Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Of course my hon. Friend is right; the best way for anyone to raise their living standards is through having an economy that creates more paid employment. That is why we should welcome the fact that more than 1.3 million jobs have been added to our economy over the past four years.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The Minister is not having the best of days today, and I wonder whether I could help him by inviting him and the Chancellor to come to Coventry, where I could introduce him to many families in my constituency who are on very low wages and, despite both parents working, finding it very hard to make ends meet. Is he aware that the singular achievement of this Government, and this Treasury, has been to create a new social class—namely, the working poor?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman talks about people not having the best of days, but he should reflect on the policies of the Government he supported and on how many lives were destroyed by the great recession, which was the deepest in 100 years. The best way to raise living standards is to stick to our long-term economic plan. If we abandoned it, many more people would suffer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I know from visits with my hon. Friend to the manufacturing businesses of Dudley that he is a powerful supporter of their interests in growing those businesses and taking on more people. Unemployment in Dudley has fallen by 19 % since he started to represent that town. I welcome his support. Together let us make sure that we have a business-led recovery and a recovery in the west midlands and that we reject the anti-business approach of the Labour party.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The whole House has heard the Chancellor proclaim over the last three years that when the recovery comes—as it will—it will be a different kind of recovery, based on investment and, indeed, investment-led. Is it not the case that business lending is stagnating, if not falling, that capital investment in the much-heralded infrastructure plan is 7.4% lower than it should be, and that what we are actually seeing is an economic-pick-up based on consumer spending? Does that not send a warning signal to the Chancellor? Instead of boasting about the situation, he should be doing something about it.

[Mr Osborne]

Given his experience, the hon. Gentleman must surely consider the growth of the car industry in Coventry, and in the west midlands as a whole, to be as strong as any growth that he has seen in his career. We are exporting cars at a rate at which we have not exported them since the early 1970s. Of course we want to see more business investment and more exports, but what we are seeing now is a rebalancing of the economy. The private sector is growing, and the number of jobs is increasing throughout the country—and that includes the west midlands, an area in which the number of jobs fell during the boom.

Incidentally, given his business experience, I suspect that the hon. Gentleman does not support for one moment the proposals announced by the shadow Chancellor over the past week.

Autumn Statement (Coventry)

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I am pleased, Mr Crausby, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on securing the debate, and I thank Mr Speaker for allowing this important local debate on the impact on Coventry of the autumn statement.

My hon. Friend covered well and succinctly the overall impact of the autumn statement on the country as a whole. We have at last had some small growth, which is very welcome, with a continued reasonable increase in employment, but there is no point in trying to kid ourselves that we are anywhere near where we said we would want to be. Furthermore, the Government should not kid themselves that they are anywhere near where they want to be on the deficit, because the deficit has not been tackled to anything like the extent that they said with such confidence that it would be when they took office in 2010. As a result, we are still facing the cuts, an increasing level of cuts, that we are discussing this afternoon.

Coventry, which is anything but one of the richest cities, has suffered a massive collapse. All Members who know the west midlands or live near there will recall that in the first period of the Thatcher Government up to 1983, we lost something in the order of 30% of our manufacturing capacity—certainly more than that in Coventry—and the city has never really recovered. Whether that was necessary is not for today’s debate, but the hangovers and the legacy are still with us, meaning that Coventry is quite simply not a rich city and cannot bear the level of cuts being imposed on it.

Since 2010-11, we have lost £45 million from the core support to Coventry, which is 20% over about three years. I have heard it said by various business men, in the House and in particular elsewhere, that 10% of any company’s budget can be cut and it will survive quite well. Frankly, I have done that myself—it can be done. I have never heard any sensible business man say, however, that that should be done for three or four years running and then tried for another two years at an even higher level of cut than 10%. I have certainly never attempted to do that myself. It simply cannot be done, but the figures show that in effect that is what the Government are trying to do.

The figures given by my hon. Friend bear repeating, I am sorry to say. In 2014-15 we face a 10.6% cut, and in 2015-16 a 15.2% cut. I am well aware that that is not the entire income of the company, if we want to regard the local authority as a company. Nevertheless, that is a substantial and continuing sustained cut to its core budget, from which it has to deliver the key services.

