Living Standards

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I want to talk particularly about the importance of getting the country going in order to raise living standards. I pressed the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) on what Labour’s growth plan was and how much it would cost. I will happily accept any intervention from Opposition Members on this, but it seems to me that it would cost billions. How would it be funded? It is clear that it would be funded by debt––more borrowing.

We have narrowly avoided suffering from the debt storm throughout Europe, but were we to give way on the fiscal rectitude that we have shown and to go to the markets and borrow to fund Labour’s extravagant growth plan, we would be at risk of higher interest rates. Let us bear in mind that every one percentage point increase in interest rates means another £1,000 on the average mortgage.

Painful though the programme to cut overspending has been for so many people throughout the country, the most important achievement—the most important tax cut, if we like—has been the reduction in the cost of borrowing. It has helped so many hard-pressed families, including those in my constituency, to muddle through the recession as best they can, in a situation in which global inflation from imported goods, such as petrol and so on, has been higher and has put pressure on living standards, as every constituency MP understands all too well.

These are very difficult times not just for my constituents in Dover and Deal, but for everyone in the country who finds themselves without a large pay rise at work and facing rising global food prices. It has been a very difficult year, as the OBR makes clear. This year, average inflation has been 4.5%, yet average earnings have not kept pace. It has been difficult, and it has been a squeeze, but world prices, including in commodities and food, are something over which no Government have any great control. I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), have not heard from the Opposition any clear plan for what they would do differently to deal with the situation, but it does get better next year as those things work their way through the system.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

My hon. Friend paints a picture of the difficulties that families throughout the country face, and I fully understand the points that he makes. Will he speculate on how much worse the situation would be if, having entered government with a warning on our triple A credit rating, we had not taken those necessary steps? We would be in the same situation as Italy or even Greece. How many more families would be out of work, and how much smaller would be the amount of money to go round?

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank my hon. Friend for that powerful intervention, and she is absolutely right. The point has been made that, when we entered office, we had similar interest rates to Italy, but its rate is now up at about 8% and we are basically parallel with German borrowing. If we were turned by the Opposition into—dare I say it?—an Italian job, we would find that interest rates shot up for the average home owner and small business borrower, and that we faced serious difficulties and serious economic decline. In fact, we are not in recession and we are still growing.