Living Standards

Brandon Lewis Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

We are tonight invited by the Opposition to join them in sympathising with the squeezed middle. Of course, that is Labour’s cynical project to identify itself with the people hardest hit by the crisis with which it left us. It seems to be the Opposition’s only policy. In the absence of any serious consideration of the crisis for which they are responsible, they now posture as the only people who feel the public’s pain. That is utterly cynical, and we have seen and heard tonight how little truck the House has with that view.

The truth is that we are all being squeezed, but not for the reasons the Opposition set out. The shadow Chief Secretary, in hysterical tones, accused Government Members of indulging in reckless and heartless cuts. We are being squeezed by the actions of a responsible coalition, which was invited by the country to tackle a national emergency. We need to remember the scale of the crisis we inherited, the effect on living standards, which we are all feeling, and the steps the Government have taken.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways the Government could help to improve living standards is by creating an environment in which private sector businesses can grow, employ more people and, potentially, give them pay rises when they do well?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I could not agree more. We need to rebalance the economy and realise that every pound spent here is a pound that has to be earned by businesses and the people who work for them.

The truth is that we inherited £1 trillion of debt—£25,000 for every man, woman and child in the country—and a situation in which £1 out of every £4 of Government expenditure had to be borrowed. We had debt interest payments of £120 million a day, and debt interest would have risen to £76 billion per annum over the Parliament had we not tackled the deficit. Yes, there was an international credit crunch, but it was the actions of the Labour Government that led us into a position of extreme vulnerability. They inherited a golden legacy in 1997 after the previous Conservative Government had had to put the country through a painful and difficult period. It was a golden legacy that, after two years, they set about—