Jobs and Growth

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will provide me with the figures—

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

Do you not know?

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[Jake Berry]

I am sorry, but I will not give way. I want to make progress.

The Labour party opposes the Government’s public spending cuts, but its alternative—the too little, too late alternative—would mean that our economy, like Greece’s, would shrink by 5% this year, and that mortgage rates would rocket. One of the things that Government Members are most proud of is our desire and aspiration to increase the tax threshold to take many of the lowest paid in our society out of tax altogether. Had we followed the too little, too late approach, as Greece did, we would have had to cut our tax-free allowance by 50%.

The Chancellor has been frank about the choppy waters ahead, yet businesses in my constituency of Rossendale and Darwen still strive to succeed. Businesses such as J&J Ormerod, the largest employer in my constituency, B&E Boys, Crown Paints and WEC engineering, are doing their best to manufacture proper products and to rebalance the UK economy, despite tough times. Those businesses know about the Labour party’s economic illiteracy. That is why, before the general election, some of them signed a letter opposing Labour’s jobs tax. Businesses in my constituency will not forget that the previous Government were the enemy of enterprise and industry, and that Labour is the party of the jobs tax.

[Rachel Reeves]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jake Berry]

Sorry, I will not.

How ironic it is that the Opposition motion calls for a cut in national insurance. That is too little, too late, and business in my constituency knows that the Labour party is not the solution but, in fact, the problem.

[Rachel Reeves]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jake Berry]

Sorry, but I will not.

Looking at today’s job figures, including the increase in unemployment in my constituency—

[Rachel Reeves]

The increase was 29.2%.

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[Kwasi Kwarteng]

What the markets were looking at was the deficit. The hon. Lady may remember what happened to the gilt market as her party’s Government were being shunted out. The price of British Government debt rose and yields fell in direct anticipation of Labour leaving power. The markets made their own decision. In the last 18 months, the price of British Government debt—that is, the interest rates that we pay—has fallen. It has managed to remain at the same level, precisely because markets realise that the Chancellor and his team are doing the right thing in tackling the deficit. We have been told repeatedly that if we were to show any relaxation of our deficit reduction programme, the markets would dump our bonds and interest rates would rise, which would cause immense damage to the hon. Lady’s constituents as well as mine.

[Rachel Reeves]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that before the last general election—between January and May 2010—yields on Government bonds were falling and they have stayed at low rates since the general election? The markets did not know which party would win the election because the campaign was so close. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman cannot argue that those yields were falling in anticipation of an incoming Conservative Government, because nobody knew that.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The yields were not falling in anticipation of a Conservative Government, but they were certainly falling in anticipation of the then Labour Government going out. Markets anticipate events—that is how people make money—and the markets had, in their wisdom, decided that Labour would not be re-elected. I assure the House that if Labour had been re-elected, the markets would have dumped British debt and we would be facing a much tougher interest rate environment than we currently face.

I always enjoy listening to the shadow Chancellor’s speeches, as they are very entertaining, and I enjoyed his speech today—I think one Member even mentioned vaudeville, which I think does vaudeville discredit. However, I was staggered by the shadow Chancellor’s assertion that the fact that we have low interest rates is somehow a reflection of our having a weak economy. That was an extraordinary claim. People in my constituency are very grateful indeed that we have low interest rates, because that enables them to pay their mortgage liabilities. It seemed extremely arrogant for a supposedly responsible politician to say on the Floor of the House that low interest rates were a bad thing, which was essentially what the shadow Chancellor was arguing. [Interruption.] He was suggesting that they were a symptom of a weak economy, which is a bad thing.

On the contrary, however, our low interest rates are a signal that the markets have confidence in this Government. They have absolute belief that the current Government are going to deal with the deficit that was created, almost deliberately, by the Labour Government. We in the House of Commons have to understand why this deficit arose, so we can explain that to the country. It was not just handed down to us by some Moses figure—although the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) probably thinks of himself in that way. It was not handed down from on high; rather, it was created by Governments and by the Members who then sat on the Treasury Bench, and it was created for the simple reason that they, in their arrogance, honestly believed that they had abolished boom and bust. We all remember those statements, and it is an arrogant misrepresentation of the past to suggest that they did not think that. The last Prime Minister believed that he had solved the key economic question of our time, but he was wrong, and it is as a direct consequence of his mistake that our Government have had to introduce the policies we are pursuing.

Many people will ask why we do not have a different plan. They will ask: “Why don’t you suddenly borrow and spend more money in the time-honoured Labour fashion?” That would be a road to disaster, however. It would create a massive lack of confidence and lack of credibility in the British Government’s programme, leading to the markets dumping our Government debt and our interest rates rising. It would lead to people in our constituencies having to face higher payments every month. They would be squeezed even more if we were not as focused and committed as we are to reducing the deficit.

