Chris Leslie
Main Page: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)Department Debates - View all Chris Leslie's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House notes that the Government has failed to meet its own economic goals over the last three years with prices rising faster than wages for 40 out of 41 months, average earnings for working people £1,600 a year lower in real terms than in May 2010, economic growth far slower than expected, the Government’s pledge to balance the books by 2015 set to be broken and the UK’s credit rating downgraded; further notes that growth of 1.5 per cent is needed in every quarter between now and May 2015 in order to catch up the lost ground from three damaging years of flat-lining growth; believes the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement should take action to tackle the cost-of-living crisis which means that for most families there is still no economic recovery and to ensure recovery delivers rising living standards for all, is balanced and built to last; and calls on the Government to bring forward measures including an energy price freeze and long-term reforms to the energy market, an extension of free childcare for working parents of three and four year olds, action to boost long-term housing supply and a compulsory jobs guarantee for young people and the long-term unemployed.
On Thursday next week the Chancellor of the Exchequer will address this House in his autumn statement. My hon. Friends will know that we have come to expect a tin ear from this Chancellor, who in last year’s autumn statement cut tax credits and child benefit in the face of millions of people struggling to make ends meet while sticking firmly by his decision to deliver a millionaires’ tax cut for the richest 1%. This year, the time has surely come for the Chancellor to wake up to the chronic and unremitting cost of living crisis facing millions of households across the country. Never before have so many worked so hard for so little, working week after week only to find that their pay packet has shrunk in real terms and that they are unable to buy as much as the month before, with wages failing to keep up with prices and the pound in their pocket diminishing in value as everyday costs—rent, the weekly shop, child care, and gas and electricity bills—get higher and higher.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that the Government have taken many people out of income tax, such that next April 4,041 people in Suffolk Coastal will no longer pay income tax, alongside the freeze in council tax that they have enjoyed for the past few years?
Chris Leslie
The hon. Lady makes her point. Unfortunately, a lot of Conservatives like to pretend that they are giving with one hand, yet they are taking away so much more with the other—not just the tax rises that they pretend never happened but the unremitting rise in the costs that people face daily.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is right to say that the Government give with one hand and take with another. Does he agree that of the £14 billion of tax adjustments last year, £11 billion was inflicted on women and their cost of living?
Chris Leslie
Absolutely. In last week’s Opposition day debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) correctly highlighted not only the impact of the cost of living crisis on households up and down the country but how it is particularly hitting women.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
On the subject of giving and taking, is the hon. Gentleman aware that in 20-odd years of Labour control of Staffordshire county council, Labour hiked council tax time after time, whereas this year the Conservative-controlled county council has cut the tax? Does that not show that Tories give money back and Labour takes it away?
Chris Leslie
The trouble for the hon. Gentleman is that an awful lot of Conservative councils have metaphorically stuck two fingers up to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and, indeed, the Chancellor by deciding to increase council tax because the Government’s approach to local government finance has squeezed services. Even Conservative councils and authorities are finding themselves in a position where they are raising council tax.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has stated that the fiscal consolidation has been regressive. Does my hon. Friend think that that should be taken into account?
Chris Leslie
My hon. Friend is correct. The fiscal consolidation is not only regressive but entirely the opposite of what the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) shouted from a sedentary position, because it has not worked. I will be talking about him in a moment as I have given him a special place in my speech; several hon. Members will know why. The notion that fiscal consolidation has been successful is disproved by the fact that we now have an inordinate level of borrowing thanks to the lack of economic growth.
Kwasi Kwarteng
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman and touched that he specially mentions me in his opening remarks. If the fiscal consolidation has not worked, why is the UK currently growing faster than any other country in the G7 and in the OECD?
Chris Leslie
The hon. Gentleman should be shamefaced even to mention economic growth when for the vast majority of his esteemed time as a Member of Parliament growth has flatlined and he has failed to deliver. He needs to recognise that unless we get some serious and sustained economic growth, we will never deal with the deficit issues we have in this country.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Is my hon. Friend as surprised as I am by the amnesia among Government Members, bearing in mind that we were coming out of recession in 2010 but have since been flatlining and that they have failed to explain why prices have risen faster than wages for 40 out of 41 months?
