Business and the Economy

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is always a privilege to speak in a debate when you are fiftieth out of 50 Members, having rewritten your speech four times, for three minutes, five minutes, eight minutes and then 10 minutes, which is absolutely fabulous, and having listened to the discussions and heard everything you wanted to say and every punchline in your speech used by other people. I think that is called parliamentary democracy.

The country was desperate for a Queen’s Speech last week that included a boost for jobs and a boost for growth. It was interesting to see the Government come forward with a plan B at the weekend, subsection (1) of which tells businesses and hard-working people to stop whingeing and get on with it, and subsection (2) explains to them that if they do not do so the Government will change workers’ protections at work and sack them. That is the change of direction we got from the Government.

The coalition Government’s proposals outlined in the Queen’s Speech do nothing to help my constituents, particularly those looking for work, the ordinary families who are already suffering and having their living standards squeezed, and the huge number of mainly small and medium-sized enterprises and businesses that are struggling even to survive, never mind expand.

In my constituency, which was already experiencing extremely high levels of joblessness and deprivation, we have recently experienced another hammer blow, with the forthcoming closure of Rio Tinto Alcan, the largest private sector employer in Northumberland. That has been followed by announcements involving a number of small and medium-sized enterprises, including Remploy.

Remploy factories were set up after the second world war to look after disabled people and to ensure that they could work in a particular environment and do meaningful work, but now we are looking at the closure of 54 such factories throughout the country. It is an absolute outrage that in 2012 we are about to put more than 2,500 disabled people on the dole. If anybody dares to suggest that it is the best thing for them, they had better have asked the individuals involved. I meet them regularly, and believe me, they have no future in terms of employment in this country.

The closure of Rio Tinto will have a massive and devastating impact on south-east Northumberland and what can only be described as an already fragile economy. Some 3,250 jobs will probably be lost, including 650 direct high-quality jobs and 2,600 in the supply chain. As I have said before, those are highly paid private sector jobs in an area that has already been hammered by the Government’s public sector job cuts. There will be a loss to the economy of £120 million on 2007 prices, including £60 million in the immediate vicinity of the plant. There will be an extra cost to the state of £10 million per annum in terms of state benefits and the loss of business rates.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you and many in the Chamber will have heard the saying, “It’s the economics of the madhouse,” and here we see it once again. The loss of the largest private sector company in Northumberland will be felt sharply by coalfield areas in my constituency. Of working-age adults in my constituency, 28%—one in five—are in receipt of out-of-work benefits; that is almost three times the national average. One in three children aged four or under is living in poverty. This is 2012. Those figures are absolutely damning of any Government. Let me tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am ashamed to be a politician when one in three children under the age of four do not have enough even to feed their bellies to go to school. It is an absolute outrage.

[Julie Hilling]

What was my hon. Friend’s view when he heard the Prime Minister say:

“You call it austerity, I call it efficiency”?

[Ian Lavery]

If I was not in the palace of varieties and the great hall of democracy, I would answer that exactly as I would like to.

I have mentioned public sector jobs—500,000 of them. Those jobs have not been lost. They have been torn from the economy; they have been stolen from ordinary people; they have disappeared because of the actions of this Government. Those jobs have been lost because of nothing other than the ideology of an incoming Government. We are desperate for growth, jobs and investment, but what do we have? We have a double-dip recession.

There is good news in my area, with Bernicia and Akzo Nobel having decided to locate there. That is absolutely fantastic, and I hope that it will continue, but there are problems with the regional growth fund and with not distributing money fast enough. Statistics announced at the weekend suggest that each job costs some £33,000, but that is not what it was like under the old regional development agency system. We had a shining light—a beacon—in One North East, which was providing brilliant results for the region. Sadly, though, it was abolished within weeks of the Government being elected.

If new companies are to be encouraged into our region, they need to be incentivised. Enterprise zones are fine, but if an area is not part of one and is surrounded by them, it will have huge problems, as we do in Wansbeck. The enterprise zone needs to be extended up through the Alcan site and around the town of Ashington, but the capital allowances must come with that extension. It is no good extending enterprise zones without capital allowances; it may as well not happen. I appeal to Ministers to consider extending the enterprise zone in south-east Northumberland around the Alcan site and to bring with that what capital allowances can be afforded.

We need to protect deprived areas from the effects of the discussions that are taking place in Europe about EU state aid. I urge the Government to give serious consideration to ensuring that small and medium-sized enterprises will still be able to get EU state aid after 2013. That is essential because otherwise we will have a double whammy. We also need infrastructure in south-east Northumberland in the form of the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne rail line, so that we can get to and from other areas.

The Queen’s Speech offered little to my constituents. We have done everything we can to try to get them on to an even keel. I simply ask: do this Government care?