Income Tax (Charge)

That income tax is charged for the tax year 2021–22.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

For the ease of those taking part, all Back-Bench contributions, at least at the beginning of the debate, will be six minutes, but I have absolutely no doubt that that will be reduced later on in the day.

Yesterday, we saw in black and white the impact of this Government’s mishandling of the coronavirus crisis, right there at the front of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report: the UK has suffered the worst economic crisis of any major economy. The Chancellor has tried to dismiss that damning fact as a mere accounting quirk, but the OBR was clear: even when all G7 countries are measured in the same way, the UK’s economic crisis has still been the worst.

Perhaps it is understandable why the Chancellor wishes to muddy the waters on this point, because the OBR is scathing in its assessment of the reasons why we have had such a severe crisis, and he has played a leading role. In its words, the primary reason is:

“simply that the UK has experienced higher rates of infection, hospitalisations, and deaths from the virus than other countries.”

The Government were too slow into lockdown not once, but three times. The Labour party urged the Government last autumn to listen to the scientific advice and bring in a short circuit-breaker over half-term to contain the virus, but the Chancellor allegedly overruled the scientists and insisted that a lockdown was not needed. When it came, it was longer and more severe. As the OBR notes:

“The UK has spent longer in stricter lockdowns than other advanced economies”.

The fact is that the Chancellor just does not get it. He thinks that we can separate out the health crisis from the economic crisis and trade one off against the other, but failing to get on top of the public health crisis only makes the impact on jobs and businesses worse. The OBR was clear on that point:

“a greater prevalence of the virus also raises voluntary social distancing which…account for around half of the total decline in economic activity associated with the pandemic.”

It is a damning report card. Coronavirus may have closed large parts of our economy, but this Government crashed it.

Yesterday’s Budget was an opportunity for the Chancellor to make amends, to end the irresponsible decision making that has defined the past year, and to reverse the economic mismanagement that has defined the past 10 years. It should have been a Budget to rebuild the foundations, but it merely papered over the cracks. After the year that we have just had, it should have put the NHS and social care system front and centre, rewarded our key-worker heroes, and set out a plan to strengthen a system too often horribly exposed by the virus. But incredibly, the Chancellor made just a single mention of the NHS and said nothing whatever about social care. Worse still, despite saying that he would be honest with the country about the challenges that we face, he buried a planned cut of £30 billion in resource spending for the Department of Health and Social Care in the fine print of the Red Book.

It is a pleasure to respond to the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) in this Budget debate. I think it is fair to say that, since the start of the pandemic, our priority as a Government has been to protect the lives and livelihoods of people right across this country. That is why my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, over the last year and again in this Budget, have taken unprecedented steps to support British people and businesses, including help for those who need it most. That includes further measures using our fiscal firepower to revitalise our economy, get people back into existing jobs and encourage investment to help create new jobs.

Let us remind ourselves of the steps we have already taken. Through the furlough scheme, we have supported more than 11 million jobs. This unprecedented cushion of support has helped millions of people who could otherwise have been made redundant to stay connected to their employers. Through the self-employment income support scheme, we have helped more than 2.5 million self-employed workers with grants and business loans, as well as targeted support for those on benefits.

Not everyone was fortunate enough to be furloughed, though, and through the £20 a week increase to universal credit, we ensured that those who faced a drop in earnings or were newly out of work received extra support during this difficult period. I am proud of our swift action at the start of the pandemic and throughout to support an extra 3 million people through universal credit and other benefits. That has been thanks to the hugely dedicated staff of the Department for Work and Pensions, which I consider to be the Department of Wonderful People, who delivered that support competently and compassionately.

The Secretary of State will have seen the evidence that disabled people have seen a big increase in their grocery costs during the pandemic, and yet people claiming employment and support allowance have had no extra help at all. Why have they not been supported?

As the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, and as the Chancellor has said repeatedly, there was a specific reflection at the time of introducing the extra £20 a week uplift to recognise the issues regarding people who were newly unemployed. I am conscious that the right hon. Gentleman’s Select Committee is undertaking an inquiry on people with disability and employment, and we will provide evidence in due course, when we can perhaps discuss that matter further.

I would like to reinforce what my right hon. Friend said about the fantastic work of her departmental officials. The fact that her Department has not been in the headlines much over the last months is due to the efficiency of her officials. When some of those officials are looking for a transfer, might she recommend that they go to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, to try to imbue that department with some efficiency?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting the really good work undertaken by officials. I would also like to thank my ministerial team, because we have worked together to do this. Indeed, arm’s length bodies such as the Health and Safety Executive have also done really good work in trying to ensure that workplaces are safe, helping employers to ensure that that is the case and minimising the transmission of this wretched coronavirus that we have endured. I will bear in mind his thoughts, but I do not think it is in the interests of the DWP to take on the DVLA as well.

Last week, the Prime Minister set out the road map that will lead us out of lockdown and back to the way of life that we are all eager to enjoy. As we all play our part in controlling coronavirus, and after a particularly wretched winter, we are ratcheting up for what I hope will be a spectacular summer. But we know that recovery will not be instantaneous for everyone, which is why the Prime Minister said explicitly that we would not just pull the rug out from under people’s feet as we start to see light at the end of the tunnel. That is why yesterday my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out targeted measures in the Budget that would deliver on that commitment to help people and businesses through these next few months as we open the economy and deliver on our plan for jobs, helping people who are still impacted by coronavirus to get back into work.

First, to support low-income households we will extend the temporary £20 increase to universal credit for a further six months, on a monthly basis, taking it well beyond the end of this national lockdown. Working tax credits are administered by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and claimants will receive a one-off covid support payment of £500—this is largely driven by the way that system works operationally. That is in addition to all the other Government support for people on low incomes, be that support with some of the most expensive bits of the cost of living, through things such as the increase to the local housing allowance, which is going to be preserved in cash terms, or with other elements, such as through council tax support.

The Secretary of State said that the universal credit uplift would be extended on a monthly basis. Does that mean that if circumstances warrant it, the uplift will be continued beyond September of this year?

The clear intention is that this is an extension of six months, because that will take this well beyond the aspect of the national lockdown. I was particularly making the point about monthly payments because I have always been clear that this is about UC continuing on a monthly, rather than one-off, basis, and that would be the preferred approach. I am pleased that the Chancellor has agreed with me on that and on making sure we keep that regular payment uplift for the next six months.

Secondly, we have self-employed people on UC, and in addition to the further help through our self-employment income support scheme we will suspend the minimum income floor for a further three months. That means that hundreds of thousands of people will continue to receive financial support based on their current actual earnings, rather than on the assumed amounts we would normally undertake through the gainfully self-employed test.

Thirdly, the further extensions of the furlough scheme to the end of September represent a huge investment in people, keeping them connected to their current jobs and employers. I urge employers and employees to take full advantage of this additional time of furlough to get ready to return to work, and do the training and refresher courses, so they are ready to hit the ground running as their business fully reopens. Taken together, I believe that these temporary extensions will provide essential support as we move along the road map, restart the economy and transition to our full recovery.

Thanks partly to the extension of the furlough scheme, the OBR is now expecting a better jobs outlook than it was in its November forecast, with unemployment now expected to peak at 6.5% at the end of this year, instead of 7.5%, which was its previous forecast. Although that represents a third of a million fewer people than the OBR previously forecast, I fully recognise that the OBR is still predicting that, sadly, unemployment will rise by a further half a million people compared with now. As we have always said, we cannot, sadly, save every existing job, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out yesterday extraordinary measures of support to help businesses stay in business and to create new jobs. The supercharged super-deduction on capital investment is exactly the kind of initiative that can stimulate businesses to invest here in Britain, leading to brand-new jobs.

Perhaps I could advise the House that this affects not only the ports in my constituency; it is also a partnership with the Ford plant in Dagenham. My right hon. Friend will be aware that there are employment challenges in that borough—it has a very high unemployment rate compared with the rest of London—and the freeport initiative opens up the opportunity for Ford to breathe life back into that site, given the redundant diesel technology that it currently produces. That will attract new investment from a global player. Should that not be welcomed?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I know how much of a champion she has been for the people of Thurrock and the surrounding areas in making sure that they have that opportunity. Indeed, there are opportunities right around the country. We will hear contributions later from Members representing the north-east, who will be championing, and are delighted by, not only the freeport in Teesside but the Treasury North campus in Darlington. I am sure that the Leader of the Opposition’s campaign director, who is now in the other place, will also be thrilled that Treasury North will be in Darlington.

Right across the country we are laying the platform for businesses to create jobs, and my Department is ready and primed—indeed, we are already delivering—as we put our foot to the floor, our pedal to the metal, on our plan for jobs. Over this year, as our economy starts to recover, my priority, and that of the Government, is getting people back into work, investing in skills and training, and helping people to get up the career ladder and increase their income.

We came into this pandemic with record high employment. That was down to successive Conservative Governments since 2010 focusing on supporting people in moving to and progressing in work, including by reforming the welfare system through universal credit, which is a Conservative benefit. Unlike the legacy benefits, whereby people would often be worse off working under tax credits and similar, universal credit is a benefit that always makes sure that work pays.

I am truly astonished that the Opposition continue to want to scrap universal credit, when it has clearly done its job of getting money into people’s pockets within days of their making a claim when newly unemployed, and given that 40% of UC recipients are working and it automatically puts extra money into people’s pockets when their hours are reduced, never mind the £20 uplift for covid.

We know that we have a huge task ahead of us, but I am confident that we will deliver, fuelled by the firepower of our plan for jobs. Just as we have had the jabs army putting vaccines into people’s arms, we now have the jobs army of our work coaches, with an extra 13,500 recruited to bolster our support to help get people back into work.

Before I introduce Alison Thewliss, who is joining us remotely, I have some practical notes for those who are also joining remotely. Whatever device you are using, you should have a band at the bottom of it that informs you of the time limit. Currently there is a six-minute time limit on Back-Bench speeches from speaker No. 4, who is the person following Alison Thewliss. Just to the side of that, there is a timer. Because the time limit is six minutes, which is a luxury in recent times, please try to resist the temptation to stretch it beyond that, as you will not be allowed to do so. If your speech happens to be in front of the timer, then please use another timing device. For those who are joining us physically, the timer will be shown in the usual manner.

It is just under a year since I stood up and made a speech in response to the 2020 Budget in a Chamber packed to the gunnels with MPs. The notion of delivering a Budget speech from my front room was absolutely unthinkable, along with many things we have adapted to over this past year, when we have seen economic shocks as well as personal and social ones. Phrases we rarely, if ever, used before are now in constant use: face coverings, social distancing, extended households, and furlough.

I appreciate that the Government had to move quickly to provide support in a rapidly changing and deadly pandemic. Choices were constrained by the circumstances, and large sums of money were rapidly moved to protect businesses from the worst economic crash any of us, we hope, are likely to see in our lifetimes. There is great hope on the horizon with the advancement of the vaccination scheme, but we cannot tell how long this crisis will last. The Chancellor and the Prime Minister have form in telling the public it will all be over by the summer, then by the autumn, by Christmas and by spring, so we need to caw canny with what lies ahead.

As I have said consistently, arbitrary cut-off dates in the support schemes are deeply unhelpful. The last cut-off for furlough planned for last year resulted in people losing their jobs as employers just could not manage the additional costs. Six months on, the only thing that has changed for businesses is an additional burden of debt and bills, with VAT deferrals coming back online soon. Businesses’ income has not increased, and adding to their employers’ costs is not risk-free. We on the SNP Benches support an extension to the furlough scheme for as long as it is necessary, in all countries of the UK. We also support the extension to the self-employment income support scheme, as announced by the Chancellor, but it does not go nearly far enough, leaving millions of people still locked out of covid support. The cliff edge in the fifth SEISS grant for those above or beneath the 30% drop in turnover seems incredibly unfair and incredibly steep. The Chancellor said yesterday that he will do “whatever it takes” to rescue our economy. He said that a year ago too and it is cold comfort to those who are yet to see a penny piece in support from his Government. The excluded have been mentioned over 1,000 times in Parliament by the gaps in support all-party parliamentary group and reports from the Treasury Committee and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. Solutions have been offered to this Government and it is unacceptable that the Chancellor continues to ignore these cries for help.

The time limit is now introduced.

I have declared my interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I welcome the extension of help to individuals and companies. All the time people cannot go to work or businesses cannot trade and all the time that there are pandemic regulations and social distancing that impede people going about their normal business, it is vital that the Government offer alternative income and support. I am pleased that the Government came up with a big response originally, and it is necessary to carry it on for as long as these restrictive measures remain in place.