Put together, the cuts from 2010 through to 2016 in Coventry, I think, come out as something in the order of a 65% cut in the core budget—making allowance for inflation and all the other things that the Government do not necessarily allow for in their figures. I do not invite the Minister to bandy her figures against ours—we all know that local government finance is an extremely complicated and tiresome matter, which can be twisted in any way and used to prove almost any argument—because that would not be helpful.

Instead, I ask the Minister to address two questions asked by my hon. Friend, to see whether we can get clear answers. I think that she has passed a message back to the officials about one of them, which—to quote from a note received from the local council—is:

“Coventry’s capital allocation for Schools Basic Need has, without prior explanation, been reduced to zero for 2015/16”.

That is surely a mistake. The council cannot believe it. How will it maintain its school buildings? The worst thing a school can do is neglect its buildings. I remember that when we took office in 1997, schools had buckets underneath the holes in their roofs where the rain was coming in. Difficult though it was, the first thing we did was to release £1 billion from the tax on utilities’ excess profits to deal with that situation. It costs a lot more in the long run to deal with such situations in that way. What I read out must be a mistake; I am sure that the Minister will be able to reassure us on that point.

The other specific point put to us by the Coventry local authority, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South also referred, is that the local welfare provision grant will end from 2015-16. That is worth £1.4 million to Coventry. That is not a lot of money, but it is a line in the budget until 2015-16. There has been a line in our budget for local welfare for as long as I can remember.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) referred to what we are seeing in our surgeries. People turn up destitute: they have nowhere else to go or to look. A constituent came to my surgery with two young children and asked, “What am I going to do?” I said that we had to release some funds from what I think we call the hardship fund—that is the vernacular for it. That fund, too, has disappeared as a line in the budget. I would like the Minister to note that.

Now, if a line in a budget disappears, we can bet our bottom dollar that the money for that line in the budget has disappeared as well. We had a temporary holding reply from the Government—I do not think that is good enough—on this matter, which says that the money is still there, but is simply in the whole total rather than being identified separately. Nobody is going to buy that—if a line has disappeared, the money has disappeared. We are facing a 16% cut in the year. It is simply not possible to believe that that money is still there. The money comes from core funding, and has gone down by 16%, yet we are being asked to believe that the money is still there. It is not.

Those are the two fundamental errors in the settlement that we are discussing this afternoon, and we need a reply on each. There are many other problems in Coventry, of course, that are very sad. The hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) spoke of the small amount of help on business rates: every help is welcome, especially from this Government, and so we welcome the measure. But then one thinks of what could be done for small businesses. We could get rid of national insurance for new small businesses, or get rid of NI for businesses taking on new employees. There are so many imaginative measures that could grasp the attention of small businesses—particularly in the west midlands, where we have not done so well and could do so much more. But none of that was in the local government settlement in the autumn, and we did not imagine that it would be.

I ask for three things. The level of cuts should be re-examined; they are simply unmanageable in their present form. They cannot happen. They are just too big. Will the Minister also please answer the two specific points I raised, if possible this afternoon? If not, will she answer them in writing as soon as she is able to?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. There was certainly an issue with the banks that had to be bailed out. I was not in the House when that happened; his colleague, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), made the decision to do so—rightly, in my opinion—but the point is this: from the early 2000s, the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), was running a deficit budget, which means that a huge gap now needs to be plugged. The previous Government consistently spent more than they raised, which means that the achievement of this Government in cutting the deficit by a third—indeed, the Office for Budget Responsibility is forecasting that the deficit will be halved by next year—is an enormous one and should be welcomed by all people in this country.

[Mr Robinson]

If I could take us all back to the situation in Coventry—we could argue indefinitely about local finance and about the Government’s economic policy—I wanted to raise one other point, and apologise to the Minister for not having mentioned it before. I will write to her about, and hope that she will take note of, another issue arising directly from the cuts in Coventry, concerning the Meriden Street Housing Co-operative, which is facing cuts of 60%—a figure she will recall. I promised to raise that matter today, and I look forward to her reply.

