Amendment of the Law

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Presiding Officer. [Interruption.] I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; I knew I would do that one day. I have just left the Scottish Parliament, so I should have been slightly more careful in ensuring that I got the terminology right.

People I have met on the doorstep in my constituency are pretty clear about why they did not vote for either of the parties that make up this Government—it was because they remember what happened the last time there was a Tory Government. In Kilmarnock, people recall the loss of the factories that made the town well known worldwide: BMK carpets; Glenfield and Kennedy; and others. In the Irvine valley, the textile industry was all but destroyed as cheap imports produced in sweatshop conditions flooded the market. And in the former coalfield communities of Auchinleck and Muirkirk people remember how Tory policies deliberately and systematically killed off the mining industry, leaving a generation of people on the dole for the long term.

My constituents resent getting lectures on a big society from people who have never had to worry about whether their weekly income is going to stretch to the extras that others take for granted, be it the school trip for the kids, the birthday present, or the day out to try to give the family some respite from the daily grind. They are angry that their public services are being slashed and that the voluntary sector is being left to pick up the pieces without proper funding. Over the years those former industrial communities have tried hard to stand on their own two feet. They looked to the Government for a hand up, not a handout, and we got people back to work during Labour’s years in government.

Although people in my constituency did not vote for this Government, some of them perhaps had at the back of their mind the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, these Tories would be different, and would deliver a Budget that would bring some hope for hard-pressed families already worried about their jobs and keeping the roof over their heads. What did they get in reality? The facts are simple: unemployment forecasts have risen; inflation forecasts have risen; the growth forecasts have fallen; an increase in the personal allowance threshold was cancelled out by an increase in the cost of living; the cut in fuel duty was swallowed up by the increase in VAT; and the rise for pensioners was wiped out by the small-print cut in the winter fuel allowance.

The people on the Government Benches can have their private conversations, they can laugh and they can sit and smile—they can do what they like—but behind the figures we have heard about today are real people whose real lives are being affected now. The number of unemployed claimants in my constituency in February was more than 3,500, which represents a rate of 8.1%. Those people, who are desperately trying to get a job, feel that the Tories are reverting to type; they do not feel that the revised projections of unemployment rising are a price worth paying, but it is clear that the Tories do.

In Scotland Labour has pledged that there will be a Scottish future jobs fund that will create real jobs and provide training for about 10,000 young people, and for others who have been unemployed for six months or more. It will be supported by up-front and flexible funding for businesses to create those jobs. By contrast, the Tory Government here have announced only an extra 40,000 two-month work experience placements a year, and only 12,500 more apprenticeships a year.

I heard the Chancellor say in his Budget speech that the Government would consult the Scottish Government on how a new set of enterprise zones might operate north of the border. I welcome that. But before he does that, I want him to think about some of the criticisms of the previous incarnation of enterprise zones and ensure that his proposals do not fall into the same traps. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland has pointed out that although 63,000 jobs were created in the enterprise zones between 1981 and 1986, only 13,000 of those were new, the rest had simply been displaced. That will not do in the future. It will be important for those initiatives to be backed by significant infrastructure investment, and there must also be engagement with local authorities to build on economic regeneration work already under way. I am pleased that my constituency has just received the news that we are to get £2 million in European regional development fund money, but we need more help from the Government to back that.

In conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker—I got it right that time—when I was elected I pledged that I would work with anyone who had the best interests of my constituents at heart, even if that meant putting aside political differences. That is exactly what I have done in my support for the “Make it Kilmarnock” initiative, because East Ayrshire council, which set it up, is of a different political persuasion from me. But sadly, what will define this Budget in history will be the economic mindset of a political class that is walking in Margaret Thatcher’s footsteps but has failed to learn the lessons of taking the wrong path on the economy.