Ed Miliband
MP for Doncaster North · Labour · United Kingdom
“Gentleman raises the issue of arms, and I talked in my statement about the double lock. I want to take on his point on the F-35s. To be clear with the House, we stopped providing direct parts to Israel’s F-35 programme in October 2024, under my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) when he was Foreign Secretary.”
“I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for his response. It is our first time opposite each other at the Dispatch Box, so let me congratulate him on his appointment—he has a proud record in Parliament as Security Minister and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and brings great expertise to this House.”
“Israel has the right not to live in fear of vile terrorism, and the Israeli state has the right to protect its people and defend its territory, but that cannot justify what has happened in Gaza. Over 70,000 people have been killed, at least 20,000 of them children—20,000.”
“Our extension of the global human rights sanctions regime will enable us to target those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law, whether in Gaza or anywhere else in the world.”
“The right hon. Gentleman has an honourable record on this issue. I will quickly clip through his questions, knowing the constraints on time, Madam Speaker. I agree with him on the World Central Kitchen. It is appalling that the investigation has been closed down.”
“Iran must never have a nuclear weapon, so we are also acting this week, alongside our allies, to report Iran to the UN Security Council for its nuclear violations, and I can announce today that we are reimposing major economic sanctions on Iran in line with the European Union and the United States.”
The complete record
Every one of 2,382 lines we hold for Ed Miliband, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 34 of 48.
“The Government claim to have changed and to want to offer something different. The truth is that it is a very thin Queen’s Speech from a Government in power for more than a decade. There are no measures on insecurity at work; they are not stepping up on the climate challenge; there is inadequate support for British businesses and industries; there is no plan for social care; and there is continued austerity in many areas. The country demands a Government who meet the moment, but the Gracious Speech does not remotely measure up. It has failed in the task at hand.”
“The Chancellor has acted in the pandemic to help businesses and individuals, as it is right to do, and we have welcomed the furlough, but let us be clear about the truth of the plans for public spending in future years. In the so-called unprotected Departments—in other words, the majority of Government Departments—there are cuts programmed in from April 2022. There will be further cuts to local government on top of the 50% cut that some parts of the country have already seen, cuts to the justice system, cuts to transport and cuts to the majority of Departments after 10 years of austerity. There can be no greater sign that they have not learned the lessons. We cannot build a new economic social settlement with these kinds of cuts after 10 years of austerity. This Gracious Speech fails to meet the challenge of this moment.”
“Nowhere is that more true than in relation to care. We need to get away from the idea that care is somehow a burden and understand that it is a crucial part of our economic infrastructure. That is true of care for the young —one of the best economic investments we can make and in which we still lag way behind other countries—and care for older generations. We are now two years on from the Prime Minister saying that he had a plan to fix social care “once and for all” and 10 years on from the Dilnot report on social care. It is shameful that the Government are still not making any concrete proposals in the Queen’s Speech and are letting down our care workers. We cannot ignore the wider context of the Gracious Speech in terms of public spending.”
“It is good that a Digital Markets Unit has been established in the Competition and Markets Authority, but it needs new legislation; where is it? We need a new competition Act that establishes a statutory code of conduct for tech giants and gives the CMA real powers to act on behalf of consumers and small businesses. My hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor spoke very well on the issue of online retailers versus the high street. Again, there have been years of promises but no action. It is another missed opportunity to build a new economic and social settlement. As we rewrite the rules of our economy, we also need to change our vision of what a successful economic future looks like. Industrial policy is about manufacturing, but it is also about what my hon. Friend has called the everyday economy in which so many people work.”
“We have been calling for months for that debt to be restructured. I do not think that the Chancellor has done enough. At the end of June, the moratorium on evictions from commercial properties will be lifted, and I really worry about the issue of rent. It is often the largest cost for a small business, and commercial tenants in the UK have paid just a fifth of the rent they owe in the last quarter. We needed a comprehensive plan for British business, including meaningful debt restructuring. The Gracious Speech failed to deliver. Rebuilding in a fairer way for business is not just about cash. Too many of our rules favour anti-competitive monopolies. Nowhere is that clearer—and I think there is agreement on this on both sides of the House—than in relation to big tech.”
