Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Pat McFadden Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
Let me begin by paying tribute to all the right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in this Budget debate, not only today, but throughout its four days. Today, many Members from across the House, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), and my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for Ilford South (Sam Tarry), for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), have raised the issue of the cost of living crisis. Other Members have spoken about individual measures in the Budget, such as investment allowances and devolution deals.
Some Members, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), called this Budget a missed chance, whereas others, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), talked about the number of Labour policies adopted by the Government in the Budget. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) talked about childcare. The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) rightly warned the Government against being left behind by the measures being taken in the US and the EU to ensure the green transition.
The right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) urged us all to have more children. Perhaps when all other growth plans have failed, that is all that is left.
The Budget is a critical part of our economic and political framework, and I congratulate the Chancellor on surviving long enough in his post to deliver one. Here we are a few days later and he is still in his post. That is a rare achievement among Conservative Chancellors of modern times.
Outside this House—indeed, on the day that the Chancellor spoke—there is significant turbulence in the financial system. Even though we debate these measures, it is imperative that the Treasury and the regulators are alive to the risks elsewhere in the system and to what other risks may be there.
The Budget was billed by the Chancellor as a Budget for growth. He opened his statement last week by asking us to give thanks that, this year, the economy is expected to shrink, but just not by quite as much as was previously thought. A flatlining economy is now defined by the Government as success.
Stephen Kinnock
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said earlier that this was a Budget for growth and that it would deliver more economic prosperity, but the reality is that the OBR said that we will not see a rise in living standards for another decade. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government have had their chance?
Mr McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. After 13 years, there really is nowhere left to hide.
Despite the Budget being billed as a Budget for growth, the UK is still experiencing the slowest recovery from covid in the G7. All the countries that make up this group had to cope with the pandemic. All of them have suffered the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, yet Britain’s recovery is the slowest.
What is it about Conservative stewardship of the United Kingdom that makes us stand out in this way? Is it the political chaos inflicted on the country by the Conservative party, which makes a Chancellor who gets to deliver a Budget such a rarity? Is it the fact that, since 2010, our productivity growth has been the second lowest in the G7? Is it the disastrous Tory mini-Budget last year, which they would like to bury under 10 feet of concrete, but which people will not forget? It caused borrowing costs to soar, put our pension system on life support and rocked international confidence in the UK economy. Is it the former Prime Minister’s Brexit deal, which was supposed to give us global Britain but instead gave us the problem of how to send a sandwich to Belfast?
It could be all those things, but whatever the reasons, the overriding fact for our constituents is that they are still living through the biggest fall in living standards in living memory. Their money goes less far, their incomes have been squeezed and they are living in a country that is poorer than it was four years ago.
Alan Brown
The right hon. Member mentioned Brexit. Are not some of the issues related to Brexit associated with leaving the single market, leaving the customs union and not being part of freedom of movement? That has a big detrimental impact on the economy and Labour will not change any of that.
Mr McFadden
I understand why people regret the result. What I do not understand is why the response to that should be to erect even more trading barriers inside the United Kingdom, as the hon. Member wants to do.
Even if the fall in living standards is at its most severe this year and next, it is not just a short-term dip, because since the Government took office, real-terms wages have not risen and are not expected to get to their pre-2010 levels until 2026. That is what people feel in their lives—that year after year, it gets harder to make ends meet and harder to pay the bills. The question that people are asking themselves is the one that has been posed by the shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves). Are my family and I better off? The answer is no. Are our public services in better shape now than when the Tories took office in 2010? Time after time, once again, the answer is no.
When he made his statement last week, I thought there was one significant thing about the way the Chancellor spoke: he was happy to own the whole 13 years that his party have been in office.
Mr McFadden
He confirms that now—he is proud of it. He obviously did not get the memo that says every time the Tories ditch a leader, they are supposed to pretend it is year zero. Not for him the pretence that this is a brand-new Government. Not for him the pretence that whatever was inflicted by his predecessors had nothing to do with him.
