Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Friday 20th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

My right hon. Friend is prescient in all things, and his Freudian slip is absolutely right: Labour has a non-economic plan and it is not going to work. I do not think that they will get a chance to use it.

The Budget will also ensure that our economic recovery continues to benefit every area of the country. Some claim, as we have heard this morning, that London and the south-east are reaping all the rewards, but that is nonsense. Nowhere is generating jobs faster than the north-west, and Yorkshire is creating more jobs than the whole of France. Our French friends may have given us liberté, fraternité and égalité, but my old home county is providing creativity, industry and Yorkshire Tea.

Our economy is growing because this Government understand what makes the economy tick. We believe that all growth is local and that local people are best placed to make decisions about their area. That is especially true where we have improved planning and increased house building. Labour’s top-down housing targets trampled on the democratic wishes of local communities and built nothing but resentment. Majestic promises of eco-towns never got beyond the paper they were written on. We have taken a more practical approach: rather than relying on the long arm of Whitehall, we are trusting councils and communities to make their own decisions about planning and housing and to steer new developments towards the right location. The result is growing public support for new housing, which has almost doubled over the past four years. More than 700,000 new homes have been delivered since the beginning of 2010 and house building is now at its highest level since 2007. Last year, locally led planning systems gave permission for 253,000 homes across England.

There is always more to do. We want to increase significantly the number of homes we build, to sustain economic growth and support the aspirations of hard-working families. Instead of dictating change, we are helping local areas that want to build more homes and boost growth. That will include supporting the development of locally led garden towns in communities such as Bicester, Basingstoke and Northamptonshire. Together, they will deliver nearly 40,000 new homes.

We have appointed board members to oversee Ebbsfleet’s urban development corporation, and marketing will begin on the key Northfleet embankment site. The new garden city on the Thames estuary will provide up to 15,000 new homes, create opportunities for businesses and generate thousands of jobs. We have also given the green light to 20 housing zones across the country and will continue to work with eight other bids. Together with 20 planned zones in London, these will support the delivery of nearly 100,000 homes all on brownfield land. That is exactly where the public want to see new housing so that we can protect our precious green belt and our beautiful countryside.

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

On the subject of producing housing where the public need it, I am sure the Secretary of State knows that there are 19,000 families on the waiting list for housing in Islington, that the average price of a home in Islington is £630,000, and that 40% of my constituents live in social housing. Is he able to provide housing for Islington people? What is his plan for affordable housing in central London?

[Mr Pickles]

I have just explained that to the hon. Lady. Members on the Government Benches do not look down their noses at people who have white vans outside their houses. Those of us on this side of the House understand the importance of this. That is why it is we who will be working on brownfield sites so that the hon. Lady can occasionally visit the poor in her constituency.

[Emily Thornberry]

Rather than making cheap and rather silly points, which demeans the right hon. Gentleman, would he like to answer my question? Where is the Government help for building affordable housing in central London?

[Mr Pickles]

We are talking about something in the region of £400 million in London. The hon. Lady needs to understand that she is the queen of the cheap point. None of us will forget the tweet she sent out—[Interruption.]

[Mr Pickles]

Thank God you’re here, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was very happy to address the hon. Lady, but you were absolutely right to pull me up on that point of etiquette.

The plans are there; they are published. If the hon. Lady cannot be bothered to look at the plans and work with her local council, that is hardly our fault.

[Emily Thornberry]

Nonsense. Tell that to Mount Pleasant.

[Mr Pickles]

I think the hon. Lady should address her constituents directly rather than doing so through the Chair.

Our large sites programme has already unlocked the construction of more than 100,000 houses. We have now extended support for a site at Northstowe near Cambridge, which will benefit from 10,000 new homes on Government-owned land. We are supporting house building in the capital with a £97 million grant and a ring-fenced 50% share of local business rates to support the regeneration of Brent Cross and unlock 7,500 new homes. The London Land Commission will produce a database of public sector and brownfield sites, so that the Mayor can identify potential sites for new homes. These commitments to build more homes will be matched with support for hard-working people in the housing market, whether they are buying or renting.