“This illustrates a wider truth about industrial policy. In the Gracious Speech, there are new measures on subsidies—what was called state aid—as part of our post-Brexit arrangements, and there are some sensible changes to the old EU regime, but let us understand the truth here. What was holding back Government from giving industry the support it needed was not the previous rules but their prevailing ideology. In 2019, under the old system, Denmark invested 1.5% of GDP in industrial support and Germany 1.4%. The UK invested 0.38%—among the lowest in Europe. The real fear is that this will not change. What about our businesses? Businesses can breathe a sigh of relief as our society reopens, but many face a long road to recovery. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) raised the real issue of the unmanageable debt facing businesses.”
“We have called for a £30 billion stimulus over the next 18 months to create 400,000 green jobs. What do this Government offer? Investment that, even on their own dodgy analysis, is one 60th the level of Biden’s stimulus. This has real consequences for our manufacturers. There was talk of the automotive sector, and that is the litmus test for any green recovery. Germany is investing billions and France the same, in a global race to build the new gigafactories of the future. We need to start financing three additional gigafactories in this Parliament, public and private together. Where are the resources from Government? They are nowhere near the scale required. It is the same in aerospace and in steel. We have a new clean steel fund that is hopelessly inadequate and will not even come on stream until 2023.”
“Never mind a new economic and social settlement—a Government committed to basic rights at work would have brought forward this legislation. The obvious conclusion is this: the problem is not a lack of legislative time; it is that they have not changed their minds about how an economy succeeds. They still believe that insecurity masquerading as flexibility is the route to economic success: treat people worse, give them fewer rights, and they will work harder. The rhetoric is changed, but the reality is more of the same. Let us consider the climate emergency. There has been lots of talk about jobs and skills in this debate—lots of good rhetoric. What do we see in the United States? President Biden has a $1 trillion green stimulus over the next decade.”
“There is no greater symbol of this than the scourge of fire and rehire tactics—at British Airways, at British Gas and at many other employers—now spreading through our economy. We would never want this for ourselves or our families, so why should we ask the British people to put up with it? The Prime Minister says it is unacceptable, so where is the legislation to outlaw fire and rehire? In the 2019 Queen’s Speech, we were promised an employment Bill. What about this Gracious Speech? No employment Bill. The Government have sufficient legislative time to seek to disenfranchise millions of voters with a voter ID system, but they do not have sufficient legislative time to tackle the insecurity that millions of workers face. It is shameful.”
“We agree this is necessary. The question is: will the Government deliver? What would that mean as a start? It would mean five things: tackling insecurity at work with a new deal for workers; responding to the climate emergency with a genuine green industrial revolution; supporting our businesses to recover from the pandemic; rewriting the rules of our economy to shift wealth and power towards ordinary people and their communities; and rebuilding our public services. On those five issues, the British public deserved a Queen’s Speech that met the moment, but on each of those tests the Gracious Speech failed to deliver. Let us start with the insecurity that millions of workers face.”
“I welcome the fact that after 10 years in power some of the issues I have mentioned are at least finally being recognised by the Conservative party; I am old enough to remember when it was controversial to do so. But acknowledging the problems is not the same as solving them, so the test of the Government and this Gracious Speech is whether they can address them. Last October, the Prime Minister said they would. Indeed, he invoked the spirit of the post-war Labour Government: “In the depths of the second world war…when just about everything had gone wrong, the Government sketched out a vision of the post-war new Jerusalem…And that is what we are doing”. Let us be absolutely clear, therefore, about the scale of change that the Prime Minister is claiming he can deliver: a new economic and social settlement for our country.”
