Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Iain Wright and Luciana Berger

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I refer him to the comments that I have just made about the rebadging of public sector jobs. Many fact checks have been done to determine what those jobs actually are, as the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) highlighted. Many of them are now apprenticeships. We also know that many of the assessments by the OBR have had to be downgraded because its estimates have often been too optimistic.

It is in the context of this maelstrom of frozen wages, rising prices and reduced opportunity that the Government are making some of the most draconian cuts to our public services and welfare, despite the fact that the OBR has said that those cuts are reducing growth in our economy. The cumulative impact of the cuts has been to widen the gap between the richest and the poorest, and to ask the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society to pick up the bill for the Chancellor’s mismanagement of the economy.

Today should not have been about more of the same; it should have been about changing course. If this had been a Labour Budget, we would have acted to boost confidence, create jobs and support struggling businesses. We need to bring forward long-term infrastructure investment in schools and transport, and we need to use the money raised from the 4G mobile spectrum auction to build thousands of affordable homes—getting builders back to work, creating the homes we need and strengthening our economy for the future. Alongside that, we would have cut VAT temporarily, including to 5% on home repairs, maintenance and improvement, which would have helped the energy efficiency side of our economy. The result would have been a plan for a steadier and more balanced pace of deficit reduction with measures that support our economy and create jobs now.

Government Members say that we cannot do that because it would mean more borrowing. They neglect to mention that it is their policies that are already leading to much higher borrowing. The Government and this Chancellor are already borrowing £212 billion more than they said they would to plug the holes in our public finances caused by a flatlining economy and a higher unemployment bill. The Government argument seems to be, “We will not borrow to grow the economy, but we will borrow to shrink it”. Instead, the real question is not whether we should borrow or not, but what we are borrowing for. Are we going to continue to borrow to pay the cost of the Tory Government’s economic failure and to keep people at home out of work or are we going to act to support those small businesses that want to invest in new equipment, to kick-start house building, to support research and development and investment in low-carbon energy and high-tech manufacturing with a proper plan to get people into work? In other words, we need a real plan for jobs and growth, which would be fairer, more successful in getting the deficit down and make Britain better off for the future.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It says on page 93 of the Red Book:

“The Government will…publish the Business Bank’s first business strategy”

this coming Friday, on 22 March. Given that you, Mr Speaker, have been very clear that important announcements should be made first to this House, and given that it is my understanding that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills will open tomorrow’s Budget debate, can you give me any guidance about the powers you have either for the publication to be brought forward to tomorrow to allow hon. Members to question the Secretary of State when he is at the Dispatch Box during the debate or to provide for an oral statement to be made to the House on Friday morning? Mr Speaker, how can we question the Government on this important topic?

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Iain Wright and Luciana Berger

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wright]

I agree with my hon. Friend. In the great and almost universal celebration of the London Olympics this summer, we should never forget that we saw the first Olympic stadium and village in the history of the games to be built without a single fatality. That is something to be proud of and was a result of the good partnership between Government—of all political persuasions—management and trade unions, together with workers, working to ensure that nobody was injured or killed while doing such important work.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. In his opening remarks, however, the Minister mentioned a degree of concern about perception. Health and safety is first and foremost an important means to achieve safety for the worker, but a safe and healthy work force and workplace can also be efficient and productive. I wish to expand on that point, but I will first give way to my hon. Friend.

[Luciana Berger]

My hon. Friend is generous in giving way, and I echo his welcome for the fact that there were no deaths during the construction of the Olympic site. However, there were 50 deaths in this country last year on construction sites, and as he said, 173 fatal injuries, which was only two fewer deaths than the previous year, which indicates that we have a long way to go; 173 families have been affected. The Minister spoke of perception, but I am concerned about the reality for the families of those who have tragically died at work.

[Mr Wright]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is important that the House and the country has 28 April—workers memorial day—as a focus for remembering that people should not go to work and not come back, and that families should not be disrupted by death and injury at work. We need to pull together to ensure that health and safety is considered not as peripheral and a nice thing to have, but as central to our society and a productive economy.