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[Mr David Willetts (Havant) (Con)]

It gives me great pleasure to contribute to this debate towards the very end of my time as the Member of Parliament for Havant. It is an opportunity for me to welcome the Budget and to salute the Government’s record in managing the economy, with 2.5% growth this year. It is that record that leads Government Members to feel compelled to describe our long-term economic plan, and I should like to turn to that part of the long-term economic plan that the shadow Secretary of State failed to acknowledge.

[Emily Thornberry]

I am so disappointed in the right hon. Gentleman for using such a empty phrase. Of all the Members who are leaving, we will regret his loss as he is an intelligent man and can explain himself much better than in these rather silly Tory buzz phrases.

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[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

A Conservative Chancellor is at the height of his powers. We see falling inflation, falling unemployment, rising living standards and healthy growth, built on the basis of deficit reduction and falling borrowing.

That was, of course, the legacy of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) in the 1990s. I was his special adviser then, and he is the man who is responsible for my being in this place. However, my right hon. Friend the current Chancellor can boast of an even greater achievement than that legacy. He has achieved stability, and put the country on the path from austerity to prosperity, from a much more difficult starting point: the great recession. On the basis of the Budget statement and the subsequent announcements that we have heard over the past few days, I believe that the current Chancellor will receive a better reward than our party received in 1997. He certainly deserves it.

I have spent about a dozen of my 18 years as a Member of Parliament focusing on Treasury matters, and during that time I have had my fair share of Financial Times headlines quoting what I have said. I was therefore grateful when, the day after this week’s Budget, the paper quoted me as praising it for being a “grown-up Budget”, which is my valedictory FT headline. I described the Budget in that way because it is demonstrably not a giveaway or a populist Budget, but a Budget that is in the national economic interest.

One of my few regrets during my time in this place is that too many of our constituents, and too many in the media, believe that we are all the same—that there is not much difference between the parties. That is probably partly due to their sense that a number of politicians and Governments are buffeted by global economic forces that they may not understand, much less control. I think that that is wrong. I have a slightly more idealistic view of nationally important economic statements such as Budgets: I believe that they should have a moral purpose.

I should add, in a spirit of bipartisanship, that the Budgets of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) were momentous events, although I did not agree with many of the measures that he introduced. I often thought that, in the noughties, he relied too much on the flow of very buoyant corporate tax receipts that were never going to last for ever, but on the back of which he spent too much. That is something that even Tony Blair has acknowledged, believing—and I think that, on this occasion, he was right—that in 2005 we could see the beginning of the opening up of a structural deficit in the Government’s public finances. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the former Labour Chancellor, ably assisted by the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), undoubtedly had a moral vision of where the country was going.

[Emily Thornberry]

I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman say that he believed that the previous Labour Government had spent too much. He talks of being on the record, and of making a valedictory address. Is he on the record as spelling out to the former Prime Minister, or the former Chancellor, any areas in which we were spending too much, and urging us to spend less? Were there, for instance, any hospitals that he did not want us to open?

[Mr Ruffley]

I will give one example: middle-class welfare-ism, as it is often described. We all supported the introduction of working tax credit, a repackaging of income support and family credit, as an in-work benefit for those on low pay—it was, and is, a good thing—but it extended much too far up the income scale, and a great deal of money was spent. Most economic analysts would not deny that that spending judgment opened up a structural deficit. The country was spending more than it could afford.

Let me return to my key point. I believe that valid differences, based on a moral outlook, are exhibited in this week’s Budget, and I will shortly explain why I think that it has purpose and deserves to be praised for that. Before I do so, however, let me say that during my time here, the economic Front Benchers of the Labour party have certainly made us think. I am reminded of what Edmund Burke said in his “Reflections on the Revolution in France”. It serves as a description not just of my experience, but of what I think the Chamber is and should be about. Burke said:

“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”

I want to make two points in the context of the clash of ideas to which I have referred,. One relates to the part of the country that I represent, Bury St Edmunds in East Anglia. It was looked after in the Budget in two ways. First, there was the announcement that there would be a reform of business rates, and that a considered consultation on the matter would take place in the next 12 months. Why is that important? It is important because high-quality market towns such as Bury St Edmunds rely on the shops and small businesses in the town centre. They have been hit disproportionately by the great boom in internet shopping, and we have had to acknowledge that they have significant on-costs if their business is supported by bricks rather than by clicks. The basis of business rate taxation needs to be looked at to ensure the future of our market towns. The other point is that a car is a necessity, not a luxury, in areas such as Suffolk, so another freeze in fuel duty—the longest freeze for 20 years—is warmly welcomed in the East Anglia economy.