“The central question facing this Gracious Speech is whether it can rise to the moment in which we find ourselves because, while life is starting to return to a semblance of normality, and we are all thankful that that is happening, we cannot just go back to business as usual. Exposed in this pandemic we see millions of workers in deeply insecure jobs, the key workers in our country underpaid and undervalued, public services under deep strain, and an economy not working for too many people in our country and characterised by deep inequalities of wealth, income, power and place. And on top of that we face the challenge of economic recovery from covid and the climate emergency.”
“Friends the Members for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), for Easington (Grahame Morris), for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), for Newport East (Jessica Morden), for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), and for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley). I also congratulate all other hon. Members who spoke in this debate.”
“We have had an excellent debate with noteworthy contributions on all sides. I particularly want to congratulate my hon. Friend the new shadow Chancellor, who made an excellent speech and will do a brilliant job in her new role. I also want to commend the excellent speeches of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and my hon.”
“Last month, the COP President wrote that the world is doing nowhere near enough to limit global warming to 1.5° C, and he is right. A green economic stimulus could make a huge difference to meeting the target, but while we have put it as the top item of the G7 agenda, the sum total of the Chancellor’s measures here in the UK promised just £12 billion of green spending over a decade, and he has already cut £1 billion from that. Our investment is 60 times smaller than President Biden’s green infrastructure plan. Is it not a very significant challenge for COP26 that when it comes to a green stimulus we are telling others to act but not doing so ourselves?”
“As the right hon. Gentleman will know, as COP26 host, our actions face particular scrutiny, and I think he will know that the international community is increasingly concerned, and not just on green recovery. The Government call on others to power past coal but flirt with a new coalmine; say to others, “Adopt a net zero target”, but are off track on ours; and tell countries to support the world’s poorest but slash aid spending. Rachel Kyte, former special representative of the UN Secretary-General, said this week of our record on climate: “What the UK is doing is like dad dancing…they are very uncoordinated.” Is it not time the Government gave up the dad dancing on climate and showed some consistent leadership?”
“Let me associate myself, Mr Speaker, with the important remarks you made on this national day of remembrance. I want to follow up the question about Liberty Steel because the Business Secretary’s answer simply was not good enough. No ideology or dogma must stand in the way of protecting the jobs of 5,000 people and many more in the supply chain. This is a critical part of our national infrastructure and it is critical to those communities. Will he now do what he has failed to do so far and say that he will do whatever it takes, including public ownership if it is the best value-for-money choice, to save those jobs if it is necessary?”
“It is not about the Business Secretary’s meetings or about his heart; it is about his action and his willingness to say that he will do plan B if it is necessary to save those jobs, as we expect him to do. The problem is that the reason people are suspicious of the Secretary of State is that there used to be a cross-party consensus in this country about industrial strategy, but in his two months in office he has torn up the industrial strategy, abolished the Industrial Strategy Council, and thrown in the bin all the work local areas have done over a number of years. Maybe he can tell the business community: why does he hate industrial strategy so much?”
“I will give the Secretary of State the chance to intervene: does he not agree that cutting the science budget to fund Horizon would be exactly talking the talk but not walking the walk? I will happily give way to him if he wants to tell us. Maybe he can tell us when we will get clarity—when will the scientific community get clarity on how the Horizon money will be funded? He does not want to intervene, but the science community deserves clarity. We support ARIA but it deserves clarity. These are people’s jobs. This is incredibly important work and I hope he is fighting with his friends in the Treasury as hard as he can to give people that clarity and avoid the cuts.”
“That is all very well, but I fear that these cuts seem to be coming right here, right now; and we cannot launch a successful moonshot if we cut off the power supply to the space station. The other fear that we have is that the threat of cuts does not end there, because there is no clarity on how to cover the huge cost of the UK’s ongoing participation in the Horizon Europe programme. To be clear, this programme used to be funded not from the science budget, but from our EU contributions. I say to the Secretary of State that it surely cannot be right to take money from the science budget to fund our participation. He will know that there is real fear in the scientific community about that.”