Chris Leslie
This is the problem that Government Members, who seem to think it is funny that we have not had any growth for such a long time, do not understand. They think, “Oh, the cost of living—that’s nothing to do with the economy, it’s a completely separate issue.” Not only my hon. Friends but my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition have relentlessly called on Ministers to act now to alleviate the pressures that are facing many families’ household budgets. They do not just need to make the case for a living wage and a 10p starting tax rate; they need to act now to stand up to the large corporations who know that customers have little choice but to cough up and pay higher prices for life’s essentials.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is being extremely kind and generous with his time. Returning to Staffordshire, is he aware that a Money Advice Service report shows that in Stoke-on-Trent the number of people in debt has now reached the 35% mark? More than a third of people in Stoke-on-Trent are now suffering in debt because of this Government’s policies.
Chris Leslie
The report published by the Money Advice Service, which the Government trumpeted as an organisation that was set up some while ago, is very startling. Certainly, the number of people in my hon. Friend’s constituency who are suffering from indebtedness is exceptionally high. In my constituency, over 40% of people are struggling to make ends meet when faced with these crippling burdens and debts.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Whenever the Government introduce fundamental measures to help with the cost of living, such as freezing council tax, freezing fuel duty and cutting it in 2011, and cutting taxes for lower earners, why do you vote against them?
Chris Leslie
I do not know whether you voted against those measures, Mr Deputy Speaker, but we appreciate any efforts to help alleviate the cost of living. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that when people fill up their tank at the petrol station, they think, “How grateful we are to the Conservatives for the cost of petrol today”? When it comes to the cost of living—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has been very generous so far, but he cannot give way to six people at once. Let us get our act together and try to get through the debate. There are 21 Members who want to speak, and I am sure that other Members will want to hear them.
Chris Leslie
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am still on the first page of my speech. I remind Government Members that the profits of the energy companies, which in many ways are the drivers hurting many of our constituents, have risen astronomically in recent years. Since the general election, energy company profits are up from £2 billion to £3.7 billion. Members will have read in The Independent yesterday that profits were £30 per household at the time of the general election, that they rose to £53 per household in 2012 and that they are now expected to be £105 per household this year, and yet the Government continually cower in trepidation of the big six gas and electricity corporations. They are not just recoiling from any willingness to challenge their behaviour, but in their cowardice the Government defend the status quo as though nothing can be done.
Labour says that energy bills can and should be frozen while Parliament legislates to reset the energy market to one that provides true competition, reduces scope for excessive profiteering and offers reductions for customers when wholesale prices fall.
Chris Leslie
I will give way to Government Members if they can answer this point: what was the Government’s reaction to our call to take action on energy prices? They dithered and argued among themselves, frozen like rabbits in headlights, flailed around and attacked us for daring to stand up to excessive profiteering and then, finally, No. 10 Downing street said, “Wear a jumper.”
Chris Leslie
I will give way to one of the woollier Members on the Government Benches.
Mr Newmark
Fuel prices would be 13p a litre higher if Labour were in power. Consumers have saved £170 on average, which is a saving on the cost of living. That is one area in which the Government have done a lot to help motorists.
Chris Leslie
When the public faced difficulties, the previous Government took action to freeze prices and duty for petrol and diesel. The hon. Gentleman mentions a fictional 13p and seems to think that when people fill up their petrol tanks they say, “Thanks goodness these prices are so low; I must thank the hon. Gentleman.” He is living in cloud cuckoo land. The Government are not just out of touch; they are out of ideas and they are running out of time.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Everybody else has sat down, but somehow the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) feels he can hang around for another five minutes. I assure him that he cannot. The Minister will give way when he wishes to, not when the hon. Gentleman demands. [Interruption.] I do not need help from others, either.