[Nicky Morgan]

I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s letter. Either I shall answer or I shall ensure that a colleague in the Department for Communities and Local Government answers if the issue is more within its remit than within the Treasury’s. He is right: today’s debate is about Coventry. When I was handed the brief I was amazed and impressed—although I should not be, as I am an east midlands Member of Parliament and Coventry is in the west midlands—at the amount of investment that both the Government and the private sector are making in Coventry. I will come on to the city deal that was announced recently, but I am also impressed by the number of new jobs that have been created in Coventry. Only yesterday, I was reading an article in the Coventry Telegraph about a software company, Phocas, which is choosing to locate its global headquarters in Coventry, bringing jobs with it. That should be welcomed and I am sorry that the hon. Member for Coventry South chose not to make a single mention of job creation or of companies choosing to locate in the midlands, a part of the country that I would agree is a fantastic place for companies to locate.

I will leave aside statistics on the autumn statement, and will talk about ensuring fairness. The hon. Gentleman failed to mention the rise in the personal allowance that came into force last April, and the further rise that will come into force this year: from this April people will be able to earn up to £10,000 without paying any income tax. If he thinks that that is not making a difference to the pockets of hard-working families in Coventry, he is very much mistaken. I can tell him from my constituency casework that it is very much making a difference to the hard-working families in Loughborough and the east midlands.

The autumn statement delivered an average saving of £50 in household bills. It will maintain support for the poorest families and provide new home owners with incentives worth up to £1,000 to undertake energy efficiency measures. That package of support will also help more than 2.3 million households in the west midlands with the costs of their electricity bills. We are freezing fuel duty for the remainder of this Parliament, saving motorists in Coventry £11 every time they fill up their tanks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I agree very much with my hon. Friend, and that is why part of our national infrastructure plan last week included further improvements to the planning system for major infrastructure projects. The A5-M1 link road has been prioritised as a key project and I understand that funding was announced last year and work will start next spring.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Is the Chief Secretary aware that figures from the Office for National Statistics show that infrastructure work, since this Government came to power, has dropped by 15%? Given its importance as a motor for growth, why is he now planning to cut it yet again in 2015?

[Danny Alexander]

I gave the figures for investment in infrastructure in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood). We set them out in our national infrastructure plan and, what is more, with public and private investment taken together over the next decade or so, we have a pipeline of £375 billion-worth of projects. This is the first time that this country has had a serious long-term plan for investing in infrastructure. If the hon. Gentleman believes in the long-term health of the British economy, he should support our national infrastructure plan, not criticise it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman is right that targeted infrastructure investment can unlock job creation in enterprise zones, including at JLR and in various places around the country. I am well aware of the particular scheme that he is promoting and I look forward to discussing it further with him to see how we can take it forward.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The Chief Secretary will be aware that several conflicting and not very encouraging cost-benefit analyses for HS2 are currently in circulation. Could he not clear the air by commissioning and publishing a genuinely independent internal Treasury cost-benefit analysis of the project?

[Danny Alexander]

The Government have set out various cost-benefit analyses of the project. With respect to the hon. Gentleman, what is needed in this project is not more procrastination, delay and extra reports, but a commitment in all parts of the House to get on with this north-south railway and allow economic growth in every part of the United Kingdom.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I will write to the hon. Lady on her specific point, to which I do not currently have an answer. However, more broadly, the Government are open to ways in which to make the VAT system and the business tax system simpler. We have created the Office of Tax Simplification, which has specifically looked at the burden on small businesses. I will take what she says as a submission.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I wonder whether I could yank the Chancellor out of his complacency for one moment. Is he aware that, in the year since the funding for lending scheme was announced, lending to small and medium-sized businesses is, on the most recent figures, negative? Is he aware that that is symptomatic of a broader failure on investment under his reign?

[Mr Osborne]

Gross lending is up under the funding for lending scheme, which we operate jointly with the Bank of England. We are aware of the specific challenge of small business finance, which is why, just before the summer, with the previous Governor, we launched a focus of the scheme on small business funding.