“Members across the House should be aware that while the ARIA budget is £800 million over this Parliament, UK Research and Innovation’s annual budget is £9 billion. Last week, UKRI published a letter confirming that the BEIS official development assistance allocation will lead to a £120 million gap between its allocation and the commitments that it has already made. It warned of cuts coming on that scale, and the House should be aware of where those cuts are going to be. Potential areas include climate change, antimicrobial resistance, pandemics, renewable energy and water sanitation. Those are the kinds of things that that funding addresses. Mr Cummings was also at the Select Committee meeting—I will return to him shortly—saying that ARIA would solve the problems of civilisation.”
“I just want to say something about the wider context, because I found it slightly remarkable that the Secretary of State did not mention the fact that we are two weeks from the start of the next financial year but the scientific community does not know its budget, and the Government appear to be contemplating significant cuts to its programmes. The Secretary of State said last week to the Science and Technology Committee, which is chaired by the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells, that the Government “are talking the talk of a science superpower…but…we also have to walk the walk.” Quite. We support the intent of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, but hon. and right hon.”
“Let me start by saying that across the House we share the admiration for British science. It is one of our most brilliant national assets, employing nearly 1 million people directly and generating extraordinary value for our country. As the Secretary of State eloquently said, the work on vaccines has been truly remarkable. We commend our scientists and everyone involved for their work. Indeed, I hope the Secretary of State will not mind my saying that it is a successful example of an industrial strategy; the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) probably shares my view. I turn to the details of the Bill. I should say from the beginning that we support it; we have some issues with it, but we certainly support its aims.”
“Indeed, Professor Richard Jones and Professor Mariana Mazzucato, who perhaps have even greater claims than Dom to being godfather and godmother of this idea, said that climate change would be an ideal challenge on which an agency such as ARIA would focus. To be clear, providing a mandate does not mean micromanaging decisions, and it would be grossly simplistic to suggest otherwise.”
“He has done that before when I speak, but let me just make this point in seriousness: £800 million is not in the scheme of things a huge amount of money, certainly when compared with UKRI’s budget. The concern is that unless, as the Select Committee said, ARIA focuses on a single or a small number of missions, it will dilute its impact. Take the net zero challenge. I believe it is a challenge of political will and imagination, but it is also a technological challenge. If it is the No. 1 international challenge, as the PM said last week, and if it is the No. 1 domestic challenge, as I think it is, why would it not be the right mandate for ARIA for at least its first five years?”
“The Secretary of State went on: “It will be up to the head of ARIA to decide whether he or she thinks the organisation should adopt what the innovation strategy suggests…or reject it.” I really understand the wish to give freedom to ARIA, but surely it is for Government to shape and not shirk the setting of priorities, and it is not just DARPA where we can learn that lesson. Moonshot R&D—the Japanese agency established in 2019 to fund challenging R&D—has seven specific moonshot goals set by the Japanese Government, and my understanding from the evidence taken by the Science and Technology Committee is that the UK scientific community agrees with that idea. I notice the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) putting his head in his hands.”
“I will try to emulate the Secretary of State’s brevity—perhaps not exactly his brevity, but as much as I can. The deputy director of DARPA says about its success that “having national security as the mission frames everything.” The Secretary of State said to the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells at the Science and Technology Committee: “If I were in your position, I would be asking what the core missions of ARIA are.” I think the point that Dominic Cummings made, or I am sure would have made, is that this will be a job for the people we hire who are running the organisation.”
“One is that we should let the organisation simply do what it wants, relying on the wisdom of a genius chair and chief executive; and the other subtler and, in our view, more sensible approach—one more consistent with the lessons of DARPA—is that Government should set a clear mandate and framework for ARIA and then get out of the way and not interfere with its day-to-day decision making. I also believe there is a democratic case, because the priority goals for the spending of £800 million over this Parliament should be driven by democratic choices; not about the specific items that it funds, but about the goals and mission. That takes me to the three points that I want to make: first, about the mandate for ARIA; secondly, about its position in the wider R&D system; and thirdly, about accountability.”
