Chuka Umunna
Main Page: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)Department Debates - View all Chuka Umunna's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Vince Cable
There is one major bank that has predominant Government ownership. That does not give the Government powers to lend, because there are significant independent shareholders and the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the corporate governance problems that presents. We would like RBS to lend more, and Mr Hester explained this weekend that he has a significant amount of capital available.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
There has been speculation about the Government entering into a hasty sale of RBS. Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the Government will look to ensure that the bank returns to a far healthier position before they contemplate privatising it? On his earlier comment, I agree about the problems that small businesses face in dealing with banks, but does he not accept that the economic outlook has also had an impact on the pressing demand for lending for small businesses?
Vince Cable
Yes, there is an issue with the demand for loans. It is not simply a question of aggregate demand in an economic sense. Many small companies have been discouraged from applying and we need to overcome that handicap. On the wider question, I know that the Chancellor is listening carefully to this debate. I read the contribution of the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), who suggested that the key issue was value for money for the taxpayer. I agree completely.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
Before I start, I should just say that I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, shared a birthday yesterday. I just want to wish them a belated happy birthday so as to start on a positive note before moving on to the Government’s record since the previous Queen’s Speech. It is right for us to take stock, to look at where we are now and where we were last year, before considering Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech.
When we convened to debate the speech last year, unemployment had soared beyond 2.6 million, we were in a double-dip recession, and the Government were borrowing £150 billion more than they forecast to pay for the cost of their failed economic plan. The Secretary of State’s answer to that state of affairs was to bring forward an enterprise Bill that started with some sensible measures, but ended up becoming a Christmas tree of a Bill. It contained measures to water down the statutory remit of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, to trample over people’s rights at work, to overturn health and safety protections that have existed for more than 100 years, and to abolish—this came rather late in the Bill’s progress—the Agricultural Wages Board that protects agricultural workers. That was all done in the name of growth, without a scintilla of evidence to show how doing so would create jobs and boost enterprise.
The right hon. Gentleman then went on to co-sponsor the Growth and Infrastructure Bill. That did not even feature in last year’s Queen’s Speech, but sought, among other things, to establish a shares for rights scheme where, in return for being given shares in their employer’s company, employees would be required to sacrifice their rights at work. That was described by the Government’s own side as having all the hallmarks of being thought up by somebody in the bath. Again, no evidence was produced to show that the measure would produce growth.
There is an irony in all this. Last year, the Business Secretary had gone around saying that he did not think much of the Prime Minister’s employment law adviser, the Conservative donor Adrian Beecroft, and his proposals to run a coach and horses through people’s rights at work, which, by Mr Beecroft’s own admission, had no evidence base whatever. There is clearly a thin line between love and hate, because the Secretary of State did Mr Beecroft proud in the last parliamentary Session. That is not to say that his coalition partners should be absolved of the blame—they were all in it together, to coin a phrase. Notwithstanding the fact that what they were doing was wrong in principle, I fail to understand the politics of it. Let us take the Conservative party, a party that has not won a general election since 1992. We are told that it has a strategy of gaining 40 seats and retaining 40 of their most marginal seats at the next general election, yet 70% of those 40 seats it wishes to retain have significant numbers of agricultural workers. In fact, 10 of the constituencies most adversely affected by the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board are Conservative marginals, including Lancaster and Fleetwood, Weaver Vale, Hastings and Rye, Sherwood, and Morecambe and Lunesdale. At the general election, we will remind every single voter in those seats of the Conservative party’s betrayal of them.
What has happened to the economy since the Government’s first two Queen’s Speeches? The Secretary of State made various international comparisons in his contribution. Since October 2010, the UK economy has grown by just 1.1% compared with the 6% forecast made by the Office for Budget Responsibility, and 3% growth in Germany and 4.3% growth in the US during the same period. Unemployment is stuck around the 2.5 million mark. A large number of those in work are working part time when they want full-time work, and people have faced an average pay cut of £1,700. Let us not forget that that was all being done in the name of reducing borrowing. We now have a situation where the Government are borrowing £245 billion more than they planned—the equivalent of the health and education budgets combined, and then some.