I want to make a general point about job creation. We know that 1,000 jobs are being created every day under the coalition Government, of which 80% are full time and 80% are in high-skill occupations. The apprenticeship scheme, which will be seen as one of the great achievements of this coalition Administration, needs to permeate more into rural economies and areas like as mine. The excellent West Suffolk college should do more to offer courses in skilled occupations, increasingly levering in the apprenticeship scheme, so that we can have more high-skill jobs in Bury St Edmunds, Stowmarket and surrounding areas. It seems to me and many others that while Cambridge has expanded north towards Ely and west towards Huntingdonshire, not enough of the Cambridge effect has spilled over eastwards down the A14 to west and mid Suffolk, as we wish it to do.

Ours is a relatively well-heeled and successful part of the country. Like you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I was born and raised a Lancastrian. I understand that the north of England has earned a lot of brass for this country during the past couple of centuries. I am delighted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has understood that and has been so imaginative in putting together his northern powerhouse proposition. I welcome the pilot for Greater Manchester to keep 100% of additional business rate revenue, and the devolved powers that he will give to transport for northern areas and, in Manchester’s case, on NHS and training budgets. We want that proposal to be extended to Yorkshire and the north-east, as well as to those parts of the midlands that have not yet had the benefits that East Anglia and the south-east of England have received.

My second point relates to the big fiscal judgment in the Budget, which is that we will run an overall fiscal surplus. We will not just balance the current budget by 2018-19, but have capital and current surpluses by 2020. The surplus will not be as big as the £23 billion-plus projected at the time of the last autumn statement, but it will be several billion pounds—and such a relaxation of the fiscal position is good—because we as a nation absolutely must run a surplus. Why? Because as anyone will tell you in the City, where I shall return after May, there will one day be another recession. There just will be, no matter who is in power. Above all else, what we must learn from the past 10 years is that we need to be prepared. If we do not have a surplus for a rainy day, the cuts and the squeeze on living standards will be that much greater.

At the same time as wanting to run a surplus, the current Chancellor has very clearly set out two paths that are consistent with core, right-of-centre Conservative principles—the first is that individuals who work should be allowed to keep more of what they earn to spend as they choose, not as the state chooses; and the second is that individuals must be allowed to keep more of what they save to do with what they decide, not what the state decides. That is why two sets of measures in the Budget need to be praised. One set involves the new personal savings allowance, taking 17 million people out of tax on savings, which is a modest start to bolstering the savings culture. There is also the freedom for 5 million annuity policyholders to get out of their policies in a year’s time if they so choose, and the flexible ISA. The other set relates to income tax. The ambition of taking lower-paid people out of tax means that in two years’ time the personal allowance will be £11,000. That will help not just the low-paid; everybody, including those who pay income tax at the 20p and 40p rates, will receive a tax cut.

Finally, I would say that I leave the House wiser and more optimistic about this country’s economic health, its future and the ability of its citizens to compete in the world. I feel hugely grateful for, and very privileged to have had, the opportunity to represent the most beautiful constituency in the country, Bury St Edmunds. I still believe that this country is, and I hope it will remain, the greatest on earth.

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

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), whom I wish the very best in retirement. That said, he is wrong about there being a Conservative Government following this one. It is clear that of all the results at the next election, a Conservative Government is the least likely.

