Equitable Life (Payments) Bill

Claire Perry Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I think that several things have struck us during the course of this debate. First, we have heard about the sheer volume of decent people who seem to have been affected by this crisis over time. Then there is the well-measured, sensible and proportionate campaign organised by EMAG, which perhaps sometimes stands apart from those conducted by other pressure groups.

We have all been struck by the political reaction. For the sake of the record, the Conservative party was clear about its intentions in its manifesto, the coalition was clear about its intentions in its agreement, and the Government have been swift in their action. Whatever we may say about that action, they have at least been swift in putting their commitment in place as soon as they possibly could. Needless to say, there is a “but”, which is that the devil remains in the detail of the payments—and those are not under proper discussion tonight, for very good reasons.

Financial institutions, it seems, are no longer trusted. Young people do not know where to go and older people do not know who to trust, so it falls to all of us to ensure that confidence is restored. Resolving that problem was a moral dilemma, rather than a financial one, for the previous Government, and it is for the current Government too. EMAG has made a series of sensible proposals, rightly pointing out that a staggered system of repayments could work and that those in the greatest need should be considered separately from others. Even Equitable Life itself has made it quite clear what it expects a basic minimum to be.

The ombudsman has said that the level of compensation should reflect the state of the public finances. In this debate, a number of Members have raised one eyebrow, and some two, at that proposal, and I have a lot of sympathy with them. Equitable Life members across Britain all recognised that there was a risk attached to what they invested all those years ago. However, they will reasonably feel unfairly penalised if we use the public purse argument to bypass our moral obligations—especially, to be snide for a moment, when we are happily talking about spending a hundred million quid on a referendum on the alternative vote. Such things put us in a rather difficult situation when it comes to retaining the moral high ground. I agree entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman)—who, sadly, is no longer in his place—about the importance of the next stages of the process.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I understand the pressure of time, but I wish to come in on that point. All of us are here for the debate because we signed a pledge and stood up for a group of people in our constituencies who we felt had been let down and betrayed by the last Administration. I urge the ministerial team to think creatively at a time of great pressure on the public finances, and particularly to consider making payments free of tax, or paid out from a fund over a period of time. The recommendations as proposed, or at least as trailed, are simply insufficient. We know that some of the best minds in the country are working in the Treasury, so let us get them to work on this very problem.

[Simon Hart]

That is a useful contribution. I was about to restate a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk, which reinforces the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry). The next stages are important not just for those who have struggled over the past 10 years and for the families of those who have died while waiting for justice, but for restoring the confidence of the current and future investors whom we are trying to persuade to act responsibly in their fiscal affairs. Perhaps what has not come up so much in the debate is that they are important also for the credibility of Members and of this Parliament. That was perhaps where my hon. Friend’s intervention was leading. We must not and cannot let people down now with a lame excuse about the state of the public finances today, because the problem goes far deeper than that.

A number of Members have quoted submissions from their constituents, and I should like to refer to an e-mail from Jerry Roberson of St Clears, in Carmarthen, a constituent of mine, who wrote:

“I’m afraid this business further undermines my confidence in politicians and if justice isn’t done on this issue I don’t see I will ever want to cast a vote in a General Election ever again.”

That is an important message, and we need to take it in isolation from the technical aspects of the debate. The very credibility of Members of all parties, of the Government and of this building depends on how we deal with such issues.

The Financial Secretary has made significant progress, and I support the Bill. The matter has been dealt with as quickly as it possibly could have been, and the suggestions by Opposition Members that a delay has somehow been deliberately imposed seem an absurd rewriting of history. I cannot understand how, in all conscience, they can make such observations, given what several thousand people and their families have been through as a consequence of an inactive decade. The Financial Secretary has made progress, and we should support him. I naively and optimistically suggest that it is the moral obligation of all parties and all Members to put our party political interests aside just for one moment, to ensure that we can bring the problem to a fair and sensible conclusion. The Government do not pretend that the Bill is anything other than the first part of that process.

