Mark Hendrick
Main Page: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)Department Debates - View all Mark Hendrick's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)
It is a pleasure to make a contribution to the debate on the Gracious Speech, which was delivered earlier in the week. I want to talk about the economy, particularly in relation to apprenticeships and trainees.
I intervened on the shadow Secretary of State about rebalancing the economy, and he accepted that we have to do that. He did not comment when I asked him why the previous Government reduced the 22% of GDP that came from manufacturing to 9%, and how they managed to do that. Rebalancing our economy is vital to get this country out of the financial mess we are in, because we cannot rely on the City and the service sector to pull us out. We came into government three years ago with the manufacturing sector representing, as I said, 9% of GDP. Thankfully, that proportion is now growing.
Unfortunately, we do not have enough people in this country to do the jobs that the manufacturing sector is going to need. It is anticipated that over the next 20 years the civil aerospace sector will be ordering $7 trillion to $9 trillion-worth of new aeroplanes. Many of the parts and engines for those aeroplanes are manufactured in the UK. That will almost double the aerospace industry in the UK, but as things stand we will not have the skills to deliver those products to the industry. That is a big problem.
Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman will know that Barnoldswick, which is not very far from his constituency, has a major manufacturer of aerospace blades for Rolls-Royce engines. Why do not Rolls-Royce and other similar companies working in the aerospace sector take on and train more apprentices to meet the demand he is talking about?
Gordon Birtwistle
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I was pleased to visit the Rolls-Royce training facility in Derby only a couple of weeks ago, and I was delighted to see the millions of pounds of investment being put into it. Rolls-Royce has picked up the story and is getting on with it.
There has been a lack of apprenticeships and training, certainly in engineering, in which I have been involved all my life, for the past 20 years. We cannot have someone who is an apprentice today assembling aeroplane engines tomorrow. It is a long process. The Government have started that process with the apprenticeships scheme, and over the next few years we will be able to deliver on this. It is very difficult to train apprentices to become skilled people who can deliver what is needed for $9 trillion-worth of aeroplanes over the next 20 years, but we must get on with it. Thankfully, we have made a start, although we are not moving fast enough.
We quickly need to resolve the situation with the national aerospace supply chain centre, which has been agreed by the Government but for some reason is stuck in the Whitehall mandarins division. Having been here for three years, my view of what goes on behind the scenes with the mandarins is that it seems like “Yes, Prime Minister”. I watched that series on television and thought, “No, it can’t be like that”, but actually it is. We come here and listen to all the statements about what we are doing, and then it is still being done 12 months down the line. Setting up the national aerospace supply chain centre must be a priority, and I hope that it is located at the Samlesbury site of BAE Systems. I hope that the proposed national skills centre will be set up at the same site. That centre will train 600 apprentices a year for the aerospace industry, for United Utilities, and for the shale gas industry—another industry coming through in the north-west that will need skilled people.
Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to speak about jobs and businesses, and in particular about those serious issues in our country that the Queen’s Speech has done—and will do—little to alleviate. Unemployment in Preston is currently about 7%, and a great deal of existing employment is low paid. With the measures that the Government are trying to introduce to make issues of health and safety less important and make things easier for employers, being in employment will clearly be a risky business. We recently commemorated the international recognition of workers who have lost their lives or fallen ill while in employment, yet we also have a Government who are making it more likely that employees will fall ill while in work.
At its lowest point, about 1,400 people in Preston were on jobseeker’s allowance. There are now about 4,000, which is very bad. Lots of young people are coming to my surgery complaining about being sanctioned, supposedly for not trying hard enough to find a job, but in fact very few vacancies are available in Preston. For those who are applying for jobs to be told that they are not trying hard enough is, in my view, adding insult to injury.
There are good industries—the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) mentioned aerospace, which is a good industry in north-west England, focused particularly on Lancashire. It is doing great things to train young people and get them into work. Westinghouse provides nuclear rods for the nuclear industry, but there are not enough such companies. Although I welcome the Government’s aerospace strategy and we are doing well in that area, we have unfortunately seen a gradual decline in many industries, particularly in consumer electronics and for a lot of consumer goods, and those industries and jobs have left this country to go to other shores.
The Business Secretary said that we cannot legislate our way to economic growth, but is not the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 a way of legislating to promote economic growth? We must be able to create the conditions to allow that growth, and the Business Secretary’s earlier response on the creation of more than 1 million private sector jobs was interesting. Why has that not resulted in any significant growth? He did not say—this was left to one of my colleagues—that it is because many of those jobs are low paid or part time, and that is why they are not contributing to the growth we would like to see in this country.
