Budget Resolutions
Debate between Mel Stride and Judith Cummins(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Mel Stride
I have already set out the fact that this Government’s ruinous taxation policy, including in the Budget yesterday, is to load up taxes on people who are in work, many of them not high earners. The impact of that tax is the reason why the OBR has concluded that for every year of this forecast, real household disposable income—in other words, the cost of living issues people are facing—will deteriorate compared with the forecast back in spring. The Labour party is making poverty worse by making sure that work does not pay to the degree that it should.
The other point to make is about inflation. If the Government run a policy of borrowing vast amounts of money and spending half a trillion pounds over and above the plans that they inherited across this Parliament— that was added to by more than £100 billion just yesterday—we should not be surprised if inflation is the highest in the G7, or if the International Monetary Fund says that it will be the highest in the G7 next year. What does high inflation, particularly on food, do to poverty? It drives poverty up, and therein lie the answers that the Government need to think about.
There is an alternative, which is to get on top of and control Government spending and to do the responsible thing. Our golden rules is that at least half of those savings should go towards driving down the deficit and the debt, but we would then have capacity to drive down taxes as well. That is exactly what we set out at our conference: £49 billion of savings, and £23 billion of savings on welfare. Thanks to the solid commendable work of my hon. Friend the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, we have found those savings, and it is a tragedy that the Government—[Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury says, “What are the savings?” The savings are £23 billion on welfare—[Interruption.] It is a number. As a member of the Treasury team, he should be familiar with numbers, but clearly he is not.
We will be bringing down the welfare bill, and the savings are clear. I direct the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury to the paper from the Centre for Social Justice, which makes it clear—[Interruption.] Well, it is rather better than the Resolution Foundation stuff that he produced, I have to say. The paper from the Centre for Social Justice makes it clear that by changing the gateways into longer-term sickness and health benefits, which we did when we were in office—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman stops jabbering and starts listening, he might actually learn something, and that might be for the good of his party and this country.
When we were in office, we made reforms to the work capability assessment that, according to the OBR’s own scoring, would have seen 450,000 fewer people going on to those benefits. We were making a real difference in arresting the rise of the welfare bill. What did the Government do on coming to office? They scrapped those measures on day one. They then came forward with their own proposals—[Interruption.] I hope that when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury gets to his feet later he will address this, and talk us through what happened to his Government’s attempt to control the welfare bill. It got smashed into a million pieces on the rocks of his own Back Benchers—that is what happened. That is the tragedy of much of this Budget: the economics are being driven by the internal politics of the Labour party. We have a Prime Minister and a Chancellor whose position is now so precarious that they have to bob up and down like a cork on the tide when it comes to making policy at the whims of Labour Back Benchers.
There is a certain melancholy about this Budget. It is like groundhog day; an old song, with the words seared into the collective mind. A socialist anthem for all time:
“That for he who has, then that must be taken away.
For he who has not, then to him must be given.”
That is not on the basis of any measure of fairness, as suggested in the topic for debate today, but rather on a fundamental misunderstanding of basic economics. Economics is about resources, of course, but it is also about incentives. To he who has, I say this: if you work hard we applaud you, and we will incentivise you to work harder still, recognising your contribution to the common good. To the vulnerable we say this: we are there for you. But to others who have not we say this: here is not a hand out, but the means for improvement.
For the socialist, Madam Deputy Speaker, distribution is all, and the means are never sufficiently willed. The eternal lesson—also the lesson of this Budget—is that that path leads all to be diminished. An economy laden with debt, with Government spending spiralling still and taxation touching skyward, will never burn bright. The whole will never grow. It is not enough—it will languish. That is how the dreams of millions perish. Yesterday, the lingering flickers of hope died.
Taxes
Debate between Mel Stride and Judith Cummins(1 month, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I do expect Members to be here for slightly longer before intervening.
Sir Mel Stride
Madam Deputy Speaker, that is a great shame. The hon. Gentleman has not been here for any of the debate, but that does not mean that he might not have given the best possible intervention from the Labour Benches so far. Perhaps he may like to come in a little later.
We have a Government who are engaged in serial breaches, who have no backbone to take the right decisions, and who will always fold to pressure, including from their own Back Benchers—and all at the expense of businesses and hard-working people up and down our country.
Social Security
Debate between Mel Stride and Judith Cummins(1 year, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Before we start, I inform the House that I will bring in the Secretary of State at the end of the debate. I call the shadow Secretary of State.
1.30 pm
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024 (SI, 2024, No. 869), dated 22 August 2024, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22 August, be annulled.
The Labour party—the Government—said in the general election that it would bring in a new style of politics; politics centred on integrity and transparency. So it was that during the election, we held them to account and pressed them on tax, among other matters. We will find out, with the Budget at the end of next month, whether they were telling the truth—I have my suspicions. But we have already discovered one thing right now. We also pressed them on the winter fuel payment, from which millions of pensioners benefit up and down the country. Why? Because the Conservative party stands four-square behind our elderly. We believe that they should have security and dignity in their later years.