The hon. Gentleman says investment is failing under this Government. He is an MP from the midlands. Given his personal history, I would have thought he would welcome the announcement by Jaguar Land Rover of the 1,700 jobs being created in Solihull. As he well knows, four years ago there was a choice of closing either Castle Bromwich or Solihull. Not only are both open, but a huge investment in the new technology of ultra-light cars is coming along with 1,700 new jobs. The hon. Gentleman is a midlands MP and used to work for the company, so I would have thought he would welcome that.

Living Standards

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The Government’s response to this timely Opposition motion is becoming clear already. They intend to airbrush the past three years from history as far as they can, as if they did not exist, and say, “We are now finally on the road to growth, and all will be well.” I have two comments to make about that.

First, today’s debate is about what has happened to those on average and below-average incomes over the past three years. It is clear that whatever recovery is eventually secured—all economies eventually recover, even though we maintain that the cuts have been too far, too fast and too deep—the essential thing is to see that the excessive burden that has been borne by those on average and below-average incomes is rectified.

Let us look at the incontrovertible facts about what has happened to wages under the current Government over the past three years. Wages are down by an average of almost £1,500 a year, prices have risen faster in the UK than in any other major economy and energy bills have risen by more than £300 since the general election. Those are facts, and I do not think anybody in the House would dispute them. Government Members may argue that it was all necessary, and that even though the burden has fallen heavily on those least able to bear it, it was all part of a plan that had to be implemented. We do not accept that, and we maintain our criticisms.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

During the summer, in one of his many mansions, was the hon. Gentleman able to read the book published by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne)? It states that

“From 2004 onwards”,

median families

“were feeling the strain…people were working just as hard as ever—but were not getting on.”

This is not a new issue, and the hon. Gentleman may recall that Treasury officials were examining it during his party’s time in government.

[Mr Robinson]

I hope that the Treasury is examining how we can ensure that there is a fair spread of the benefits that will come in the recovery, and how we can sustain that recovery. I will come to that in a moment.

In the global race on living standards, the UK is doing worse than any of our competitors and has had the biggest fall in worker income of any country in the G7. Why is that? Because none of the forecasts made for the past three years has been met, since the Chancellor announced with great fanfare the plan for the rectification of the deficit and the return to growth. He has not come anywhere near fulfilling a single one of the predictions he made then for any year on investment, growth or employment, which I will come to in a moment. It is clear that the failure of the Government’s policy has caused terrible burdens to fall on those least able to bear them. They have failed in their policy, their objectives and the tasks that they set for each sector of the economy. I do not know whether it had to be that way or whether they will repeat that failure, but personally I think it was unnecessary.

We all hope—no one more fervently than the Opposition—that that is behind us now and we can look forward to a recovery that can be sustained. We do not want the Government killing off this recovery like they killed off the one that they inherited from us back in May 2010. [Interruption.] They killed it off. The economy was beginning to grow, under a stimulus. They killed off that recovery, so let us see whether they can kill off this one. No doubt they will try. To avoid that happening, the Government must change course on several fronts, and they must do it quickly, even now.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Robinson]

In a moment. The Government cannot just sit back, say it will all be glorious, accept the fine new forecast in the way they accepted the previous one, and think, “That’s going to happen.”

Before we come back to the inevitable party points that each side will make, I wish to raise one serious issue before the House, which is the role of real wages in economic recovery. As has been said, and as the figures bear out, the burden has been borne heavily by those on average and below-average wages. The fall in wages is significant; it is the largest in any of the major economies and I think the largest in the UK for probably 100 years. That must be rectified because it will be a drag on our ability to recover if we remain in a low-wage, low-skill economy. I hope that point is taken up by the Treasury in all seriousness, as well as by British industry. We have got to upskill unless we want to engage in a race to the bottom of a low-wage economy, which we will never win.

