Jobs and Growth

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I am grateful to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin). She mentioned an industrial policy, which we are of course looking at, but the problem she must face is that Lord Mandelson’s industrial policy came far too late. The north-west experienced 13 years in which her Government allowed the gap between north and south to increase, and it increased according to any survey chosen. Ultimately, the only investment that came into the north-west was rapid public sector investment in either construction—the so-called affordable housing that turned out to be one or two-bedroom flats, not real houses for families—or an ever-expanding regional development agency that could do nothing about the expansion of London and the south-east, when compared against the contribution of the north-west or any other region. I am pleased that this Government, through part of the Queen’s Speech, are consolidating the missing links and dealing with the failure to invest in infrastructure over 13 years.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I would love to, but I have less than three minutes. I am sorry.

This Government are committed to: an M6 link road around Lancaster, which has been on the stocks since 1948 but nothing was done about it in 13 years of the Labour Government; the northern hub investment, which will improve connectively between the northern cities and enable them to compete; and investment in broadband through Broadband Delivery UK. People talk about superfast broadband, but a third of my constituents do not have access to normal broadband, and that is the failure of real investment over the past 13 years. I believe that the Government are now doing something about that and that things are happening to build that environment and infrastructure so that the north can compete like any other region of the country. Labour Members talk about a lack of vision, but the vision came from the coalition in the very first months. The commitment from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor was that we deal with the deficit but, at the same time, attempt to restructure and rebalance the country not only between sectors, but between regions. That is the vision of the coalition.

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[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

When I speak as a representative of Islington South and Finsbury, I feel that I always have to begin by dispelling myths. People know about our cappuccino bars and our Georgian squares, but they do not necessarily know that 44% of my constituents live in social housing, or that my constituency has the second worst child poverty rate in the country. The very rich and the very poor live in Islington. We live cheek by jowl, and we like it that way. The recession has affected all of us, but some much more than others.

One thing unites people, however, no matter what their background. I have spoken to women, including aspirant Somali mothers, a middle-class mother whose child has just left Oxbridge, and a woman whose child has just left school, and we are all really scared for the next generation. Although we have brought up our children as best we can and put everything into equipping them for the world as perfectly as we can, we are really scared that, when we push them out into the world, the world will say, “No, sorry. We don’t need you. We might be interested in your little brother or sister one day, but you have entered the world of work at the wrong time. Come back in four or five years’ time.” What will happen to those kids in the meantime if we do nothing about unemployment among young people?

In Islington, we have had a massive increase in long-term unemployment among 18 to 24-year-olds, and I know that that has been replicated across the country. In Islington, it has gone up by 88% in the past year. I hear Government Members say, “Well, of course it is because they haven’t got the right qualifications”, or “It’s because the Labour Government didn’t educate them well enough”, but it does not matter what qualifications a young person has now; they simply cannot get a job. There is a generation now who are finding it exceedingly difficult. The hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) shakes his head, but if he were to advertise for an unpaid internship in his office, I suspect he would get at least 300 applicants from youngsters desperate to get employment. The problem is nothing to do with young people not being sufficiently educated; it is because the recession, which hits all of us, hits our children, teenagers and those in their early 20s the hardest. The older generation and Members here who represent our communities have a duty to do something about it. Frankly, the complacency of Government Members, to which I have had to listen over the past five and a half hours, is quite astounding.

I see in his place the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and I hope he will listen to what I have to say about other groups of people. I know the Conservatives say they are on the side of those who work hard and do the right thing. I know they want to change this country so that once again it rewards people who work hard, want to get on and play by the rules. The Conservatives want to represent the strivers, the builders, the family raisers, the community builders. Good, so would Conservative Members please consider the working poor in my constituency, who are being adversely affected by cuts to working tax credits, the housing benefit cap and universal credit? I hope the Secretary of State understands that they are badly affected by the price of housing and the extraordinary price they have to pay for rent. We must do something about that. Unless and until that is done, it will be impossible to have a mixed community in which people will be able to work at all levels.