NATO and European Political Community Meetings

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 22nd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I congratulate the Prime Minister on the office that he has achieved, and thank him for his statement. I am pleased with the decision to remain part of the European convention on human rights. In all his meetings with both the EU and NATO, was the issue of global war considered—not just the wars in Ukraine and Palestine, but those in Sudan, Congo and Yemen—and the possibility of involving the UN much more in looking towards a more peaceful future, rather than continued greater expenditure on arms? I am pleased that the Prime Minister has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but surely if we are to follow international law we need to go a bit further and call for the withdrawal of Israeli occupying forces both from Gaza and the west bank, and an end to our complicity by supplying arms to Israel.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that I have a lot more to get in today, and as important as his message is, I need to make others heard?

Point of Order

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have given notice of it to you and to the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting).

At the conclusion of last Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Question Time, I tried to raise a point of order to ask why the Prime Minister had not given me prior notice that he would make reference to me in the Chamber. During the few minutes that followed, you may not have heard the Member for Ilford North using what I consider to be very unparliamentary and actually quite demeaning language towards people in our society who suffer from dementia or senility. That has led to a lot of people contacting me who are very upset about this because they have loved ones they have lost to dementia.

I would be grateful, Mr Speaker, if you could just set out that this kind of language is totally unacceptable—as, indeed, is any other form of abuse of any type—that it will not be repeated in this Chamber and that you will absolutely not allow it to be repeated at any time.

[Mr Speaker]

Let me begin by thanking the right hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. He has raised two issues. On the first, the House’s “Rules of behaviour” document states:

“You should notify colleagues whenever... you intend to refer to them in the Chamber (other than making passing reference to what they have said on the public record)”.

I have reminded the House of that rule on numerous occasions. However, in this context, I think that the Prime Minister’s comments can be taken as a passing reference to the public record of the right hon. Gentleman when he was the leader of the Labour party. To that extent, I am not persuaded that notification in advance was required, however courteous it might have been to give it. I would always say that it is nice if we can let people know, as general good form. In any event, the right hon. Gentleman raised the point with the Prime Minister during the statement which followed Prime Minister’s Question Time, and has once again, quite rightly, been given an opportunity to put his side of the issue on the record.

The right hon. Gentleman’s second point—with which I have the greatest sympathy—concerned the comment said to have been made by the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). I have to say that the right hon. Gentleman is correct: I did not hear the comment, which is not recorded in the Official Report, which I did check. Had I done so, I would have intervened because I consider it falls well short of the respectful language and tone that we should all demonstrate. However, I understand that the hon. Member for Ilford North has written to apologise to the right hon. Gentleman and has had an opportunity to put his point on the record.

This gives me an opportunity to remind all Members of the importance of good temper and moderation in the language that we use in this Chamber. Certainly it is not a good example to use it against each other and I think we should learn from this.

I am now going to move on, but I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That completes Prime Minister’s questions. Those who wish to leave, please do so quietly.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Points of order come after statements.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

It cannot relate to PMQs, because you did not ask a question. We will deal with it afterwards.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very strong point. Is it not one of the problems that victims of any kind of slavery are inevitably isolated, frightened and often unable even to leave the property, factory or home where they are working? They do not necessarily know where to go and, if the local police are not attuned to the problem, they get no help there. They are then completely stuck and in a very dangerous and vulnerable situation. Is there not an issue of both police training and convincing local authorities and all other public services that they have to be attuned to the desperation these people face, rather than the danger of prosecution for what could be—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. All I can say is that I have the greatest respect for the right hon. Gentleman, and if he wants to speak I have plenty of room on the list. Save your speech to read shortly, if you want to.

Financial and Social Emergency Support Package

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 25th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Quite rightly, emotions are running very high, and quite rightly, Members have been asking what measures are going to be put in place. I do not think that a tweet by Peston is the way that business should be carried out. If there is something to be said, people should come here tonight. I assume—I stand to be corrected—that they have not got the necessary information. I accept that, but if there is information, I would expect them to come. The right hon. Gentleman asks what we can do about the Adjournment motion. I have not got there yet. If he feels that way inclined, that might be a good time to question it.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Following what the SNP spokesman just said, may we ask you, through your good offices, to arrange for the leaders of all the parties to be included in a discussion, online or whatever, with you and the Government so that, as crucial things come up, as they will over the next three weeks—important decisions and announcements will have to be made—we have a chance to understand what they are, to comment on them and to suggest changes if we want changes, so that there is at least that degree of accountability? You will be aware that today, during the statement by the Leader of the House and questions to the Prime Minister, Member after Member made it very clear that we might be in recess for three weeks but that that does not mean democracy is closed down. Democracy must go on in this crisis, and that means questions—tough questions, yes, but that is what we were elected to this place for.

[Mr Speaker]

I will be quite honest. This is a time when people in the United Kingdom expect the parties to come together to work on behalf of this country, and I do not disagree. This is about ensuring that there is dialogue across the political parties to ensure that we do the right thing by the people in this country.

Points of Order

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 15th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In fairness to the Leader of the Opposition, I think he wants to come in on that.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am sorry if I inadvertently misled the House. I had been led to believe that there was going to be a statement today, which is why I made the reference to it. I must say that I am a bit surprised that there has not been a statement yet on something of such importance as the reopening of Stormont in Northern Ireland.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that as soon as a statement is to be made the House will know and I will ensure that Members are aware of it.

Bill Presented

NHS Funding Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Orders Nos. 50 and 57)

Secretary Matt Hancock, supported by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Robert Jenrick, Secretary Thérèse Coffey, Secretary Gavin Williamson and Edward Argar, presented a Bill to make provision regarding the funding of the health service in England in respect of each financial year until the financial year that ends with 31 March 2024.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 6) with explanatory notes (Bill 6-EN).

Election of Speaker

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 4th November 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker-Elect, may I join others in offering my congratulations to you on winning the election, and thank the Father of the House for conducting the election in the way in which he did? Congratulations and commiserations to the other candidates who did not succeed in getting elected, but who nevertheless made sure that we had a good campaign and serious debate all across the House; that was very important.

We are well aware, Mr Speaker-Elect, of your abilities at chairing the House because we have been through Finance Bills and Budgets in which you are robust in ensuring that people stick to the point and the subject of the debate, as some comrades on my side of the House and Members on the Government side sometimes deviate from the subject in hand—unprecedented, I know, but there we are.

In your position, Mr Speaker-Elect, you are going to need eyes in the back of your head. It is a difficult job; you do not know what is coming at you next. I realise that you have actually been in training in this regard, because I have been looking at a photograph of you at the weekend apparently watching the rugby world cup final while at the same time not watching the television. The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that you literally do have eyes in the back of your head, because you were able to make some very wise comments about the progress of the match that you were apparently not watching at the same time. These qualities alone equip you to be an absolutely brilliant Chair of this House.

Mr Speaker-Elect, as you have said and many know, the job of Speaker is not just a ceremonial one. It is about the rights of Back Benchers to be able to speak up and the power of Parliament to hold the Government to account. The whole principle and point of a parliamentary democracy is that we have a strong Parliament that can hold the Executive to account, and I know that you will stand up for that principle because that is what you believe in. It is absolutely at the heart of our political system.

Mr Speaker-Elect, you take the wellbeing of everybody who works in this building, and of Members, very seriously. This is a fevered and imaginative place that we all work in. People are put under enormous stress, and both staff and Members of this House sometimes find themselves in a lonely and desperate place because of that. I know that you take your responsibilities in that area very seriously and that you want to make this an even more compassionate and humane place in which to work.

Mr Speaker-Elect, thank you for your work and for taking this job on, but also for assuring us that you will always stand up for the democratic values that this House represents and the power of an elected Parliament to express its views and hold the Executive to account, because that is the whole principle behind our parliamentary democracy.

