The Economy

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:

“but regret that the Gracious Speech fails to provide a strategy to build the productive economy that the country needs; note that a fragile recovery and stagnating productivity harms living standards and makes it harder to reduce the deficit; believe that every effort should now be concentrated on supporting middle- and lower-income working people; further note that the Gracious Speech is a missed opportunity to tackle the principal causes of rising welfare costs that flow from a low wage, high rent economy; further believe in the pooling and sharing of resources across the UK as the best mechanism for delivering social and economic change; urge the Government to pursue sensible savings in public expenditure as part of a balanced approach and not an ideologically-driven attempt to shrink public services beyond what is needed to address the deficit; and call upon Ministers to spell out where their cuts will fall and who will pay for their unfunded election pledges.”

I welcome the Chancellor to his place. Very few people serve two full terms as Chancellor and I am sure that the whole country will be grateful that he does not plan to do so either. Although he might have his eye on another job, I congratulate him on his reappointment to this one. Of course, we should not ignore the fact that he has a fancy new title to illustrate his role in the EU renegotiation process. He is now the First Secretary of State, no less, following in the footsteps of John Prescott and Peter Mandelson. Let us hope that his ministerial counterparts are suitably impressed.

The Chancellor must now deliver negotiations with other member states to convince the public to opt decisively for Britain to remain a member of the European Union. It is important to secure stronger rules so that welfare payments go only to those who have contributed to our system, but in my view we also need greater devolution from Brussels, an overhaul of the EU budget and far greater accountability of the main institutions of the European Union, which still feel too distant and out of touch. It is also essential that he agrees that we need a comprehensive independent risk analysis of Britain leaving the European Union. It needs to be carried out by the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility and it needs to be published in ample time for the public to consider it in full before the referendum.

Although this is not the Queen’s Speech that I wanted the House to be debating, I reassure everybody and remind the Chancellor that we will be a vigilant and responsible Opposition, watching closely the choices he still has to make and holding him to account at every step.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

The shadow Chancellor talks about being a responsible Opposition. In the spirit of responsible opposition, will he admit the errors in his previous economic policy, in which he predicted that unemployment would rise and that we would have no growth? He was comprehensively proved wrong in the election. Has he had time to reflect on how he might recalibrate his economic message?

[Chris Leslie]

I have had plenty of time to reflect on the result of the general election. Obviously, we are disappointed with it and we will review our policies accordingly, but it is now our job to ask questions and scrutinise what the hon. Gentleman and those on his Front Bench plan to do. I shall come shortly to my observations about that.

Let us not neglect the subject at hand, which is the Queen’s Speech. The headlines have, of course, now been spun and the rhetoric from Ministers has started. They are trying in vain to make all the right noises about fairness and even a one nation Government, but let us pause for a moment, walk through the measures in the Queen’s Speech and cut through the spin.

The tax-free minimum wage for those working 30 hours sounds fine until we realise that it is already tax free. The real question is why there is no action in the Queen’s Speech for the low paid, such as incentives for a living wage, which even the Mayor of London supports. I do not know whether he is in his place, but perhaps he will join us later.

As for the rest of the spin, the household benefit cap, although it is necessary, is only a drop in the ocean of the overall welfare bill, saving less than one 10th of 1%, and is a total distraction from the root cause of escalating welfare costs for the taxpayer in recent years, the low-wage nature of our economy.

What about devolution to a northern powerhouse? If it is genuine, that is all well and good, but local communities have heard these promises before and they know that when the Chancellor talks about devolution it is usually code for shifting the consequence of cuts and not the power to deliver services.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

At a meeting of the leaders of northern cities on Monday, the Labour leader of Manchester City Council, who has many years of experience, said that the north is working together better than it ever has before. Does that not show that the northern economic powerhouse is a reality and that it is working?

[Chris Leslie]

The clue was at the beginning of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. Labour leaders do work well together in local government, and when we hear the Chancellor’s response to this debate they might find that there are a few surprises and a hidden agenda with a bit of a sting in the tail for them over the next few months.