Chris Leslie
I think that shows that we have touched a nerve. We know that the best we can expect from the autumn statement—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Did somebody shout out something about cowardice? No; okay, carry on.
Chris Leslie
I did not catch what was said, but we will see what Hansard records.
We know what will be in the autumn statement next week. The best we can expect is that the Chancellor will probably transfer about £100 or so off people’s energy bill and on to their tax bill instead. That is a ruse.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I assure the hon. Gentleman that that is not a point of order. He has made that point on many occasions and I did not need reminding.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is being incredibly generous in taking interventions. May I encourage him to continue taking them, because every time he does so he utterly destroys the weak arguments made by Government Members? Does my hon. Friend recognise, like the 5,000 people who signed the “freeze that bill” petition in Chesterfield, that the Conservative party has nothing to say on energy prices because it is utterly beholden to the very energy companies that are impoverishing my constituents?
Chris Leslie
My hon. Friend is correct. The Government are afraid of the energy companies. We are not yet sure why they are so afraid to stand up to the big six, but it is clear that the Chancellor’s solution of simply shifting £100 or so off an energy bill and on to the taxes of all our constituents will not convince people that they have the answers. The switch is so obvious it can be seen in the dark. It is a palliative that merely shunts the costs from a bill payer to a taxpayer. It fails to tackle the root cause of the problem, which, as my hon. Friend has said, is the excessive profiteering of the utility companies. Government Members are going to have to try a lot better than that next week.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He makes an extremely important point on the need to freeze bills, which is largely what has happened over recent years to council taxes in England. In Wales, however, where the Labour party runs the Welsh Government, there have been council tax increases of nearly 9% over recent years. That is a bill that can genuinely be frozen by politicians. Will the hon. Gentleman stand up to the Labour party in Wales to ensure that my constituents are not forced to pay 9% increases in council taxes?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. We can all make a judgment about that, but it might be helpful to remind Members that there are many speakers to come, so if we are going to have interventions they have to be short and not speeches. I will be honest with Members: anyone on my list of speakers who makes a long intervention will go down the list accordingly.
Chris Leslie
The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) is short in his contributions on most occasions. I note that he wanted to change the subject from energy prices. The problem is that, time after time, the Conservative party has no answers for the public, who want politicians—their elected representatives—to take action on the cost of living, particularly on energy prices. As long as the hon. Gentleman and all his colleagues let the rip-off merchants and unfair profiteers continue with business as usual, the public will take exception to the deceitful claim that we are all in it together.
Chris Leslie
I want to make some progress.
For most people life is getting harder and for most people there is still no economic recovery, but that is not what they were promised. Before the election, the Prime Minister said:
“Our plans don’t involve an increase in VAT”
and
“I wouldn’t change child benefit”.
He also said that tax credits would be cut only “for families on £50,000” and that his party would
“not scrap the Education Maintenance Allowances”.
Those are the promises the Conservatives made before the general election. They famously airbrushed a poster of the Prime Minister and in their efforts to cover up their website pledges they are trying to airbrush the past.
Mr Ellwood
I urge the hon. Gentleman to be cautious about questioning whether this subject is being taken seriously by Government Members, because the record should note that there are more Government Members than Opposition Members present to debate this important issue. On energy, will he now concede that Labour failed to ensure that the lights will be kept on in this country by failing to invest in nuclear energy? More than six nuclear power stations have closed down. That is why energy prices have gone up—because we are not making our own energy.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I asked for short interventions. Please shorten them, Mr Ellwood, or we will not take any more from you. I am sure you will want to get another one in later.
Chris Leslie
There are only another 18 months during which there will be more Conservative Members than Labour ones in this Chamber. I hope that the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) is watching the clock, because they are running out of time.
The Prime Minister has broken not only that list of promises, but more records than most Prime Ministers over the decades, and not in a good way. How has he been a record breaker? Since entering No. 10 Downing street, he has delivered a record-breaking cost of living crisis, with wages failing to keep pace with prices for an unprecedented 40 out of his 41 months in office. That is the longest period of diminishing real wage values since records began.
