Household Energy Bills: VAT
Debate between Nigel Evans and Mick Whitley(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Our country faces the worst cost-of-living crisis in recent memory as families grapple with rising inflation, soaring food costs and an energy crisis that has rapidly got out of control. This Government’s decade-long failure to reduce the country’s foreign energy dependence has left us especially exposed to the devastating impact of wholesale gas prices. In the space of just a few short months, no fewer than 27 energy providers have collapsed, and ordinary people are being forced to reckon with the real possibility that their gas and electricity bills could rise by as much as 45% to 50% by spring 2022, according to the trade association Energy UK. No one has been spared the fallout from this spiralling crisis, but it is the poorest communities, such as those in my constituency of Birkenhead, that are being hit hardest of all.
Last autumn, I warned the House that thousands more people across Wirral risked being pushed into poverty as a result of changes to the energy price cap and the cut to universal credit. At that time, those concerns were dismissed out of hand by complacent Ministers, but now National Energy Action is warning that 2 million more people could be plunged into fuel poverty as a result of rising costs, bringing the overall total to the highest level since records began.
At this challenging time, the country has the great misfortune to be governed by a party more interested in its own internal power struggles and the increasingly untenable position of the Prime Minister than in giving British households the support they so desperately need. Ministers rushed to take to the airwaves this weekend to condemn Labour’s plans to bring energy bills down, but it is clear for all to see that they have no realistic plan of their own. Some Conservative Members have seen this crisis as an opportunity to take aim at the net zero agenda, calling for the environmental levy on energy bills to be scrapped and for the resumption of fracking and the expansion of drilling in the North sea. That is not prompted by the slightest concern for people struggling to get by. Instead, those Members are motivated by a deep-seated and ideological objection to climate statute.
Let me be clear: we cannot solve the problems of today by trading away our grandchildren’s future. Hard-won progress on the climate must not be sacrificed to make up for the Government’s monumental failings. In truth, only my party has put forward credible proposals to meet the immediate needs of British households and industry. I commend my hon. Friends on the Front Bench for the proposal that they have brought before the House today, including the removal of VAT on domestic energy bills, a windfall tax on North sea gas and oil, and a £600 contingency fund to support energy-intensive industries such as British Steel.
The Minister must put partisanship to one side and engage constructively with those proposals in the national interest. But I believe that he must go further, too. The current crisis has exposed enormous vulnerabilities inherent in our fragmented and privatised energy system. Wholesale reform of the sector is badly needed. By bringing energy into public hands, we can—
Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work
Debate between Nigel Evans and Mick Whitley(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) [V]
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Yesterday, the Government had an opportunity to show people living in left-behind communities, such as my Birkenhead constituency, that they are serious about building a fairer and more prosperous economy in the wake of this terrible pandemic. My constituents desperately needed decisive action to create jobs, rebuild our local economy and high street, and support our struggling public services. Instead, they got the shortest Queen’s Speech in five years and one that says nothing about the most important issues of our time, from protecting workers’ rights in the workplace to fixing our crumbling social care system and creating the green jobs of the future.
Not for the first time, the Government’s promises to build back better have been exposed as nothing more than empty rhetoric. We cannot hope to build back better while millions of people remain trapped in precarious work and so vulnerable to exploitation in the workplace. The foundation of an economic recovery has to be secure, well-paid employment, which today is all too scarce in the communities that I have the privilege of representing, but yesterday’s speech made no mention of the employment Bill that British workers were promised two long years ago, nor did it contain any measures aimed at stamping out despicable fire and rehire tactics, despite these measures being routinely condemned by senior Cabinet members from the Dispatch Box.
The promises to level up the country are utterly meaningless without immediate support for the 600,000 young people who have felt the fall-out of the pandemic most of all, yet the Queen’s Speech did absolutely nothing for the more than 50% of young people living in my constituency who are out of work. A year into the pandemic, it is clear that the job schemes introduced by the Government last year are just not working. The kickstart scheme has created jobs for a measly 3% of young jobseekers and, too often, these positions come without the quality training that is so essential to prosper in a fast-changing job market. That is why I urge the Minister today to adopt Labour’s pledge of a jobs promise, which would guarantee young people the right to training, education and employment opportunities after six months of unemployment.
As we build back better, we must build back greener, too. A green industrial revolution has the potential to breathe new life into towns such as Birkenhead. In my constituency, we can create thousands of new jobs through investing in the Mersey tidal project, the expansion of offshore wind in Liverpool bay and the development of a world-leading hydrogen industry. However, just months away from the UK hosting COP26, the Queen’s Speech had nothing to say in support of low carbon and green industries and on getting the green homes grant back on track. That was a total dereliction of responsibility.
There is no clearer illustration of how twisted the Government’s priorities are than their plans to drive through discriminatory voter ID laws that risk disenfranchising 2 million predominantly young and black, Asian and minority ethnic voters—