Government's Management of the Economy

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con) [V]]

To continue the fairy tale theme so brilliantly evoked by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), this debate has truly been a “Through the Looking-Glass” experience—“Anneliese in Wonderland”, if you will, with due apologies to the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds).

We have heard no acknowledgement from Labour Members today of the awful fiscal inheritance the Conservative coalition Government of 2010 received—the worst inheritance of any incoming Government. We had to clean up the mess Labour left behind. The contrast with the golden legacy the Blair Government received from the last Conservative Government in 1997 is stark.

There is also no acknowledgement from Labour Members today that the British people have already had their say about this three times. In 2015, 2017 and 2019 they rejected the arguments Labour Members have continued to make today. Clearly, the Labour party still does not believe in any compromise with the electorate. The British people are far more sensible than they are given credit for. They know they cannot get something for nothing. They know we have to live within our means. They know we have to pay our way. They know that free broadband is nothing of the sort—there is always a price to be paid. They saw through the ludicrous Corbynite manifesto. “Manifesto” is perhaps too strong a word; it was a wish list that even Santa would have struggled with. The hard-working, working-class, patriotic voters of the red wall—seats like mine of Newcastle-under-Lyme—saw through that manifesto even more than most.

There has been no compromise with the electorate from the Labour party, but frankly there is no compromise with reality either. The only reason we were able to respond as we did when covid struck was that we had taken those difficult decisions over the past decade to reduce our deficit by 80%. That provided the fiscal space—the headroom—that allowed the Chancellor to make the dramatic manoeuvres he made to support the economy through furlough and business grants. Those were difficult decisions that Gordon Brown ducked when he was Prime Minister and that the Labour party opposed when the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) was Leader of the Opposition.

Briefly, in the time I have left, I will focus on some of the economic successes of the past decade, which those decisions made possible. There is more investment in towns like Newcastle-under-Lyme. We have secured £11 million through the future high streets fund, and hopefully £25 million more is on the way through our towns fund bid. We have more jobs across the nation, with a record level of employment in February 2020. Obviously the coronavirus crisis has had an impact on unemployment, but we will get those people back to work.

We have reduced inequality by all measures across the last decade. We have far fewer children living in workless households than in 2010. The income tax cuts have been directed at the lowest-paid, who now keep more of what they earn through the improvements we have made to the personal allowance. Finally, all the savings and difficult decisions we have made have enabled us to provide the biggest cash boost in the history of the NHS and to guarantee that in law.

A decade ago, the Labour party said that there was no money left. Listening to Labour Members today, I feel that they have no arguments left.