[Richard Graham]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Robinson]

I will give way in a moment as I said I would. There is time enough. Even China is now coming under pressure from Indonesia and Vietnam. If we try to get down to the levels of wages there, we will not do it; the recovery must be about a higher skilled, more productive economy in which rising incomes play a vital role. Rising incomes, particularly at average level, will be vital in sustaining the recovery. I hope that point is taken and will receive a serious reply.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has provided various revisionist explanations for what his Government did for 13 years. Is he aware that in my constituency of Gloucester, some 6,000 jobs in business were lost during the 13 years of the Labour Government? Since the last election, some 2,000 jobs have been created and 1,240 new apprentices started last year alone. He is right to flag up that some wages are low, and we would all like them to be higher, but what does he say about the prospects for those 6,000 people who lost their jobs, and for the 2,000 new jobs created since the election? Surely that is the starting point for an improved life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robinson]

The hon. Gentleman represents Gloucester, which is quite a successful manufacturing base in that part of the world. Manufacturing got hit, and if we do not support it through our policies more directly than we have before, it will continue to be hit as is happening under this Government. Let us look at the 1.2 million jobs. That is something of an achievement, but 60% or 70% have low pay. There is no long-term future in having low pay in those jobs; we must start to move away from that.

I am pleased that apprenticeships are doing so well for those aged over 20, but among the crucial group of those aged 16 to 20, as the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, there has been a 13% fall in the number of apprenticeships. That is a terrible figure and we need more skills and more apprenticeships where it matters. Meanwhile, as we all know, unemployment among the young has risen. When we were in government we created 2 million new jobs and had the highest level of employment ever in the country. The trouble was, quite honestly, that too many went to immigrants, and nothing was done to bring up the skills, willingness and ability of our youngsters to take on a higher proportion of the jobs created.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way given that the Minister refused point blank to let me intervene, even after several attempts. Does my hon. Friend agree that the employment rate is still lower now than it was in 2008, for all that Government Members like to claim that we are on the road to recovery?

[Mr Robinson]

I entirely agree and my hon. Friend makes a very telling point. There has been one area where we can honestly say the Government appear to have done better than we might have expected. On every other economic front, including that raised by my hon. Friend, their record is worse.

Let us look to the future. What do we need to ensure we sustain this recovery? First, we need the Government to accept the role of real incomes rising—a vital element in sustaining the recovery—and higher productivity to accompany that. Although we have done well in some areas of employment, productivity has gone down. We need the Government to accept the £10 billion infrastructure recommendations by the International Monetary Fund, and we need a housing programme and for building to get under way. All those things remain to be done. We need direct action. We should get rid of Ofgem, bring in a new regulator, and have direct action on energy and transport prices. Such a programme could sustain the recovery and we would see a slow build-up of real wages, which have been so devastatingly hit by Government policies.

Recession (Standards of Living)

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Westminster Hall

On resuming—

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Through you, Mr Walker, may I thank Mr Speaker for granting the debate and compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on his comprehensive reply to the impact of the rise in costs of living, particularly on those on minimum wage and below-average wage, whom it has bitten hardest?

I am pleased that the Economic Secretary is responding to the debate. I am conscious of the fact that he was, as a Back Bencher, vociferous in his support of Government policies and he is eloquent in his defence of them, now that he has earned his much-justified elevation to the Front Bench, but I do not think that we will have much by way of change in his reply or, indeed, in Government economic policy, which lies at the heart of the problem of the cost of living.

The three central objectives of any economic policy for a country as a whole have to be, first, to secure growth—without economic growth we cannot achieve any of the objectives—secondly, to secure sound public finances and, thirdly, to ensure that our whole population has a rising standard of living. Those are the three basic social and economic objectives of economic policy. I regret to say that the Government have failed on all those and today we are debating the direct consequence of that.

Denis Healey, a distinguished former Chancellor—I am sure that the Economic Secretary will be aware of this—used to say, “When you are in a hole, the first golden rule is to stop digging,” but all we do is dig deeper. We were promised 6% growth and we have achieved 1%, and we have promises that, by the austerity policies adopted throughout Europe, we will see the deficit eliminated in 2015, but we now face not a small deficit in that year, but one of approaching £100 billion, and the prospect of eliminating the deficit put off almost indefinitely, but certainly for another three years and, with it, a further three-year squeeze on the standard of living of the ordinary people of this country. It need not happen. Even now, the Government could change course and alter the inevitable further erosion of standards of living in the country.