The Secretary of State is an economist. The reason why this strategy is failing was put very well to me, when I sat on the Treasury Committee, by a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee, Adam Posen. He highlighted the problem of the Government’s strategy. What they were attempting to embark on was an experiment. It was the most extreme consolidation embarked on by any Government in the western world at this point in a country’s recovery from the economic heart attack to which the Secretary of State referred. That is why their policy has failed.
Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman says that the German and US economies have done well and have not faded like our economy. Does he accept that those two countries supported their manufacturing sector while the Labour party, when it was in charge, ran our manufacturing sector down from 22% to 9% of GDP?
Mr Umunna
I certainly accept that we want to grow our manufacturing sector, but the Secretary of State has conceded that, for example, the things we did in the automotive industry by setting up the Automotive Council have helped to increase the output of that sector. So I do not agree that we did nothing to boost manufacturing in this country.
My right hon. Friend the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary will talk later about the failure of the Government’s schemes to get the unemployed back to work.
Mr Umunna
I remind the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary that his boss is borrowing £245 billion more than planned. The only part of our five-point plan to get the economy growing again that would incur extra borrowing is the VAT cut, which would cost £12 billion in the short term. We advocate a VAT cut because it is the fastest way to give an injection to an economy that, frankly, has flatlined over the past three years. We have seen it work previously. During the economic downturn when we were in office, we introduced a VAT cut that we know—Institute for Fiscal Studies numbers have provided supporting evidence—helped to boost growth in the economy. That is what we need now. Of course, boosting growth would increase corporation tax receipts and income tax receipts—as more people enter work—and reduce the benefits bill.
Mr Umunna
I will make more progress.
Ultimately, for employment schemes to work, there need to be jobs for people to go into, created by businesses, and for that we need to create the conditions for businesses to expand and for wealth to be created. We need to create an environment in which businesses can grow the top line. On many occasions, the Business Secretary has pointed to how our economy is structured, which he says stands in the way of progress. I agree that we need to restructure our economy, to increase our exports and to diversify the sectors contributing to GDP—there is consensus on that—but I must say to him that blaming the Government’s predecessors starts to wear thin after three Queen’s Speeches and after three years in government. It is time that he and his colleagues took responsibility for their actions.
I have always thought that to achieve both rising and shared prosperity, we need to rethink the relationship between the Government and markets and to be far more discerning about the kind of capitalism we want in this country. We need to set aside the neo-liberal dogma propagated by some Government Members that markets are automatically efficient and best left alone. There is a lot that active Government can do to improve the healthy functioning of markets. Importantly—this is a key point—markets cannot set a strategic direction for our economy; they cannot set a direction for how we will compete and pay our way in the world—Governments working in partnership with business can do that.
Making that a reality requires a modern industrial strategy—the kind of strategies that our competitors are prosecuting with good effect—and an agenda in which the role of the Government is not to step back, but to step up; to work with businesses to create better outcomes at home; to ensure that we can pay our way in the world; and to ensure that growth is more broadly based across sectors and geographically across regions as well. We must also empower consumers as drivers in making markets work more efficiently, not only for themselves but for producers. That helps to provide the foundations for UK businesses to succeed in other markets.
Meg Hillier
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s approach to funding for lending has been the polar opposite of what he has just described, and has in fact fuelled the housing market rather than helped businesses such as mine in Shoreditch? It has done nothing to deal with day-to-day finances and only touched potential loans, rather than things such as overdrafts. What would his approach be were he in the Secretary of State’s position?
Mr Umunna
My hon. Friend is right to identify some of the risks with the funding for lending scheme. The problem is that it has reduced the cost of borrowing for existing business borrowers without increasing access to finance for those other successful, profitable businesses. The other problem—this is why we advocate setting up a regional banking network, to which I shall turn in a minute—is that the scheme sees as its delivery mechanism the very high street banks that have been the problem. In fact, the transmission mechanism for many of the schemes that the Government have introduced since they came to office has been the high street banks, which have been the problem.