The Budget was all about the election—there were two Budgets really. There was the reality and there was the rhetoric, and it did not take long for the rhetoric to start unravelling. Fortunately, some of the nonsense we were subjected to we will not need to hear again for some time. The pared-down, sanitised version of the Budget the Chancellor presented could be quickly unpicked simply by looking at the Red Book, which confirms our very worst fears: on public spending cuts, he and his party are just getting warmed up. On Wednesday, he claimed that living standards were higher this year than when they entered office, but on Thursday the ONS and independent think-tanks criticised his wildly inventive use of statistics. Facts and evidence had little role in his “Alice in Wonderland” version of the Budget—up was down, down was up, and a word meant whatever he said it meant. It was a transparent attempt to argue the opposite of what Opposition Members know: that under this Government, living standards have fallen and the poor are getting poorer. The impact of their reckless decisions has fallen most heavily on those least able to bear it.

Today, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government took up the baton in the same spirit as the Chancellor. Of all the extraordinary things he said, the thing that really struck me was his claim that the Government were building the homes the public wanted. In my constituency, the best he is likely to get for that is a politely hollow laugh. In my constituency, the average house price is £660,000, according to latest figures. How will Help to Buy ISAs help with that? How much will £15,000 in the bank help with that? It is evidence of the Government’s lackadaisical attitude to the housing crisis—stimulating demand but doing nothing on the supply side, promoting home ownership while offering nothing to the millions of private renters struggling to make ends meet.

It is often said that politics in Islington begins and ends with housing, and it is not difficult to see why. Every week, I am overwhelmed by the number of people who tell me how much they are struggling to make their monthly rent payments, pay the bills and buy essentials such as food, fuel and child care. People think they know about Islington, but they don’t: we have the sixth-worst child poverty rates in the whole country, and 40% of my constituents live in social housing. In many ways, we are a constituency of two halves, and we are separating out, and it is getting worse under this Government.

I would like to give the Chancellor a dose of reality—I would like to tell him about some of the people I have the honour to represent—but I shall begin with a few facts. Renting a flat in Islington privately now costs an average of £600 a week. Now, the Government will say it is unfair for people on benefits to get more than the average wage, and in principle I agree absolutely, but the difficulty is that if we include rent in benefit payments, and if the income cap for those on benefits is £500, it does not take much wit to work out that the vast majority of the money goes to the landlords, not to the family. As a result, people are being forced out of Islington and London, as far as they can go, but instead of dealing with prices and the housing crisis and building more affordable homes in my constituency and central London, the Government are penalising those who can least afford it and are least to blame.

A constituent came to see me two weeks ago. She has three children; she survived polio as a child—her legs are in a terrible state; she lives in completely unsuitable private housing, and has to climb 28 steps to reach her front door. It is temporary housing she has been in temporarily for four years while the council has been looking for somewhere to put her. For this, she has the privilege of paying—or the Government do—£400 a week, meaning that this disabled woman and her three children have £100 a week to live on. Is the sun shining on this family? Are things getting better for them? No, they are not.

Unsurprisingly, rents are running out of control in this area. In places such as Islington, social housing is the only realistic option, yet, despite the council’s best efforts, there are 19,000 people on the housing waiting list. In Islington, we currently have a joke: the council is working so hard to build social housing that if someone moves their car in the morning, when they come back there will be a flat there. It is doing its utmost to build social housing, but, with the withdrawal of the Government subsidy for councils to build social housing, it is hard. It is doing everything it can, and I applaud its efforts, but it is as if we are running as fast as we can and still going backwards.

[Mr Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. She mentioned the Help to Buy ISAs. The money the Conservatives would spend on that would build 69,000 affordable homes. Is the attitude of Conservatives not really shown by councils such as Tory-controlled Hammersmith, which sold 315 council homes on the open market, meaning that 315 families will now be in private rented accommodation and presumably subject to the benefit cap?

[Emily Thornberry]

Yes, and the irony is that when properties are sold and the council is allowed by the new owners to rent them on the private market, the tenants are told they have to live in the property for a huge amount of money that is then paid in benefits. It is no wonder that the benefit bill and the cost to the Government are rising.

We need to step back and look at the situation realistically. If rents are far too high, what do we do? We need to build more. If we do not, rents will continue to rise. We have to take control of the housing situation, particularly in areas of high demand, such as central London. We cannot leave it to capitalism red in tooth and claw to deal with the housing crisis in Islington. We have to intervene, and we have to believe that it is the best way of dealing with it; otherwise, we will continue to have huge unfairness.

