Cost of Living

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Christopher Pincher

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) and to speak in this debate. It gives me an opportunity to relate to the House the good news happening in Tamworth, which is not some leafy suburb but a no-nonsense, hard-working, gritty, midlands town. In Tamworth in the past 12 months, unemployment has fallen by 31%, youth unemployment by 35%, and long-term unemployment by nearly 40%.

Last month I held a jobs fair at which there were more jobs than jobseekers. There were some 400 jobs, including apprenticeships at Jaguar Land Rover and Spline Gauges, 50 jobs at Marston’s brewery, and jobs at Toys R Us. That demonstrates in a small but significant way how we have turned a corner and are creating real, sustainable jobs and growth for our constituents. It is our job to do that, and a story that Labour Members do not like to tell, just as they do not like to be reminded of their last miserable years in government, when in my town jobs were lost across the board. One could walk down the Glascote road and see repossession notices in window after window, as banks foreclosed on people’s homes. People were not just losing their jobs under Labour, they were losing their homes as well. We will not listen to lectures from Opposition Members when we remember the grisly legacy of Labour’s years, and we will not let them forget it either.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in order to receive a lecture, someone actually has to have some information given to them?

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, apposite in his point, and we look forward to hearing Labour’s plan—plan A, plan B, plan Z? One day perhaps we will hear what it might be.

We have heard something from the Leader of the Opposition, whose latest stunt is to announce an energy price freeze. We should beware geeks bearing gifts, because that announcement is pretty hollow for three reasons. First, if a price freeze is imposed, companies will simply hike their prices before the freeze and afterwards, and people will be paying artificially high energy prices. That is what Professor Dieter Helm says, as well as Adam Scorer from Consumer Focus. Even the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) has raised that concern. He is a Labour member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee and says that Labour’s plans for an energy freeze are somewhat sketchy.

The second reason a freeze will not work is that rather than break up the big six oligopoly, it will entrench it. Stephen Fitzpatrick of Ovo and the First Utility company—the company of choice for the Leader of the Opposition—say that a price freeze will make it more difficult for them to break into the market and operate, and that it will entrench the position of the big six, rather than break it up. The third reason the freeze will not work is that it will jeopardise £125 billion-worth of investment that we must make in short order in our energy infrastructure—£25 billion of that in the pipes and pylons that keep our lights switched on.