18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 247 / Noes: 306 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
It is always a pleasure and an honour to conclude a debate on the Gracious Speech. I urge right hon. and hon. Members to oppose the amendment, which I will address later. I congratulate Members on their speeches. I have sat here for some time listening to them and the quality of speeches by Members on both sides of the House was of the highest order, particularly given the time constraint, which was imposed for good and obvious reasons. I congratulate in particular those who had to change their speeches after being addressed by the occupant of the Chair.
I congratulate and agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) and for Stourbridge (Margot James), who spoke about the importance of youth employment and the way in which we are now driving youth employment up and unemployment down. On support for growth in manufacturing employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge said that manufacturing employment is now growing and improving after a fall of 2.5 million under the previous Labour Government. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said in his opening remarks, we are getting more balance in the economy as a result of the work we have been doing, which is different from what was going on before the recession.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who talked about the small business measures and measures to get rid of excess zero-hours contracts, which my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary spoke about earlier. Many Opposition Members spoke passionately, and rightly so, about excesses in employment, particularly with regard to zero-hours contracts, but, as my right hon. Friend said, they never once addressed zero-hours contracts throughout their time in government. To listen to them, one would think that zero-hours contracts were an innovation created by this Government and that they began some time last year, but they did not: they were running under the previous Government, and it is only this Government and this Business Secretary who will address the matter, which is what Labour should have done.
As I recall, the last time that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and I spoke in the same debate, he urged me to vote against the Government. I did, and look what happened. Today, he advised us that we should borrow more, but I do not think that I will listen to him this time, if he does not mind—it got me into more trouble than I like to think about last time. However, I welcome him to his place and recognise that he also attacked the previous Government for the amount of quantitative easing they oversaw, which he said was wrong.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) was making an effective speech about international matters before he was interrupted. I commend him for managing to get his speech out, regardless of the change in the interpretation of the rules. He made a really important point about the taking of Mosul, which is a terrible issue and we need to deal with it.
I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) welcomed the rise in employment in Wales. I will pass on to the Transport Secretary his views about the electrification of the railway to Swansea.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) spoke very well about the increase in small business. He rewrote his speech as a result of the ruling from the Chair, and I congratulate him—I do not know whether he is in his place—on making a brilliant five-minute speech with no warning at all.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) spoke about the good results from business men in his area, and particularly about making sure that small business is supported. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) also spoke about that, as well as about the increase in people’s disposable income—that is true—and economic models showing that the UK is now growing faster than any other country.
The hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O’Donnell) spoke about abuses of zero-hours contracts. In relation to what she raised earlier, there is no mandation on zero-hours contracts and there are no sanctions. I provide that for clarification and so that she is aware of it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) welcomed the fall in unemployment and the grant of assisted area status for Fleetwood, which I pass on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, who is in his place. My hon. Friend said we should push on with shale gas, and I fully agree that it has potential benefits for us all.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) spoke about vocational training. I welcome the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Reading West (Alok Sharma) and for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), who spoke about real falls in unemployment and rises in employment, particularly youth employment, in their areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) spoke about growing business and manufacturing.
I welcome the speech of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk), which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves). He made me feel very hungry, as I am sure she did, by talking about Danczuk’s Deli. I hope that we can give it more advertising—I can promise him that something in return would be very welcome after three hours on the Front Bench.
My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) said that the Federation of Small Businesses had welcomed the Bill on small businesses in the Queen’s Speech as a “landmark Bill”. I agree that the Bill to protect small business is a landmark measure.
My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) spoke about the importance of the fall in unemployment in his constituency. Youth unemployment there has fallen by 41%, which I welcome. Apprenticeships in his area have risen by 27% since he became its Member. I am not sure whether that fact is directly connected to him, but it will not do him any harm in his area.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) on the very strong and powerful points she made about taking the burden off small businesses.