I will continue to discuss industrial strategy in more detail before touching more briefly, due to time constraints, on consumer issues. I do not think that the Business Secretary would disagree that in opposition he did not really share our view of the need for an active industrial strategy or even of the need for a Department, which he now runs, to be its champion—he argued for his own Department to be abolished at the time. After two years in government, however, he appears to have come round to our way of thinking, and we saw his embryonic industrial strategy published last September.
An industrial strategy consists of different elements. I have welcomed some of the sector-specific interventions that the Business Secretary has announced since the Queen’s Speech—in aerospace and with the ongoing interventions and assistance in automotive—and we will scrutinise the Bills in the Queen’s Speech closely to ensure that they support those key sectors. Another such sector is our creative industries, which were disappointed not to see a communications Bill in the programme for this Session. The point is that so much of what we have seen coming from his Department or the Treasury has been rather “piecemeal”—to use the Secretary of State’s own language—and does not meet the scale of the task at hand. As ever with this Government, if we speak to any business organisation, we hear that the problem is one of delivery.
I will focus on a few key areas and the extent to which the Queen’s Speech moves things forward. I will start where the Business Secretary finished. Of course, we must reform our banking sector, not only so our banks are made safe but primarily so that the financial services sector better serves the real economy. We have said, and he referred to this, that we should have better regulated the banks during our time in office. We did not, however, and that is a source of regret. Listening to the Secretary of State lecture us on that, I should say to him that mea culpa in that respect is due across the political spectrum. The tripartite regulatory regime that we put in place in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 enjoyed widespread support. In the House on Second Reading of the Financial Services and Markets Bill, the Business Secretary said:
“I want to express broad support for the Bill, whose philosophy and whose architecture of financial regulation reflect a broad consensus. I appreciate the extent to which there has been broad and extensive consultation with practitioners and with Parliament, and the fact that the Government have responded to very many of the anxieties that have been expressed.”—[Official Report, 28 June 1999; Vol. 334, c. 55.]
He went on to say:
“Like the Conservative Opposition, we shall approach the issues constructively. There is no reason to hold back the Bill.”—[Official Report, 28 June 1999; Vol. 334, c. 58.]
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Is my hon. Friend not being somewhat unfair on the Business Secretary? After all, how can he reasonably expect consistency from a Liberal Democrat?
Mr Kevan Jones
Do we not also need a bit of consistency from the Conservative part of the coalition, which not only supported that Bill but in some cases, as with the Chancellor, wanted to go further with deregulation of the banking system?
Mr Umunna
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I was just about to come on to that. The Business Secretary, soon after making that statement in favour of our regulatory framework, said:
“Like the Conservative Opposition, we shall approach the issues constructively. There is no reason to hold back the Bill.”—[Official Report, 28 June 1999; Vol. 334, c. 58.]
My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) is absolutely right: neither the Conservative party nor the Liberal Democrats voted against that Bill in opposition, and yet we have had no expression of regret from them for supporting the regulatory framework that we put in place. It is about time that we heard some mea culpa from Government Members.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
Just so that the record is absolutely straight, the hon. Gentleman might like to remind us who were in government when the economy went over the edge of a cliff. Would he now—[Interruption.] The shadow welfare Secretary should just calm down. I think the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) is capable of dealing with this himself; he does not need the shadow welfare Secretary’s assistance. Let me ask the hon. Gentleman a simple question, which my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary posed to him at the beginning. On the basis of humility, will he now get to the Dispatch Box and say to the British people that the Labour party is deeply sorry for the shambolic mess in which it left the economy?
Mr Umunna
With the greatest respect to the welfare Secretary, let me say two things. First, I have said that we have expressed regret in terms of the way in which we regulated the banking sector. However, let me also remind him that in the last two quarters of our term in office, we saw growth of 1.1%. During his time—[Interruption.] He should let me finish my sentence. If he does that, I might answer his question—I presume he wants to hear it. Did we leave him with a double-dip recession? No. Did we leave him with 2.5 million people out of work? No; so I will take no lectures from this welfare Secretary about the management of the economy.
