The Economy and Living Standards

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, of course I acknowledge that, but the point I want to make is that it is by concentrating on the economy during the last year of this Government that we will establish our credibility as a party of government. What worries me is that although there is so much in this Queen’s Speech that is excellent, especially the Bill dealing with pensions, we still sometimes forget the essential lesson that, as a Conservative party and a Conservative Government, where we do conservative things and address the economy in a conservative way, we win. Where we indulge in modernising gimmicks, we stumble and start to lose. Sometimes, we forget that. When we do conservative things, such as cutting the deficit, introducing a benefit cap and attempting—not enough—to deal with immigration, we win.

I am still worried about a couple of things in the Queen’s Speech. Is it really essential, when we are trying to address record spending and difficulties in the economy, to start talking about eradicating plastic bags in supermarkets? Is that a priority? Is it essential to start talking about the recall of MPs? It may at first sight be populist and popular, but it is very difficult to administer and probably will not solve any problems. For centuries, rogue MPs have consistently been kicked out of this place, so let us concentrate on the economy.

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

By modernising, which the hon. Gentleman is very much against, does he mean reneging on the pledge to commit 0.7% of the gross national product to international aid, which was a manifesto promise of the three major parties in this country?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is a manifesto promise. My views on that are well known. I have two daughters working in international development in Africa, and I am proud of the efforts that we have made on international aid. I am totally committed to spending properly on international aid, but the Department for International Development, like every other Department, must spend what we can afford to spend and what we need to spend. Frankly, it is somewhat economically illiterate to insist by legislation or by other means that a Department sets a fixed percentage of GNP on aid, health or anything else. What happens if there is a recession and the economy contracts? We could end up spending less on aid. I have consistently made that argument, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

My point is that we must concentrate on the economy. We still face enormous challenges. It is very difficult to get to grips with some of these challenges while we are in a coalition Government. A lot has been made of immigration in this debate. The truth is that we have made a mistake—the shadow Chancellor was generous enough in response to my intervention to accept that—in allowing such high immigration from eastern Europe. We all accept that, especially when economies diverge so greatly, as happens between Bulgaria and Romania and ours. It cannot be accepted in the long term that there should be an untrammelled right of immigration from poorly performing economies to our own. We just have to accept that. Therefore, the European Union rules on this must be reformed. I should like to see legislation put in place, but it will not be possible while we are in a coalition.

We also have to address the problem of the referendum. The British people deserve a referendum. Nobody under the age of 55 has been given a referendum. It is virtually impossible to get a referendum Bill through via the private Member’s procedure. The referendum Bill should be in the Queen’s Speech. It should be a Government Bill. I say to my hon. Friends the Liberal Democrats, who are sitting in front of me, that they cannot deny the right of the British people to have a choice.

We need to address the concept of human rights. I am a great supporter of the Council of Europe and all its work; I am a member of it. The fact is that we cannot continue to have a proactive European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which is defeating the efforts of the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), and many others to deal with terrorism. There is much more that we need to do, which is why, for all that the coalition has achieved, we must get a clear result at the next general election. I hope from the bottom of my heart that it is a Conservative victory, so that we can address the very serious problems that still afflict our nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

An economic recovery for whom? My constituents still struggle. Many are on part-time hours or zero-hours contracts, and those who are in work see their wages stagnating. The Prime Minister wants people to believe that the economy has picked up, but that is not the experience of many of my constituents. Many still feel the pressure and worry about their future and job security.

Recent updated statistics from the Office for National Statistics found that there are 1.4 million zero-hours jobs in the UK, even though Ministers claimed as recently as September last year that there were just 250,000. The ONS also found that in a further 1.3 million contracts, employees were given no hours at all during a sample two-week period.

Wages for my constituents in Preston remain below the north-west and UK averages. The average weekly wage in Preston in 2013 was £370—£110 less than the north-west average and £150 less than the average in the rest of the UK. The latest figures show that UK-wide pay growth has slumped to 0.7%, which is sharply down from 1.7% last month and well below inflation, at 1.8%. The Government need to raise the minimum wage and introduce the living wage. I am proud that Preston city council was one of the first councils in the country to implement the living wage, from the beginning of September 2011.

The standard of living for my constituents in Preston and many others in the north-west has not improved under this Conservative-led Government. Child poverty is above the national and regional average, at 28.7%. Life expectancy in the north-west is below the national average. For men it is 77.4 and for women it is 81.5, compared with 80 for men in the south-east and 83.8 for women. There are 2,295 people in Preston—around 5%—claiming jobseeker’s allowance. In Preston and elsewhere, there are huge amounts of hidden unemployment, among people who have received sanctions on their benefit claims and also those who have been claiming for over six months who happen to be married to someone who is in work. Although unemployment figures have dropped, the number of people on part-time or zero-hours contracts is at an all-time high, while 17.8% of children in the north-west live in workless households.

In the Queen’s Speech, the Government pledged to increase apprenticeship places to 2 million, but as I have argued in the past, they cannot say what type of apprenticeships they will be. Unskilled jobs such as stacking shelves in the local supermarket are of course welcome, but they are not replacements for good, high quality apprenticeships that give high training and added value in industry, such as at BAE Systems, which is near my constituency and has excellent training, or Westinghouse, another major company that also provides excellent training.

This Government have promised a great deal; they have delivered very little. The Queen’s Speech is a shadow of what it should have been if the Government were genuinely ambitious for the people of this country.