Oral Answers to Questions

David Winnick Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

We are absolutely committed to the triple lock that we introduced on pensions so that they rise by CPI, earnings or 2.5%, whichever is greater. That is one of the really significant achievements of this Government, which two parties came together to create, and I think that it is something we can be very proud of.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

May I tell the Chancellor that what is happening in the economy reminds me very much of the havoc and destruction caused by the Thatcher Government in the 1980s, with mass unemployment and poverty? Is it not perfectly understandable why many people are protesting against the sheer injustice, including those who are protesting, and rightly so, outside St Paul’s?

[Mr Osborne]

Again, there is absolutely no recognition that the Government the hon. Gentleman supported presided over the second deepest recession in the entire world. What is the Opposition’s explanation for that? Why was Britain so badly affected? Why was the British economy so unbalanced? Why had the gap between the rich and the poor grown? Why had manufacturing halved as a share of GDP? They have absolutely no answers on Labour’s record in office.

Sovereign Grant Bill

David Winnick Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Obviously, I have listened to what the Chancellor said, but will he bear in mind that we did precisely the same thing last Thursday, on a subject that is not his responsibility? It is all the more irritating that on two successive Thursdays we have had this situation in the House.

[Mr Osborne]

I cannot speak on what happened last week, but I would just draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to this distinction: two weeks ago, on the Floor of the House, we had something like a Second Reading debate about the principles of the Bill. In the comprehensive spending review statement last October, I set out how we proposed to proceed on the subject; that was quite well known. There is not a great deal of surprise about the idea in the Bill of a sovereign grant, linked to the revenues of the Crown Estate and so on. As I say, I accept that the procedure is rather unusual, but the effect is that the House had something akin to a Second Reading debate a couple of weeks ago, and we will use the debate on clause 1 to have something akin to a Second Reading today, too. I hope to address all the issues that people raised two weeks ago in my response on clause 1. Of course, we will have time later today to go through other parts of the Bill.

Sovereign Grant Bill (Allocation of Time)

David Winnick Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I emphasise that my remarks have nothing to do with the measure we will debate today. We can express our views on that one way or the other if we wish. My concern is that we are going to take all stages in one day—we are not, in fact, because we will not even have Second Reading. When Ministers come along, as the Chancellor has today, and argue that it is important to deal with all stages of the Bill in one day they might make their case, but that does not mean that the House should be complacent about the procedure. Last Thursday, the same procedure applied. We had all stages of the Police (Detention and Bail) Bill in one day and the Home Secretary explained its urgency, but even on that occasion I expressed my concern over the way in which we were hurried.

I consider this way of presenting measures to the House and telling us that everything has to be done quickly in one day to be undesirable. What will happen when the Bill goes to the other place? It will have a Second Reading, perhaps, which it has not had here, but the rest of the stages will be taken formally. I want to ask a question about motions such as this one on the allocation of time. What other measures are going to be introduced in the same way? The procedure being pursued shows disrespect to the House. Yes, Ministers always have an excuse for why things must be done in such a hurried way, but it is undesirable and it should not be repeated except on very rare occasions. I want to register my protest accordingly.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I will detain the House for only a very short time. First, I strongly agree with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South—

[Mr Winnick]

Walsall North. Walsall South is your sister.

[Keith Vaz]

Walsall North (Mr Winnick); my hon. Friend is definitely not my sister, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz)—I would have recognised that. I agree with what he said and I thank him.

I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the shadow Chancellor are trying to be helpful but there were issues that I wanted to raise on Second Reading concerning the Act of Settlement and my Bill on the removal of primogeniture, which is currently before the House and ought to be considered alongside the very sensible changes being made by the Chancellor in clause 9 of this Bill, which gives a female heir of the Duke of Cornwall the chance to get a settlement equal to a male heir. I agree with what the Chancellor and shadow Chancellor have said, but there is no opportunity to raise these issues if we simply have a debate on clause stand part instead of on Second Reading. Like the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), I should like to know whether it is your intention, Mr Deputy Speaker, to allow a clause stand part debate to proceed as if it were Second Reading, thus enabling us to raise concerns about the modernisation of the Act of Settlement, which as the hon. Gentleman has said, we have been waiting to do for two centuries.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Winnick Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This country has a record budget deficit; that is the situation we have inherited. We have made some in-year reductions, which have made it slightly less worse this year than it otherwise would have been, and then we have measures next year to try to bring the budget deficit down. Every one of those measures has been opposed by Opposition Front Benchers. They have put forward not a single plan, not a single proposal, to reduce the budget deficit, but our proposals have provided this country with economic stability, in a very unstable European continent.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Following on from the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), what does the Chancellor have to say about the Institute for Fiscal Studies report, which says that almost 1 million people will be below the breadline by 2014? That is an extra million people. Does the Chancellor not feel any shame about what will happen to so many of our constituents—certainly mine—as a result of the policies that he is pursuing? I would have thought that it was a matter over which the Business Secretary might wish to consider resigning.