Proposed Public Expenditure Cuts

Claire Perry Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I can do no better than repeat what the IFS said in the report to which the hon. Lady has referred. It said that in 2012,

“Considering all tax and benefit reforms… the richest tenth of households lose the most in both cash and percentage terms.”

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Does the Chancellor agree that there is nothing progressive about leaving 5 million people on out-of-work benefits—a system that condemns single women in particular to a lifetime of poverty—and that there is nothing progressive about leaving the Labour party’s debts to the next generation to repay?

[Mr Osborne]

I can go better, and quote Lord Myners, who said:

“There is nothing progressive about a Government who consistently spend more than they can raise in taxation, and…nothing progressive that endows generations to come with the liabilities incurred by the current generation.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 June 2010; Vol. 719, c. 625.]

Office of Tax Simplification

Claire Perry Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman rightly makes the point that tax law is a complicated matter, and such matters are not addressed easily and simply, but we believe that we have appointed the right individuals, and that there is engagement by the tax professions. We believe that the tax law rewrite project had many commendable features, but it was very restricted. It focused merely on wording, and we want an independent body to consider policy recommendations to see how we can improve our tax system.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that this is a very long overdue initiative, with two aspects that we would never have heard about from the Opposition—a focus on simplicity, and the idea that things can be done without the benefit of an overpaid quango?

[Mr Gauke]

I think that we are going to achieve something very important, with good value for money for the taxpayer—and I think that will be a hallmark of this Government.

Finance Bill

Claire Perry Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2010 Commons Chamber

The increase might only be a straw, but the camel’s back is already well and truly loaded. The poor old motorist is always at the top of any Government’s list when they are rattling the collecting tin and trying to raise more money for a variety of state purposes. I just hope that the Government will reflect on this matter. They will have other opportunities to look at the total burden on the motorist, and they might not wish to consider this particular burden today and therefore immediately grant my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch’s request. I see no sign of the Minister leaping to his feet to welcome the proposal, just and fair though it might be. We know, for example, that the coalition Government are going to look at a fair fuel levy—an escalator that comes down when the price goes up and goes up when the price comes down, to keep fuel prices at a more realistic level.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

In trying to square the circle of how we can raise taxes when there is no money, it is interesting to note that we have not committed to Labour’s rise in fuel tax, which was going to add a further £425 million—[Interruption.] If you read the small print in Labour’s last Budget, you will see that there was a plan to raise an additional £425 million—

[The First Deputy Chairman]

Order. We are not referring to taxes that are not proposed in the Bill. We are talking specifically about the amendments to the Bill.

Alignment (Clear Line of Sight) Project

Claire Perry Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I am sorry to delay the Minister further, but I felt it important to say how broadly I welcome this proposal. I know that it has had a long genesis; indeed, I was lucky enough to meet its team when I was part of the former Opposition’s Treasury team. I echo many of the comments that have been made commending both the clear line of sight team and the various heads of Committees who have helped to steer the process forward.

We will now have an alignment that takes care of some of the major problems, such as the £86 billion-worth of estimates that are not in budgets, the £71 billion that is in budgets but not in estimates, and the £58 billion that is in budgets but not in resource accounts. How could anyone manage a whelk stall, let alone public accounts, on that basis? Under the current system, 25% of public spending is not even seen by Parliament, so I welcome the current proposals, particularly the one to consolidate non-departmental public bodies. A complete lack of accountability has been built up in their financial reporting and processes.

I wish to echo a couple of points that other hon. Members have touched on, one of which is on the private finance initiative. We have an enormous problem of off-balance-sheet PFI commitments, which must be reconciled. I hope that the Financial Secretary will urge that that matter be brought forward and included in the project.

I should like us to go further still. While working for the Opposition team, I was lucky enough to meet one of the major heads of one of our largest outsourcing companies, who effectively has 35,000 civil servants working for him—the size of a decent Government Department. He manages it with three Excel spreadsheets, which report the same numbers at the top of the organisation and down at the bottom. We should strive further to get to that level of transparency and simplicity at all levels of Government.

