16/03/2016 Wednesday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to Wednesday in Parliament, our look at the best

of the day in the Commons and the Lords.

The theme of the Chancellor as he unveils a new tax on sugary

Today I can announce that we will introduce a new sugar levy on the

soft drink industry. Among other measures,

George Osborne announces a longer school day and a new lifetime ISA

for young people. He says Britain is well-placed

to handle a cocktail But the Labour leader denounces

the Chancellor's performance He has failed on the budget, failed

on debt, failed on investment, failed on productivity.

The party leaders clash over air pollution.

And a former Lib Dem leader makes a scathing attack

on the Government's record on taking in migrants.

What is it like to be the member of a Government, a British Government,

that has to take lessons in leadership, compassion and courage

from the German Chancellor? But first, it may not

have all the trappings of State Opening Day at Westminster,

but Budget Day still has its own And sure enough, outside

Number 11 Downing Street, stepping into the March daylight,

was the Chancellor. Complete with the famous red box

containing all the closely-guarded secrets of the annual Budget speech

he's about to give MPs. Once into a suitable vehicle,

George Osborne made the short journey along Whitehall,

around Parliament Square, and into the precincts

of the Palace of Westminster. It was George Osborne's

eighth Budget. He told the Commons the UK economy

was set to grow faster than that of any other advanced

country in the world, with a deficit that was

now falling each year. The British economy is stronger

because we confronted our country's problems and took the

difficult decisions. The British economy is growing

because we did not seek short-term fixes, but pursued

a long-term economic plan. He turned to spending totals. My

spending plan in the last Parliament reduced the share taken by the state

from the unsustainable 45% we inherited to 40% today.

My spending plans in this Parliament will see it fall to 36.9%

In other words, the country will be spending no more than the country

So I am asking my right honourable friends the Chief Secretary

and the Paymaster General to undertake a further drive

The aim is to save a further ?3.5 billion in the year 2019-20.

At less than half a percent of Government spending in four

years' time, that is more than achievable while maintaining

He was confident the UK economy would show a ?10 billion

We said our country would not repeat the mistakes of the past

Today, we maintain that commitment to long-term stability

Decisive action to achieve a ?10 billion surplus.

He announced reductions in corporation tax, and then moved

From April next year, 600,000 small businesses will pay no

That is an annual saving for them of up to nearly ?6,000, forever.

A further quarter of a million businesses will see their rates cut.

Mr Osborne said the oil price had continued to fall.

So we need to act now for the long term.

I am today cutting in half the supplementary charge on oil

and gas from 20% to 10%, and I am effectively abolishing

petroleum revenue tax too, backing this key

None of this support would have been remotely affordable if,

in just eight days' time, Scotland had broken away

from the rest of the UK, as the nationalists wanted.

The Infrastructure Commission was urging stronger transport links

So we are giving the green light to High Speed 3 between

We are finding new money to create a four-lane M62.

