP is generally supportive of all the amendments that have been tabled, and I echo the comments of the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who made a number of points about the importance of understanding the intended purpose and impact of legislation before it takes effect. I made that point ad nauseam during the passage of two Finance Bills, but I keep returning to it because it is important that we understand what we are doing and that we avoid, as far as possible, the law of unintended consequences.

Quite apart from the evidence base they would provide for legislative scrutiny, the amendments might provide a corrective to the poor policy choices that Ministers have made in recent times.

Bank Branch Closures

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Qaisar]

Those are important matters, and I will come to them later in my speech.

I vividly remember being dragged to the high street when I was a wee girl growing up in Motherwell. Adult Anum does not necessarily have to be dragged to the high street, but as a child I hated it. My mum had her routine: she would go to Asda and get her messages, and then she would pop into Airdrie Savings Bank. Popping into the bank meant that she could get all her banking issues sorted out, but bank branch staff tend to become known to locals, so Mum would often stand and have a wee blether with them. However, this small commercial bank ceased trading entirely and closed its doors in 2017. Royal Bank of Scotland in Graham Street closed its doors in 2018, and Barclays shut six years ago. As of today, Airdrie is serviced by only one bank, Bank of Scotland, and one building society, Nationwide. It is the same story in Shotts. In 2016 Royal Bank of Scotland shut down, and Airdrie Savings Bank closed its Shotts branch back in 2015. RBS does send a van to the Co-op car park once a week for an hour, but outwith those times people have to head for a nearby town such as Wishaw.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that this is a national issue? We have experienced exactly the same problems in Reading and Woodley. Again, it is elderly and disabled people who are put under enormous pressure by these closures. It is really hard for them. Many are only familiar with banking through cheques, and they want to see a person: they do not want to have to deal with “online”, and, indeed, their families often worry about their using online banking. Perhaps the hon. Lady will join me in calling for wider national consideration of this issue, and, in particular, for the Government to put pressure on the banks to provide hubs.

[Ms Qaisar]

I entirely agree. When banks decide to close, we as Members of Parliament rightly engage in meaningful discussions. We fight for our constituents and try our level best to ensure that they have access to the local branch for as long as possible. If a branch does close we will fight for those banking services, but the reality of these commercial decisions is that all too often such discussions do not end in a positive outcome for our constituents. I say to the Minister that, with only a handful of banks on our high streets, now is the time for Government intervention. The banking issues that my constituents are facing will affect people in all four nations. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on what work she plans to do to ensure that our high streets do not become banking ghost towns.

Cost of Living Increases

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

As I was outlining—I do hope the hon. Gentleman was listening—we have put multiple interventions in place to support people with the rising cost of living. Specifically on energy prices, on the one hand we have the price cap and on the other, the package of £9 billion in support announced literally last month, which his motion says he would like to scrap.

On top of everything we are doing to help people with the cost of living, we are helping people to help themselves through our plan for jobs, and that plan is working. The UK was the fastest-growing economy in the G7 last year, and the International Monetary Fund forecast, produced before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was for us to be the fastest-growing major advanced economy again this year. Unemployment has now fallen to 3.9%, below its pre-pandemic rate, and payrolled employees are at a record high.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Helen Whately]

I will give way, because I am about to move on to talk about energy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Rodda]

The Minister is obviously covering a range of issues, both employment and the cost of living for households. As the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) mentioned, is now perhaps the right time to look again at the national insurance rise, given the pressure on families and the stalling rate of growth?

[Helen Whately]

The Chancellor has already been asked about this, and the fact is that we have taken the difficult, fiscally responsible decision to ensure that there is a long-term funding stream, both to support the NHS to tackle backlogs and to fund the cost of social care reform. That has to be the right thing to do, going hand in hand with our determination to invest in growth in this country, which I will come to in a moment.

I will just talk for a moment more about energy. We have talked about the support for people’s energy bills, but the best way to support people with the cost of energy is to tackle the problem at source and reduce the overall cost of energy in the UK, as well as reducing demand for energy, and we have already taken steps to do that. Our investment in renewables in recent years has already reduced our dependency on gas, meaning overall that bills are now materially lower than they would have been.