“It is definitely true, as I understand it, that DARPA has important lessons about the need for the culture that I talked about, including higher reward and, of necessity, a higher chance of failure, but it is simply not true that DARPA was somehow totally detached from Government. DARPA had an obvious client—the Department of Defence—a clear mandate around defence-related research, a clear synergy in its work with the procurement power of the US DOD and, incidentally, abided by laws on freedom of information. I want to suggest that there are two different views about ARIA.”
“I guess our concerns cohere into a different view about the role of Government and the lessons of DARPA, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) talked about, on which in some broad sense—maybe not in the Secretary of State’s mind, but in others’ minds—ARIA is modelled. It is impossible to ignore what we might call the spectre of Dom in this debate. He was at the Science and Technology Committee—chaired by the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells—and he does rather hang over this Bill. He is its sort of governmental godfather. In his telling, DARPA’s success—I think this is important—is simply because the Government got out of the way and let a bunch of buccaneering individuals do what they liked.”
“We shall look forward to the Secretary of State getting a satisfactory result. I am not sure that I always got a satisfactory result with the Treasury, although I was in the Treasury at one point, at least as an adviser. This is very important and, as I say, people’s jobs and livelihoods and the scientific base of this country, of which we are all so proud, depend on it. Let me come to the Bill, which we support. The Bill is important—the Secretary of State said this—because there is incredible work going on in the scientific community, but there is consensus that there is a lack of a mechanism to identify, build and fund truly ambitious, high-risk, high-reward programmes. We recognise the case for an independent agency that operates outside the established research funding mechanisms, but we feel that the Bill requires improvement.”
“I was not doing Mr Cummings a disservice on this score, by the way, because I support the Bill, but he said to the Select Committee: “My version of it here would be…to accelerate scientific discovery far beyond what is currently normal, and to seek strategic advantage in some fields of science and technology…I would keep it broad and vague like that.” He went on to say that he would say to the agency: “Your job is to find people…with ideas that could change civilisation completely”. I am sorry, but that is too vague, and I do not believe it is unreasonable to say that there needs to be greater clarity about where in the life cycle ARIA sits.”
“ARIA is born of a frustration about the failure to fund high-risk research. We do not disagree with that thinking, but that makes it especially important that it does not duplicate the work of existing funding streams. Let me give an example. Innovate UK, part of UKRI, is supposed to be a funding stream to turn ideas into commercially successful products. I do not know from reading the Government’s statement of intent what Innovate UK would fund that ARIA would not and what ARIA would fund that Innovate UK would not. The vagueness of the mandate for ARIA is matched by vagueness about where in the innovation cycle it sits.”
“The hon. Gentleman and I have a respectful disagreement on this: I think it is for the Government of the day and this House to say what are the massive national priorities. Then it is for an organisation such as ARIA to fund the research in the high-risk, high-reward way that I mentioned. That is simply a difference of view. Without a clear policy mission, we risk a fragmented approach. I will make this other point, which is that the chair and chief executive will be in the somewhat unenviable position of having to decide which Government Departments to prioritise. Of course they can work with different Departments, but let us set a clear challenge for the organisation. The second point is not just about the question of mandate, but how it sits in the life cycle of technological innovation and how it works with other funding streams.”
“On the Bill and what is happening to British science, we will support the Government when they do the right thing but we will also call them out on cuts to science funding, and during the passage of the Bill we will seek to improve it so that it can strengthen our science base and do what is required to help us meet the massive challenges we face as a society.”
“I am conscious of time, so let me say in conclusion that we face enormous challenges as a society, including new threats from disease, as tragically illustrated by the pandemic, the advent of artificial intelligence and, as I have said, the climate emergency. So the challenges we face are huge, but I believe—I know this is shared across the House—that the ingenuity, know-how and potential of our scientists, researchers and others are as great as, if not greater than, the challenges. If we support them, they can succeed. ARIA can support our scientific research. We support this Bill as a way to add capacity and flexibility to our research and innovation systems. It needs to be done in the right way.”
