All 1 Debates between Elizabeth Truss and Thelma Walker

Thu 22nd Mar 2018

The Economy

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Thelma Walker
Thursday 22nd March 2018

(6 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Elizabeth Truss Portrait Elizabeth Truss
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Like my right hon. Friend, I am delighted by how well our economy is doing and how resilient it has been to all kinds of events. As for forecasts, they are simply forecasts. We believe that with the right approach, by liberating businesses and people, we can outperform our forecasts, and that is what we must seek to do.

I was talking about the privatisations of the 1980s and 1990s. What we saw then was more competition, more investment and better management of money and our utilities. Water customers, for example, are now five times less likely to suffer from supply interruptions, eight times less likely to suffer from sewer flooding and 100 times less likely to be affected by low water pressure than they were when the industry was publicly owned. Investment has almost doubled following privatisation, and the average household bill is down by £130. In energy, the number and length of power cuts on local electricity networks has almost halved since 2002, and network costs are 17% lower than they were at the time of privatisation. There are now 66 players in the retail energy market, and the market share of the big six has fallen by 20%.

In the rail sector, the number of passenger journeys has doubled to 1.7 billion since privatisation.

Thelma Walker Portrait Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)
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Spending on transport is 12 times greater in London than in Yorkshire, and that is having a negative impact on the growth of the economy in the north. Does the Chief Secretary think that is fair?

Elizabeth Truss Portrait Elizabeth Truss
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The figure that the hon. Lady has given is not correct. During the current spending review period, we are spending more per head on infrastructure in the north of England than in the south. In the longer term, there will be decisions to be made about which projects we fund in the north, but we are absolutely committed to ensuring that the north has its fair share of transport and infrastructure funding.

Since rail privatisation, the number of complaints has fallen by 75%, satisfaction has risen from 76% to 81%, and the days of waiting hours for a train and a stale sandwich from British Rail are long over.

Royal Mail was loss-making when it was in public ownership, sucking up resources that could have been spent on services such as the NHS. By contrast, it has been financially healthy in every year since privatisation. If Labour Members think that they could do a better job of running those services, they need to demonstrate how. On current form, I believe that their proposals would mean chaos and confusion, and if we include the £350 billion for the strategic investment board, they would also mean the addition of an eye-watering half a trillion pounds of debt to the UK balance sheet.