Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Performance)
Debate between Mel Stride and John Denham(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Denham
Not at the moment.
It is not as though the Government were not warned about what was coming. When the Tory-led Government took over, recovery was strengthening and unemployment falling. Since then, every decision they have made has made things worse. They stopped the loan to Forgemasters, showing that they had no plan to ensure that British companies gained from a new nuclear programme. When the emergency Budget was introduced in June, the Office for Budget Responsibility said that growth would be slower and employment down as a direct result of the Government’s measures. When they chose to make the biggest cuts in the most vulnerable communities, it was clear that the regions would need new growth and new jobs. When the Government published the comprehensive spending review in October, the Office for Budget Responsibility told them that growth would fall and unemployment would rise. Independent organisations from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development to PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Local Government Association warned that reckless cuts would destroy jobs in the public and private sectors, yet the Business Secretary did nothing.
We were promised a White Paper on growth in October. Then the civil servants said that there was not enough content to warrant one. Two months later, the Business Secretary was bundled aside and the Chancellor took charge, so now we are promised a Budget for growth on 23 March. This Tory-led Government will have been in office for 10 months and three weeks by then. That will be 321 wasted days of complacency, drift and inactivity. By the time any Budget measures are implemented, we will have had a wasted year that this country cannot afford.
Mr Denham
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and given what you have said, the House will understand if I do not take too many more interventions. However, I would simply point out that I was proud to be part of a Government who created 3 million jobs. After we had been in office, there were 1.1 million more small businesses than there were when we came into power.