A record-breaking number of people now rely on food banks just to get by—it has tripled in the past year alone—with more than 350,000 families requiring food parcels in the past six months.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
On the cost of living crisis that is driving people to food banks, does my hon. Friend share my shock at the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) saying that people use food banks because they are drug addicts and cannot manage their money, rather than because of the cost of living crisis?
Chris Leslie
I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan if he wants to explain.
Alun Cairns
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has inadvertently misled the House in that the quotes attributed to me are wholly inaccurate. I ask him to withdraw what he said.
Chris Leslie
I will happily give way to my hon. Friend in a moment, so that he can relay the quote that he has to the House. Perhaps a journalist wrote it down incorrectly, but I am sure that there is an explanation.
The point about food banks is that the crisis is so bad that the Red Cross has launched an emergency food appeal right here in the United Kingdom, something that has not happened since the second world war.
The Prime Minister’s broken records include real-term wage levels plunging to a new low and average weekly earnings at their lowest level since the Office for National Statistics started to record the figures in 2001. Not only has he hit record lows on incomes, but he has delivered record fuel bills and average household energy costs—
Stephen Doughty
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to raise another point of order, but the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan suggested that I may have misled the House—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Let me reassure both hon. Gentlemen that I am not going to decide who is right. You have each claimed that you are right and that the other is wrong. It is on the record, and people can make up their minds tomorrow. I want to continue with this debate.
Chris Leslie
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth may have time later to elaborate on the quote. It may be incorrect, and we will see whether journalists want to look into that.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to list this Government’s catalogue of broken promises on the cost of living crisis, but the crisis is far worse than the spiralling energy bills and the rising cost of living. He was moving on to make the serious point that, at the same time as prices are increasing, people’s wages have plummeted since 2010 by about £1,600. Is that not the real cause of this cost of living crisis?
Chris Leslie
Absolutely. This is an unprecedented period—we can characterise it as record breaking—during which wages have not been able to keep pace with the costs our constituents are facing.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Chris Leslie
In a moment.
Let me give another example, private sector rents are at a record high. Average rent rises across England and Wales have just hit the highest level ever recorded, at £757 a month.
Chris Leslie
Will my hon. Friend allow me to make a little more progress on housing? The Prime Minister is also a record breaker because he is presiding over the lowest net supply of housing since records began. The Government’s own figures show that the number of dwellings added to our housing stock fell by 8% last year, which is the lowest level since such statistics were first collected. That is quite some achievement. It does not bode well for the affordability needed by many first-time buyers in this country. By the way, a record number of people are seeking help from the housing charity Shelter, which has reported an all-time high of almost 175,000 calls in the past year, up 10% on the previous year.
Government Members even like to portray the jobs market as wholly positive, but a record number of people are working part time because they cannot find full-time jobs. Nearly 1.5 million people say that they need to find full-time work, but cannot, which is the highest figure since records began.
Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
I have done some work on this subject. Is not a consequence of the number of part-time jobs advertised not just in my constituency but across the country that wages have dropped to today’s level?
Chris Leslie
That is precisely what baffles Government Members so much: they cannot understand the ingratitude of the British people, who somehow seem not to recognise the work that the Government are supposedly doing. The reality is that these are the pressure points—the points of stress and anxiety—faced by so many people up and down this country.
James Morris
It has taken the hon. Gentleman 20-odd minutes to talk about one of the keys to solving the cost of living crisis, which is the creation of new jobs. I presume he welcomes the 11% fall in unemployment in his constituency during the past year, with a 15% fall in youth unemployment. Is that not absolutely key to our recovery and to solving the cost of living crisis that he has taken so long to talk about?
Chris Leslie
The hon. Gentleman, whose name is sometimes mixed up with that of others, should do better than to pick on my constituency of Nottingham East, where unemployment has been a persistent and long-running problem. Of course there have been fluctuations in the past few months, but I must tell him that the number of young people out of work for more than a year on jobseeker’s allowance has rocketed astronomically in this country: it is up 127% since the last general election. The number of long-term unemployed, who have been out of work for two years or more—we must turn our attention to that persistent problem—has gone up 374% since the last general election.
