Gordon Birtwistle
Main Page: Gordon Birtwistle (Liberal Democrat - Burnley)Department Debates - View all Gordon Birtwistle's debates with the HM Treasury
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Tom Blenkinsop
I am sorry, but I want to continue. I will give way to someone else later.
The Tories are creating a vicious circle in our economy by cutting too far and too fast, hitting families and costing jobs. In fact, they are set to borrow £46 billion more than they had planned last autumn because of slower growth, higher inflation and higher unemployment, which are the consequences of the decision, announced in the Chancellor’s first Budget, to cut too far and too fast.
In the 12 months since the emergency Budget, all the key economic forecasts have worsened. On borrowing, for example, the OBR has steadily increased its forecasts for Government borrowing over the next five years, which means that the Chancellor is now forecast to borrow £46 billion more than he expected to last November.
Tom Blenkinsop
Sorry, no.
That is because slower growth and higher unemployment, which means more people claiming benefits, makes paying down the deficit harder.
Tom Blenkinsop
No.
The best way to reduce the deficit in the long term is by focusing on growth and jobs in order to get people into work and off benefits. Since the emergency Budget, the UK’s GDP for this year has been downgraded twice by the OBR, and three times since it analysed Labour’s plans. It is not only the OBR that has downgraded its growth forecasts; other respected organisations have done the same. The OECD, in its most recent forecast, downgraded the UK’s growth in 2011 to 1.4%, and to 1.8% for 2012. The British Chambers of Commerce, in its recent quarterly forecast, downgraded growth in 2011 to 1.3%, and to 1.2% for 2012. The International Monetary Fund, in its latest report on the state of the UK economy, downgraded its growth forecast to 1.5% in 2010, down from 2% last autumn. The OBR is now forecasting higher unemployment and a larger number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance in every year of this Parliament. Its latest forecast now expects inflation to peak at 4.2% this year, up from 1.6% last June when it evaluated Labour’s plans.
The international comparisons are stark. Recent figures show that in the first quarter of 2011 the French and German economies grew by 1% and 1.5% respectively, compared with the 0.5% growth in the UK, which merely cancelled out the 0.5% contraction of the previous quarter. Over the past six months, the UK’s growth has been flat. The Business Secretary has admitted that it is “worrying” that we are lagging behind France and Germany. The OECD’s deputy secretary-general and chief economist told The Times that he sees merit in slowing the pace of fiscal consolidation if growth continues to be slow.
Tom Blenkinsop
No.
This pattern is borne out in my constituency and the local area. Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the volume of new construction orders in the first quarter of 2011 fell by 23%, compared with the fourth quarter of 2010. Orders are also down 18% from that time last year. That coincided with 1,500 job losses in the steel industry at the Skinningrove steel works in my area, in Hartlepool, at the Teesside beam mill, and also down the road in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). This Government have taken away public sector orders in steel that provided 46% of the Teesside beam mill’s orders, which have just vanished. Figures published on 10 June show that the seasonally adjusted index of production in April 2011—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Mr Birtwistle, just to save your legs, I do not think that Mr Blenkinsop is keen on allowing you an intervention.
Owen Smith
I answer candidly that we have already said that we need a rebalancing of our economy. On both sides of the House, there was far too great an emphasis on the belief that we were in a post-industrial society and manufacturing was not an important part of the mix. We have learned the lessons, as I hope Government Members have. I hope that there will therefore be an active industrial policy from the Government, like the one that the Opposition are talking about. That is the only way in which we will improve manufacturing.
Gordon Birtwistle
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, if the country takes on the debts that the Opposition suggest by cutting VAT and spending vast sums, interest rates will rise? That alone will stifle any economic growth.
Owen Smith
No, I do not agree with that for a moment. A VAT holiday right now would stimulate the economy. We saw it work previously and it would work today, and that is why we advocate it. The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong.
It is clear that the past year has been disastrous, so let us look ahead. Let us not rely on the Opposition or the Government, but instead examine the Office for Budget Responsibility’s projections. It projects lower growth than it did last time, lower in fact than in its last three projections. It projects increased unemployment, with 200,000 more people unemployed by the end of this Parliament. Most critically and damningly of all, it projects ballooning borrowing, with £50 billion extra in borrowing in this Parliament as a result of the dreadful mistakes that the Government are making. [Interruption.] That is the reality—borrowing went down by £20 billion last year as a result of the stimulus, and it is now going up. No amount of shouting can get Members away from that fact.
What do those desiccated numbers mean for ordinary working people in this country? They mean heartache and misery. As one leading economist said last week when reflecting on a market survey that showed household income going down and household debt rising at the fastest rates since the depths of the crisis,
“The grim figures show household finances deteriorating at the fastest pace since”
2008-09, with people
“eroding their savings and taking on more debt to finance strong rises in living costs”
and reductions in their wages. That is the reality, as the Governor of the Bank of England recognised when he said that we were facing the biggest squeeze on living standards and wages since the 1920s. We can lay the blame for that directly at the door of the Conservative party.
In Wales, my part of the country, we are feeling the pinch harder than most. We have already heard the number of people unemployed in the midlands, the area that we hear the Chancellor have the temerity to talk about from the Dispatch Box. Employment there was down by 6,000 in the last period. In Wales it is barely creeping above the positive line, and in the north-east it is down by 14,000. The notion that there is a private sector-led jobs recovery spreading equitably across the country is absolute fantasy, and we must expose it.
Consumer Focus Wales, the body that looks after ordinary working people’s rights, says that some of the most vulnerable people in our society, including older people, those on low incomes and those with long-term conditions, are right now cutting back on essentials such as groceries and energy usage. That is a disgrace in this day and age, and the Conservative party must face up to it.
In my constituency of Pontypridd, three times the number of people are looking for every job this year than last year. That is the reality of employment in my constituency. Three people on jobseeker’s allowance looked for every job in the jobcentre last year, but now nine are looking for it. The citizens advice bureau is in jeopardy as a result of another of the Government’s cuts—the cut to legal aid—but in one single year, there has been a 20% increase in the number of people going to the CAB for advice about debt, family breakdown and job insecurity. That is the largest increase in the history of that CAB. Those are all clear indicators that it is not working but it is hurting. More austerity and pouring misery on misery will not help my constituents, just as it is not helping Greece.