Looking ahead, now is the time for us to go full steam ahead with our transition to renewables. We are investing in nuclear. We are accelerating our progress on renewables, in which Scotland plays an important part, and we are boosting energy efficiency, investing more than £6 billion in energy efficiency measures over this Parliament, including £3 billion to install energy efficiency measures in low-income homes. That will save low-income households hundreds of pounds a year off their energy bill, as well as being a fabulous growth opportunity for our economy.

The motion we are debating today specifically mentions implementing a windfall tax

“on companies which are benefitting from significantly increased profits as a result of impacts associated with the covid-19 pandemic or the current international situation”.

I am sure that SNP Members are talking about a windfall tax on North sea oil and gas. I say to them, and in particular the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), that North sea oil and gas are important to our energy transition.

The UK Government place additional taxes on the extraction of oil and gas, with companies engaged in the production of oil and gas on the UK continental shelf subject to headline tax rates on their profits that are currently more than double those paid by other businesses. To date, the sector has paid more than £375 billion in production taxes. Those of us on the Government side of the House support the North sea oil and gas sector and its role in our energy security and our energy transition.

This Government have consistently acted whenever and however necessary to support families and businesses. It is our responsibility on their behalf to protect the public finances. Our level of debt means we are and have been vulnerable to shocks, including changes in interest rates and inflation. A sustained one percentage point increase in interest rates and inflation would cost more than £22 billion by 2026-27. Events in Ukraine are a clear reminder that there will always be the risk of further economic bumps in the road, and we must be ready. To that end, as we come out of the pandemic, we must focus even more on boosting productivity, growth and investment across the whole UK.

We are focused specifically on the three priorities that the Chancellor outlined in his recent Mais lecture: capital, people and ideas. That will help us foster a new culture of enterprise and drive growth. The Government continue to support business through the temporary super deduction to encourage firms to invest in productivity-enhancing plant and machinery assets. We are committing to unprecedented levels of investment in ideas: increasing investment in research and development to £22 billion a year, reforming and improving our tax credit system, improving access to finance, and helping small businesses through our flagship Help to Grow programme. The £4.8 billion levelling up fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, while the £2.6 billion shared prosperity fund will support our wider commitment to level up all parts of the UK. In these cases, we have public investment crowding in private sector investment, which is what will drive the growth of our economy. The spending review also confirmed a total of £100 billion of investment in economic infrastructure over the spending review period. Together, that adds up to an extraordinary, and extraordinarily ambitious, programme of investment in the UK.

The Government understand that this is a challenging time for British households, including in Scotland. That is exactly why we have acted in dozens of ways on multiple fronts for the entire United Kingdom, but it is also why we are looking to the future, focusing on our economic recovery, on growth and on skills—elements that together will raise the living standards of millions of people all across the Union.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

I am pleased that we are debating this important topic and I thank the SNP for bringing it to the Chamber again. Opposition parties have held a number of debates on the cost of living, which is critical for every part of the country.

The cost of living crisis really matters because millions of families across the UK face the hardship of not knowing whether they will be able to pay their bills. That worry plagued many when we spoke at the Dispatch Box on the topic in January, but in the interim, the Government have done close to zero to help. Listening to the Minister, everything in the country seems to be okay, but all her words will be no consolation to those who have to make the difficult decision about whether to heat or eat. That is the biggest single indictment of the Government to date.

In the intervening period, we have of course seen the most awful, barbaric and illegal invasion of Ukraine, which has not helped and has led to higher prices in many areas as a consequence. Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics revealed that average earnings fell 1% in the three months to January, which is the biggest fall in earnings in a decade. It is against that backdrop that working people face this crisis.

Although the Government may seek to convince people that the crisis is entirely the result of the war in Europe, the reality is that it long predates the Russian invasion. Let us be crystal clear with the public: the cost of living crisis for my constituents and every constituent across the country was with us in spades before Ukraine. One of my constituents described the crisis as “everything going up” but his wages; energy bills are due to skyrocket next month with the lifting of the energy price cap and there might be much more to come later this year.

[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point that a lot of the pressure on families predates the current crisis by some months. There are an enormous number of food banks across the whole of the UK—in Scotland and England—and my experience of working with constituents and those hard-working charities is that there is an enormous need out there that predates the crisis in Ukraine. I hope that the Government will listen to that point.

