The Economy

James Morris Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:

“but regret that the Gracious Speech fails to provide a strategy to build the productive economy that the country needs; note that a fragile recovery and stagnating productivity harms living standards and makes it harder to reduce the deficit; believe that every effort should now be concentrated on supporting middle- and lower-income working people; further note that the Gracious Speech is a missed opportunity to tackle the principal causes of rising welfare costs that flow from a low wage, high rent economy; further believe in the pooling and sharing of resources across the UK as the best mechanism for delivering social and economic change; urge the Government to pursue sensible savings in public expenditure as part of a balanced approach and not an ideologically-driven attempt to shrink public services beyond what is needed to address the deficit; and call upon Ministers to spell out where their cuts will fall and who will pay for their unfunded election pledges.”

I welcome the Chancellor to his place. Very few people serve two full terms as Chancellor and I am sure that the whole country will be grateful that he does not plan to do so either. Although he might have his eye on another job, I congratulate him on his reappointment to this one. Of course, we should not ignore the fact that he has a fancy new title to illustrate his role in the EU renegotiation process. He is now the First Secretary of State, no less, following in the footsteps of John Prescott and Peter Mandelson. Let us hope that his ministerial counterparts are suitably impressed.

The Chancellor must now deliver negotiations with other member states to convince the public to opt decisively for Britain to remain a member of the European Union. It is important to secure stronger rules so that welfare payments go only to those who have contributed to our system, but in my view we also need greater devolution from Brussels, an overhaul of the EU budget and far greater accountability of the main institutions of the European Union, which still feel too distant and out of touch. It is also essential that he agrees that we need a comprehensive independent risk analysis of Britain leaving the European Union. It needs to be carried out by the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility and it needs to be published in ample time for the public to consider it in full before the referendum.

Although this is not the Queen’s Speech that I wanted the House to be debating, I reassure everybody and remind the Chancellor that we will be a vigilant and responsible Opposition, watching closely the choices he still has to make and holding him to account at every step.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

The shadow Chancellor talks about being a responsible Opposition. In the spirit of responsible opposition, will he admit the errors in his previous economic policy, in which he predicted that unemployment would rise and that we would have no growth? He was comprehensively proved wrong in the election. Has he had time to reflect on how he might recalibrate his economic message?

[Chris Leslie]

I have had plenty of time to reflect on the result of the general election. Obviously, we are disappointed with it and we will review our policies accordingly, but it is now our job to ask questions and scrutinise what the hon. Gentleman and those on his Front Bench plan to do. I shall come shortly to my observations about that.

Let us not neglect the subject at hand, which is the Queen’s Speech. The headlines have, of course, now been spun and the rhetoric from Ministers has started. They are trying in vain to make all the right noises about fairness and even a one nation Government, but let us pause for a moment, walk through the measures in the Queen’s Speech and cut through the spin.

The tax-free minimum wage for those working 30 hours sounds fine until we realise that it is already tax free. The real question is why there is no action in the Queen’s Speech for the low paid, such as incentives for a living wage, which even the Mayor of London supports. I do not know whether he is in his place, but perhaps he will join us later.

As for the rest of the spin, the household benefit cap, although it is necessary, is only a drop in the ocean of the overall welfare bill, saving less than one 10th of 1%, and is a total distraction from the root cause of escalating welfare costs for the taxpayer in recent years, the low-wage nature of our economy.

What about devolution to a northern powerhouse? If it is genuine, that is all well and good, but local communities have heard these promises before and they know that when the Chancellor talks about devolution it is usually code for shifting the consequence of cuts and not the power to deliver services.