After that excitement, let me return to banking. Reform is obviously needed, in particular to ensure that the sector provides finance to the profitable and successful small businesses that want to expand and take on more employees, but cannot access the finance that they need. That is crucial, because so many of those businesses are the ones we look to to create jobs. We know that under this Government lending to businesses is falling month on month, including a fall of £4.8 billion in the three months to February, according to the latest Bank of England figures. We know too—my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) mentioned this—that the Government’s schemes, from Project Merlin to the national loan guarantee scheme and, now, funding for lending, have simply failed to get credit to those businesses.
Every other country in the G8 has a state-backed investment institution to tackle the problem and ensure that their small businesses can access the finance they need. That is why we have argued since early in this Parliament for the establishment of a proper British investment bank and a network of regional banks, based on the German Sparkasse model, to work alongside a British investment bank to transmit those schemes to small businesses. Those are two sensible ideas that would bring us into line with our international competitors. Indeed, I am pleased to hear that the Business Secretary agrees that it is a good thing to re-establish regional banking in this country.
We would have introduced a Bill in the Queen’s Speech to establish those bodies, yet the Government have failed to do so. Instead, what have we got? Last year, rather late in the game, the Business Secretary announced, to much fanfare at his party’s conference, that he was establishing his small business bank. The British Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses have said that he must get on with setting it up. Last year he came to the House and told us that his bank
“has already been established, and it will be up and running next year.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 988.]
So where is this bank? The IMF is currently in town inspecting the wreckage of the Government’s failed economic plan. I know how keen the Chancellor is to rely on its pronouncements, so I went on its website to discern how it defines what a bank does. The IMF says that the primary role of a bank is to
“take…deposits…from those with money, pool them, and lend them to those who need funds.”
I suspect that most Members would expect such a bank to be established on a stand-alone basis, with its own building like any other bank—I remember all the questions put to the Business Secretary about the location of the green investment bank, for example. However, what do we find buried in the back of one of his press releases, issued just before the Easter recess? We are told that his business bank
“is expected to become a fully operational new institution in the Autumn of 2014,”
but before then any references to his business bank
“refer to the team within BIS responsible for the development and operation of its policy and programmes before it becomes a fully operational new institution.”
Mr Umunna
I will give way to the Secretary of State shortly, so that he can explain this to us.
What we have is a floor of people—mostly made up of the Business Secretary’s civil servants—in his Department in No. 1 Victoria street that is dressed up as a bank. It is in no way, shape or form what most people would understand to be a bank, and it will be up and running not this year, as he said to the House in December, but at the end of next year at the earliest.
Vince Cable
Instead of looking for information in IMF reports, perhaps the shadow Business Secretary should look at some of the business before the House. I do not know whether he is aware that we made a written ministerial statement a few weeks ago explaining exactly where we were with the business bank. At the moment it is marketing its first tranche of funding. We have a substantial team in BIS of people with banking experience recruited from the private sector. He is welcome to come in and talk to them. I think he will find that there is a substantial acknowledgement in the small business community that what we are doing is exactly right and on target. If he wants to question our delivery more generally, he should perhaps read what I said in Edinburgh yesterday about the substantial progress we are making with the other bank, the green investment bank.
Mr Umunna
With the greatest of respect to the Secretary of State, he said that the body he was establishing was a bank and that it would be up and running this year. It is in no way, shape or form a bank as most people would understand it and it will be up and running not this year but next year. As for his green investment bank, it will not be able to borrow any substantial moneys until it meets his fiscal mandate. Also, I presume that legislation will be required to set up his new small business bank, as was the case with the green investment bank, yet there was no sign of that in the Queen’s Speech.
Vince Cable
As the hon. Gentleman may at some future stage in history occupy this role—he is obviously preparing for it—let me clarify one thing. Is he at all familiar with state aid rules? If so, he will know that under the rules of the European Union, it is necessary to obtain approval before a bank can operate fully in the competitive market of the European Union. That is why 2014 has been cited—because we respect those rules. None the less, we are using the resource we have in the short term to provide support for business. That is what we are doing.
