Debate on the Address

Helen Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

The answer is yes, and if the hon. Lady will bear with me, I will deal later with Lords reform, as it is in the Queen’s Speech and the programme for the coming year.

We need to remember where we were two years ago: there was turmoil in Greece and in the eurozone, and our constituents were paying out of their money—not our money—£120 million a day just in servicing the interest repayments on our debt. That is not a way to use taxpayers’ money for the good. There was a financial crisis caused by a banking system that was entirely focused on short-term gain for the people at the top—as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said regularly in the previous Parliament—rather than on creating long-term value for the many small businesses that provide work for most people across the country. The public finances were out of control, we had the largest public deficit in the developed world and the living standards of those on low and middle incomes were being eroded, which had been gradually reducing the spending power of the British consumer over the previous decade. The cost of living was spiralling; for younger people, certainly in constituencies such as mine, a home had become an unaffordable dream. The economic system often encouraged people to take as much as possible for themselves rather than incentivising them to create long-term value and spread wealth and work as widely as possible, and the economy was reliant on energy from scarce resources, the price of which was rising year after year.

Two years later, we are still not where we need to be. We have unacceptably high unemployment, especially youth unemployment, which started long before this Government came to office and was on a significant upward trend in the last years of the Labour Administration. We are in an economic recession and banks are still not lending enough to viable small businesses, as we all know from our constituency casework, whereas the pay of those at the top is rising more than can possibly be justified by their performance. We heard the figures just this week: an 11% increase in salaries at the top last year, whereas the increase for the working population as a whole was 1%.

It is therefore absolutely right that the Government continue to focus on doing all we can to promote economic growth and recovery, it is right that we continue with the programme we set out and it is right that we have a programme that, as the last Budget did, seeks to put more money into the pockets of those low and middle income working people and to make work pay. The programme should regulate the banks, encourage the growth of renewable energy and put the public finances back on a sustainable footing so that the spending priorities of the Government, about which we care—health care, education and support for the less well-off—can be adequately financed. No Government have ever invested in better schools or hospitals by bankrupting themselves.

It has been difficult and we on the Liberal Democrat Benches know that. There was no parliamentary majority for getting rid of tuition fees and we were not able to deliver that—it just became undeliverable. The Health and Social Care Bill, the Welfare Reform Bill and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill needed significant changes and we changed them and made them hugely better—all of them. The evidence is there in the legislation that is now on the statute book.

The Budget was grossly misrepresented. Its most significant element was that many millions of people were taken out of paying tax. Many more will be lifted out of tax next year and the year after, so that nobody will have to pay anything in tax on their first £10,000 of income. It was also forgotten that last month pensioners had the largest increase ever in the state pension since it was introduced by the post-war Government. Then there was the youth contract, the huge growth in the number of apprenticeships, and the support for further education.

There has already been huge success, but we must ensure that we focus on the priorities. The Gracious Speech started by setting them out very clearly: economic growth, justice and constitutional reform. We are proud on the Liberal Democrat Benches that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable), will see through the creation of the green investment bank in Edinburgh, for which some of us, as members of an environmental party, have argued for many years and will now see delivered. We are proud that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, our right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), will introduce an energy Bill to give us low-carbon energy generation and to develop renewables, which have a fantastic future—not just onshore, but offshore, tidal, wind and wave, and not just around Scotland but in the whole of the United Kingdom. We are determined to deliver cheaper electricity and greater security of supply.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) and others have campaigned for ages for a grocery code adjudicator Bill, and we are delivering that. It will ensure that farmers, local suppliers and local growers get good value for their products and are not trampled on by the power of the monopoly supermarket in their area. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my good and hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb)—a Liberal Democrat Minister for Pensions—and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, with whom he works so well, are determined to deliver the new single tier pension to ensure that by the end of this Parliament people will have, rather than the sum of just under £100 a week they get as the state pension at the moment, about £140 a week. That is particularly valuable to women, the low paid and those who have been self-employed. After 30 years of work, people will have a citizen’s pension, for which we have always fought.

The Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather)and others are determined, as the Deputy Prime Minister has been, that we should have flexible parental care leave, flexible parental leave and the right to flexible working. Why? They are not just good for the parent and the child, but they allow the parent to stay in work rather than giving it up and to be able to mix work, home, children and a career. That is really important for women’s equality in this country. Why do we not have many women in this place or on boards? It is partly because we do not have those flexible arrangements.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that those provisions on shared parental leave also provide choice for families at a very important time, when they are having children?

[Simon Hughes]

Absolutely, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her commitment to families and women in her profession. She is right—we absolutely need to do that.

We outline in the Gracious Speech the support for those with special educational needs, adding to early-years places for the rising fives so that there is a commitment that 40% of rising fives will be able to have support before they go to school. So, there is much for hard-working, ordinary families and their children in the programme. It is not a programme without legislative plans at all—quite the reverse.

A defamation Bill will deal with the fact that our libel laws still restrict the liberty of speech in this country. I pay tribute in particular to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who has worked very hard to make sure that this Bill is in the legislative programme. There is a strong proposal for a National Crime Agency to deal with terrorists and people who do not have the interests of this country at heart. We also have proposals for community sentences for restorative justice. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) has been absolutely clear about the value of such sentences not just in reforming people but in value-for-money terms.