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend raises a critical point and we have to keep dragging the Government back to their responsibilities as a result of being in power. Much of the crisis in our public services, including the NHS and social care, also predates covid but the Government keep telling us that perhaps that is not the case.

Inflation hit 5.5% in January and is expected to rise even further. Scots are facing the prospect of council tax, water bills and train fares rising while wages, as I have said, are falling in real terms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Conservative party failed to back the fully costed plans of the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), to tax the oil and gas companies’ excess profits to reduce people’s energy bills. Instead, the Chancellor’s response to the crisis has been to make matters worse, not better. We have already heard about the buy now, pay later scheme using taxpayers’ money to lend money back to taxpayers via the energy companies that they will have to pay back on future bills. That is not helping; that is deferring the problem.

The Government have refused to exempt VAT on skyrocketing energy bills, which was supposed to be one of the much-vaunted Brexit dividends.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

Yes, if we increase the additional rate on the oil and gas sector from 40% to 50%—10 percentage points extra—that will generate the money towards our fully costed plan for raising energy prices, but very well done for defending the Scottish National party, and both the Conservatives and the SNP knocked back the oil and gas sector’s windfall tax when it was brought to this House.

To go back to the central question of this debate on the cost of living crisis, many families are worried about the email dropping into their inbox telling them that a direct debit will treble, or the bill landing on the mat saying their energy bill will become unaffordable, yet both Governments refuse to ask the companies making the money, directly driven by the energy crisis and the energy prices that are generating those extra direct debits or those extra bills, to put a little bit more into the pot to help. With the SNP’s current policy in the motion, and SNP Members still will not tell us if it includes the oil and gas companies, AG Barr, a successful Scottish business that made more profit last year than pre-pandemic, would pay a windfall tax, but the oil and gas companies would not—taxing ginger, not taxing gas.

[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point because surely the point is that, with the super-profits for these very wealthy companies, senior leaders of a number of them have been quoted as saying that they see their own business as a cash machine. If we contrast that with the day-to-day struggles of people of this country, surely he is putting forward the right policy.

[Ian Murray]

Those with the broadest shoulders should pay the most, but I just say to everyone in the country watching this who is worried about their bills that we have two Governments who could do something about this, but they are defending the profits of the oil and gas companies rather than trying to help them with their bills. We could achieve so much more if all put our shoulders to the wheel and helped with this energy crisis.

National Insurance Contributions Increase

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

Having listened to the debate this afternoon, I want to draw the few Members on the Conservative Benches back to what our motion is actually seeking. It is very clear: it is asking the Government to cancel the planned 1.2% rise in national insurance contributions that will cost families, on average, £500 per year from this April. The issues around funding for health and social care, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) outlined, are long-standing. This did not start during covid, and it has not been addressed by this Government for successive years. When 50% of Britons are saying that they cannot afford this additional increase in the cost of living, we are asking the Government to address this and cancel this rise now to support families.

Across my constituency of Vauxhall, the reality of a cost of living crisis is nothing new for many residents. They have been trying to make the pennies last for many years. The ill effects of the universal credit system, the erosion of workers’ rights and an utter failure to tackle the housing crisis have left so many Vauxhall residents—

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I would like to ask her about the housing crisis. In my constituency, in Reading and Woodley, many residents suffer, as she says, from the rising cost of living, but they suffer particularly because of the great increases in mortgage and rental costs. Will she focus on that matter, and will the Minister also look into it?

[Florence Eshalomi]

My hon. Friend makes a really valid point. In London, the big issue of the cost of living is being pushed up by the cost of our housing crisis, and this is experienced right across the country. Household costs continue to go through the roof, including for many people in insecure tenancies and people in the private rented sector who are also hit hard.

The rise in national insurance will do nothing to alleviate the suffering felt by my constituents but will simply combine with booming fuel prices to push more and more of them into poverty. The effect of this cannot be overstated. More than 8,000 people in Vauxhall already live in fuel poverty. That means that they cannot afford to keep their home warm without dropping into poverty. How have we got to a state where thousands of people in the centre of one of the richest cities in the world, in one of the richest countries in the world, are having to make the impossible choice between living in poverty or living in a cold home? That is the reality for many of my constituents.

