Andy Sawford
Main Page: Andy Sawford (Labour (Co-op) - Corby)Department Debates - View all Andy Sawford's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister may be reluctant to offer real transparency on the impact of the Government’s changes because of the findings of the Institute for Fiscal Studies that the average family will be £891 a year worse off as a result of the cumulative effect of the changes under his Budgets over the past three years.
Mr Gauke
I do not recognise those numbers. We have taken steps to try to get the country out of a significant fiscal hole. We have taken steps to reduce the amount of tax that millions of households will pay as a consequence of the increase in personal allowance. We have reduced income tax for 25 million people. That is something we are proud of, and something that we did not see when the Opposition were in power.
Chris Leslie
I understand that the hon. Gentleman will be tabling amendments on that issue and look forward to seeing how he will frame them. I know that Ministers are looking forward to seeing those amendments, because they will spark a useful debate within the Government ranks. Personally, I do not think that is the best strategy. I think that it would be better to look at the damage his hon. Friends have been doing to the tax credits system. It is women and families, in particular, who are paying the price for the Chancellor’s economic mistakes. In fact, the Government have cut support for parents by reducing statutory maternity and paternity pay so that by 2015 it will be worth £180 less than it would have been had it been uprated in line with inflation. I think that the hon. Gentleman needs to look at that point. The Prime Minister once promised—I know that this is something the hon. Gentleman feels keenly—that he would lead the most family-friendly Government ever, but it is ordinary families across the country who are paying the price for the Government’s failed economic strategy.
The Finance Bill will make Britain less fair. We are definitely not all in this together. For example, let us look at the Government’s “shares for rights” scheme, set out in clause 54, which I know we will be considering again in the Chamber. The Government’s view of a fairer society is one in which businesses are allowed to force new employees to give up their rights at work, including the right not to be sacked unfairly and the right to redundancy pay, something so unpopular that even former Conservative Ministers voted against it in the House of Lords. It is not even as if the business community is asking for that power. Of the 184 businesses that responded to the official consultation, only three said that they wanted to use the scheme. Ministers are totally out of touch with employees and employers on that issue.
Whatever rosy picture the Minister tries to paint, the public can tell that living standards are falling, not rising. The Government just do not seem to understand how extreme austerity has hit consumer confidence, how it is sapping business confidence and how precipitous cuts and tax rises have had the opposite of their intended effect. Let us take the study published only last week by the Financial Times showing that they are harming the prospects of recovery for some of our most fragile local economies, especially in poorer areas of the country, by removing £19 billion of spending power from their residents. It is the regions of the UK most in need of regeneration and private sector investment that are feeling the heaviest impact.
Andy Sawford
My hon. Friend is making an incredibly important point about the uneven effects of the Government’s policies. In some parts of the country people have been able to return to work, according to the much-vaunted statistics on unemployment in recent months, but across East Northamptonshire 126 more people this year are on employment and support allowance because of the Government’s failure to get our economy growing overall and their particular failure to help those communities that have suffered most in recent years.
Chris Leslie
Where is the regional economic strategy from the Government? Where is their attempt to revitalise those parts of the country that have suffered most of all? I am sorry if I sound a little like Eeyore to Government Members, but somebody has to say, as my hon. Friends have been saying, that Government policies are just going to harm those parts of the country that are in desperate need of regeneration and will make the situation worse for them. My hon. Friend makes that point well.
Chris Leslie
Looking at the situation in the round, that is exactly the sort of welfare reform that we need. If we are going to get to the root of these problems, we must have serious reforms to our welfare system, and we need a Government who are serious about delivering them.
The Chancellor and his Ministers are not serious about solving these issues; all they want to do is to stoke up fear and prejudice, blame the unemployed and the welfare system, and deflect attention from their own woeful failures to repair public finances. Serious welfare reform has to be a continuous process to fit the modern circumstances of society. Reform is never just a “job done”, nor should it aim only at being headline-grabbing. We should crack down harder on fraud but also on tax evasion, we should better reflect the contributory principle, and above all, we should focus relentlessly on getting people back into work so that they are making a productive contribution while also paying taxes again to bring in those much needed revenues.