Mr Umunna
The Secretary of State says that it is not required. We will see. I fail to understand why legislation was needed for the green investment bank but not for his small business bank, but let us see. [Interruption.] Let me tell the welfare Secretary that I would love to have a general election, because then I might be able to occupy the Business Secretary’s post more quickly than he perhaps foresees. What we hear from most small businesses is that what the Government have done to increase access to finance and resolve the issues of the banking sector for the real economy has proved to be a let down.
Let me turn to skills and training. Weakness in specific intermediate or vocational skills is a business concern and a source of competitive disadvantage for the UK compared with our neighbours. With almost 1 million young people out of work—my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) referred to this—we must ensure that we have system that delivers people with the education and skills that our businesses need if they are to move into work. We could start by increasing the number of apprenticeships, but crucially boosting their quality too. We have heard the Secretary of State, like other Ministers, boasting about creating more than 1 million apprenticeships, but the number of 16 to 18-year-olds starting an apprenticeship in the first half of this academic year dropped by 12%. Indeed, two thirds of large companies in this country do not offer apprenticeships. We urgently need to improve on that and also protect the quality of apprenticeships, which is precisely the point made by Doug Richard and Jason Holt, whom the Secretary of State commissioned to do reports on apprenticeships.
The Queen’s Speech made a vague reference to a desire to ensure that it becomes typical for those leaving school to start a traineeship or an apprenticeship, but where was the jobs Bill we wanted that would have required large firms getting sizeable Government contracts to have active apprenticeships scheme, ensuring opportunities to work for the next generation? There was no such Bill. I still fail to understand why this Government will not proceed with that simple measure. Ministers released details of their plan for traineeships yesterday, which is a six-month programme of training and work experience to aid young people towards apprenticeships or employment. We will have to study the detail closely, but I note that they expect colleges to have the scheme up and running by August. That will be a challenge, given the very short notice.
On procurement, which should of course be used as part of an industrial strategy, the Government’s Bombardier decision earlier in this Parliament demonstrated their failure to account for the impact of procurement decisions on jobs and growth and on the strategic development of industrial capacity. We know that the story is the same with defence. The Government’s defence industrial strategy has been abandoned in favour of buying off the shelf from overseas. In making procurement decisions, we would take account of the impact on jobs when deciding to whom to award contracts. The French, the Dutch and the German Governments do that within EU law—the Business Secretary referred to it—and so would we. If this Government were serious about backing British industry, we would perhaps see them taking similar measures. Again, however, there was nothing about this in the Queen’s Speech.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
On the question of jobs and skills, training and apprenticeships, does my hon. Friend agree that black and minority ethnic young people in our great cities have been disproportionally hit by this economic crash, making it important that any strategy around jobs, skills and apprenticeships and even access to funds for entrepreneurship has within it structures and strategies to help those BME young people?
Mr Umunna
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Some things I support, such as the start-up loan scheme, could be of real benefit to our different diverse communities, particularly to young people and young entrepreneurs seeking to set up businesses. The problem up to now—I appreciate that James Caan is doing fantastic work on this—is that there has not been enough awareness of it. I have offered to help him raise such awareness in our different diverse communities.
Gordon Birtwistle
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the destruction or non-acceptance of careers advice in schools—by both the previous Government and, I have to say, the present Government—is not helping young people to get into apprenticeships or further education? Does he agree that if we got professional careers advice back in our schools, more young people would be interested in doing apprenticeships rather than going to university to study subjects that in some cases will not lead to any job?
Mr Umunna
That is an extraordinary intervention from the hon. Gentleman, given the huge cuts that this Government have made to information, advice and guidance, including to careers advice. I remind the hon. Gentleman that it is his Government—and he voted for it—who have cut and destroyed Connexions. I know from experience in Lambeth in my constituency that Connexions made a massive difference.
Let me move on to infrastructure. Good infrastructure, of course, is at the heart of an industrial strategy and crucial to creating the right business climate. That is why we asked the chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, Sir John Armitt, to crack this issue for us.
In the Queen’s Speech, after three years of dither and delay, we have finally seen some movement on transport infrastructure in the form of the HS2 Bill. I think I speak for many business people when I say that people would like to see this Government move on aviation, too. The Government should bring forward the date for Sir Howard Davies’ review of aviation and ensure that his report is produced before the general election. We need no more dither and delay on that issue either.
