Finance (No. 2) Bill

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies]

In Swansea West jobseeker’s allowance numbers have grown by 40%. We have heard of employment levels going up and we have seen that overall output has not gone up, so there is the productivity puzzle, which is a kind way of saying that productivity—production per head—has gone down. All I am saying is that we should look at ways of giving people the tools to do the job, be it skills, building houses, or super-connectivity.

In the run-up to the Budget I got the business community in Swansea together to lobby the Chancellor to invest in a wi-fi cloud and super-connectivity for Swansea. Why should an inward investor come to the congestion and cost of London when they could hook up to the worldwide web in superfast time overlooking the wonderful Gower and the sun and sands of Swansea? That was worth while doing. We were not successful, and subsequently the biggest company in Wales, Admiral, wrote to the Chancellor pointing out that it is a global company and wants super-connectivity on a global basis to its clients and suppliers. That is the sort of investment that we want to make from the extraction from the excess profiteering of certain individuals in the banking community. The modest amendment would enable us to continue that dialogue with a view to taking action to deliver positive change for people who currently do not have enough opportunity.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am—I hope that Government Members are concerned—about the increase in the number of people who have been unemployed for 12 months? In my constituency, the figures today show that the number of those unemployed for more than 12 months has gone up by 17%. Tragically, the number of young people unemployed for more than 12 months has gone up by 40%. Having talked to other hon. Members here this afternoon, I know that they have similar if not higher figures. That is the real tragedy. Here is a generation of young people who will be scarred by unemployment. We need, and we need soon, proper measures, which the amendment addresses— innovative and different measures, not the Work programme, which is not working for people. That generation will be scarred if we do not find them work soon.

[Geraint Davies]

That is completely right. Clearly, the economic model that must work is to have people making a contribution by being in work. There has been some debate about tax thresholds—with everyone saying how great they were—versus working families tax credit. Let us put ourselves in the position of someone starting a business who can only afford to employ someone for £10,000—£15,000 would not be viable; that is just the way that business works. Along comes working families tax credit, and a single mother, for example, can afford to work for £15,000, but not for £10,000. If the state makes up that difference, we end up with someone who can afford to work and make a contribution, and a business that is now viable. That is good. If that is simply stripped away and the tax threshold is increased to make it more worth while, it does not add up. That is one explanation for why we had such considerable job growth under the Labour party from 1997 to 2008.

Most people do not really understand working families tax credit. It is a way of integrating tax and benefits so that we cannot divide people into those in receipt of benefit and the workers, which is what Conservatives want to do for political reasons. They want to say that there are the workers and the shirkers and they are for the workers and the Labour party simply wants to support people sitting at home. That is the opposite of the truth. The Labour party is about enabling people to have pathways to prosperity through jobs. We should be using the fruits of engaging with the banking community, who make obscene amounts of money, and investing in skills and in communications, whether it be electrification of the railways or high speed rail, in wi-fi clouds, or in creating a global infrastructure in terms of R and D and our universities.

We have heard a lot of talk about the reduction in corporation tax from 21% to 20%, but that makes no difference to multinationals if the comparators are France at 33%, Germany at 29% and the USA at 40%. We are already competitive. But that 1% reduction is a 5% reduction in our tax yield from corporation tax. Would it not be better to spend that on helping universities to grow with industry? There is a good example of that in Swansea, which could be the fruits of what we are talking about today, where the second campus is being underpinned by £250 million from the European Investment Bank, and where Tata Steel, BP, other multinationals and the Welsh Government are engaged. Research shows that that sort of cluster of R and D attracts more and more big business and jobs, rather than just a marginal bit of corporation tax. We need to think cleverly about how to generate R and D engines. Brazil, for example, is spending £5.3 billion from development banks on getting into the global field of biotech. China and other countries are making similar investments. That is the way to organise ourselves in a joined-up way, rather than the laissez faire social and economic Darwinism of the Tories, where we see the weakest die and the greediest become more bloated as they exploit the world.