Debate on the Address

Julian Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

We want to see taxes on employment fall—that is why we have proposed a 10p tax rate to actually make work pay for people.

The shocking fact is that for the first time on record most people in poverty are in work—so much for hard work paying. None of our constituents sent us here to build such an economy. At a time when we face significant fiscal challenges into the future, it is costing the taxpayer billions of pounds. It is no wonder that people in this country do not think this House speaks for them. To show a new direction for the country, and to show that it is not just more of the same, the Queen’s Speech needs to demonstrate to all those people that it can answer their concerns.

There is a Bill in this Queen’s Speech covering employment, but the Bill we need would signal a new chapter in the battle against low pay and insecurity at work, not just business as usual. What would that involve? It would set a clear target for the minimum wage for each Parliament, whereby we raised it closer to average earnings. If someone is working regular hours for month after month, they should be entitled to a regular contract, not a zero-hours contract. If dignity in the workplace means anything, it should clearly mean that. We could make it happen in this Parliament and show the people of this country that we get what is happening, but this Queen’s Speech does not do that.

Britain, like countries all round the world, faces a huge challenge of creating the decent, middle-income jobs that we used to take for granted, and many of those jobs will be created by small businesses. There is a Bill in this Queen’s Speech on small business, but we all know—[Interruption.] A Government Member says “Hear, hear”, but we all know that we have a decades-long problem in this country of banks not serving the real economy. Companies that are desperate to expand, invest and grow cannot get the capital they need. For all the talk of reforming the banks, is there anyone who really believes the problem has been cracked, with lending to small businesses continuing to fall? The choice that we face is whether to carry on as we are, or whether we say that the banks need to change, break up the large banks so that we tackle our uncompetitive banking system and create regional banks that properly serve small business, but the Queen’s Speech does not do that.

A Queen’s Speech that was setting a new direction would also tackle another decades-long problem that has happened under Governments of both parties, and would devolve economic power from Whitehall to our great towns and cities. If I may say so, Lord Heseltine was right in his report—we do need to give our towns, cities and communities the tools to do the job. That is even more important when there is less money around. They need more powers over skills, economic development and transport, and the Government should be going much further. None of that is in the Queen’s Speech.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman rule out a jobs tax on workers in my constituency should he get into power?

[Edward Miliband]

Here we have it: the country wants answers to deeply serious questions, and what do the Government do? They get every Tory Back Bencher to read out a planted Whip’s question. I have to say it: no wonder the public hate politics, given the way Government Members behave.

The first thing this Queen’s Speech needed to do was signal a new direction in the jobs we create in this country and whether hard work pays, and it did not rise to the challenge.