Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have had an interesting debate. There have been 27 Back-Bench speeches, of which 19 have come from Labour Members. There have been passionate speeches. A lot of information has been given about constituencies and constituents’ experience in the real world rather than the world that some on the Government Benches would like to believe exists.

We started off with a typically bullish performance from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who seemed reluctant to accept that, notwithstanding what he tried to claim the Chancellor is doing, in fact the Government will borrow £245 billion more than planned. That borrowing is to deal with failure rather than to invest for future success.

The Government seem to fail to recognise that the situation has happened on their watch. It is not good enough, halfway through a Parliament, for the Government continually to come to the Chamber and harp back to what went on in the past without taking any responsibility whatever for what they are doing and their own actions.

It is interesting that Government Front Benchers seem to have an obsession with the shadow Chancellor. Perhaps it is because he has been proven to be correct. The economy is flatlining, there is no growth, the deficit targets have been missed, the triple A rating is lost and the Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed that people will be worse off in 2015 than in 2010. There is no plan—it is more of the same from the downgraded Chancellor, and from the downgraded Government Front Benchers here this afternoon.

We have heard consistently from the Labour Benches about how unfair it is that, while millionaires will be laughing all the way to the bank at the beginning of April, very real cuts are coming for ordinary working people and those who are desperately seeking work.

A number of themes have come through the debate and I want briefly to touch on them before coming to some of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne). We heard powerful speeches about living standards, not least from my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon), who spoke towards the end of the debate, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris). Both talked about the impact of welfare cuts on their constituents’ and general living standards.

Early in the debate, we heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) and for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) about the impact of child care costs on families and how what the Government propose is too little, too late. They mentioned the dangers of changing the carer-to-child ratios, downgrading again the service provided as well as giving with one hand and taking away with the other—promising something that will happen in 2015 while cutting tax credits.

Government—[Interruption.] Government Front Benchers may think that the situation is funny, but I assure them that it is not funny for the families who my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) mentioned from his constituency. He knows well the impact of the bedroom tax and the problems there.

[Mr Bain]

Does my hon. Friend share the anger of my constituent with cerebral palsy, who I visited last Friday? She has a house that has been adapted and she gets physiotherapy in it. She has been asked to pay a bedroom tax of £9.63 a week, while the Secretary of State was unable today to guarantee that millionaires will not benefit from a spare home subsidy as a result of the Budget.

[Hon. Members]

It is not a tax!

[Cathy Jamieson]

I hear yet again Government Members saying, “It is not a tax!” The issue is that the charge will have an impact on disabled people, as my hon. Friend just mentioned.

We have yet to be given an explanation about why it is fair that people in those circumstances in constituencies throughout the UK—more than 2,000 in my constituency of Kilmarnock and Loudoun—will be impacted, while millionaires get a tax cut; it also looks as if millionaires may also get a subsidy to buy another home.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

rose—

[Cathy Jamieson]

I will be happy to give way if the Secretary of State can answer that point about unfairness.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Will the hon. Lady answer this question? If she is so against this, why is she in favour of people having spare rooms subsidised by the taxpayer? Why did her party’s Government refuse to allow the same thing in relation to private sector social tenancies?

[Cathy Jamieson]

Once again, the Secretary of State’s question shows just how out of touch this Government are. These are people’s homes, in which many of them have lived—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State can shout from the Front Bench, but he had his opportunity to speak earlier. It is important to reflect back to him the points made by hon. Members when he was not in his place, and that is what I am seeking to do. It is unfair that people who have lived in their homes for many years are now finding that there are no other homes for them to move to. Some people had been given homes under the homeless persons legislation, and some because the homes are suitably adapted for their needs. It is simply not fair to suggest that these people should not be able to continue to live in these homes.

Several hon. Members talked about unemployment and the need for more to be done. My hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East, Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) highlighted the problems of many more people chasing vacancies in their areas than there are jobs available. The Government consistently say that there have been increasing numbers of people in employment. However, the harsh reality for many people in the constituencies represented by Labour Members who have spoken is that they are not seeing the benefit of that job creation and are finding that jobs are not available, that only part-time jobs are available, or that they are unable to work the number of hours they need to work.

On housing, various circumstances were relayed during the course of the debate. I note that we still have not had an answer from Ministers about the second home subsidy. Will the legislation be constructed in such a way that it will not be possible for people who already own homes to buy another home under this process? Yet again, no answer is forthcoming. Housing was discussed by my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), for Croydon North (Steve Reed), for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), for Westminster North (Ms Buck), for North Durham (Mr Jones), for Eltham (Clive Efford) and for Hyndburn (Graham Jones). I list them all because that shows the great strength of feeling about how this Government have got it wrong on housing and have not done enough to bring forward, at an early stage, plans not only to get houses built but to give the construction sector the boost that it needs.

My hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) referred to the Department for International Development’s welcome commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP, but made the important point that that money has to be spent on aid and should not be diverted anywhere else.

It was suggested that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) should have a statue erected in his honour because of the amount of work that he has done in his area on energy and climate change issues. As a former sculptor, I would certainly be very keen to see a suitable monument erected somewhere in his constituency.

I want to return to the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill. He made a number of very important points about how this Government have not taken any responsibility for what they are doing under their own watch. He noted how the numbers have been manipulated or massaged—we can use whatever word we like—and how they want to pay this year’s bills next year to ensure that their sums add up. At the same time, borrowing is the same as last year and will be the same next year, too. They also broke their promise to get the deficit down by 2015.

My right hon. Friend highlighted a number of issues with regard to the jobcentre targets, which was also picked up by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow. Will the Exchequer Secretary address some of those issues when he winds up? As my right hon. Friend has pointed out, it has been said that staff were threatened if they did not get the figures down and that they were given a dictionary of certain phrases that they had to look out for whereby people were put on special measures or investigated further if they used those phrases in their job diaries or on their forms.

This is very serious and I have asked Ministers questions about it during previous debates. I received an assurance that there were no targets in the jobcentres, but we have heard evidence today that there seem to be not only targets, but league tables. I cannot imagine why jobcentre staff would say such things if pressure was not being put on them to work in that way. Ministers seem to be saying one thing in public while something else is going on in private behind the scenes. That suggests either that Ministers do not know what is going on, or that they do know but have not been able, for whatever reason, to get the information into the public domain. The Minister needs to answer those questions. For the same reason, it is important that we get the independent review on sanctions, which Ministers were clearly asked to consider in every case in which sanctions were used. We have heard about the many good people working in jobcentres. It has been suggested that they are good people trapped in bad systems, and it is the responsibility of Ministers to address that.

I want to end on a slightly more positive note. We welcome the employment allowance. We want to see the detail and ensure that it moves ahead as quickly as possible. It is something that we have advocated to give more help to small businesses.

Although we welcome some measures, I want to sound a cautionary note on the sickness and absence review in particular. Of course, we support the idea of people getting the help, assistance and medical treatment they need to deal with conditions and to enable them to get back to work if they have been off sick or have been injured. That access to treatment must not, however, be put at risk by further cuts to the NHS and it must not take a similar approach to the one we have already shown to be unfair whereby the Department for Work and Pensions, through organisations such as Atos, appears to be treating people in a way that disadvantages rather than assists them.

We have yet to see all the implications of the plan to introduce the single-tier pension. I have been contacted by many women who have already been hit by the change in retirement age and who are now very worried and confused about how the change to the state pension will affect them. They are now even more worried about the new proposals.

We have had a good debate, but the shadow Secretary of State raised a number of issues for which answers are still required and I hope that the Minister will provide them. I would particularly appreciate answers to the points about sanctions and jobcentres that were raised during the debate.