I also welcome the fact that the OBR has decided that we will be borrowing £39 billion less in the current year than in its recent November forecast. I think that serves as a reminder or a warning to all those trying to debate the economy based on a set of figures; these are very uncertain times. It is difficult for the official forecasters to come up with accurate figures, and we should be especially suspicious of ideas based on what the deficit might be in a couple of years’ time. This deficit will fall very rapidly. Assuming the great success of the vaccines continues, and assuming that we can relax and get people back to normal work and normal business within a few weeks or months, we will then see the deficit come down because so much of the deficit has been caused by the special pandemic measures.

The figures confirm that around £250 billion of extra spending in 2020-21 was the direct result of the special pandemic measures, and that there will be another large figure in the first part of 2021-22. We want to see the end of all those special expenditures—because people have better-paid jobs to go back to, businesses are trading successfully, and there is turnover and profit coming back to our small and large businesses—and so much of that expenditure was a poor substitute for being able to do the thing itself. There was of course some loss of tax revenue, and again, we would expect to see tax revenue rise quite rapidly as soon as people can trade properly again, as soon as there are more transactions in the economy, and as soon as we are making more goods and providing more services to each other, as I am sure we will.

I expected the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) to complain about the fact that this was a massively tax-raising Budget. I am not sure whether, perhaps in a coded way, he was doing so, but it did reverse policies on income tax thresholds and corporation tax rates that have been central to Tory policy for 10 years.

We all understand the reason why the Chancellor made these announcements, but I must say it was unedifying to watch him yesterday hand out funding on such a brazenly party political basis. However, the real criticism of yesterday, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) spelled out in her opening speech today, is the absence of vision. The Financial Times says this morning that

“the needed long-term vision for a country facing an uncertain future is absent.”

We need much better than that.

I want to focus on points of particular interest to the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. I am relieved that the £20 uplift to universal credit will not be scrapped this month. That should have been announced weeks ago; I have no doubt that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was doing her level best to achieve that, but it should not have been left until yesterday. However, the uplift is going to be scrapped in September. Tax rises are being delayed until next year, because, as the Chancellor recognised, we will not have a proper recovery until then. Why then is the universal credit cut not also being deferred for 12 months, as the Select Committee recommended? A total of £20 a week is to be cut from unemployment benefit in September, just as furlough ends and unemployment reaches its peak. The House of Commons Library tells me that the only precedent for that is the 10% cut in unemployment benefit introduced by the National Government in 1931.

There is no additional support in the Budget for people claiming legacy benefits. The Government should not simply ignore the needs of all those who, because of Government policy, claim benefits relying on outdated computer systems. Disabled people, above all, have lost out. They have seen big cost rises in the pandemic—I hope the Secretary of State, having told the Committee that she had not seen evidence of that, has now seen the clear evidence—through not being able to shop around as normal, but they have had no extra help. That is unforgivable.

Much has been said in the press about a perception that this Budget would be focused on the north. It may make a predetermined headline work, but it does not reflect the package of measures that will help every corner of our country, including my home county of Devon.

I joined a conference call with local hoteliers in East Devon last night, hosted by the excellent Sidmouth Town Council. The extension of the furlough scheme will help keep staff on the books as the hospitality industry reopens its doors in May with restrictions still in place. Much praise was heaped on the new restart grants, providing up to £18,000 to hospitality businesses. That will give hotels, pubs and restaurants across East Devon a welcome boost before the tourism season kicks in.

When they fling open their doors, the support continues with a suitably Conservative flavour by keeping taxes low to help businesses thrive. The extension of the VAT cut to 5% for hospitality, accommodation and attractions is something I have been calling for over several months, alongside further business rates relief. Both those measures are game changers for an industry hit really hard by the pandemic. I am glad that my calls to extend that support were heard and delivered in this Budget. East Devon’s economy is heavily reliant on hospitality, and the feedback from the industry is positive. I look forward to visiting many businesses across the constituency as they reopen.

While the support for the hospitality industry is nationwide, it will particularly benefit Devon, and the whole county will reap the benefits of several other announcements too. I fought hard to secure support for regional airports after the huge loss of Flybe and the impact of the pandemic. Only one flight landed at Exeter airport in my constituency today, which is not a huge surprise in the circumstances, but the past year has been a bitter blow to the aviation industry. The airport support scheme that I campaigned for will be extended for six months, as work continues on the long-awaited aviation recovery plan. It will take the aviation sector longer than most to recover from the crisis, and taxes, including air passenger duty, need urgent reform to help the industry back on its feet.

On the ground, more than £40 million of funding was included in the Budget to reinstate passenger services on the Exeter to Okehampton railway line. That will encourage more sustainable journeys across Devon and improve connectivity across the county and the city of Exeter, which I am proud to represent.

Another warmly welcomed announcement for Devon was a freeport, which will help to create thousands of jobs across our county. Businesses in Devon will benefit from more generous tax relief, simplified customs procedures and wider Government support, bringing investment, trade and jobs, which will help regenerate our county and our region. Meanwhile, the new future fund presents opportunities for businesses across Devon, including some based at the Exeter science park in my constituency. This £375 million fund will invest in highly innovative companies working in life sciences, quantum computing or clean technology.

I speak today as a Member of Parliament representing an area of the country that the Chancellor seems to have forgotten exists. It is not just my constituency that he has forgotten about, or, even worse, chosen to ignore; it is Wearside and Northumberland too. I was particularly anxious, listening to the Chancellor speak yesterday, because I knew that he was going to make an important announcement. The announcement I was hoping for would create over 30,000 new jobs across Tyneside, Northumberland and Wearside and provide a further 31,000 jobs in construction. It would realise £2.7 billion in new regional private sector investment and £2.1 billion in additional UK exports over 10 years. It would drive innovation, boost trade and support our world-leading clean energy, advanced manufacturing and automotive clusters. It would mean that our part of the north-east could achieve its full economic potential through investment, trade and jobs.

As it turns out, it was the final announcement that the Chancellor made in his Budget—the announcement of eight new freeports. I hoped to hear that there would be a north-east of England freeport, but my hopes were dashed. I do congratulate the eight new freeports that the Chancellor listed, particularly the one on Teesside, which has fared very well in the Chancellor’s Budget. Like all areas of the north-east region, Teesside has seen many of its industries disappear and its people have suffered economic and social hardship over many years.

Although the establishment of freeports is somewhat controversial, like many of my north-east colleagues, I knew that the bid submitted for the north-east of England freeport was one that we could commit to supporting as Labour MPs and as a cross-party group. The bid was submitted by a business and public sector partnership that included the seven local and two combined authorities, the north-east local enterprise partnership, the universities, Nissan and the ports of Sunderland and Tyne. I firmly believe that it more than met the Government’s vision for the new freeports.

It is a privilege to be able to participate in this debate on the Budget, which is in a sense rather like an economic Olympics because so many records have been broken. The tax burden in 2025-26 will be 35% of GDP—the highest in over 50 years. The public sector net debt will reach 109.7% of GDP in 2023-24, which will be the highest in 60 years, and we know that the deficit in the current year, at 16.9% of GDP, is the highest in 75 years. As Allister Heath in The Daily Telegraph has reminded us today, it is the first time that there has been an increase in corporation tax since Denis Healey’s “pips squeak” Budget of 1974—47 years ago.

Let us also not forget that the proposed increase from 19 pence in the pound to 25 pence in the pound is an increase of more than 30% in corporation tax. The fact that 65 out of every 100 people questioned like the increase in corporation tax illustrates the extent of the economic illiteracy that sadly abounds. If that is really what the public want, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) would have won the general election with a landslide with his promise of an even larger corporation tax rate of 26 pence in the pound.

The Office for Budget Responsibility believes that the consequence of the changes in corporation tax will be an increase in the cost of capital and reduced business investments, and that that will, in turn, lead to lower productivity and lower wages. The question that I hope the Minister will answer later is why the Chancellor did not listen to people such as Sir Paul Marshall, an extraordinarily successful wealth creator, who sits on the Government’s Industrial Strategy Council. He has argued for a post-Brexit corporation tax strategy that is globally competitive and attracts inward investment. He calls it an aspiration to create a “Dublin-on-Thames”.

That is a reference to the success of Ireland, with its headline corporation tax rate of just 12.5%. Apple, Boston Scientific, Dell, Facebook, Ingersoll Rand, Merck, Oracle and Pfizer are all international companies that have put their headquarters in Ireland or book their revenues through that country because of the Irish policy of attracting inward investment by having very low levels of corporation tax. Arthur Laffer popularised supply-side economics by drawing diagrams on napkins, one of which I have at home. The Laffer curve suggests that that works. When we had corporation tax at 28% in 2010, it delivered a yield of £43 billion, but when it was reduced to 20% in 2018-19, that yield had risen to as high as £57 billion. That is the supply-side effect—the Laffer curve—operating effectively.

As we know, the context of the Budget yesterday was a debilitating global pandemic. It was also the last Budget before the UK hosts the COP26 climate conference. It was therefore arguably the most critical Budget since the second world war. I say “critical” because my friends, my family and my community matter to me, and having a viable future for them and myself matters to me. I saw so many of them struggling before the pandemic because of this Government, and now even more are struggling because of this Government.

What the people of this country needed from the Chancellor’s Budget yesterday was so much more than simply a reaction to the crisis at hand. What the people of this country needed was a strategy that would support all people and businesses struggling amid the pandemic, tackle the rising epidemic of inequality and debt, initiate a massive programme of decarbonisation, invest in local authorities and public services—the backbone of the successful part of the pandemic response—and rebuild our town and city centres as the vibrant hubs of sustainable communities and community activity. By those measures, the Chancellor’s Budget has failed on every single metric.

What I have seen in the pandemic is the best of the British people and the worst of this Conservative Government. In my constituency of Norwich South, I have seen care and compassion in the face of adversity, and I have seen the power of collective action in public services such as our NHS and schools, which stepped up to carry this country through extreme circumstances. In this Conservative Government, I have seen corruption and cronyism as well as indifference to growing inequality and climate change. That is ingrained in the detail of this Budget, which is going to punish the public and our public services, instead of taking the transformative action needed to support the livelihoods of all people and businesses, not just today but for generations to come.

What we needed from the Budget was a massive green economic stimulus on the scale of that in the United States, if not larger. We did not get it. Instead, we got the decision to freeze fossil fuel duty. What we needed was investment in the very public services that have seen us through this pandemic, such as our NHS, which is delivering a world-leading vaccine roll-out, and our schools, which have set up virtual learning under extreme pressure and with their resources cut to the bone. We did not get it. Instead, the Chancellor buried a £30 billion cut to the health and social care budget while local authorities such as Norwich face a collective £10 billion black hole that will mean yet more cuts to vital jobs and services. What we needed was a remedy to the crisis in our privatised and failing social care system. We did not get it. Instead, we got platitudes about needing a cross-party consensus.

I am very keen to ensure that we get everybody in, so after the next speaker I will reduce the time limit to four minutes.

Unlike the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), I think that this was a Budget that put in place the genesis of a strong recovery. It is one that supports people and businesses through the pandemic, and puts the economy in the best possible position to bounce back strongly in the second half of this year. Every vaccination is boosting the chances of a vigorous recovery with strong job creation. I put on record my thanks to everyone who is helping with the blistering pace of vaccination roll-out across the country, and say, “Please, when you’re offered your vaccination, have one right away.”

The Chancellor’s Budget also began the process of repairing our public finances. The Treasury Committee report, which we put out this week, on tax after coronavirus stated that the public finances are on an unsustainable path and even a strong recovery may not be enough to bring current spending back into balance. Every expert we heard from said that the economy still needs both loose monetary and loose fiscal policy now, but it is right that the Budget put in place fiscal tightening that comes down the road. It is not right away, but it needs to be there for the year after next.

There are some really innovative measures in the Budget. The super deduction on capital investment is a huge signal to business and should shift the long-standing under-investment by businesses in our economy. The future fund breakthrough will tackle another challenge: the difficulty that small businesses find scaling up capital to go from being a small business to being a big, high-growth businesses. The Help to Grow initiative offers business education, and will help the long-standing challenge in our country of low productivity in the small business sector. The Budget gives the great entrepreneurs and business owners in this country the very best chance to rebound from the lockdown.