A Work programme where only 2% of participants find themselves in sustained employment is a humiliation for these Ministers. They should never have scrapped the new deal, and if they were genuine reformers they would immediately set out a compulsory jobs guarantee, using the repeat of the banker bonus tax to fund a minimum-wage job placement for all young people unemployed for a year, and using the money saved from reducing the pension tax relief for the richest 1% to fund a job for all adults who are long-term unemployed for two years or more. No excuses: if they turn down those decent and properly paid job opportunities, they should forfeit unemployment benefits. Languishing on the dole for the long term must end, but we need to treat those looking for work with respect and give them a decent and real job opportunity, not cast them aside.
Andy Sawford
My hon. Friend rightly highlights the importance of helping the long-term unemployed back to work and the new deal’s success relative to the Government’s Work programme, which is a contradiction in terms. Does he recognise that in my constituency, which, according to independent surveys, is the most difficult place in the country for young people to find work, we need approaches such as the future jobs fund, which the Government scrapped as one of their first acts of vandalism on coming into office? We need those programmes, which we have proposed.
Chris Leslie
This is the answer to Ministers who were saying earlier from a sedentary position, “Where are your policies?” The difference between the parties is that they do not understand that jobs, at the heart of welfare reform, are the way to get revenues flowing into the economy. If they neglect economic growth and do not recognise that growth has an effect on the wider prosperity of society as well as on public finances, they will never repair the deficit as they claimed they would, and they will never have the fairer society that the Minister had the cheek to mention when concluding his speech. Ministers talk about fairness: tell that to the families who are losing £891 this year—households who are in work—when at the same time they see these Ministers giving away £145 million in the Budget to hedge fund managers by abolishing stamp duty reserve tax on some unit trust investments; tell that to those who are forking out 20% VAT and losing hundreds of pounds through higher taxes while the banks are let off the hook; and tell that to our constituents who we see, all too frequently, left with only £60 per week to live on while Ministers lavish on millionaires an average £100,000 tax cut in this financial year by scrapping the 50p top rate.
The Chancellor either does not understand fairness or does not care that he is creating unfairness. The Finance Bill will make the rich richer but do nothing to help the vast majority to secure a better standard of living. Worse still, the Bill will harm the prospects for our economy this year. Just at the moment we need measures to stimulate growth, the Government have produced this misguided Bill. They give a little away with one hand but take away so much more with the other. Their tax rises and cuts more than offset what they have promised in several years’ time on child care or changes to the personal allowance. Taking a penny off a pint of beer does not go very far when they have added 5p a pint through higher VAT.
Why is this such an inappropriate Bill? It is because the Chancellor does not prioritise the British economy or the prosperity of the British people. His No. 1 priority is himself: his own political reputation. It is all about reviving his own fortunes and trying to shore up his ideological credentials. This Budget and this Finance Bill were not about anyone else’s job but the Chancellor’s. That explains the fudging of the public accounts to make it look as though the deficit was falling when it is plainly as high as the year before. It explains the Chancellor’s refusal to budge from a failing strategy in case he had to admit his mistakes and swallow his pride, it explains the ever-widening net of blame for why things have fallen so off course, and it explains why the country’s fortunes have been downgraded while he carries on regardless. It is time that the Chancellor’s reputation was not the be-all and end-all of Treasury policy. It is time that we put the boost that our economy needs at the heart of everything we do. This Bill is bereft of the bold steps we need to kick-start Britain’s economy. I urge my hon. Friends to oppose it because Britain deserves better.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
If there was one test that the Government put in place from the day that they got into power, it was reducing the deficit. Three years on, what do we see? Borrowing is increasing by £245 billion and there is no chance of the deficit being paid off by 2015. By 2016-17, debt as a ratio of GDP will be 85.4%. Those are damning figures.
On 23 April 2012, the Prime Minister said:
“We’re involved in an economic rescue mission, but we’re not just a bunch of accountants dealing with a deficit, there’s also a driving passion and vision to change this country and make it much more on the side of hard-working people who do the right thing.”
Unfortunately, those who work hard and play by the rules have seen the top earners in society get a tax cut of 5p. I will not denigrate success: there is nothing wrong with people striving to work hard and enjoy the fruits of their labour; aspiration is what the party I represent is about and it is something that we should believe in. However, if the Government could find a tax cut of 5p for the highest earners, why could they not do it for the middle-income earners, for the families who are worried about their jobs and for the people sitting around their kitchen tables today who see the price of their groceries going up all the time, inflation going up and real wages dropping by 2.4%? Who is standing up for them? Nobody.