The Government can point as much as they want to extenuating circumstances, but they cannot hide from the failures on their own doorstep that have made the events of the past couple of years unnecessarily hard. Neither can it be said that the solutions they offer are sufficient, or progressive enough, in alleviating the costs of households. While the Government have proclaimed to be living with covid, the reality for many people in Vauxhall is that they are still reeling from insufficient support during the pandemic, and local industries face a long tail of this crisis. These include self-employed people who were unfairly excluded from Government support. Many of the people who have contacted me built up personal debt during the pandemic to stay afloat, only to be hit now with the double whammy of the national insurance and energy cost hikes.

In the lead-up to the 2015 general election, the then leader of the Conservative party talked about fixing the roof when the sun is shining. At the same time, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition took a wrecking ball to the effective schemes introduced by Labour that were fixing a million roofs every year. The result is that, with the heavy rain of the fuel price crisis on the horizon, our housing stock still suffers from inefficiencies that will mean that more and more households face impossible choices in the next couple of months.

On this International Women’s Day, I pay tribute to the women across Vauxhall who are working around the clock behind the scenes to make ends meet: the women who are juggling insecure zero-hours contract jobs to pay their bills; the women who are forced to return to work early because of the crippling costs of childcare; the women who are at the forefront of working with our young people caught up in violence, running to the scene and reassuring the community when there has been a tragic incident; and the women who will continue to go without just to ensure that their extended family members or the people they are caring for are supported. They are the very same women who will be hit by this national insurance crisis.

The tangibility of many households in Vauxhall’s ability to cope is close to a tipping point. While there are things that the Government cannot control, they must use all the levers they have available to ensure that households stay afloat. Refusing to impose a national insurance rise now is one of those levers, and it is one that the Government must use if they have the interests of households up and down the country at heart. I ask Conservative Members to reassess their commitment to supporting working families and cancel this rise.

Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Committee debates 2nd sitting & Committee stage
Thursday 27th January 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Minister started off by suggesting his main concern was that the new clause seeks to go further than has been requested by the Police Superintendents Association. If that was the case, then the Minister could have easily tabled an amendment that came closer, in his view, to delivering what the PSA was asking for without going significantly further. He has not done that, so we have to wonder if he had any intention of addressing the issue had the new clause not been tabled.

We are asking the Chancellor to table a report and present it to Parliament. There is nothing in the new clause that would require the Chancellor to commit a single penny of additional spending. It does not tell the Chancellor what his or her conclusions have to be at the end of that. It is perfectly in line with the wording of the new clause for the Chancellor to produce a report to say, “We could remedy the situation by doing a, b, c, x, y and z, but I cannot recommend doing that because that would introduce unfair discrimination that would be contrary to the purpose of the Act.”

The Minister is trying to make it seem as if the new clause is about forcing the Government to incur additional expenditure. My reading of it is that it is deliberately worded to avoid asking for a commitment at this stage, but it seeks to force the Government to recognise that there might still be a massive weakness in the Bill and to force the Chancellor to come forward with a solution that might address that weakness. If the solution proves to be unworkable or to be unfair in other ways, Parliament has the option to reject it.

Surely, it is wrong, at this stage, that a potentially serious unfairness should be left sitting in the Bill just because we are not sure we can find a way of fixing it. That is not a fair response to give, either to the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn, who moved the new clause, or to those officers who are likely to be affected by it.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I pay tribute to our police and fire service. I appreciate that the Minister shares that sentiment. I want to underline the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn and others that we are just asking the Government to consider this again and to produce a report. That seems to be the very least that could be asked of them at this point.

It is worth remembering that the police and fire service—these valuable services, which are at the frontline of our public service and respond to challenging issues in our communities—have been through the pandemic after 10 years of quite serious austerity cuts in staff numbers. Once again, I ask the Minister to consider this new clause that asks only for a report to be produced, which would allow further discussion to take place.

I have met the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents Association, both of which have genuine concerns, and I understand that the Fire Brigades Union does, too. We should listen to these public servants. They have genuine concerns. This is an important issue about the future and the status of these services. I ask the Minister to consider the new clause very seriously.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I rise briefly to echo the points made by my friend the hon. Member for Glenrothes. The new clause calls for a review to consider the issues further. In responding, can the Minister say what steps he will be taking to resolve those outstanding issues and through what form the discussions will take place?