Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: International Affairs
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): The global theme of today’s Budget debate has enabled the House to examine the impact of the Chancellor’s statement on Britain’s place in our world and our readiness to respond to the global challenges we face. Many of those challenges have been referred to by hon. Members. The whole House was shocked by the attack on the al-Rawda mosque, in which 305 Sufi worshippers, including 27 children, were slaughtered. The threat of terrorism is global, and although this particular atrocity was perhaps symptomatic of the metastasis of the cancer that is Daesh and a result of its military defeat in Raqqa, we must understand the implications for the strength of our military Many hon. Members on both sides of the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) and the Chairs of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committees, have warned that cutting our armed forces by a further 12,000 will seriously undermine our global capacity. Recently, Government Back Benchers have reportedly engaged with their Treasury colleagues on this subject in the fashion of an English wicketkeeper greeting an Aussie batsman. The depletion of our armed forces capacity in an uncertain world is something that the Government contemplate at their peril Another challenge, which was raised powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), is the appalling suffering of the Rohingya people who have fled from Myanmar’s Rakhine province. Their plight moved the new Secretary of State for International Development to tears on her visit over the weekend to Bangladesh, and she is reported to have said that it appears to be ethnic cleansing. I think that most hon. Members in this House would simply say, "Yes, it is." But I pay respect to her for going so quickly to apprise herself of the situation there and in the Caribbean. I trust that she will be a strong advocate for her Department’s financial needs against the siren voices in the Conservative party who wish Britain to downgrade its 0.7% commitment or to circumscribe our aid budget in such a way as to refocus it away from poverty reduction, disaster relief or sustainable development. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) was shouted down by Government Members when she pointed out that, as page 22 of the Red Book sets out, ODA budgets will be adjusted to reflect the OBR’s revised GNI forecast. They will, therefore, be cut by £375 million in 2018-19 and £520 million in 2019-20—a reduction of almost £1 billion There have been 17 named storms in the Atlantic hurricane season this year, many of them at category 5. That has made the season the costliest on record, with an estimated $367.5 billion of damage. Harvey, Irma and Maria have not just cost dollars; they have devastated the lives of our friends and Commonwealth partners throughout the Caribbean and beyond. UK assistance has been vital to many of those countries, and we welcome the £5 million that was made available to Dominica, as well as the additional funding announced from DFID when the Prince of Wales visited Antigua and Barbuda last week. But perhaps the Foreign Secretary should reflect on the 10% cut in the financial support for our overseas territories and consider reversing it Disaster relief is not the answer to climate change, which is one of the central challenges facing the international community. With the UN climate conference having just finished in Bonn, the opportunity provided by the Budget should have been used to make key policy announcements on policies that would mitigate climate change. Instead, we find that there will be no new low-carbon electricity levies until 2025, and there is nothing for renewables or investment in domestic energy efficiency, or for the necessary transformation of our grid structures to bring on new localised production, microgeneration and supply. Instead, there is a clean growth plan—six years late—that will not even meet the target set in the fourth carbon budget, never mind the fifth carbon budget No international debate should or could have taken place today without reference to the appalling war going on in Yemen. Yesterday’s Financial Times leader on the looming famine in Yemen is one of the finest editorials I have read. It refers to the risk that allies of Saudi Arabia face in being complicit in the use of starvation as a weapon of war. It is chilling. It says that the conflict has "descended into a new circle of hell after Saudi Arabia committed its air force to defeating Houthi rebels" earlier this year, and began destroying bridges, roads, markets and container ports. The infrastructure breakdown means that food is reaching the hungry "fatally slowly", and that was before the Saudis decided to block even humanitarian aid in reprisal for a missile fired at Riyadh earlier this month. Seven million people are now on the brink of famine, according to the UN The relation of this tragedy to the Budget becomes clear when we look at the OBR projections for trade growth. Globally, world trade is set to grow year on year by approximately 4%, but the Government’s own projection of the contribution trade will make to our own domestic growth declines to zero by 2019, and stays at zero for four years throughout the life of this Parliament. It is no wonder that the Government have been reluctant to jeopardise the £4 billion deal to sell Saudi Arabia British fighter jets. Human rights must not be regarded as a commercial inconvenience. If our country wishes to stand tall in the global community, we must do so on the basis of our values. We need to ensure that we do not end up pawning our democratic values to boost our failing economy The central facts of the Budget determine how our country is able to respond to all these international challenges. I agree with the hon. Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms) who said that sound finance is the only basis for a caring Government. We need a strong economy, and the Budget figures did not show that. Growth has been revised down by 0.5%, productivity by 0.7% and investment by 1.5%. This Budget admits that previous Treasury promises have not been met, but it has failed to set out a vision to take our country forward Business growth and trade are crucial to our capacity to act and to lead in the world. My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) posed the key questions on which businesses need certainty if they are to lead the economic revival we so desperately need: what tariffs and quotas will they face, and what will our future trade relationships look like—the no deal Brexit my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) warned about, or the deal that the Brexit Secretary once upon a time boasted would give the UK the "exact same benefits" that we currently possess as members of the single market The Chancellor told the nation what he thought was more likely when he announced the £3 billion to prepare for a no deal Brexit. It is therefore no wonder, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) pointed out, that the Foreign Secretary spent more time talking about penguins and plastic bags than about Brexit. My hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Dr Drew), for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker), for Leigh (Jo Platt), for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) for Stockton South (Dr Williams) and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) spoke powerfully about the Budget’s failure to address the needs of our health service: £4 billion is needed next year; £1.6 billion has been provided. They highlighted the irony that social care, which was a defining issue in the general election, got scarcely a mention In a brilliant speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) not only exposed the anti-London nature of this Budget, but highlighted the total lack of any stimulus to housing supply, as indeed did my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid). My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central highlighted the fact that the need for the productivity growth on which depend our country’s future prosperity and successful engagement on the international stage. Productivity will depend on the two pillars of education and infrastructure investment, so it is not coincidence that these were the two key offers that the Labour party made in our manifesto at the general election, with our national transformation fund and our national education service It would be tempting to claim that this Budget proves that the Government have lost their way. The truth is that they never had a direction in the first place. The Prime Minister is a prisoner of her Cabinet, and her Cabinet is divided against itself. Sooner or later, the electorate will put them out of their misery and we will have a Budget for the many, not the few.