Gareth Davies MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 17 Oct 2024 · International Investment Summit · Hansard source

  More

  I thank all those who have spoken in today’s debate. It is right that I recognise the contributions that have been made from both sides of the House, but especially those made by Members making their maiden speeches. We all remember the moments leading up to and during our maiden speech, and it still gives me chills to this day. Let me say to the hon. Member for Ossett and Denby Dale (Jade Botterill) that I hope her mother is enjoying seeing the bright lights of London for the first time. I know she will be very proud of her daughter. I wish the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) well with her campaigning on parental leave. We all regret the time we spend away from our families, but it is for a life of purpose and a worthwhile cause, as hard as it is. I had the pleasure of meeting the hon. Member for Buckingham and Bletchley (Callum Anderson) before he was a Member of Parliament. I hope that, as the Member of Parliament representing Bletchley, he can crack the code to the success of this place. The hon. Member for Banbury (Sean Woodcock) gave an excellent speech, and he will be a great local champion for Banbury. I appreciated the comments he made about my former colleague and his predecessor. The hon. Member for Bangor Aberconwy (Claire Hughes) will no doubt be busy in this job, but I hope she will still find time for frog searching. Finally, the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Kanishka Narayan) gave an incredibly impressive and excellent speech. He went to one of our finest schools, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and later attended Stanford University in California, which, by the way, has some quite impressive alumni. I am sure he has a bright future in this place, although he should be prepared for many of his Labour colleagues to constantly suggest that he is desperate to return to California at the earliest opportunity. All jest aside, let me say genuinely from the outset that it is right that we welcome this Government’s building on the strong foundations for international investment in our country. As of July—a randomly picked month—the UK was Europe’s leader for new foreign direct investment projects for a third successive year, with the highest total number of projects in the past five years. The most recent official figures show that the UK ranked second only to the United States for greenfield FDI overall, while leading the world in investment into our renewables sector. That is one of the reasons why we have achieved the fastest decarbonisation of any developed country in the world, and we should be proud of that. That is down not just to those who are elected but to officials who work day in, day out to support Governments: those in the Office for Investment, the Treasury, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and our many trade commissioners, who help drive our efforts to attract significant pools of investment capital from across the world. This has been a good week for investment into our country— [ Interruption. ] It really has. It is important that we recognise the cross-party heritage of this week’s summit, which I am sure the Minister will acknowledge when she stands up. Labour has carried forward good ideas that we Conservatives either implemented or started in government. The Government deserve credit and I am very happy to give it, because this was, in the end, a fine follow-up to the global investment summit pioneered this time last year. Our cross-party collaboration does not end there. In many cases, this Labour Government have announced or re-announced investments that were negotiated or even agreed by their Conservative predecessors. I guess some things sound so good that they are worth repeating. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake)—who has made a timely entrance to this Chamber to rapturous applause—highlighted, more than half the investment that the Government announced was actually announced before the general election. That includes the £10 billion committed by Blackstone, which was announced in April, and the £8 billion committed by Amazon, which was negotiated by my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor. I could mention BW Group, which was announced in 2021, or CyrusOne, which was announced in 2022. Whatever the origin, more private investment clearly benefits the British people, contributing to more jobs, better productivity and stronger growth. We can all agree on that point, and it should not be taken for granted. I commend the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune), a relatively new Member, who highlighted the importance of not being complacent about that, and in particular ensuring that regulation remains low. As I said at the beginning, I commend Members for all the contributions to this debate, maiden or otherwise, that rightly recognised the importance of private investment in our economy. However, we need to face the fact that this summit has been overshadowed by a rather large elephant in the room. As the Transport Secretary knows all too well, many investment decisions are provisional and dependent on an economic environment that welcomes and supports investment. Since Labour has taken office, thanks to all the doom and gloom, made-up black holes and submission to the unions, business and consumer confidence has fallen and the cost of borrowing for the British Government has risen. We have had 100 days of self-contradiction and uncertainty. Even in just a few months, this Labour Government have promised public investment while cutting capital expenditure, fretted over a supposed black hole while frittering away billions on pet projects and union paymasters, disavowed red tape while smothering small businesses in new regulations, and paid lip service to fiscal responsibility while laying the ground to fiddle the financial rules. Meanwhile, almost every single revenue-raising policy in the Labour manifesto has proven pretty much worthless, just like its promise not to raise national insurance. The rest of us were left wondering, and continue to wonder: if I make a successful investment, how much of the return will I be able to keep? If I take on a new employee, how much tax will I need to pay for the privilege? If I increase my workers’ pay, what will the total cost be? If I save for the future, will the Government help themselves? If I pass on the business I built all my life to the next generation, will they be penalised? If £1 billion is jeopardised by bad Labour commentary, £63 billion can be jeopardised by bad Labour policy. Investment and economic growth are not simply convened; they take concerted effort, not contorted fiscal signals. Some have questioned whether having the summit before the Budget was putting the cart before the horse, but my worry is that, come Budget day, the horse will already have bolted. I wonder, in the event that the Budget backfires, will the Prime Minister be forced to disown or defenestrate yet another member of his top team, to avoid taking responsibility himself—sacrificing someone else on the altar of self-service? As has been said before, Labour’s chaos might be in my party’s interest, but it is not in the national interest. I want to see the promise of these investments fulfilled. Labour must not put them at risk. Let us build on the success of our country’s economy and push up businesses that want to succeed, not pull them down when they do succeed. I am afraid that as long as this chaos, scandal and uncertainty continues, I will not hold my breath.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Energy Bills: Support for Households · Hansard source