What about the rest of the spin in the Queen’s Speech, such as extending the right to buy? Everyone is in favour of home ownership, of course, but the scheme proposed by Ministers is so badly thought through, throwing housing associations into chaos, that even the Mayor of London—for it is he—has called it the “height of insanity”.

There was a further piece of spin, of course: a tax lock designed purely to stop the Chancellor raising VAT again. Do not get me wrong, we welcome any effort by the Chancellor to legislate against his own record and his own worst instincts, but this legislation does nothing more than prove that he does not even trust himself on tax. Of course, it does not give any guarantees about other stealth tax rises elsewhere, nor does it prevent him from acting on his other instinct of always prioritising tax cuts for the very richest over those for those on middle and low incomes—[Interruption.] Conservative Members are all shouting from the Back Benches, but the Chancellor’s eyes are down on his notes. Is the Chancellor planning to cut that top rate of tax from 45p on earnings of more than £150,000? I will give way to the Chancellor if he can clarify for us whether that is his plan. Will he cut that rate of 45p for those earning £150,000, or not?

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman knows the answer.

[Graham Evans]

Why in 13 years of the Labour Government did they not increase the top rate from 40p to 50p?

[Chris Leslie]

We have heard those arguments. I was asking the Government whether they plan to cut the top rate of tax of earnings of £150,000 from 45p, and perhaps down to 40p, and there is silence from the Government Benches and from the Chancellor. Perhaps he will come to that later in his speech.

The Queen’s Speech was high on rhetoric but was in reality the usual combination of diversion and distraction. As ever with this Chancellor, there is more than meets the eye. All the rhetoric is just the tip of a Tory iceberg, with 90% of their real agenda hidden below the surface, still invisible from public view. That agenda will not even be partly revealed until the emergency Budget on 8 July. Until then, serious questions remain unanswered about what drives the Government, and in what direction.

The trajectory of overall cuts set out in the March Budget goes beyond what is needed to eradicate the deficit by the end of the Parliament. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Queen’s Speech still leaves us totally in the dark about more than 85% of the Chancellor’s planned £12 billion of welfare cuts. Just this morning, the IFS criticised the Government for giving a

“misleading impression of what departmental spending in many areas will look like”.

Frankly, there is growing disbelief across the country that the Chancellor can protect those in greatest need while keeping his promises to the electorate on child benefit and disability benefits. My hon. Friends will not have failed to spot during Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday how the Prime Minister, when challenged by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on the question of disability benefits, digressed into all sorts of reminiscences about the campaign trail and how much fun it was going to various meetings. The Prime Minister promised that

“the most disabled should always be protected”

and I will be looking to the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to keep the Prime Minister’s promises. The Government might have secured a majority, but they did not secure a mandate for specific cuts to departments or services because those were never explained or set out before the election. Nor have we ever had an explanation of how they will pay for their multi-billion pound pledges on tax and services or, crucially, for the NHS.

The Opposition agree with yesterday’s OECD assessment that a fair approach is the right one to take—sensible savings and protection for those on middle and lower incomes. Cuts that decimate public services would be too big a price to pay, especially as they may even result in higher costs in the longer term. We also heard how 8,000 nurse training places were cut in 2010. The use of agency nurses then proliferated to fill the gap. Is it any wonder, therefore, that NHS trusts now face a deficit of about £2 billion? Part of the reason the deficit is so big is that productivity has been so poor. Britain has the second lowest productivity in the G7, and output per worker is still lower than in 2010. This should have been at the top of the Chancellor’s agenda throughout the last Parliament, but he did not even mention it in his last Budget speech. For the Tories, it seems that productivity just springs magically if the Government just get out of the way, unrelated to any fiscal or policy choices that they make.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

The shadow Chancellor will know that many pundits have been looking at that productivity puzzle. The Treasury Committee has examined it for the past five years. If the Governor of the Bank of England, economists and everyone else does not understand that productivity conundrum, will he share with us where he thinks the lack of productivity comes from?

