Jobs and Growth

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

I will make some progress before giving way again. A year ago we warned that a global hurricane was brewing and that it was exactly the wrong time to rip out the foundations of the house here in Britain.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Will the shadow Chancellor name one country that has managed to get out of recession without growth?

[Ed Balls]

By definition, it is impossible to get out of recession without growth, which is why in the past nine months we have seen no growth at all. We were told we were out of the danger zone, but we do not hear that very often now.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

I welcome this opportunity to discuss the very difficult economic situation that this country and the rest of the western world face at the moment. After that vaudeville act, I am trying to remember whether the shadow Chancellor actually set out the five-point plan. He did not actually go through it, so we will go through it for him.

Of course, the concern of everyone here is to see growth, support jobs and get Britain through this debt storm; that is what we are talking about and working on. As this is an Opposition day, however, before I turn to what the Government are doing it is worth considering what the Opposition propose, and what the shadow Chancellor did and did not say. We should consider what his political friends, as well as his political opponents, are saying about him.

The right hon. Gentleman dismissed the intervention by one of my hon. Friends about Charles Clarke—[Interruption.] Well, there you go. It was not picked up by the microphones, but the shadow Chancellor just dismissively said, “Charles Clarke!” The Opposition dismiss everyone with whom they served in government. They boo their ex-Prime Ministers, they dismiss their ex-Ministers. Here is what the man who was the Labour Home Secretary said, not weeks ago but yesterday:

“I think the Labour conference failed to come across strongly with an alternative to what the Government is doing. I think the economic proposition that Labour puts at the moment is unconvincing…we are simply dismissed by most people thinking about the most central question facing the country today, which is the economy.”

That is the verdict not of the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats or anyone else but of former members of the Labour Cabinet.

If we want to know why the shadow Chancellor is failing to convince the country, let alone his own party, of why he has not come forward with a convincing alternative, I suggest that we focus on three things that were not in his speech. I will cover each in turn. First, there was absolutely no plan to deal with the deficit. There was a not a single suggestion of how public expenditure could be saved. Let us remember what he said—

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Will the Chancellor give way?

[Mr Osborne]

I will in a moment, because perhaps the hon. Gentleman can respond to this point.

The shadow Chancellor said, when we debated the matter in August, that he would set out

“a tough, medium-term plan to get our deficit down”.—[Official Report, 11 August 2011; Vol. 531, c. 1110.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Osborne]

I will take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention in a second.

Last week, the Opposition tabled an amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill that would have cost this country £11 billion. That one amendment on one day in this House of Commons shows how completely incredible they are.

[Mr Watts]

The IMF is changing its policy and calling for a plan B, as is business, the general public and everybody else. When will the Chancellor introduce a policy that will deliver growth?

[Mr Osborne]

The policies that we have set out deliver the low interest rates that are essential for economic growth.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The previous Chancellor’s memoirs reveal the very divisive role that the shadow Chancellor played in stopping the previous Labour Government coming up with a coherent economic policy and a credible economic plan, and even in stopping Nos. 10 and 11 talking to each other.

[Mr Watts]

Will the Chancellor tell the House what level of growth he inherited and what it is now?

[Mr Osborne]

I shall tell the hon. Gentleman what I inherited as Chancellor and what this country inherited from the previous Government: we inherited the second deepest recession in the entire world. The hon. Gentleman talks about GDP, but we had the biggest fall in GDP of any country in the world with the sole exception of Japan.