We all know that economic forecasts are bound to be wrong, and I hope that the OBR’s forecasts will prove to be far too pessimistic; however, I was also struck by one of the Chancellor’s phrases about the sensitivity of the UK Government debt to interest rates. He said that a 1% increase in rates would add £25 billion to current spending because of the size of the debt. That is a truly startling statistic. It reminded me of a phrase from James Carville, the US political strategist of the 1990s, who said that, when he died, he wanted

The Chancellor’s Budget is one of missed opportunities. In his speech yesterday, he made no mention of increases for public sector workers who have made such sacrifices and paid such heavy costs to protect us all in this time of crisis. The Chancellor also missed the opportunity to recognise and reward those on the frontline of the pandemic who have given so much. I am referring to the NHS staff and emergency or blue light services who have kept us safe.

I will illustrate the dangers and difficulties with just one example from the police service, but similar examples can be found across the NHS and all of the emergency services. At the peak of the pandemic, one in three police officers in England and Wales reported that they had been threatened by someone they believed had covid who said they would breathe or cough on them. Almost a quarter reported that a member of the public had attempted to do so. The very least that the Chancellor could have done, even as a token gesture on behalf of the public, was to recognise their dedication, professionalism and courage by matching the Scottish Government payment of £500 to NHS workers and extending it to include all emergency workers.

While I welcome the new measures of support for up to 600,000 self-employed people, the Chancellor missed the opportunity to include the 2.4 million people who have been and continue to be excluded from any Government support. I also welcome the provision of £40 million for the care and support of those affected by thalidomide, but the Chancellor missed the opportunity to support families affected by the less well known, but equally damaging drug Primodos, which over a number of decades has caused a range of devastating birth defects in thousands of children, leaving them with serious deformities and disabilities, including missing limbs, cleft palates, brain damage and damage to internal organs. At this point, I take a moment to pay tribute to Mrs Marie Lyon, who has worked tirelessly and led the campaign for justice for those tragically affected by Primodos for more than 40 years.

The Chancellor also missed the opportunity to significantly reduce poverty among older women and to right a significant Government injustice with the plight of the 3.8 million WASPI women—Women Against State Pension Inequality—including 6,800 in my constituency of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock. They have seen a loss of up to six years of their state pension entitlement without proper notice or time to make alternative arrangements.

On behalf of those women, I ask the Chancellor to consider two issues that would at least help some of those affected by this state-inflicted injustice. The Chancellor should give WASPI women early access to pension credit and give those due to reach state pension age this year early access to their pensions. That would not by any means resolve the issue, but would go some way to redressing the cruel injustice suffered by these women.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on debt and personal finance, I welcome many of the measures to alleviate people’s income problems during this time. However, the question remains: what happens when the support ends and millions of people potentially face a cliff edge?

Although some people have been able to increase their savings and have paid off debt, poorer households always suffer disproportionately during hard times, and the pandemic has widened that gap. People on lower incomes pay more for essential products—including energy, credit and insurance, to name just three—and are also likely to pay more to access their cash. I will return to that shortly.

I welcome the retention of the £20 weekly uplift to universal credit, but I believe it should be made permanent and extended to legacy benefit payments. The pandemic has raised awareness of the relatively low level of benefits, and it is not just charities and faith groups that believe that the amount should be increased; it is also the general public. There are other issues, including the five-week wait, the two-child limit and the benefit cap, and I also urge that loans be converted to grants, because paying back from an already low income causes great hardship.

The level of the self-isolation payment of statutory sick pay has also caused problems. Many people are unable to afford to self-isolate in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus. They want to do the right thing, but they have to balance that with the cost to their family, and that can prove to be an impossible decision.

I am pleased that the Chancellor has brought in and is going to pilot the no-interest loan scheme. I will follow it with great interest and I hope that it will be implemented as soon as possible. However, there are many people who will have little or no chance of paying any loan in the medium or long term and who are already deeply in a spiral of debt. More research should be done on the effects of this on individuals and families, and on ways in which they could be helped, which may include debt write-offs. These are unprecedented times and we will need unprecedented solutions.

I think yesterday’s hugely important Budget has been warmly welcomed across the country. Many dozens of constituents have already written to me in support of the measures outlined yesterday. Of course, the difficult backdrop that we have faced over the past year sets the tone. This once-in-a-lifetime event has been incredibly difficult, but with last week’s road map and yesterday’s Budget, underpinned by our world-leading vaccine programme, it is clear that we have a plan to get out of this very difficult situation. We are walking towards normality, but rightly maintaining a cautious eye for obstacles.

Yesterday, we provided certainty for 11,500 of my constituents in Bolsover who are on the furlough scheme, and 2,500 self-employed people know that they will continue to get support as the economy opens up. Crucially—this is incredibly welcome—that has been extended to those people who are newly self-employed. They have struggled so much and I have spoken to so many of them. Individuals were supported by the freeze in fuel duty, which will help massively with the cost of living; there was help for people who want to get on the housing market; and, of course, I warmly welcome the temporary universal credit uplift continuing until we are out of the woods.

More than 600 businesses in my constituency have benefited from the various grants administered on the Government’s behalf by Bolsover District Council and North East Derbyshire District Council. May I take a moment to pay tribute to all the staff at both those councils, who have helped many businesses and helped to roll out these schemes incredibly quickly and efficiently? I have spoken to these staff on a continued basis and found them nothing but helpful.

For the most impacted sectors and those that have struggled so much to trade in the past few months, be they in hospitality, personal care or non-essential retail, there were so many wonderful things in yesterday’s Budget, from the restart grants through to the extension of the VAT cut, business rates holidays extensions and the new recovery loans. For pubs, and probably every single Member of Parliament and person in the country, the freeze in alcohol duty is incredibly warmly welcome—I think we all want to get back to the pub.

I would like to begin my remarks by welcoming the Chancellor’s announcement that the national infrastructure bank will be based in Leeds. Although that is good news for the Leeds economy, and for jobs in the city and its region, the Government really need to provide clarity on how they will ensure that the bank cannot be used to fund highly polluting projects and that it will fund only renewable-energy-based infrastructure that will boost green jobs and ensure it directly addresses the imbalances between the north and the south in that sector. Sadly, yet again, there was no new investment for green recoveries in key industries, including automotive, aerospace and steel. After the mishandling of the pandemic and the economic disaster that accompanied it, a £30 billion green economic recovery fund is now vital in order to create at least 400,000 secure jobs in clean industries.

It is also disappointing that the green homes grant did not feature in the Chancellor’s remarks yesterday. With more than two thirds of homeowners said to be interested in the grant, the Government have squandered the chance to send a message to the world that we are a leading force in the battle against climate change. If they were serious about global Britain, they would start by throwing their weight behind initiatives that lower people’s bills and save the planet at the same time. We have an unprecedented opportunity in this country for a post-covid green revolution, which could generate thousands of jobs across the whole of the United Kingdom, but, once again, this Government have offered more of the same short-term fixes; it is business as usual and it is simply not good enough.

While it is most welcome that the furlough scheme is to be extended, we should not have had to wait for Budget day to give businesses the certainty that they needed months ago. Our bars, pubs and restaurants are particularly dependent on the furlough scheme, and to leave them in this kind of purgatory is unacceptable, as people’s livelihoods are on the line.

Before the pandemic, the night-time economy was the UK’s fifth largest sector. It contributed £66 billion per annum to the economy, 6% of the UK total, and provided 1.3 million jobs alongside a vast supply chain and a number of creative freelancers, sole traders and skilled workers. With no meaningful expansion to eligibility to access the culture recovery fund, and no action on spiralling commercial rent arrears, businesses have made it clear that the loan solutions outlined by the Chancellor simply will not save those hospitality businesses that are already overburdened with debt.

This Budget provides the right balance, reflecting both the need to continue to protect those struggling the most and the recognition that, with the phenomenal success of our vaccination programme, the Government are right to focus on building back better, stronger, fairer and greener.

In Stoke-on-Trent, we have high hopes for the coming year, and last Friday we launched our city prospectus, “Powering up Stoke-on-Trent”. The Potteries has a proud heritage of pots and pits, and a bright future of advanced manufacturing, digital and creative industries, tourism and many other industries that are drawn to our geographical location and agile workforce. However, we cannot ignore the health inequalities that are a challenge to living productive lives and to productivity at work. Our residents have the lowest average life expectancy and poorest health in the region. Stoke-on-Trent is the national litmus test for the Government’s levelling-up agenda, and we believe that new opportunities should be available to all in our community.

Between February and November last year, the number of people on universal credit doubled, so the £20 uplift has been a lifeline for many, and I am glad that the Chancellor has recognised the need to keep it on for the next six months while investing in the comprehensive plan for jobs. Yet the Opposition are still talking about replacing universal credit, a crisis-tested system that is working well, which suggests that the leader of the Labour party is not so very different from the last one—ideology first; what works later. I will always support pro-work benefits and the widest range of measures to address the urgent and immediate challenges during these difficult times.

As brownfield sites across my constituency are repurposed for modern housing and new employment opportunities, confidence and aspiration grow in our local communities. I welcome the provision by Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions of essential pathways out of unemployment and poverty, with both universal credit and the implementation of the Chancellor’s plan for jobs.

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to have my first dose of the Oxford vaccine. I had it in a pharmacy that is just yards away from the house where I lived as a child. Davey’s Chemist, one of a number in Merseyside owned by Mary Davey, is at the heart of the community. In fact, I managed to have a quick chat with her after my jab because she happened to be in the pharmacy. The vaccination centre is being run efficiently, effectively, professionally and personably. How she and her staff managed to set it up so quickly and smoothly, I really do not know, but they did. It took hard work, effort, commitment and dedication, and I was impressed but not surprised, because pharmacies get on with it. They were asked to do a job. They said yes and delivered, and despite the stresses and strains on the pharmacy sector, they deliver time after time. So I was disappointed to find that there was not, as far as I can tell, anything in the Budget statement that in any way sent a message of support to the pharmacy sector, let alone any practical or financial support for it. A key sector in the fight against covid through the vaccination programme has been cut adrift, yet the Government still ask a sector that is under strain to pull out all the stops.

As a member of the all-party parliamentary pharmacy group, chaired by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), I want to highlight some of the concerns and recommendations identified in the APPG’s report of December 2020 and the themes brought out in it that are affecting the sector. First, the Government should review the response from pharmacies during the pandemic and re-evaluate a clear vision of what we need from these undervalued frontline healthcare workers.

Secondly, the NHS and Government should enable pharmacists to do more by giving this vital sector additional resources for training and support. Thirdly, a reassessment by finance teams in the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS of the value of pharmacies would be welcome. Fourthly, the Government should write off the advance payments as an immediate way of providing relief. In addition, they should re-evaluate the financial implications of asking pharmacies to pay back the—

I am sorry, but we seem to have lost Peter Dowd, so we will go to Gagan Mohindra.

The Treasury team’s ability to be dynamic in a quickly changing environment has saved many people up and down the country, including in my constituency, from financial ruin and job loss. The previously predicted job losses have not materialised, and credit must partly lie with the Government’s unprecedented support. The covid debt burden of £407 billion, with the largest borrowing levels outside wartime, is significant. I would argue that we are fighting and winning a world war against an invisible enemy: the covid-19 pandemic. There may be an argument similarly to use a war bond as a way of financing this significant debt, and I will leave that thought with my Treasury colleagues.

This pandemic has not been fair, and this Government have continued to be pragmatic and target support broadly in the right areas. Support like universal credit has succeeded, and I commend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for its successful implementation, especially with the significant increase in demand during the pandemic. It is a sign of its success that no one has really mentioned it. The scary predictions of job losses at the start of the pandemic have not materialised, but I know my right hon. Friend will continue to focus on getting the 700,000 people who have lost their job through no fault of their own back into work. We must continue to provide the tools to allow our people to get back on their own two feet.

When I spoke to my constituents, they were clear that they wanted two things from yesterday’s Budget, namely certainty and financial prudence. This Budget has done both, with certainty about VAT cuts and the furlough extension, so that businesses are best placed to ride the wave of our recovery. The restart grants and business rates holidays are also well worth mentioning. This does not mean a magic forest of money trees, and the honesty shown by the Chancellor gives all people the respect they deserve by not hiding difficult financial decisions. Outside of business support, I welcome the extension to the stamp duty holiday and the new mortgage guarantee for homebuyers. As a recent first-time buyer myself, I know how life-changing home ownership can be. It is right that we give more people the opportunity to buy if they choose. The proactive policies mean that generation rent will quickly become generation homeowner.

The Budget was an opportunity to repair our economy and provide the support needed by so many. Instead, it is just a sticking plaster that will continue to leave many of my constituents behind.