Mr Umunna
I want to make a bit more progress.
With our economy flatlining, this country is crying out for investment in infrastructure to create jobs, boost confidence and strengthen our productivity and competitiveness. Both the CBI and EEF have criticised the Government for their failure to get on and deliver on infrastructure. They are right to do so. The last infrastructure pipeline update given by the Treasury showed that of their 576 projects, fewer than 5% of them were completed or operational. If they got on with delivery of those projects, we might see a pick up in construction, which fell by 2.5% in the last quarter and by 5.9% compared with last year. While the Business Secretary was on his feet, the Office for National Statistics published its latest construction output statistics, showing that all new construction work is 3.2% down on the last quarter. Why was there not more, then, in the Queen’s Speech to bring forward spending on infrastructure?
Mr Gyimah
Going back to supporting businesses, specifically in the context of small communities, will the hon. Gentleman give me a sense of whether he will support the National Insurance Contributions Bill, which would, after all, reduce the national insurance bill for every business by up to £2,000? It will affect business communities not just in the BME areas, but throughout the country.
Mr Umunna
It is funny that the hon. Gentleman should bring that up, as I was just coming on to it.
Finally, on tax and other incentives for business, we have been arguing for months for a national insurance break for micro-businesses taking on extra workers. The full scale of the failure of the Government’s initial national insurance holiday scheme was laid out for all to see by the accountants UHY Hacker Young last week when they disclosed that the scheme, which the Chancellor said would benefit over 400,000 small businesses, reached a new low in December last year, attracting only 400 applications. I thus say to the hon. Gentleman that I really hope that the National Insurance Contributions Bill in this year’s Queen’s Speech, which introduces the employment allowance—no doubt there is more detail in the paper the hon. Gentleman has with him—will prove far more successful than the Government’s scheme to date. [Interruption.] I am asked whether I support it, but I have just said that I hope the scheme proves to be far more successful than the lamentable failure of the Government’s scheme to date.
Before I finish, I want to deal with the Government’s consumer rights Bill. As I said, empowering the consumer is an important part of ensuring healthy and efficient functioning markets. The Government have included a consumer rights Bill in the Queen’s Speech. We are told that it consolidates consumer rights legislation in one place, bringing together eight pieces of legislation and covering goods, services, digital content and unfair contract terms. I agree that consumers need more clarity on their rights, but from what we have seen so far, the Government’s proposals appear to fall short of the action that we have called for to help families, to ensure a fair deal on energy prices and to tackle high rail fares, for example.
I think that the Government’s changes in this area have been muddled, as we have seen this week. First, the Government were going to abolish Consumer Focus, but now we learn that they are going to keep it in a slightly watered down form, and it will now be called Consumer Futures. It seems that it will be doing a similar job, but who knows what landscape we will be left with.
As part of our policy review, which was led by consumer champion, Ed Mayo last year, we have been planning to bolster collective action and to empower consumers so that they can club together more easily to seek redress. As the consumer rights Bill makes progress, we will press Ministers for a strong, accessible collective redress mechanism—one that mirrors the Portuguese and Australian models, which remove the legal excesses. It will not be a US-style class action, where litigation is dominant. We will address the matter in more detail when the Bill begins its passage through the House.
So there we have it: after three wasted years, we have yet another wasted chance to bring change to this country—change that it desperately needs.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I listened with interest to what my hon. Friend said about the consumer rights Bill, to which I hope to contribute. Does he agree that this might provide a fantastic opportunity to address the disgraceful practices of the secondary ticketing market, which has now become industrialised ticket touting? Does he agree that we have a great opportunity to put fans first?
Mr Umunna
I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who has done fantastic work in this area. We will scrutinise the Bill closely and if it does not contain provisions to address secondary ticketing, we will table amendments to bring about much-needed change on this issue, which my hon. Friend has championed for a long time.
