Opportunities for the Next Generation

Alok Sharma Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denham]

We know that the Government aim to cut sufficiently fast to eliminate the deficit in four years. Our judgment was that the right balance between dealing with the deficit and sustaining jobs and growth would be to halve the deficit over a similar period. That allows us to say not that there would never be any cuts in public expenditure, but that there would be a very different trajectory to public spending. For reasons that I will give, that difference of choice would have made a big difference to the young people of this country.

I have acknowledged that some of the problems are deep-seated and long-term, but today’s Opposition day debates focus critical attention on the Government’s actions. The charge is clear: the Government’s economic policy has directly made the lives and prospects of young people worse. They have not hit young people along with everyone else; they have chosen—I think “chosen” is the right word—to single out young people and to make their lives and prospects worse.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Yesterday the shadow Chancellor came to the House and, for the first time in 15 months, apologised for Labour’s mistakes. Are we going to have an apology from the right hon. Gentleman today for the fact that social mobility has fallen and attainment in schools has declined by international standards? By just about every measure, young people suffered under the Labour Government.

[Mr Denham]

We will have the opportunity in a few moments to see whether that last claim is accurate, although I think that the hon. Gentleman might be disappointed. On the question of apologies, though, we did not hear yesterday an apology from the Conservative party for urging the Labour Government to deregulate further and faster in the financial services sector. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) was one of those producing Conservative party policy documents in that vein. I think that we should hear a little honesty from the governing party.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Denham]

I have already made a passing remark about the Secretary of State’s role, but let me just say that I have tried to set out briefly the sort of lead we should be getting from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Active, intelligent government working with business is what we need to transform the shape of our economy, but all we are getting is the same dogmatic argument: “Government should do less. It should do less in the regions, less in investment, less in research, less in working with business.” Our young people will pay a heavy price for that.

[Alok Sharma]

The right hon. Gentleman is leaving the House with the impression that the Labour Government left this country with a golden legacy in dealing with businesses. Let me remind him that his party was talking about putting up corporation tax and was imposing such a level of regulation on businesses that they just could not cope, and that we were left with the most complex tax system in the world. Is that what he calls “government working with business”?

[Mr Denham]

We must remember the situation at the end of the previous Labour Government. It is no part of my case that we were a flawless Government with no imperfections. Indeed, I am one of those who has acknowledged already in this debate the need for change, and the Labour party will undertake that. Let me just tell the hon. Gentleman three things. First, there were 1.1 million more small businesses thriving in this country at the end of the Labour Government than there were at the beginning. Secondly, the OECD reckoned that this country was third in the world for ease of setting up a new business. Thirdly, almost alone of the western European countries, we enjoyed net foreign direct investment, because businesses around the world had the confidence to invest in Britain. Not everything was perfect, but that was not a bad record to show that we worked well with business.

What we need today is a plan B for the economy and a plan B for young people to begin to restore the promise of Britain. The Government must see that cutting too far and too fast means sacrificing the growth and jobs that make it easier to reduce the deficit. We need a temporary reduction in VAT until growth is re-established to put money in families’ pockets and to boost shopping centres and jobs.

Yesterday, we saw long-term plans to restructure the banks, whose irresponsibility around the world caused so much harm, but nothing to tackle the immediate problems facing Britain. The Government should repeat the banking levy, raising £2 billion, and with the money they could reduce the damage done by ending the future jobs fund by establishing a £600 million youth jobs fund. The Government could get young people back to work by building 25,000 affordable houses. We could boost opportunities by investing in high-growth small businesses. When every taxpayer’s pound needs to work as hard as it can, the Government should grasp the nettle and require public sector contractors to provide apprenticeships for young people.

For too long, this Conservative-led Government have blamed everything bad that has happened in this country on the unavoidable effects of deficit reduction. They are not just wrong about the pace of deficit reduction, however. Deficit reduction cannot be used as a systematic excuse for, in plain and simple terms, bad policy and missed opportunities. It will take more than this Government to restore the promise of Britain, but in the meantime they could at least stop making things worse.