We hear wonderful words and statistics from Government Members, but the simple fact is this: we are still stuck in the grip of an economic theory that failed. We were told that tax cuts for the very rich would trickle down through society. We were told that the highest earners would somehow create jobs. What did we see by the end of the ’80s? We saw a record recession in 1990, with more houses repossessed and more businesses going bust than ever before, all because of the belief that we should be on the side of those who ride in limousines, rather than those who go to work every day in their vans.
I believe in one thing. It may be old-fashioned, but I believe that work is the only way out of poverty and the only way to reduce the ills of this country. Having people in work and paying their taxes is the only way to reduce not only the deficit, but the national debt. It is up to this Government and to any Government, whether they be red, blue, yellow or whatever blue and yellow are when they come together, to create jobs and to reduce all the barriers to people getting into work.
What does the Bill do? We have heard Government Members lauding the right to buy scheme. We have heard them talk about getting more people on the property ladder, even though rents are through the roof and it is hard to get a deposit. The average age of a person buying their first house is now 37. At that age, my mother and father had already had two children and got divorced—they had already lived their life. Now, people of that age are still struggling to get on the ladder.
What is the problem? It is not home ownership or high rents, but the lack of housing in this country. Instead of following the pledge of the Labour party to build 100,000 new houses using the sell-off of the 4G spectrum, the Government have ignored the problem completely. How many people will take advantage of the right to buy scheme? Will it go on failing like it is? Only 1,500 people took advantage of it last year. That is not a scheme that will create a nation of home owners; all it does is provide warm words. Whether we are on the right or the left, we have to get to a point in this country where the best ideas are used. Surely, the best idea is to use the money from the 4G spectrum to invest in homes and thereby create jobs.
The next matter that I want to talk about is barriers to work. We can quote statistics all we want, but the simple fact, as Harold Wilson said, is that it does not matter what the employment rate is in the country; for an unemployed person, the unemployment rate is 100%. Most of the people with children whom I talk to in my surgery and around my constituency say that the biggest barrier to getting back to work is child care issues. That is the elephant in the room. We can talk about job creation schemes all we want, but if people have child care issues, their priority is to look after their child.
On 19 March, a Treasury press release lauded the
“New scheme to bring tax-free childcare for 2.5 million working families”.
When I saw that, I applauded it and thought that it was the way forward. However, I then found out that the scheme will not come in until 2015. That means that people who have child care issues now face cuts to their child tax credit. A family with two children have already seen a cut of £1,500 a year in their child care funding. There is not only a cut in child care funding; since 2010, there are 400 fewer Sure Start centres and early years budgets have been slashed. That affects the economy, because if parents cannot go back to work, whether they are mums or dads, it adds to the welfare bill. I genuinely believe that it is economic madness to cut jobs or not allow people to go back into work if it creates a welfare bill that adds more and more to the deficit.
I will move on to another barrier to work. Like many hon. Members, I am bombarded by e-mails and letters from the FairFuelUK campaign. That must be the campaign from which I have received the most e-mails, letters and communications. However, those communications are coming not from a national campaign, but from the ordinary motorist in work. He is struggling to get to work. Again, the Government laud their freezing of petrol duty in September and say that they are on the side of hard-working families and people who need their car for work.
Andy Sawford
Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Government had taken the sensible advice of shadow Treasury Ministers to cut VAT, that would have provided much more significant help with the price of fuel than their small offering?
Chris Evans
I thank my hon. Friend, because I was building up to that point.
The Conservatives like to tell people that they are the party of low taxation. They might have cut income tax in the ’80s, and cut it now from 50p to 45p, but the one thing they have used over and over again is value added tax. Under the Conservatives, VAT has risen from 15% to 17.5% to 20% as it is now. That is the tool they have always used. It is all very well someone being taxed on what they spend or buy, but everybody has to pay VAT, whether they are a struggling pensioner, a student who needs clothes or equipment for university, or a single parent. Everybody has to pay VAT, whether they are a duke or on the bins.
When VAT is put on petrol, it is instantly put up by 3p. The Government’s proposal means absolutely nothing. This Government could show some bravery and leadership by reducing VAT. I know they will say that once VAT has been put on some goods it has to stay, but that does not mean it has to stay at 20%. When the Labour party was in power in 1997, we reduced VAT on fuel bills to 5%. It has been done before; a precedent has been set and it can be done again.