I welcome the Chancellor’s honesty about that, because that means the Tories can own the annual tax rises faced by every taxpayer over the coming years. They can own the 24 tax rises they have imposed in the last few years. They can own the NHS waiting lists of 7 million people. They can own the biggest drop in living standards on record. They can own all the waste and all the fraud. They can own the mortgage rate rises faced by hard-working families this year and next, which were driven up by their own reckless economic irresponsibility. They can own the whole cycle of low growth, increasing taxes, declining living standards and creaking public services. I am grateful to the Chancellor for his honesty and candour in embracing his party’s 13 years in power. That is a rare thing in politics these days and he deserves credit for it.
There were measures in this Budget that we liked and supported—those were the Labour bits. The extension of the energy price cap, the freeze in fuel duty, the investment allowances for industry and more help for childcare were all called for by Labour. Of course we welcome them, and we knew they were coming because most of the Budget was leaked in advance.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr McFadden
I am not going to give way; I am going to proceed.
One thing was not leaked, however, and that was the Chancellor’s plan to abolish the pensions lifetime allowance—a £1.2 billion policy that will benefit those with the biggest 1% of pension pots. Let us be clear: there is a problem facing doctors, and it has existed for years. In the run-up to the Budget, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), the shadow Health Secretary, called for a special scheme to deal with the issue facing doctors, which is forcing some of them to retire early. That call was supported by the Chancellor when he was Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee. His report said:
“The government must act swiftly to reform the NHS pension scheme to prevent senior staff from reducing their hours and retiring early from the NHS.”
That is exactly what the shadow Health Secretary proposed.
Mr McFadden
I am going to proceed.
Such a scheme already exists for judges, but when the shadow Health Secretary made that call, he was attacked by the Tories, who said it was financial profligacy and unaffordable—and let us remember that that was only a scheme directed at the NHS. A Conservative spokesman said:
“Now they announce an expensive pensions policy without pointing to how they would fund it”,
adding that the shadow Health Secretary should think about the impact on the public finances. And what did the Tories do then? They said, “Wes, hold my beer.” Just days later, having denounced a smaller NHS scheme as being completely unaffordable, they proposed to abolish the entire lifetime allowance for everyone. According to the Tory argument, it is completely unaffordable for doctors alone, so we are going to propose it for everyone.
However, that was not always the Tories’ view. They used to think that,
“we must demonstrate that we are all in this together. When looking for savings, I think that it is fair to look at the tax relief that we give to the top 1%.”—[Official Report, 5 December 2012; Vol. 554, c. 878.]
Who was the ideologically suspect pinko who said that? Who was that anti-aspirational enemy of enterprise? It was, of course, George Osborne. That is how far they have moved. They used at least to claim we are were all in this together; now they do not even pretend.
Growth is the essential challenge facing the country. We need better growth to make the country more prosperous and its people better off. Right now, in the United States, growth is being driven by the Inflation Reduction Act sucking in investment in new technologies and the green transition, and creating jobs right across the country. Europe is responding with incentives of its own. What is the Government’s position? It is that this is “dangerous”, as the previous Business Secretary said. Other countries are on the pitch; they are using the power of government to crowd in private investment. That is exactly what we should be doing. This is not about the state doing it all; it is about setting a clear, long-term direction, and asking business and employees to be partners in making that work.
Those investments will happen somewhere. The question we pose is: why not in Britain? Why not in Britain when we have some of the best researchers in the world? Why not in Britain when we have a tradition of innovation and creativity that is second to none? Why not in Britain? Because we lack a Government with the ambition to make it happen. In the end, that is what was missing from this Budget.
The Chancellor and the Prime Minister want to project themselves as the adults in the room, but with the challenges that the country faces, that is not enough. It is not enough just not to be reckless and ideological; it is not enough just not to subject the country to another giant juvenile experiment with real-world consequences; it is not enough just not to degrade the idea of public office itself; it is not enough for them not to be their disastrous predecessors. The country deserves a lot more than that. It needs a Government who will break with, not continue, the last 13 years, and who will break with the whole pattern of low growth, high tax and creaking public services. That is what we need, and that is what we did not get from the Budget last week.
Holocaust Memorial Day 2021
Pat McFadden Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab) [V]
I thank everyone who made this debate possible. Holocaust Memorial Day stands as a reminder of where racism and the dehumanisation of others can lead. Many years ago, I travelled to Auschwitz-Birkenau with children from my constituency, on a visit organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust. No one who has made that visit will ever forget the experience. The industrial mass killing, the meticulous gathering of clothing and goods—not random acts of chaotic violence but the most organised programme of killing in history.
