Economic Growth and Employment

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, the question is whether the Department is doing what it promised to do for those businesses, which is to give them money and to carry out due diligence in a quick and timely way. It has failed to do so. I do not claim that there was a nirvana in relation to RDAs, but we are talking about the regional growth fund, and we actually want it to succeed.

The Government’s latest attempt to grow the economy consists of making it easier to fire, not hire, people. Today, to great fanfare, the Secretary of State said that the service required to claim for unfair dismissal should be increased from one to two years. He said this morning that

“this will mean that business can once again have the confidence to hire the staff they need to grow and thrive.”

That is a retrograde step for a Government who think that watering down employees’ rights is a substitute for a proper growth plan.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Even at the height of the Thatcher years, there was no attempt to target individual workers—their unions, yes, because industrial tribunals were a Conservative Government invention, but the measure under discussion is utterly shameless. The efficient European economies are partnership economies, but targeting weaker workers and, particularly, women workers is to the utter and contemptible shame, above all, of a Liberal Democrat Business Secretary.

[Mr Umunna]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend brings up the Thatcher era, because a well known noble Lord was asked on Sunday whether such initiatives, which seek to make it easier to fire as opposed to hire people, act as a stimulus to job creation. He told the BBC what he thought of that, saying:

“I’ve been responsible for one of those deregulation initiatives for many years and I would be quite frank in telling you that I don’t think we achieved much.”

He went on to say that

“you want to be very careful in political terms that you don’t get the reputation that all you’re trying to do is make life rougher and tougher for large numbers of people.”

Those are the words of the noble Lord Heseltine, and, if a Conservative-led Government are unable to persuade him to buy into the concept, why should the rest of us do so?