When I look around my constituency I see so many hard-working people who are being squeezed. The most heinous thing, which I hear all the time, is people being demonised because they claim benefits, even though six out of 10 people who claim benefits are in work. That says one thing: work is not paying. What do the Government do? They make a tiny increase this week to the minimum wage. For me, the minimum wage is the cornerstone of welfare reform—a decent living wage. I am sick to death and tired of hearing my constituents be demonised and criminalised because they find themselves unemployed. They are all pushed together in sweeping statements; they are called scroungers, and being from the valleys that hurts me, because I know how proud is the tradition of working. That is the most heinous thing.
One thing the Government could do to prove that we are—to use a phrase that has not been heard for the past two years—“all in this together” is repeal the bedroom tax. That is close to my heart, because the average person in Islwyn will pay an extra £91 for having an extra bedroom. There will be pensioners who have lived in the same council house all their lives, brought up a family and made a home, but who are being kicked out because they have a three-bedroom house. What are they to do—bring in a lodger or someone they do not know? No. In my constituency of Islwyn in Caerphilly county borough, 80% of my constituents who are renting will be affected for the simple reason that in 1945 the Labour Government did not build council houses just to house people: we built family homes. We built two and three-bedroom houses in which families could grow and thrive in a safe environment. That was a cornerstone of Aneurin Bevan’s vision as Housing Minister—a contribution that people often forget.
I am concerned that ordinary people are getting squeezed all the time. The Finance Bill represents an opportunity for the Government to show that they can be caring and compassionate, but this opportunity has been wasted. It was not a steady-as-you-go, as-you-were Budget, and the figures bear out the situation. Growth in this country is anaemic; it is flatlining and needs investment. The Prime Minister’s mantra at Prime Minister’s questions every week is the same: “All Labour wants to do is borrow more money; it wants to go the same way as Greece and spend it all.” To me, however, it is an absolute no-brainer. We are already borrowing £245 billion, so what is wrong with trying to invest that in creating jobs and building new houses?
I oppose the Second Reading of this Bill because it does nothing for the people we seek to represent. This is not about steady-as-you-go; the Government have failed in their primary aim of reducing the deficit, and therefore the Bill does not deserve a Second Reading.
David Rutley
The debate is about sustainable economic growth, and if we look at the record of the 13 years of the previous Labour Government and their promise of no return to boom and bust, the facts speak for themselves.
Andy Sawford
What is it about 63 consecutive quarters of economic growth that the hon. Gentleman does not recognise as a period of prosperity in this country?
David Rutley
As a member of the Treasury Select Committee, I have had the privilege of interviewing and putting to the test various former permanent secretaries. Lord Turnbull springs to mind. He worked in the Treasury under the Labour Government and supported Labour Ministers, and he is on record as saying that after those 63 successive quarters, what he called wishful thinking crept in—
David Rutley
If the hon. Lady had listened, she would know that I did not say that. The phrase about wishful thinking came from Lord Turnbull—one of Labour’s permanent secretaries, speaking for himself. The groupthink that pervaded the Treasury at the time led to the tragic results that we are having to clear up, and the Bill is taking steps to do that.
The Bill is a fitting tribute. It will promote competition and reduce barriers to entry for the ambitious and aspirational people of this country, who simply want the chance to work hard, compete and get on. The Chancellor’s Budget speech made it clear that the Bill will be followed by future measures that continue these efforts to free enterprise and remove the roadblocks to economic growth. That is a clear commitment from the Government.
It is worth reflecting on what enterprise actually means. It does not mean that people are on their own as some critics allege. As John Donne wrote:
“No man is an island, entire of itself.”
He could have written the same thing about enterprise, because free-market economics is not an atomistic pursuit, but recognition that we all advance by pooling our comparative advantages in a common free economy. We should remind ourselves of the common value and purpose of enterprise as we lay the foundations for future growth. It is not about state intervention, as Opposition Members suggest.
Business transactions must involve at least two parties—the supplier and the consumer—and the very word “enterprise” is derived from joint undertakings: enter from the French “entre”, meaning “between”, and “prise” from “prendre,” to take. It is suggested, perhaps rather dubiously, that President George Bush once said, “The problem with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur.” Forgive my French, Mr Deputy Speaker, but although we do not have a word for entrepreneur, we on the Government Benches understand the meaning of enterprise, which is literally the joint seizure of opportunity for mutual advantage. The Bill sets out how the Government will encourage it.
