Backing Business to Create Economic Growth
Debate between Desmond Swayne and Daisy Cooper(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early on the third day of five that we are investing in scrutinising the Government’s programme, at a time when the party of government is abandoning its unique selling point of bringing political stability to our economy after a time of so much churn, with so many Prime Ministers in such a short space of years.
Sir Desmond Swayne
Irrespective of who was responsible, the question is: what is happening now? The reality is that we are facing a danger, notwithstanding the investment of time we are putting into scrutinising the Government’s programme, that it will not remain the Government’s programme for very much longer, such are the very different priorities of those who are lining up to take the Prime Minister’s job.
When the Prime Minister warned his party last week that unleashing a leadership election would bring about chaos, he was quite right, but that chaos also comes with a cost. Such is their horror at the prospect of those lining up to take the Prime Minister’s job, the markets that fund our gargantuan and growing appetite for borrowing are charging a risk premium higher than was charged for the Truss regime, and higher than is charged for Greece when it seeks to borrow. I am not a particular fan of the current Prime Minister, but I urge Labour Members—and, indeed, the voters of Makerfield, who will apparently have a rather more significant input in the settling of this matter—to take account of Hilaire Belloc’s cautionary verses, and, in particular, the tale of poor Jim, who ran away from nurse and was eaten by a lion:
“And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.”
His Majesty told us that the legislative programme would include a Bill to strengthen our relationship with the European Union, but it is far from clear what that actually means. Do the Prime Minister’s red lines—no return to a customs union, or to free movement, or to the single market—still hold firm, and do they hold firm in the view of those who have expressed a much more enthusiastic agenda for returning to closeness with the European Union, among those candidates who are lining up behind him, seeking his job? Labour said in its manifesto that it was going to make Brexit work, but it has made it the excuse for the lacklustre performance of the British economy.
There is a measure of cakeism going on whereby Ministers, including the Secretary of State, tell us how wonderfully they have been doing. They have delivered the fastest economic growth in the G7, much faster than the countries that the Secretary of State identified in the European Union. They have delivered a reduction in inflation. They have delivered—
Sir Desmond Swayne
Quite right: interest rate reductions. They have done all these wonderful things, but at the same time they languish because we are not a member of the European Union. We have heard that criticism several times already today: we would be doing so much better if we were a member of the European Union. The reality is, however, that the European Union is not doing as well as Ministers are trumpeting that we are doing.