[Chris Leslie]

I will come to that in a moment. The hon. Gentleman must also be staggered that the Chancellor did not even mention it in his Budget speech. That was an omission that the Chancellor needs to correct. We take a different view of where productivity comes from because, for us, it depends in part on having decent infrastructure and public services—motorways that flow freely and trains that commuters can actually get on, tax offices answering business queries efficiently rather than keeping companies’ staff waiting on hold, employees who are off sick able to get treated swiftly in a decent NHS, an education system that supports a work force and provides training in high-quality skills. Each of these is crucial for our future economic productivity, and each depends on the Chancellor making the right fiscal choices for this Parliament.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend push the Chancellor a little harder on productivity? The recent report from the Chartered Management Institute said that management and skills were at the heart of productivity. The Government have not tackled those, and a culture has grown up in which even when managers fail to meet targets they still get their bonus.

[Chris Leslie]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. According to the OBR, if productivity growth per worker was closer to 4%, our national debt would be £350 billion lower by the end of this Parliament. There is a connection between the choices that are made in fiscal policy and the productive nature of our economy.

The OECD confirmed just yesterday in a sobering reality check for the Chancellor that continued weak productivity could lead to a higher than expected budget deficit, and he should listen to the OECD.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

The shadow Chancellor rightly says that infrastructure is important. On the day when, by coincidence, the Crossrail tunnel is completed, will he not bring himself to recognise that, even at times of great public spending restraint, the last Government continued and, I am sure, this Government will continue with essential infrastructure spending on rail and roads, which lays the foundations for future long-term prosperity, but is difficult to do if the Government run up an unsustainable deficit?

[Chris Leslie]

The civil service used to have a phrase for things like this. It was a brave decision of the right hon. Gentleman to defend his Government’s record on infrastructure. Many projects that were started under the previous Government have still not been completed. Would it not be better if we rose above party political picking out of which infrastructure project should proceed and tried to have a more mature debate about how we plan infrastructure in this country?

The Chancellor knows that Sir John Armitt’s report on infrastructure was widely received across the business community and that all sorts of parties wanted to find an independent approach to infrastructure planning. I still believe that that would be a better, more grown up way to plan for infrastructure.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Why did the Labour party announce in its manifesto that it would put on hold the dualling of the A359, which is very important to delivering good transport links to the west country and my constituency?

[Chris Leslie]

Of course individual choices have to be made, but it would be better if they were made on the basis of need and evidence, not simply on whether the hon. Gentleman has the ear of a particular Minister at a particular point in time. That is the old way to plan infrastructure, and he knows in his heart that we should reform it.

The choices that the Chancellor makes in the emergency Budget in July will be crucial for productivity and therefore crucial to the health of the economy and public finances. I want to know whether the Chancellor will set out a sensible approach to deficit reduction by prioritising the areas of public spending that raise productivity. Why do we not ask the OBR to report on how the options for the spending review might impact on productivity and living standards and to set out the impact of the different choices that the Chancellor could make? He will have our support if he wants it to do that work. As the OECD suggested yesterday, the uneven profile of his planned fiscal pathway poses real risks, and higher productivity would give greater scope to protect working families, while still balancing the books. So these are the choices that he must confront. Is he still planning to double the pace of cuts, regardless of the impact on productivity, or is he now planning to moderate that pathway? The Chancellor has wiggle room here, even within his own fiscal rules.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He is making an excellent speech. I want to follow up on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). According to the CMI report, leadership and management are a key issue for this country, and we have seen nothing in government strategy on that issue. How much does my hon. Friend think that that should also be part of our review of why we have such problems with productivity in this country?

[Chris Leslie]

This is at the heart of the Chancellor’s policy choices. Is he looking not just at how much but how spending is taking place? He can choose to ensure that where spending has to be prioritised decisions lean towards supporting growth and productivity and the skills that will in turn get us into that more virtuous cycle.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Leslie]

I will give way in a moment. Not to take a reasonable and measured approach, when the Chancellor clearly has scope to do so, would suggest that he is influenced much more by Conservative ideology than by economic judgment. That is what it always comes down to with this Chancellor. Is he focusing on securing the long-term needs of the economy or on securing his own long-term future; is he focusing on the country or on his Back Benchers; is he focusing on his current job or on a future one?