Enterprise is voluntary, and therefore it carries for suppliers involved in business the element, and excitement, of risk that consumers for the service or product may not be found. Suppliers need to be flexible to survive and thrive in competitive markets where consumers, even usually loyal ones, are free at any time to say no. That is why the Government need to ensure that there is the freedom to be flexible and the confidence to be bold for enterprise to thrive and succeed.
Andy Sawford
What specific measures in the Budget will give enterprise in my constituency the confidence to be bold?
David Rutley
It is sad to see such gloomy faces on the Opposition side of the Chamber. I accused the shadow Minister of being a bit Eeyore-like and I think it is catching on the Opposition Benches. Labour Members should cheer up a little and look at the reaction to the Budget. The Federation of Small Businesses says that it
“asked for a budget for small businesses and this is what has been delivered. This Budget opens the door for small firms to grow and create jobs.”
Andy Sawford
Would the hon. Gentleman write me a letter, which I could circulate among the young people in my constituency who are desperately trying to find work and the people hit by the bedroom tax who face poverty and homelessness, advising them to “cheer up a little”? Would he write to me in those terms? I would gladly circulate it and we could see what my constituents think.
David Rutley
In a spirit of co-operation I suggest that for a change the hon. Gentleman leaves Croydon—[Hon. Members: “ It is Corby.”] Wherever it may be —beginning with a C. The hon. Gentleman should come up to Macclesfield and see what we are doing with apprenticeships and our local college to encourage young people to get into work. It is about human endeavour and getting on with the job, not moaning and groaning as the Opposition are doing.
The Forum of Private Business speak of the Chancellor being “spot-on” with his “basic common sense” decision to freeze fuel duty. I hope Opposition Members at least welcome that. The Association of Convenience Stores welcomes measures that
“will benefit consumers and reduce some of the pressure on local shops.”
David Rutley
No, I have given way enough. We have all enjoyed the debate, but I shall now finish my speech.
In Macclesfield, we have one of the highest rates of self-employment in the UK, and among women Macclesfield has the highest rate of self-employment in the north-west. This year, the Budget was above all for small businesses and entrepreneurs like them. The Bill is the first step to realising the series of measures that will be delivered by the Government, such as the widely welcomed—at least on the Government Benches—employment allowance.
Not just small businesses welcome the return to a solidly pro-enterprise, pro-competition, lower tax environment. The Institute of Directors and the CBI both welcomed the clear progress in the Chancellor’s continual, and continuing, efforts to lower corporation tax. Clause 4 of the Bill provides for a corporation tax rate of 21% in financial year 2014, which is the lowest in the G7. Perhaps it is part of Lady Thatcher’s legacy that these days clause 4 is something to be celebrated as useful to the economy and progressive for growth.
The Chancellor has gone one better. Under clause 6, we will see Britain’s main rate of corporation tax reduced to just 20% in financial year 2015, the lowest in the G20. This is a clear, determined agenda to incentivise business activity for jobs and growth. It is precisely that clarity and determination that gives businesses certainty and confidence that enterprise is worth conducting in the UK, and that, as the Chancellor said, Britain is once again open for business.
It is a mark of how vastly over-complicated our tax system has been allowed to become that there are far too many opportunities to avoid and even evade taxation, and that very complexity has made a general anti-abuse rule inevitable. Of course, the Government are well aware that they must take great care that such a rule does not undermine the certainty and confidence in the tax system that we need. It would be sad if the GAAR became an excuse for HMRC to become sloppy when drawing up future tax rules in the knowledge that, if it did not get the desired results, it could always apply the rule. I am sure that the Treasury is determined to avoid such a situation.
I am pleased by the Government’s commitment to simplifying the tax system at the same time that the anti-abuse rule is being planned. Fighting complexity with complexity is not a long-term solution, so I look forward to progress on simplification. It is encouraging, and to the Chancellor’s credit, that in just three years the Government have taken the UK from near the bottom of the KPMG league table of competitive tax regimes to the top. That is progress, and I applaud it. Ministers should also be praised for not only explicitly recognising that there is yet more to be done, but setting a path for getting that done, not least by increasing the personal allowance to £9,440 this tax year, with the clear target of hitting £10,000 next year.
