With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on living standards in the UK. The most recent data suggest that despite a tough couple of years caused by the pandemic and the energy crisis, living standards will return to their pre-covid peak next year: a full two years earlier than originally predicted by the OBR. They have risen by £1,700 a household in real terms since 2010, and this year’s cut in national insurance will increase living standards by 1%. In other words, to coin a phrase, now is not the time to go back to square one.
Given that the Prime Minister has been forced to abandon his plans for an election on 2 May and could soon be facing a leadership challenge, does the Chancellor of the Exchequer believe that his Budget landed well with the public or even his colleagues on the Government Benches?
I say very simply to the hon. Gentleman, who used to be an hon. Friend, that the Budget will mean that the UK economy will grow faster than that of France, Germany, Italy or Japan in the next five years. That is doing the right thing for the country.
T3. I would like to thank the Minister for the opportunity to meet UK Finance yesterday, which told me and other MPs that the industry plans to roll out 225 banking hubs in the next 18 months. Given that my constituency has lost every single bank branch over the last few years, will the Minister help me to make sure that Leigh-on-Sea, which has 250 retailers, will get one of those 225 banking hubs?
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. First, it is important to note her consistent championing of this issue for her constituents, for which she deserves huge commendation. To her precise question, it is important that industry, not the Government, makes decisions about bank branches or banking hubs, but she has made her case very ably. I urge her to work with Cash Access UK and LINK to ensure that she has the best chance of securing one of those new 225 banking hubs, as outlined by the industry, in her constituency.
After the Budget, the Chancellor wrote to Conservative party members telling them that the Government planned to abolish national insurance. The Economic Secretary said that “national insurance will vanish”, and the Prime Minister said it was his “ambition” to abolish it. Will the Chancellor confirm whether he asked the Office for Budget Responsibility to cost the Government’s unfunded plan to abolish national insurance contributions?
I am very glad that the right hon. Lady asks about national insurance cuts, because first she supported them, then she abstained in the Lobby, and now she appears to be against them—like the bankers’ bonus tax, which she was strongly in favour of and then strongly against; like £28 billion of borrowing, which she was strongly in favour of and then strongly against. Is not the actual truth that, where Labour should have an economic policy, there is just a black hole filled with platitudes?
The Chancellor did not even attempt to answer the question. The chair of the OBR told the Treasury Committee the week after the Budget:
“It was not a measure given to us to cost”.
Even the Chancellor’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), who was sacked for his own kamikaze Budget, said, “If you’re going to reduce taxes, you have to show at least partially where the money’s going to come from.” So I ask the Chancellor: where will the money come from? Will it come from cuts to the NHS, the state pension and public services? Will it come from increasing taxes, including for pensioners? Or will it come from increasing borrowing? Which one, Chancellor?
Even Torsten Bell from the left-leaning Resolution Foundation said that the right hon. Lady’s argument that this was a mini Budget-style black hole was nonsense, because we specifically said that we would not fund national insurance cuts from increasing borrowing or cutting spending on public services. I gently ask her, if she wants to put on the mantle of fiscal rectitude, where is Labour going to find literally billions of pounds to fund unfunded spending pledges, from grid decarbon-isation to NHS waiting lists? We all know what that will lead to: higher taxes, like under every Labour Government in history.
T4. St Mary’s in Paddington is a much-loved, much-used hospital in my constituency. Although it was taken off the list of 40 new hospitals to be redeveloped, I am delighted to be working with my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) and the Minister in the Lords responsible for hospitals to make a case with the trust to ensure that it is redeveloped. Could the Chief Secretary to the Treasury please update the House on the timeframe for making available Government funding so that we can submit the planning business case for the redevelopment?
I commend my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) on their great work on this project. There appears to be a compelling case, and I know that the programme team at the Department of Health and Social Care is looking closely at the proposal.
T2. The Fife whisky festival took place in Cupar earlier this month, and was a great success. The industry welcomes the freeze in alcohol duty, but notes that it is only for six months. When will the Government provide the longer term consistency that the industry needs?
Our support for the Scotch Whisky Association is long-standing, and it was a pleasure to meet its representatives recently. We have frozen or cut duty for Scottish whisky in fiscal events going back many years. We are representing the Scotch Whisky Association in trade agreements, and that support will endure long into the future.
Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)
T5. In response to the spring Budget, I have heard from constituents who feel that they may have been forgotten. Under the Conservatives, the number of pensioners living in absolute poverty has been slashed by 200,000 across the country, and we have protected the triple lock, but could my right hon. Friend please remind me of all the steps that his Department is taking to support Hartlepool’s pensioners, so that I can tell them on the doorsteps this weekend?
I would be delighted to do that. The independent Resolution Foundation said that, because of measures that this Government have taken, pensioners are £1,000 better off in real terms than in 2010. We did two things specifically in the Budget: we put £6 billion into the NHS, which is used more by pensioners than anyone else; and we backed workers’ tax cuts to support growth in the economy, which means that we can continue to fund the triple lock for many years to come.
T6. One of my constituents wrote to me last week about her son Fred. He has Down’s syndrome and severe learning disabilities, is profoundly deaf and has an autism diagnosis. His parents and grandparents did the right thing and put money into a child trust fund for him. Fred will be 18 next month, but he lacks the capacity to access his money and there is no easy way for his parents to do so. Will the Chancellor work with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice to unlock the money for Fred and an estimated 80,000 disabled young people?
I am happy to meet the hon. Member to discuss the precise circumstances of his constituent’s case. In general terms, it is a priority for us to ensure that people get access to that money if it is due to them.