I commend the opening comments of my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary, particularly the emphasis he placed on skills and education, because that is our route to levelling up. I also pay tribute to the Chancellor and the entire Treasury team for the work they did to deliver the Budget last Wednesday.
We need to recognise the news that the economy is growing much faster than anybody predicted, and much faster than any other G7 country. Looking back 12 months, everybody in this House had a genuine fear about an unemployment crisis. Certainly the models were predicting a very difficult period. While we should not underestimate the challenges that many families still face, it is absolutely clear that those predictions have not come to pass. Unemployment appears to be peaking at much lower levels, largely owing to the actions taken by this Government and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. I congratulate him on the work that he did around the furlough scheme to ensure that businesses could support their employees through that incredibly difficult time.
In general, I welcome many of the measures that the Chancellor introduced last week—in particular, the tapering of universal credit. I am also very pleased to see the national living wage being increased to £9.50 an hour, thereby, as he said, putting about £1,000 into the pockets of the lowest paid. It is good news to see the public sector pay freeze being lifted as well.
As a Member of Parliament in the north-east representing the brilliant people of Warrington South, I was very glad to see many of the announcements that will relate to the levelling up agenda in my part of the country. Levelling up is not just about bricks and mortar; it is also about our public services and how they are delivered and setting higher standards for local communities that have been ignored for too long. It is about ensuring that opportunity is spread equally around the UK, giving people the chance to realise their full potential, no matter where they come from, without having to travel to the south-east.
Talking of travel and transportation, improving transport links locally has a massive part to play in levelling up. If people cannot get to a job, it is impossible to tackle the underlying issues around unemployment. I welcome the decision to freeze fuel duty and to invest in public transport. I was struck by a conversation I had with a
gentleman called Patrick in Stockton Heath in my constituency. He is a pensioner who had given up using his car and wanted to spend a night out in a village enjoying some craft beers, but because he lives outside the big city, the last bus ran at 7 o’clock in the evening, so having arrived at the pub he could not get home and ended up spending far more on a taxi than he spent drinking that craft beer. Whereas buses run 24/7 in cities around the country such as London, Manchester and Leeds, far too often in towns such as Warrington they switch off and stop running at 7 o’clock in the evening—and it is nigh on impossible to travel outside of Warrington, from Warrington to Altrincham or Warrington to Leigh. So the announcement that Warrington is to get a £20 million all-electric bus fleet, run by Warrington’s Own Buses, is of huge benefit to the town and something I really welcome. On top of that, the Government have funded a new electric bus depot at a cost of £5 million. We will be one of the first areas in the north of England to get a totally electric bus fleet, with 120 new buses being phased in over the coming year, replacing the current diesel fleet. That will benefit the environment and improve public transport options for working people, as well as reducing the cost of running the buses, which means that more can be invested into services across our town.
In terms of skills and education, and delivering public services for the future, I very much welcome the continued focus on investing in training and apprenticeships for young people. There is a need to invest in digital and cyber, in health and social care and in advanced engineering and nuclear technology, which are key for my local economy in Warrington but also across the UK. I am pleased that schools such as the university technical college in Warrington are working closely with employers such as Sellafield, Cavendish Nuclear, BAE, Rolls-Royce and the NHS to ensure that young people’s training is preparing them for the workplace of the future. I am also pleased to see the commitment to a new UK global talent network to work with research institutes and businesses to identify and attract the best global talent in key science and tech sectors that are rapidly growing in my constituency and across the north-west.
We have seen significant additional funding to help our public services in the fight against the pandemic, and the vaccine roll-out has been nothing other than phenomenal, with more money going into our booster jabs programme. Looking forward, we are also making investment in the NHS that provides a cash increase of £33.9 billion for 2023-24 and continues with our programme of hospital rebuilds. Warrington has recently submitted an excellent application for one of the eight additional new hospitals being built, and I look forward to a decision on that project being made in early 2022.
I welcome the decision to support small businesses. The temporary 50% cut in their business rates, up to a maximum of £110,000 a year, will make a difference to local businesses on my high street. In addition, the decision to scrap 2022’s planned annual increase in rates for all firms for the second year in a row is very welcome, but I urge my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to look carefully at a complete revision of the business rates system. We are faced with incredible challenges on the high street, and we need to support SMEs as they help the economy recover. We are delivering on a central mission of levelling up for every single person, no matter their background and no matter their circumstances.
It is the right Budget at the right time in our economic cycle, and I congratulate the Chancellor on the work he is doing to take this country forward and on levelling up.