[Mr Speaker-Elect]

Just for the record, the score had come through and England could not win; that is why I wasn’t looking at the television. [Laughter.]

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 29th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

The reality is that, whatever the Chancellor claims today, austerity is not over. Far from building a strong economy, eight years of austerity has damaged our economy, delayed and weakened the recovery, and endlessly postponed fixing the deficit. Unnecessary austerity has caused real hardship to millions of our fellow citizens, held down living standards for the majority and failed on its own terms. People have had enough—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer; I expect to hear the Leader of the Opposition. To those who may have sat where they think I cannot see them, yes I can, and I do not want to hear any more. I want to hear the Leader of the Opposition in the same way that your constituents do.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Prime Minister pledged that austerity is over. This is a broken-promise Budget. What we have heard today are half-measures and quick fixes, while austerity grinds on. Far from people’s hard work and sacrifices having paid off, as the Chancellor claims, this Government have frittered them away in ideological tax cuts to the richest in our society. This Budget will not undo the damage done by eight years of austerity and does not begin to measure up to the scale of the job that needs to be done to rebuild Britain.

The Government claim that austerity has worked, so now they can end it, but that is absolutely the opposite of the truth. Austerity needs to end because it has failed. Just two years ago, the Chancellor forecast growth of 2.1% next year and the year after. Today he boasts that he has created robust economic growth, but the forecasts have been dropped to just 1.6% next year and 1.4% the year after. Economic growth in the first half of this year was the slowest since 2011, the last year that we had the lowest growth of any major economy. This is not a strong economy but a weak one, with chronically low investment, low wages and low productivity, and the uncertainty caused by this Government’s shambolic handling of Brexit is making things even worse. The warnings come—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Mr Bowie, Mr Philp, I expect better. You are very obviously right in my sight, so I suggest that you go quietly out of the Chamber if you cannot behave.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The warnings come from across the economy: the car industry; farming and food; road haulage. UK manufacturing is currently in recession. So much for the much-vaunted “march of the makers”.

The Government said that austerity would mean that the deficit would close by 2015. Today the Chancellor has confirmed that it will still be there nine years later, in 2024. Even now, great chunks of the deficit have simply been palmed off to others, not eradicated—moved into the accounts of NHS trusts; shuffled on to the books of local councils that have collapsed, with many more on the brink; and most worryingly, and frighteningly for many people, loaded on to the very fast-rising levels of personal and household debt.

For too long, the Conservatives have peddled the myth that the last Labour Government crashed the economy by overspending on public services—as if investing to bring health spending up to European levels, as the last Labour Government did, had caused the global financial crash. Labour Members believe that spending on public services is an investment that benefits the health of our people and the economy of our country. This morning the Health Secretary said that it would take a generation to achieve parity of esteem of mental health and refused to say whether the money was ring-fenced—and that money is only half of what leading mental health experts say is necessary.

But the impact of austerity on our people’s health is about more than NHS funding. Improvements in life expectancy are stalling for the first time in modern history, and in the poorest areas of our country life expectancy is actually falling and child mortality is rising. The national health service—our precious national health service—is a thermometer of the wellbeing of our society. But the illness is austerity: cuts to social care, failure to invest in housing, and slashing of real social security. It has one inevitable consequence: people’s health has got worse and demands on the national health service have increased, with 1.4 million elderly people not getting the care they need. Tory cuts have taken £7 billion—£7 billion—from social care budgets. Today’s announcement is a drop in the ocean both for adult and child social care. At this time of rising demand, nurse numbers are falling, GP numbers are falling, health visitor numbers are falling, and there are 10,000 vacancies for doctors in our national health service.

Under the last Labour Government, NHS budgets averaged an increase of 6% a year. That has been slashed to just 1.4% under this Government. The Health Foundation says that the Government’s much-heralded extra money for the national health service is “simply not enough”, while the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that funding at this level will only “maintain…current levels”. And let us remember what the current levels are in the NHS: record waiting times in accident and emergency—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Mr Hoare, I think you know better. We caught each other’s eye before, and I will not want to catch it again—seriously. You might think Halloween is for screaming, but it is not what I want to hear in this Chamber.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

There are 4.3 million people on national health service waiting lists and longer waits to start cancer treatment. We need to go further—which is why, as we pledged in our manifesto, Labour will raise taxes on the highest earners to fund an increase above the Government’s baseline.

But it is not only the national health service that is in crisis. Defence spending has actually been cut; the size of the Army has been cut by a fifth. However, we welcome the donation based on VAT gains to commemorate the Armistice and £1.7 million more for educational programmes to ensure that people learn about the horrors of the holocaust. I join the Chancellor in absolutely condemning the horrific and vile anti-Semitic and racist attack that occurred in Pittsburgh over the weekend. We stand together with those under threat from the far right, wherever it may be, anywhere on this planet.

The Conservatives used to claim to be the party of law and order. Now they cannot even maintain law and order in our prisons, with assaults at record levels as depleted staff try to cope with the difficult situation. Our streets are less safe too. Police numbers are down, violent crime is up, and convictions are down. Chief constables are warning that criminals are taking advantage, and police officers are having to take the Government to court just to get a pay rise.

After eight years of austerity, firefighters today are paid £6,700 less than they were 10 years ago, nurses are paid £4,750 less and teachers £4,650 less. Every public sector worker deserves a decent pay rise, but 60% of teachers are not getting it, and neither are the police, nor the Government’s own civil service workers. Cleaners and security guards in the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy still are not even getting the London living wage.

The gap between those at the very top and the rest is not closing; it is growing. The pay of the chief executives of our biggest companies rose by 11% this year. They are paying themselves 145 times more than the workers in the companies that they lead. At the other end of the scale, 6.3 million workers are paid less than the real living wage—up 300,000 in the last year alone. The very lowest earners and insecure workers on zero-hours contracts or short-hours contracts will not benefit from the increase in the threshold, and they are the very people being punished by the cuts still hardwired into universal credit.

The Chancellor boasts of a “balanced approach”, but what is balanced about cutting social security for disabled people or slashing services to the bone, when by the end of this Parliament the Government will have doled out £110 billion in tax giveaways to corporations and the super-rich? Meanwhile, in the real world, homelessness has more than doubled, fewer people are able to buy a home, household debt is rising, child poverty is up to over 4 million and rising, and more disabled people are living in poverty.

Far from tackling the “burning injustices”, as the Prime Minister said her Government were going to do, they have actually made them worse and increased the injustices in our society. The Equality and Human Rights Commission warned just last week that Britain is becoming a “two-speed society”—all right for the richest few and failing the many. This Government are harsh on the weak and feeble with the strong. They labelled good people “scroungers” and “skivers” while they imposed punitive sanctions, demeaning assessments and a benefits freeze, none of which has been reversed today.

Universal credit is causing increases in poverty, food bank use, rent arrears and homelessness. When even the Work and Pensions Secretary admits that some people will be worse off, and the architect of universal credit says the system is underfunded, it was inevitable that the Chancellor would have to act, though he is only reversing barely half the cuts made. However, the problems with universal credit are also structural, harming the self-employed, lone parents, people with larger families and survivors of domestic abuse. That is why we believe the roll-out must be halted immediately.

Since 2010, 86% of the cuts through tax and benefit measures have come from women. There was not even a recognition of, let alone money set aside for, the women born in the 1950s who have been denied pension justice. Women in Britain today have just one fifth of the pension wealth of men, in part because of the grotesque gender pay gap, which at current rates will not close until 2073. And there was no extra money to fund women’s refuges—a lifeline for women fleeing from domestic abuse. Since 2010, almost a fifth of all refuges have been forced to close.

Months after the scale of the Windrush scandal became clear, the Chancellor has failed to set up a hardship fund for those affected, let alone the compensation scheme for the hundreds of people wronged by the Prime Minister’s nasty and perverse “hostile environment”. We have heard no guarantees for older people, and free TV licences for the over-75s remain at risk from the Government who have threatened to tear up the triple lock, take away the winter fuel allowance from millions and force people in need to pay for care at home.

