The Economy and Living Standards

Debate between Anne McGuire and Robert Flello

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate. This is the last opportunity I will have to speak in a Queen’s Speech debate as a Member of this House. I have to say, however, that the Queen’s Speech we heard last week was not nearly as exciting as the first Queen’s Speech I heard in this House in 1997.

I want to pick up on a few of the comments that have been bandied around by those on the Government Benches, not least the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), whom I have the pleasure, of course, of following. “Tax and spend” is one comment they throw about, but they do not say what that actually means. We can look around our country and our individual constituencies and see what the spend was all about. It was about replacing schools that had not been looked after for tens of years. Many of our schools were Victorian-built, and many of our hospitals had been built at the end of the 19th century, never mind the 20th century.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs McGuire]

Very briefly, as I want to take Mr Speaker’s advice.

[Robert Flello]

I agree with everything my right hon. Friend has said, but she will also remember, as I do, Conservative Members standing up time and again and calling for schools and hospitals in their constituencies; and how they have the shameless gall to say otherwise is beyond me.