The Economy

John Hemming Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman’s party’s solution is to borrow more money. From whom is it going to borrow it and how much interest is it going to pay?

[Mr Anderson]

My party’s policy is not to borrow more money—it is to increase taxes on bankers and make those people pay.

[John Hemming]

rose—

[Mr Anderson]

Sit down and shut up.

The Tories have made deliberate decisions and claimed that there are no alternatives. When my party came back into government in 1997, the people from where I came from said they wanted us to put right the attacks that had happened in the 1980s. They said, “We’re sick of living in second-class conditions.” That is why I am proud, and my party is proud, of what we did.

[Mr Anderson]

I was not going to discuss the Liberal Democrats because they are obviously not relevant to this country any more. I thought that perhaps they were outside unveiling a new placard about the bombshell or signing a few pledges; obviously, they are too busy to come in here.

[John Hemming]

rose—

[Mr Anderson]

I am not going any further.

I am proud of what we did. We put record investment into the national health service. We had the Decent Homes programme, which, in my local council area, provided £360 million to put right homes that were desperately in need of it. There was a huge improvement in school results. We had more doctors, nurses and police on the beat. We had the national minimum wage, peace in Northern Ireland, new schools and hospitals, better health outcomes, and record numbers at university and in work. We also had—Conservative Members have not mentioned this while attacking the economic progress of our Government—a record period of growth over more than 11 years before we were hit by the global crisis.

What is certain is that the Conservatives and their yellow human shields, the Liberal Democrats, will never learn from history. They want to ignore the history of ordinary men and women. Indeed, when the Chancellor was asked in 2007 about his memories of the miners’ strike, he said:

“I’m trying to see if I can honestly remember.”

What we have is a party that selectively forgets the past, including the suffering and misery of a generation of people whose only crime was to want to live in security, bring their kids up well, have a good life and go to work. The Conservatives refuse to remember those things. They are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, and ordinary people will pay for those mistakes.

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[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am not sure that I quite understand the hon. Lady’s point.

[John Hemming]

The hon. Lady claims that the Liberal Democrats fought the election on the basis of not dealing with the deficit. We fought it on dealing with the deficit and that is what we are doing.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Absolutely. It is a salutary lesson in the history of British politics that it has taken two parties to come together to deal with the mess that that lot left behind.

Labour Members say that there is no mandate, but nobody in this country was in any doubt about what the Conservative party would do in government, and they voted for us. [Interruption.] I have already given way twice and I will not give way again because I have only six minutes. The public voted for the Conservative party in big numbers. The only reason that it did not end up with a majority was the in-built advantage to the Labour party. Even with that, Labour could not win the election.

Labour Members have learned nothing from their election defeat a year ago. As far as they are concerned, there was nothing wrong with the economy and they knew how to sort things out. They think that the only reason they are in opposition is because people accidentally voted Conservative, and that we are in government only because of the Liberal Democrats. Well, I point out that we have a majority of 83 in this House. As I said, two of the main parties have come together to deal with the mess left by the Labour party. When I was campaigning up and down the country, that is what the British public wanted. They wanted a coalition Government and they got a coalition Government because this mess needed to be sorted out. I think that we should be proud of our record over the past year: job creation in the private sector—up; export growth—up; manufacturing growth—up; the largest fall in unemployment for more than 10 years; 50,000 apprenticeships; 100,000 work experience places; and millions invested.

What is Labour’s plan? From what we can work out, it is to cut taxes and carry on borrowing. What would be the consequences of that? If we had carried on borrowing money at the rate at which it was being borrowed, the people lending us the money would have thought, “Will they be able to pay it back?” They would have said, “Here, have some money, but I’m charging a higher interest rate.” This country faced the danger of unfettered borrowing, which would have meant higher interest rates in the gilt markets and everywhere else. That would have worked through to people’s mortgages. We have spent the last 12 years on interest rates of about 3% to 4%, which were seen as historically low. If the interest rate went back to 3% or 4% tomorrow, it would cause real damage to the people of this country, who for almost 18 months have been on an interest rate of 0.5%. A responsible Government must ensure that frivolous spending and unfettered borrowing do not end up with the people about whom the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) just spoke suffering the consequences of not being able to borrow, not being able to afford their mortgages and not being able to live within their means.

It was interesting that the shadow Chancellor had clearly spent a long time looking into details about Government Back Benchers whom he though might intervene on him, instead of looking into a credible policy. He picked out statements from Government Members to paint the picture that we were all demanding higher spending. Of course, the reason why he thinks that is that the Opposition have no concept of governing for the long term. They do not understand that when my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) talks about the policies that he wants to have in his constituency, he is talking about the long term. I am sure my hon. Friend will expand on that when he speaks.

I am sure that the shadow Chancellor, having a neighbouring constituency to mine, had a few choice phrases ready for me. I have made no secret of the fact that I would like a better rail infrastructure in my city. However, I have always made it quite clear that my aspirations are for the long term and do not have to be achieved tomorrow. We do not have to borrow trillions of pounds to put them in place now, but such infrastructure could be built up in the next decade or even two.

[John Hemming]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that by reducing the rate of interest and the amount of interest paid, in the long term we will be able to spend more on infrastructure than the Opposition would?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Absolutely, and I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I have said in the House before that when we tell people that we have a deficit of £1 trillion that will go up to £1.4 trillion, they look at us blankly and think, “What’s a trillion?” It is such a huge number. However, when we tell them that every day of every year we are giving £120 million to foreign countries—that is the money that we borrow—they recognise the mess we are in. They recognise that we cannot give schools the improvement that they need, because of the absolute shambles of the private finance initiative projects in Building Schools for the Future. Money was wasted once again on bureaucracy.