As we teeter, as we saw, on the brink of a triple-dip recession, let us cast our minds back to before the general election in 2010. The Labour party had a programme that would have got rid of the deficit over two terms, and halved it after the first. This Government promised to wipe out the deficit in one term. What we saw beforehand was a programme that would have benefited this country in a great way being pooh-poohed. When we said there would be a double-dip recession—[Interruption.] The Minister is chuntering from a sedentary position. If he would like to intervene, I invite him to do so.
The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)
I am grateful for this unexpected opportunity. I was pointing out that the previous Prime Minister promised the House that he had abolished boom and bust. I therefore do not understand how the hon. Gentleman can be talking about a bust, given that the previous Government eradicated the possibility of Britain ever having a bust again, according to the previous Prime Minister.
Mark Hendrick
I thank the Minister for his intervention and he will, of course, note that the last recession in 2008—[Interruption.] Again, he is chuntering from a sedentary position, but I will try to answer his question. He will remember that the economic crisis and recession in 2008 was caused by external shocks, principally starting in the US housing market where financial products were wrapped up in very unsafe debts. That caused financial contagion around the world. The recession was an international one, not a home-grown one, such as the ones under previous Conservative Governments and the coalition Government. That is how the deficit came about. In the Labour Government’s wisdom, they thought it right to bail out the banks. Otherwise, people would have gone to cash tills and no money would have come out, and there would have been no finance to keep the economy moving. They now get the blame for an international problem—the problem was not home grown, unlike the recessions under the previous Conservative Government.
The Labour Government were accused—[Interruption.] The Minister chunters again from a sedentary position, but I will let him intervene.
Mr Browne
I am grateful for a second opportunity to intervene. The previous Prime Minister did not say, “I have abolished boom and bust,” adding in brackets, “Unless there are people who lend irresponsible mortgages in the United States of America.” He said, “Labour has abolished boom and bust.” I remember sitting in the House hearing him make that boast the whole time. We now hear that boom and bust is all about international factors. Why does the Labour party not take responsibility for building up the massive deficit when it promised it had abolished boom and bust, no caveats, full stop?
Mark Hendrick
We do not need caveats. The Labour Government will not take responsibility for the housing market in the US. The Minister says that we blamed international factors, but the current Government try to blame the eurozone for the current deficit, which is absolutely ludicrous. The policies they introduced when they came to power in 2010 were such that a second dip was likely. We told them a second dip was likely, and that is what happened. We have nearly had a third dip.
The 1 million jobs in the private sector that the Government keep bragging about are low-paid jobs, many are part time, and they are doing nothing to contribute to growth in this country. As we can see, growth is flatlining.
The Government talk about the growth of more than 100,000 apprenticeships. The hon. Member for Burnley was perfectly correct on the excellent apprenticeships offered by companies such as BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and many other good companies up and down the country. When I was an apprentice—I am sure he was an apprentice in his day—apprenticeships generally took three or four years, and apprentices had to gather lots of skills and relevant qualifications. Some of the so-called apprenticeships that the Government label as such are weak and involve very little in the way of qualifications. Some apprenticeships are in things such as cake decoration or hairdressing. We need hard skills in high-tech, high added-value industries to get this country back in growth and back to being a power in the industrial world, but they are not the skills involved in what the Government label the 100,000-plus apprenticeships.
Gordon Birtwistle
Yes, I was an apprentice engineer, and apprentices then did three or four years, but I have friends who are apprentice hairdressers and a relation who was an apprentice baker. It is wrong to decry the skills available. It might not take three or four years to learn them because of technology, but people work hard for those skills and deliver a service with them afterwards.
Mark Hendrick
I would go along with that, but we are not comparing like with like. I am saying that an apprenticeship over four years that leads to a highly skilled job with well respected qualifications is very different from what is on offer. In the past, those positions have not traditionally been called apprenticeships.
Bob Stewart
I and I was born in Preston and I understand and agree that that area of Lancashire has huge potential for apprenticeships. I am sure the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) agree that we should put apprenticeships at the same level as the requirement for university education. We should have a huge drive on apprenticeships to get our young people into a qualification so that we can take advantage of the future economy of the world.
Mark Hendrick
I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman.
Taking people out of income tax is great, and we want to take people out of income tax, but how many people have lost tax credits? Many people who have been taken out of income tax will find, particularly if they have children, that they are not better off.
In the past few weeks, we have seen the Government prepared to dabble with the welfare and jobs of 3 million people by putting at risk our membership of the European Union. The Conservatives have promised to hold a referendum on renegotiating the terms of British membership. Let me be blunt: many Government Members do not want renegotiation, or the sort of renegotiation that the Prime Minister is likely to achieve—they want out. We will not know the terms of our trading relationship with the EU if we leave. We will have the same lack of benefits as Norway and Switzerland: they have no involvement or control over EU laws and directives, but are obliged to adopt them if they wish to continue to trade with the EU. We will have a referendum on the possibility of the UK leaving the EU without knowing precisely the trading or economic consequences of withdrawal. If we do leave, it will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is making his position clear, but I would be grateful if he explained where he found that figure of hundreds of thousands of lost jobs.