The Bill includes a significant commitment under schedule 14 to research and development credits, even for those companies with no corporation tax liability. The Chancellor’s decision to increase to 10% the rate of credit for above-the-line R and D, as well as the new £700 million annual patent box, will help to tackle under-investment in knowledge-based industries. That is important for the life sciences sector, which is critical to Macclesfield’s local economy and vital for our national competitiveness. Those measures are in addition to the tenfold two-year increase in the annual investment allowance for qualifying investments in plant and machinery from £25,000 to £250,000, which will boost much needed business capital investment.
The global race is not a sprint, but a marathon, and the Government are wise to recognise that it will be easier for businesses to run without hurdles and barriers in their way. To be blunt, if we want businesses to thrive, we need to tax them less and minimise the bureaucratic burden. The result of that approach is real sustainable growth and new employment opportunities. This is not about Thatcherite dogma; it is actually happening and it is delivering positive results, such as by enabling private sector employment growth of more than 1 million jobs since 2010. That is a great achievement for the Government—
David Rutley
They are real jobs—not public sector jobs funded by taxpayers’ money, but ongoing and sustainable private sector jobs.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
Members have been addressing two questions in this debate: first, where we find ourselves and why; and, secondly, what we should do about it. In 2008, 63 consecutive quarters of economic growth in this country came to an end with the onset of a global recession that started in America and spread quickly across the world. The Conservatives and their supporters at the Daily Mail like to blame the previous Labour Government for the global crash. Was it Labour that was selling the sub-prime mortgages in America? Of course not.
The response to that unprecedented crisis was to take very significant action, first to arrest it and then to bring some relative stability. Crucially, the previous Government chose to invest in our economy to keep businesses growing and to keep people in work.
Jonathan Edwards
Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that economic performance prior to the crash was based on unsustainable personal debt bubbles and asset price bubbles, with personal debt in the UK equivalent to 100% of gross value added—far higher than in any other modern democracy?
Andy Sawford
The previous Labour Government’s record of 63 consecutive quarters of growth is absolutely unarguable. Of course, lessons must be learned by Members in all parts of the House, including those in my own party, about the economy at the time, and I will go on to say a little more about that.
The alternative to investing in our economy to keep businesses going and to keep people in work was to go back to the experiences of the recessions in the early 1980s and early 1990s. Twice, 3 million people were unemployed, with the country being told that unemployment was a price worth paying. My own family know that it was not. They were impacted when the steelworks at Corby closed in 1980 and 10,000 people were put on the dole. People from communities such as mine, where the films “Brassed Off” and “Billy Elliot” seem more like documentaries, know the effects of unemployment and know that it is a personal tragedy for families and communities and is never a price worth paying. This year alone, 126 more people in my constituency are claiming employment and support allowance.
Let us not forget that the Tories supported the measures that we took in the recession—the same Tories who had warned against more regulation of the banks. Now they want to rewrite history. They are convincing people that our investment and the borrowing that underpinned it was more like a credit card debt than a mortgage. One of those is short term, bad debt and irresponsible; the other is about investing in our future. It is about the decisions that responsible businesses make to borrow to invest—the decisions that responsible Governments all around the world, and the UK Government, made in the depths of that last recession.
To win an election, the Prime Minister claimed that he would “balance the books” by 2015. In 2010 he told the CBI that his Government had a plan that would secure the credit rating. So what has happened— what did they do? They cancelled the future jobs fund, which was really helping to get people back to work in my constituency. I know that was happening in Northamptonshire because I was close to that work. They stopped the Building Schools for the Future project, scrapping plans for 715 schools to have improvements, including Lodge Park in my own constituency. That affected not only the students and their parents and families, and future opportunities to develop skills in the town, but the people who were going to build the new unit at the school. The children are now in mobile classrooms, which I am ashamed to see in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
This Government took all the life and confidence out of an economy that was growing when they inherited it from the previous Labour Government. They stopped housing developments such as Priors Hall in my constituency, on which a lot of our economic future rested. Tata Steel laid off people in my constituency in 2011, and when I asked why I was told not only that it was about operating in a challenging global environment and about energy prices, but that all of the tubes from Corby went into infrastructure projects around the country which had been hugely affected by the stopping of road-building programmes and Building Schools for the Future.
