Amendment of the Law

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Christopher Pincher

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

What is clear from the debate we have had today and the Budget statement we heard yesterday is that this Government are hopelessly out of touch. There was no mention from Government Members, either yesterday or today, of the central fact that after four years of this Government ordinary working people are £1,600 a year worse off.

The Chancellor said yesterday that his Budget was for doers, makers and savers. Well, it might help some doers, some makers and some savers, but one would not want to bet the house on it. That is because of the Government’s record. In 2010 he said that he would eliminate the deficit by 2015, but we now know that he does not plan to do that until 2018. The Government have borrowed £190 billion more than they originally planned to. Indeed, they borrowed more in three years than the previous Labour Government borrowed in 13 years.

In 2011 the Chancellor announced his Budget for growth, but we saw his growth forecasts revised down. In 2012 he said that he would tackle tax avoidance to raise billions of pounds, but the UK-Swiss tax deal raised only a fraction of the money the Government promised. The truth is that he is way out on his own forecasts of where he said we would be when he came to power. He has failed on the terms he set for himself, and ordinary people are paying the price.

The Chancellor would have us believe that his Budget will improve the lives of ordinary working people at some point in the not-too-distant future, but I am afraid that it is a future that is just out of reach—it is not now. There is nothing in the Budget that will help the ordinary person in the ordinary family in the here and now. In the here and now, wages are down for the ordinary working person, bills are up and the economy will not return to pre-crisis levels until 2017.

Sure, for a doer earning £150,000 or more, or a banker taking a big bonus, this is a Budget and this is a Government for them. The Chancellor has already given a huge tax cut to people earning over £150,000, and bankers’ bonuses are rising. People earning over £1 million have received a tax cut worth, on average, £100,000. But what about the rest of the doers? The average wage in this country is £26,500. There are no meaningful measures in the Budget to help them. What is gained by the increase in the personal allowance has already been more than wiped out by the cost of living crisis affecting millions of people across our country. The truth is that this Chancellor has given with one hand but taken away far more with the other. There is nothing in the Budget for the millions of hard-working doers up and down our country.

As for the makers, there was some welcome news in the Budget, but I am afraid that it is a case of far too little, far too late. On both energy and business investment, the Chancellor was simply putting right the mistakes that he made in his 2010 Budget, especially the cut in capital allowances, a fact that he conveniently forgot to mention yesterday. In 2010 he hit businesses that wanted to invest. It is good that he is starting to put that right, but it is very late in the day and a lot of damage has already been done to the economy.

On exports, again there were some welcome steps, but revised export forecasts show that the Chancellor is set to miss his 2020 target. In fact, the Budget suggests that he will not even get halfway. Again, his own record does not give us a great deal of hope. The Government’s export enterprise finance guarantee scheme helped just five firms before it folded, and the export refinancing facility was still not operational over a year after it was first announced. That is not a record to be proud of.

On science and research—this relates to the discoverers and inventors that the makers of this country rely on—once again we saw the Government’s characteristic approach: a little bit here and a little bit there, but nothing in the co-ordinated and planned way that this country’s science community is crying out for. There is no long-term science framework, as was delivered by the previous Labour Government, and as will be delivered again by the next Labour Government in 2015. Everybody knows that this country’s science, research and innovation base, which punches well above its weight on the global scale, needs a long-term plan for certainty and to build the critical mass from which great innovation occurs, but this Government have once again failed to deliver it.

As for savers, we will have to look at the detailed proposals, but the Budget itself shows that the forecast savings ratio has been revised down for every year from 2013 to 2018. So much for a Budget to encourage saving! This afternoon, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has told us that the changes are based on “highly uncertain assumptions” and could create people who lose out. What of the millions of people in this country, in the here and now, who cannot save because of the cost of living crisis? Saving will be a luxury for the hundreds of thousands of people relying on food banks to survive and the tens of thousands of people who are being pushed into debt by the bedroom tax.

In this debate we have heard many examples of the effects of the Government’s failure in powerful contributions from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and my hon. Friends the Members for Westminster North (Ms Buck), for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex), for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), and for Croydon North (Mr Reed). Every single Labour Member spoke of what the Government should have addressed in their Budget yesterday. This Budget is yet another missed opportunity to deal with the cost of living crisis.

[Christopher Pincher]

If the hon. Lady is concerned about the cost of living crisis, as we all should be, why did her party support an amendment to the Energy Bill in the other place that would have added £150 to energy bills? How would that help with the cost of living crisis?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The truth is that we have called for a freeze on energy bills, which are going up under this Government. Perhaps the Government might understand the cost of living crisis better if they had more women on their Front Bench. I notice that once again this afternoon there is not a single female Member on the Government Front Bench.

The cost of living crisis has meant that child care costs have spiralled by 30% since 2010. Energy bills are up by almost £300 since the election, with consumers having no way of knowing whether the bills are fair, owing to weak competition and poor regulation. Rent is using up more and more of people’s incomes, with rent arrears becoming the fastest growing debt, and food prices have risen by over 4% year on year, putting a huge squeeze on family finances. The Government know that this is not about choosing between bringing the deficit down and dealing with the very serious cost of living crisis. That is simply a false choice that they choose to hide behind, because this Budget could have addressed these things.

Labour Members have put forward a number of fully costed proposals that would deal with the cost of living crisis and get help to families here and now. On child care, we would use a levy on banks to provide 25 hours of free child care a week, worth £1,500, for working parents with three and four-year-olds. The Government’s proposals, which will not even kick in until after the election, will give most benefit to the highest earners, who tend to have the highest child care costs. On housing, we have committed to getting 200,000 homes a year built by 2020, whereas this Government have refused to take the action that is needed and are presiding over the lowest levels of house building in peacetime since the 1920s.

On energy, as I said to the hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), we would freeze energy bills until 2017, and, importantly, reform the energy market to stop consumers being ripped off. We would cut taxes for 24 million working people on middle and low incomes with a lower, 10p starting rate of income tax. We would put young people back to work with a job for the long-term young unemployed that they had to take, paid for by a tax on bankers bonuses. We would balance the books in a fairer way by reversing the £3 billion tax cut for people earning £150,000 a year, which this Government sought to prioritise ahead of any action to help hard-working families in our country.

Yesterday the Chancellor had an opportunity to help people who are struggling in the here and now, and he refused to take it. This Government’s so-called long-term economic plan has failed on its own terms, and people on middle and lower incomes are paying the price. People know that this is not about how the pound looks but how many they have in their pockets. Today they have fewer than they did in 2010, and in 2015 they will have fewer than they had in 2010. It is the same old story—you are worse off under the Tories.