And we will develop the case for a new tunnelled road

My honourable friends for Carlisle, Penrith and Wrexham have told us not

to neglect the North Pennines. So we will upgrade the A66

and the A69 too. The Government who are delivering

Crossrail 1 will now commission I know this commitment to Crossrail

2 will be warmly welcomed by the Leader of the Opposition,

the right honourable It could have been designed just

for him, because it is good for all those who live in north

London and are heading south. I have listened to the case made

by Welsh Conservative colleagues and I can announce today that

from 2018 we are going to halve the price of the tolls

on the Severn crossings. I am today providing extra funding

so that by 2020 every primary and secondary school in England

will be, or be in the process The Chancellor switched

to the content of drinks. We all know one of the

biggest contributors to childhood obesity

is sugary drinks. A can of cola typically has nine

teaspoons of sugar in it. Some popular drinks

have as many as 13. I am not prepared to look back

at my time here in this Parliament, doing this job, and say

to my children's generation, We knew there was a problem

with sugary drinks. We knew it caused disease,

but we ducked the difficult So today I can announce

that we will introduce a new sugar We're going to use the money

from this new levy to double the amount of funding we dedicate

to sport in every primary school. And for secondary schools,

we are going to fund longer school days for those that want to offer

their pupils a wider range of activities,

including extra sport. We have consulted widely

on whether we should make compulsory But it was clear there

was no consensus. Indeed, the former

Pensions Minister, the Liberal Democrat Steve Webb,

said I was trying to abolish Instead, we are going to keep

the lump sum and abolish Mr Opperman, you may have been

an amateur jockey, but I do not want From April 2017, anyone under

the age of 40 will be able to open a Lifetime ISA and save up

to ?4,000 each year. For every ?4 you save,

the Government will give you ?1. So, putting ?4000, and the

Government will give you ?1000 every year until you are 50. You don't

have to choose between saving the first time or saving for your

retirement. With the new Lifetime Iser, the Government is giving you

the money to do both. One that reaches a surplus

so the next generation does not have One that reforms our tax system

so the next generation One that takes the imaginative steps

so the next generation One that takes bold decisions

so that our children grow up This is a Budget that gets

the investors investing, savers saving, businesses doing

business, so that we build for working people a low-tax,

enterprise Britain, secure at home, I commend to the House a Budget that

puts the next generation first. And with that, George Osborne

concluded his speech. In line with parliamentary

tradition and custom, the Budget is replied to not

by the Shadow Chancellor but by the Leader of

the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn. It was his first time responding

to a Budget since becoming Mr Corbyn said the speech

the Chancellor had given the nation was, in fact, the culmination

of six years of failure. It is a recovery built on sand

and a Budget of failure. failed on debt, failed

on investment, failed on productivity, failed

on the trade deficit, failed on the welfare cap and failed

to tackle inequality in this This Budget has unfairness

at its very core, paid for by those He could not have made

his priorities clearer. While half a million people

with disabilities are losing over ?1 billion in Personal

Independence Payments, corporation tax is being cut

and billions handed out in tax cuts The gulf between what

the Conservative Government expects from the wealthiest

and what they demand from ordinary British taxpayers

could not be greater. The "mates rates" deals for big

corporations on tax deals is something they will be

for ever remembered for. This is a Chancellor who has

produced a Budget for hedge fund managers more than

for small businesses. Every library that has been closed,

every elderly person left without proper care,

every swimming pool with reduced opening hours or closed altogether

is a direct result of the Government underfunding our local

authorities and councils. Far from presiding over

good-quality employment, he is the Chancellor who has

presided over underemployment I want to hear the Leader

of the Opposition and I expect you to hear the Leader

of the Opposition. If you do not want to hear him,

I am sure the Tea Room awaits. Perhaps there will be a phone call

for Mr Hoare if he keeps shouting. Security comes from knowing your

income and knowing where your job is. If you are one of those nearly 1

million people on a zero hours contracts, you don't know what your

income is, you don't have that security.

Over the past six years, the Chancellor has set targets

on deficit, on debt, on productivity, on manufacturing

He has failed in all of them, and he is failing this country.

There are huge opportunities for this country to build

on the talent and efforts of everyone, but the Chancellor

is more concerned about protecting vested interests.

The price of failure is being borne by some of the most vulnerable

Next came the reaction to the Budget of the SNP.