It is commendable that so many Members have come to this debate and recognise how important it is, but it is not commendable that we have built up a system that most people, including most Members of Parliament, find utterly incomprehensible. As a result, we have had an enormous increase in the lack of accountability and transparency further down in the organisation of government.

I refer Members to the NAO report of February 2008 on financial performance measurement and management in government. It stated that the financial performance of a Department formed no part of the standard performance assessment criteria for a permanent secretary; that only 40% of Departments provided policy decision makers with a full financial analysis to support policy proposals; and that the last Government were teaching a course called “Managing public money” that had two stated objectives:

“To avoid a Department being disadvantaged in the public expenditure process”

and to

“protect the Accounting Officer’s position”.

There is not one word about taxpayers and, as the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) said so eloquently, not one acknowledgment that we are managing other people’s money in everything that we do.

The current proposal is long overdue and has been three years in the gestation. I welcome it warmly, but I should like the same commitment to transparency and accountability to be pushed down to all levels of government.

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Claire Perry Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Well done England. Keep it going. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in wishing the Welsh team all the best in the repeat match against the All Blacks at the weekend.

I do not often get depressed in this place, but I was utterly depressed yesterday as the Budget statement approached, and not for the obvious reasons. First, I was depressed because we were sitting on the Opposition Benches. We will say what we can, and we will do our best to articulate a different vision of the best way forward and the practical measures that should be taken, but the truth is that we are now in opposition. Secondly, I was depressed because the members of the coalition appear to have closed their minds to any alternative argument. If they are right, and if in a year or two I see that my communities have not been damaged disproportionately by the measures that they are proposing, I will acknowledge that. However, I was surprised to note that—as has already been pointed out—the poverty commitment in the Budget extends for only two years.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

In a moment.

The previous Government had a long-standing commitment to tackling poverty, and, although they were not succeeding in everything, they were doing a great deal to lift people out of it. That commitment could have been one of the fundamental principles in the Budget even in a time of austerity—a time of “We’re all in it together”—and not just for two years, but for the five years guaranteed by the 55% breakaway option. I hope that the hon. Lady will join me in saying to her Front Benchers, “Come forward with the figures that show that poverty is not going to increase for the five-year life of this Parliament.”

[Claire Perry]

Thank you very much for giving way, and I am looking forward to hearing what else you have to say. What you have said so far would, however, have much more credibility if you had not represented a Government who tried a different approach for 13 years, with high-falutin’ goals to reduce poverty to help your constituents, and who failed miserably in that. Is the hon. Gentleman truly saying that in his view there should be no cuts—that the broken economic model should roll on as before and that that is the way to repair the economy—or does he have some idea of where the cuts should have fallen?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman replies, may I just say to the hon. Lady, first, that interventions are supposed to be brief—I hope that all Members will take note of that? Secondly, on the use of “you”, may I remind the hon. Lady that her comments are not addressed to me in the Chair? Given that we have been back in the Chamber for quite some time now, I think Members need to come back to addressing each other correctly when putting questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

No Government would willingly take such action, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor had to set out a host of tough choices yesterday, but I do not think that the Budget was ideological. The hon. Gentleman has to be honest with himself when he thinks about ways to deal with the deficit. We should not underestimate the scale of the problem. This year’s public sector net borrowing requirement of £149 billion is almost the equivalent of the combined budget for health and education. The scale of the deficit explains why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor had to make really difficult and brave decisions, but by taking such action now, I hope that we will be able to return to a situation in which we can start to help some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society, which is what any responsible Government ought to be about.

We will get out of this mess by promoting growth in the private sector and rebalancing our economy. We need to get Britain innovating and making things, and to sell our goods and services to the rest of the world. All the calculations in the Budget are predicated on a rate of growth, and it is the private sector that will deliver that growth. By taking the right measures in the Budget and concentrating on the right things, we might be able to exceed the growth targets set out by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor yesterday. Labour Chancellors have been pretty bad at forecasting growth rates. My right hon. Friend, in line with the Office for Budget Responsibility, has given very prudent forecasts of growth rates. I sincerely hope that we will be able to exceed those forecasts.

