Jobs and Growth

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

Unemployment is rising and growth is flatlining. The Prime Minister said just a few months ago that the only person supporting me was The Guardian leader writer. Since then, what have we seen? The OECD and the International Monetary Fund are saying that the Government should change course. What has happened to The Guardian leader writer? He has become the speech writer to the Prime Minister.

To those who say that these are just the effects of a world economic crisis now hitting Britain—the same people who absurdly claim that the global financial crisis was all the fault of the British Labour Government, but who now want to blame the British growth crisis on the rest of the world—I say yes—

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ed Balls]

In a minute.

Yes, the deepening euro crisis and the weaker US recovery have made things harder for British exporters in the past three months, but one cannot blame the eurozone or the world economy for the collapse of economic recovery here in Britain when, since last autumn, our economy has grown more slowly than that of any EU country except Greece and Portugal, when we have the highest level of inflation of any EU country except Estonia and Latvia, and when, over the past year, we have seen a bigger rise in unemployment than the EU average, when most EU countries have seen unemployment not rising, but falling. I know the Chancellor does not like it, but those are the facts. The Prime Minister said today, “I accept responsibility for everything that happens in our economy”. I hope the Chancellor will do the same today.

[Ed Balls]

The Chancellor’s big boast over the past six months, which we were told regularly, was that between 400,000 and 500,000 more jobs had been created in the British economy, but today’s figures months show that employment has not gone up at all in the past 12 months; it has actually gone down. We were also told that public sector job cuts would be more than outweighed by the rise in private sector jobs, but I am afraid that employment is falling because the private sector has been unable to deliver the recovery we were promised. It has been a complete fantasy.

[Christopher Pincher]

It is nice that the shadow Chancellor acknowledges the Government’s responsibility for the economy, but it would also be nice if he took some responsibility for the damage he did to it when he was in power. A former Chancellor has said that Labour lacks economic credibility. If the right hon. Gentleman cannot even convince a former Chancellor on his own Back Benches, how can he convince the country?