A country that fails its young people is failing its own future. Schools funding per pupil has been cut by 8%, the college budget has been slashed and the adult skills budget has been hacked by 45%. There are 123,000 children in this country living in temporary accommodation, causing them unbelievable levels of stress and uncertainty, and consequently often underachievement in schools. Children’s services face a £2 billion funding gap, and we now have the highest number of children being taken into care since 1985.

Last Saturday, I visited North City children’s centre in Norwich, which is threatened with closure due to council cuts. With too many children whose Sure Start centres have already closed, the users of that wonderful centre are very frightened about their future. They have benefited, like so many others have in so many other parts of the country, from the great achievement of the last Labour Government, which was children’s centres and the Sure Start initiative all over the country. Spending on youth services has fallen by 62%, while 600 youth centres have closed and there are 3,500 fewer youth workers.

The UK is the only major global economy in which investment is falling. UK business investment is the lowest in the G7. This failure to invest means Britain’s productivity is 15% lower than that of major economies. Public sector investment is over £18 billion lower than it was in 2010. Britain is the most regionally unequal country in Europe, with six of the 10 poorest regions in northern Europe in this country. The Government reinforce these disparities. Let us just take an example: when it comes to transport funding, the north receives £2,500 less per person than London, while people in the midlands get £1,900 less—so much for the northern powerhouse and the midlands engine.

Local economies are also struggling. Over 100,000 retail jobs have been lost in the past three years, and there are 25,000 boarded-up premises across Britain. To visit many of our high streets is to see roller-blind shutters on shops that have been closed because of job losses and the problems they have faced. The Chancellor’s business rates announcement today only unpicks his own disastrous revaluation last year, and he has again delayed slashing the maximum stake on fixed odds betting terminals.

First, the Chancellor will not solve the crisis on our high streets until he tackles the institutionalised tax avoidance of big online retailers. His digital services tax, announced today, is too little, and too late. Secondly, the Chancellor must tackle the level of household debt, which is driven by low wages. High streets will not thrive until people have money to spend, so we hope he will endorse our call for the minimum wage to be a real living wage of at least £10 an hour by 2020, and to remove the discriminatory youth rates from the system.

This Chancellor has again failed to back Labour’s plan to create a national investment bank, with regional development banks. Today’s announcement on broadband investment is a very small step, but Britain ranks 35th in the global rankings of broadband speeds. Currently, just 2% of UK premises have full-fibre broadband compared with 80% in Spain and 100% in South Korea.

The Government still lack any meaningful strategy for creating high-skilled jobs in every region and nation, and they are failing abysmally to invest in the industries of the future necessary to tackle climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report this month was clear on the consequences: we can avoid climate catastrophe only if we act now. The Government’s response has been to: cut support for our solar industries, losing 12,000 jobs in the process; slash building of onshore wind; cut subsidies for electric vehicles; and sell off the UK Green Investment Bank, and instead to back fracking in the face of overwhelming local and scientific opposition.

Ten years ago, a Labour Government passed the Climate Change Act 2008—world-leading legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. This Government are not even on target to do that. Clean energy investment fell 56% last year, and the UK produces less of our energy from renewables than Germany, Spain, France or Italy. This Government are, I believe, failing to protect our environment, and in doing so failing to protect the future of us all.

The extra £500 million announced today to help the Government to cope with Brexit is not about planning, but about panic, and that panic is very deep rooted. Yesterday, the Chancellor said that another Budget would be necessary to set out a new economic strategy in the event of a no-deal Brexit; this morning, the Prime Minister said that all these spending commitments are funded, irrespective of a deal. It is clear: if they cannot agree a good deal with the EU, it is because they cannot agree a deal amongst themselves in the Cabinet or in the Tory party.

As we approach the crucial stage of the Government’s bungled Brexit negotiations, we face a choice about the sort of economy we want. Some on the Government Benches fantasise about taking Britain down the path to being a Singapore-style tax haven, with a race to the bottom in rights and protections. That must be rejected outright. What we need is an active Government who will invest in our people in every region and every nation of our country and who will use the wealth we create to fund world-class public services. What is needed is a real break with austerity and a Government committed to raising investment across the board to rebuild our economy, communities and public services. That is a route to a country that could work for all. Austerity is not over, and the quick fixes and half measures we have heard today do not begin to measure up to the scale of the job that needs to be done to rebuild Britain.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

The test of a Budget is how it affects the reality of people’s lives all around this country. I would submit that the reality—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Look, if somebody wants to go for an early cup of tea, please do so—I am told there are mince pies waiting—but what I will have is the Leader of the Opposition listened to, and quietly, from the Government side, in the same way I expected from the other side of the House.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The reality test of this Budget has to be how it affects ordinary people’s lives. I believe, as the days go ahead and this Budget unravels, the reality will be that a lot of people will be no better off, and the misery that many are in will be continuing.

Pay is now lower than it was in 2010, and wages are now falling again. Economic growth in the first three quarters of this year is the lowest since 2009 and the slowest of the major economies in the G7. It is a record of failure, with a forecast of more to come.

Economic growth has been revised down. Productivity growth has been revised down; business investment, revised down; people’s wages and living standards, revised down. What sort of strong economy is that? What sort of “fit for the future” is that?

You may recall, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the deficit was due to be eradicated by 2015. Then that moved to 2016; then to 2017; then to 2020. And now we are looking at 2025. The Government are missing their major targets, but the failed and damaging policy of austerity remains.

The number of people sleeping rough has doubled since 2010. This year, 120,000 children will spend Christmas in temporary accommodation. Three new pilot schemes to look at rough sleeping across the whole country simply does not cut it. We want action now to help those poor people who are forced to sleep on our streets and beg for—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I think the Whips should know better. Mr Spencer, I am sure you could relax—please, we do not need any more from you. If not, leave the Chamber.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The point I was making is that three new pilot schemes for rough sleepers simply does not cut it. It is a disaster for those people sleeping on our streets and forced to beg for the money for a night shelter. They are looking for action now from Government to give them a roof over their heads.

In some parts of the country, life expectancy is actually beginning to fall. The last Labour Government lifted 1 million children out of poverty—it was an amazing achievement. Under this Government, an extra 1 million children will be plunged into poverty by the end of this Parliament. Some 1.9 million pensioners, or one in six of all pensioners, are living in poverty—the worst rate anywhere in western Europe. So, it is falling pay, slow growth and rising poverty. This is what the Chancellor has the cheek to call a strong economy.

The Chancellor’s predecessor said they would put the burden on

“those with the broadest shoulders”—[Official Report, 20 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 951]—

so how has that turned out? The poorest 10th of households will lose 10% of their income by 2022, while the richest will lose just 1%—so much for “tackling burning injustices”. This is a Government tossing fuel on the fire.

Personal debt levels are rising: 8.3 million people are over-indebted. If the Chancellor wants to help people out of debt, he should back Labour’s policy for a real living wage of £10 an hour by 2020. Working-class young people are now leaving university with £57,000-worth of debt because this Government—his Government—trebled tuition fees. The new Government policy is to win over young people by keeping fees at £9,250 per year—more debt for people who want to learn.

But that is just one of the multitudes of injustices presided over by this Government. Another is universal credit, which we called on Ministers to pause and fix. That is the view of this House. It is the verdict of those on the frontline.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Keep going, Jeremy!

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Mr Pincher, you shouted out “Keep going,” and the right hon. Gentleman will—but you will be going out of the Chamber.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I would rather people stayed to listen, actually, Mr Deputy Speaker, to the reality—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Silence—that’s the difference. It will be in silence.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Maybe Government Members would like to listen to Martin’s experience. A full-time worker on the minimum wage, he said:

“I get paid four weekly meaning that my pay date is different each month”.