  More

  During the general election, the Labour party committed to bring down energy bills by £300. Now that the election is over, energy bills are going up by some 10%. On behalf of the British electorate, especially the 10 million pensioners who are having their winter fuel payment taken away, I ask the Minister to confirm to the House that the £300 cut is still Labour policy. If it is, specifically how is the £300 calculated, and when will it be delivered?

• 30 Jul 2024 · Budget Responsibility Bill · Hansard source

  More

  We support the OBR. I have been clear on that. We created the OBR, so to suggest that we do not support it is incorrect. I would just pull the hon. Member up on some economic facts. The reason interest rates were so high and mortgages went up is that we faced a global challenge, which this Government will now experience. In office, the Government have to deal with events, and what caused inflation around the world was two things: the war in Ukraine, which pushed up wholesale gas prices to record highs; and the fallout from a once-in-a-century pandemic that the Labour party seems to have forgotten about. Those two factors resulted in 11% inflation, which resulted in the Chancellor and Prime Minister at the time prioritising bringing down inflation, which we did, to 2%. We have now handed this Government 2% inflation, half the deficit we inherited in 2010, half the unemployment and the fastest growth in the G7, so it is a little bit rich to suggest that we take lessons from the Labour party on economic performance. Our third and final concern—we have others, but I am in keeping this short on Second Reading—is that, in the event that the lock is triggered, the OBR does not need to produce one of its standard reports, even though the Treasury, under the Bill, is required to request such a report to avoid breaking the lock. The Bill creates, therefore, the possibility of an entirely new OBR report, which is not envisaged by the original Act. I would be grateful if the Exchequer Secretary explained that and what it means in practice when he sums up. Although standard OBR reports must be published, it is not clear whether that applies to other reports that the OBR may prepare. If this requirement does not apply, are the Government happy to give the OBR the power to decide whether its costings are published? That is potentially very concerning for transparency. The official Opposition look forward to more detailed scrutiny of the Bill and its practical implications. Be in no doubt: we support the OBR, which we created to bring in much-needed transparency to our fiscal framework after years of fiscal folly and false promises by the Labour party. At the same time, let us not pretend that the OBR should be the ultimate judge of good policy, that nothing bad can happen under its watchful eye and that nothing good can happen beyond its gaze. Labour Members know this: it is precisely what they argued 15 years ago when we first debated the Bill that led to the OBR’s creation. The OBR should not become too political. It should be a referee, not a player, in the fight for fiscal accountability. In the end, we stand by the principle that the British people, through their elected representatives, should always have the deciding say on public policy. We look forward to debating this further in the months ahead. We will not be voting against this Bill on Second Reading. I look forward to the debate.