We recoil and say “Never again”, but since the holocaust there have been further atrocities in the world fuelled by racial hatred and the desire to demonise people because of their faith or because they are a minority of one kind or another. The lessons for today still matter. We should never engage in the conferring of collective guilt, we should openly reject conspiracy theories about dual loyalties or international cabals influencing world events, and we should reject the world view that results in a hierarchy of victimhood where some cannot accept that Jewish people could really be the victims of racism.
It is sadly the case that antisemitism still exists in our society, and indeed became more prominent in recent years, including in my own party. It never represented the Labour tradition, which at its best is a politics open to people of all faiths and none and which seeks to break down barriers, not reinforce them, yet still antisemitic views found a home in some of the darker corners of the left, as well as the far right. I am glad and relieved that, under new leadership, we have firmly turned a page on that era. To do so fully and completely, we must not only reject antisemitism but the worldview that gives rise to it, the conspiracy theories that go along with it and the hierarchy of victimhood that is blind to it.
The experience of remembering the holocaust should also inform the ways that we think about refugees today. The UK can be proud of the role we played not only during the war, in liberating the world from tyranny, but before the war, in making a new home for around 10,000 children through the Kindertransport programme. Each one of those children was given a new life and a new chance. Today, when child refugees are still trying to reach our shores, we should remember how precious that chance of a new life can be, and what an amazing contribution to our country can be made by those who are given a chance.
The lessons of Holocaust Memorial Day are not only those from history; they live with us every day. The greatest of all is that we share much more through our common humanity than anything that could drive us apart.
Jewish Community: Contribution to the UK
Pat McFadden Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
I begin by thanking and congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on securing this debate. As he set out very eloquently, the Jewish community has been part of the United Kingdom for hundreds of years and is today represented in all walks of life.
There is no Jewish community of any size in my Wolverhampton South East constituency, although we do have a Jewish cemetery that was donated to the community by the Duke of Sutherland when there was nowhere proper for Jewish people who died in the city to be buried. The cemetery exists to this day. I have been working with the Board of Deputies to try to make sure that it is properly cared for and restored, because, of course, when cemeteries are no longer actively used, they can fall into disrepair.
We are here to emphasise the positives today and I concur with that, but I want to make a few remarks about the growth that we have seen in antisemitism and how I believe we need to respond to it. It affects people on the hard right of politics, and has done for a long time—it comes from people on the hard right of politics—but it is also now coming from people on the hard left. We have seen much of that in recent years, including some appalling and awful abuse directed at my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) and other Jewish MPs, both online and offline. It is simply unacceptable, it is deeply disturbing and we have to respond to it in the right way.
As someone who has been a member of the Labour party for 35 years, it is particularly disturbing for me to see antisemitism in the Labour party. We have always prided ourselves on being a party for people of all faiths and none—that is in the best of the Labour tradition—so it is very sad to see antisemitism in our party; there is no denying that it is there and has been there in recent years.
Some of it is wrapped up in a debate about the middle east and about Israel and Palestine and so on, but there is no need for it to be so. To state some obvious truths, the Israeli Prime Minister and the Israeli Government are not the same thing as Israeli society. There is an open and active debate in that country about policy, about settlements, about peace and about direction. Millions of Israeli citizens who take very contrasting views on those issues participate in that debate on a daily basis.
Ruth Smeeth
One of the most fascinating things about the debate in our party at the moment is that when we look at politics in the middle east, and specifically in Israel, my family who live in Israel campaign against Netanyahu day in, day out, and yet I am held responsible for his actions over here.
Mr McFadden
That is a very good illustration of my point. It is just the same as the fact that in this country we have a Government and a Prime Minister—perhaps a new one soon—and millions of our own citizens will disagree with the Government or the policies they pursue.
It is also the case that there are many people who care passionately about the Palestinian cause, who want to see a Palestinian state and who want to see a better deal for the Palestinian people. They can argue that case with passion and conviction, without being antisemitic. Many people do that on a daily basis. Caring about those issues does not mean that there is a need to engage in antisemitism.