Because, under the universal credit system, he was paid twice in a month and deemed to have earned too much, his universal credit was cut off. He says:

“This led me into rent arrears and I had to use a food bank for the first time in my life”.

That is the humiliation that he and so many others have gone through because of the problems of universal credit. Would it not have been better to pause the whole thing and look at the problems it has caused?

The Chancellor’s solution to a failing system causing more debt is to offer a loan, and a six-week wait, with 20% waiting even longer, simply becomes a five-week wait. This system has been run down by £3 billion of cuts to work allowances, the two-child limit and the perverse and appalling rape clause, and it has caused evictions because housing benefit is not paid direct to the landlord. So I say to the Chancellor again: put this system on hold so it can be fixed and keep 1 million of our children out of poverty.

For years, we have had the rhetoric of a long-term economic plan that never meets its targets when what all too many people are experiencing is long-term economic pain—and hardest hit are disabled people, single parents and women—so it is disappointing that the Chancellor did not back the campaign by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) to end period poverty. He could have done that. Well done her on the campaign; shame on him for not supporting it.

The Conservatives’ manifesto in the last election disappeared off their website after three days, and now some Ministers have put forward some half-decent proposals conspicuously borrowed from the Labour manifesto. Let me tell the Chancellor: as socialists, we are happy to share ideas. The Communities Secretary called for £50 million of borrowing to invest in house building; presumably, the Prime Minister slapped him down for wanting to bankrupt Britain. The Health Secretary has said that the pay cap is over, but where is the money to fund the pay rise?

The Chancellor has not been clear today—not for NHS workers, our police, firefighters, teachers, teaching assistants, bin collectors, tax collectors, or armed forces personnel—so will he listen to Claire? She says:

“My Mum works for the NHS. She goes above and beyond for her patients. Why does the government think it’s ok to under pay, over stress and underappreciate all that work?”

The NHS chief executive says:

“The budget for the NHS next year is well short of what is currently needed”.

From what the Chancellor has said today, it is still going to be well short of what is needed. He said in 2015 that the Government would fund another 5,000 GPs, but in the last year we have had 1,200 fewer GPs—and we have lost community nurses and mental health nurses. The Chancellor promised £10 billion in 2015 and delivered £4.5 billion. So if he does not mind, we will wait for the small print on today’s announcement—but even what he said certainly falls well short of the £6 billion Labour would have delivered from our June manifesto.

Over 1 million of our elderly are not receiving the care they need. Over £6 billion will have been cut from social care budgets by next March. [Interruption.] I hope the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) begins to understand what is like to wait for social care stuck in a hospital bed, with other people having to give up their work to care for them. The uncaring, uncouth attitude of certain Government Members has to be called out—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Carry on.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

That is why social care budgets are so important for so many very desperate people in our country.

Our schools will be 5% worse off by 2019 despite the Conservative manifesto promising that no school would be worse off. Five thousand head teachers from 25 counties wrote to the Chancellor saying that:

“we are simply asking for the money that is being taken out of the system to be returned”.

A senior science technician, Robert, wrote to me saying:

“My pay”

has been

“reduced by over 30%. I’ve seen massive cuts at my school. Good teachers and support staff leave.”

That is what does for the morale both of teachers and students in school. According to this Government, 5,000 head teachers are wrong, Robert is wrong, the IFS is wrong—everybody is wrong except the Chancellor.

If the Chancellor bothered to listen to what local government is saying, he would know that it has been warning that services for vulnerable children are under more demand than ever, with more children being taken into care and more in desperate need of help and support. Yet councils are labouring with a £2 billion shortfall in the cost of dealing with vulnerable children. Local councils will have lost 80% of their direct funding by 2020. The reality of this across the country is women’s refuges closing, youth centres closing, libraries closing, museums closing, and public facilities understaffed, under-resourced and under-financed—it could be so different—but compassion can cost very little. Just £10 million is needed to establish the child funeral fund campaigned for so brilliantly by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). Why could not the Chancellor at least have agreed to fund that?

Under this Government, there are 20,000 fewer police officers, and another 6,000 community support officers and 11,000 fire service staff have been cut as well. You cannot keep communities safe on the cheap. Tammy explains:

“Our police presence has been taken away”

from her village

“meaning increasing crime. As a single parent I no longer feel safe in my own village, particularly”

at night.

Five and a half million workers earn less than the living wage—1 million more than five years ago. The Chancellor, last Sunday, could not even see 1.4 million people unemployed in this country. There is a crisis of low pay and insecure work affecting one in four women and one in six men, with a record 7.4 million people in working households living in poverty. If we want workers earning better pay and less dependent on in-work benefits, we need strong trade unions—the most effective way of boosting workers’ pay. Instead, this Government weakened trade unions and introduced employment tribunal fees, now scrapped thanks to the victory in the courts by Unison—a trade union representing its members.

Why did not the Chancellor take the opportunity to make two changes to control debt: first, to cap credit card debt, so that nobody pays back more than they borrowed; and secondly, to stop credit card companies increasing people’s credit limit without their say-so? Debt is being racked up because the Government are weak on those who exploit people, such as rail companies hiking fares above inflation year on year, and water companies and energy suppliers. During the general election, the Conservatives promised an energy cap that would benefit

“around 17 million families on standard variable tariffs”,

but every bill tells millions of families that the Government have broken that promise.

With £10 billion in housing benefit going into the pockets of private landlords every year, housing is a key factor in driving up the welfare bill. There were not too many words from the Chancellor about excessive rents in the private rented sector. With this Government delivering the worst rate of house building since the 1920s and a quarter of a million fewer council homes, any commitment would be welcome, but we have been here before. The Government promised 200,000 starter homes three years ago; not a single one has been built in those three years. We need a large-scale, publicly funded house building programme, not this Government’s accounting tricks and empty promises. Yes, we back the abolition in stamp duty for first-time buyers—because it was another Labour policy in our manifesto in June, not a Tory one.

This Government’s continual preference for spin over substance means that across this country the words “northern powerhouse” and “midlands engine” are now met with derision. Yorkshire and Humber gets only a 10th of the transport investment per head given to London. Government figures show that every region in the north of England has seen a fall in spending on services since 2012. The midlands, east and west, receives less than 8% of total transport infrastructure investment, compared with the 50% that goes to London. In the east and west midlands, one in four workers is paid less than the living wage—so much for the midlands engine. Re-announced funding for the trans-Pennine rail route will not cut it, and today’s other announcements will not redress the balance.

Combined with counterproductive austerity, this lack of investment has consequences in sluggish growth and shrinking pay packets. Public investment has virtually halved. Under this Government, Britain has the lowest rate of public investment in the G7, but it is now investing in driverless cars, after months of road testing back-seat driving in the Government.

By moving from RPI to CPI indexation on business rates, the Chancellor has adopted another Labour policy, but why do the Government not go further and adopt Labour’s entire business rates pledge, including exempting plant and machinery, and an annual revaluation of business rates?

Nowhere has the Government’s chaos been more evident than over Brexit. Following round after round of fruitless Brexit negotiations, the Brexit Secretary has been shunted out for the Prime Minister, who has got no further. Every major business organisation has written to the Government, telling them to pull their finger out and get on with it. Businesses are delaying crucial investment decisions, and if this Government do not get their act together, those businesses will soon be taking relocation decisions.

Crashing out with no deal and turning Britain into a tax haven would damage people’s jobs and living standards, serving only a wealthy few. It is not as though this Government are not doing their best to protect tax havens and their clients in the meantime. The Paradise papers have again exposed how a super-rich elite is allowed to get away with dodging taxes. This Government have opposed measure after measure in this House—their Tory colleagues have done the same in the European Parliament—to clamp down on the tax havens that facilitate this outrageous leaching from our public purse. Non-paid tax and clever reinvestment to get away with tax hit hospitals, schools and housing, and they hit the poorest and most needy in our society. There is nothing moral about dodging tax; there is everything immoral about evading it.

