Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Joan Ruddock Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

And the Lib Dems.

[Edward Miliband]

I am coming to them in a minute. That has been the case historically, but the difference this time is that the Liberal Democrats are faced with a choice. The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark—someone I respect; a person of good conscience who came into politics to make our country fairer—has a big decision to make. He is not going to fall for the stuff we have heard from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, trying to explain away the Budget.

The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark knows an unfair Budget when he sees one, so he has a decision to make in the coming days. He has an honourable path to take. He can say, “Up with this I will not put.” That is what Liberal Democrats throughout the country will expect him to do. Maybe he will defeat the Budget, maybe he will get the Government to rethink parts of it, but he could lead a movement, not just of Liberal Democrats in the House but of Liberal Democrats outside the House who will join him. He did not come into politics to put up VAT or to freeze child benefit. He campaigned against the freeze in child benefit in the 1980s under Mrs Thatcher. He did not come into politics to abolish the health in pregnancy grant. He did not come into politics to do those things, and he is not in office. He does not face the choice of resignation: he faces the choice of how to vote. In all candour I say to him that he wanted a Lib-Lab alliance after the last general election because he knew what would happen otherwise. He saw it in the runes. He saw where things would go, and he was proved right. But now he faces the ultimate choice in politics, which is between principle and expediency—and he should follow principle.