Pamela Nash
My hon. Friend may know that we had a similar problem in my area, north Lanarkshire, with our Tata Steel site and public sector projects, so the steel was bought from abroad.
Andy Sawford
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The story of the decision to close the steelworks in Corby in 1980 has now come full circle and been shown to be short-sighted, given that the steel is now coming from Port Talbot. Some of Tata’s steel is now coming from abroad, because it is so difficult for it to compete in this country. I called for measures in the Budget—I spoke about this in a recent Adjournment debate—to support the steel industry in the UK in order to mitigate the impact of high energy prices around the world. The contrast between this country and others is stark and instructive of this Government’s approach. Germany, where the economy is growing—it now has more than 3% growth—has a £5 billion mitigation package for energy intensive companies, while this country has a £250 million mitigation package and we are not even clear about its details.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend led a strong Adjournment debate recently and I was proud to join him in it. Does he not find it extraordinary that the Business Secretary admitted in the New Statesman in March that
“the fiscal consolidation achieved through reduced capital spending has had economic consequences”?
The Government’s lack of coherence is extraordinary: one side is arguing, like us, for increased infrastructure spending, while the others are doing little about it.
Andy Sawford
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I will say more later about capital spending in this country.
It was not just Tata Steel that shed jobs in my constituency; Argos also did so and Aquascutum closed. Those companies were affected because nobody had any confidence and nobody was spending. That happened because the Government chose—they made a deliberate political choice—to talk our economy down. It was a political strategy without any real regard for the damaging effects it would have on our economy. When they got hold of the levers of power, they revealed their real purpose: an ideological attack on the state and on the poorest in our society.
The accumulative impact of the Government’s Budgets, including this one, will have an effect on individuals. The Institute for Fiscal Studies tells us that the average family will be £891 a year worse off, but that figure tells only part of the story. The other part is how the cuts to services will impact on all residents, particularly those who most rely on public services. Buses have been cut in my constituency, the ambulance station in Corby is due to close and children’s services, particularly for those with special educational needs and their families, have been decimated. Respite care has been lost and there are fewer police and police community support officers than when this Government came to office, and there is a real threat of cuts to my local hospital. The huge impact of those cuts to services on families means that they are worse off.
The Government’s policies have impacted on those who most needed their help—the children plunged into poverty and the disabled people hit by the bedroom tax and the pernicious Atos reviews that this Government have failed to intervene in and stop. Those out of work and unemployed in my constituency have been stigmatised by this Government and left desperately chasing the few vacancies that exist.
The Government say that there are more people in work, but that is not true in my constituency. Moreover, what sorts of jobs are being created? They are part-time, low-paid jobs for underemployed people in my constituency —fragile employment for people working through agencies on zero-hour contracts and on the margins of the labour market, there to be exploited. And the Government say that that is okay.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
In the last couple of weeks, I received an answer from the Cabinet Office on the private sector jobs that have been created. The Government now talk about 1.25 million private sector jobs and for a long time spoke about 1 million. Is my hon. Friend surprised to learn that, in fact, between June 2010 and September 2012, the figure is only 750,000?
Andy Sawford
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing the real figures to the House. He is right that the Government are grossly exaggerating the total number of private sector jobs that have been created and, crucially, the nature of those jobs.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the huge problem of unemployment under all Governments. Is he aware that in his constituency, between 2005 and 2010—that is, under the last Government —the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants rose by 103%, whereas the number has risen by just 8% for the duration of this Government?
Andy Sawford
If the hon. Gentleman is being honest, he knows that the figures that he is quoting reflect the impact of a huge global economic crash in 2008, which had a big impact on my constituency, not least because it is a manufacturing constituency. [Interruption.] The Economic Secretary is suggesting that because the figures go from 2005 to 2010, they reflect the Government’s record across the whole period. Government Members fail to say that the economy was growing for much of that time. We all acknowledge that a global crash happened in 2008 and that that caused unemployment. The critical thing is what we do about it.
Pamela Nash
Is the key point not that unemployment in this country is now higher than when the Government took office?
Andy Sawford
My hon. Friend is right. Of course, unemployment is also higher in Corby. My constituents will think that Government Members have a cheek to raise those figures in the way they have today.