The Minister will try to blame it all on the previous Government, but that is wearing terribly thin now. The Government have been in office for three years. They own this policy; it is their creation and its failure is their failure. We plead now that the Minister takes note of the harm that this policy is imposing on the country as a whole and on individuals, as my hon. Friend so comprehensively detailed. I hope that we hear some change of tone, if nothing else, from the Minister.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on securing this important debate and presenting his case so eloquently. I also thank the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) for his contribution. I will try to respond to the points raised by both hon. Gentleman.

It is fair to say that we all want to see the UK economy performing strongly. It is also fair to say, probably, that although the hon. Member for Coventry South and I agree on that objective, we differ in our views on how best to achieve those goals. I will do my best to respond to the points raised, but it is only right to point out that when the hon. Gentleman came up with the title for the debate, on the effects of the recession on the cost of living, he must have been referring to the most recent recession, which was the one that took place under the previous Government. As we saw last week, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that not only was that the most recent recession, but it was far deeper than originally thought. Originally, it was thought to be a 6.3% contraction in GDP, which would in itself have been the deepest peacetime contraction in GDP in this country, but it turns out to be even deeper, at 7.2%. No doubt it would have hurt many families throughout the country. This Government are trying to help those families with the cost of living and other issues, and trying to repair the damage done by the previous Government.

Let me talk about some actions that we have taken and the results of those. First, there is a lot to discuss about overall economic policy, but the main point is the deficit—the hon. Member for Coventry North West mentioned it—which is down by a third. We still have a long way to go, but our policies on the deficit have brought economic credibility, which has lowered interest rates to a near record level. In fact, interest rates on Government debt are almost half what they were when this Government first came to office. That has a direct impact on the cost of living for families, most notably through their mortgage bills. If interest rates rose by just 1%, the average mortgage bill for a family would rise by almost £1,000 a year.

It is right to mention the impact on employment of our economic policies. As we heard in a statement from the Chancellor last week, we were told by the shadow Chancellor and many others that our policies would lead to record rates of unemployment. Some left-wing economists were even predicting that unemployment could reach the record level of 5 million. In fact, the opposite has happened. The private sector has created more than 1.3 million net new jobs in the last three years and employment reached the highest level in history.

We will continue to build on the measures that we have taken, such as, for example, our cuts in corporation tax, which will from next year make ours the lowest corporation tax rate in the G20. Our employment allowance scheme will make it even cheaper for companies to hire employees. I think that we can all agree that more paid employment is one of the best ways to deal with cost-of-living challenges. Of course, we have to do more. We have to do things that put money in people’s pockets and we have focused on that.

I do not have enough time to mention all the measures, but I will focus on three or four key measures that will, I hope, reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are helping families across the country.

Our changes to the tax-free personal allowance, which will rise to a record £10,000 a year by April 2014, are putting almost £700 per annum into the pockets of the basic rate taxpayer. Anyone who enjoyed the 10% tax rate under the previous Government is now effectively paying a 0% tax rate. Anyone working full time on the national minimum wage will find that their tax bill has more than halved because of that single measure.

We have also frozen council tax for up to five years—the term of this Parliament—which will save the typical household some £600 over the period. We have frozen fuel duty, which the previous Government planned to raise year-on-year by inflation plus the escalator. As a result, fuel prices today are 13p a litre lower than they would have been had we continued with the plans that we inherited.

[Mr Robinson]

The Government have done, or are going to do, a number of interesting things, but is not the bottom line that living standards have fallen? Perhaps the Minister will tell us when living standards are scheduled to improve, rather than another empty, completely impossible Treasury promise. If living standards do not improve, we shall face the first occasion since 1931—that was the last real recession—when a Government have sought a new mandate with living standards lower than they were at the beginning of their term.

[Sajid Javid]

I would take the hon. Gentleman a bit more seriously if he respected the fact that the policies of the Government whom he supported are the reason that so many people face such challenging conditions on the cost of living. We are doing everything we can to address the damage that was done: the deepest recession in post-war history, the biggest budget deficit of any major industrialised country and the largest banking bail-out the world has ever seen. That was our inheritance, and he would get a lot more respect if he accepted that the policies of the previous Government were damaging and are the single most important reason why people are facing such challenges in relation to the cost of living.