In their opening and closing speeches, Opposition Members made no reference whatever to one of the big and important features of the Queen’s Speech, which is the continuation of pensions reform. I will say a few words about that because it is very important. I start by paying tribute to the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb). It is way past time for him to be made right honourable, given the work that he has done—I say that to my hon. Friends—because the work that we have done in concert will leave behind a serious platform of pensions reform. The House will come to recognise that and the fact that his work will have rewarded many people. Obviously, we are ensuring that it pays to work, but also, most importantly, that it pays to save, which is one of our major platforms.
Let me just remind the House what we have introduced since being in office. There is the triple lock on the basic state pension; it is worth about £440 more in 2014-15 than it would have been under uprating by earnings, which was the process we inherited. Under automatic enrolment, more than 3 million people have already joined pension schemes, and there are more to come. We have capped rip-off charges, banned hidden charges and set minimum quality standards. Vitally, there is a new state pension, which is set above the means-test level, so that those who have contributed at the full rate for 35 years are guaranteed a decent minimum income.
We are now going further, with a pensions Bill that will pave the way for innovation, competition and choice. We will introduce new flexibilities, trusting individuals to use their own money in retirement as they see fit, not as the Government tell them to do. Our consultation on guaranteed guidance closes today. We intend to strike a balance between impartiality and deliverability, alongside robust standards and monitoring.
At the same time, we are enabling the creation of a defined ambition pension, which is wholly compatible with the new flexibilities, to facilitate greater risk pooling, while offering savers greater certainty. There was a degree of confusion on the Opposition Benches when the Minister of State said that he had been looking at that idea for some years. My shadow, the hon. Member for Leeds West, tweeted on 1 June:
“I said last week Labour will legislate to introduce collective pensions. Days later, ministers are following suit”.
I did not know we acted that fast. After all the years that my hon. Friend has been considering the idea, the hon. Lady suggests that we owe it to her that we have brought it in. She recently attacked the Labour leadership for not showing enough passion, but she must not confuse passion with accuracy. I notice that we have the pair of them here: the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.
When we talked about freeing up annuities, there was chaos among the Opposition. During his speech on the Queen’s Speech, the Leader of the Opposition did not mention pensions reform. The next day, the shadow Chancellor said only that Labour would look at the Government’s proposals—he did not tweet at all. The day after that, the hon. Member for Leeds West said that she supported the reforms. By the weekend, the shadow Business Secretary backtracked and said:
“I’m not going to sign a blank piece of paper on your show”.
Later the same day, my shadow also backtracked, saying that Labour supported the reforms, but that they did not go far enough. The Opposition have been in complete chaos and confusion about these landmark pension reforms—some of the most important that will ever be introduced. The reason why they have been in chaos is that they really do not trust people to dispose of their own money, which they have worked for and saved, whereas the Government do.
Throughout the shadow Business Secretary’s speech, he would not accept that any of the problems that we have had over the past four years were caused by Labour’s great recession. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills reminded him—and it is worth reminding him again—that the recession that happened on Labour’s watch cost the British economy £112 billion and cost 750,000 people their jobs. Youth unemployment increased by nearly a half, long-term unemployment almost doubled in just two years, 5 million people were left on out-of-work benefits and one in five households had no one in work. The shadow Business Secretary wonders why we want to go on talking about that. We do so because we do not want anyone out there ever to forget that Labour almost destroyed the British economy.
Mr Duncan Smith
No, I do not have time.
Under this Government, there is record employment. More than 30 million people are in work. Employment is up this quarter, with the largest rise on record. It is up 1.7 million since the election. Record numbers of women are in work. There is record private sector employment, which is up by 2 million since the election. Three quarters of the rise in employment is made up by full-time jobs. Over the past year, more than three quarters of jobs went to UK nationals, reversing the damaging trend of Labour’s last five years in office.
I close today’s debate on the Queen’s Speech with a very simple point: we cannot trust Labour to be in control of the British economy ever again. The Government are helping people into jobs and ensuring that those who work hard and save all their lives are properly rewarded. To set the record completely straight, there are now more people in work than ever, more women in work than ever and more people in private sector work than ever. Youth and long-term unemployment is falling, and we have the lowest rate of workless households since records began. The Queen’s Speech allows us to build on our success, not Labour’s failure. I commend it to the House.
Question put, That the amendment be made.