The Economy and Living Standards

Debate between Margaret Beckett and Thérèse Coffey

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)]

The kindest thing that can be said about this Queen’s Speech is that it is simply inadequate to address the problems which, sadly, our country and its people still face, and about which it is evident that the Government parties are still in denial.

The Chancellor said in his speech that he had made the mistake of reading the record before coming to the House. I made the same mistake: I read the record of the Chancellor’s Budget speech on 22 June 2010. He said today that what we must now do is stick to our long-term economic plan, which is what Government Members continually say—they say it as if saying it were as good as having one—but today’s economy does not reflect the long-term economic plan that the Chancellor set out in 2010.

The Chancellor said today that the Government were “holding out the prospect”. Well, they held it out then. According to that plan, by this year debt was supposed to have fallen as a percentage of GDP, and the structural current deficit should have been eliminated. The public sector borrowing requirement should be down to £37 billion, falling to £20 billion next year. Growth this year was then projected to be 2.7%, but the plan was for growth of well over 2% in 2011, 2012 and 2013. As we all know, that simply did not happen. In other words, far from sticking to a long-term plan that is now delivering, which the Chancellor described as the “inescapable truth”, the inescapable truth is that Government Members have seen their plan and their forecasts fall to pieces around their ears.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I do not recognise the picture that the right hon. Lady is painting, given the increased number of jobs and other improvements. Does she recall the statement by the Office for Budget Responsibility that the recession was even deeper than it had seemed to be when first analysed? That means that it has been even more difficult for us to fill the hole that was left by Labour and to achieve growth. That is finally under way, but the job is not yet done.

[Margaret Beckett]

I think the hon. Lady will find that the OBR’s argument does not account for the total discrepancy between what the Chancellor said would happen and what has actually happened. We have had the nonsense of Government Members claiming that we were wrong to say that their policies might curtail growth, when that is precisely what happened. As for the OBR, if the Chancellor is so proud of it—and I think that he has created a good institution—why does he not allow it to scrutinise our plans, rather than making up his own version?

The Queen’s Speech demonstrates the Government’s utter failure to address the difficulties that people face. The eventual return to growth has been as welcome as it was long overdue, but it is seriously alarming that Government Members do not seem to recognise the great difficulties that still confront so many. Only yesterday, we learned that Ofgem had written to the energy companies highlighting the fall in wholesale prices over the last 18 months or so, and asking them nicely if they ever intended to pass it on to their customers. Where is the legislative framework to underpin action to tackle the energy companies’ disregard for the interests of their customers?

Where are the proposals for reform of the banks, which demonstrate almost daily that for them too it is back to business as before, bonuses and all? Why is there nothing in the Queen’s Speech to address either the decline in housing starts or the increasing pressure and insecurity experienced by many tenants? And why, oh why, have no steps been taken to ease the increasingly intolerable pressures on the many people who have been forced by circumstance to rely on benefits to make ends meet? So many of those people are in work, albeit work that is low paid and insecure.

People with disabilities, in particular, are still being hit by the iniquitous bedroom tax. The Government must have been advised that people would not be able to move because there was not enough alternative accommodation. During the same week in which they introduced that tax, they cut taxes for those who were already the wealthiest.

The most noticeable aspects of the Queen’s Speech are the measures that are not in it and should be. Some of its proposals merit a cautious welcome, although as yet, in many instances, we have only the headlines. However, I want to single out the issue of pensions. I am pleased that the Chancellor mentioned it. I urge caution on all Members, but especially Opposition Members, because in this regard the Conservative party has form. Annuities have long caused concern, although an answer has not been easy to find, but the more that I listened to the Chancellor talking about giving people control of their own money and about the exciting new freedoms that were on offer—which, according to him, were heralding a revolution—the more uncomfortable I became, because, like the Conservative party, I have been here before.

It was in identical terms that the 1980s Tory Government sold so-called pension reforms to an unsuspecting public. That resulted in one of the greatest pension scandals of all time, the mis-selling of personal pensions. Shamelessly misleading advertising implied that if people left existing pension schemes and put their savings in the hands of the financial services experts, they could miraculously put less in and get more out. People were encouraged by the then Government to gamble with their retirement savings without their employers having to contribute, and without even the safety net of pooling their own risk—and it all ended in tears. I heard what the Chancellor said about the assurances that he had given and about whom he had consulted, and I advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to consider what he said in great detail. We have asked the Government to publish in full the assessment of the costs and risks of their proposal, but so far they have refused to do so. I hope that they soon will.

I have noticed that there is an incentive for the Government in this proposal, over and above the well-being of pensioners. The Chancellor stands to gain a few billions of pounds in extra tax. So there is something in it for the Treasury—probably rather more than there is for pensioners, in the short term—and the most careful scrutiny of the details will be required.

Over the past few days—and, today, in the excellent speech with which he opened the debate—the shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), has drawn attention to our proposals to raise the minimum wage and encourage the use of the living wage so that work can be made to pay; to tackle the abuses of wage and employment law that enable employers to use immigrant labour to undercut the wages and conditions of others; to set up a British investment bank and regional banks to support small businesses, which—as was pointed out earlier—our existing banks are still failing to do; and to address the crises in housing and health care. We would have seen all those proposals in a Labour Queen’s Speech. There is much along those lines that the House and the Government should and could be doing, but clearly it will not be done under this Administration.