Delivery of Public Services

Debate between Darren Jones and Paul Holmes

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

I rise to speak against the motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. I feel a sense of déjà vu, because I spoke in an Opposition debate last week on a similar motion. Once again, Opposition Members criticise and talk Britain down, but offer nothing constructive to deal with the problems that the country faces, having been impacted by the unprecedented pandemic and a global economic situation. They are also transparent in not attacking their own politicians who have power in this country, who face and acknowledge the same problem that we are talking about.

I maintain that it is only because of our actions since 2010 when the Conservatives took power that we could spend the money that we needed to insulate ourselves and our public services from the pandemic. We had to do that because Labour bankrupted the country in 2010, and our responsible approach from 2010 to 2018 allowed us to protect the services that we needed to protect and spend the money on them and vulnerable people throughout the pandemic.

The hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) talked about this country’s indebtedness. I agree that this country is in a large amount of debt, but I remind him that in his constituency, people were kept in employment and businesses were kept in business because of the furlough scheme that the Government created. Does he think that should not have gone ahead?

[Darren Jones]

As I said in my speech, the national debt level had reached 80% of national wealth before the pandemic. How did that happen?

[Paul Holmes]

It happened partly because we were investing in services. The hon. Gentleman said in his speech that the Government were woefully in debt. I take it, then, that he did not back the action that we had to take during the unprecedented pandemic and global situation to protect his constituents and the businesses in his constituency. The people out there will take what they need to from his speech.

The action that I have outlined led us to have 7.5% of economic growth in 2021, which was the largest increase in economic growth anywhere in the G7. That has now stalled, but that is because of the global situation in which we find ourselves. Let us remember that if the Opposition had been in charge, we would have come out of the pandemic more slowly, because they wanted to keep us in lockdown. We would have had a slower vaccine rollout—this Government spent the money necessary to get the vaccines onboard—and lower economic growth. Opposition Members now have the cheek to absent themselves from acknowledging the pandemic and the global situation. Once again, they present a vision full of hindsight that is lacking in any reality whatsoever.