A man and his partner and baby came to see me. They desperately want a home of their own, but they cannot afford to rent privately, so they are living with mum. Their house is completely overcrowded—it is totally unsuitable—but they have no alternative, and they will be there for years. I have another constituent living in overcrowded accommodation who has made 76 bids to move home, but she has still not been successful. Another woman is in arrears for the bedroom tax. She has had discretionary housing payments, but they were only small, and she remains in debt and is desperately worried about what will happen to her. She wants to move, but there is nowhere for her to move to.

A woman came to see me—she is not really a priority, I appreciate that—who lives in a one-bedroom flat with two children and two adults. This is like the 1920s. We are going backwards in time. People are living like this today. This family are not a priority; they are not the worst case, and their chances of getting re-housed are slender because they are only overcrowded by way of two adults and two children in a one-bedroom flat. I had a letter from another woman about high rents in the private sector. The sun is not shining on her house. Her flat is cold and damp, and there is only one radiator. Another family came to see me—four adults and two children in a two-bedroom flat.

Does this Budget solve any of these problems? Does it even think about them? It denies their existence and makes no attempt to address the problems arising just a stone’s throw from this building. We cannot continue to put our heads in the sand. We need a Government who care and are prepared to address these problems, not continue to talk in “Alice in Wonderland” terms about the sort of world we want. “We choose the future”, the Chancellor said. Well, the Government do not choose the future for the people I represent. They should be ashamed of themselves, and they will not be in government for long.

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[Emily Thornberry]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be an improvement in the law if there was corporate liability for the criminal acts of individuals within companies? In other words, if someone behaves dishonestly on behalf of a company, the company itself should be liable. If that law were in place, as it is in the United States, it would help with prosecutions in this country for fraud and dishonesty.

[John McDonnell]

Exactly, and there is some movement on that in this document, but only yet another consultation that does not define whether individuals as well as corporations will be completely liable.

The Government sometimes have good intentions. We all supported on a cross-party basis the idea that if a company is prosecuted for tax avoidance, it should not then get a public contract. We all supported that in this House, but now, two years since it was introduced, not a single tax dodging entity, despite judgments by tax tribunals, has been barred from securing public contracts. What frustrates most of us in all parts of the House is precisely this non-implementation of legislation which we think could be effective and which we have all supported.

Another issue also came up. We supported the Government’s introduction of the general anti-abuse rule. We had been campaigning for years on it, and it came into effect on 1 July 2013. The Chancellor has referred to it on several occasions in various debates. The concept is good, but HMRC cannot go after offenders on its own because the Government have, in effect, put the tax avoiders in charge. HMRC needs permission from a panel, populated by the corporate tax avoiders, before it can implement the GAAR. The panel includes, for example, a partner from Baker Tilly, a firm of accountants associated with a tax-avoidance scheme used by Aberdeen Asset Management to dodge taxes on bonuses to employees, and so far the panel has not looked at a single case. It renders debates and legislative measures in this House totally irrelevant to the real world. The real issue is that no matter how many policy statements, reports and legislation we have, it is all rendered pointless if HMRC does not have the staff and resources to implement them.

I was critical of my own Government; I opposed the staffing cuts at HMRC then. In 2005, there were 92,000 staff at HMRC. By 2015, there were 62,000 and by next year there will be a planned 52,000. That is a 43% cut in the very tax collectors we rely on to chase the evaders and avoiders. For every pound spent on a member of staff at HMRC, £25 is brought back. That is not my figure, but the independent assessment. The Government have now closed all 281 local tax inquiry offices. They have brought in a centralised call system, which is struggling on every measure. HMRC’s management have gained a reputation across the civil service for belligerent incompetence, and that was displayed when the Public Accounts Committee attempted to hold them to account. Morale in HMRC is at an all-time low, which is testified to by the Government’s staff survey showing that it had the lowest level of employee engagement across all Government departments.

