Jobs and Growth

Gavin Shuker Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

To be fair to the hon. Lady, she is half on message, as she was back in January when she called for national police cuts, but not in Norfolk. That is little better than her neighbour over the border, the hon. Member for West Suffolk. I am in favour of the dualling of the A11. I personally wish we had done that, given that we did a lot of road-building and investment, but for some reason Norwich City season ticket holders did not have a strong enough voice in this House. Perhaps Mr Charles Clarke is to blame.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is my right hon. Friend as outraged as I am by the series of east of England Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs who choose to ignore the massive cuts to programmes such as Building Schools for the Future, which would have rebuilt schools in their own areas?

[Ed Balls]

My hon. Friend is being unfair. The hon. Member for West Suffolk campaigned to reverse the cuts in Building Schools for the Future, as we know. To be fair to the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), she has campaigned for fewer cuts in Norfolk. If only she did not take such a regional view.

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[Mr Osborne]

I shall make some progress and then take some more interventions.

I shall touch briefly—because we covered this during Monday’s statement—on the situation in the eurozone. I set out on Monday what I felt was needed and what many in the world now feel is needed: we need to ring-fence the eurozone by giving its bail-out fund maximum power; recapitalise Europe’s banks when they are weak; resolve the situation in Greece; and then set out the path to the political and economic changes required to make monetary union work, with greater fiscal integration and improvement in competitiveness on the periphery. I said that Britain wanted no part in the fiscal integration, but that we want to protect our say in the single market, financial services and competition issues. We also want the whole of the UK to become more competitive—with a more complete single market and freer trade.

Since Monday’s statement, we have had the news that the Slovakian Parliament has voted down the proposed changes to the eurozone financial fund—the European financial stability facility—which is clearly a disappointment. We all hope that it will pass in the coming days and urge the Slovakian Parliament to pass it. What has also been disappointing in the past couple of days is the suggestion from the President of the European Commission that Britain should make a direct contribution to eurozone bail-outs. Britain chose not to join the euro and the British Prime Minister has fought hard to get Britain out of the bail-out fund to which the previous Government signed us up. I want to make it clear that whatever the Commission President says, British taxpayers will not be contributing to the eurozone’s bail-out of Greece—full stop. However, we will work with our eurozone partners to help them to resolve the crisis and work with our international partners in institutions such as the IMF to ensure that they have the resources to deal with the problems across the world.

I said that the first thing missing from the shadow Chancellor’s speech was a credible deficit plan, but there was—

[Gavin Shuker]

Will the Chancellor give way?

[Mr Osborne]

Let me make just a little bit of progress and then I shall give way.

There was an absolutely staggering second omission from the shadow Chancellor’s speech, which was any reference—I will take an intervention if I have got this wrong—to Labour’s big new economic policy idea, which was unveiled at the Labour conference two weeks ago. I am referring, in case hon. Members have forgotten, to that great plan to divide British businesses into producers and predators—good and bad—and to levy different tax rates on them. Remember the speech from the Labour leader? Did the shadow Chancellor have any part in writing that speech?

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[Mr Osborne]

No, and not even in my memoirs, because the conversations between the Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England should be confidential. However, let me make it absolutely clear to the hon. Gentleman that we are talking about an entirely independent decision by the Monetary Policy Committee—not just the Governor of the Bank—and that I followed exactly the procedures established by my predecessor.

[Gavin Shuker]

rose—

[Mr Osborne]

No, I will make some progress and then perhaps take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman.

We did not hear today about the big Labour idea on the economy that was unveiled two weeks ago. Hitting businesses with more taxes and more regulation at a time like this is absolutely the wrong thing. The way to help businesses to create jobs is to give them competitive tax rates. That is why we have cut corporation tax this year—we have three more cuts to come—and why we have reversed the proposed Labour increase in the small companies tax rate and frozen business rates for all. It is also why we have set up a series of schemes to help unemployed people who have either just lost their jobs or never had a job into the labour market by getting them work. We have launched the biggest back-to-work scheme that the country has seen in 80 years and funded 250,000 more apprenticeships and 100,000 work experience places. Today we have launched the new sector-based work academies to help tens of thousands of young people with training and job interviews. Youth unemployment in this country has been rising since 2004. The last Government did next to nothing to confront it; we are rolling up our sleeves and getting stuck in to sort out this long-term problem for Britain.