My constituents will be appalled by the comments of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) and others, who have told them to stop whingeing and moaning. They are talking about people who are trying desperately to find work and whose situation has been made worse, not better, by this Government. The Tories do not understand the lives of those people. They do not understand the margins of the labour market or the margins that many of the poorest in our society live on. They understand the marginal impact of their millionaires’ tax cut, which is about £100,000—after all, many of them will get it—but they do not understand the marginal impact of their policies on people who have very little to live on. Fourteen pounds may be half a bottle of claret to the Chancellor, but for people in my constituency, it means choices about food, heating, fuel and new shoes for the kids.
The Government’s Budget was a chance to get back on track after three wasted years in which the UK went back into recession and lost its credit rating. The best that the Chancellor could do was to say that he hoped that we would not have another quarter of negative growth. He has his fingers crossed that he does not become the triple-dip Chancellor. Borrowing is going up not just this year, but next year and the year after. We are now told that there will be deeper cuts to services and the living standards of people in this country. While George and his friends get a tax cut, my constituents are told that things will get worse. Since the Chancellor’s spending review in 2010, the UK has been 18th out of the G20 countries in terms of growth. It is worse than the USA, Germany, France and Turkey, but the Government refuse to change course and recognise that we will get on track only if we get our economy growing.
I was incredibly disappointed that in the Finance Bill the Government rejected our proposals to use the 4G receipts to fund house building, for a proper tax on bankers’ bonuses to fund a jobs guarantee for young people and to bring forward infrastructure investment. Only 14% of the 576 projects in the Government’s national infrastructure plan have started.
In their first three years, the Government spent £12.8 billion less on infrastructure than the previous Government had planned to spend. The Chancellor has been told by the International Monetary Fund, the CBI, Sir John Armitt, some of his Back Benchers and Lord Heseltine that the Government should boost the economy with greater infrastructure spending. They make announcements such as that about the A14—part of which runs through my constituency—which is now not set to start until 2018. The electrification of east midlands trains to Corby was announced with great fanfare. What will fund it? It is the same amount of money in the next Parliament that the Government cut from what we would have spent on infrastructure in this Parliament to upgrade our railways.
In the previous Government’s plan for 2012-13, we were due to spend £48.4 billion this year on infrastructure. This Government say they will spend £41.7 billion on infrastructure. We were planning to halve the deficit during this Parliament, but this Government said that they wanted to go further and eliminate the structural deficit. What is the effect of that? They are spending £13 billion less on infrastructure—precisely what we need to get our economy growing—and £13 billion more on social security. It all sounds familiar to people in my constituency who remember that when Margaret Thatcher, the architect of this kind of trickle-down Reaganomics, came to office, 2 million people were on out-of-work benefits. When she left office, 6 million people were on out-of-work benefits and we see it all again. The rich are getting richer, the poor poorer, and many are paying the price of economic and social failure. Meanwhile, in countries such as America, which should be instructive to the Government if only they would raise their sights, the stimulus has been maintained and there has been growth of more than 4%.
What do I want now? If the Government will not listen to my hon. Friends as they present the way forward for our economy nationally, I want action locally. The south east midlands local enterprise partnership bid in my constituency is focused on housing, and at last money from the Government’s Get Britain Building fund has gone to meet some of the infrastructure gap, particularly as the council and others have had to renegotiate section 106 agreements, which became too expensive for developers to move forward. After three years, some of that money has just begun to trickle to my constituency. If the Government support the SEMLEP bid, there is a real opportunity to substantially reduce the gap in budgets for infrastructure, which we need now that we are renegotiating the section 106 agreements. We are not asking for additional money; we are asking for flexibility such as an increase in the borrowing cap.
I want help for local firms—I mentioned Tata Steel and I have invited the Minister to come and help—and I want targeted help for young unemployed people in my constituency. The City Minister, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), for whom I have a great deal of time, has shown that, relative to his colleagues across Government, he is willing to take action and listen to local areas. He has taken action in cities around the UK to help fund social innovation. I would like the Government to talk to people in Corby about how we can help young people in the most difficult place in the country in which to get back to work.
I hope that the Government will listen and stop telling my constituents to stop whingeing. They must stop stigmatising those most affected by their wasted three years, and stop trying to divide people at a time when we need the country to come together with a Government who are backing our workers and businesses to get Britain growing again.