Mark Hendrick
Hundreds of thousands is a small percentage of the 3 million jobs tied up in our business and trade with the EU. We will not know the exact consequences of leaving, and we cannot negotiate, while we are still a member, what our trading terms with the EU would be if we left. The German and French Governments—any Government worth their salt—would not be willing to negotiate before a referendum to tell us exactly what the terms would be if we voted no.
Mark Hendrick
The 3 million figure comes from the European Commission and many other respected and independent bodies. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman, from a sedentary position, wishes to challenge that figure. Can he give me a figure and substantiate it? Voting no in the referendum will have a serious impact. We can argue about whether it will affect hundreds of thousands of jobs or up to 1 million jobs, but it will have a serious impact on employment and our ability to trade.
Many people are saying that due to globalisation we are trading more with countries such as China and India. That is welcome, but is no substitute for the market we have on our doorstep—the EU. Any future trade with the EU, should we choose to leave, will be conducted on terms dictated by the remaining members of the EU, not a British Government. That will have a big impact on jobs and a bigger impact on the prosperity of this country.
Gordon Birtwistle
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous. Does he agree with the protestations of some Members that if we pull out of Europe Mercedes will still be delighted to deal with us? My concern is whether the people of Germany will still be delighted to deal with Jaguar Land Rover when we are no longer a member and tariff barriers are introduced.
Mark Hendrick
That is right. If we left the European Union, tariff barriers, possibly quotas and all sorts of other obstacles would be placed in front of Britain, which would restrict and inhibit our trade with Europe. That could have a serious or even disastrous effect on many of the industries we rely on to provide jobs and business in this country. When we have on our own doorstep a market as big as the European Union— 500 million people—it would be folly to ignore it and to pretend that the UK can do better by going it alone.
A great deal has been said on immigration—even Labour Front Benchers have said that to some extent we got it wrong with the accession of the 10 central and eastern European countries. I disagree. Many of those people came to the UK looking for work when our economy was doing very well and the work was available; in many cases, they took work that some people in this country were not willing to take. In my constituency, there are schools and even Catholic churches that would have closed but for the arrival of many Polish and other central and eastern European families. They came and turned them into thriving communities and schools, so we now have churches occupied that had been threatened with closure.
Half those people have now returned to their country of origin, partly because they have made money and started up their own business back in those countries and partly because the job situation here is now not so good. Quite naturally, if there is not work here, they will look for work that, in many cases, might be lower paid, but is in their own country. Free movement is a benefit: people move only to where there are jobs, and the idea that everyone is coming here to scrounge off the state is untrue and an absolute disgrace—it is opportunist politicking at the least.
Mark Hendrick
That is right. If we look at the history of immigration in this country, first we have the Irish, then the West Indian immigration—
Mark Hendrick
That is going back even further. We have had successive waves of immigration to this country, and every wave has benefited this country and made it greater. One of the greatest nations on earth, the United States, is a nation of immigrants. One of the emerging nations, which will be very powerful, Brazil, is a nation of immigrants. Immigrants bring far more to any community than people could possibly believe. Scapegoating them, as some political parties are in this country, is an absolute disgrace. It is opportunism that blames the European Union for our economic woes and foreigners for the state of our public services.
Finally, I want to say something about health tourism, which is also practised by some 1 million to 2 million British people working abroad or living in other parts of Europe, many of whom come back to the UK when they need the national health service, while paying taxes and working in other countries. I have no problem with paying taxes or living in other countries, but we should look at health tourism as a whole.
To leave the EU would be to cut off our nose to spite our face. The only losers would be the UK, and that would be bad for business and bad for Britain.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
I rather enjoyed the contribution of the hon. Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick). At one stage, I think I was the only person in the Chamber listening to him, as there was a gathering around the Chair. [Interruption.] At least one other Member was listening. I found the contribution interesting; I did not agree with everything he said, but I thank him for coming along today and giving us an insight into his ideas.
I want to speak about the Queen’s Speech. The Government have made good progress in the past three years. Yes, we still have problems with our economy, but no one expected it to turn around in the time we have had so far. Nevertheless, we are fixing things, such as our welfare system, to introduce greater fairness.
We are reintroducing different tax regimes, so that fewer people in this country pay tax. We are talking about taking 2 million people across the country out of tax. In my constituency, 49,360 people will be taken out of tax. That is all good, but when we talk about immigration—which I shall come to—we should recognise that there are two stages to it: the accession of people from Europe and the rest, from outside. We have decreased immigration from outside Europe by a third. We have also cut crime by 10%, which is no mean feat either. We should also remind ourselves that we have made significant progress in cutting the Labour party’s deficit, which we inherited.