For example, I represent a large number of enterprising self-employed people working across multiple sectors, but many have been completely excluded from support for nearly a year. While the Budget means the newly self-employed in 2019-20 will no longer be excluded, those changes could have been made months ago to help to protect livelihoods. Meanwhile, those who previously earned more than £50,000 a year or who operate through limited companies remain completely excluded from support. When I asked the Chancellor in November, ahead of the second lockdown, what he would be doing to fix those gaps in support, he made it clear it was a deliberate policy decision to exclude them, which, frankly, is shocking. The cliff edge of £50,000, rather than a tapered approach, has caused considerable issues in constituencies like mine. One of my constituents, a talented musician who earned over £50,000 before the pandemic, told me: “Raising a young family of four in London as the main earner when work stopped in March caught us in a very compromised position. Now, a year later, we are deep in £30,000-worth of debt. In January, I paid over £14,000 for my tax bill despite receiving no money from the self-employed income support scheme, which, had I not been excluded, would have alleviated a level of anxiety and stress I did not realise was possible. As the months tick by, we become increasingly desperate and I have had to sell a number of my instruments.”

Meanwhile, another constituent of mine has received no support because she is a limited company director. She now faces having to wind up her successful business of eight years amidst the demands of home schooling and caring for her elderly, shielding mother. These are real-life issues affecting my constituents and the Budget does nothing to help and support them. It is clear that the Chancellor’s decision to exclude certain people is having a huge and lasting impact on families. The Government should be fixing this rather than ignoring the matter.

Yesterday’s Budget came at a critical time for our country. The Chancellor placed a strong emphasis on jobs and livelihoods, announcing schemes and programmes to help people get back into work. Simultaneously, the Budget focused on keeping businesses alive, with a forward view of getting them working again, introducing restart grants—something that I had previously raised with the Chancellor—providing additional discretionary funding to ensure that businesses have the vital capital needed to kick-start operations, as well as further funding to support their employees until they are back at work.

I have previously discussed social mobility and the issue of people staying in low-paid employment in my constituency with the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies) who shared with me the ABC concept of improving social mobility: any job, better job, career. To that end, we are using advanced town deal Government funding to establish a careers and skills hub with Loughborough College, which will be the vessel for skills, courses and training, delivering apprenticeships, traineeships, kickstart, and the lifetime skills guarantee. Working with work coaches and youth workers from Jobcentre Plus and the Department of Wonderful People, of course, it will help local young people looking for their first employment help and the unemployed of any age, giving them the ability to get back into work. It will also help the already employed who are looking to upskill or reskill, so that they can advance in their careers. My own life skills project, working with Barclays, Communities that Work and East Midlands Housing, will support the unemployed and low earners in work to gain additional skills locally, feeding local people into the hub.

The careers and skills hub will run alongside the Government-funded T-level centre at Loughborough College, which will also help to provide local residents with the skills needed by local businesses, leading to better-paid jobs. In addition, we hope to gain funding for an institute of technology shortly as well as to secure the £25 million of town deal funding to provide the infrastructure for businesses, jobs and growth in the town. This is a shining example of local organisations and experts capitalising on a matrix of support from the Government, creating a foundation for skills and enterprise and increasing social mobility at a local level.

Over the past year, more people than ever before will have come into contact with our social security system. In March 2020, around 3 million people were on universal credit; in January, it was 6 million. They will have discovered that what is billed as society’s safety net is, in fact, full of fairly large holes. That has been the experience of my constituents in North East Fife, and it will be the same for hundreds of thousands of people throughout the UK.

A year ago, Liberal Democrats welcomed the Chancellor’s move to help to fix the safety net via the £20-a-week uplift in universal credit—that money was needed even before the pandemic began—but as time went on, it became clear that further support was not going to come. We called for an uplift to legacy benefits, which are disproportionately received by people with disabilities, but after initially being told that the universal credit uplift was a first step because its computer system was easier to change than the systems operating legacy benefits, it turned out that no uplift would be forthcoming.

We asked for extra support for unpaid carers—a group of people who are under-appreciated, overworked and absolutely need our further support—yet rather than the £20 a week that they need at the very least, the increase the Chancellor is giving in the Budget is a derisory 5p a day.

The decision to create another cliff edge by ending the universal credit uplift in six months means taking away £1,000 a year from those who need it the most. Freezing the personal allowance is a stealth tax that simply means that the poorest will pay an increasing proportion of their income in tax as many begin to make the transition from universal credit to employment as the economy recovers.

Last week, my team and I undertook a virtual visit to the jobcentre in Cupar. It was great to meet the fantastic team there, who have coped brilliantly with the required changes to working practices and are clearly making a difference to many who access their support. Despite that North East Fife team’s efforts, I have real concerns about how the Government plan to get people back into work.

Over the past year we have seen state intervention on a scale not dreamed possible by a Conservative Government. However, this perfectly reflects our approach. Our core belief is that the state should intervene only when necessary, and it has certainly been necessary this year. The state should help when help is needed, but otherwise it should not interfere and should let people get on with their lives.

Economically speaking, the only way for us to grow and build back better is for our private sector businesses to pull the economy back to health, creating jobs and wealth for all. I therefore welcome the six-month extension to the universal credit uplift, the extended furlough scheme, the self-employment extensions and the inclusion of the newly self-employed. The super-deduction on investment in plant and machinery will rocket-boost capital spending and make inroads into the productivity conundrum. If I had a request, it would be to extend it to other businesses, such as farmers. I particularly like the support for our hard-hit hospitality and leisure businesses, and to do all this while supporting a green industrial revolution is just amazing.

As our smaller businesses are the real engine, I also commend the Help to Grow scheme and digital skills support, which will deliver opportunities for better growth. All our lives have changed dramatically over the past year, some financially or emotionally; some will revert as the lockdown eases, but some will take many years to recover—if, indeed, they ever do.

The support offered comes in many guises. The short-term financial support I have already touched on, but livelihoods are about more than that; they are about a belief in a better future, about believing that society is fair, and I see key levers for that. The restart programme, the kickstart scheme, the Prime Minister’s lifetime skills guarantee, the £3,000 incentive for all hires and £126 million to triple the number of traineeships are all building blocks that give people a hand-up and the opportunity to grow or retrain.

Listening to the Chancellor yesterday, I was surprised by the tone that he took. He seems to have forgotten that his Government’s shambolic handling of the covid pandemic has seen the UK suffer both the worst death toll in Europe and the worst economic crisis of any major economy. As we move towards recovery, I share the concerns of many of my constituents, who feel that the confused policy making of the last year means that this is not a Government who can be trusted to deliver the recovery that the UK needs.

Following the financial crisis, the Tories responded with austerity. Labour warned against cutting too far and too fast, and we ended up with soaring rates of poverty, threadbare health and social care services and one of the most unequal economies in the western world—a situation that no doubt exacerbated the impact of the covid pandemic. Now the Government’s failure to recognise the role that poverty and inequality play in holding our nation back means that they are once again risking the economy. In particular, it is noteworthy that, despite countless charitable organisations arguing that the £20 universal credit top-up should be made permanent, the Chancellor could commit to it for only a further six months. Indeed, there are almost 16,000 individuals in Coventry North East who could do with that extra £20 per week, yet this Government seem determined to find a way to take it off them. The Chancellor has said that the increase is only temporary and that it is unaffordable in the longer term. Yet we only have to look at how easily and freely they hand out Government contracts to their friends and close associates to see that when it comes to the question of affordability, it helps to be a personal friend of a Minister. Sadly, for the 16,000 recipients of universal credit in Coventry North East, this means that this much-needed increase may soon be ripped away from them. With many of those people already on furlough or in insecure work, there is a real danger that when this is taken away from them, they will become even more dependent on the state for support, which is not what anybody wants.

A society that is built on shaky foundations will not be able to tackle the challenges this country faces, or take advantage of the opportunities we are presented with. The Government’s plan for the post-pandemic recovery does nothing to tackle the poverty and inequality that resulted in the worst death toll in Europe and the worst economic crisis of any major economy. We all want a strong and resilient country, but unless the Government start to take these issues seriously, they will once again leave us vulnerable to the future challenges we will inevitably face.

It is a pleasure to speak in the second day of the Budget debate.

This Budget has one overriding aim—to kick-start our economy, which shrank by 10% last year. We are now set to borrow a peacetime record of £355 billion this year. This is jaw-dropping, I agree, as is the fact that 700,000 people have lost their jobs since the pandemic started. The Government’s primary duty is to do what they can to help the people and our economy. On the face of it, such huge borrowing does not look Conservative in any way, but it is. What is proposed by the Chancellor is pragmatic, sensible and bold. He has accepted the reality of the situation and has taken realistic action to remedy the problem. Needs must, and such action is crucial now. This is a very Conservative approach. Such pragmatism is why the Conservative party has been the most successful political party in history. Conservatives are not ideologically driven to the extent that they do not adapt to a situation that requires change, and that is certainly the case at the moment.

Now is not the right time to hammer the economy or the people, who are already on their knees. Today is the time to succour and support our recovery after the traumas we have had to sustain over the past year or so. That is our top priority. Luckily, borrowing is at its cheapest rate ever, and we should use that situation as a tool to help us in the recovery. I totally support this rather canny Budget. I agree with the Government that they are determined to do their best for everyone in the country—everyone, whether in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales or England.

Let me turn to a few matters coming directly from the Budget that I am very pleased to mention. I like the fact that the furlough scheme has been extended to September. I am also delighted that the benefits for the self-employed have been extended. I am particularly happy that about 600,000 more people who are self-employed will be able to claim assistance. This has been a matter of great concern in my constituency, where a large number of people determine their living very much on their individual wits and hard work. Some of them have had a really hard time. Far too many of my constituents have fallen through the gaps in the support that has been extended to date. Lots of them have been unable to demonstrate, in particular, that they were self-employed on their tax returns, and I hope this anomaly has now been resolved. It is also good news that the £20 uplift in universal credit, worth £1,000 a year, has been extended. It saddens me, though, that the Budget does not seem to help leaseholders with the remedial costs of cladding. I reckon the Government are going to do something about that in due course, but it is not part of the Budget; in a way I wish it was.

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. Pandemics by their very nature offer an opportunity for reflection about the sort of society we want to develop for the future. If the aftermath of this dreadful pandemic is not an opportunity for a reset, when will there ever be one? It is not as if the structural or economic deficiencies of the British state are not obvious to all, with chronic geographical, sectoral and individual wealth polarisation and an over-reliance on one economic sector.

I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to underpinning public health strategies with economic support, and extending furlough to September seems sensible. However, if for whatever reason the Welsh Government are required to implement a different strategy to control the virus—for instance, as the result of a new autumn wave—will measures such as furlough be extended, or does the Unionist talk about the broad shoulders of the British state only apply to Wales if it also benefits England?

On corporation tax, I support the proposed increase to 25%. The Washington-based think-tank the Tax Foundation estimates that the global average corporation tax rate is just over 25%. France and Germany have rates of 30%, and the Biden Administration have announced plans to increase the rate in the US from 21% to 28%. Therefore, it is difficult to make the case that a 25% rate in the UK would be uncompetitive. Of Biden’s three-year $1.4 trillion extra taxation plan, according to Moody’s Analytics, well over half—$822 billion—comes from corporate taxation. Equally important is the Biden Administration’s determination to target firms that offshore jobs and those that shift profits overseas.

The Chancellor’s income tax proposals are far too timid. He should have followed the new US Administration by increasing income tax directly on incomes above $400,000—about £300,000—by introducing a new pandemic tax band. However, the redistributive zeal required to tackle the UK’s inequalities should also look at taxation on held personal wealth, as is the case in Norway, Switzerland, and Spain.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Gosh, I am really sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; we have building work going on in the house at the moment.

The pandemic has shown us the impact of a decade of austerity forced on us by Conservative Governments. We have seen that a cocktail of poverty pay, job insecurity and cutting public services to the bone has resulted in one of the worst death rates and the worst recessions in the world. This was not inevitable and the Budget was the Chancellor’s opportunity to put it right with a programme that meets the scale of the challenges we face. Instead, this Budget is filled with half-measures and wrong priorities.

There is a rise in corporation tax in 2024 but a huge £25 billion giveaway to big businesses before that. The wealth of British billionaires has already soared by a third in the last year. The Government talk of a green industrial revolution but they are slashing green homes grants, freezing fossil fuel duty and continuing to back coal mining. There is a lot of talk about looking after Brits, but the Chancellor did not mention the NHS once in his speech. He had no plan for the crisis in social care and he is freezing public sector wages instead of giving our key workers the pay rise that they deserve.

