The Economy

Jake Berry Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman is slightly deluded in his understanding of our position. We have made it absolutely clear that we will not have any manifesto commitments funded by additional borrowing, yet we have not heard the same promise from Conservative Ministers, so I invite the Exchequer Secretary to stand up and tell us how the Conservative Front-Bench team are intending to pay for the £7 billion-worth of pledges that the Prime Minister has made. Opposition Members have to conclude that the Government are going to add it to VAT. That is what they have done in the past; it is their track record. Ducks quack, the sun comes up in the morning and Tories increase VAT. It is what they always do.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman with his moustache.

[Jake Berry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for stating his party’s position so clearly. Just to restate it, he did not question the £116 billion-worth of extra commitments, but he did say that Labour has a commitment not to increase borrowing to pay for all these spending commitments. Will he now take the opportunity to clarify that point by saying which taxes he intends to put up to pay for his spending commitments?

[Chris Leslie]

I shall come shortly to the particular changes that we believe need to be made for our economy. For example, we believe that the national health service needs additional support and that we need to increase a levy on ultra-high-value properties to pay for such things. I shall come on to the specific details in a moment, but I want first to finish giving the Chancellor’s record and his promises in that autumn statement.

The Chancellor made other promises, too. He promised that business investment would zoom away over the four years, saying that it would be

“8% for each of the next four years”.—[Official Report, 29 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 530.]

In reality, it has been barely half that. Back then, in autumn 2010, the Chancellor promised that exports would grow on average by more than 6% a year. In fact, in 2012 he promised that he would more than double annual UK exports to £1 trillion by 2020. The problem is that that would require 10% annual growth in exports and we have had barely 4%, leaving them £330 billion short of their target.

It was not supposed to be like this. The Chancellor set out with a totally different set of ambitions and made a series of promises to the electorate. He set out his pledges and he has failed to deliver on them. What is worse, and what matters to our constituents, is the promise that the Conservatives made on living standards. They said that living standards would rise and that was the solemn pledge in their manifesto:

“We want to see an economy where not just our standard of living, but everyone’s quality of life, rises steadily and sustainably.”

These Tories—by which I also mean the Liberal Democrats—need to be held to account for the neglect they have shown and the distress they have caused, particularly to some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in society. After prices have been taken account of, wages have fallen in real terms by an astonishing £1,600 a year and prices continue to rise.