“There is a disagreement here about how we give public confidence. Just saying that everything should be secret does not give public confidence. Accountability matters to the public and we should have confidence that we can defend the approach of the agency. Tris Dyson from Nesta Challenges has said: “The public will expect to know what’s happening with public money and greater risk requires transparency and evaluation in order to determine what works.” We also believe there is a role for the Science and Technology Committee in scrutinising ARIA’s role. Perhaps that can be clarified as the Bill progresses.”
“There does need to be an answer on who else from the scientific and research community will have a say on the decision and how this person is going to be chosen, given that, in the Government’s own words, they will have “a significant effect on the technological and strategic capabilities of the UK over the course of generations.” On freedom of information, we just strongly disagree with the Government. I do not think there is justification for ARIA’s blanket exemption from FOI. The Government say it is necessary for agility. DARPA is subject to the US version of the Freedom of Information Act. The Secretary of State and the Minister might be interested to know that DARPA, in the US, had 47 of these requests last year, so this is hardly an obstacle to getting on with the day job.”
“We believe it is right that ARIA should be given operational independence from Government. As I say, we support the idea of specifying high tolerance to risk and failure. The challenge for public policy is how to establish this tolerance of failure. Obviously it starts with the agency’s leadership, where the Bill is also very vague on what attributes or skills the Secretary of State is looking for. My understanding is that this position is not going to be recruited outside the normal civil service procedures—okay, I think I understand the reasons for that—but it cannot just be decided on the whim of the Secretary of State, brilliant though he is. I hope the Minister will clarify this during the passage of the Bill.”
“That just makes the case; if what the hon. Gentleman says is the case, would it not be a good idea, as the former Science Minister Lord Johnson suggested, for ARIA to share information with UKRI, for the two bodies to work effectively together and for the agencies to enter into a memorandum of understanding, which will benefit us all? If it is as easy as that, I am sure that will not be a problem for ARIA. I have been called many things in my time, but a secret Cummings-ite? Perhaps not. I have been called worse things. If it is as simple as that, they should be able to work together, and I hope the Secretary of State will reflect both on the mandate question and on this life cycle question. Thirdly, let me turn to the issue of Government oversight and public accountability.”
“They more than anyone have been the heroes of this crisis: they have put themselves in harm’s way for all of us. The Government promised a pay rise in the NHS plan. They did not just promise it; they legislated for it and they walked through the Lobby a year ago to vote for it. The Business Secretary was put up on “Question Time” on Thursday, as this decision was breaking, to try to justify this broken promise, and this is what he said: “When I look at people in the hospitality sector, in aviation, in retail, many of them are very…worried they won’t…be in a job in two or three months.””
“Again, I am very happy to give way to the Business Secretary if he wants to explain what these objective criteria are. If it is all above board, why have they not published the criteria? Of course, they have form on this—the towns fund, the crony outsourcing of contracts to donors. The British people have a right to expect that the money meant for the most deprived areas is spent in the most deprived areas. Ministers do not get the role for Government, they leave it to the market; they cannot tackle the inequalities we face; and, far from leaving austerity behind, for many it will look like austerity, feel like austerity and it will be austerity. Of course, we have the most egregious example of all in the decision to cut the pay of nurses and NHS staff.”
“The issue is not just about resources, but about who spends them and where they are spent. We are the most regionally unequal country of any major developed economy and the most centralised. The levelling-up fund is a centralised pot of money to be determined by Ministers, and we are starting to discover where the money is actually going. Salford is the 18th most deprived area in the country, but it is placed not in the category of most need—category 1 —but in category 2. Barnsley is the 38th most deprived area and is also in category 2. Richmond is 256th out of 317 for deprivation, but it happens to cover the Chancellor’s constituency, so it has found its way into category 1. The Government have said this is based on objective criteria, so what are they?”