We then have to ask ourselves a more difficult question. Where does this come from? What is really driving it? I believe that there is a further, wider problem, which is about an overall anti-western sentiment, which combines hostility to Israel with being anti-American, and which creates a fertile ground for the sentiments. I do not believe that that anti-western sentiment is part of the Labour tradition. It has never been part of the policy or the outlook of any Labour Government. I believe that if we really want to deal with the issue in our party and on the left, we have to reject that anti-western sentiment as well. These sentiments do not come from nowhere. We can do what we can about processes and complaints procedures and committees, but unless we are clear that our world view must not give rise to it, we will not really be able to deal with this issue.
I am disturbed by the antisemitism on the left. It is important that we stand strongly against it, that we do not accept any world view that gives rise to it, and that we state clearly that we are a party of all faiths and none. Britain’s great strength as a country is that it is a country for all faiths and none. That is why we have been a refuge for the oppressed from around the world for so many years. That is why we are recognised as such around the world.
So, there should be no hierarchy of victimhood. There should be no sense that only some people are victims of racism and other people cannot be victims of racism. We have to reject these things and appreciate that we are admired around the world precisely because we have been, for the most part, a refuge for people fleeing from persecution. We have given people a platform to build new lives. It is not a perfect story—it never is, and of course there have been times and episodes when that has not been the case—but it is largely true. Over the long arc of history, it is the story of how our society has developed up to today.
We should give thanks to the Jewish community for the contribution that has been made over hundreds of years, in all walks of life, to the United Kingdom, and resolve anew that we believe in equality and in a politics and a country that can be a good home for people of all faiths and none.
Sikhs: Contribution to the UK
Pat McFadden Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
Thank you, Sir Edward, for that ruling and for your chairmanship today.
I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on securing this debate. As she said, it comes at the end of our first ever National Sikh Awareness and History Month. There have been lots of events, including the Vaisakhi celebration, Turban Awareness Day, the lecture on Guru Nanak and feminism—which I am glad to say was given by Dr Opinderjit Kaur Takhar, the director of the Centre for Sikh and Punjabi Studies at the University of Wolverhampton—and many others dedicated both to acknowledging the Sikh contribution and to teaching more about Sikhi and what it stands for.
I will mention a few things relating to that contribution. The first is the military contribution of Sikhs—the sacrifice in blood and life, with lives being laid down in two world wars, by Sikhs fighting for this country. It is estimated that some 83,000 Sikh soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice. Memorials have been erected to acknowledge that sacrifice, including, as we have just heard, in Bristol. A memorial was unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire in 2015, and another was unveiled in Smethwick last year. We await, however, a national memorial in central London dedicated to their sacrifice. I acknowledge the leadership and hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). We want a memorial to be erected and for the bureaucracy to be cut through. The issue has cross-party support, so I hope the Minister will provide a positive response.
The second contribution by Sikhs is, of course, economic. Many Sikhs came to my constituency and others in the west midlands in the 1950s and 1960s, often to do hard, even back-breaking, work in steel mills and foundries. They often faced barriers of prejudice as they laid down the foundations for their new life. Although we quite rightly associate the Sikh community with social mobility, that mobility rests on the hard work of the first generation of Sikhs who came here. As is the case with so many immigrants, they worked hard to make sure that their children had better chances than them in life.
I also pay tribute to those who have worked to record the stories of those early Sikh migrants. For example, Anand Chhabra, founder of Black Country Visual Arts, has lovingly collated the Apna Heritage Archive’s photography collection, which records early Punjabi life in the west midlands in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and which was exhibited at Wolverhampton Art Gallery last year.
Alongside that hard work, there was great bravery. For example, there is the story of Tarsem Singh Sandhu, who led the fight in Wolverhampton for Sikhs to be able to wear a turban while driving a bus. Unbelievably, that was banned in the past, even when half the bus drivers in the city were of Sikh heritage. Tarsem Singh Sandhu was told that he would lose his job unless he was clean shaven and abandoned his turban, but he took a stand, rightly saying that he was doing nothing wrong. He had to face down great hostility to win his battle, and his bravery and that of those who campaigned alongside him paved the way for change that today we take for granted. Even after that great progress, however, there are still struggles. Legislation still has to be amended to ensure that the simple act of observing the five Ks and wearing a turban can be done freely.
