Economy and Jobs

Debate between Peter Bone and John McDonnell

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

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

“but respectfully regret that the Gracious Speech fails to end austerity in public services, to reverse falling living standards and to make society more equal; further regret that it contains no reference to an energy price cap and call on the Government to legislate for such a cap at the earliest opportunity; call on the Government to commit to a properly resourced industrial strategy to increase infrastructure investment in every nation and region of the UK; recognise that no deal on Brexit is the very worst outcome and therefore call on the Government to negotiate an outcome that prioritises jobs and the economy, delivers the exact same benefits the UK has as a member of the Single Market and the Customs Union, ensures that there is no weakening of cooperation in security and policing, and maintains the existing rights of EU nationals living in the UK and UK nationals living in the EU; believe that those who are richest and large corporations, those with the broadest shoulders, should pay more tax, while more is done to clamp down on tax avoidance and evasion; call for increased funding in public services to expand childcare, scrap tuition fees at universities and colleges and restore Education Maintenance Allowance, maintenance grants and nurses’ bursaries; regret that with inflation rising, living standards are again falling; and call on the Government to end the public sector pay cap and increase the minimum wage to a real living wage of £10 per hour by 2020.”.

As of this year, Mr Speaker, I have been in the House for 20 years, just as you have. Never in all that time have we seen such a threadbare scrap of a document as this Queen’s Speech. But let us be grateful for small mercies: it is a pleasure to note what has not been mentioned in this vacuous notelet. Despite their being promised in the Conservative manifesto, we have had no plans for legislation to end the triple lock, we have heard nothing about legislation to end winter fuel payments, and we have heard no legislative plans for the so-called dementia tax. There is nothing of the policy to take food from the mouths of infants and young primary school children, and even the flagship grammar schools policy seems to have been ditched from the Queen’s Speech. I would therefore like to thank the millions of voters who rejected the Conservatives because they have prevented the Tories from implementing the full cuts that they promised. I thank all those people who called a halt to the barrage of cuts that the Tories were intending to introduce. Regrettably, the Government have instead been reduced to a grubby back-room deal in an attempt to cling on to office.

The result is that we have a Queen’s Speech devoid of content which offers no solutions to the pressing issues facing our country. The Queen’s Speech says:

“My Ministers will strengthen the economy so that it supports the creation of jobs”.

The reality is that we are witnessing, to quote the Governor of the Bank of England, the weakest UK business investment in half a century, and the growth of insecure, low-paid, low-skilled jobs, with nearly 1 million people now on zero-hours contracts.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I am very surprised that the shadow Chancellor talks about jobs, because every single Labour Government in history has left government with higher unemployment than when they came to power. We have lowered unemployment and got more people into work. How can he possibly suggest that it would be better to have Labour?

[John McDonnell]

I would check the hon. Gentleman’s facts, but let me say—[Interruption.] I suggest he goes back to other Labour Governments who increased employment in this country as a result of direct state investment: the Attlee Government in particular, and the Wilson Government.

The issue for many of us is the quality of those jobs. The fact is that we now have people in employment who literally cannot fend off poverty. Two thirds of our children who are living in poverty are in families where people are in work. That is the quality of some of the jobs brought about by this Government.

The Queen’s Speech promises

“to invest in the National Health Service, schools, and other public services”,

but that could not be further from the truth. The reality is that spending per pupil remains set to fall, the jobs of police officers, firefighters, border guards will be cut, and the NHS is “already at breaking point” and has been promised no new money. Those are not our words, but those of the British Medical Association.

In various interviews over the past fortnight, the Chancellor has bemoaned the fact that he was hidden away during the election campaign and that his record on the economy was not the central plank of the Conservative campaign. I agree with him. I wish he had been more to the fore in the campaign, with his record more widely exposed, because if that had been the case, Labour would be in government now.

I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman has been afforded his proper place in history. For those hon. Members who were not in this place 10 years ago, let me explain that prior to 2010 the Chancellor was the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In that role, as an ardent neoliberal, he was the architect of austerity. It was he who designed the detailed economic programme rolled out by his mentor, George Osborne, after 2010, and he has been at the heart of every austerity Cabinet throughout this period.

In the Chancellor’s recent Mansion House speech, he referred to his Government’s austerity record as one

“of which we are proud.”

The foundation of the Chancellor’s record is its adherence to neoliberalism and trickle-down economics—a theory that argues that if we cut the taxes for the rich and the corporations, and if we turn a blind eye to tax avoidance and tax evasion, somehow the wealth will trickle down to the rest of society. This Chancellor has certainly cut taxes for the rich and the corporations. Corporation tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and the bank levy have all been slashed by this Chancellor. Independent analysis of Office for Budget Responsibility costings demonstrates that the tax cuts introduced by the Conservatives on those four measures alone since 2010 will have cost taxpayers more than £70 billion between last year and the end of this Parliament.