Too often, it feels as though there is one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest of us. The horrors of Grenfell Tower were a reflection of a system that puts profits before people and that fails to listen to working-class communities. In 2013, the Government received advice in a coroner’s report that sprinklers should be fitted in all high-rise buildings. Today, once again, the Government failed to fund the £1 billion investment needed. The Chancellor says that councils should contact them, but Nottingham and Westminster have done so, and they have been refused; nothing was offered to them. We have the privilege of being Members of Parliament, in a building that is about to be retrofitted with sprinklers to protect us. The message is pretty clear: this Government care more about what happens here than about what happens to people living in high-rise homes, in effect saying that they matter less.

Our country is marked by growing inequality and injustice. We were promised, with lots of hype, a revolutionary Budget, but the reality is that nothing has changed. People were looking for help from this Budget, and they have been let down by a Government who, like the economy that they have presided over, are weak and unstable, and in need of urgent change. They call this a Budget fit for the future; the reality is that they are a Government no longer fit for office.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 8th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

This is a Budget of utter complacency about the state of our economy, utter complacency about the crisis facing our public services, and complacency about the reality of daily life for millions of people in this country. It is entirely out of touch with the reality of life for millions.

This morning, over 1 million workers will have woken up not knowing whether they will work today, tomorrow or next week. Millions more workers know that their next pay packet will not be enough to make ends meet. Millions are struggling to pay rent or a mortgage, with private renters on average paying nearly half their income in rent. Yesterday, more than 3,000 people in this country will have queued up at food banks to feed themselves and their families. Last night, over 4,000 people will have slept rough on the streets of this country. And the Chancellor makes his boast about a strong economy.

But who is reaping the rewards of this economy? For millions, it is simply not working. It is not working for the NHS, which is in its worst crisis ever, with funding being cut next year. It is not working for our children’s schools, where pupil funding continues to be cut. It is not working for our neighbourhoods, which have lost 20,000 police officers, leaving the force in a perilous state in many parts of the country. It is not working for our public services and the dedicated people who work in them—nurses, firefighters and teachers; no pay rise in seven years for them—or for people with disabilities, who are twice as likely to be living in poverty, and whom this Government are denying the support that the courts say they need.

There are 4 million children living in poverty, and that figure will rise by another 1 million in the coming years. The economy is not working for the thousands of young people who cannot get anywhere to live, cannot get on the housing ladder and, in many cases, cannot leave the parental home. Parents of grown-up children whom they would expect to be debt-free by now are having to bail out student debt, or are trying to help them with a deposit to get housing, if they can manage it. A million elderly people—I will come on to this again—are being denied the social care that they need due to the £4.6 billion of cuts made by the Chancellor’s Government, with the support of the Lib Dems, over the past five years. The economy is not working for pensioners, for whom the security of the triple lock remains in doubt.

This is the reality facing Britain today: a Government cutting services and the living standards of the many, to continue to fund the tax cuts of the few. Some people are doing very well under the Conservative Government. The chief executives of big companies are now paid 180 times more than the average worker and being taxed less. Big corporations are making higher profits and being taxed less. Speculators are making more and being taxed less. The wealthiest families are taxed less due to cuts in inheritance tax. All that adds up to £70 billion of tax giveaways over the next five years to those who need it the least. This Government have the wrong priorities.

Let me give three examples. The pain of losing a child is unimaginable for most of us, but for those who do lose a child, their pain is worsened by the stress of having to pay for their own child’s funeral. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for her campaign to establish a children’s funeral fund, but far from establishing such a fund, which would cost just £10 million a year, the Government are instead cutting support for bereaved families—three in four bereaved families will receive less. That is utterly heartless.

Despite generous tax giveaways at the top end, there was no money either for the 160,000 people with disabilities whom a court has ruled deserve a higher rate of personal independence payments. These are people with debilitating mental health conditions such as dementia, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder. The Prime Minister came to office talking about fighting “burning injustices”. Less than nine months later, she seems to have forgotten all about them, because none of them is being fought today.

Low pay holds people back and is holding our country back. We are the only major developed country in which economic growth has returned yet workers are worse off. Wages are still below 2008 levels. Inflation is rising and there is an urgent need to address the pressure on people’s incomes. Personal debts are rising massively and there are rising energy bills, and the costs of the weekly shop, transport and housing are all rising.

The Chancellor faced a series of tests as to whether he would stand on the same side as the people or not. He could have raised the minimum wage to the level of the living wage—the real living wage of £10 an hour—as we, the Labour party, have pledged to do. That would give a pay rise to 6 million people in this country, 62% of whom are women. He failed to do that.

Since 2010, millions of public sector workers have endured a pay freeze and then a pay cap. The dedicated public servants who keep our services going have lost over 9% of their real wages, or will have done by 2020. The Chancellor could have ended the public sector pay cap, as we have pledged to do, and given a pay rise to the 5 million dedicated public servants whom we all rely on—day in, day out—in our hospitals, our health service in general and our local government. He failed to do that. It is an insult to say that they deserve falling living standards when we all know that those in the public sector are working harder than ever, covering the jobs of those who have gone.

There is a crisis, too, in job security. Millions of workers do not know whether they will be working from one day to the next. Millions of workers do not know how many hours they will be working this week or next week. Just imagine what it is like to try to plan your life if you do not know what your income is going to be from one week to the next. That is the reality—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Can I just say to Members on the Government Benches that I want to hear the Leader of the Opposition? I do not want him to be shouted down. You might not be interested, but our constituents out there want to hear what the alternative is, so please—[Interruption.] If the Whip wants to be funny, he can go and get a cup of tea now. Let us show the same respect that was given to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

There is nothing funny about being one of the 900,000 workers on zero-hours contracts, 55% of whom are women. The Chancellor could have announced a ban on zero-hours contracts, as we have pledged to do, but again he failed. Zero-hours contracts are only the tip of the iceberg, with 4.5 million workers in Britain in insecure work, 2.3 million working variable shift patterns and 1.1 million on temporary contracts. We have long argued for a clampdown on bogus self-employment, but today the Chancellor seems to have put the burden on self-employed workers instead. There has to be a something-for-something deal, so I hope the Chancellor will bring forward extra social security in return. One policy that Labour backs is extending statutory maternity pay to self- employed women, which is likely to cost just £10 million a year.

Low pay and insecure work have consequences for us all. In reality, we all pay for low pay. A million working households have to claim housing benefit. Let me repeat that figure: 1 million working households have to claim housing benefit because their wages are not enough to pay the rent. There are 3 million working families who rely on tax credits simply to make ends meet. This is modern Britain.

The most effective way of boosting wages and increasing job security is, as all studies show, to improve collective bargaining through a trade union. Those are words that the Chancellor did not use in his speech; instead, the Trade Union Act 2016 will further shackle unions and perpetuate the chronic low pay that costs us all a lot of money through in-work benefits. We will promote collective bargaining and repeal the Trade Union Act. This is a Chancellor and a Government who are not on the side of the workers, and not on the side of the taxpayers who pick up the bill for low pay and insecure work.

On International Women’s Day, did the Chancellor deliver a Budget that works for women? According to House of Commons Library analysis that was commissioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who is doing a brilliant job speaking up for women from our Front Bench, 86% of the savings to the Treasury from tax and benefit changes have fallen on women. Women’s lives have been made more difficult through successive policies of this Government. Women are struggling with more caring responsibilities due to the continuing state of emergency in social care. The WASPI women born in the 1950s are, with little notice, having to face a crisis in their retirement that they could not possibly have predicted. Some 54,000 women a year are forced out of their jobs through maternity discrimination, but they cannot afford this Government’s extortionate fees to take their employer to a tribunal in search of justice.

