Policy for Growth

Debate between Jamie Reed and Sam Gyimah

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

It is, as usual, an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley). I did not come into the Chamber expecting to agree with so much of a Government Member’s analysis of what we need to do, but he is absolutely right: the banks do need to lend more, the Government do need to make the banks lend more, and in matters of economic policy we do need to take a long-term view. Those are fundamental principles with which I agree.

Whichever side of the House we may be on, we all know the basic Clinton mantra about what secures electoral success and that is an article of faith in which we must all believe in the modern economy: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Those words were not reserved specifically for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but we know that the economy is fundamentally a moral issue as much as anything else. The effects of economic policy are primarily seen and felt not on a balance sheet, but in our communities up and down the country. I believe that an effective economic policy redistributes wealth and opportunity fairly: it underpins cohesive communities, enables individual ambitions to be fulfilled, and allows families and businesses to flourish.

I commend the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) on securing the debate, because we need to discuss this subject more. Given that we are experiencing a period of economic transition in this country and, indeed, across the globe, our debates in the House are sometimes mystifying. We need to discuss this subject much, much more.

I sincerely hope that the Government’s economic policies work, because this is our shared interest and, surely, our shared goal, but I have to admit that I doubt that they will. It is undeniable that one of the worst aspects of the manufactured narrative surrounding the Government’s economic policy is the polarisation of the so-called private and public economies. The Conservative and, now, Liberal Democrat mantra is “Private is good, public is bad.” We should reject that flawed view. I say “Public is good, private is good.”

[Mr Gyimah]

I think that what the Government are trying to say is that the state is not the same thing as the economy, and that pumping more money into the state is not the same as driving the economy. If we want the economy to grow, we need to enable the private sector to thrive. That is what the Government’s policy is about.

[Mr Reed]

I entirely agree. This is not just about the state. However, economic policy should not be used in an ideological agenda to try to destroy the state, and we know that that is happening in this instance.

The “public good, private good” mantra is the one that we should adopt. Our national economy is one economy. “Public” and “private” are not segregated in our towns, villages and cities. As an analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers has shown, it is not possible to cut the public sector without hitting the private sector hard as well.