Amendment of the Law

Adrian Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I shall confine my remarks to the Chancellor’s speech yesterday. According to him, Britain is now walking tall and basking in the glow of economic recovery. From my constituency perspective, those words will ring hollow to many. It is difficult to feel pride or walk tall when going to a food bank, which is the reality for an increasing number of people desperate for alleviation of the policies that the Government have implemented over the past five years. Talk of walking tall and the sun shining rings hollow in their ears.

This is not just about those at the sharpest end of the Government’s policies, however; it also applies to the average family. Indeed, we have already debated income levels for average families over the past five years, and the overwhelming consensus of opinion and analysis is that there has been a considerable reduction in average incomes over those years. That is certainly the day-to-day experience of most MPs, either in their surgeries or knocking on doors. We cannot blame the public for being so cynical. If they hear the litany of Government achievements, they cannot help comparing it with their day-to-day lives.

Then there is the fear. The Government tell us that in spite of all this success more cuts need to follow and that those cuts will be sharper over the next few years than in the last. We cannot blame people for wondering, if we are doing so well and have suffered so much, why we have to have another round of cuts. It is because the so-called long-term economic plan is in reality just an extension of the Government’s failed short-term economic plan. They failed to reach their target on deficit reduction because, in spite of the headline economic fears, they have driven us in the direction of a low-income, low-productivity economy, resulting in a reduction of the tax receipts necessary to reduce the deficit.

Presented with the conundrum of how to get economic growth with lower tax receipts, all the Government have to offer is more of the same. They have outlined another £30 billion-worth of cuts to come, with £13 billion coming from departmental spending—I shall address the implications of that in a minute—and £12 billion from welfare. Can we blame the public for being cynical, given that the Government have been promising welfare cuts for the last couple of years but welfare spending has in fact increased?

The Government also say they will protect pensions. What does that mean for the balance of welfare provision for other people? It implies huge cuts. We cannot blame the public for being concerned. The Government say that £5 billion will come from blocking tax avoidance and evasion. Given their rather dubious record on securing money from that source so far, we cannot blame the public for being cynical.

There has been an improvement in manufacturing—part of the Government’s so-called rebalancing exercise—but it has been very modest. Indeed, in January, it actually declined. We were told that we had a £1 trillion export target for 2020, but we are less than halfway there. Research and development, which is key to keeping Britain’s advanced technology advantage over other countries, has been falling behind other developed and developing countries, and according to the OBR projection it is going to fall further. Bank lending to business—essential to get the investment needed to expand our economy—has lagged throughout.

One element that bothers me in particular about the headline £13 billion cut to departmental spending is this: if some Departments are protected, others will not be and will have to take a disproportionate spending cut, and one of those will be the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Notwithstanding our occasional differences, I recognise that the Secretary of State has been a doughty champion of business interests in this country, and to have a disproportionate amount of those cuts focused on his Department could have the most profound long-term implications for the so-called long-term economic plan. I fear for the future of BIS and the policies it promotes, which are vital to getting the sort of economic growth we need.

I want to conclude with a couple of remarks about a potential gaping hole in the figures. We have already debated student loans, tuition fees and so on, but I find it astonishing that the Secretary of State did not refer to the resource accounting and budgeting charge—the cost of the non-repayment of student loans and its future implications for the budget. It is now reaching about 50% and is estimated to be about £30 billion by 2030. The implications are enormous. Labour’s policies would address at least part of the problem. The Government can accuse Labour of being irresponsible, but they have failed to demonstrate how it is responsible to introduce a system that will leave a legacy financial black hole on the scale they are talking about.

According to the OBR, the Government are going to sell the student loan book after all—I praise the Secretary of State for blocking it. When we heard evidence on that point, experts told us that if they wished to sell it, they would have to offer sweeteners or sell it at a hugely discounted rate. I would like to know whether the Chancellor has factored in the cost of selling the student loan book and whether the sum involved will meet the Government’s financial projections.