Chris Leslie
I just want the House to hear a few more record-breaking facts about the Prime Minister. Do my hon. Friends remember, from a Budget some time ago, the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s poetic declaration that he would create
“a Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers”?—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 966.]
We now have a record-breaking trade deficit with the European Union of £6 billion, which is a sign that the rebalancing of our economy has tilted in the wrong direction. The “Guinness Book of Records” is already familiar with the Prime Minister’s achievement in delivering the slowest ever, snail’s pace recovery out of an economic downturn since records began, taking Britain longer to claw our way back than after the great depression. That record-breaking performance is thanks to the drag anchor policies that have held back growth for the past three years.
The record-breaking let-down on growth has of course led to the Prime Minister’s biggest failure of all—more borrowing than any peacetime Government in history. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have added £430 billion to our national debt in the three years since May 2010, which is more than the last Labour Government did in 13 years and more than any previous Government have done in peacetime. They are record-breaking borrowers, because no Government have ever neglected economic growth quite like this one.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Is it not a fact that the economy will have to grow by 1.5% every quarter to make up for the lack of growth since 2010?
Chris Leslie
Government Members see what they regard as green shoots for our economy. They hope that the public will just forget what has happened for the past three and a half years, but the public have long memories and will remember the harm and anxiety that the cost of living crisis is now causing them. Perhaps those record-breaking extremes from this Prime Minister and Government reflect the new extremism in the Conservative party and the drift away from the centre ground of British politics.
Chris Leslie
I will come to the Liberal Democrats in a moment. I am talking about the Conservative party.
The Conservatives and the Prime Minister like to pretend that they understand the concerns of hard-working people. When they finally realise the strength of public opinion, they will grudgingly come up with a half-baked effort on energy bills, just as they finally caved in with a long overdue cap on payday loans. The trouble is that they just don’t get it, because their hearts aren’t in it. As with the action on payday loans and banking reform in this week alone, why does the Chancellor always have to be pushed into doing the right thing?
The forces of moderation in the Conservative party—I am looking around desperately to see them; perhaps there are a couple of them here—complain that they are seen as the party of the rich and that voters do not trust their motives. Twenty-five of the dwindling number of those anxious Conservative Members of Parliament had a meeting with the Prime Minister to express their concerns, although that was before some of them announced that they were standing down from Parliament.
The moderates—there is one opposite me—are right to worry, because the Prime Minister’s pretence that he represents the middle of British politics has finally stretched beyond belief, as time and again his true instincts shine through. In the lord mayor’s banquet speech a fortnight ago, the mask slipped as the Prime Minister proclaimed the need for permanent austerity and the shrinking of public investment in perpetuity. The true ideological intentions of the Conservatives are there for all to see. Perhaps that is why the party’s Free Enterprise Group published its plans—
Chris Leslie
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman because he is in the Conservative Free Market Group. He wrote the pamphlet. Will he tell us what it was about his pamphlet that hit the headlines?
Kwasi Kwarteng
I have no idea what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. I am very pleased and somewhat flattered that he should be referring to the Free Enterprise Group on the Floor of the House. What was the size of the deficit when his party left government in 2010? What was the absolute size of the deficit and what was the proportion of the deficit—
Chris Leslie
The national debt was about £800 million. The national debt—[Hon. Members: “The deficit.”] I know what the hon. Gentleman said. I could hear what he said. I am giving him the figures. The national debt—[Interruption.] It seems that Government Members do not want to talk about the national debt. The national debt was about £800 million. It is now £1.2 trillion. As Brucie might say, “Higher, higher!”
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I will let that go. It is up to the shadow Minister how he wishes to answer the question. It is not for you, Mr Newmark, to waste the House’s time on an irrelevant—[Interruption.] Order. On an irrelevant point of order. If you do not mind, we will have no more.