Until the election, I served as the shadow Minister for international trade and development, and I know that the actions of the Chancellor in supporting exporters will be critical to how our country moves forward in the coming months and years. After all, in the years from 1996 to 2004, firms that were new to exporting achieved, on average, a 34% increase in productivity in their year of entry—the very fact of their going into exporting made them increase their productivity—and 60% of the UK’s productivity growth was attributable to exporting firms. It is therefore welcome that the Chancellor mentioned exports twice in his speech yesterday.

UK Trade & Investment is the Government’s arm that encourages exports and foreign direct investment. Its chief executive, Andrew Cahn, worked under seven different Trade Ministers in the previous Government. I hope that we will not have that revolving door in the present Government and that we will have consistency of Ministers, who will be able to look at our exports problem and achieve considerable improvement. In the years of Labour Government, UKTI’s budget was cut consistently.

Manufacturing accounts for more than half of our country’s exports. Labour Members will not like the figures I give, but they are absolutely true. In 1997, manufacturing employed 4.19 million people, but by December 2009, under Labour’s stewardship, that number had fallen to only 2.592 million. In other words, there had been a significant decline in the number of people employed in the manufacturing sector. That happened despite the value of sterling falling 24% between July 2007 and the present day. Perhaps one of the most devastating of figures pertaining to the period of Labour stewardship is on our trade deficit in goods, which has increased from £3.1 billion to more than £21 billion.

If Labour Members want to know the reason why we had our longest and deepest recession of our post-war history, it is that the Labour Government failed to support sectors of our economy that provide sustainable economic growth. If we are to exit the grips of recession, cushion the impact of austerity and have a sustainable future, exporters will be the engine room and will need to be given priority in the Chancellor’s thoughts and, indeed, across all Departments.

In his Budget statement, the Chancellor said that departmental budgets will be set out in the spending review later this year—quite rightly, he set a date for that of 20 October—with an average real reduction for unprotected Departments of 20%. Let me say to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary, who is on the Treasury Bench, that UKTI—our trade promotion body—is a rare thing: it is one of the few parts of Government that actually makes this country money. To meet the challenges of the future, to provide adequate support for our exporters and to attract FDI into this country, its budget must be protected, so that it can continue to support private sector growth and job creation in the UK.

We must also recognise that real reforms are needed to how we support our exporters and attract FDI to adapt to an ever-changing global marketplace. Those changes cannot be made without the correct budgetary support for UKTI, but the rewards for successful implementation are there. We appreciate the opportunities presented to us by having Europe on our doorstep and through our close relationship with north America. Currently, 70% of our exports go to the traditional developed markets of north America and the EU, but the financial support available for firms seeking to export to the wider and increasingly accessible world beyond that must be maintained, because estimates suggest that, by 2020, the EU and USA share of global gross domestic product will have declined to less than 40%. As was correctly identified—I tried to intervene on the shadow Chancellor—we have turbulence in our European markets and EU growth is expected to be sluggish for some time. That is why it is important that we pay due attention to rapidly expanding global markets elsewhere, which cost proportionately more to service than the easier markets of Europe and north America.

We must be proactive, not reactive. British firms must be backed to head for the second-tier cities in larger markets such as India and China. They must also look for unrealised potential in other countries first, before our competitors have won all the contracts. I looked at that problem around the world, and I found country after country where there was huge potential. The British were welcomed, our business men went out there and expressed interest, but somehow it was the Japanese, the Germans, the Americans and the Chinese who popped in and got the contracts. We must provide better support for our companies.

We must benchmark the performance of UKTI against the best of other countries, so that our trade efforts match or exceed those of our competitors. With our overseas network of embassies, we have a fantastic platform for developing British business, and we cannot afford to let departmental cuts affect their work. We need a widely respected senior figure—a FTSE ex-chairman —to go out banging the drum for the UK, selling the country around the world, and consistently to visit those markets to build up contracts.