Despite the difficult economic climate, I do not doubt for one moment our businesses’ ability to overcome the hurdles in front of us. I see dynamism and innovation as I go around the country meeting so many of our entrepreneurs, which I have found to be an inspiration. I wish only that we had a Government equal to the task of helping those entrepreneurs to go on and thrive. It is clear from the Queen’s Speech that this Government are out of steam, and that until we have a general election and the chance of a Labour Government, we shall not see the kind of government that I think our businesses want and need.
Stephen Metcalfe
Shall I answer the hon. Gentleman’s first point before I take a second intervention?
The hon. Gentleman’s other point was about our explaining to people when we came to power the inheritance we were left and the measures we had to take to tackle it. I was slightly confused earlier this morning when listening to the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) who said that the only additional borrowing that Labour had mentioned was the VAT cut, which would add an additional £12 billion to the overall borrowing we have identified. I assume that means that he would stick to every spending plan we have in place. Our spending plans have resulted in spending reductions across Departments, every single one of which have been opposed by the Opposition. I am slightly confused about their current line. Do they agree with the cuts and just want to borrow an additional £12 billion to cut VAT, or are they saying that they do not agree with the cuts, that they will backtrack on all that and that they will raise additional taxation?
Mr Umunna
As the hon. Gentleman has asked the question, the first thing to say about our five-point plan for growth and jobs is that it is a plan to stimulate the economy now. The ridiculous argument made by Government Members is that if we are voting against things, that has nothing to do with their choices and decisions. It is important to remind him of that. I think that people resent his Government giving people who earn millions of pounds a huge tax cut while ordinary people in his constituency suffer because of what his Government are doing. It is about the choices one makes.
Stephen Metcalfe
People in my constituency are suffering because of the toxic economic inheritance we acquired when we came into government. [Interruption.] I am sorry; it is simple. If we had not inherited the largest deficit in the developed world and a huge debt, we would not need to make the decisions that we are making now. We never hear a credible alternative from the Labour party; we just hear opposition.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
I am delighted to follow that passionate and insightful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley—for Bolton West (Julie Hilling). [Interruption.] I am still learning the constituencies!
As a relatively new MP, I found it a privilege to be present at the Queen’s Speech for the first time. There was a sense of occasion and history; the sight of Her Majesty on the throne; Black Rod hammering on the door of the Chamber—so much to see everywhere except, unfortunately, in the Queen’s Speech itself, which was remarkably light on content. Outside in the real world there is a financial crisis. People cannot find work, living standards and incomes are being squeezed, and vital public services are being cut to the bone. Long-term youth unemployment in Croydon North, which I represent, is at a record level and continues to rise. That destroys people’s futures and crushes their life chances. How disappointing to hear a Queen’s Speech that fails to meet the challenge for jobs and growth or find new ways to provide the services and support that people need.
As a Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament I want to focus my contribution on co-operatives. There was little support in the Queen’s Speech for the co-operative economy, but that sector is a significant and growing part of the overall UK economy, and is worth more than £35 billion. It is owned by nearly 13 million adults in the UK and has grown by nearly 20% since the start of the credit crunch, while the rest of the economy has shrunk. Start-up co-operative businesses have a 50% greater chance of surviving past three years than other businesses. That means jobs and growth, which is what we are looking for.
In the words of the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, growth versus austerity is a
“false debate…Countries can choose a strategy that is good for today and good for tomorrow.”
Countries can make that choice, and co-operatives are part of it. Unfortunately, however, our Government have chosen not to do that, despite all the evidence that their current economic policy is not working.
Co-operatives and the principles of co-operation have more to offer than just economic resilience. Co-operation offers an approach that we can use to transform public services so that we can do better for less. Co-operative housing offers a means for first-time buyers to get a foot on the housing ladder, as well as a safe way for people on lower or fixed incomes to build up a share of equity in their home. Energy co-ops offer a way to generate energy more sustainably, while lowering prices for hard-pressed households and helping to break the stranglehold of big energy corporations.