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Does the shadow Chancellor agree that the best way to drive productivity is to increase competition and that 800,000 new businesses created in the last Parliament will drive productivity in this country?

[Chris Leslie]

Of course competition is essential, but so are important public services that support businesses and enable them to optimise the outputs from the inputs to the production process. That is the crucial point that we have to focus on.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the issues with productivity is that we have become obsessed with mergers and acquisitions for short-term profitability, rather than allowing industry to invest for the longer term as economies such as Germany have been doing?

[Chris Leslie]

Long-term investment, especially production process technology and business investment, is crucial, which is why the stop-start approach of recent years from the Treasury has seen us underperform in business investment into the productive economy. It is essential.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Governments should try to encourage increased productivity in the private sector, but it is down to business confidence and reinvestment decisions. Although business confidence is now the highest it has been since 1992, investment dropped off in the run-up to the general election, because business was scared that there would be a hard-left socialist Government.

[Chris Leslie]

I know that the hon. Gentleman wants to make his political points, but I think we have a duty to ensure that we examine far more forensically the drivers of economic productivity and the growth that will help us to repair the public finances more successfully. That is the agenda we have to follow.

These are serious times, and we needed a serious Queen’s Speech agenda to address Britain’s long-term economic challenges. We should not forget that progress in our economy is still fragile and the recovery is still too constrained. The economy remains fraught with pressures, which have been heaped on the shoulders of many working people. For example, the number of people who have to work a second job in order to get by has increased dramatically in recent years, and a record number of pensioners are returning to the labour market. Indeed, the number of over-65s in employment has increased by more than 8% over the past year alone. The Office for National Statistics says that our share of high-skilled jobs is falling. The Government’s vision for Britain is one of a low-wage, bargain-basement economy. That is not the vision of a party for working people.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman carefully, but he has said very little about job creation under the previous Government. Will he take this opportunity to recognise that we now have record numbers of people in work in this country, which contrasts with the fact that no Labour Government, from the time they came into power to the time they left, have ever managed to bring down unemployment?

[Chris Leslie]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has seen the ONS report published yesterday, but it shows that we are losing high-skilled employment in this country and that gradually it is being replaced with low-skilled employment, which is a real worry. We need to ensure that we compete in the world on the basis of a high-skilled, virtuous cycle. I think that he would be complacent if he ignored what is happening in our economy.

[Christopher Pincher]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

I cannot remember whether I have given way to the hon. Gentleman already but, given that he is being so polite and persistent, I will give way one last time to him.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. He likes to give the impression that sweetness and light always surround him, but he might like to look behind him occasionally. He must recognise that no one will take his talk about deficit reduction seriously when sitting behind him is his former leader, who less than a month ago said that the previous Labour Government did not spend too much.

[Chris Leslie]

When it comes to deficit reduction, let us never forget that the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised to eradicate the deficit by the end of the previous Parliament. We have passed that deadline, so he has broken that promise. He should put his hands up and admit that, when it came to his promise on the deficit, he failed.

We now need focus to address our economic challenges, not a Chancellor distracted by his own political ambition. We need a concerted drive to boost productivity; a balanced recovery reaching all corners of the country, with no sector left behind; a meaningful effort to tackle the root causes of higher welfare costs, low pay and insecure working conditions; a guarantee that any scope for tax cuts should be focused entirely on middle and lower earners; and a commitment to reject an ideological drive to shrink public investment. That is the approach Britain needs. That would be a genuinely one-nation approach.