We have also seen, as a result of the leaked memos of four weeks ago, the HMRC management’s union-busting strategy. They have not only targeted and victimised PCS reps, but are trying to set up an alternative staff association to break the PCS. In my view, HMRC is not only not fit for purpose, but sinking. It is in need of basic reform if it is to live up to the expectations placed on it even by the report that the Treasury published yesterday. If we are really going to tackle tax avoidance and evasion and have any hope of closing the tax gap, we need a more effective, better staffed and better resourced HMRC. We need greater parliamentary accountability, which means: a specific Minister responsible for HMRC; and a separately established Select Committee to which it is accountable. We also need resources for organisations outside Government that can monitor it and respond to the detailed, complex Government consultations. Above all else, HMRC needs staff resourcing and the reversal of the staffing cuts on this scale that have neutered its operations. If we really want to tackle the tax gap, we need to ensure that it is properly staffed, that Parliament is in control and that there is proper accountability and monitoring throughout. In that way, we can tackle the tax gap, and we can start talking about the fairness of the wealth tax, the financial transaction tax and corporate tax reform. We need not so much a long-term economic plan as a long-term fair tax plan.

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[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Priti Patel)]

I pay tribute to all right hon. and hon. Friends and Members who have spoken in this debate. Some of them have spoken for the last time, and we should note their distinguished service. Their contributions will be missed in the next Parliament. I will particularly miss their wisdom and guidance

This is a Budget that rewards hard work, cuts taxes for millions of people and empowers families and businesses. It gives people more incentives to save and greater choice over how they spend their savings and pensions. It is a Budget based on a long-term economic plan that is working. It is a plan that is growing our economy and providing a better future for our country; that has given more people the chance to get on in life, with record numbers of people in employment; and that is providing more security for the long term, with the deficit down and our national debt starting to fall as a share of the economy.

Five years ago, our economy had suffered a collapse greater than that seen in almost any other country. Today, alongside jobs, growth, new business start-ups, new housing zones, enterprise zones, support for savers and for people who aspire to own their own homes, we have lower inequality, child poverty down, pensioner poverty down to record lows, the gender pay gap smaller than ever, and the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds at university at a record high. The stability that we have put in place has taken Britain from austerity to prosperity.

Listening to the contributions of Opposition Members, I was struck by their complaining that the economic recovery is not taking place fast enough in their eyes. I have heard their message, but it was they who crashed the British economy. It was on their watch that the debt-fuelled economy was created, that manufacturing halved as a share of the national economy and that the gaps between the north and south and between the rich and the poor grew ever larger. Yet their complaint is consistent: the Government are not fixing their appalling legacy fast enough.

This afternoon, we have heard, from constituency to constituency—from Newcastle upon Tyne East to Croydon North to Blaenau Gwent to Luton South to Islington South and Finsbury to Poplar and Limehouse—from Labour Members who have opposed every single measure undertaken by this Government to put us back on the path to recovery. Let me respond to some of the points that have been made in this wide-ranging debate.

Housing came up consistently. Since 2010, more than 200,000 affordable homes have been delivered. Council house building starts are at their highest level in 23 years. In the year to December 2014, 250,000 new homes were granted planning permission. In London alone, £1.1 billion has been provided to the Greater London authority to deliver affordable housing zones. Labour Members may complain, but their complaints are actually a demonstration of the failure of Labour local authorities to deliver housing.

[Emily Thornberry]

Nonsense!

[Priti Patel]

Actually, it is not nonsense. It is a failure on the part of Labour.

[Emily Thornberry]

Will the hon. Lady tell us how many affordable homes the Mayor of London has built in Islington? I do not mean homes at 80% of market rent; I mean truly affordable homes that have been built by the Mayor of London in Islington. If she has that figure, she will realise that what she has been saying is nonsense.

[Priti Patel]

I will correct the hon. Lady. It is not nonsense. The money has gone to the Greater London authority to deliver affordable new homes. She said that the Help to Buy ISA would not help her constituents. It is projected to help 190,000 people in London buy their first home over the next five years. Of course, the average first-time buyer is a basic rate taxpayer.

We have heard complaints that the North East combined authority is not doing enough. Let us be clear: more people are employed in the north-east then ever before. We have heard about Croydon. There has been £7 million of funding in Croydon and the GLA is delivering 4,000 new homes and 10,000 new jobs. Those are positive and proactive measures that are transforming people’s lives.

When it comes to job creation and job growth—