Jobs and Growth

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Okay. The motion tears up the Darling plan—it is £27 billion off the plan set out in the March 2010 Budget. That is the truth.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Osborne]

I shall give way to the parliamentary private secretary to the former Prime Minister to defend his record.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

I will defend the record of our former Prime Minister any day of the week, but will the Chancellor defend his own record, and tell the House how far away he is from his deficit payback plan?

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Lady has to defend the record of the former Prime Minister because he never turns up in this House to defend it himself.

The one thing that we want to avoid in a debt crisis is a sharp rise in interest rates, but that is what the motion would bring about. Let me give the House some new information.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

I am delighted to see that the reshuffle of the shadow Cabinet has had a real effect on its sense of humour. Government Members are of course used to the fake outrage all the time, but the terms of the motion suggest that the Opposition seem to have discovered irony.

I will not support the motion, because it demonstrates the Opposition’s fundamental failure to have any credible economic policy whatever. This five-point plan is a nationalised Ponzi scheme on steroids. Even in itself it would add £3.1 billion to our deficit. The Opposition probably do not understand what a Ponzi scheme is, but they should look at their own manifesto. People in my constituency do not believe that the way out of debt is to take on more debt. They do not believe that the way to reduce their personal liability is to spend more money.

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. Gentleman is incorrect, because if there were investment it would not be a fake Ponzi scheme—the assets would be real, unlike in an actual Ponzi scheme.

[Jake Berry]

I never said it was a fake Ponzi scheme, I said it was a real Ponzi scheme. That is the basis of the Opposition’s entire policy.

The markets believe in our plan and want us to stick to plan A: actually, so does every hard-working family in my constituency. They are struggling with personal loans and do not want interest rates to go up. Like so many of us, they are struggling with mortgages and cannot afford that to happen. The Prime Minister has offered real leadership throughout this, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been honest. That is in stark contrast to the Labour party’s constant line of “too far, too fast”.

What is the Opposition’s alternative? This five-point plan is simply too little, too late. They believe, “Why repay borrowing today when we can have business as usual and bankrupt Britain tomorrow?”