Budget Resolutions

Debate between John McDonnell and Marcus Jones

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

We are currently seeing local councils—the first wave has been Conservative—virtually going into administration. That must say something about the impact of a 50% cut in local government funding over the last eight years.

People no longer accept the trickle-down economics that has gripped the Tory party for four decades.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[John McDonnell]

I will in due course. The Parliamentary Private Secretary has done his job and handed out the briefings and questions to everyone. I respect the hon. Gentleman for his diligence and I will allow some interventions but, to be frank, people out there are fed up with parliamentary banter and want a debate that reflects the real world.

People no longer accept the trickle-down economics that has gripped the Tory party for four decades—the idea that somehow if we cut taxes for the rich and the corporations, this wealth will trickle down to everybody. They no longer accept “public sector bad, private sector good”. They no longer accept privatisation and deregulation; in fact, those are anathema to most people now. What was surprising yesterday was how lacking in self-awareness the Chancellor and his colleagues were and how out of touch they were with the reality of our people’s day-to-day lives. His speech reflected how ideologically crushed the Tories are. They are so bereft of ideas that the Chancellor yesterday, in a major parliamentary speech, was reduced to toilet gags. They are so bereft of ideas that they made a pathetic attempt to imitate Labour policies.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his generosity. Is the new economic model that Labour is proposing the same one that left 500,000 more people unemployed in 1979 and 450,000 more people unemployed in 2010 than when it came to office?

[John McDonnell]

A former Local Government Minister gets to his feet in this House and does not express a word of apology for what the Government have done to local government.

For some time, I have had concerns about the nature of the whole debate on austerity. First, many—I accept not all—in the Conservative party seem to have no appreciation of what austerity has meant and continues to mean for our society. I thought at one point that that was because many Labour MPs such as me represented constituencies with a different demographic to many Conservative constituencies. I represent a working class, multicultural London constituency. Yes, it is faced with different challenges from those of leafy Surrey, for example, but most of all our constituents, wherever they are, rely on the NHS, local schools, the police and local council services, so all of us should have some idea of what the public services that support our constituents have been going through.