Nationally, we must concentrate our efforts away from the regional structure introduced by the previous Government. What nonsense that was. Different regional assemblies had offices in the same city, such as Shanghai or Mumbai, all competing with one another for the same business. What a waste of taxpayers’ money, and what confusion it caused to those countries in which they were located.

[Claire Perry]

I am interested in my hon. Friend’s important proposal for a roving ambassador for British business. Does he agree that there might be potential to retread Sir Digby Jones in that role, particularly as he said yesterday after the Budget:

“I think that sign has gone up around the world saying that Britain is serious about sorting out its economic mess”?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know that she was upbraided by Mr Deputy Speaker a little while ago—it takes a long time to sort out parliamentary language, and references to “you” and the “hon. Gentleman”. She is absolutely right. I was modelling my remarks exactly on Digby Jones, who did a huge amount of work for this country, and spent an enormous amount of time travelling around the world. He had great, in-depth knowledge of huge sections of industry, having served as chairman of the CBI. We need to appoint someone of that calibre, who has the time, energy and availability to be able to do precisely that job.

As I said, the notion that RDAs should have offices around the world competing with one another led to a huge dilution of the UK brand. It caused confusion in the country in which they were located, and it did not serve our interests of attracting foreign direct investment to this country. I have no doubt that Ministers will abolish that structure rapidly, thereby producing much better results. I welcome the proposals for local enterprise partnerships, which are a huge step forward. We can help the private sector by not having a stratified structure of RDAs across the country. We need different structures in different parts of the country, to deal with the problems in each area. We must concentrate Government advice on business sectors, rather than on regions. It was complete nonsense that the Government’s car adviser was based in the north-east, unable to give advice to car manufacturers and component suppliers in Birmingham. We must concentrate on sectors, so that the automotive sector, for example, has a proper advice team in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

We must try to support those sectors that the UK is good at, and see how we can improve their export structure. I say this with hesitation at the moment, but our oil sector was respected throughout the world. Our pharmaceuticals, defence and financial services sectors were respected throughout the world, too, and in line with Sir James Dyson’s recommendations, we must aim to become the No.1 high-tech exporter in Europe. We will do that by concentrating on the new, high-growth market sectors, such as those involving low-carbon and green technologies. Those are the industries of the future, and we ought to concentrate on them. We must also ensure that our universities and their basic research are world-beating, and that companies have the incentive to develop those world-beating ideas into products and services that we can sell in greater and greater quantities throughout the world.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Claire Perry Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is right. Judging from the Conservatives’ reaction—the papers waved in the air when the Chancellor sat down—the enjoyment they took in those harsh—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) calls out, “Pathetic”, but why else would they cheer with such fervour?

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I too welcome the chance to have a grown-up and sensible discussion, but could the hon. Gentleman not do the Tory cuts thing every time we come into the Chamber? Even my seven-year-old finds it rather childish. Of course the Budget will be tough to justify in our constituencies; no one wants to talk to their constituents about public spending reductions, particularly ones that we did not put on the statute book. We have to deal with a legacy problem and I waved my Order Paper because for the first time in 13 years we had a Budget designed not to win votes but to get Britain back on track.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

It can if a person who is made unemployed relies on the mortgage interest support to keep a roof over their head, because they will otherwise be in great jeopardy. The hon. Gentleman might think that people should simply cope with the situation, but I believe that we need to scrutinise the measure much further.

The housing benefit changes announced in the Budget are exceptionally complex, so it is difficult to assimilate their likely impact. However, the reduction of the local housing allowance to the 30th percentile of local rents will distort housing support for the poorest in society.

The hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) talked about the tax credit regime and the reduction in the time period for backdating changes in circumstances from three months to one month. That mean-minded reform is an attempt to claw back money by reducing the period in which people in changeable or almost chaotic circumstances may analyse their position and go through the bureaucratic process of reclaiming their tax credits by submitting correct arrangements. As all hon. Members know, many people will find it difficult to do that within 28 days, and the measure typifies the mean-spirited nature of the Budget.

[Claire Perry]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again—he is generous with his time. He is eloquently highlighting many of the tough decisions that have to be taken. He seems to be ruling out almost all of the deficit reduction measures that we have proposed, so may I again ask what he or his party would do to get to grips with the deficit?