Women up and down the country will have to wait another 60 years before the gender pay gap is closed. Hundreds of women are being turned away from domestic violence shelters every year due to a lack of space or appropriate services, or simply because the shelters have closed. Mothers who are already struggling are being put under more pressure through cuts to universal credit and tax credits. As if it was not bad enough to cut benefits to children whose only crime is to be born third or fourth in a family, as of next month, most shamefully, women will have to prove that their third child is a product of rape if they wish to qualify for child tax credits for that child. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) for their campaigning on this issue, and I hope that the Chancellor will reverse that cut.

This country has a housing crisis—a crisis of supply and of affordability. Since 2010, house building has fallen to its lowest rate in peacetime since the 1920s. The building of social homes for rent is at its lowest level for a quarter of a century. Did the Chancellor empower councils to tackle the housing crisis by allowing them to borrow to build council housing, as we have pledged to do? No. Have the Government replaced council houses sold under the right to buy, as they promised? No; just one in six have been replaced. And was there any commitment to return to councils the £800 million of right to buy proceeds that the Treasury has taken back, which would be enough to build 12,000 homes? No. Did the Chancellor scrap the unfair bedroom tax, as we have pledged to do? No. Did he reverse housing benefit cuts that would take away support from 10,000 young people? No, despite opposition from Shelter, Crisis, Centrepoint and even the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), who has correctly described the policy as “catastrophic”.

Last week, the Institute for Government said that there were “clear warning signs” of the damaging impact of the Government’s cuts on schools, prisons, and health and social care. This Government have taken a sledgehammer to public services in recent years, yet the Chancellor now expects praise for patching up a small part of that damage. This Budget did not provide the funding necessary now to deal with the crisis in our NHS, which the British Medical Association reckons needs an extra £10 billion. The Budget did not provide the funding necessary to end now the state of emergency in social care, which needs £2 billion a year just to plug the gaps, according to the King’s Fund. Those needs will not be met by £2 billion over three years—the money is needed now. More than a million people, mainly elderly people, are desperate for social care and still cannot get it. The money ought to be made available now.

This Government duck the really tough choices, such as asking corporations to pay a little more in tax. Not every local authority can just text Nick and get the deal it wants. Other council services are suffering as well. Our communities are stronger when we have good libraries. They are valuable for children, obviously, but also for the entire community. However, 67 libraries closed last year because of local government underfunding, and 700 Sure Start centres closed because of a lack of local authority funding, denying the life chances that a Labour Government delivered with the opening of Sure Start centres in the 1990s. Six hundred youth centres have closed as well. These painful decisions are being taken by councils not because they want to do it, but because they just do not have enough money even to keep essential services running, following the slashing of their budgets year on year. And it goes on—this affects our communities and lives in so many ways. Last year, councils proposed the sell-off of school playing fields with the equivalent size of 500 football pitches— 500 pitches unavailable for young people to indulge in sport. Surely it is our duty as a community to ensure that all our young people, wherever they live, have a decent chance to grow up with a library, a playing field and a Sure Start centre. It is not a lot to ask.

The Chancellor boasts of a strong economy, but he abandoned the previous Chancellor’s targets, so let me give a more realistic context for today’s figures. The deficit was going to be eradicated in 2015—do we all remember the long-term economic plan?—and debt was going to peak at 80% of GDP and then start falling. Our economy is not prepared for Brexit. It still suffers from underinvestment, an over-reliance on consumer spending, and wholly unsustainable levels of personal and household debt. Investment must be evenly spread around our country. Despite today’s announcements, London continues to receive six times as much investment as the north-east. Labour is backing a fair funding formula for investment so that every area gets its fair share of capital spending. What has been announced today does not achieve that. The Government cannot build a northern powerhouse or a midlands engine if investment does not follow the soundbite.

Our country spends 1.7% of GDP on research and development, which is well below the OECD average. The strongest economies spend over 3%. In the immediate term, the Chancellor must focus his attention—he did not have much to say about this—on the precarious future of skilled workers’ jobs at Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port and Luton, and at Ford in Bridgend. Exporting businesses would have more confidence if the Government clearly committed to negotiating for tariff and impediment-free access to the single market and dropped the reckless threat of turning Britain into a tax haven on the shores of Europe.

One of the biggest challenges facing our country is environmental—climate change. The Government are failing to lead and failing to drive a mission-led industrial strategy, which our Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee has recommended. The Chancellor failed to make energy efficiency a national infrastructure priority. There was no commitment to establish zero-carbon standards on new buildings, and he was unclear about investment in public transport that will definitely reduce pollution. The poor air quality is appalling. It is killing thousands of people in this country and taking away the life chances of many children who grow up alongside polluted roads. The good work being done by Labour’s London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, and by the Welsh Labour Government has rightly recognised air quality as a public health crisis, particularly for children. We have to deal with this crisis urgently.

There cannot be an industrial strategy or productivity gains without serious investment in skills. Adult skills training has been cut by 54% and further education by 14%. The small amounts committed today are long overdue, but woefully insufficient. The schools budget is being cut by 8% over the coming years. Does the Chancellor want fewer teachers and teaching assistants, larger classes or shorter school days? Which is it? I agree with the Prime Minister that every child deserves a decent education and every community deserves a decent school, but we should achieve that by working with communities to provide those schools, not by plonking in selective schools that communities are not demanding. The money announced by the Prime Minister yesterday for new grammar schools is, frankly, a vanity project. The Government should cancel this gimmick and reject selection and segregation. Why do they not honour their own 2015 manifesto pledge to protect per pupil funding, which has clearly not happened?

This Budget lacks ambition for this country and fairness. It demonstrates again this Government’s appalling priorities: another year of tax breaks for the few and public service cuts for the many. When the Prime Minister took office, she said:

“If you’re one of those families, if you’re just managing, I want to address you directly.”

This Budget did not address them; it failed them. This Budget does nothing to tackle low pay, nothing to solve the state of emergency that persists for the many people who demand and need health and social care now, and nothing to make a fair economy that truly works for everyone. It is built on unfairness and on a failure to tackle unfairness in our society.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

The Budget the Chancellor has just delivered is actually the culmination of six years of his failures. It is a Budget—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. This corner of the Chamber by the Chair is not some kind of fairground attraction. We expect courtesy from both sides of the House whoever is speaking. I want to hear the Leader of the Opposition and, as I said before, I know that the public in this country want to hear what the Opposition have to say as well.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

It is a recovery built on sand and a Budget of failure. The Chancellor has failed on the budget deficit, failed on debt, failed on investment, failed on productivity, failed on the trade deficit, failed on the welfare cap and failed to tackle inequality in this country. Today he has announced that growth is revised down last year, this year and every year he has forecast. Business investment is revised down and Government investment is revised down. It is a very good thing that the Chancellor is blaming the last Government—he was the Chancellor in the last Government.

This Budget has unfairness at its very core, paid for by those who can least afford it. The Chancellor could not have made his priorities clearer. While half a million people with disabilities are losing over £1 billion in personal independence payments, corporation tax is being cut and billions handed out in tax cuts to the very wealthy.

The Chancellor has said that he has to be judged on his record and by the tests he set himself. Six years ago, he promised a balanced structural current budget by 2015. It is now 2016—there is still no balanced budget. In 2010, he and the Prime Minister claimed, “We’re all in it together.” The Chancellor promised this House that the richest would

“pay more than the poorest, not just in terms of cash but as a proportion of income as well.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 179.]

So let me tell him how that has turned out. The Institute for Fiscal Studies—an independent organisation—found that “the poorest have” suffered “the greatest proportionate losses.” The Prime Minister told us recently that he was delivering “a strong economy” and “a sound plan”—but strong for who? Strong to support who, and sound for who, when 80% of the public spending cuts have fallen on women in our society? This Budget could have been a chance to demonstrate a real commitment to fairness and equality; yet again, the Chancellor has failed.