Instead, we had a Queen’s Speech that focused on short-term political headlines, rather than long-term economic gain. It was designed to lay political traps for the Chancellor’s opponents as part of a grand political chess game, rather than to focus on productivity and balanced growth. This obsession with short-term, narrow political gain is the Chancellor’s curse. He is the Chancellor for whom productivity means kicking the Home Secretary off her Cabinet Committees. He is the Chancellor for whom a long-term plan means a move next door. He is sticking with the family business and measuring up the wallpaper for No. 10 already. That is his real agenda. Cold and calculating, he is the iceberg Chancellor, with hidden dangers beneath the surface. He is putting productivity and public services are risk, prioritising the very richest above those on middle and lower incomes, pitting one nation against another. Britain did not vote for a hidden agenda. I urge the Chancellor to put the ambitions of Britain above his own.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Osborne]

But it is anti-aspiration to deny working people in housing associations the right to buy their own homes. That will be an early, key test of whether the Labour party has learned anything from its massive election defeat.

The enterprise Bill supports the small businesses that are the productive engine of the modern economy. The High Speed 2 Bill commits us to the vital modern transport infrastructure that we need. The Childcare Bill supports the working parents—especially the working mothers—who have never had the backing that matches their contribution to our economy. The full employment and welfare Bill delivers the 3 million apprenticeships and creates the work incentives in our welfare system so that every citizen who can work is able to.

Yesterday, we discovered that the UK had climbed up the global employment league table, overtaking Canada to have the third highest employment rate of any of the major advanced economies in the world, on the path to full employment that we have set out. There is the promise of further devolution, delivered in the legislation, to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Then there is the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, which helps to dismantle the failed model that says that we have to run the entire country from the centre of London. Instead, it empowers our great cities across England and adds to the foundations of the northern powerhouse that we are building.

That is the agenda that we offer—full of ambition, brimming with ideas, not afraid of the future but excited about what it can bring. What of the alternative? The Labour party has taken the unusual approach of erecting the headstone first and then conducting the post-mortem. What conclusion has it reached? The shadow Chancellor just said that this is not the Queen’s Speech that he would have wanted. The Queen’s Speech that he does want is not entirely clear. He said that Labour’s economic policy was not credible; that its spending policy meant that it spent too much; that its tax policy was punitive and, in his word, “crude”; that its housing and rent policy was unworkable; that its energy policy meant higher energy bills; that its European policy was anti-democratic; and that its business policy was anti-business. Other than that, it was all okay!

[Chris Leslie]

rose—

[Mr Osborne]

I will give way, but I should properly welcome the hon. Gentleman, along with the rest of his shadow Treasury team. One of the great pleasures of doing this job has been the opportunity to work with four different shadow Chancellors. I wish the hon. Gentleman the same success as his predecessors enjoyed.

[Chris Leslie]

Very funny. I asked the Chancellor about an issue of substance—whether he is planning to cut the 45p rate of tax on earnings of £150,000. Is he able to rule that out as unfair and inappropriate?

[Mr Osborne]

There was a very good intervention which pointed out that there was a 40p rate for almost the entire period of Labour government. But let me say this. My tax priorities are clear: to raise the tax-free personal allowance to £12,500 and the higher rate threshold to £50,000. Those are my priorities and they will be reflected in the Budgets presented from this Dispatch Box.

The shadow Chancellor is a thoughtful man. Last weekend, he gave an interview to The Guardian, in which he tried to pinpoint what went wrong. This was his conclusion:

“It’s the Which? magazine strata of society that somehow we just didn’t understand”.

To be honest, I would stop worrying about Which? magazine and start focusing on which leader. There are four members of the Labour Treasury team. Three have backed different potential Labour leaders and the shadow Chancellor has led from the front by deciding that he is not going to back anyone at all. The truth is that it does not matter which of the leaders they pick—none of them understands the aspirations of working people because, in the devastating words of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), Labour has become the “anti-worker” party. That is what she said. That is a quote that I suspect we will hear again in this Chamber in the coming years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Osborne]

I will make a little progress, if the hon. Lady does not mind. As I say, lots of Members want to get in on this debate later.

