Contribution
Of course there will be the occasional person who falls on hard times, but the hon. Lady should try saying what she did to the many of my constituents who are unable to have more children. They took the choice not to have them, but that option is now there. There is an imbalance between the situation that my constituents faced and the approach taken on welfare.
At a time when the United Kingdom is embracing higher taxes and an ever-greater role for the state, lower-tax dynamism abounds beyond Europe. We can see the US surging, with freer markets and a tech and energy bonanza. We need only look to the Gulf, where states like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia embracing tech, finance and alternative energy. A generation ago, this would have mattered less, but labour and capital are now highly mobile, and more and more people are voting with their feet. They are leaving the United Kingdom in their tens of thousands. This tide is washing the very brightest and best away from our shores, and I fear that once those people leave, it will be very hard to get them to come back.
The sadness of all this is that the United Kingdom remains a wonderful country. It is a beacon of stability, and we have the rule of law, the English language, our time zone, great research universities and a highly talented workforce. Indeed, having criticised the Government a lot, I pay tribute to them for successfully concluding a number of free trade agreements, including with India and the United States, and I hope that others will follow, including with the Gulf Co-operation Council. At a time when other countries present challenges—whether we are talking about the security situation in China, the unpredictability of the United States or stagnation in Europe—the United Kingdom has a golden opportunity to be a magnet for investment from businesses and entrepreneurs around the world. However, we risk consigning ourselves to what a Scottish entrepreneur described to me a couple of days ago as a “why bother” economy. What he meant was that of course people are not going to disinvest, but they will not actively choose to invest in the United Kingdom, because we are not creating an environment that rewards risk-taking and entrepreneurship.
There are a few simple steps that we could take to seize this moment, and I urge the Chancellor to take them and light the fire of competitiveness. First, instead of trying to drive away the wealthiest and biggest global investors, as we have done with the abolition of the non-dom status, we should welcome them and gain more revenue at the same time. One need only look at the Italian model; they have imposed a relatively high fee, but have in return exempted wealthy mobile people from paying further taxation. As a result, investment in Italy is surging, as is the number of wealthy people choosing to locate there, with all the opportunities that brings for growth and investment.
Secondly, instead of obsessing about policing social media, we should be aggressively policing the sort of low-level crime that drives people away from locating in this country, whether it is phone snatching, shoplifting or the general sense that the streets of this country have become less safe than they were a few years ago. Thirdly, instead of clobbering entrepreneurs, wealth creators and hard-working Brits with ever-higher marginal rates, we should have confidence that lower marginal rates generate higher revenues in the long run and benefit absolutely everyone. Fourthly, and most importantly of all in relation to this Budget, instead of consigning a generation to welfare, we should aggressively reform the welfare state to create opportunities for all. It really is not too late for the Government to seize this opportunity, but sadly, I fear that only a change of Government, and a Conservative Government, will be able to deliver those things.