The Government’s Productivity Plan

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is not only about what we invest but about the returns and where those returns go. For example, it is about how the public sector ensures that it reaps those returns.

We can use statistics in many different ways, and I will not attempt a battle of statistics here, but I hope the hon. Gentleman is not arguing that the UK is leading the world. However we account for it, the UK is not leading the world in investment in technology, science and R and D, which is where our future lies. We need greater investment in that. [Interruption.] I am not sure what the Minister is saying from a sedentary position, but I hope to be enlightened at some point.

Again, the Government’s industrial strategy has absolutely nothing to say about ensuring that sectors such as retail can take up technology. The Government chose to cherry-pick certain favoured sectors for backroom deals and failed to address the root cause of our productivity crisis, leaving the majority of British workers out in the cold.

Skills and technology are key to improving productivity, but we also need a strategic vision, which is notably absent from the Government’s productivity plan. As the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) highlighted, we need a plan and a strategy. When the Government’s industrial strategy came out, we saw that it had plenty of pillars but no vision. Adding the 10 pillars of the industrial strategy to the two pillars of the productivity plan results in 12 pillars and no vision. The Government are building pillars on hot air.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

As the hon. Lady has represented a north-east seat for seven years, surely she understands that part of the problem is over-reliance and overdependence on financial services, construction and Government expenditure, which are concentrated in the greater south-east. Her Government did next to nothing about that when in power.

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Gentleman fails to recognise the work of the regional development agencies, which his Government abolished and which contributed significantly to changing the industrial landscape. He appears to be arguing against the financial sector, the construction sector and Government spending, and we do need to diversify, but the Government can aid that process. He fails to recognise the role that an intelligent, smart Government can play in supporting smart, sustainable economic growth. So long as Government Members fail to recognise that, we will not see smart growth in this country.

[Mr Jackson]

I am a fair-minded and generous person, so I will agree that it was more successful in the north-east than in other regions, but several academic studies have found that, in the period up to 2010, the inequalities both between and within regions were not ameliorated in any respect by the regional strategy of the Labour Government.

[Chi Onwurah]

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman likes to concentrate on the record of the last Labour Government, which was more than seven years ago, instead of looking at the record of this Government, of the institutions that they have or have not put in place and of their success or absolute lack of success either in addressing regional imbalances or in addressing the debt. They have succeeded in increasing national debt, while also not generating any smart, long-term growth. I would be reluctant to get up to praise that record.

Despite the Prime Minister’s rhetoric about a “new, active role” for the state in the economy, the average level of public investment in this Parliament is set to be 1.9% of GDP, which is lower than the level during the coalition’s austerity agenda and barely half of what it was under Labour. This Government are, in effect, reducing private sector investment and public sector investment at the same time, taking away the lifeblood that our economy needs. Austerity did not deliver smart growth, and austerity in all but name will not do so either. The Labour party has committed to investing £250 billion in capital expenditure over 10 years, as well as committing to a national investment bank and regional development banks. I ask the Minister to say how he will be able to change our productivity and deliver on smart growth without those things.

In conclusion, our country’s productivity problem will not solve itself. We need sustained, long-term investment in skills and technology. That will not be forthcoming unless the Government have a clear, strategic vision for the future. We need to mobilise both public and private actors, crowding in investment to boost skills and innovation, and tackle the root causes of our productivity crisis. Only by doing that can we create the high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy that this Government say they want, that the British people deserve and that only a Labour Government can deliver.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jackson]

I certainly do, but the reason I am, in some respects, a born-again centralist is that I have witnessed the huge logjams that often occur in the planning system, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) knows about. There was never a more excellent local government Minister than him, and it is a great loss to local and central Government that he no longer occupies that position. However, he will do a fantastic job on behalf of his constituents as a diligent and community-focused Member.

There is an intellectual coherence in the Bill, because when we examined the regional development agencies—[Laughter.] Labour Members laugh, but the RDAs were bureaucratic and wasteful, and they failed to deliver—[Interruption.] That is absolutely true.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for taking an intervention on such an important point. May I remind him that One North East, the RDA for the north-east, was independently assessed as delivering £4.50 to the regional economy for every pound of public investment?

[Mr Jackson]

When I was shadow regeneration Minister, I met One North East in a rather salubrious hotel in central Newcastle. I agree that it did some good work, but if we consider all the regional development agencies throughout the country, they failed in two respects. They did not ameliorate the internal divisions in the economies in their areas, because even in the north-east, the economies of Stockton and Middlesbrough are amazingly different from those of Morpeth and Hexham, and they are amazingly different from those of Bishop Auckland or the City of Durham. At the same time, the RDAs failed to tackle social, demographic and economic inequalities between the regions, and they did not facilitate the growth in private sector jobs and regeneration that we would have wanted in the north-west and the north-east, although that did happen in London, the south-east and the south-west.