Debate on the Address

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, we have been dealing with an economy that had the biggest boom and bust in our banks, the biggest deficit in Europe and the longest and deepest recession in anyone’s memory. What we have to do is get our economy to rebalance, and I will explain exactly how the Queen’s Speech is going to help, because it is a Queen’s Speech for the doers, the strivers and those who work hard and play by the rules.

On cutting the Budget deficit, all across Europe the countries being hit are the ones that do not have proper plans in place. In the last Session, we cut the nation’s overdraft—the gap between what we receive in tax and what we spend—by £30 billion. With this Queen’s Speech we continue that work with, for instance, the vital public service pensions Bill. Not only does that offer guaranteed pensions that are still more generous than those in the private sector, but it saves tens of billions of pounds over the coming decades. Through this Queen’s Speech we are also making sure the UK is taken out of the eurozone bail-out fund. We are not in the euro, we are not joining the euro, so we should not be bailing out the euro.

The reason why we are doing these things on the deficit is simple: we want to keep interest rates down for hard-working families up and down the country. Let us be clear: higher interest rates would mean higher mortgages, lower employment and more of people’s money, which they have worked so hard to get, wasted by being spent on interest on our national debt. Two years ago, Britain had exactly the same interest rates as Spain; today, its interest rates were touching 6% and ours were below 2%. That is because we have a credible plan to get the country out of the mess it was left in by the last Government.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I am very appreciative of the Prime Minister’s words today. On the issue of Lords reform, the Government have made long and strenuous efforts, including through a draft Bill, a White Paper and a Joint Committee. Does the Prime Minister share my view that since a consensus has not proved to be available, Lords reform cannot be a priority now, and does he also share my view that any measures presented to this House should be put to the people in a referendum?

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me make this point, answering also the Leader of the Opposition: reforming the House of Lords is not the most important priority for the Government—that is dealing with the deficit, getting our economy moving, increasing the level of responsibility in our society and getting on the side of hard-working people. Those are the things that matter the most, but I think it is perfectly possible for Parliament to do more than two things at the same time. At the last election, all political parties put forward in their manifestos proposals for a partly, or mainly, elected House of Lords, but let me say this: this is only going to proceed if the political parties will agree to work together and take a responsible attitude towards this reform. I think it is possible, and it would be a good reform if we could achieve it; it would be better if we had a smaller House of Lords and if it had an elected element. So I ask people to work together across party lines to try to make that happen.