--- Later in debate ---

[Austin Mitchell]

Well, where are they? The Government claim that we have been borrowing at too high a level, yet in 2008 the Conservatives were keen to accept—as an electoral manoeuvre—our spending targets, saying that they would adopt the same targets themselves. Did they mean that we should not have borrowed to save the banks? Should we have let the banks go under, with the cataclysmic consequence of credit contracting in our society? Much of that borrowing went into saving the banks. Should we not have done that?

[Claire Perry]

I am listening, as always with great interest and enjoyment, to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but in my constituency people were worried that we were about to lose our sovereign credit rating, which would have been a consequence of the sort of borrowing that he is talking about. Do his constituents not care about that, or not think that it is a risk?

[Austin Mitchell]

My constituents care about the jobs, benefits and growth that borrowing can give them. That kind of threat that the hon. Lady describes is not talked of in the fish and chip shops of Grimsby, nor is it part of any realistic assessment of our economic situation. There is no threat to our credit rating. The idea is absolutely ludicrous. In fact, the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank of England as far as I can see, has said that the borrowing estimates are coming down. We are borrowing less than the Government predicted. We can well bear that total of borrowing—we should bear it; we must bear it—to get the economy growing again, because that is the only way to pay off the borrowing and to reduce the overdraft.

The Government insist on cutting spending, but I am not sure about the scale of unemployment that today’s cuts in spending will produce. The figure might be 100,000, but it might be up to 500,000, because that is how many jobs have been saved by Labour’s expansionary policies and stimulus spending. However, if we increase total unemployment, those people will no longer be paying taxes. They will be receiving benefits and all kinds of public support, which is necessary to support them and their families. That means that the deficit will increase. Therefore, borrowing goes up as a consequence of an increase in unemployment. The only way to counter that is for the Government to spend and borrow to stimulate the economy.

The proof of that point is dramatically demonstrated in British history by the situation from 1931 to 1934. Because of the cuts made in 1931, with the Geddes axe and all that, public sector borrowing increased substantially from 1931 to 1934, because the economy was not growing. From 1934, when the economy began to grow under the stimulus of the housing boom and, later, rearmament, the public sector borrowing requirement as a proportion of GDP came down rapidly and substantially. That indicates my point, as did our experience when we came into government in 1997. The Conservatives seem to forget that, when Labour came to power in 1997, we paid off massive amounts of debt in the first three years, because the economy was growing and we could do so.

That is the solution to our problems. Only growth will allow what we borrow to be paid off. It is no use knocking Britain and saying that we are like Greece, Spain or Portugal. We are not like any of those: our credit standing is not threatened in any way and we can adjust through the exchange rate, because of what our previous Prime Minister did in keeping us out. The only way to reduce borrowing is to get economic growth. I hope that I have made that point sufficiently clear, because I have made it pedantically and at some repetitive length. It does indicate to me that borrowing is not a problem, and the panic created about it is something of a confidence trick. It is a smokescreen to allow the Chancellor to do what he wants to do for his own political motives: cut public services, roll back the state, cut public spending, cut benefits, cut provisions, and weaken the protection of the poor and those on benefit that comes from borrowing and higher public spending. It enables him to implement his own prejudices.

The cuts are supported by untrue claims about what Mrs Thatcher did in the 1980s. Mrs Thatcher was able to get away with those cuts, which destroyed so much of British manufacturing and certainly turned us from a net manufacturing exporter into a net manufacturing importer, because of the cushion of North sea oil. The Norwegians invested the proceeds of North sea oil in the future; what we did was waste them on a process of creative destruction of British manufacturing industry, which left us the weaker at the end of it.

The cuts are also justified by the claims that Canada and Sweden were able to carry successful spending rounds, but in both cases, the spending cuts were across the board with no huge chunks of the public sector being exempted from them. Both were carried out at a time when the world economy—including the American economy—was expanding rapidly, so that sustained the Canadian and the Swedish economies. We are carrying out our spending cuts, however, at a time of growing recession. Our ex-Prime Minister was trying to lead the world—he did lead it successfully—to agree on stimulus spending to get the economy to grow. This Government are joining a chorus of cuts that will deflate European economies and the world economy.