The current account will not be back in the black now until 2018/ 19. The

targets keep getting pushed back, more broken promises. Borrowing in

four years' time will still be higher than they promised it would

be this year. That is the scale of the failure of the key economic

methods. This is all about political choices. We said at the election,

and we hold to it, a very modest half percent real terms increase in

expenditure could have released money not just the investment but to

make sure those on benefit did not fall any further behind. That would

have been a sensible, humane and productive thing to do. The

Chancellor and this Government have gone against that one more time. He

may be able to sell that to some of his backbenchers, he has been unable

to sell it in Scotland and I fear that will continue to be the case

for him. And after that came the views of backbenchers. If we are

going to have a tax based on sugar, I wonder whether over the longer run

we shouldn't consider widening that base. After all, it is not just

sugar in drinks that are held to be harmful. Whether we want to find tax

bases all the time on health grounds is another matter, but that bridge

has now been crossed now the levy has been introduced. Britain is now

at a crossroads. The structural deficit will be gone next year, so

the Chancellor is choosing to make unnecessary cuts to meet an

unnecessary target. It is his choice to remove support from people with

disabilities. It is his choice to cut universal credit. It is his

choice to stand by as child poverty increases.

And the Budget debate continues for another three days.

You're watching our round-up of the day in the Commons

The Justice Secretary talks of his plans for a new type of prisons.

It's normally the main event, but on Budget Day,

Prime Minister's Questions becomes the supporting feature.

Little point in the party leaders debating the economy,

as they've yet to hear the Budget speech.

So the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn focused on a non-financial matter,

It's an issue moving up the political agenda,

All the candidates for Mayor of London have said they regard

improving London's air as a top priority.

Mr Corbyn produced some stark figures on the effects

The sad truth is that 500,000 will die because of this country's

failure to comply with international law on air pollution.

Perhaps he could answer another question -

pollution cost our economy every year?

Of course it costs our economy billions, because people

That is why we have the new clean air zones, and emissions from cars

The Royal College of physicians estimates and pollution costs our

economy ?20 billion per year. The failure to deal with air pollution

is killing people. Only a few days ago, London faced a severe smog

warning. His friend, the Mayor of London has resided over at legal

breach of air quality in the capital bore many times since 2012.

It was the Conservative government in the 1950 that passed the clean

air act, and I am sure it is this government which will continue that.

Things have moved on a bit since then. The governments... The

government are now... The government are now threatened with being taken

to court for its failure to comply with international law on air

pollution. He is proposing to spend tens, if not hundreds of thousands

of pounds of public money defending the indefensible. Why not invest

that in clean air and better" to for everyone in this country? We are

investing money in clean air. We are phasing out the use of coal-fired

power stations, far in advance of what other European countries are

doing, blazing a trail in terms of more renewable energy. The questions

to the Prime Minister are these,... He once boasted he led the greenest

government ever. No huskies was safe from his cuddles. Could he explain

why the energy and climate change select committee has produced a

damning report when it comes to green energy, saying major investors

describe his policies as risky as a result of cuts and changes? The

climate action network said Britain is the second best country in the

world for tackling climate change after Denmark. That is our record.

The leader of the SNP switched subjects to the situation in Libya.

There is widespread reporting that the UK Government

are about to commit to send ground troops to Libya to train

Is this true, and why has Parliament not been informed about it?

Libya is a people smuggling route, which is bad for Europe and bad

for us, and we also have the growth of Daesh in Libya, which is bad

for us and bad for the rest of Europe.

If we have any plans for troop training or troop deployment

in a conventional sense we will of course come to the House

The UK spent 13 times more bombing Libya than it did on securing

the peace after the overthrow of the hated Gaddafi regime.

The critics of UK policy even include President Obama

Will the Prime Minister give a commitment to bring to Parliament

the issue of any potential Libyan deployment of any British forces

for approval before giving the green light for that to happen?