What can we draw as a broader conclusion? I see a community whose story is overwhelmingly positive. Sikhs have achieved success in business, education, public life and, increasingly, politics, with the historic election of the first turban-wearing Sikh, my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), and the first woman Sikh MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill). This is a timely debate, and Sikhs should build on their success in the future.
Jake Berry
Fantastic—I accept that invitation. I am sure my hon. Friend will also take that opportunity to lobby me on his high street competition bid, but I happily accept his invitation.
I am delighted that our Parliament has been made richer and more diverse. Having the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) speak today was one of the highlights, as he is the first turban-wearing Sikh in Parliament. We should celebrate his historic role in the story of our Parliament and our nation.
In addition, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) is the first female Sikh, which we should also celebrate. I was surprised when the election results came in and that news came over the wires. It says something about this place that we had not until that point had a female Sikh representative. The hon. Lady is doing a fantastic job representing not just her constituents but the Sikh community more widely.
I appreciate that it is a couple of weeks late, but I place on record my good wishes to all Sikhs who celebrated Vaisakhi recently with their family and friends. I think it is fantastic. The Prime Minister will host an event in Downing Street early next month to celebrate Vaisakhi with members of the Sikh community from across the UK.
Mr McFadden
I thank the Minister for his opening remarks, and I am sure that the Sikh community will be very grateful for his Vaisakhi greetings, but the Government missed an opportunity a couple of weeks ago, on the 100th Vaisakhi since the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, to respond to cross-party calls for an official Government apology. Was that the last word on the subject, or can we expect to hear more from the Government, perhaps at the Vaisakhi celebration that he mentioned?
Jake Berry
The right hon. Gentleman would not expect me to prejudge what the Prime Minister may or may not say at that Vaisakhi celebration; I do not have any information about what is planned. All I would say is that the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919 is, as Members have described it repeatedly in this debate, a stain on the history of this country. It seems to me quite right that, 100 years on, people are calling on the Government to mark it, and to change what the Government have done. The Prime Minister recently made it clear that she deeply regrets what happened and the suffering caused, saying:
“The tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh in 1919 is a shameful scar on British Indian history.”—[Official Report, 10 April 2019; Vol. 658, c. 308.]
That is a direct quote from the Prime Minister, and of course the British high commissioner to India, Sir Dominic Asquith, laid a wreath on the Jallianwala Bagh centenary, expressing regret for what happened.
It is important to reflect on the past, and I do not know what will happen at the Vaisakhi celebration in Downing Street. I will pass on the comments from this debate to the Prime Minister, and more widely to those across Government. There may be an opportunity for others to raise the matter with the Prime Minister if they have the opportunity to do so in Parliament, at Prime Minister’s Question Time, on or around the time of that celebration in Downing Street.
I will move on to talk about how the Government engage with the Sikh community. We have heard about the hugely important contribution that the Sikh community makes to Britain. It is important that I put on record how the Government, particularly through my right hon. Friend Lord Bourne, the Minister for Faith, engages with the Sikh community and particularly Sikh umbrella groups. He often hosts interfaith roundtables with representatives from different faiths. Part of that has been to engage heavily with the Sikh community and its representatives.
Lord Bourne is currently seeking to refresh the groups of Sikh communities and umbrella bodies with which he meets. He is seeking particularly to expand those groups to ensure that more women have an opportunity to contribute and that more members of grassroots and community representative groups can attend them. Knowing the interest that there will be in today’s debate, I put out a call to the community more widely, particularly to women, to come forward and engage with the Government on how we can more actively support the Sikh community in the UK. We look forward to continuing our engagement with the Sikh community throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and I hope that that can be part of an active engagement, with Members from across the House playing their full part.
Holocaust Memorial Day
Pat McFadden Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
No words—certainly none that I have—can describe adequately the horror of the Holocaust, the attempt to wipe out the Jewish population of Europe, the killing of Roma, gay people, trade unionists and many other victims of Nazi ideology. As this debate has shown over the last couple of hours, what brings it home are the human stories showing how real it was on an individual level. A life is a life.