In every year of the previous Parliament, Government Departments kept their spending not just within budget but well under budget. Outside key protected areas like the national health service, those budgets have been reduced year on year to more sustainable levels. At the start of this Parliament, it is important that we continue to control spending in the same vein. Two weeks ago, my right hon. Friend the new Chief Secretary asked Government Departments to seek further savings beyond the £13 billion of savings that they are already delivering this year. I can report today that together we have got straight back to the task in hand. We have found a further £4.5 billion of savings that we can make to the Government budget this year, including sensible asset sales. Some £3 billion of these extra savings come from finding more efficiency in Whitehall Departments and from the good housekeeping of coming in under budget. The breakdown per Department is being published by the Treasury today.

There is another component to this: I am today announcing that the Government will begin selling the remaining 30% shareholding we have in Royal Mail. It is the right thing to do for Royal Mail, for the businesses and families who depend on it, and, crucially, for the taxpayer. That business is now thriving after we gave it access to investment from the private sector in the last Parliament. There is no reason we should continue to hold a minority stake. That stake is worth about £1.5 billion at current market prices.

Of course, share prices fluctuate and the final value will depend on market conditions at the point of sale. We will sell our stake only when we can be sure that we are getting value for money, but let us be clear: holding over £1 billion of Royal Mail shares in public hands is not a sensible use of taxpayers’ money. By selling it, we help that important national business to prosper and invest in the future, while we use the money we get to pay down the national debt and pay less interest on that debt as a result. It is a double win for the taxpayer, for we on this side never forget that it is not our money or the Government’s money; it is the money that people work for and pay in taxes, and entrust to us to spend wisely.

[Chris Leslie]

I warned in my earlier remarks about the Chancellor’s hidden agenda. Before he went into the section on Royal Mail, I think I heard him announce upwards of £4.5 billion or more of in-year cuts to public services. [Hon. Members: “Savings!”] I think he called it “good housekeeping”. He announced in-year savings of that magnitude without coming to the House to give an oral statement or publishing them for the House, so that we can scrutinise what he has just announced. It sounds to me as though any semblance of a long-term plan has been totally ripped up, and that there is panic in the Treasury and chaos, with in-year public spending decisions being taken. Why did he not announce those in the March Budget if they were part of some sort of long-term continuum? Has he suddenly decided rapidly to change his course when it comes to public expenditure? And why do it in such a shabby way?

[Mr Osborne]

Only the Labour party would think it shabby to make an announcement first in the House of Commons.

[Chris Leslie]

rose—

[Mr Osborne]

The shadow Chancellor can sit down.

We set out two weeks ago that we were going to find further efficiencies and savings in Government, and that is what we deliver today.

[Chris Leslie]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is the usual convention, if there are significant changes to the estimates and supply that support public services, that the documentation and details for every single Department are laid before the House of Commons, so that all Members can be informed of what is happening with our public services within a financial year. This is ripping up any semblance of long-term continuity, and it is a shabby way to treat Parliament and the public services.

[Mr Speaker]

The shadow Chancellor has spoken, but this is not a matter with which the Chair needs to deal. He has made his point and it is on the record, but the Chancellor will now continue.

[Mr Osborne]

We made this announcement to the House of Commons, and the detail is there for people to examine. There will be estimates debates as usual, but there is a very simple question: does the Labour party support further savings in public expenditure? If it does not, that means the Labour party wants to increase borrowing, increase taxes and take this country back to square one and repeat all the mistakes it carried out in office—and, indeed, repeat all the political mistakes that meant it went down to a historic election defeat just a month ago.

[Chris Leslie]

rose—

[Mr Osborne]

I have given way to the hon. Gentleman. He will have his opportunity.

Further savings in Departments this year, selling our stake in Royal Mail, getting on with what we promised, and reducing the deficit—that is how to deliver lasting economic security for working people, for as everyone knows, when it comes to living within your means, the sooner you start, the smoother the ride.

We continue today to deliver on our long-term economic plan. The measures in this Queen’s Speech back aspiration and opportunity, but they rest on the bedrock of economic security that our plan has delivered and continues to deliver. We have taken further steps today to prioritise that economic security. It is the security that the working people of this country elected this Government to provide, and I commend the Queen’s Speech to the House.