We received cast-iron assurances from the Labour party. In fact, the then shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones)—[Hon. Members: “Where is he?”] That is a good question. He said when pressed that the Labour party had “no plans” to do anything in respect of the winter fuel payment. Indeed, Labour candidates up and down the country gleefully pointed to their manifesto as having no mention of doing anything on this particular matter. But look at what has happened in a matter of a few short weeks. What happened to integrity? What happened to transparency? They went out of the window—broken promises already. The special contract that Labour sought to have with the British people based on integrity and decency has been smashed into a million pieces.
What is the impact of these measures? To a degree, we do not know—I will come to that—but we do know that nine out of 10 pensioners will lose the winter fuel payment of up to £300 at a most difficult time of year for millions of them, and a time when the energy price cap is going up by 10%. There is a suggestion from Labour Members that somehow only the wealthy—the millionaires—are affected. Far from it: two thirds of pensioners living below the poverty line will have this benefit removed. [Interruption.] Labour Members do not like hearing it. The 880,000 pensioners who we know are eligible for pension credit but are not yet receiving it will also suffer—[Interruption.] Labour Members chunter from sedentary positions, but although they say that they will have wonderful campaigns to get everybody who is entitled on to pension credit, in reality, even if they did so it would cost the Exchequer £3.8 billion, which is over twice the money that they say they will save. It is an absurd policy that their own plans are actively working against.
The haste with which this has been carried out is simply jaw-dropping. We do not have any impact assessments.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that if a local council had run its finances into the ground, in the way that his party did to the country’s finances with a £22 billion black hole, he would have called in the commissioners in the morning and instigated swingeing cuts? Can I ask him—[Interruption.] Given that that is the case, and that he now seems to have decided that his party no longer cares about balancing the books, will he apologise—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Mel Stride
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. That slightly lengthy question might be better addressed by way of a rather lengthy letter to the leaders of Birmingham city council.
Of course, all politics is about choices, and what this Government have done is cave in to their trade union paymasters. They have settled way above inflation. Junior doctors—22%. Train drivers—14%. They have stood up for their trade union paymasters on the backs of vulnerable pensioners, and that is not right. If it is not the case that the trade unions are running the Labour party, hands up everybody on the Government Benches who has not received money from the trade unions for their campaigning or their private office. [Hon. Members: “One!”] One person. Therein lies the truth about who is running the Labour party.
Of course, we have seen all of this before. Under the last Labour Government, we had the 75p pension increase, we had Gordon Brown’s stealth tax on private pensions—£118 billion in total—and was it any surprise that we ended up with the fourth highest level of pensioner poverty across the whole of Europe?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Mel Stride and Judith Cummins(2 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
The Government are committed to increasing employment. Payroll employment is at a near record high of 30.2 million, which is up 1.2 million on the pre-pandemic level. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that our back to work plan will see 30,000 more people in work over the forecast period.
Mel Stride
I cannot agree with that. In fact, I point the hon. Gentleman to the figure of 371,000, which is the number of people fewer the OBR forecasts will be on those very long-term sickness and disability benefits because of the reforms that this Government are bringing in.
Judith Cummins
Last week, the Office for National Statistics published figures showing that 6.6% of people of working age in Bradford are claiming out-of-work benefits, which is the highest rate in the Leeds city region. Does the Secretary of State believe that the Government’s back to work plan is working for people in my constituency of Bradford South?
Mel Stride
The back to work plan has billions of pounds-worth of investment behind it, including the £3.5 billion announced by the Chancellor in the spring Budget. Such things as extending restart, bringing forward mandatory placements after 18 months to ensure that people get into work and doubling universal support are important measures that will see increased numbers in work.
Business of the House
Debate between Mel Stride and Judith Cummins(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mel Stride
I join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating Dr Jennifer Garden on her achievement and her important work, and on serving as an exemplar for other women. We wish to encourage more women to work in science, not least in the area of the environment. He will know that we are leading the pack in the world on getting to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, which we have legislated for in this House. This would be an excellent matter for debate, perhaps in Westminster Hall.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
This August bank holiday weekend, the north of England plays host to the Ashes at Headingley, the Ebor festival at York racecourse and the Leeds festival. Meanwhile, rugby league fans will be heading to Wembley for the Challenge cup final. On the same weekend, Network Rail has chosen to shut the east coast main line for engineering works. This baffling decision, with such short notice, will cause misery to thousands of northerners. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a Minister to make a statement on this decision as a matter of urgency?
Mel Stride
May I first say how delighted I am that so many of our important sporting events are held in the north of our country, where there is a huge and enduring tradition of exactly that? On the rugby and the matter of trains, I point the hon. Lady to Department for Transport questions on Thursday 18 July.