I have tried to inject some reality into this debate. We have heard consistent denials from Labour Members, and we have heard no admission of guilt or wrongdoing and no ideas as to how we might get out of the situation we are in. We have also heard no real arguments to attempt to explain why what the last Labour Government did was right. Interestingly, no Labour Member has said in this debate, “We did a marvellous job; we gave you a golden inheritance.” I would grant them more credit if any of them would be bold enough to stand up and say that, but they will not do so. That is because, as everyone in this country knows, Labour is bereft of ideas, and it would be a disaster if we were ever to leave our future in its hands again.

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[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to wind up this debate as shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I may be new to the job, but after five hours of debate today I am still no clearer on this Government’s plan for jobs and for growth. Even on the day when unemployment has reached a 17-year high, the Government have no plan for jobs and for growth. Today’s numbers are proof that plan A has failed.

While Government Members say that there is no alternative to the policies being pursued by the Government, the Opposition have put forward a five-point plan for jobs and growth which was set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), the shadow Chancellor, and supported by Opposition Members. My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) reminded us that a year and a half ago, the economy was growing and unemployment was falling. How different from today. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) gave a vivid account of the impact that the Government’s policies are having on constituents in Hackney.

We heard about plans for jobs and growth rooted in the constituency experience from my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) and for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), my hon. Friends the Members for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell), for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy).

From the Government Benches we also heard some constructive speeches, particularly from the hon. Members for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) and for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). Some Government Members, however, defended plan A 100% but none of them, remarkably, wanted to talk about unemployment in their constituencies. One hon. Member gave a speech not even knowing that unemployment in his constituency was up 29.2% in a year. If that is not proof that plan A has failed, I do not know what is.

Let me rebut some of the Greek myths that we heard from the hon. Members for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) and for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), which they use as a smokescreen for their austerity programme. First, UK debt is just over 60% of GDP; in Greece it is over 150%. Secondly, the average maturity of our debt is roughly 13 years, compared with around six years in Greece. Thirdly, bond yields were falling in the UK ahead of the general election, but they were rising in Greece. Fourthly, Greece is part of the eurozone and so, unlike the UK, cannot devalue its currency. This is a story of two very different economies. The Greek defence for austerity simply does not add up.

I urge hon. Members to look at the facts. We have great British businesses, great British industries, great universities and people in all our constituencies who want to work hard and get on. Let us celebrate and build upon our successes, rather than talking Britain down. Instead of the mantra of resignation and defeat from Government Members, the shadow Chancellor has set out practical policies for jobs and growth. What a contrast and what a different message on how to support families feeling the impact of rising energy and food prices. What a different message to businesses worried about sales and accessing finance. What a different message to young people looking at the prospect of enormous debts when they leave university, with less and less hope of getting a job.

When Labour left office unemployment was falling, but today’s figures show that unemployment, at 2.57 million, is higher now than at any point during the recession, at a level last seen under a Tory Government. Youth unemployment, at 991,000, is the highest ever on record and is inching ever closer to 1 million. Unemployment for women has increased by 40,000 since May and is now above 1 million, the highest level since 1988. Last week’s GDP revisions show that GDP estimates for the second quarter had halved to just 0.1%.

Households are feeling the biggest squeeze on their income for 35 years, but our out-of-touch Prime Minister lectures hard-pressed families to pay off their credit card bills right now. Tell that to the ordinary families coping with the effects of the Government’s VAT hike. Tell that to the struggling small businesses trying to access credit from the banks. Tell that to the anxious young person who cannot even get a job. It is also crazy economics. Of course we all need to be prudent, but the Institute for Public Policy Research has calculated that if everyone were to pay off their credit card debts, consumer spending would be reduced by 6% and GDP would fall by 4%.

Growth has flatlined for nine months, starting before the European debt crisis. We have heard the Chancellor’s excuses. First he blamed the snow, then the royal wedding and now Europe. When will the Government stand up and take responsibility for their actions? The managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, says growth is necessary for fiscal credibility, and she is right. It is because the economy has ground to a halt and unemployment is at 2.57 million that the Office for Budget Responsibility now forecasts that we will borrow £46 billion more over this Parliament than planned.

It is not possible to reduce the budget deficit while paying more in benefits and getting less through taxation. Austerity alone will not reduce the budget deficit without a plan for jobs and growth. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West reminded us, 18 months ago unemployment was falling, and as my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor noted, John Maynard Keynes once said:

“When the facts change, I change my mind.”

John Maynard Keynes was a Liberal, and so too was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. When he was a Liberal he said:

“We are in real danger of condemning a generation of young people to a cycle of unemployment and low expectations.”

How very prescient—on the day when figures reveal that youth unemployment has gone up to 991,000 under his watch. The Liberal Democrats were once progressives, but now they just represent failed economics, implementing the reckless policies that they said before the election would not work.

