amendment of the law

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

This is the third day of the Budget debate that I have sat through, and I surely cannot be the only one who is finding it incredibly depressing. Too often in this House, we pretend that the reality is either black or white, but people outside this place know full well that real life is much more complex than that. I want to say from the outset that of course the last Government made mistakes. It is right that my party should and does acknowledge those mistakes. It is also right that Government Members should acknowledge that when my party was making some of those mistakes, they did not just agree with us, but were urging us to go further.

The Secretary of State expressed dismay that we were not talking about the fall in unemployment. He is no longer here, but I wanted to say to him that of course I welcome the fall in the unemployment figures. Unemployment is a tragedy that affects not just individuals, but entire families and communities. I know that only too well from my constituency of Wigan.

Although I welcome any fall in the unemployment figures, we should not pretend for one moment that that is where the picture ends and that, as a consequence, life for people outside this place is rosy and is getting much better. The fall in the headline unemployment figures masks a much more complicated picture for many people, including many of those whom I represent. It masks a sharp rise in under employment, which has been a feature of the economic recovery. It masks particular problems for women and young people, especially in relation to long-term unemployment.

Many people in the workplace not only have low wages, but face extreme job insecurity. When we talk about the strivers and the shirkers or, to use the Chancellor’s new language, the doers, we need to remember that the people we are labelling doers or strivers today might be labelled something much more offensive tomorrow, because many people are moving in and out of insecure, low-paid jobs at an alarming rate. To label people strivers or shirkers depending on which day we happen to catch them is not just offensive, but utterly stupid. In parts of the country such as mine, a combination of those factors —low pay, job insecurity and long-term unemployment among particular groups—contributes to the entrenched problems that we face. I am concerned that the Budget has very little to say to those people, and the Chancellor has had little to say about the problems.

In the brief time available to me, I shall outline a few of the major problems that we have and some of the things we could do about them. First, we have seen over recent years that, as has been the case in every major recession in history, Government intervention increases growth. For four years I have sat in the Chamber and listened to the Chancellor delivering Budgets. Over that time his language has not changed, but slowly, gradually I have heard the policies change slightly. The changes have been too small and too late, but in recent years I have heard him talking about the need to build houses, Government investment in mending roads, and underwriting exports. If only we had been talking about that four years ago, what would we have seen?

The public and the private sectors are not separate; they are heavily interdependent. In my constituency, which is a good case in point, many people are employed in the public sector, and every time they go out and spend in local shops, those small businesses get a boost and they are able to keep the staff they have and employ more people. We have to understand the role of Government if we are to get out of the present mess. I am concerned that small businesses are not getting the support they need and deserve. When I talked to small business people in my constituency after the Budget, they said that they are still struggling to get lending—net lending to small and medium-sized enterprises continues to fall—and that business rates are crippling. Although there were measures in the Budget to help larger businesses, SMEs need help now as they are some of the biggest employers in this country.

The Government need to take seriously the issue of underemployment. If the people on low and middle incomes do not have enough money to make ends meet at the end of the week, they cannot go out and spend in local shops and businesses, and areas such as mine will continue to sink under the weight of unemployment and all the other challenges we face.

I pay tribute to people at this time. One Government Member said that doom and gloom does not chime with the public mood. I believe that. People are experiencing horrendous problems, yet they are still optimistic, they are volunteering and they are trying everything they can to make their communities work.

One thing we need to understand is that subsidies do work. I have heard too many Government Members, including the Secretary of State, saying that they do not. Youth unemployment is our biggest and most urgent national challenge. I see young people losing confidence by the day because they are unable to get a job. Many of them are the first in their families to go to university and they are now competing with 16-year-olds for jobs that they could have done years earlier. If young people get a job and remain in it for long enough, they get the skills and the confidence and they are worth it to their employers, and those jobs persist. That is why the Conservatives should not rubbish Labour’s youth jobs guarantee. That is the way to get young people on to the ladder and out of the revolving door of apprenticeships and unpaid work.

Over the past four years the richest 10% have indeed paid a price as a result of Budgets, but the poorest 10% have come off second worst. When we look at where the economic burden has fallen, it makes no economic sense. Every pound that goes into the pocket of one of my constituents who does not earn very much money at all goes straight back out into the local economy, boosting jobs and boosting the economy.

Finally, the benefits cap does nothing to deal with the real structural challenges that we face. We need to have an urgent debate about how to deal with entrenched problems such as child poverty—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Time is up. I call Guto Bebb.