Comprehensive Spending Review

Debate between Justine Greening and Malcolm Wicks

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I was about to ask the hon. Gentleman to give way, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Government are spending slightly more on capital infrastructure than the previous Government, so heaven knows what the industry would have thought of Labour’s plans. In the next four years, we will invest more than £30 billion in transport projects, £14 billion of which will fund maintenance and investment in our railways and £10 billion of which will be spent on road, regional and local transport schemes. We have created the new green investment bank to help finance sustainable infrastructure for the future and we have launched the £1.4 billion regional growth fund, which has rightly been welcomed by my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) and for Macclesfield (David Rutley).

Even when faced with the economic problems bestowed by the Labour party, we are still investing tens of billions of pounds in Britain’s future. That goes alongside the reduction in corporation tax that we brought forward in the emergency Budget and the reduction in national insurance that we have also brought forward, scrapping the Labour party’s jobs tax. The hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) said that the spending review is not just about numbers, but I shall give her a number—400,000. That was the number of extra unemployed at the end of Labour’s time in power, but Labour still wanted to introduce the jobs tax.

The hon. Members for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) and for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) all spoke of their concerns about the spending review and the cuts, but none of them offered any alternatives. We hear about the Opposition supporting cuts, but we never find out which ones they support.

The second principle behind our decisions is to ensure fairness and make sure that those with the biggest shoulders bear the largest burden, while protecting the most vulnerable in our society. That is why the Government have restored the earnings link for the state pension and ring-fenced NHS funding. We want to give every child the best possible start in life by increasing the child tax credit for the lowest-income families and by protecting our investment in schools. There is nothing fair about not tackling the deficit and placing the millstone of debt that we currently have around the necks of our country’s 20-somethings for the future.

[Malcolm Wicks]

Is it fair that when the cuts, including those to child benefit, are analysed, time and time again those who are hit the hardest are mothers and children? Does that make sense in terms of family policy?

[Justine Greening]

I do not accept that at all. The right hon. Gentleman needs to have a chat with the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who was claiming that families on £79,000 a year are too rich to get support from the local council to access housing in London but too poor to have their child benefit withdrawn. That shows the incoherence of Labour’s policy on the economy, particularly on welfare—a budget that accounts for almost £1 in every £3 that we spend.

As my hon. Friends the Members for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) said in their powerful speeches, work simply does not pay in our welfare system. People are put on benefits with no prospect of ever being better off in work and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) pointed out, successive generations are condemned to a life of state dependency. Opposition Members might think that that is fair, but I do not. It is one reason why over the coming years and next two Parliaments the Government will introduce the universal credit—to make sure that people on welfare will always be better off by moving into work.