The Chancellor has taken the rhetoric of Labour’s policies but none of the substance. The centrepiece of yesterday’s Budget was the switch to fiscal austerity in April 2023, which will involve around £68 billion of spending cuts and tax rises until 2026. Make no mistake, this Budget has paved the way for more misery, more austerity and more hardship just over the horizon.

Today, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Resolution Foundation said that the cliff-edge cut in universal credit will bring down incomes to levels that we have not seen since the early 1990s. It is set to plunge 500,000 people into poverty. Does the Minister consider those people, including many of my constituents in Nottingham East, to be collateral damage?

We all want a secure job, healthcare we can rely on and a good home in a community that we can be proud of, but poverty pay, underfunded hospitals and catastrophic climate change threaten our lives and our futures. This Budget should have tackled the root of these problems—our rigged economic system—but instead, it rearranges the deckchairs on the Titanic. We need a permanent transfer of wealth and power from billionaires profiting from the pandemic to workers who have got us through it, but this Government do not want to tackle a broken economy that works for their super-rich friends instead of for my constituents. They have failed catastrophically during the pandemic and this Budget shows that they will fail to deliver the recovery that we need.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome). The Budget obviously has to be set against the situation in which we found ourselves in recovering from the pandemic, and the Chancellor and his team are to be congratulated on ensuring that we have balanced the position between encouraging industry and commerce to reopen but, at the same time, supporting people who are going through the pandemic in a difficult fashion. I strongly support all the measures that the Chancellor announced in the Budget.

There are four areas, however, that need to be explored yet further. On the position on remediating cladding, when the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government announced the new scheme for dealing with high-rise blocks, it was said at the same time that the loan scheme would be announced by the Chancellor during the Budget process. At the moment, we have not heard that, and clearly, a large number of leaseholders will want to know the details. Personally, I take the strong view that leaseholders should not have to contribute a penny and I reserve my position on where we stand until we hear the details of the loan scheme. So, clearly, that is a matter of concern.

The estimate of the number of private tenants in rent arrears has soared during the pandemic and, clearly, a day of reckoning is coming. It is not clear what the Government’s strategy will be to ensure that those rent arrears are cleared to the benefit of either tenants or, indeed, landlords who depend on that income for their ability to finance themselves. That needs further explanation, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will be able to answer that during the wind-up to the debate.

Another vital issue is pensions. The Chancellor has chosen to freeze the lifetime allowance. There are concerns in a number of professions, including our medical professions. Doctors are saying that they have saved all the money that they can under the lifetime arrangements, so there is no incentive for them to continue working. That is a potential loss of skills that we can ill afford, particularly at a time when we are approaching a need for more doctors, nurses and medical professionals in our national health service.

The Budget should be judged on one key issue: whether it improves the living standards of the vast majority of people in this country. On that, I am afraid, it has failed, with a pay freeze for key workers, the poorest families facing universal credit cuts, 1 million lower-paid workers having to now pay income tax, and council tax rises. Living standards have faced an assault over the past decade, and that is set to continue. Average wages will be no higher in 2026 than in 2008: almost two lost decades.

The Government’s disastrous handling of the virus has caused one of the world’s deepest economic collapses, yet they expect the vast majority to pay for it—including through further cuts to public services of £15 billion per year compared with last year’s plans. Despite the need to treat a huge backlog and to fund ongoing vaccine and test and trace schemes, the Government would also cut the national health service budget back to pre-pandemic levels. That will also mean an axe to unprotected areas, such as local government, which is already cut to the bone.

The Government may counter that they are fixing the economy and that a higher tide will lift all boats. That is simply a lie. The Budget will see Britain continuing as a low-growth—just 1.7%—economy once the end-of-lockdown boost wears off. We have low growth, falling living standards and hollowed-out public services. For most people, I am afraid that it will feel very similar to the last decade, but it does not have to be. This should have been the Budget to invest massively in growth, in tackling inequality, in jobs, in tackling the climate crisis, in rebuilding our public services, in social housing and in moving us to a high-skill, high-wage economy.

Instead, public investment will remain pathetically low, and the main stimulus is a £25 billion corporate handout that may bring business investment forward but, as the Government’s figures show, will not increase overall investment levels. Those funds should instead have gone into a huge state investment programme also funded by record low borrowing costs and taxes on the super-rich, starting with a 50% rate for those on over £125,000. That could spur a shift to net zero with a green new deal, build modern transport and infrastructure fit for the 21st century, lead to a mass house building programme, and renew our public services, all boosting growth, which is the best way to pay off the debt, but also creating decent jobs and helping to rebuild communities left behind for far, far too long.

I call Jerome Mayhew by video link.

I am afraid I am going to have to stop Jerome Mayhew and come back to him.

There is much to welcome in the Chancellor’s Budget. The extension of the furlough scheme, the business rates holiday, his long overdue new support for the self-employed, and the £300 million for the culture recovery fund are a step in the right direction. These measures will help some of my constituents get through the next few months of this crisis, but what about the longer term? I wanted to see a Budget that puts us firmly on the road to recovery and rights the wrongs of the last decade by rebuilding our economic foundations, but this Budget just papers over the cracks with short-term giveaways.

There was no pay rise for the key workers who have cared for us through this pandemic, including the hard-working staff at St Thomas’ Hospital in my constituency, who cared so diligently for the Prime Minister when he was ill; no recovery plan for our NHS after a decade of cuts; no mention of schools or teachers, who have worked tirelessly to educate our children in such challenging circumstances; and no mention of help for the thousands of leaseholders paying extortionate costs for temporary safety measures while still living in unsafe buildings.

The Chancellor assumes that household spending will help fuel growth, but not everyone has managed to save through this pandemic. In September, unemployment will rise when furlough ends, and without the £20 uplift to universal credit the poorest households in my constituency in Vauxhall will be facing a significant fall in income in the second half of this year.

This Budget was full of missed opportunities. The pandemic has exposed structural vulnerabilities and inequalities, and this Budget was an opportunity to reflect on how our economy works, what we value most and what our priorities should be as we start to recover from this nightmare. The Chancellor missed an opportunity to help the co-operative movement in leading a recovery to a fairer and more inclusive economy. He should have shown real ambition by committing to double the size of the co-operative sector to help build a fairer and more resilient community.

It was a real pity that the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) was cut off in his prime earlier as he was embarking on a very good defence of our pharmacy sector and its contribution, and I want to associate myself with his comments. There is a real issue with regard to the moneys advanced to pharmacies to deal with the consequences of the pandemic; it now needs to be clawed back and that is going to hit our pharmacists, who have been at the front end of the fight against the pandemic. I just remind Ministers to get together with the NHS to come up with a solution to this. Notwithstanding the fact that pharmacists are independent providers, they are very much part of our NHS and should be treated as part of the NHS family. I hope that the House will indulge me in finishing the hon. Gentleman’s speech off for him.

I commend the Treasury team and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for the Budget presented yesterday. It has to be said that they were not dealt the best set of cards to start with. As Conservatives, we know that everything has to be paid for by taxpayers, whether they are the taxpayers of today or the taxpayers of tomorrow, and we have to balance our responsibilities to all taxpayers when we make these decisions.

Notwithstanding that, the Budget showed great imagination. It took it on the chin that we need to continue the support until we really can release the restrictions that we are working under. It also laid some foundations to encourage investment—particularly imaginative ones, I would add. In that regard, let me celebrate the fact that the Thames freeport has been given the go-ahead by the Chancellor. Clearly, that will benefit my constituents, but it takes in not just the port of Tilbury but that at London Gateway, the Ford site at Dagenham and what used to be the Petroplus oil refinery in Stanford-le-Hope.

Far from the freeport just displacing activity from elsewhere in the economy, the Ford site and the Petroplus site are redundant industries. Ford manufactures diesel engines for export, and Petroplus, where, clearly, the demand came from petrol-fuelled cars, went into receivership a few years ago. That land is ripe for development, and this is a perfect opportunity to encourage inward investment from overseas to take advantage of the freeport policy. I very much look forward to seeing Ford’s plans to use the Dagenham site, which has been with us for so many decades, to invest in new technology to deliver autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles, because that is the future. This very action will do so much to facilitate that and to breathe economic growth into an area of east London that really deserves it.

It has been very tiresome hearing Opposition Members say, “Oh, all the help’s going to Tory-held seats.” I just remind them that Barking and Dagenham are very much not Tory-held seats, and that Tilbury, which I represent, is the poorest of the 100 poorest towns. I am really grateful that this Government are showing faith in Tilbury and making those investments. Let me also say to those on the Opposition Benches that they could have done it when they were in power, but they chose not to. The Government are doing the right thing, and I commend the Budget to the House.

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I represent one of the most deprived constituencies in the country. My constituents have suffered thanks to both the Government’s mismanagement of this pandemic and the decade of brutal austerity that preceded it. Their incomes have been slashed, their jobs thrown on the scrapheap, and their hopes for the future dashed by poverty.

Instead of laying the foundations for an economic recovery by investing in the high-skilled green jobs of the future, the Chancellor presented a Budget that barely papers over the cracks. Secure and well-paid work is the catalyst of any economic recovery, but successive Conservative Chancellors have done nothing to address the scourge of precarious employment and low pay.

When presented with the opportunity to rectify the mistakes of his predecessors and ensure that work really does pay, the Chancellor refused to do so. While Ministers shed crocodile tears for the one in 10 British workers who have been told to accept worse pay and conditions or face the sack, the Government have done nothing to crack down on the use of deplorable fire and rehire tactics.

We need to be putting money in the pockets of consumers, yet the Chancellor plans to freeze the pay of over 2 million key workers, force councils in the poorest parts of the country to raise council tax by up to 5%, and plunge up to 1 million universal credit claimants into poverty by cutting the £20 uplift at the very moment when unemployment is set to peak. That is not just economically illiterate; it is downright cruel.

Yesterday the Chancellor had a real chance to secure economic prosperity and tackle the existential threat of climate breakdown by creating thousands of high-quality green jobs. He spurned that chance and exposed the Prime Minister’s pledge of a green jobs revolution as a sham. By investing in electric vehicle production at the Vauxhall car plant, guaranteeing funding for the Mersey tidal project and the north-west hydrogen cluster and putting the green homes grant back on track, we could create vital jobs in a region that has been devastated by decades of economic vandalism and Government neglect. But the Budget contains a meagre £20 million for floating offshore wind production and no new investment for a green recovery in the automotive, steel or aerospace sectors.

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

It was an impressive and assured performance by the Chancellor. Rightly, it was a no-harm Budget, aimed at steering us through treacherous waters, a light hand on the tiller essential. It has been heartbreaking for me and, I am sure, all colleagues to hear from so many businesses of their dire circumstances. They are run by men and women who have worked hard and taken risks, often having to mortgage their homes, all to make a living for themselves, their families and, of course, their staff. It is this industrious activity that pays for the public sector, not least the NHS and our schools. To raise taxes now would be the straw that broke the camel’s back, so I applaud the Chancellor for not listening to one or two commentators who used to frequent this place.

The Chancellor’s upbeat speech rightly called on enterprise and innovation to reignite our economy, both internally and from abroad. Global Britain requires low taxes, less state and a lithe public sector. Bureaucracy and red tape still afflict progress, but now that we are out of the EU, there is no excuse not to pursue Conservative values and philosophy, and that includes low taxes.

“Levelling up” is an expression frequently used by the Government, and nowhere is that more needed or deserved than South Dorset. At or near the bottom of every source of funding for decades, it is our turn to be nurtured. I shall soon be presenting a business plan to the Prime Minister and the Treasury drawn up by business leaders in my seat. To ensure that we attract businesses and investors, we need help to improve our infrastructure. Our over-reliance on tourism and hospitality does little to boost incomes and raise living standards.

I also compliment the Chancellor on extending help to those who are struggling, many through no fault of their own. However, this staggering level of borrowing cannot go on forever. The way out of this financial meltdown is to work our way out. The Chancellor is right to warn that repairing our finances will take the work of many Governments over many years, and that is not taking into account the dual spectres of inflation and rising interest rates. One or both could easily put the ship on the rocks.

Nothing is more important now than to support and nurture the private sector. I welcome the extension of the business rates holiday, the VAT cut, the new restart grants and the recovery loan scheme. However, it should be noted that some businesses will not be able to repay the loans that they have already taken out. On a positive note, the Budget will give reassurance to business, with restrictions lifting and the economy reopening. Let me repeat: we must never forget that it is the tax paid by these businesses that funds our NHS, schools and more besides. The country getting back to work is crucial, and the sooner the better.