Five years ago—they were great words—the Chancellor promised

“a Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers”—[Official Report, 22 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 966.]

Soaring rhetoric, yet despite the resilience, ingenuity and hard work of manufacturers, the manufacturing sector is now smaller that it was eight years ago. Last year, he told the Conservative conference, “We are the builders”, but ever since then the construction industry has been stagnating. This is the record of a Conservative Chancellor who has failed to balance the books, failed to balance out the pain and failed to rebalance our economy. It is no wonder that his close friend, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), is complaining that

“we were told for the next seven years things were looking great. Within one month of that forecast, we’re now being told that things are difficult”.

The gulf between what the Conservative Government expect from the wealthiest and what they demand from ordinary British taxpayers could not be greater. The “mate’s rates” deals for big corporations on tax deals is something they will be for ever remembered for. This is a Chancellor who has produced a Budget for hedge fund managers more than for small businesses. This is a Government—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Mr Williamson—I do not know what it is but you always want to catch my attention. Let me assure you—you have got my attention, so let us make sure you do not get it again.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

This is a Government who stood by as the steel industry bled. Skills, output and thousands of very skilled jobs have been lost, and communities ruined and damaged, by the inaction of the Government. The Chancellor set himself a £1 trillion export target; it is going to be missed by a lot more than a country mile. Instead of trade fuelling growth, as he promised, it is now holding back growth. He talked of the northern powerhouse. We now discover that 97% of the senior staff in the northern powerhouse have been outsourced to London—to the south. For all his talk of the northern powerhouse, the north-east accounts for less than 1% of Government infrastructure pipeline projects in construction. For all his rhetoric, there has been systematic under-investment in the north.

Across the country, local authorities—councils—are facing massive problems, with a 79% cut in their funding. Every library that has been closed, every elderly person left without proper care, and every swimming pool with reduced opening hours or closed altogether is a direct result of the Government underfunding our local authorities and councils.

Far from presiding over good-quality employment, he is the Chancellor who has presided over under- employment and insecurity, with nearly—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Certain people are testing my patience, so just think what your constituents are thinking out there as well. I want to hear the Leader of the Opposition and I expect you to hear the Leader of the Opposition. If you do not want to hear him, I am sure the Tea Room awaits. Perhaps there will be a phone call for Mr Hoare if he keeps shouting.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Security comes from knowing what your income is and knowing where your job is. If you are one of those nearly 1 million people on a zero-hours contract, you do not know what your income is: you do not have that security. We have the highest levels of in-work poverty on record and the largest number of people without security. They need regular wages that can end poverty and can bring about real security in their lives. Logically, low-paid jobs do not bring in the tax revenues that the Chancellor tells us he needs to balance his books. Household borrowing is once again being relied on to drive growth. Risky unsecured lending is growing at its fastest rate for the past eight years, and that is clearly not sustainable.

The renewables industry is vital to the future of our economy and our planet—indeed, our whole existence. It has been targeted for cuts, with thousands of jobs lost in the solar panel production industry. The Prime Minister, as we discussed earlier at Prime Minister’s Question Time, promised “the greenest Government ever”—here again, an abject failure. Science spending is also down, by £1 billion compared with 2010.

Home ownership is down under this Conservative Government. A whole generation is locked out of any prospect of owning their own home. This is the Chancellor who believes that a starter home costing £450,000 is affordable. It might be for some of his friends and for some Conservative Members, but not for those people who are trying to save for a deposit because they cannot get any other kind of house.

We have heard promises of garden cities before. Two years ago, the Chancellor pledged a garden city of 15,000 homes in Ebbsfleet, and many cheered that. His Ministers have been very busy ever since then—they have made 30 Ebbsfleet announcements, and they have managed to build 368 homes in Ebbsfleet. That is 12 homes for every press release. We obviously need a vast increase in press releases in order to get any homes built in Ebbsfleet, or indeed anywhere else.

While we welcome the money that will be put forward to tackle homelessness, it is the product of under-investment, underfunding of local authorities, not building enough council housing and not regulating the private rented sector. That is what has led to this crisis. We need to tackle the issue of homelessness by saying that everybody in our society deserves a safe roof over their head.

Child poverty is forecast to rise every year in this Parliament. What a damning indictment of this Government, and what a contrast to the last Labour Government, who managed to lift almost 1 million children out of poverty.

Eighty-one per cent of the tax increases and benefit cuts are falling on women, and the 19% gender pay gap persists. Despite the Chancellor’s protestations, it is a serious indictment that women are generally paid less than men for doing broadly similar work. It will require a Labour Government to address that.

The Government’s own social mobility commissioner said that

“there is a growing sense…that Britain’s best days are behind us rather than ahead”,

as the next generation expects to be worse off than the last. The Chancellor might have said a great deal about young people, but he failed to say anything about the debt levels that so many former students have; the high rents that young people have to pay; the lower levels of wages that young people get; and the sense of injustice and insecurity that so many young people in this country face and feel every day. It will again require a Labour Government to harness the enthusiasms, talent and energy of the young people of this country.

Investing in public services is vital to people’s wellbeing—I think we are all agreed on that, or at least I hope we are—yet every time the Chancellor fails, he cuts services, cuts jobs, sells assets and further privatises. That was very clear when we looked at the effects of the floods last year. Flood defences were cut by 27%. People’s homes in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria were ruined because of his Government’s neglect of river basin management and the flood defences that are so necessary.

Obviously, we welcome any money that is now going into flood defences, but I hope that that money will also be accompanied by a reversal of the cuts in the fire service that make it so difficult for our brilliant firefighters to protect people in their homes, and a reversal of the cuts in the Environment Agency that make it so hard for those brilliant engineers to protect our towns and cities, and for those local government workers who performed so brilliantly during the crisis in December and January in those areas that were flooded.

Our education service invests in people. It is a vital motor for the future wealth of this country, so why has there been a 35% drop in the adult skills budget under this Government? People surely need the opportunity to learn, and they should not have to go into debt in order to develop skills from which we as a community entirely benefit.

On the Chancellor’s announcement yesterday, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that turning schools into academies boosts performance. There is nothing in the Budget to deal with the real issues of teacher shortages, the school place crisis and ballooning class sizes.

The Chancellor spoke at length about the issue of ill health among young children and the way in which sugar is consumed at such grotesque levels in society. I agree with him and welcome what he said. I am sure he will join me in welcoming the work done by many Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), and by Jamie Oliver in helping to deal with the dreadful situation with children’s health. If we as a society cannot protect our children from high levels of sugar and all that goes with that, including later health crises of cancer and diabetes, we as a House will have failed the nation. I support the Chancellor’s proposals on sugar, and I hope all other Members do, too.

There is an issue, however, that faces the national health service: the deficit has widened to its highest level on record, waiting times are up and the NHS is in a critical condition. Hospital after hospital faces serious financial problems and is working out what to sell in order to balance its books. Our NHS should have the resources to concentrate on the health needs of the people; it should not have to get rid of resources in order to survive. The Public Accounts Committee reported only yesterday that NHS finances have

“deteriorated at a severe and rapid pace”.

I did not detect much in this Budget that is going to do much to resolve that crisis. The Chancellor has also cut public health budgets, mental health budgets and adult social care.

Earlier this month the Government forced through a £30 per week cut to disabled employment and support allowance claimants—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. There are people having conversations on the Front Bench. If you need to have a conversation, I am sure there is plenty of room in the Tea Room for you.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Last week we learned that 500,000 people will lose up to £150 per week due to cuts to personal independence payments. I simply ask the Chancellor: if he can finance his Budget giveaways to different sectors, why can he not fund the need for dignity for the disabled people of this country?

The Chancellor said in the autumn statement that he had protected police budgets, but Sir Andrew Dilnot confirms that there has been a decrease in the police grant, while 18,000 police officers have lost their jobs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) pointed out in her question to the Prime Minister earlier, in order to cut down on dangerous crime against vulnerable individuals we need community policing and community police officers. Eighteen thousand of them losing their jobs does not help. This Government have failed on the police, the national health service, social care, housing and education.