Labour-led co-operative councils, such as Oldham, show how more co-operative approaches to tackling unemployment can get people back to work. Instead of forcing unemployed people on to prescriptive DWP programmes that rarely lead to jobs, such councils are sitting down with unemployed people and asking what support they need within the financial envelope available. Instead of endless courses on how to write a CV, people can choose training in a profession such as plumbing, be given a bag of tools, and go out and find work. That gets them off benefits and allows them to make a positive contribution to the community of which they are part.
In Lambeth—another co-operative council—the local authority is tackling violent youth gang crime by sharing its power with the community through a new youth services trust—the Young Lambeth co-operative. Instead of putting vulnerable young people on courses and programmes that do not cut offending by anywhere near enough, it is helping communities choose the support their young people need. That is proving far more effective at getting young people out of gangs and away from crime, and steering their lives back on track.
Mr Reed
I know how passionately my hon. Friend supports empowering communities to tackle the problems they face, such as violent youth crime. Like him, I have noticed the absence of such a Bill, which is a huge disappointment, because that agenda offers huge opportunities for the Government and people to reconnect to start to deal with the problems that disfigure some of our communities. The problem is not just violent youth crime. I hope he agrees that the examples I have outlined deliver better outcomes for citizens, and that those measures will save money, which we are desperate to do when resources are so constrained.
Co-operation means handing power to the people who use public services so that their insights help to make those services more efficient and effective. It hands back to people control of their lives, so that they can break free from dependency on others’ decisions. The Queen’s Speech does nothing to promote such models more widely. Co-operation offers a vision for greater economic security, more resilient communities and more effective public services, but, instead of a vision that meets the challenge of our times, the Queen’s Speech is one that my nan would have described as all mouth and no trousers. There is plenty of glitz and glamour, but no answers to the questions our country faces.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
It is a great pleasure to conclude this debate on the Gracious Speech. I congratulate hon. Members on both sides of the House and will deal quickly with some of the points they made.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) made a good speech in which he supported the changes in the Deregulation Bill. I agree with him that it will be excellent for small businesses. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills stressed in his opening remarks, our record on small business creation is very good.
I have known the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) for some time and am glad to see him back in his place. He was a very good Minister and talks a lot of common sense. His comments about the overseas aid budget were well made and are well taken. I know that there is some disappointment that we have not legislated on that, but the Government’s record of reaching the 0.7% obligation and sticking to it is second to none. It has been said at the United Nations that we have given a lead to the rest of the world. I am pleased that he supported that. I recognise his concerns about youth unemployment and will return to them in a second.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) reminded us of the record deficit that Labour left us with and made the strong point that everything stems from that. Labour’s spending, borrowing and taxing left us with a bust economy. As a man who has set up and run his own small business—it is not so small now, but it is certainly a good business—he knows everything about small businesses.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) on his comments about manufacturing industry. He has been very good at supporting manufacturing in Parliament and beyond. He made the very good point that the last Government ran manufacturing down. Under the tenure of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, we are doing our level best to rebalance the economy after manufacturing was destroyed by the Labour party.
The hon. Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) said that international factors caused the 2008 slump and that he was pro our membership of the EU. I had assumed that everybody was pro that. It is all well and good for him to say that everything was somebody else’s problem before 2010 and that now everything is our problem, but that means that Labour, somehow, bears no responsibility for anything.
When I asked the shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills whether he would like to apologise for the economic shambles that Labour left, he did a delicate dance around the words, “I am sorry.” He can say that now if he wants to intervene. I know that sorry is a hard word, but perhaps he would like to lead for once for the Government and say—[Interruption.] They were in government. He should lead for them and say that he is sorry for the shambles and the mess that they left. I am ready to give way if he would like to say sorry for the mess that the Labour Government left.
Mr Umunna
I am happy to remind the Secretary of State that we bequeathed a situation in which unemployment was falling, growth was rising, and stability had set in. As I said earlier, we expressed regret for not better regulating the banking system, and I look forward to hearing his apology in that respect as well.
Mr Duncan Smith
I think it is shameful that an individual who represents a party that when in government ran up the biggest deficit and, as my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary said, created the biggest bust since the first world war, cannot genuinely say to the British people, “I am sorry. We got it wrong.” They did get it wrong and will bear the consequences of that all the way to, and including, the next election.