12:46 Anneliese Dodds (Labour)

Moreover, where will the new jobs come from? With the hosting of COP26 this year and the eyes of the world upon us, the UK has an enormous opportunity to show how an active Government making smart investments can help us emerge from the economic crisis and meet our net zero ambitions at the same time. Labour has called for £30 billion of investment to be accelerated into the next 18 months to support the creation of 400,000 new green jobs, but, unbelievably, yesterday’s Budget took us backwards. The Government have actually cut half a billion pounds of capital investment from their plans for the coming year, and the green homes grant, the flagship programme of the Chancellor’s summer statement last year, seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth, after more than 75% of its funding was cut and it was found to have been costing jobs.

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13:27 Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]

VAT cuts for repairs to buildings would help to end the scourge of derelict buildings in my constituency and many others, and encourage investment in our built environment rather than demolishing and rebuilding. VAT cuts could also be used to boost investment in energy efficiency measures, thereby contributing to our net zero ambitions.

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14:09 Clive Lewis (Labour)

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.

This Budget will entrench inequality and it failed to tackle the climate crisis. It will be the job of those of us on this side of the House to remind the public in the years to come that these were the choices of this Government and this Chancellor.

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14:32 Fabian Hamilton (Labour)

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.

Following the last decade of cuts to our public services and a crippling lack of investment, the very foundations of our economy have been weakened. Yet again, this Budget does nothing to resolve the concerns of those working in two or even three jobs just to make ends meet, and it does nothing to solve the housing crisis. The pandemic has shown us what happens when we do not properly fund our NHS. We simply cannot afford to make the same mistakes again, whether in social care or housing, or on the climate emergency.

How can we trust this Government on the economy? They spent £22 billion on a test and trace system that did not work for months, £2 billion on outsourced contracts that did not deliver, and £7,000 a day on management consultants. After the past year, the NHS and social care should have been at the very heart of the Budget. There are no plans for jobs, no plans to tackle the climate emergency and no plans for the future. The people of our country have sacrificed so much over the last year. They deserve far better than this wretched Government.

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15:14 Nadia Whittome (Labour)

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.

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15:21 Richard Burgon (Labour)

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 on 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.

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15:32 Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) [V]

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.

The Government’s national infrastructure bank will provide less than half the funding we received through the European Investment Bank and falls far short of the £30 billion recovery package that Labour is calling for. This makes a mockery of the promise to level up towns like Birkenhead and leaves the UK far behind our European friends in the year that we are due to host COP26. The Government’s shambolic handling of the covid-19 pandemic has plunged the UK into the deepest recession of any advanced economy. The Chancellor’s failure of ambition, foresight and leadership means that the road to recovery will be uncertain, but the path into hardship for many is a certainty.

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16:03 Rebecca Long-Bailey (Labour)

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 on 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.

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16:24 Janet Daby (Labour)

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.

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16:28 Mary Foy (Labour)

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.

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16:31 Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat)

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.

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16:34 Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab) [V]

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.

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16:37 Rachel Hopkins (Labour)

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.

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16:40 Jonathan Reynolds (Labour)

I wanted the Government to live up to their rhetoric and offer young people a real guarantee. Young people have suffered so much in the crisis, so let us take the action needed and make sure that no young person is out of work or education for longer than six months. We should promise young people an offer of education, employment or training and link those jobs and training to the challenges the country faces on social care, the NHS, schools and climate change. Time spent on furlough should count towards that limit, so that we do not see the long-term scarring that we know comes from periods of sustained economic inactivity. We could use the money already allocated to employment programmes. We could reform the apprenticeship levy to complement that and spend the money this year and next, when it will be most needed.

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