Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think that my hon. Friend speaks for the whole House and, indeed, the whole country on the absolute revulsion at this horrific crime. I know that the whole House will wish to join me in sending our sincere condolences to Christina Edkins’s family.

We take knife crime extremely seriously, which is why, as my hon. Friend has said, we changed the law so that any adult who commits a crime with a knife can expect to be sent to prison, and for a serious offence they should expect a very log sentence. I will happily look at what my hon. Friend suggests. My right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary is currently reviewing the powers available to the courts to deal with knife possession and will bring forward proposals in due course.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

In the light of his U-turn on alcohol pricing, is there anything the Prime Minister could organise in a brewery?

[The Prime Minister]

I would like to organise a party in the brewery in my constituency, to which the right hon. Gentleman would be very welcome, to celebrate that the shadow Chancellor should stay for a very long time on the Front Bench.

[Edward Miliband]

The right hon. Gentleman obviously could not tell us about his policy on minimum unit pricing for alcohol. The reality is that he has been overruled by the Home Secretary on that one.

Let us turn to another thing that the Prime Minister has said that we cannot trust. In his speech last Thursday, he said that the independent Office for Budget Responsibility is

“absolutely clear that the deficit reduction plan is not responsible”

for low growth. That is not what the OBR says. Will he acknowledge that today?

[The Prime Minister]

Just returning to the right hon. Gentleman’s earlier question, the interesting thing—[Interruption.] I will answer his question. The interesting thing about British politics right now is that I have the top team that I want and he has the top team that I want too. Long may they continue.

The point of the Office for Budget Responsibility is that it is independent. Everyone should accept everything that it says, and I do. We should look at what it says about why growth has turned out to be lower than it forecast. It said that

“we concluded from an examination of the…data that the impact of external inflation shocks, deteriorating export markets, and financial sector and eurozone difficulties were more likely explanations.”

To be fair to the shadow Chancellor, his own press release says:

“The OBR says they are yet to be persuaded”

by the case that he makes. Given that his plans are more spending, more borrowing and more debt, the country will never be persuaded.

[Edward Miliband]

The Prime Minister is clearly living in a fantasy land. He wants us to believe that the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility wrote him an open letter the day after his speech because he enjoyed it so much and agreed with it so much. Actually, what he said in the letter was:

“we believe that fiscal consolidation measures have reduced economic growth over the past couple of years”.

Yesterday, we learned that industrial production is at its lowest level for 20 years. That sets alarm bells ringing for everyone else in this country; why does it not for the Prime Minister?

[The Prime Minister]

The first point is that manufacturing declined as a share of our GDP faster under the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member than at any time since the industrial revolution. That is what happened: the decimation of manufacturing industry under 10 years of a Labour Government. He quotes from the Office for Budget Responsibility and I accept everything that it says, but let me quote from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It says that borrowing under Labour would be £200 billion higher. Does he accept that forecast?

[Edward Miliband]

It is good to see, for a second week running, that the right hon. Gentleman is getting into practice for Opposition. He had nothing to say about industrial production, but his own Business Secretary—the guy who is supposed to be in charge of these issues—is going around telling anyone who will listen that the plan is not working. He says that

“we are now in a position where the economy is not growing in the way it had been expected.”

He goes on:

“We don’t want to be Japan with a decade of no growth.”

When the Prime Minister’s own Business Secretary calls for him to change course, is he speaking for the Government?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman what is happening in industrial production. We are now producing more motor cars in this country than at any time in our history. Exports of goods to all the key markets, such as India, China, Russia and Brazil, are increasing very rapidly. None of those things happened under a Labour Government when they trashed our economy, racked up debts and nearly bankrupted the country.

On capital spending, I think that we should spend more money on capital. That is why we are spending £10 billion more than was in the plans of the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member. We should be using the strength of the Government balance sheet to encourage private sector capital. That is why, for the first time in its history, the Treasury is providing those guarantees. The fact is that he wrecked the economy and put in place plans for capital cuts, and we are investing in the country’s infrastructure.

[Edward Miliband]

Never mind more car production, it is “Taxi for Cameron” after that answer.

Things are so bad that the Government sent out Baroness Warsi at the weekend to say that she had “full confidence” in the Prime Minister and that he had support from

“large parts of his party.”

Maybe he even has the support of large parts of his Cabinet, I am not sure. Just a week from the Budget, the Home Secretary goes out making speeches about the economy—I think the part-time Chancellor should concentrate on the Budget—then she gets told off by the Children’s Secretary, who is hiding down there by the Chair, for jockeying for position. Is not the truth that it is not just the country that has lost confidence in the Chancellor and his economic plan but the whole Cabinet?

[The Prime Minister]

The weakness in the right hon. Gentleman’s argument is that my party has unanimous support for his leadership, as long as he keeps the shadow Chancellor there. I have to say—[Interruption.]

[The Prime Minister]

What is remarkable, yet again, is this—where is the argument on welfare? He has got no argument on welfare. Where is the argument on the deficit? He has got nothing to say about the deficit. Where are his plans for getting the economy moving? He has got nothing to say. That is what is happening under his leadership—absolutely nothing apart from debt, debt and more debt.

[Edward Miliband]

The Prime Minister is absolutely hopeless, and today’s exchanges have shown it. A week out from the Budget, they have an economic policy that is failing, a Prime Minister who makes it up as he goes along and a Government who are falling apart, and all the time it is the country that is paying the price.