Graham:
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
It’s a pleasure to take part in this Budget debate and to follow the Honourable Gentleman, the Member for Warwick and Leamington.
Like him, I think this Budget reflects the seriousness and vision of the Chancellor. But unlike him, I don’t conclude that the Chancellor has a deep and serious vision for the future of this country. Quite the contrary.
The Chancellor and the Prime Minister have come up with a whole series of small measures. In fact, there are more individual measures in this Budget than in any previous Budget, but their average value is lower than in previous Budgets.
In other words, the Chancellor is fiddling.
He is offering little gifts that he can highlight, saying, “Look, we’re doing this for business. We’re taking 70,000 businesses out of business rates.”
Of course I welcome that, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it is inadequate when our high streets are struggling.
That is why the Conservative proposal is to take 250,000 high-street businesses out of business rates.
We need to bring life back to our shops, cafés and pubs. These businesses give young people their first opportunity to work, whether that’s a Saturday job or their first full-time position.
They learn how to speak to a boss, how to deal with customers, how to operate a till and how to take responsibility.
That door has been slammed in young people’s faces by this Labour Government. I know Members opposite did not intend that, but it is what has happened.
That is why youth unemployment has risen.
When the Honourable Gentleman meets young people in his area, I am sure he encounters the same thing I do: more and more young people who feel a sense of hopelessness.
They feel that getting onto the housing ladder is further away than ever before. Many cannot even look that far ahead because they are struggling to find their first job.
Today’s Budget shows that this Government still doesn’t get it.
Noah Law, Member for St Austell and Newquay, intervened:
Does the Honourable Gentleman appreciate that, in the South West, 56% of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will be lifted out of the business rates system entirely? Is that welcome news to him?
Graham:
I am not an expert on the figures for his particular region, but I believe many of those businesses are already outside the system.
UKHospitality has suggested that as few as 10% will be affected.
That is my point to the Honourable Gentleman, who I know sincerely wants to address the serious challenges facing people in his part of the country.
This Government does not get it.
Instead of the bold measure we should have had, taking 250,000 businesses out of business rates to bring life, dynamism and hope back to our high streets, we have a Government that is timid and playing at the margins.
That is the central problem with today’s Budget.
The Leader of the Opposition said that the Chancellor had inherited a hospital pass from his predecessor.
But I remember someone once asking me, “Do you know what the best thing you can ever have in life is, Graham?”
I said I didn’t.
He replied, “A really lousy predecessor.”
On that measure, the Chancellor has been quite fortunate.
After the disastrous impact of the previous two Budgets on the British economy, this timid, pallid and uninspiring Budget has received a near-rapturous reception from Members opposite.
Why were those previous Budgets so disastrous?
Because growth and wealth come from the private sector.
They don’t come from a mission-led Government rearranging boards and changing the people who sit on them. Those things are peripheral.
It is private business that creates wealth.
And what did the former Chancellor do? She raised taxes on business by £60 billion.
That is why there is a gap between the small businesses I meet in Beverley, Hedon, Skirlaugh and Withernsea, which want to grow and take on staff, and the young people I meet who desperately want a job.
Those businesses have customers. They want to expand. But the tax burden means they cannot afford to offer those young people the opportunities they deserve.
That gap has been widened by those £60 billion of tax increases.
Members opposite will tell us that today’s business rates measures have narrowed that gap a little.
But that isn’t the whole story.
This is a sleight-of-hand Budget.
Business taxes have not gone up by another £60 billion, thank goodness, but they have gone up by more than £2 billion.
And on top of that, we have the ever-populist approach of attacking the banks.
The Government plans to take £1.6 billion from the banks over 15 months.
I rather fear that, when those 15 months are over, the Chancellor will find it difficult to persuade Labour backbenchers that the tax should be removed.
But even if it lasts only 15 months, taking £1.6 billion from banks has consequences.
Bank capital supports lending. Reducing it can have a much larger effect on the funding available to businesses.
You are not simply hitting the rich and helping the poor. You risk reducing the finance available to the very businesses that want to grow and employ people.
Amanda Martin intervened with a question about Barclays’ profits.
Graham:
I’m delighted that banks are making profits.
There is only one thing worse than fat, greedy, complacent, lazy banks, if that’s how you want to characterise them, and that’s broke ones.
Once you have a bust banking system, the whole of society suffers.
You cannot get onto the housing ladder. You cannot start a small shop. You cannot get anywhere.
I would plead with Members opposite to recognise that attacking banks might sound popular, but it can hurt ordinary people.
It can mean that the small business on the high street cannot afford to take on the unemployed young person looking for their first opportunity.
And what is happening to business investment next year?
According to the Government’s own figures, it is falling.
What has happened to the national debt as a result of today’s Budget compared with the forecasts earlier this year?
It is going up in every single year of the forecast.
Five years of additional debt, when the position was already deeply concerning.
Members opposite have described this as a Budget for entrepreneurs.
It isn’t.
It is a Budget that allows the ship of state and the British economy to drift ever closer to the rocks.
Year after year, debt is going up. Taxes are going up. Incentives are going down.
Without those incentives, businesses in Beverley, Withernsea, Hedon and Skirlaugh cannot offer jobs to the young people who desperately want them.
And when we look at how the Chancellor is funding some of these measures, we find further problems.
He skated over his plans to increase taxes on amusement arcades.
As if coastal towns such as Withernsea and Hornsea aren’t struggling enough, the Government is going to increase taxes on an important part of their visitor economy.
These are places where ordinary people go for entertainment, and the Chancellor wants to tax them more.
He is an enemy of fun.
Coastal communities are losing out.
Savers are being hit again, too.
I don’t think this has come through clearly enough. Savers face a £500 million increase in tax.
We hear that this Budget is good for pensioners, but those who have worked hard, saved and put money aside for the future are going to be taxed again.
And we are going to see the tax burden reach a new peak of 37.9% next year.
According to the Government’s own figures, it is going to rise again after that.
We face sky-high borrowing and sky-high taxes.
Yet one of the central challenges facing the Chancellor was to produce a firm plan to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP.
Did he deliver that?
No, he didn’t.
That is a profound disappointment, particularly given the importance of strengthening Britain’s defences.