In the time remaining, I will address a few points raised by the hon. Member for Coventry South. He was right to mention payday loans. There is evidence that some families, despite the action we have taken, are turning to payday lenders to meet their monthly bills, but he also rightly recognises that the Government are taking a lot of action, both on their own and with the regulators. As he knows, the Office of Fair Trading has been responsible for regulation in the sector until now. We have introduced a step change to that regulation, which will now be under the Financial Conduct Authority. The FCA will be a lot more pervasive, and it is a regulator with teeth. Payday lenders will feel the hand of the regulator on their shoulder. Yesterday, I attended a summit set up by the Government with lenders, charities and other interested groups, and the head of the FCA made it clear that he will not hesitate to take action. He has broad powers if he sees further evidence of consumer detriment.

Finally, distribution and fairness have also been mentioned. Before 2010, the richest 20% of society contributed about three and a half times as much in tax as they received in public spending; that has now increased to about four times as much. In fact, in every year of this Parliament, the rich will pay a greater proportion of income tax revenues than they did in any one of the 13 years under the last Labour Government. We have taken steps to ensure that the most vulnerable groups on low incomes are protected against the effects of the economic circumstances. For example, pensioners have seen above-inflation increases to their state pension, and the introduction of universal credit will make 3 million households better off, the majority of which will come from the bottom two fifths of the income scale.

I once again congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He obviously and quite rightly feels strongly about the issue, which I respect. As I said at the start, we might have different views on how to address the issue, but I fully respect that it is very important to him and his constituents. I assure him that we understand the financial pressures that hard-working families are facing, and I also assure him that we are taking what we believe are the right steps to help.

Spending Review

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that Britain has got to earn its way in the world, and that is about increasing our earnings as well as dealing with our expenditure. In the Budget, we set out a number of tax changes, such as the new employment allowance, which I know he strongly supports and which will help small firms by wiping out the first £2,000 of national insurance, taking a third of those firms out of national insurance. We have made a series of other tax changes to promote investment, and where we had to make tough spending choices, I have chosen in this spending round to prioritise things that will help businesses to create jobs.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Is the Chancellor not aware that he has been in post for three years now, that he owns these policies and that their failure is his responsibility? All the empty rhetorical questions directed at the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor will not airbrush away the failings on growth, living standards and borrowings. Is it not time he faced up to that and changed the policies that have failed so far?

[Mr Osborne]

I tell you what has happened while this Government have been in office. First, borrowing has come down—[Interruption.] The shadow Chancellor says it has gone up, but the problem is that if this really is his maths, the country would be in very serious trouble if he ever got himself back into Downing street. We were borrowing £157 billion a year under Labour and now we are set to borrow £108 billion in the coming year—£118 billion if we remove the asset purchase facility transfer. So borrowing has come down.

Secondly, more than 1 million jobs have been created. Thirdly, we can look around the world and see that this country is seen to have got its act together and is making the big reforms we need to education, welfare and the like. That is why we are absolutely determined to win the global race and people see us as a country capable of winning that race.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

Yes I can, and the House will be considering High Speed 2 tomorrow. I hope my hon. Friend and other Members on both sides of the House will give the project very strong support, because it is a massive project that has the capacity completely to transform the regional economic geography of this country. This Government are totally committed to delivering it, and we will do so.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Can the Chief Secretary confirm that only seven of the Treasury’s infrastructure projects in the pipeline have been completed? In view of its overall conversion finally to the need for infrastructure investment, is that not a disgraceful record?

[Danny Alexander]

I do not accept that figure, and I tell the hon. Gentleman a very large number of projects are completed or under way that we have announced. There are national road schemes, motorway schemes around the country, local transport schemes around the country, Crossrail under way—tunnelling started in May 2012—and major improvements to over 134 railway stations since May 2010. There is a great deal of investment in infrastructure going on, and he should welcome it.