[Mr Osborne]

As usual, the hon. Gentleman’s question is totally over the top. I would make this observation: we have inherited this economic situation—a record budget deficit—and we are taking the action to deal with it. We are also promoting social mobility by funding a pupil premium and giving new nursery entitlements to disadvantaged two-year-olds. Child poverty rose in the last years of the Labour Government. They set a child poverty target and entrenched it in law, knowing full well that they did not have the policies to meet that target in any way. We are putting in place the policies that will deliver greater social mobility and deal with entrenched poverty in our country.

Comprehensive Spending Review

David Winnick Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

We have much more focused local area partnerships that are going to help areas such as Staffordshire Moorlands, which I suspect were rather neglected by the regional development agency. I assume that such areas were not where the action was in the west midlands, and that the emphasis would have been on the big metropolitan centres. Her town of Leek and the surrounding countryside would, I suspect, have been ignored by the RDA. One of the advantages of local enterprise partnerships—and, indeed, the regional growth fund—is that we can focus on particular areas where we want to get more private sector involvement and create jobs.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I witnessed the misery and devastation that occurred in my black country constituency and elsewhere during the Tory years, and all the indications that the Chancellor has given today are that there will be a repeat of that, and that, despite what he has said, the people who will suffer the most will be those on the lowest incomes. This will be a day of tragedy for the British people.

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Gentleman is not known for overstatement, but I would say to him that we inherited a situation of rising unemployment, the biggest fall in output in a generation, the biggest banking crisis—thanks to the way in which the previous Government had regulated the banks—and a huge budget deficit. In the next hour—or however long you allow for questions, Mr Speaker—every single Labour Member who gets up should propose an alternative plan. It is very difficult to make choices, but they can attack this plan only if they have an alternative.

Proposed Public Expenditure Cuts

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Not many, is the answer. My hon. Friend is right to draw the House’s attention to the fact that what we used to hear from the Labour Government about efficiency savings—in the press releases issued at the time of their last Budget—was all guff. Anyone who has examined whether any of the former Government’s claims stack up has found that they do not. It is another part of the Labour party’s fraudulent record.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Does the Chancellor really believe that the Government’s proposals will not be met with the widest opposition up and down the country? The Chancellor might dismiss this comment, but the Cabinet is playing with fire.

[Mr Osborne]

Let me say this to the hon. Gentleman: he sat on the Government Benches year after year while the budget deficit racked up; he allowed this country to have the largest budget deficit in the developed world. We are now seeking to reduce that budget deficit. The previous Government pencilled in but never identified £44 billion of public expenditure savings. If he wants to make a serious contribution to the debate, I suggest that he propose some specific measures to deliver the plans on which he stood at the last general election.

Economic Affairs and Work and Pensions

David Winnick Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I will make a little progress, and will give way later on in my speech, if Members will allow.

Of course, the backdrop is that our economy has become deeply unbalanced. There is deep imbalance between different parts of the country: the wealth gap between regions widened over the past 13 years. There is imbalance between different sections of society: the gap between the rich and the poor widened in our country over the past 13 years. There is imbalance between different parts of our economy: the public sector boomed to take almost half our national income, while the private sector struggled with the deepest recession that we had seen since the war. This Queen’s Speech, with its landmark reforms of welfare and education, begins the task of righting those wrongs. Later in this debate, we will hear from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who has done more than anyone to highlight the trap of low aspiration, poor education and welfare dependency that our fellow citizens do not deserve and our country cannot afford any more.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

However dismissive the Chancellor may be, those of us who have been here since 1979 and who saw what the last Tory Government did saw only too clearly that the burden of the cuts that were made then fell on those least able to bear it, and the rich and prosperous did very well indeed. That is why we are so sensitive about the people whom we represent, and why we are so suspicious of what the Chancellor is saying, no matter what sort of qualifications he makes. I am afraid that it is our people—the people who sent us here to sit on the Labour Benches—who will suffer the worst of the burdens.

[Mr Osborne]

The similarity is this: in 1979, a new Conservative Government also had to deal with a terrible economic inheritance from the Labour party. If the hon. Gentleman is so affronted by what Margaret Thatcher did during her premiership, perhaps he could explain why, every time there is a new Labour Prime Minister, virtually the first person they invite round for tea is Margaret Thatcher.