The Chancellor has claimed that the hard choices made by his predecessors over the last 10 years have served our economy well going into this current crisis. A decade-long squeeze on living standards, the rise in insecure and precarious work, and beleaguered public services have in every sense made his unenviable task every bit harder than it needed to be. Our economy has been shown to be particularly vulnerable and less resilient than other comparable economies of similar size, and the much deeper contraction in our own demonstrates exactly that. Alongside this, chaotic decision making and the poor timing of restrictions, all to appease Tory Back Benchers, meant that there were very real economic consequences to the Government kicking the can down the road—that is, until they eventually ran out of road.

The eye-watering sums being spent by the Treasury mean that, for the time being, the taps are on, and the Chancellor is right when he says that we need an investment-led, jobs-rich recovery. While the measures embarked on last year and this year may have just averted devastation for many, I remain unconvinced that the measures announced yesterday will secure a recovery that, crucially, all our people can share in.

The think-tanks are alive with the chatter of levelling up, and yes, there were piecemeal announcements about moving part of the Treasury to Darlington, about the investment bank in Leeds and about the collection of freeports across the land, including one in my own city of Liverpool. But despite the odd headline to help fill Tory election leaflets in marginal seats across the north, it is the poverty of ambition that will perpetuate the poverty that we see in our towns day in and day out. I have to ask: do Conservative Members think that moving the odd civil servant out of London or a one-off fund to help a struggling high street in the midlands will match the requisite scale of ambition to address the deep underlying structural inequalities that exist in modern British society between people and places and between my own north-west region and the south-east of England? If we do not fundamentally address those inequalities of opportunity and outcome, the levelling-up rhetoric will remain exactly that: rhetoric.

It is always interesting to get a lecture on economic probity from a member of the Liverpool Labour party.

I will start by saying that I am chuffed to bits. I am very pleased indeed. I might not have got my bid for HS4 between Heywood and Middleton, but there is still time for that, and this is a very good Budget indeed. The past year and a bit has been exceptionally challenging for the country as a whole, but now we are on the path back to normality. We are looking forward to a future, and we have a Budget that supports our ambition to get the country back on its feet.

Yesterday, the Chancellor laid out a fiscal plan not just to help larger companies and the structures of our economy but to support SMEs, the self-employed and those in low-wage employment. We want to get our high streets and local businesses back on track soon and nowhere can that be more true than in Heywood and Middleton.

I am pleased to see that the uplift in universal credit remains until October. I thank the DWP and its team for the inestimable amount of support they have given my constituents and many others who face very real hardship as a result of the difficult but necessary decisions the Government had to take to combat the pandemic. Universal credit has been one of the quiet success stories of the pandemic response. Without its flexibility and agility, many would have found themselves in a precarious position as a result of a legacy benefit system that was still far too complex and clunky to cope.

Because of the importance of safeguarding livelihoods, I also welcome the extension of the furlough scheme and the self-employment income support scheme as part of a package of measures to get people back to work safely. The vast majority of people sat at home on these schemes want to get back to their jobs and their normal lives, and allowing the scheme to run until the end of September will give businesses the headroom they need to get their workforce back safely.

Before we go to Sarah Jones, I should say that, after Sarah Jones, the time limit will be reduced to three minutes. But with four minutes, I call Sarah Jones.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to focus my brief remarks on how the Chancellor could deliver growth in south London.

Over many years, as house prices have risen in inner London, people have moved to outer London where they are marginally more affordable. Croydon exemplifies that shift. We love having new people, but we are now an outer-London borough with inner-London costs. As our demographics have shifted, so has the need to fund more social care, health services and education.

We have now reached the worrying situation where Croydon receives £200 less per person compared with some inner boroughs, even though it faces the same and in many cases higher levels of deprivation. Other boroughs often place looked-after children in Croydon. We have a high number of unaccompanied asylum seekers, whom we support. We have a lot of old people’s homes. We welcome them all, but we do not receive the funding to support them.

The first item on my list for the Chancellor is that we need a level playing field, so that we can tackle the challenges we face and give every area the same chance. Funding for local authorities must be rebalanced and we must be supported to deal with the additional costs other areas do not have. Of course, the chronic overall underfunding of local government must stop and we must have proper funding for our services.

Secondly, a quick look at major transport and capital investment shows that south London has actually missed out for decades. We know London is a wonderful area. West London has a well-established economy. North London has seen several recent infrastructure developments, such as the hugely successful King’s Cross development and the start of High Speed 2. The Olympics signalled a shift east for some of our economy on the back of the growth of the stadium, housing and businesses there.

What is south London’s equivalent investment? Many parts do not have the Tube, we do not have bike infrastructure and I cannot remember the last time the Government invested significantly in our transport system. I therefore ask the Chancellor to look at investing in our transport system. East Croydon station and the Windmill bridge outside it require major transformation to keep moving the hundreds of thousands of people who every day travel through East Croydon from the south coast to London. Of course, the number of people using the train has slowed during covid, but it will go back up again and that funding will have to be found, so I ask the Chancellor to do that. Perhaps he can also support our call to move Croydon to zone 4. That could be funded by the rail companies in the new bidding rounds. We need all kinds of infrastructure. Either we should have a Transport for London supported by the Chancellor, or he should give more powers to the Mayor of London so that we can do these things ourselves.

We will now try to go back to the hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew). Sadly, he has to be audio only.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday’s Budget had to support people and businesses through this moment of crisis, begin to fix the public finances and build our future economy. The Government’s support for employees and businesses has been nothing short of monumental—we all know that. It has saved millions of people from losing their jobs and prevented hundreds of thousands of businesses from going bust—businesses that are now up and running and able to repay that support as they drive our economic recovery.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions described just some of the myriad forms of support that her Department continues to provide to people in need of additional help. In my constituency, I have seen the kickstart scheme being adopted by local employers, who are keen to take advantage of the support for new employment for young people. I have to refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because my former business has also joined the kickstart programme. It has done so because kickstart is a great programme that works for business and for young people at risk of long-term unemployment alike. I have visited my local jobcentre in Fakenham and seen the plans to double the number of job coaches across the country, in order to get people who have lost their job back to work as soon as possible. I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to continue his massive support for employment, the self-employed and business right through to September, some months after we should be fully out of lockdown and all our businesses should be back up and running. This Chancellor is focused on jobs above all else and he is absolutely right to take that approach.

However, the immediate recovery is only the first challenge. The Chancellor also needs to lay the ground for our fiscal recovery and the structure of our future prosperity. The British people understand and accept that the massive payments from the Treasury over the last year have to be paid back. The Chancellor acknowledged that that will be a long task, for many Budgets, but it is right that he should be frank with us about the scale of the challenge and where we have to start. Nobody normal likes tax rises, but we get it. Our incomes have been supported by tax money over the last year, so a gradual clawback via the freezing of income tax thresholds is a fair way to start the job; it is a sensible, gradual approach, where the better-off pay more. Likewise, businesses accept that it is fair to start to repay the huge support they have received. The increase in corporation tax on profits of larger companies starts in two years’ time, after a huge boost to investment through the £25 billion super deduction tax cut. It makes sense.

Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor delivered a Budget that responded to the continuing needs of this country, navigating our route out of lockdown and supporting growth and those in need. I do not mind telling the House that yesterday for me was a very good day—the kind of day you will always remember. Everyone in this House comes here for a reason and a motivation. Mine has always been that the Labour party has always let the north down, and that the north-east, where I was born, raised and educated, and where I grew a business, could achieve so much more, given just half a chance. I know that that belief and vision are shared completely by our Chancellor.

Yesterday, my right hon. Friend helped to realise not just my hopes, dreams and ambitions for Darlington, but those of our council, our Tees Valley Mayor and, most importantly, the community I serve. A child growing up in Darlington, attending a local school and gaining a degree from a local university can now aspire to a career in the civil service and achieve that without having to leave their hometown. Indeed, thanks to the lifetime skills announcements, there will be people in Darlington who left school at 16 and never studied again who can gain a level 3 qualification and secure employment at Her Majesty’s Treasury. That is levelling up. That is putting opportunity in a town in the north-east of England that Governments of the past have overlooked. The Chancellor has listened, understood and taken action, making a real difference to the town I represent that will last beyond a generation.

The announcement of the freeport for Teesside will also have a long-lasting impact for Darlington. I know, too, that the employed, the unemployed, the self-employed and the employers of my constituency will welcome everything that my right hon. Friend announced yesterday, continuing and extending the support to our nation.

Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition said that delivering Treasury jobs to Darlington was giving up. What an insult. What a lack of understanding. Labour has not learned. It no longer understands, and no amount of fake Union Jack waving or consultants dressing them in smart suits will teach them that the British people have rightly given up on them.

This was a Budget for politics, not economics—a way of polishing the Chancellor’s image and that of his party. In the real world, key workers face the real-terms cut of a pay freeze. Households face a council tax hike, and businesses with zero revenues face loan repayments when they needed an overhaul of business rates.

The OBR has confirmed that the UK had the worst economic performance of any major country and that the approach to the public health crisis made the economic crisis worse. We have had longer lockdowns because of delays going into lockdown; £22 billion on the failed outsourcing of test and trace; cronyism in contracting for unusable personal protective equipment; hopelessly inadequate self-isolation payments and sick pay; delays in announcing and extending furlough and self-employment support; and repeatedly slow decision making by the Government. Those things have played their part in the scale of the dual health and economic crises we face.

Shamefully, yesterday’s Budget offered precious little to the millions of people—owner-managers, pregnant women and freelancers—excluded from support throughout, including Alison Powell in my constituency, who was denied support because her tax return showed £10 more income in employment than while self-employed. Meanwhile, countless others who filed tax returns for 2019-20 had to wait a whole year to qualify for any support. Unfortunately, previous Conservative announcements have not matched the price of the headlines: only 13 jobs are created by kickstart each day, while 292 are lost; just 2,500 homes benefit from green housing grants, against the stated target of 600,000; and self-isolation payments are denied to seven out of eight people. It is no wonder that only three in 10 people self-isolate when asked to do so. Work on rail for the north has been announced 60 times, and 60 times it has been forgotten.

Will the announcements from yesterday deliver on Conservative promises? Will they be more than headline-grabbing gimmicks, which will be quickly forgotten when the Chancellor’s shiny caravan of self-promotion moves on? The country needed a Budget for jobs and recovery. The planet needed investment in low-carbon industries. Instead, the Government showed their lack of commitment by scrapping the industrial strategy council. The Chancellor is ambitious, yes, but he is ambitious for himself. Yesterday’s Budget promises may have given the Chancellor’s brand a short-term boost, but the lack of long-term investment does not match the scale of the challenge that we face.

Yesterday, the Chancellor gave us a Peterborough Budget. It was exactly what my city needs to restart and to grow. There are no easy decisions in a pandemic, but this Budget is the basis of a swift and sustained recovery, and, as the Chancellor has said, the recovery will be swifter and more sustained than had previously been thought. That is great news for the country, yet, as I am sure you will understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am keenest on great news for Peterborough and that news came when the Chancellor spoke about the new levelling-up fund.

Even before the Budget, my city has benefited enormously from this Conservative Government: £16 million for our new science and technical university and research hub; £23 million from the towns fund to revitalise our city centre; extra police officers patrolling the streets of Bretton, Dogsthorpe, Ravensthorpe and beyond; and all the additional funding for Peterborough City Council to tackle covid-19 while getting tough on fly-tipping and antisocial behaviour. In other words, there was enough to be satisfied with. Regrettably for Ministers, though, I am never fully satisfied. I am always asking for more because I know the scale of Peterborough’s potential.

The Chancellor gets my requests regularly. Before this week, we knew that there would be a £4.8 billion levelling-up fund, but what we did not know was where it would be spent. I am thrilled that Peterborough is at the top of this bidding list in priority category 1.

The reality was a Budget that put Peterborough first: the restart grants to help businesses reopen and get our economy moving; the extensions to the furlough scheme and the top-up of universal credit; additional help for the self-employed; and further help for businesses on business rates and VAT. I had written to the Chancellor about that, too, noting how it would give my local businesses the shot in the arm that they so desperately need and they are delighted.

Perhaps it is at the pumps that my constituents will be most grateful. Thanks to successive Conservative Chancellors, we are saving a fortune when we fill up our tanks, with a 10-year freeze on fuel duty. The beer freeze means that we also save when our glasses are filled at the pump. I know to whom I shall raise my first post-lockdown pint; it is to a Chancellor who is delivering for my city.