Chris Leslie
I have not even said a word in response to the point of order. I will do so if the hon. Gentleman will allow me. It just goes to show that the Conservatives will do everything they can to distract attention from the cost of living crisis that is facing this country. As Corporal Jones might have put it, “They don’t like it up ’em!”
The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng)—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. You also want to speak, Mr Davies. You are constantly on your feet. I want to hear Mr Leslie. I also want to hear what the Government have to say. I will not hear either of them with the amount of time we have taken so far.
Chris Leslie
That is a good point, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I will be brief in talking about the hon. Member for Spelthorne and the Free Enterprise Group. The Free Enterprise Group published plans to slap a 15% increase on essentials such as food and children’s clothes through VAT and to triple the tax on heating bills. A number of hon. Members who are in the Chamber today are members of the Free Enterprise Group. They might be shuffling away from the hon. Member for Spelthorne now.
Chris Leslie
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman wants to account for that plan. Does he agree with charging VAT at 15% on food and children’s clothes and increasing the tax on heating bills—yes or no?
Charlie Elphicke
What was the size of the deficit at the time of the general election in 2010? Was it £150 billion-plus—yes or no?
Chris Leslie
There is no answer to my question from the hon. Gentleman. I have given him the figures for the national debt.
The extremism and rightwards shift in the Conservative party are visible for all to see. As we can tell from the tactics that they are using, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and all the Conservative Back Benchers are scraping the barnacles off the 1992 election strategy. They have a barely disguised plan to fight the next election in the gutter. Their tactics are visible for all to see.
The Prime Minister once spoke fondly of environmentalism while hugging the huskies. Perhaps I should ask this on a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, but is it using unparliamentary language to quote No. 10 when it allegedly said that it wanted to cut out all of the “green crap”? I know that that is appalling language, but it is a quotation from No. 10 Downing street. The Government are certainly cutting some things out: 578 Sure Start children’s centres have been cut, 76 NHS walk-in centres have been cut, 48 accident and emergency departments have been shut, 200 ambulance stations have been axed and 6,000 nurses have gone from the NHS, but 707 food banks have opened. Perhaps Government Members regard that as a success.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend realise that the reason why some of us worry about the proposals of the Free Enterprise Group is that they are all of a piece with what the Tories have done already, including a drop of £35 a week in real wages in my constituency, the imposition of the bedroom tax on the poorest people and, contrary to what they say, increases in council tax for the poorest people? The reason Tory Back Benchers worry about being seen as the party of the rich is that they are the party of the rich.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I am concerned because the debate has been going for 36 minutes already. The time limit on Back-Bench speeches is due to be five minutes. I do not want it to go below that. At this rate, a lot of Members will drop off the list.
Chris Leslie
I want to draw my remarks to a close, so I will not take any more interventions.
In a moment, my hon. Friends will be subjected to the Minister claiming that the Government alone are responsible for the long overdue return of economic growth. What he cannot grasp is that growth is appearing despite his policies, not because of them. As the Nobel prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, said of the Government’s attitude just the other day,
“It’s like hitting yourself over the head with a baseball bat for years. Then, you stop hitting yourself with the baseball bat and say, ‘See? I feel much better now—hitting myself with a baseball bat was clearly the right thing to do’.”
That sums up their view perfectly. They do not understand that only the return of strong economic growth will tackle the deficit in any meaningful way. Three years on, they still have not cottoned on.
The reason we have a cost of living crisis is that the historic connection between economic growth and household wealth has been severed. Even though it looks like we are finally seeing some growth in some parts of the economy, that growth is not being shared fairly. Indeed, GDP per capita remains flat. I pay tribute to the companies and households that have managed to keep it together despite the Chancellor’s inaction. What we need now is help for those who are trying to do their best—the people who never complain, who never say that they should be at the front of the queue, who go to work and who manage as best they can. Those people need real help with their energy bills and child care costs. They need us to tackle low pay and to freeze business rates for small firms.