Public investment lays the foundations for future growth, as the OECD, the International Monetary Fund and the G20 all recognise. The CBI and the TUC are crying out for more infrastructure investment. It is Labour that will invest in the future—in a high-technology, high-skill, high-wage economy.

The investment commitments that the Chancellor has made today are, of course, welcome, but they are belated and nowhere near the scale this country needs. People will rightly fear that this is just another press release on the road to the non-delivery of crucial projects.

The chronic under-investment—both public and private—presided over by this Chancellor means that the productivity gap between Britain and the rest of the G7 is the widest it has been for a generation. Without productivity growth, which has been revised down further today, we cannot hope to improve living standards. The Labour party backs a strategic state that understands that businesses, public services, innovators and workers combine together to create wealth and drive sustainable growth.

The Chancellor adopted a counter productive fiscal rule. The Treasury Committee responded by saying that it was

“not convinced that the surplus rule is credible”,

and it is right. The Chancellor is locking Britain into an even deeper cycle of low investment, low productivity and low ambition. We will be making the positive case for Britain to remain in the European Union and all the solidarity that can bring.

Over the past six years, the Chancellor has set targets on the deficit, on debt, on productivity, on manufacturing and construction, and on exports. He has failed them all and he is failing Britain.

There are huge opportunities for this country to build on the talent and efforts of everyone, but the Chancellor is more concerned about protecting vested interests. The price of failure is being borne by some of the most vulnerable in our society. The disabled are being robbed of up to £150 a week. Those are not the actions of a responsible statesperson; they are the actions of a cruel and callous Government who side with the wrong people and punish the most vulnerable and the poorest in our society.

The Chancellor was defeated when he tried to make tax credit cuts from next month by the House opposing them, and by Labour Members and Cross Benchers in the Lords. The continuation of austerity that he has confirmed today, particularly in the area of local government spending, is a political choice, not an economic necessity. It locks us into a continued cycle of economic failure and personal misery. The Labour party will not stand by while more poverty and inequality blight this country. We will oppose those damaging choices and make the case for an economy in which prosperity is shared by all.

Let us harness the optimism, the enthusiasm, the hope and the energy of young people. Let us not burden them with debts and unaffordable housing, low-wage jobs and zero-hours contracts, but instead act in an intergenerational way to give young people the opportunities and the chances they want to build a better, freer, more equal and more content Britain. The Chancellor has proved that he is utterly incapable of doing so with his Budget today.

Transport for London Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 16th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I hope it is a point of order. I know you would not wish to waste the Chair’s time, Mr Corbyn, because I want to call you to speak.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I appreciate that, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I am grateful to you. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) is the sponsor of the Bill and responsible for conducting it through the House. Is it normal for the sponsor of a Bill to give way so that legitimate questions and concerns can be raised and answered?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I thought my judgment was correct: that is not a point of order. You are after a point of clarification, but that is not up to me. It is up to the sponsor of the Bill whether he wishes to give way. He has been courteous and given way a couple of times. Perhaps if he is allowed to speak for a little longer, I can call the Opposition spokesman and then some Back Benchers. I would like to do that and hear what the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I absolutely agree with my friend, but time is—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Time is running out, but we are speaking to specific amendments and I do not want us to get into a general debate about the general election. We will be doing that soon enough—if we have not already been doing it for 12 months.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I conclude with this thought—

Tenancies (Reform) Bill

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Friday 28th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have been listening carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), and he does not seem to me to be talking much about retaliatory evictions. He is talking more about the generality of the private rented sector. It is obviously in order to refer to that, but it is clearly not the central factor of the Bill. The Bill is quite specific—it deals with retaliatory evictions.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

We are going to hear quite a speech. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be heading that way, but he is actually in order.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. If we seriously want to get everybody in, we will have to average about 10 minutes a speech. If we carry on in the same way, a lot of Members will drop off the end of the list.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I heard what you said, but would it not be more useful to put a time limit on speeches so that we can all get in?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

That is up to me, but I thought that hon. Members would have enough respect for each other to ensure that everybody gets in. I thought that they would help each other by taking a little less time in order to allow others to take part, which is why I did not want to be dictatorial about it.

Department for Communities and Local Government

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I will not give way any more, because I would lose my time.

The second area I wish to discuss is the social rented sector in London—council housing. The problems of housing in London are not new; they were acute in the 19th century and in the early 20th century. It was the inspiration and idealism of the Labour-controlled London county council in the inter-war years that did a great deal to build decent homes for people who were living in appalling slums. Indeed, in my constituency and others one can see the products of the inspirational work done by Herbert Morrison and others. The post-second world war council house building did an incredible amount to give people decent places to live.

I had the great honour of being a member of Haringey borough council from 1974 to 1983 and I remember complaining in 1979 that we had built only 1,000 council houses that year. I was complaining that we could have done more, but 1,000 is more than have been built in the whole of London in most of the past few years. I am critical of my party in government and of the current Government for not doing enough to build new council housing.

The Government’s solution is to suggest to local authorities that they should raise rents to 80% of the market rent to raise some funds to develop new housing. In my borough and those of most colleagues in London, council house rents would more than double. Islington borough council, to its credit, has refused to do that and has managed to develop a substantial building programme on its own land from its own resources. But obviously, there are limits to that programme, imaginative though it is.

We need central Government involvement in the building of new council homes as a matter of enormous urgency. The Mayor of London does not seem fully to grasp all that. In fact, there are quite a lot of things the Mayor of London does not fully grasp, but one of them is the essential need for the building of new council houses. The number of social rented properties—that is, council or housing association properties—built under his watch and by his means has reduced from 11,000 in 2010-11 to only 983 in the current year. Goodness knows how much lower than that the numbers will go in future years. We must kindly ask central Government to get a grip of the situation and do their best to intervene with the Mayor and with borough councils to ensure that there is a rapid increase in the supply of council housing in London. That is the best and most efficient way of solving the housing crisis. It provides jobs, provides homes and helps people to have a secure place to live.

The final area I want to mention was covered in a ten-minute rule Bill that I introduced and it is the private rented sector. In London, 800,000 families live in that sector—it is the fastest growing housing sector by a long way. In my constituency, a third of all households are in the private rented sector and that number is rising fast. Generally speaking, people who live in the private rented sector pay the most to live in the least efficient, worst repaired and worst maintained properties and in the least regulated sector. Not all landlords are bad—some are very good—but the lack of regulation means that those who are bad can get away with it. We need regulation of the letting agencies, registration and regulation of all private rented accommodation and, in my view, rent controls.

The housing benefit cap is acting as an agent for the social cleansing of the poorest people on housing benefit all over central London. They are being driven out of their areas and driven out of London. For that reason, we need not just to control housing benefit expenditure but to control it by controlling the rent levels instead, rather than forcing tenants out of their homes—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call John McDonnell.

European Convention on Human Rights

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In her speech, the Home Secretary referred extensively to rules laid before the House but not prayed against and therefore not debated. Is it in order for us to discuss the contents of those proposed rules, because that is exactly what she did throughout her opening speech?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Yes.

Food Waste

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

As the hon. Gentleman is well aware, what is in the Budget is sacrosanct until Budget day. He has certainly put his point on the record, and I think that everyone, including the Chancellor, is aware of the ministerial code.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. This morning news emerged that water cannon and CS gas are apparently to be available to police forces in London and, indeed, other parts of the country. Have you received any intimation that such a major change in policing tactics is indeed being contemplated, and that a Home Office Minister wishes to come and make a statement to the House?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

No information has been given to the Chair, and, as the hon. Gentleman is well aware, the matter that he has raised is not a matter for the Chair. However, he has made everyone in the House aware of it.