Yesterday’s Budget was littered with betrayals. Public services were betrayed: unbelievably, there was nothing additional to fund the NHS and social care, but, worse, hidden in the small print was a plan to take a further £4 billion from Government Department budgets every year. Workers were betrayed: there was nothing to raise the lowest level of sick pay in the OECD and, despicably, no pay rise for nurses and care workers, after everything they have done for us in this crisis. They are exhausted, and some even feel suicidal.

Then there is Salford—betrayed. As the 18th most deprived area in the UK, rather than a package of support we saw the Chancellor handing over 90% of new town funds cash to Conservative seats, some affluent. For those facing financial hardship, there was again betrayal. Extending the £20 universal credit uplift and furlough schemes is certainly welcome, but to remove that support just as unemployment is likely to spike is economically and morally bankrupt. Further, the burgeoning household debt crisis was ignored. Those still facing devastating costs as a result of the building safety crisis were ignored, and more than 2 million remain excluded from any covid support at all.

Finally, on climate change, there was gross betrayal. I must admit that I was intrigued when the Government stole our green industrial revolution tagline, and I secretly hoped that they would adopt Labour’s programme too. It would have been to all of our benefits, with 1.9% invested each year in energy and homes alone, which would have provided over £800 billion across the UK by 2030, and 850,000 new jobs. That would have been a true green recovery, but so far in comparison we have seen pitiful levels of investment. Yesterday, we saw a paltry £12 billion for a new green infrastructure bank, the green recovery bonds, shiny retail savings products, and some distant report into carbon offsetting, all amounting to very little.

If the Government were serious about tackling climate change, they would grab the opportunity to reverse decades of de-industrialisation with a bold green regional investment strategy. Instead, they have betrayed us in the fight against climate change, betrayed our recovery and betrayed our financial security.

Just to be on the safe side, I will refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Nobody starts a business with anything other than a dream of what they want to achieve. Many leave a secure job to start a job in something that they adore, to start their own business and to grow it into something that may change their lives and those of many others over the years.

This past year, the pandemic has hit us in a way that has not so much dashed many of those dreams but paused them. The Budget has shown a deep understanding of how small businesses run, and the need to support them through furlough schemes and different initiatives that will enable them to restart and kick-start in the coming weeks and months and for the next few years so that those dreams become a reality.

One of the truths of the past few months has been the brilliant initiative of the kickstart scheme itself. I was very fortunate recently to have a Zoom meeting with Chris Luff and Saffron from our local Watford and West Herts chamber of commerce. They put me in front of a bunch of inspirational young people who are all part of a new kickstart scheme that they are running. They told me not just about the economics and the finances, and all the stuff that we like to talk about in this place, but their dreams, how the scheme was changing their lives, and how it was giving them hope for their futures.

The Budget gives us the opportunity to look not just inward, but outward. I have seen the hope around education. During the past year, we have seen through such things as Oak National Academy the ability to use education to teach people not just the facts but how to inspire themselves to be better and to be different. One of the bits in the Budget that was not picked up on massively was the investment in infrastructure and skills—business skills and business leadership.

I am sure you will be too young, Madam Deputy Speaker, to remember the adverts that used to talk about teaching the world to sing, but I think that global Britain will be able simply to teach the world. Our ability to invest in business leadership, to invest in our young people and, as we have proven in the Budget, to deliver on that means that we can export those skills around the world. We can export leadership around the world, and I am really proud that we can look on yesterday as a way to look forward. The Prime Minister gave an excellent speech on the road map to recovery, but this Budget is not just for the next six months or the next year; this is a Budget for decades to come, and I back it wholeheartedly.

I am afraid I do remember the adverts about teaching the world to sing.

The extension of the £20 uplift in universal credit is welcome, but why is it to be snatched away in September? What will have changed by then for the nearly 5,000 universal credit claimants in Arfon—a number that has doubled in a year; for the 47,000 households in Wales that depend on universal credit; or for the 53,000 children in Wales who have benefited from this modest increase? Their needs will be the same and they will have become accustomed to being better able to meet those needs—although providing a decent standard of living for children, even on the enhanced level of universal credit, is a huge challenge.

It is not the poverty that blights the lives of so many children that will have changed; rather, it is the Chancellor and this Government’s chosen policy—their response, which denies people’s real lived experience and deliberately increases poverty. That is the charge against them: generating, not alleviating, poverty. I have listened to the Chancellor and his friends trying to justify this cut to the incomes of the very poorest and trying to avoid the question, and I have not heard a single half-plausible answer, other than that the modest improvement to universal credit was always meant to be temporary and so is temporary.

The justification is: “The poor will always be with us”. Well, I reject that contention, as do so many other people—those who depend on universal credit; those who have had to claim it for the first time and are appalled by the meanness of the system; and those who have seen their friends and relatives lose their jobs through no fault of their own and whose families are now experiencing poverty as the deliberate policy of this Government. The ancient ploy of deliberately imposing poverty on the workless has never been justified, and that is even more true now, when circumstances throw people on the mercy of an inadequate system. We are all victims of covid-19, but some are more victimised than others.

Over the past year we have seen this Government rectifying their many failures, one after another, with one policy reversal after another, with catastrophic consequences not only for their credibility but, more importantly, for those who suffer from the initial policy decisions. The decision to cut universal credit is just one such failure. I have no care for this Government’s credibility—they are already busted in my eyes; what concerns me is not their credibility but the welfare of families and children throughout the UK. My one call today, then, is for the Chancellor not to punish poor people, and certainly not to punish their poor children.

I was very pleased with the Budget yesterday. I signed a few letters, with colleagues, to call for various things, with a sort of 70% or 80% success rate. Universal credit has been extended for another six months and fuel duty has been frozen for the 10th year in a row. I called for beer duty to be cut; I do not think it was cut, but it was frozen, and there is other support for hospitality, which is very much welcome.

We heard a lot yesterday about levelling up and what it means for the north of England and the midlands, but we also saw yesterday a demonstration from the Government that when they talk about levelling-up, they are not just talking about the midlands and the north of England. My own constituency of Ipswich has pockets of real deprivation; what did we get yesterday? We got the maximum £25 million from the towns deal fund, for 11 projects that will be a key boost for our town. What else did we get? We got Freeport East. Some 6,000 of my constituents are employed either directly or indirectly by the port of Felixstowe, so the success of that port matters for my constituency and for my constituents.

Let me look at the town deal and what it means in terms of skills and jobs. The health and social care academy, which the town deal will fund through £2 million to £3 million via the University of Suffolk, will train the next generation of nurses and social care workers in our town. The maritime skills academy will be on the Island site in Ipswich, where we have some of world’s most elegant yachts, which are made in Ipswich and exported around the world. With this academy, they will now be made and developed by craftsmen trained in Ipswich and from Ipswich. That is very much to be welcomed. There has been a bit of a hoo-hah and debate about these town deals over the last day. In some senses, Labour politicians in other parts of the country are a little bit bitter that they have not got a town deal like Ipswich has—for £25 million—but what is slightly surprising is the reaction of Ipswich Labour party, which surely, you would think, would be jumping for joy at the fact that it had got this £25 million. I remember when the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government visited Ipswich before the general election and the town deal was dismissed as an election bribe that would never happen. I am glad to see that the leader of Ipswich Borough Council has now changed his ways and welcomes it, but it is a shame that not all of his councillor colleagues do, and they continue, even after yesterday’s news, to refer to it as a bribe and negatively.

When people ask me why I became an MP, I explain that I got tired of shouting at the radio. This morning, I found myself shouting at the Chancellor on Radio 4, so this afternoon, I am speaking up for my constituents, because the Government’s decisions are failing them. They have been failing them for more than a decade and it has to change. After all the pain and sacrifice of the last year, we cannot afford to go back to austerity and insecurity.

As the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), said in opening the debate, the OBR has confirmed that this Government’s failure on the covid crisis has left our country facing the worst economic crisis in any major economy. They have been too slow to act, they have wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on contracts with their cronies that did not even deliver, and they have failed to put in place the financial support that is needed to help people to self-isolate.

Now, instead of putting the UK on the road to recovery and fixing the mistakes of the past, they are repeating them. There is nothing in the Budget for the NHS, even though we know that extra resources are desperately needed to tackle the waiting lists that have grown during the pandemic. There was not even a mention of social care in yesterday’s speech, and the Chancellor’s claim that he is pursuing cross-party consensus is not credible. There was no extra money to help children to catch up on lost schooling, and we know what that means: widening inequalities, hitting kids from low-income families hardest. Yes, there was finally that uplift in universal credit, but the Chancellor is still not helping those on legacy benefits and the cliff-edge cut will hit precisely when unemployment is expected to peak.

And there is worse to come. Now is not the time to raise taxes or cut household spending power, but that is precisely what the Chancellor is doing, forcing councils to implement a 5% hike in council tax, freezing the pay of key workers, taking money out of people’s pockets, and cutting the money that they have to spend with local businesses and on our high streets, damaging the recovery. There are further tax rises to come next year alongside £14 billion of cuts to public services.

This Budget is a missed opportunity. There is no vision, no long-term economic plan and no Biden boost. While I welcome the extension of furlough and the universal credit uplift, yesterday’s announcement simply shunts the cliff edge down the line and does nothing to tackle the fundamental problems that families and business face. The Chancellor has failed to build the bridge to the future that the economy needs. Businesses such as the Edinburgh Beer Factory, a brewery in my constituency, will see their costs balloon before demand returns. They need tapered reliefs and long-term solutions.

I welcome the increase in corporation tax, because businesses in profit can most afford to pay up. In Scotland, we have provided certainty and stability to business with a further 12-month extension of 100% non-domestic rates relief for retail, hospitality, leisure and aviation. The Chancellor has failed to do the same in England, and he needs to up his game for English business. Where is the promised online tax? Many high street retailers are frustrated when they see how companies such as Amazon and Apple have benefited from the pandemic, but still somehow seem to avoid taxation. The way retail is operating now has completely changed, and we need to think about how we tax the new reality. Too much focus on business rates for revenue raising could prevent the much-needed revival for small businesses on our high streets and in our city centres.

Some of Edinburgh’s biggest financial services employers operate in my constituency, and there was a vibrant community of independent local businesses serving their offices. One of these is the Wee Coffee Bar, run by my constituent Sharon Miller. Yet with most offices closed, footfall in our business district has dropped to almost zero, and successful popular businesses such as Sharon’s are struggling to make ends meet. Lockdown has had a big impact on our mental health and wellbeing. Allison Harrison, owner of Hot Yoga Edinburgh, adapted to the best of her ability to meet online needs, but she is suffering real financial hardship as the cost of rent and other overheads exceed the money coming in. She needs the certainty of longer-term support and a credible plan for the recovery of our business districts to help her stay afloat.

The Chancellor rightly set this Budget in the context of the economic damage of covid-19, but he failed to mention the bigger impact from his Government’s Brexit deal. That is perhaps unsurprising because the former was beyond their control, while the latter is of their creation. Hidden in the figures is an admission that Brexit will hit GDP by 0.5% in the first quarter alone, and the OBR has of course said that there will be a long-run hit of 4%. These are the inevitable consequences of erecting barriers to trade with our biggest economic partner, but the Chancellor should do what he promised and

“be honest with the country about the challenges we face”.—[Official Report, 3 March 2021; Vol. 690, c. 256.]

Last month, the CBI, the Institute of Directors, Make UK, the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chambers of Commerce warned the Government to remove obstacles to trade or face a “significant loss of business”. Frankly, it is time that they listened and acted.

A startling omission yesterday was the NHS. We need a proper inquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic to understand why we have one of the highest death rates in the world. However, one factor is clear: a decade of running our health service on a knife edge, expecting maximum delivery from minimum funding, left us with too few nurses, doctors and beds. The crisis demanded capacity we lacked, and catching up on the treatment backlog will demand more. But instead of the funding that was needed, the Chancellor is proposing a £30 billion cut. What an insult to the NHS staff he was so happy to be photographed clapping! It is a cut for the system that has stretched them to the limit, and no money for the sort of pay rise they deserve, while other key workers on whom we have depended face a pay freeze.

Social care was also forgotten yesterday. On taking office, the Prime Minister promised that

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the second day of this debate.

Our country had high hopes for this Budget at a time when we need it most; not only are we experiencing a pandemic crisis but we are still in a climate crisis, and the Government seem to have forgotten this. After a year of economic devastation, the gap between richest and poorest in our society has become wider. We needed long-term investment in our public services and our communities, but the Government were silent on the matter.

