The Government are delivering on the priorities of the British people. Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics confirmed that the UK was the fastest-growing G7 nation in the first quarter of this year. Since the election, this Labour Government have brought £120 billion of private investment into our economy. There have been four interest rate cuts, lowering the cost of mortgages, and 384,000 new jobs—more than 1,000 jobs a day—since this Government were elected. Real wages increased more in the first 10 months of this Labour Government than they did in the first 10 years of the last Conservative Government, and we have a £1,400 pay rise for a full-time worker on the national living wage. That is the difference that this Government are making after 14 years of mismanagement by the Conservatives.
This Government increased the employment allowance from £5,000 to £10,500, and that means 865,000 employers will pay no national insurance at all. Indeed, half of employers will either gain or see no change. It was also welcome that the Lloyds business barometer showed business confidence at a nine-year high, with a particular uptick in retail. I cannot comment on an individual business, but that is the system nationwide.
T4. I want to ask about the £200 million national wealth fund commitment for Project Willow. How will it be accessed? What is the minimum and maximum amount that can be accessed by an applicant? If it is exclusively for businesses, will it be based on being positioned within the existing footprint of the Grangemouth site that is owned or operated by Petroineos or INEOS?
The winter fuel payment U-turn will cost £1.25 billion, and the welfare reform U-turn will cost £2.5 billion, all adding to Labour’s unfunded black hole. This is from a Chancellor who said that she would never make a spending commitment without explaining where the money was coming from—yet another U-turn. The Chancellor has also said that her fiscal rules are iron-clad and non-negotiable. Can she reconfirm that commitment now, or are we heading for yet another U-turn?
I would take that a bit more seriously if the Conservatives were not voting against the welfare reforms this evening, and if they had not committed to fully reversing the winter fuel changes, which would cost a further £400 million that they cannot explain. I am always grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions, because he always offers a useful lesson in what not to do. Even George Osborne now says that the shadow Chancellor has “no credible economic plan”. I will give the shadow Chancellor this: he knows a thing or two about welfare spending, because under his watch, the UK became the only country in the G7 with an unemployment rate stuck below pre-pandemic levels. Under his watch, the cost of working-age inactivity rose by £15.7 billion a year.
The House will note that the right hon. Lady did not categorically rule out the possibility of changing the fiscal rules in the autumn. Given that, will she at least confirm that she stands by her commitment not to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT in the autumn? Is it a yes, or is it another potential U-turn?
We made a commitment in our manifesto not to increase the key taxes that working people pay, and we stick by those commitments because, unlike the Conservative party, we stick by our manifesto.
T6. Towns in my constituency, such as Prudhoe and Haltwhistle, have lost access to bank branches—Prudhoe lost its Lloyds branch in May—and Hexham is due to lose two branches in November. The closures have had a huge impact on customers and communities, but the guidance on banking hubs is often too restrictive. Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss how we can support financial inclusion in Tyne valley, in the Hexham constituency and beyond?
We understand the importance of in-person banking, in my hon. Friend’s constituency and elsewhere, which is why we secured a commitment from the industry to roll out 350 banking hubs across the United Kingdom. I am leading the work on a financial inclusion strategy, which we will publish later in the year and which emphasises the importance of access to banking, and I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend.
More than 50% of local authorities are having to overspend on the dedicated schools grant to cover the rising costs of SEND services, and the increasing demand for inter-authority borrowing has pushed up interest rates. May I urge the Chancellor to consider, as a matter of urgency—even before the Government publish their White Paper on special educational needs and disabilities—introducing a concessionary interest rate, perhaps at the same level as the Public Works Loan Board rate, so that councils do not have to raise council tax just to serve their interest payments and can spend the money on frontline services instead?
The hon. Lady, and other Members, will have seen the reference in the spending review to a real-terms uplift in schools spending in every single year of the current Parliament, as well as additional capital investment to help rebuild the schools whose roofs were literally crumbling under the last Conservative Government. My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary will publish a Green Paper on SEND reform in the autumn, and we have extended local authorities’ statutory override for SEND education for a further two years while we bring in those reforms. This Government want to ensure that mainstream schools are more inclusive for all children.
T8. In recent weeks Ministers have been arguing that vital support for the disabled is fiscally unsustainable because it is forecast to rise to £60.7 billion a year by 2029-30. What assessment has the Chancellor made of the fiscal sustainability of the 107 non-structural tax breaks that are currently costing HMRC £207 billion a year?
As my hon. Friend will know, in last year’s Budget we got rid of the non-dom tax status, increased capital gains tax, put VAT on private school fees and ended the loophole for private equity, as well as introducing further measures, in order to raise £40 billion. As a result, we are investing £300 billion more than would have been raised under the plans that we inherited from the Conservative party. Ours is the only country where—