The challenge for the autumn statement is to take action now on the cost of living, not to use sleight of hand to pile more burdens on the taxpayer. We need long-term reforms that ensure that there is a balanced recovery that is built to last, not short-term, knee-jerk flip-flopping. We need fairness for the many, not tax cuts for the few. The Government are out of touch with the mood of the public—the wealthy elite are looking after the wealthy elite and are all in it together. They are timid in the face of excessive profiteering from big energy companies, while the rest get broken promises on the economy and the deficit from a Government who are lurching to the right and reverting to type. The British people cannot afford this Government any longer. Britain deserves better.
Chris Leslie
The Minister, who worked for Deutsche Bank before the general election, might wish to explain and answer a specific question on borrowing, the deficit and national debt. Can he tell the House how much the Chancellor has borrowed and added to the national debt since the last general election? What is that amount of money in cash terms?
Sajid Javid
We know that if we had continued the plans recommended by the Labour party, the country would be borrowing a lot more. According to the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies, Labour plans to borrow at least £200 billion more, which would push up borrowing costs for many hard-working families up and down the country.
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend raises a good point, but he will know that I am not in the best position to answer his question in detail. Perhaps the shadow Chief Secretary will rise to his feet to do so. I understand that he is a Labour and Co-operative Member and receives money from the Co-op. I am happy to give way if he would like to answer the question.
Chris Leslie
I am proud to be a Co-operative Member and a supporter of mutuality—I thought Conservative Members supported that, too. Will the Minister tell us the number of occasions on which his Treasury had meetings to discuss the Co-op Verde deal and the takeover of those Lloyds branches? How many times did Treasury Ministers have those meetings after the general election? Can he give us that fact now?
Sajid Javid
I am sure that question will be looked at further during the Co-op inquiry. The number and nature of meetings between the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Chancellor and Co-op representatives will also be looked at—[Interruption.]
Richard Fuller
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the chasm between reality and certain things promised by Labour. There is also an absence of a basic understanding of economics. It is nice to see the shadow Chief Secretary in his place again. It was not clear from his opening speech whether he understood the difference between deficit and debt, which is quite an important thing to know for someone who wishes one day to hold an important Treasury position.
Richard Fuller
I am very happy to give way. I recognise that the shadow Chief Secretary has been for his economic tutorial, so perhaps he can enlighten us.
Chris Leslie
That is very funny and droll, but does the hon. Gentleman know that borrowing accumulates and forms at the stock of national debt? Has he figured that much out? If he has, will he tell us whether it is true that, during his time in Parliament, his party has presided over the accumulation of £430 billion of borrowing? Is that not right?
Richard Fuller
Boy, has the hon. Gentleman picked the wrong person with whom to have an argument about debt and the Labour party’s record on debt. Let me enlighten the hon. Gentleman on that record. He will never be Chancellor of the Exchequer, but were he ever to achieve that position—
Richard Fuller
I am answering the question. I know it is hard for the hon. Gentleman to follow the argument, but I will put it in bite-sized pieces so that he can keep up. It is important for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to look at not just the indebtedness of the Government, but at the way in which the entire economy is accumulating debt, which is one of the things that the previous Labour Government signally failed to understand.
If we look at the United Kingdom’s debt in the mid-1990s and take into consideration Government debt, household debt and corporate debt, we will see that that total indebtedness was, like that of many other OECD countries, two times the size of our national economy. Over the intervening 15 years—which in this country were spent mostly under a Labour Government—other OECD countries saw their total debt go from about two times to about three times the size of their economy, and that includes all of the impact of the financial crisis. One country in the G8—and only one—increased its total debt from two times to five times the size of its economy, and that was the United Kingdom under the previous Labour Government. It is the consequence of that pervasive debt in the economy that is the real cost of living crisis in this country.
Every family knows that when they have significant debts that they cannot avoid and that they have to pay, their monthly income will be less because they will have to pay back the debt of the past. They are paying the consequences of the Labour party’s failure when in office.