Comprehensive Spending Review

Debate between Gordon Banks and Lilian Greenwood

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I was particularly keen to speak in today’s debate because, the day after the Chancellor delivered his statement in the Chamber, his draconian cuts greeted with cheering and waving from the Government Benches, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister headed off to a primary school in my constituency. I am not quite sure why they were there, and it seemed as though they did not know why either, but of course the kids at Welbeck primary greeted them with great delight. Prince Charles came up to the Meadows recently, so people are getting used to visitors from London.

[Gordon Banks]

Could the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister possibly have been at the school in my hon. Friend’s constituency getting some arithmetic lessons?

[Lilian Greenwood]

If only. I thank my hon. Friend.

What did I hear in the media coverage of the visit? I heard about the Prime Minister’s amazement that he had found a lad who liked broccoli. I did not hear the Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister telling the kids about the huge gamble that the Government are taking with their future. They are performing a huge economic experiment. They have a theory that if we cut public spending, lose 490,000 public sector jobs and, as PricewaterhouseCoopers tells us, lose another 500,000 private sector jobs that depend on the public sector, the rest of the private sector will somehow fill the gap. They do not seem to hear the warnings of economists who disagree. Listening to Ministers last week, one would have thought that the PricewaterhouseCoopers figures had about the same credence as Mystic Meg. The Government do not want to hear about the effect of their cuts, because they want to make them.