“People might wonder, “Well maybe they’ve learned their lesson.” I fear they have not. Again, this was not very clear from the Budget on the day, six days ago, but in a year’s time, for many of our public services, it will be austerity all over again. Next year, for current services in transport, housing and local government, and other so-called unprotected areas, public spending will be cut in real terms by £2.6 billion. Let us be clear: growth is anaemic, because their measures are so weak, so they turn to a strategy they tried from 2010 of cutting current spending and raising taxes on ordinary families. I fear they have not learned the lessons. They cannot grow the economy if they are giving tax cuts with one hand, but cutting the services that communities and businesses rely on with the other.”
“In other words, it will make a difference to the timing of business investment, but in fact, according to the OBR, business investment is expected to fall significantly in 2023 and 2024, and there are real questions about why this measure is targeted just at plant and machinery, which is only one fifth of business investment. Then we have freeports, which have been tried for 30 years. I am afraid that all the evidence is that, at best, they may displace economic activity from one area left out of prosperity to another a few miles away. The problem is that the Government simply do not get that we cannot build private sector success on the back of public sector austerity. The cuts of the last decade have made local services worse, squeezed demand and undermined the crucial infrastructure of business success.”
“It is to address the deep unfairness that high street shops face against online retailers. I am sure that the Business Secretary is familiar with that problem. The Government launched a review of business rates not in the last Budget, not in the Budget before, not in the one before that, but six years ago. In fact, they launched the review so long ago that I was Leader of the Opposition when they did so—it is that long ago! A long-term Budget would have finally taken action in this area, but instead we got more delay. I turn to the measures that were taken. On the so-called super deduction, we will welcome any measure to help business, but I point out, as we think about our capital stock and investment, that the OBR says that that measure “does not affect the long-run level of the…capital stock”.”
“The OBR says that, on current plans, the Chancellor will have to write off £27 billion of those loans. In these circumstances, a sensible Chancellor would have been creative, yet he still refuses to budge. We have a scheme from the Chancellor with no links to profits, no ability to restructure and no ability for management or workers to develop creative solutions. He is just leaving it to the banks. Well, even the banks are telling him that that is very risky. If we face a wave of insolvencies, it will be at the Chancellor’s door. The danger is that this holds back the recovery, and it certainly fails the Bevin test. Many of the businesses facing those debts are on our high streets, in retail. What is the single biggest long-term change that those businesses require?”
“We welcome some of the measures talked about by the Business Secretary, but there are still important groups that I believe are left out: two thirds of the excluded self-employed are not helped by this Budget, including limited companies, many freelancers and others; supply chain businesses are still left out; and whole sectors, such as the wedding industry, are ignored. Their plight will hold back the recovery. We know that business debt is one of the biggest threats not just to individual businesses but to the recovery as a whole. Some £70 billion of business debt has built up during the crisis. In December, the Federation of Small Businesses reported that the proportion of those businesses describing their debt as “unmanageable” was 40%.”
“He is so ideological—so dogmatic—about the free market that he had to get rid of the industrial strategy, and therefore he cannot deliver the partnership between Government and business that the country needs. Let us turn more generally to business support. Businesses have made huge sacrifices in this crisis, as I said, and they face huge challenges in recovering from the pandemic, added to which are the billions of pounds of red tape as a result of the implementation of the Brexit deal. Even when the health crisis is over, businesses will take a long time to recover.”
“All around the country, thanks to the work that was done, local chambers of commerce and local enterprise partnerships have spent years working on local industrial strategies. Now they are wondering what they are supposed to do with them, because the strategy seems to have fallen out of favour. People might think that is just an accident. It is not an accident. I know that the Business Secretary dismisses his past pamphlets as the work of a maverick Back Bencher, but it is not a coincidence, because this—it is very interesting—is what he wrote: “The draining of effort from our psyche has been replaced by a sense of entitlement.” I do not know quite what that means. He continued: “It has also led to a false belief in the value of industrial policy.” I thought he had put all that behind him, but clearly not.”