Jobs and Business

Alistair Burt Excerpts

Friday 10th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) has just spoken about talking the economy down. I know it was three years ago, which seems a long time, but we need to remind people of who in 2010 was talking this country’s economy down—it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer and this coalition Government. They expressed the ridiculous notion that without the draconian cuts that they brought in, which the Business Secretary said earlier they now recognised were a mistake, we would end up with an economy like that of Greece. We heard the nonsense, which was repeated by the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock, about the fact that we had the largest debt in the developed world.

Let us look at the facts. In 1997 the Labour Government inherited a debt to GDP ratio of 42%. At the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008 that had been reduced to 35%, so irrespective of the Prime Minister’s claim in opposition that we were not mending the roof while the sun was shining, that is exactly what we were doing, which left us in a strong position to weather that financial crisis. The deficit that we inherited in 1997 was 3.9%. That was nearly halved by 2008 to 2.1%. The hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock throws around figures suggesting that we had the largest debt. In cash terms, yes, but for the millionaires in the House— I do not know whether there are any in the Chamber today, although there are plenty in the Front-Bench team of the Conservative party—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)]

Not guilty.

[Mr Jones]

I accept that.

If one looks at the debt of a millionaire in cash terms, of course it will be larger than that of someone who is earning the minimum wage. To compare the size of the UK economy to that of Greece takes no account of that.

We need to recognise who talked the economy down and who took the disastrous decision in those early days to take demand out of the economy. We were growing, as the shadow Business Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), rightly said. That destructive early cut, along with talking the economy down, sucked confidence out of the economy. Getting that confidence back is very difficult. Clearly, many people, and certainly those in my constituency, are very cautious about what they are spending.

Let us have this debate based on the facts. I accept that we in the Labour party missed a trick. We were self-obsessed for nearly six months as we selected a new leader of the party, so we did not rebut the nonsense that was put out at the time.

The Business Secretary said, strangely, that the Queen’s Speech is not the mechanism for getting the economy going. I find that remarkable. This is a lost opportunity. The Queen’s Speech was so thin on substance that it could be marketed by WeightWatchers. There is nothing in it that will help the 20% of young people who are in long-term unemployment. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) spoke about a lost decade. That is so, and we need to remind the House that that has consequences for individuals. The 20% who are now unemployed—and their number is increasing—will have their lives affected for ever. We must recognise the human cost behind the statistics. The problem will not be solved for those individuals in the short term and will have long-term implications for constituents such as mine and those of my hon. Friend that will need to be addressed in the long term.