Budget Resolutions

Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Stephens

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I have given way to the hon. Gentleman, and I am worried about making sure, as you said, Madam Deputy Speaker, that other people are fully involved.

The Chancellor was able to offer nothing for these staff. The cap is not being removed, because, as the Treasury briefed once the Chancellor sat down, any pay rises the pay review boards offer above 1% must be taken from existing budgets. It is a derisory offer to make after seven years of real-terms pay cuts. Worse than that, for NHS nurses, any additional pay will be linked to “Agenda for Change” modernisation, which really means threatening their working conditions—tearing up their terms and conditions of pay.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Is it not also a con, because 55% of civil servants’ pay is not covered by a pay review body?

[John McDonnell]

That is exactly it. That is how the Government, up until now, have avoided their responsibility to ensure that civil servants have a proper pay rise.

For those in social care, with the system still approaching what the Care Quality Commission calls “tipping point”, the Chancellor has not offered a single penny either.

Let me turn to the environment. The Chancellor had a few choice words about electric cars yesterday—I thought a driverless car was a wonderful metaphor. However, on the bigger picture, the Budget is potentially disastrous. The fact that there will be no new low-carbon electricity levies until 2025 could spell the end of much of the low-carbon development in the UK. There was not a single mention in the Chancellor’s speech of renewables, sustainable sources of energy or investment in domestic energy efficiency. It is quite clear that, beyond a few gimmicks, this issue is not, in any sense, a priority for the Government.

The Chancellor referred extensively to technological change, which offers huge potential for our economy and our society if we are prepared to commit to the investment needed. However, it was a Conservative-led Government, of which the Chancellor was a member, that cut research funding by £1 billion in real terms. Unlike the Chancellor and his party, Labour Members know that realising the possibilities of new technology will require a Government committed to providing the funding and long-term investment needed—not a Government, like this one, repackaging existing announcements on fibre optics and 5G in consecutive Budgets, and not one who re-allocates funds they allocated a year ago in the autumn statement, claiming it is new research funding. The Government say they aim to reach the OECD average of 2.4% of GDP spent on R and D by 2027, but after years of languishing below that level, Britain should be aiming to be above the OECD average, rather than belatedly hitting it a decade from now. Even the target displays a lack of ambition and foresight.

The Government have the same problem with Brexit. They never planned for it before the referendum, and they cannot see beyond their own slogans after it. Some 17 months after the referendum result, there is not a single agreement with the EU on any point. The Government are lurching towards the hardest possible Brexit, ripping up our existing relationship with our closest trading partners, instead of trying to work to create a new relationship.

Every major business group has begged the Government to take a different approach—from the CBI to the EEF to the British Chambers of Commerce. Already, businesses are pulling back investment for fear of what might come. So this Government do not just lack ambition: they will not listen to advice and cannot seem to see just how disastrous a cliff-edge plunge out of the EU would be for our economy.

The Chancellor trailed this Budget as making Britain “fit for the future”. What it actually demonstrated, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) North said yesterday, is that this is a Government no longer fit for office—too divided to deliver. The Budget demonstrated that this is increasingly a Government without purpose, divided and in disarray, whose confidence is sapped and whose time is up. I just say to them: it is better to go with a bit of dignity—just go with a bit of dignity!—rather than humiliating disintegration. Labour is ready and willing to form the Government that this country needs, rather than this shambles that cannot even be described as a Government.

Economy and Jobs

Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Stephens

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Is the shadow Chancellor aware that 25% of posts in the national minimum wage compliance unit are lying vacant? Is that not one reason why minimum wage compliance is so weak?

[John McDonnell]

The hon. Gentleman currently chairs the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary group, which I previously chaired, and we have campaigned on that point for seven years. If we cannot staff up the unit that is meant to carry out inspections and ensure compliance with the minimum wage, how can we expect the minimum wage to be paid fairly?

Let us look at the desperate state of our public services. How can anyone in government take pride in the fact that spending per pupil is set to fall by 8% by 2019-20? More than 46,000 children’s operations have been cancelled over the past four years. Police numbers have been cut by 20,000 since 2010, firefighter posts have been cut by 10,000, and 20,000 soldiers have been cut from the Army. A record of pride? I don’t think so.

So we have a Government who cannot feed their people, house their people adequately or protect their children and older people from poverty. They cannot ensure that when people go to work they earn enough to live on, and they cannot maintain our basic public services. They are a Government who do not deserve to remain in office.