Comprehensive Spending Review
Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Mary Macleod(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hanson
No, not in view of the little time I have left.
More widely, there are cuts to front-line policing, putting at risk Labour’s record falls in crime and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) noted, putting extra pressure on health and education services, despite pledges to support them.
Mary Macleod
What is the right hon. Gentleman’s plan, and which cuts does he agree with?
Mr Hanson
I can see a pattern developing. Members who were not here in March of this year did not hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West outline his proposals.
Despite what the coalition would have us believe, this grossly unfair series of cuts is not inevitable—there is another way. The deficit was there because as a Government we faced a choice. Incidentally, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), as Leader of the Opposition, supported our deficit reduction plan and spending programmes. After much dithering, he supported us in taking measures to ensure that we did not let the United Kingdom slip into a depression. Members such as the hon. Members for Central Devon (Mel Stride) and for Watford do not realise that the official Opposition supported us in ensuring that we took action to help to support the banks to keep people in their jobs and to keep people’s mortgages alive.
That is unlike what happened in the recessions of the early 1990s, which I remember as a Member of Parliament, when we saw mortgages go up, houses repossessed, and jobs lost in their thousands. We took action to save those things on behalf of the British people, and we were proud to do so. The action that we took kept people in their jobs, kept people in their homes, and gave more businesses the support they needed than at any time during the 1990s. Through our action, inflation stayed at a historical low and plans were put in place to ensure that we saw a return to growth at the end of this year. We took that action to support the economy.
We need to bring the deficit down—certainly we do. We know that tough spending choices are needed, and in our Budget we looked at saving money on IT systems in the NHS, police overtime and welfare, and made £15 billion of efficiency and back-office savings on a range of other issues. They were important savings. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) says, we raised money through a higher and more effective banking levy.
This comprehensive spending review debate is about choices. It is about choosing whether the banks bear more of a burden than our children. It is about choosing whether we cut public services spending deeply or quickly—and we would not. It is about targeting new tax rises to fund £7.5 billion of capital spending in order to support jobs now. The Government are making the wrong choices. We are not “all in this together”. They are gambling with jobs, gambling with growth, deepening unfairness, and increasing inequality. To cite a notable former Prime Minister, there is an alternative.
We announced our programme in our Budget in March, and we were elected—every single one of us—on that programme for the future. In the coming weeks and months, we will promote that alternative vigorously, expose this Government’s reckless policies and ensure that we stand up for the ordinary, squeezed, middle-class people of this country and the people on lower incomes. We will reject the cuts where it is appropriate to reject them and support efficiencies where they should be made. [Interruption.] Again, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford was not listening to what was said earlier. He has not been here listening to the debates and the arguments. I urge him and the House to reject this comprehensive spending review, support the Labour alternative and ensure that we defend the poorest in our society.