Very happy to give that commitment, as we always do. I think I am very

clear that it was right to take action to prevent that slaughter

that Colonel Gaddafi would have carried out against his people in

Benghazi. I believe that was right. Of course Libya is in a state that

is very concerning right now and everyone has to take their

responsibilities for that. Regional elections in Germany

at the weekend resulted in sweeping gains by the anti-immigrant

AfD Party. Its success has been seen

as a reaction against the policy of the German Chancellor Angela

Merkel to accept a million migrants. A German government spokesman has

said despite the outcome of the regional polls,

the immigration policy In the House of Lords,

a former Lib Dem leader sharply contrasted the approach of Germany

with that of Britain. My Lords, Germany has provided a

refuge for more than 1 million refugees. The German Chancellor has

said that despite the recent election results, by the way, and

relatively minor in their fact, she will not change course. In contrast,

Britain provides refuge to not a single refugee currently seeking to

flee from the Syrian battlefield. Many women and children amongst

them. Our Prime Minister boasts he will have nothing to do with the

European plan that deals with manifestly European and pan-European

issue. What is it like to be the member of a government, a British

Government, that has to take less than -- lessons in compassion from

the German Chancellor? I find it a great honour to be part of this

government. But the noble Lord refers to the refugees in Syria.

The noble Lord referred to the refugees in Syria.

We should also congratulate the Turkish people on all

that they have done over this period; they have nearly 3 million

I do not think that I need to draw the attention of the House to this,

At the Syria conference at the beginning of February,

11 billion euros was raised in a day - the largest amount ever raised

Don't the elections in Germany and elsewhere in the EU just show the

democracy is at last taking over from the failed corporate project of

European integration? The quicker that is abandoned, surely be better.

Democracy, as Lord Pearson Brannock said,... I would never dream of

commenting on what has happened or advising on what has happened in

Germany. Should we not take some comfort from the fact that although

the vote in Germany was disturbing, 80% of those who voted did not vote

for an ultra-right-wing party. It was clear last autumn, unless we

stopped the flow of refugees from Libya and Turkey, into what was

becoming a worse and worse Mediterranean, that there would be

many deaths. We have still not really got together any composite

plan to stop this blow of refugees before they leave territorial seas.

-- this flow of refugees. Put the noble minister let us know are we

coming to some conclusion to stop people going to see? If we don't,

they will die, and they are dying every day. The noble Lord draws

attention to some of the saddest aspects of this crisis. The whole

point of the summit of last week was in fact to break the business model

of the people traffickers. And end the link between getting in a boat

and getting settlement in Europe. The Justice Secretary Michael Gove

has said a new Bill will pave the way for prisons in England

and Wales to follow the system of academy schools, with league

tables and provision for failing jails to be taken over

by more successful jails. At the Commons Justice Committee,

Mr Gove admitted there was a problem with overcrowding in some prisons

but said it was not extreme. There are steps we hope to introduce

to ensure that prisons work better, and I'm sure we can talk more

about some of the administrative Ideally, what we want to do

is create a freestanding foundation, what we call a reform

prison, and in order to allow governors to

have a significantly greater degree of freedom than we currently grant

them, we will need to create a new legal status, in the same way

as the Blair government created We are looking at what the firm

legal foundation should be for prisons

that operate in an independent way. I'm interested in the prison

league table idea. Essentially, could you tell

us what it is the one measuring, how you are measuring it

and not happen when it doesn't meet We have worked out or are working

out three types of measurement. The first is a set of aspirational

measurements that will let us know that prisons are doing

well in three, four, And they would link to, for example,

the quality as well as the number of qualifications that

the prisoners are securing. They would link to the

success of that prison in basic resettlement goals meaning

prisoners find and staying in accommodation and find and stay

in jobs, desist from criminality Then we think there

should be some dipstick measures so that anyone visiting

a prison or observing how it is operating,

by a week by week or month by month, can

see how it is doing. The broader picture there

is about successful you think prison reform will be when we still have

such a large prison population and when the result

of that is the extreme overcrowding. I wouldn't say we have extreme

overcrowding. It is certainly the case

that the ideal would be one prisoner in each room

and we are very far from that. I wouldn't over fixate on numbers,

because I think there is a danger of being paralysed by the thought,

we can't make any change I think let's make

changes within the Do join me for our

next daily round-up. Until then, from me,

Keith Macdougall, goodbye.