We have been careful about the difficult issue that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) raised about data and how to deal with it. It is perfectly reasonable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) said, to respond to the security services’ request that we make all species of communication areas of consideration for regulation of data control—not so that people can know what one is saying but so that we do not have no-go areas for the security services. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches will not sign up to legislation that will add to the intrusion into citizens’ lives that we saw so often from the Labour party when it was in government. Under Labour, we had a Big Brother state with identity cards and proposals for 90-day detention. Neither we nor the Conservatives are going down that road, and that is why there is a draft proposal, which we will look at carefully. Only if it is acceptable will it get through.

Let me say a word about the comments of the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) on gay marriage. May I say, as a member of the Church, that I think it is entirely reasonable that in a modern society in which we have accepted that both gay and straight couples should be able to have permanent, recognised relationships, the state should allow that to happen in an equal way? It happens in many other places in the world and it does not mean that any denomination of the Church or any other faith group has to accept that, endorse it or carry out such ceremonies in its buildings—it is simply about saying that the state recognises it when two people want to live their lives as adults together. This is not in the Gracious Speech and was never going to be, because the consultation has not ended. However, we should recognise that there is a civil liberties issue at stake for many of our constituents. We should not forget that. I bet there are people in every constituency in the United Kingdom who want us to make sure that this issue remains on the agenda.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

I would certainly agree with making improvements to this country’s corporate governance model. Germany has a good model, and although it cannot be replicated exactly, it is something that we should consider. I have mentioned the recommendations of the High Pay Commission, which referred to employee involvement in remuneration. I hope that that approach will continue. By having a responsible capitalist agenda, we can make improvements to secure long-term sustainable growth in this country. Perhaps the hon. Lady and I can agree on that.

[Mrs Grant]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that extreme and unreasonable levels of employment protection can be a disincentive to enterprise?

[Mr Wright]

I speak to businesses in my constituency and elsewhere virtually every day, and they are not telling me that they are hindered in that way. This goes to a wider point about the Queen’s Speech and about the Government’s having the wrong priorities and the wrong values in this respect. I am arguing that we should be concentrating on increasing employment and having a system whereby we can secure long-term sustainable business growth for this country. We should be making it easier for people to hire workers, not fire them.

I hope, too, that the reference in the Queen’s Speech to the limiting of state inspection of businesses will not serve as a cover for further cuts to the Health and Safety Executive’s budget or an undermining of the safety regime in the workplace. On 28 April we commemorated workers memorial day and were reminded that 20,000 people would die prematurely this year from injuries sustained or diseases contracted as a result of unsatisfactory health and safety in the workplace. Fatalities in the construction industry have risen in the past year, and responsible Governments and businesses recognise that a comprehensive safety regime, suitably audited, actually enhances productivity and efficiency and ultimately has a beneficial effect on the bottom line. I therefore hope that workers’ health and safety rights will not be stripped away.

The Queen’s Speech referred to the Government’s commitment to

“improve the lives of children and families”,

with which the whole House would agree. However, today’s report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation forecasts that child poverty will increase in the next decade. It concludes by stating that the Government should take a more targeted approach to employment programmes and aim them at families in my constituency and elsewhere who often have not seen meaningful or sustained work for three generations or so. That could break the cycle of unemployment, poverty, deprivation and the loss of ambition and aspiration. There was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to allow that to take place.

The most serious issue facing Hartlepool both socially and economically is the level of unemployment, which is higher now than it was at the height of the global recession in 2008. Youth unemployment is a particular concern. One in four young men in my constituency are out of work, which will cause immense social and economic problems in the next 20, 30 or 40 years. The Government really need to deal with that, and measures such as the abolition of the future jobs fund, the cancellation of education maintenance allowance and the hike in tuition fees do not help young people in my constituency. I wanted to see in the Gracious Speech something like a future jobs fund or a skills and retraining Bill, to ensure that my constituency and others were best placed to come out of their economic difficulties in a better position than when they went into them. Sadly, the Queen’s Speech was lacking in that regard.

[Mrs Grant]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree, though, that policies on flexible working and shared parental leave will have the effect of keeping people in work?

[Mr Wright]

I believe the balance that the Labour Government struck was probably about right. There will always be different emphases, but I reiterate the point that I made in answer to a previous intervention. Businesses say to me, “We want to have the conditions for growth. We want to be able to hire workers. The issue is not about being able to fire workers more easily—that is not what we are about.” The emphasis and priorities that the Government have set out in the Gracious Speech and elsewhere are completely wrong.

It astonishes me that after only two years, the Government seem to have run out of steam. The rehashing of words and phrases in the Queen’s Speech is evidence of that. It is difficult to think of the big reforming Governments of the past century—the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned Asquith, and we can think about Attlee, Thatcher or Blair—being devoid of policy areas only 24 months after being elected. Governments used to talk about relaunches after two terms of office, not after two years. The Government have no sense of national mission and have not set out the values that are really needed or what they want the British economy to look like in 2020 or 2030. They lack, in the eloquent words of the Business Secretary, a “compelling vision” of where they want to take the economy.

As The Sunday Times stated this weekend:

“People now regard this as a government that fails on the three i’s: it is incoherent, incompetent and has run out of ideas.”

Today’s Queen’s Speech provided the opportunity for a true and meaningful relaunch, which could have ensured that the Government reassessed their values and priorities and tried again. They failed to do that. This country and my constituency, particularly its young people, will suffer the consequences of that missed opportunity for decades to come.