Economic Responsibility and a Plan for Growth

Feryal Clark Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Thank you very much for calling me so early in the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. If I may strike a conciliatory tone at the outset of my remarks, I thank everybody in this House who sent me remarkable support in the course of the summer recess. There is nothing unique about my having had issues with my mental health, but what is perhaps more unique than most in the country is that I have the platform and opportunity to highlight that and to speak empathetically, and I am very grateful indeed. In making this speech, there are a number of things in my life that I am struggling with at the moment, but, bizarrely, it seems that making a speech in the House of Commons is not one of them. I am not entirely sure whether that is attuned to my state of mind, and no doubt my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will tell me afterwards.

I want to speak on this important matter because I have not said a word to my constituents about the events of the last month or so. I watched on from home when the Chancellor gave his so-called mini-Budget, which should have been delivered as a full Budget, with the proper procedures of the House duly followed. As the time passed, I grew increasingly concerned by its nature. I am quite an old-fashioned person and, in respect of this House, I like to look at the wording of the motion. I also believe in speaking one’s mind, and I can only say that today is the exact centenary of a meeting in 1922, during which Conservative Back Benchers met to decide that they would stand on their own ticket in the 1992 general election, thereby depriving David Lloyd George of the opportunity to continue as Prime Minister. As vice-chair of the 1922 Committee—the foundation of which followed the events of that afternoon and evening—I think it is quite important to speak my mind. I realise there are some in my party who lament that state of affairs, but I hope they will indulge me, as I have indulged them over time.

Many things that have been said by those on the Front Bench are very true. There is an international situation, an illegal invasion of Ukraine and a spike in the international cost of energy. The Government have many things to be proud of—not least the employment record—but there is no escaping the fact that the measures contained within the financial statement directly caused the situation to be made worse. I am quite sure that was not intentional, but I cannot easily forgive the lack of foresight by senior members of the Government. My forgiveness is not what that the Government should seek at all; it should be that of our constituents, who are in a difficult enough situation as it is. To see this as a question of international turbulence inexplicably increasing the mortgage rates and inexplicably necessitating further cuts to public expenditure—I cannot easily forgive that.

In the course of the summer, I found the trashing of the reputations of independent organisations in this country, such as the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility, to be near to malice in its nature. Treasury orthodoxy came under attack. I am a Conservative, and I suppose that orthodoxy goes hand in hand with that. That is Conservative orthodoxy. Conservative orthodoxy is sound financial management and a balanced budget—not sticking pamphlets into a test tube, shaking it up and seeing what happens. That is not the way the Conservative party should ever govern.

Apparently I can be a little difficult to handle, and my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) must have wondered what he had done in a previous life to find me in his flock as my Whip. I always commiserate with my Whip when they are appointed; indeed, I have been round the block with a number of them, and I end up getting round to them all over again. But there is a serious point to all this: I am personally ashamed of what occurred with the financial statement, because I cannot go and face my constituents, look them in the eye and say that they should support our great party. The polls would seem to bear that out.

The next debate is apparently a confidence issue. Well, I am not going to fall into that trap. I oppose fracking and thought that we had come to a considered position on it, but there we go. I will vote with the Government Whip.

[Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman be lending the Prime Minister his confidence vote in the next debate?

[Mr Wragg]

The hon. Lady is very charitable in giving me a further minute for my peroration, although it seems a shame to extend it too long. The fracking debate that follows has been made a confidence vote. If I voted as I would wish, I would lose the Whip. I would no longer be a vice-chair of the 1922 Committee. I would no longer maintain my position as a Chair of one of the Select Committees of the House. Indeed, because of that, my letter lodged with my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) would fall, and I wish to maintain that letter with him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

Government Members should not think for one second that the Opposition will relent from holding them to account for this dog’s dinner, which is entirely of their own making. Like a broken record, the lame duck Prime Minister cites global economic headwinds, refusing to take any responsibility for the decisions that brought the British economy to the edge of disaster.

We have a Prime Minister in office but not in power, humiliated and bereft of ideas. Her manifesto drawn up by the libertarian right and the Institute of Economic Affairs has been cut to ribbons. The dogma espoused in “Britannia Unchained” must never again be allowed to reign supreme in Whitehall. In fact, the ideas must be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Now the Prime Minister has brought back an old foe, who underfunded our NHS for years, to implement austerity 2.0, and once again it will be communities like mine in Liverpool, Wavertree who suffer. This is a Tory crisis, and the damage has been done: an estimated 14,344 people in Liverpool will be paying higher mortgage bills next year as a result of this Government’s irresponsible actions. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor now admit that the mini-Budget caused mortgage rates to go up and borrowing costs to surge—a Tory cost we will be living with for years.

Working people have gone through enough. Now they are told that, to re-establish market stability, the responsibility is being shifted from the Government on to households, communities and working people. It all feels very 2011. Some are even saying that a previous Chancellor, the former Member for Tatton, is pulling the strings. The new Chancellor embodies a very different type of dogma from the Prime Minister’s, but it is dogma nevertheless—a school of economics that saw us enter the coronavirus pandemic with public services under-resourced and under-prepared.

[Feryal Clark]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just public services, but local councils such as mine in Enfield, which faces a £100 million budget gap due to spiralling inflation, that are paying the price for this Government’s mismanagement of the economy?

[Paula Barker]

My hon. Friend makes a pivotal point. Local authorities have been cut to the bone. They provide valuable resources and frontline services out in our communities, but they are being decimated yet again by this Government. Our public sector workforce is demoralised after a decade of pay restraint and cuts to frontline services.

If this Government think for one moment that our people will now put up with more of the same while bankers’ bonuses remain uncapped and millionaire bosses continue to rake in profits and dividends, they are sadly mistaken. The British people have woken up to the con. No longer does the promise ring true that each succeeding generation will have it better than the last. That promise, forged in the fire of the post-war consensus, is now in ruins after decades of short-termism and the dominance of capital over labour. We are not all in this together. Not once since 2010 have we all been in this together. Despite the empty rhetoric of a strong economy and levelling up, the Conservative party has always sought to look after its own class interests at the expense of the rest of us.

Young people in my Liverpool, Wavertree constituency now face their lives being put on hold because of this Government’s incompetence. They have done the right thing: they have gone out, worked hard and saved, only to be cheated and denied the opportunity of home ownership. Working people are up against real-terms cuts to their pay and our elderly are anxious about heating their homes in the run-up to winter. There is even more uncertainty for small businesses and charities, such as the amazing Love Wavertree in my constituency, which does incredible work. It announced today that the increase in its energy bills means it must consider whether it can continue to run its community shop, a lifeline for many people in my constituency.

History will not be kind to this Government, nor to anyone who has participated over the past 12 years. The Conservative party is lost. Thankfully, change is coming. As the Leader of the Opposition said so eloquently at Prime Minister’s questions today, we are the Government in waiting; the Conservative party are the Opposition in waiting. Frankly, that cannot come quickly enough.