Yesterday’s Budget statement will provide relief to some, but it is a grave disappointment to others. The Budget promised no emergency funding for the NHS to clear backlogs and reduce waiting times. There was no mention of mental ill health support post pandemic, no support for social care after the sector has faced severe challenges during the pandemic in both children’s and adult services, no mention of green home grants, and only a £20 million spend on floating offshore wind technology, when Labour has called for £30 billion of capital spend to be brought forward to power a green recovery and support over 400,000 jobs. There was no help for our teachers and no additional investment to help children and young people catch up on the lost months of education; and no rise in statutory sick pay, which is so low that people are falling into severe debt and some are considering working because they cannot afford not to.

I wonder if the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Chancellor and their offices communicate and work together, because on 12 February the Housing Secretary announced £3.5 billion to fully fund the cost of addressing unsafe cladding in the tallest buildings. Details were promised in the Budget. What happened to this information? Did the Chancellor miss out reading a page of his notes? I was hoping to see a fairer approach from the Government, to protect leaseholders living in buildings under 11 metres in height with fire defects and unsafe cladding, to protect them from costs when the problems are no fault of their own. Instead, there was no such information. I ask the Chancellor again to consider this and to be fair to leaseholders and their families, as no one wishes to live in a home with negative equity.

Cutting through the fanfare, this Budget was devoid of imagination and substance. It may see Britain through to the end of the Prime Minister’s road map, but it does not come close to addressing the social, economic and climate crisis we face.

From this Budget, we can assume that the Conservatives intend to increase poverty, rather than end it. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says that the Chancellor has created “a perfect storm” by planning to cut universal credit just as unemployment peaks, while he has also continued the Conservatives’ hostile environment for disabled people by ignoring legacy benefits. I dread to think what it will be like for the families who will be forced to use food banks because of his cruelty.

What was there for Durham’s NHS workers, teachers, prison staff and the rest of our public-sector key workers? There were a few claps and a pay freeze. That is not levelling up; that is a slap in the face.

I cannot have been the only one who was shocked by the absence of any reference to our NHS and social care from the Budget speech. These sectors have been stretched to breaking point, held together only by the determination of those who staff them, yet instead of a recovery plan the Chancellor chose to slash NHS spending, with no strategy to tackle the backlog or the mental health crisis.

The Chancellor also seems to be clueless when it comes to the challenges facing our communities over the coming years, with a £14 billion cut to public services over this Parliament. In Durham, our council and schools have led the way in their pandemic support for residents, but they simply cannot continue on minimal funding. The Government’s council tax rise serves only to deflect blame for Tory cuts while making our local communities pay for the crisis. Durham’s public sector is desperate to lead our local recovery. The Chancellor just needs to give it the resources to do so.

The Chancellor’s remedy for businesses seems to be to help them to limp along until after the pandemic and then leave them at the mercy of the upcoming economic crisis. Durham’s high streets were struggling before the pandemic started. Where is our fightback strategy? This Chancellor is no friend of the independent businesses that are the heartbeat of our high streets.

In common with so much of what we have seen from this Government during their handling of the pandemic, this was a Budget for selected beneficiaries. Carefully picked groups are going to do well, but it was quite clearly not a Budget for the nation as a whole.

We could have had, for example, a bold move on business rates. Real reform in this area to level the playing field between high street and digital retail is long overdue. Consumer behaviour is changing, and that change has been accelerated by the pandemic. What is the long-term future for our town centres? How will our communities thrive without the retail businesses that traditionally provide the heart of our towns? We need to lower the barriers to entry to retail and other town centre businesses, and invite new entrepreneurs to try new ideas.

But instead of business rates reform or devolution of power to local authorities, which could have allowed for real change across the whole country, a select few high streets, mostly in Tory-supporting constituencies, get a cash bung. The Chancellor’s bold new plan is for a super deduction that will enable cash-rich firms to get an extremely generous tax deduction on expenditure on plant and machinery across the next two years before being hit with a corporation tax hike. I can tell the Chancellor that after 12 months of little to no trading, many firms in my constituency simply do not have the cash in the bank to make these kinds of investments. Many of them will be burdened by a great deal of debt and unable to take on any more, and will face a long, slow road back towards profitability. Demoralised and exhausted after the effects of the past year, their reward will be a huge hike in corporation tax rates. I am concerned that many will consider it not worth their while. It would have been better to have a windfall tax now on the companies that have continued to prosper during the pandemic and then cut rates again in a few years to encourage those who are rebuilding. Again, only a select number of businesses will benefit from these changes.

We need to see policy for real stimulation and growth in the green economy. We know that we need to transition from carbon-emitting industries if we are to achieve net zero, so we must grasp the nettle of investment in green jobs. There is real opportunity for growth there, but the private sector is waiting for Government strategy and policy to set a direction. The Chancellor could have set that direction yesterday with promises to invest in green technology or to come up with a bold new plan for retrofitting to replace the green homes grant, but he did not.

I am not sure that people will think the Chancellor is being straight about stealth taxes, resulting in the largest tax burden since 1969; that they will applaud pension taxes, as doctors leave the NHS or cut their hours; or that they will support a 50p rise in statutory sick pay. Almost 2.5 million excluded self-employed are still going to be left high and dry. In response to my survey, 85% of constituents said that they wanted help for those excluded.

The support schemes sound impressive, but they involve complex applications and administration. The fear is that they will not reach the right people in time. Small businesses need easy access and affordable help, especially with rent and cash flow, which are real impediments to survival.

My constituency has large numbers of young unemployed and many self-employed people at risk. Some 94% of my Selly Oak constituents said in response to my Budget survey that they wanted action on unemployment to be a priority. How will that happen unless programmes are simplified and better targeted? We need training for the young unemployed—not sluggish, dead-end schemes—as well as rapid reskilling for those who lose their livelihoods and joined-up training.

Why does the super deduction policy take no account of whether investment would have occurred anyway, the areas that will benefit, or if it might end up costing rather than saving jobs? It would be better to tie it to research and development. We could have a targeted plan to shift support to parts of the country other than Oxford, Cambridge, London and the south-east. The number of R&D jobs in London and the south-east is already three times greater than in the midlands, not because it is more creative, but because it has access to greater funding. If the Chancellor wants electric cars built in the midlands, new jobs in climate change adaptation, machine learning in medical technology and food security, he needs to direct resources to those areas that can deliver. If the uplift in public R&D was linked to a targeted policy and focused on projects outside the golden triangle, that could mean a further £9 billion boost.

Yesterday’s Budget needed to do two things: first, support communities and businesses through the economic crisis created by the pandemic; and secondly, outline a comprehensive strategy to kick-start the UK’s recovery. However, the Chancellor failed to deliver on both counts.

All I can draw out from the Chancellor’s Budget speech is that, rather than meaning redistributing wealth and investment and giving working class people a real stake in their economy, “levelling up” seems to mean moving part of the Treasury to Darlington, creating a few freeports and rehashing old funding. It is smoke and mirrors to cement the status quo—policies that fail to provide a vision for a more prosperous, fairer society and will not improve people’s day-to-day lives.

There is nothing for the NHS, social care, schools or local council services, and no meaningful plan to tackle the housing crisis. Rather than levelling up living standards, the Budget has downgraded them, with a public sector pay freeze, forcing councils to increase council tax, and announcing a £20-a-week cut to universal credit in six months’ time.

My Luton South constituents needed to see plans for a more secure, equal and sustainable future, with the Chancellor committing to a new green economy based on full employment and a strong public sector. By choosing to adopt a half-baked, unambitious version of Labour’s commitment to a green investment bank, the Chancellor failed fully to comprehend the scale of the climate emergency we face. The funding made available to the bank offers only a fraction of that recommended by the National Infrastructure Commission, and no new investment has been announced for green recoveries in key industries such as automotive and aerospace.

The free market is incapable of addressing the climate crisis—in fact, I would say that it was market failure that created the crisis—so policies that weaken the state’s role in the market, such as the super deduction tax, only reduce the Government’s ability to incentivise and direct investment towards a green transition. Instead, the UK needs an innovative, Government-led industrial strategy that stimulates green growth and job creation, ensuring that the transition is equitable and that everyone has the opportunity to have a well-paid, skilled job—something that the market is incapable of delivering.

I am grateful to be called to close the second day of the Budget debate. Budget debates are, in my view, one of the very best parts of our parliamentary process. They are a chance to talk about the big picture—a chance to raise the things that must be said—and nearly 50 Members of Parliament have done so in this debate today. To be able to speak and vote on the measures in any Budget is a great privilege and responsibility for us all, and in closing the debate, I will talk about what I believe the Chancellor needed to do and reference the many good speeches we have heard.

However, we need to start with the big picture. What the Chancellor presented yesterday was a Budget of high taxes, high unemployment and low growth. I do not think that is in dispute. In fact, if the forecasts are right, the historically low levels of growth we saw going into this crisis are now the norm. That, combined with our serious productivity and business investment problem and the challenges caused by our leaving the single market, shows that the scale of the challenge is very significant indeed.

That means that there were two things I wanted most of all from this Budget. First, I wanted to see a clear road map to economic recovery, with a relentless focus on jobs, jobs and jobs again; and secondly, I wanted to see some recognition from the Chancellor that the terrible impact of the pandemic on the UK has been partly due to the state the country was in going into the crisis. Whether on NHS capacity, insecure work or child poverty, this crisis has taken the fraying social fabric of the UK and torn it apart. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) made that point very well.

The objective for us all should be to promise not to return to the country we had going into the pandemic, but to do better than that—to promise opportunity, prosperity and resilience far greater than we had in the decade leading into covid. After all, is that not what previous generations who sat on these Benches did after the crises that they faced? They turned their crises into a better future.

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) was absolutely right to highlight the second day of a Budget debate as a moment when we can discuss these bigger issues. I join him in thanking nearly 50 colleagues for their contributions, but I am afraid I disagree with him on some of his diagnosis; perhaps, in the course of my remarks, I can explain why.

The hon. Gentleman claimed that the Budget had no ambition. You do not have to listen to me or the Chancellor, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you want to know whether the Chancellor’s Budget had ambition; you can simply listen to the Resolution Foundation, which said:

“This was a big, policy focused, budget. It rightly sought to boost the recovery before turning to fix the public finances, in both cases with a large (potentially too large) focus on Britain’s firms.”

That, I think, is pretty clear. It also said:

“Continuing furlough to September will reduce the rise in unemployment ahead, with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expecting it to peak at just 6.5 per cent (down from 7.5 per cent). If realised, this would be”—

I am quoting—

“by far the lowest unemployment peak in any recent recession, despite this being the deepest downturn for 300 years.”

That would include the Labour recession of 2008. So we can only hope and pray that these measures may have something like that effect, but to suggest that they are short of ambition is quite wrong.

If I may, let me just remind the House of the scale of what we are attempting. There are three great themes to the Budget. The first is the need to support people and businesses through this crisis; the second is the need to begin to fix the public finances; and the third is the need to lay the foundations of our future economy. Those are all big issues. As the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde rightly pointed out, those are big matters which we are grappling with, and gripping, from the Dispatch Box and from the Chancellor’s own Budget.

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier today, the International Trade Secretary announced that the UK Government and the US Administration have reached an agreement to suspend tariffs on UK products, including Scotch whisky and cashmere. Moray is home to more Scotch whisky distilleries than any other constituencies, and to Johnstons of Elgin, which produces outstanding cashmere products. I wonder if there is a way I can put on record how well that decision and announcement have been received in Moray, in Scotland and across the UK, and ask whether the Government have made any representations to Mr Speaker to come to this House to explain what will be done over the next few weeks to get rid of those tariffs not just for four months, but completely.

I can understand why the hon. Gentleman wishes to draw attention to his delight at that announcement and indeed to the great attributes of his constituency. I could tell that many Members showed enthusiasm and their fondness for the products of the distilleries he mentioned. Personally, I am much more of a fan—indeed, an enormous fan—of Johnstons of Elgin.

The hon. Gentleman asks how he might take the matter further here in the House. First of all, obviously, he has succeeded in drawing attention to it through his point of order, which, although not a point of order for the Chair, contained a question to which I can give him a very simple answer. The debate on the Budget continues, as the Whip has just announced, on Monday, and then on Tuesday. On Tuesday 9 March, the title of the debate is “Investment-led recovery and levelling up”. I expect that that debate will be led by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. That would be an appropriate time, if not for the hon. Gentleman then for some of his colleagues, to raise the matters he wishes to draw to the attention of a wider public.