• 30 Jul 2024 · Budget Responsibility Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Madam Deputy Speaker, congratulations on your election. Let me take my first opportunity to congratulate the right hon. and hon. Members in the new Treasury ministerial team, who have taken up some of the best jobs in government. I loved every minute of my time in the Treasury, even when I had to come to this place to face my shadows. I will always be grateful to the officials who so ably supported me and the team. As the Member of Parliament for Grantham, the home of our country’s first female Prime Minister, I congratulate our country’s first female Chancellor. It is right that we highlight that. While the two are not politically aligned, we can all recognise when a ceiling has been shattered and no matter who is breaking it, we certainly recognise that on this side of the House. The Bill before us seeks to amend the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011—a Bill, introduced by a Conservative Chancellor, that created the Office for Budget Responsibility. The Bill should be understood in that context, building on a previous Bill that replaced the system where His Majesty’s Treasury would produce its own forecasts and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would essentially mark their own homework. Back then, that was an essential piece of legislation, given what had gone on before. Between 2000 and 2010 the then Labour Government’s so-called forecasts for growth in the economy were out by an average of £13 billion and their forecasts for the budget deficit three years ahead were out by an average of £40 billion. Their forecasts therefore lacked any credibility at all. It was not just their forecasts that led to the creation of the OBR; it was their management of the economy. Much has already been said by the shadow Chancellor about the higher inflation, higher deficit and higher unemployment that the Conservatives inherited from Labour in 2010. What is, however, sometimes forgotten is that total public spending accounted for almost half the national income when Labour last left office. Welfare spending ballooned by a staggering 45%, and that runaway spending meant that we inherited the largest budget deficit of any economy in Europe with the sole exception of Ireland. The idea that Labour has an unblemished record when it comes to the public finances is, therefore, plain wrong. We Conservatives created the OBR, in Parliament, to guard against Labour’s fiscal unaccountability and recklessness with the public finances. We continue to support the role of the OBR in providing open, fully transparent, independent forecasts for all to see, no matter who is in government. It was genuinely good to hear that the Chancellor recognised the importance of the OBR when she said that because of the OBR, in her words, “You don’t need to win an election to find out the state of public finances.” She was absolutely right about that. That is why yesterday’s supposed revelations simply won’t wash. In fact, if she is so supportive of the OBR, I ask a simple question: why was yesterday’s statement based on internal Treasury analysis, not OBR analysis? Surely if they are very supportive of the OBR they would have asked the OBR to conduct the analysis. The OBR has always said that it would be ready to produce analysis at any time, on short notice. That was yesterday, and today we are here to talk about the Bill before us. While we are supportive of the OBR, we think it is right that the House should consider a number of concerns that we have, on which we will seek clarification. First, the Bill will require the Treasury to request, and the OBR to produce, a report on fiscally significant measures announced by the Government, with the exception of temporary, emergency measures. The definitions of these terms—"fiscally significant”, “temporary” and “emergency”—will be set out in a charter for budget responsibility as the Chief Secretary outlined. The draft charter text, published alongside the Bill, deems measures to be fiscally significant if they cost the equivalent of 1% of GDP in any financial year. It defines as temporary any measure intended to end within two years, and the draft charter text gives the OBR discretion to reasonably disagree with the Treasury’s interpretation of what constitutes emergency. Despite some of the rhetoric, we note that nowhere in the Bill or the surrounding documents is the OBR empowered to prevent a Government from taking fiscally significant action of any kind. The effect of this Bill is to ensure that an OBR costing accompanies any fiscally significant action the Government take—nothing more, nothing less. The way in which the Chancellor described this Bill as a so-called lock to prevent certain activity is—to be generous on my first outing—overly ambitious. The Bill is described as introducing a fiscal lock, which the Chancellor promises will prevent large-scale unfunded commitments, but that is not what it does. There is no fiscal lock, and if anything, it is a forecast lock. The potential impact of the Bill is so limited and specific as to lead some to wonder whether, for all the animated hyperbole of the Chancellor yesterday, this is the prioritisation of gimmicks over governing, despite what the Prime Minister said on the King’s Speech. Secondly, and I say this genuinely constructively, the Government need to be better prepared to clarify what is meant by “emergency”. The draft charter gives the OBR the power to reasonably disagree with the Government’s interpretation of what is an emergency, but this raises questions about whether the OBR is equipped to make such a decision in the first place. What counts as an emergency should mostly be clear-cut, but what about instances that are less obvious, or when unforeseen circumstances come down the track? The OBR would then be straying into political decision making, which would rightly raise constitutional issues. Even if it is ultimately for Ministers to decide on such matters, any resulting disagreement between the Government and the OBR about whether the circumstances amount to an emergency could undermine the credibility of the Government, the OBR or both.

• 30 Jul 2024 · Food Security · Hansard source

  More

  In setting out our concerns, my right hon. Friend speaks not just for South Holland and The Deepings, but for the whole of Lincolnshire. Just before the general election, a written ministerial statement set out several provisions and thoughts about the problems that he describes. It specifically mentioned Lincolnshire and the issue of geographical clustering. Does he share my disappointment that the new Labour Government have not committed to those provisions and those statements?

• 30 Jul 2024 · Food Security · Hansard source

  More

  rose —