Labour Members have banged on about regional development agencies all afternoon, but they were a great way to spend bureaucratic money. The RDAs very proudly said that they had created x number of jobs, but they did not create those jobs, the private sector did. The jobs that they created were paid for out of the public purse. Where did that money come from? From the wealth creators in this country. Everybody understands that if I want to spend £1.25 and I have only £1 in my pocket, I cannot afford to do so. We understood that idea, and the country understood it, which is why Labour Members sit on the Opposition Benches and we sit on the Government Benches.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I think the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) forgets that the reason he sits on the Government Benches is that the Liberal Democrats changed their policies and decided to let him sit over there.

[John Hemming]

rose—

[Toby Perkins]

It is so good to see a Liberal Democrat turn up that I have to let him in. It will encourage him to come again.

[John Hemming]

I simply point out to the hon. Gentleman that we have not changed our policies. He is asking for more money to be borrowed. Where would it be borrowed from, and what would the interest rate be?

[Toby Perkins]

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman assumes what I am going to say already. I am only three seconds into my speech. I will come to that point.

The hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell said that he was proud of the Government’s record so far. I would not like to be here when he is ashamed. Government Members would like this debate to be about whether we need to reduce the deficit, but that is not what it is about at all. Everyone recognises that we need to do that, and that in 2008, prior to the onset of the biggest global economic crisis in history, we had a lower deficit as a ratio of GDP than in 1997 when we came into power. It was only the scale of the economic crisis that forced the Labour Government to spend money to stop the awful situation that ordinary people were finding themselves in, with jobs being lost and the danger of houses being repossessed. We are proud of the decisions that we made at the time, which were supported by the IMF. It said strongly that this country, under the Labour Government, showed leadership when the rest of the world did not know what to do in the face of a terrible global economic crisis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins]

I think I have given way enough. I am grateful for the fact that the hon. Lady has turned up for the debate, but I shall carry on.

As someone who for the five years prior to coming to this place ran a business that relied on people having money in their pockets to buy non-essential items, I know very well how important it is that decisions on our economy are balanced between the need to support growth and the need to reduce the nation’s borrowing. However, we are debating the economy today because since the Chancellor’s Budget a year ago, the OBR’s initial predictions get worse at every stage. The OBR now predicts £46 billion more borrowing than it predicted a year ago. The Government have discovered that the policies that they are pursuing are not working, so why do they not listen to the advice, change course and ensure that we protect not only the growth that we need in our economy to reduce the budget deficit, but the people on the ground in our constituencies—that includes the constituencies of Conservative Members—who are struggling to get by, whose houses are being repossessed? Repossessions are increasing.

[John Hemming]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Toby Perkins]

I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once. I am grateful for the fact that he has turned up, but I do not want to give him any further encouragement.

The scale of the deterioration in the OBR’s forecasts is stark. The OBR, which was set up to provide an independent view of the state of Government finances, has downgraded its forecasts three times. The Chancellor told us of all the steps he is taking to stimulate growth, but even taking those into account, the forecast is that public sector net borrowing will increase by £46 billion over the next five years, which demonstrates the failure of those policies.

The Chancellor might be failing to get our economy growing, but the same cannot be said of unemployment. Government Members are celebrating, as we all do, the fact that unemployment is down in the last month, but unemployment over the course of the Conservative-Lib Dem Government will go up. Youth unemployment is up. The OBR forecast is that unemployment will rise––[Interruption.] Going forward, the OBR is now predicting that in every year over the next five years unemployment will be higher than in its prediction of a year ago.

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[Chris Evans]

Why did I bother giving way? That is another complacent attitude.

When the Government talk about deficit denial, they miss the point completely. There seem to be two theories. If we follow the Chancellor’s logic, cutting the deficit by £112 billion will encourage the private sector to create jobs. The private sector is going to come to the rescue and all those people who worked in the public sector will get jobs in the private sector. Wonderful—if it works. The other theory is that the Chancellor’s taking £112 billion out of the economy is doing nothing for consumer confidence. When I talk to the shopkeepers on the high street in Blackwood, they say, “The cuts haven’t even bitten yet, Mr Evans, but we are already feeling the pinch.” I am worried about that.

We talk about short-termism, and there seems to be no realisation that the policies to cut the deficit that we put in place today will have ramifications down the generations. There has been a lot of talk about the ’80s. I know that Conservative Members like to worship at the altar of Baroness Thatcher, but when I say that name to anyone in the valleys, they think of two things: fear and hurt. We have had problems with Scottish Power putting its prices up, affecting the most vulnerable in society, but we could do absolutely nothing about it because everything was sold for short-term gain. In 1992, I remember talking to a friend down the pub, and he was in tears. He had gone for a job as a grass cutter and when I asked him what was wrong, he told me that he had not got the job because there had been 60 applicants. “I’m not good enough to cut grass”, he said.

Now, those people have children of their own, and they are worried, too. Figures released in June show that one third of jobseeker’s allowance claimants in my constituency are young people under the age of 24, and I am seriously worried that we are going to have another lost generation. People talk about all this anger against the Labour party, but the only anger I have heard is against the banks. Privately, those on the Government Benches will admit that it was the bankers who did it, but for reasons of political point scoring and advantage, they would rather say that it was the Labour Government who did it—[Interruption.] That is the truth.

[John Hemming]

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that Tony Blair said in his memoirs that it was the Labour Government who did it?

[Chris Evans]

No, he did not. This debate would be far more honest if we said that it was the banks. This is like the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. The banking sector is too large. We have too many large banks. I welcome some of what the Chancellor has said about this—he said that there needs to be ring-fencing between the banks’ retail and investment operations—but if we do not break those banks up and just one of the big six goes under, the economy will be back in trouble. However, we have sent the banks a message that we would send to no other business. We have said to them, “What you’re doing is okay. However you run your businesses, we will bail you out.”