Like many Members of this House on all sides, tomorrow I will take part in commemoration events for Holocaust Memorial Day, one in Wolverhampton and one in Dudley. I pay tribute not only to the wonderful and moving opening speech today but to the tremendous work over a longer period of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin). Year after year, he has organised a very moving and well-attended event in his constituency aimed at teaching today’s young generation about the horrors of the past. He has spoken up bravely against antisemitism and alongside a number of my hon. Friends has stood up for the best of what my party should stand for at a time when sadly that has not always been easy.
I also pay tribute to the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. These organisations do amazing work. The latter records the testimony of those who survived, arranges speakers in schools and enables pupils to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau in what is a life-changing experience for them. I am pleased to say that schools in my constituency—Colton Hills, Moseley Park, the Ormiston SWB Academy and the Royal Wolverhampton School—have all taken part in the past year. These events are valuable and important. They not only benefit those who take part directly but allow students to share the experience with others. Most of all, they show to a new generation the terrible and appalling consequences of where race hatred and the demonisation of those who are different can lead. I am pleased that support for the Holocaust Educational Trust is bipartisan and has survived several changes of Government. Long may that continue.
This is also a moment to reflect on our own politics. It is estimated that 70,000 refugees came to the UK from the rest of Europe in the years running up to the war, including children saved through the Kindertransport programme. Yes, the UK could have done more during the war, but surely today we have to ask questions about our own debate on refugees. It has become too easy to talk about refugees in a way that strips them of their humanity and ascribes to them some darker, ulterior motive, and it has become too easy to say they should go anywhere but here. No one has done more to emphasise the common humanity of refugees than our colleague Lord Alf Dubs, himself a child of the Kindertransport. He is an inspiration and has provided through his life and work and campaigning a timely reminder that every life matters and that we are all diminished if we look the other way.
This is also a moment to stand strong against the politics of hate, which seeks to demonise any group or community on the basis of race, faith or both. The antisemitic abuse that is routinely posted online, including to Members of this House, is not only unacceptable in itself but a warning of what happens when people ascribe great virtue to themselves and those who agree with them but show a closed and hostile mind to others, when people have a hierarchy of victimhood, where some are allowed to be victims but others are not. These are the permission slips for cruelty that have so scarred our politics and allowed hatred to grow. As we mark Holocaust Memorial Day, let us remember the common value of humanity. A life is a life, no matter a person’s colour, background, wealth or whatever else, and each life must be valued. That is the lesson of the events we mark this weekend.
Budget Resolutions
Pat McFadden ExcerptsThursday 1st November 2018
(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my parliamentary neighbour, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), though he will not be surprised to learn that I take a slightly different view of the Budget.
The backdrop to the Budget was a singular political claim made a month ago at the Conservative party conference that austerity was over. Every Government is responsible for the consequences of its policies, but with that claim the Prime Minister and her Government took particular responsibility for every closed library, every universal credit rent arrears, every service denied to people.
Let us look, then, at what the Budget really did. The Chancellor used an unexpected increase in tax revenues to fund the health service for the next few years—I welcome extra money for the health service, of course, although by historical standards the rate is unexceptional —but he did not end austerity in other services. Let us take schools, for example. In the first decade of this century, under a Labour Government, there was a 65% increase in funding per pupil. Since 2010, there has been a reduction of 8%. That is a difference between a Labour Government and a Tory Government. When the schools budget is cut, it is a cut in opportunity and in social mobility, there is a reduction in the potential of people to make the most of their talents and it reinforces inequality.
The same is true of crime. The greatest freedom people can have is to go about their daily business free from the fear of crime. In the west midlands, we have lost 2,000 officers. We have seen a 21% increase in violent crime, a 17% increase in crime involving offensive weapons and a 23% increase in sexual offences, and now we are faced, because of pension changes, with the prospect of losing another 450 police officers. This is an attack on people’s freedom, and it strikes the poorest in our society more than others. So the Budget does not present an end to austerity.
There is a particularly absurd nature to the claim: it is being made as we are about to commit an act of enormous economic self-harm. The country needs hope, but the tragedy of Brexit is that, having scapegoated Brussels, immigration and others, we are, in the act of leaving, making it much more difficult to give the country that hope and a plan for the whole country.