There has been much debate this afternoon about the growth strategy that the Government promised, instead of which we have simply had a strategy for failure. They increased VAT, costing families £450 a year, and cancelled the loan to Sheffield Forgemasters so that high-skilled jobs are now going to South Korea rather than south Yorkshire. They scrapped the regional development agencies and replaced them with a regional growth fund that is yet to spend a single penny. The Government have introduced what the Governor of the Bank of England described as the “weakest possible measures” to get banks lending—a ringing endorsement of their Project Merlin. Today the Government have announced the guarantee of a job interview for 50,000 young people, but young people want not just an interview but a guaranteed job or training—a real opportunity, which they had under a Labour Government before the general election and before the future jobs fund was scrapped by this Government. With policies such as these from the Government, no wonder the economic recovery has ground to a halt.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

One of the most dreadful things that this Government are doing is that when they do spend money, for example on the rail or helicopter contracts, they do not support British businesses such as Bombardier and AgustaWestland but spend money on jobs and growth abroad. Should we not be spending British taxpayers’ money to preserve British jobs?

[Rachel Reeves]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, with 1,000 jobs going at Bombardier and Government policies putting people out of work and businesses out of business.

While the Government offer no relief, at least the Bank of England is offering some leadership, with an extra £75 billion through quantitative easing, which the Chancellor described just two years ago as

“the last resort of desperate governments when all…other policies have failed”.

Let me be frank. The last Labour Government were desperate to avoid a global recession becoming a global depression; desperate to ensure that unemployment did not hit the 3 million mark, as it did in the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s; and desperate to avoid the business failures and home repossessions that scarred our country in Tory recessions. Government Members should be desperate today, because unemployment is at a 17-year high, because borrowing in August reached a record high, because growth has stalled, and because plan A has failed.

Today, as we see the unemployment numbers, it would be nice to have a Government who reacted and said they have got it wrong. Instead, it takes Labour to come to the Chamber with a five-point plan: a £2 billion tax on bank bonuses and a guarantee of a job for young people; bringing forward long-term investment projects to get people back to work; cutting VAT temporarily to give immediate help to our high streets and to struggling families and pensioners; cutting VAT to 5% on home improvement repairs; and a one-year national insurance tax break for every small firm taking on extra workers. That is a five-point alternative that offers hope and unlocks opportunity.

We can call it what we will—plan A-plus, plan B, or the five-point plan—but this Government must come up with an alternative to help families struggling with rising prices and stagnant wages, to help businesses that cannot get a loan and are scared to take on new workers, to help young people who are facing record youth employment, and to help pensioners facing higher gas and electricity bills this winter. This Government must act for every struggling family, for every struggling business, and for every pensioner. They must act, with Labour’s five-point plan, to unlock the potential of every young person in Britain, to create jobs, and to get our economy growing. Their plan has failed. I urge hon. Members to support this motion.

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[Danny Alexander]

No, I will not.

We will not return to growth on the back of what we might call predatory growth, based on spending money we do not have, so that when the music stops and the bills fall due, they have to be paid for by the rest of us. Instead, we are committed to building a new model of growth powered by investment, exports and enterprise, for example by investing in infrastructure. Over the four years of this spending review period, we will invest more in transport infrastructure than our predecessors managed in the previous four years.

[Rachel Reeves]

Before the general election, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said:

“Cuts without economic growth will not deal with the deficit.”

Does the Chief Secretary agree?

[Danny Alexander]

I do, and I am about to set out exactly what this Government are doing for economic growth, if I can be allowed two or three more minutes to fill in that point.

As I was saying, we are investing in infrastructure. Only two weeks ago, I announced the creation of a new “Growing Places” fund—half a billion pounds that will kick-start developments that are currently stalled, deliver on key infrastructure and create jobs.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) said, we also have to stop the decay in our competitiveness that has marred the past decade. so we are cutting corporation tax to 23% by 2014, taking it to the lowest rate in the G7. We will increase the SME rate of research and development tax credits to 225% by April 2012, and we are tackling the problems of the imbalances in growth between regions, which a number of Members on both sides of the House have raised. That is why today, the Business Secretary announced the first of our new technology and innovation centres that are being established, and why we have committed £1.4 billion to the regional growth fund, which has committed to projects in the north-east, the north-west and across the country.

As the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) rightly observed, we have also announced 22 enterprise zones that will attract hundreds of new start-up enterprises and create thousands of jobs by 2015. We are ensuring, too, that our young people have the skills to seize their opportunities through the recovery. We are supporting more apprenticeships than any previous Government—by the end of this Parliament we will deliver 250,000 more than the previous Government planned, on top of a total of 100,000 work experience placements.

I know that this is a difficult time for many people and families across the country, and that it is not much comfort to say that it would be very much worse if it were not for this Government’s determination to fix the failures of the past.