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[Claire Perry]

I am learning a great deal about economics today. Presumably the hon. Gentleman would have advocated a strong reduction in borrowing at the height of the last piped-up economic boom at some point in the mid-2000 cycle. I should be interested to know what his views were back then.

[Austin Mitchell]

I think, retrospectively, that we expanded public spending without increasing taxation enough to pay for it. The result was a series of subterfuges, such as the public finance initiative and the public-private partnership. It would be interesting to know what the Government are going to do about them in order to get borrowing off the books.

It was right for us to expand public spending. Society has improved enormously. Public spending improves the lot and the lives of the people, and it is our job to improve those things. I would certainly have spent more, but I would probably have taxed more to pay for that spending. I do not see why the people who benefited so substantially and did so well during the period of growth that we experienced under a Labour Government should not pay more in taxes now in order to counteract the recession with which we are currently trying to deal.

This is a circular argument, but, as I have said, the only answer to the borrowing problem and the deficit problem is economic growth to close the deficit and ease the borrowing, and to make it easier—as we did between 1997 and 2000—to reduce borrowing substantially. When we have growth, that is an easy process. It is silly to worry about it, become obsessed with it and create an atmosphere of fear, but that is what the Government are doing.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Deputy Prime Minister, told us that this was a Free Democratic party moment, and that these would be progressive cuts, the poor and the north would be protected, and the cuts would deliver fairness. That is totally wishful thinking. Cuts always, and must necessarily, hit the poor and the vulnerable hardest. They have less with which to protect themselves. They are more dependent on public spending. Grimsby is more dependent on public spending than, say, Weybridge, or some of the other more prosperous southern areas. Any group or area that is heavily dependent on public spending will be hit by cuts, and that means Grimsby. I am now trying to protect Grimsby from those consequences.

An article in yesterday’s Financial Times provided us with an interesting map. Members should read the article, headed “Poorer areas are to be hardest hit”, and stating that the cuts would be

“striking twice as deeply in parts of the Labour-dominated north of England as in the Conservative-dominated home counties.”

That is the effect of cuts on the people and the spending in my area.

Financial Services Regulation

Claire Perry Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The OFT will shortly publish a report on high-cost credit that will address some of these issues, and the hon. Lady is absolutely right to be concerned about them. One of the things that I hope will flow from the institutional arrangements that we are putting in place is a stronger voice for the consumer to ensure that particularly the most vulnerable people in our society are protected from exploitation.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Will the Chancellor assure the House and the country that he will never display the sort of complacency so aptly demonstrated by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), who said in 2007 that we were entering a golden age of prosperity in the City of London?

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right. I was sitting in the Mansion House when the former Prime Minister, with great prophecy, announced that we were embarking in the summer of 2007 on a new golden age for the City of London. Unfortunately, as with everything else that was golden that the previous Prime Minister touched, that turned to lead.

Office for Budget Responsibility

Claire Perry Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

They are, above all, in our economic interests because of the mess left to us by the previous Government.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend had any conversations about these measures with other international financial managers like himself, and if so, what has been the response?

Economic Affairs and Work and Pensions

Claire Perry Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

rose—

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Darling]

I shall give way to the hon. Lady. It might be a mistake, but I will.

[Claire Perry]

I thank the shadow Chancellor for giving way. May I say that as a bystander, rather than a participant, in the last Parliament, I was always struck by his excellent manners? As a mother of three children, I am very hot on manners. In particular, when my children make a mess that I have to clear up, I encourage them to say sorry. Would the shadow Chancellor like to apologise to the Government and the people of Britain for the mess he has left for this Government to clean up?

[Mr Darling]

I am glad that I gave way to the hon. Lady for at least the first part of her intervention. I do not agree with her on the second part, but I should like to address that point now. It is true that our borrowing has risen very substantially—