Economic Growth

Graeme Morrice Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

l have to say that, having listened to the Queen’s Speech last week and the Chancellor today, I am still more convinced that, sadly, the Government’s remarkably thin legislative programme is a further reminder that this is a Government out of ideas, out of touch and just watching the clock tick until the next election.

How many signs have the electorate got to send before the Government recognise what is very much evident: that they have got it horribly wrong and need to think again before it is too late? The Government’s measures do not go anywhere near far enough in tackling the desperate and growing crisis facing the country. Populist slogans and easy mantras might satisfy narrow partisan audiences, but they do not fulfil the responsibility of government.

Nowhere is the Government’s insubstantial approach more evident than on their stance on economic growth. That is a matter of great regret. This is the Government’s third Queen’s Speech since the general election and all we have had is three years of failure: low growth, falling living standards and rising borrowing. Despite even manifestly failing their own tests for economic success, the Prime Minister and his Government are ploughing on regardless with a failed economic plan.

While the Government scrabble around for a coherent agenda, I warmly endorse the overall stance of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), who has set out what would be in our Queen’s Speech: six Bills with a relentless focus on the economy, clearly demonstrating that growth and jobs are our No. 1 priority. It is sad to see the cavernous gap between the perfectly sensible and laudable proposals outlined in the Opposition’s alternative plans, and the half-hearted and half-baked measures from the Government.

In reality, the coalition has reached the limits of what the parties can achieve together, so all we get is this minimalist approach with only 15 Bills proposed. What was left out was almost as revealing as what was left in. With just two years to go, the Government have no answers and nothing to say on tackling the crisis in youth unemployment; nothing to back small businesses struggling to get credit; nothing on living standards at a time when families’ energy and other household bills are rising out of reach; nothing on housing at a time when new home completions are at their lowest level since the 1920s; nothing to stop the undercutting of wages by tackling the exploitation of immigrant labour; and nothing on growth.

I would have liked from the Government a substantial infrastructure programme for social housing. Getting house building moving again, along with home improvements, is one of the biggest catalysts to growth. We also needed something for young people and jobs. We cannot force people into a framework that says, “Work is better for you than welfare,” if there is no work to go into. A jobs Bill would get the 17,000 Scots, for instance, who have been unemployed for more than two years back to work. I want to see cheaper energy too. People are paying too much for their gas and electricity, and living standards are being squeezed. An energy Bill could have tackled rip-off energy companies and ensured that Scotland’s 400,000 over-75s were put on the lowest tariffs.

This is an uninspired, non-responsive Government who are too dogmatic to admit that they are on the wrong track. They are burying their heads in the sand while our economy struggles and the public suffer. This absentee Prime Minister has no ambition and little drive to change the country for the better. I said at the outset that I thought the Government’s approach might appease some, but now I am not even sure about that. The British people deserve better. They want leadership and decisive action, but all we seem to have is a Prime Minster who used to “agree with Nick”, but who is now “agreeing with Nige”, and, as we have witnessed, a Tory party reverting to type with its obsession with retreating from Europe at the expense of everything else.

I appeal to Government Members to wake up and smell the coffee; to consider the evidence and listen to our constituents, including hard-pressed working families struggling to make ends meet and the most vulnerable in society; and to devote this time to getting people back to work, getting our economy growing again and bringing the change our country needs. If they will not do that, we will.