Mark Hendrick
The hon. Gentleman mentions cutting non-EU immigration by 30%. Can he tell me how many of those affected are people who would have been students, contributing to this country’s economy in cities such as Preston, in my constituency, which is dependent on foreign students for the local economy?
Dr Offord
I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman about Preston, but I can tell him about Middlesex university in my area, which is also suffering from the kind of problems he describes. I also have the National Institute for Medical Research in my constituency. It, too, has problems getting PhD students. That is why I feel that our focus has been on the wrong kind of immigrants. The problems we have in this country—those that have been raised by political parties such as the UK Independence party—are to do with EU migration. For example, Kiplings, the Indian restaurant in my constituency, has a problem getting a curry chef. The local Chinese restaurant also has a problem, because it cannot get people from outside the EU. That is a problem the Government need to face.
Let me return to the Queen’s Speech. There are some things I am very pleased about. My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) spoke eloquently about tackling antisocial behaviour in his constituency. We have a Bill to address that. I look forward to seeing the detail; my concern is that we have had many Bills to deal with antisocial behaviour, since way back when Tony Blair was Prime Minister. My feeling is that we probably need a cultural change in our society rather than more legislation. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with people’s beliefs about their responsibilities and activities in public and the way they impact on others, from simple things such as spitting in the street to putting their feet on bus seats. These are all problems that contribute to antisocial behaviour and a general sense of unease in society among those whom we live alongside.
I also look forward to the Department for Work and Pensions bringing forward its Bill to address pensions inequality. Pensioners have had a hard time in our country for many years. I look forward to seeing proposals that will make it easier for working people to contribute to their pensions, particularly as other significant changes have been made.
The final issue I am keen to address is immigration. This is a debate about jobs and business—the economy encompasses both jobs and business—and immigration, as we have heard, is a major part of that. One thing I like about the debate on the Queen’s Speech is listening to Members’ experiences in their own constituencies, which we have heard today from my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), for example. We have also heard about the experiences of the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). It is useful—not only for Members such as myself, but for Ministers too—to hear about the problems faced by Back Benchers. We have already heard that the Chancellor is listening—no doubt he was listening to the shadow Business Secretary, and I hope he is listening to me now and can hear about the problems of my constituency.
However, while I was working in my office yesterday, I heard an histrionic speech by an Opposition Member. She was talking about immigration, saying that doctors, nurses and landlords should not be Border Agency guards. There has never been a proposal for that to happen. I believe that the proposal to require landlords to check the veracity and identity of those living in their properties is a good one. I cannot speak for others, but I have rented property to Middlesex university students who were not from the EU or this country. I always made sure that I knew where they came from and that they could pay their rent. That is a sensible thing to do, and most landlords probably do it already.
We have also heard about health tourists coming to this country. We do have people coming here to seek elective or semi-elective surgery—people who might decide that they want their child born here, for instance. It is unacceptable for people to come here in the knowledge that very soon they will have a child, because it has many repercussions for this country.
Dr Offord
That is not correct. I remember the figure being bandied about a decade or so ago, when I was working at the BBC. We used regularly to fact-check such things.
In 2000, research conducted by economists at London South Bank university suggested that about 2.5 million people owed their jobs directly to exports of goods and services to countries in the European Union, and that a further 900,000 jobs had been created indirectly by trade with the continent. If we left the single market, however, Britons would not be simply thrown on the dole, for the simple reason that Britain would still be able to trade with countries in Europe even if it were not a member of the EU. I understand that 20 countries continue to do so. Switzerland and Norway, for instance, have negotiated free trade agreements with the bloc without signing up.
Mark Hendrick
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that Switzerland and Norway have to abide by all the EU regulations and directives pertaining to the single market, but have no control over or say in them because they are not EU members. While enjoying some of the benefits of being in the single market, they have none of the decision-making powers that membership of the EU confers. If we leave the EU, we will have to start from scratch, and will probably have to do exactly what Norway, in particular, is doing: accept, wholesale—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) made a 19-minute speech, and has made, I think, five interventions since then. Interventions should not be a way of making another speech. They must be short, because others wish to speak.
Rushanara Ali
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. That episode highlights the fact that the Conservative party was desperate to decontaminate its brand as the nasty party. As soon as it returned to power, all the bad old Tory habits crept in—and they are now flooding in. There is no pretence and no attempt to rebrand the party. The Conservative party stands up for millionaires and not for ordinary people or for children who live in poverty in constituencies such as mine—more than 50% of children in my constituency live in poverty, and that will get worse by 2020.
Mark Hendrick
My hon. Friend mentions those living in poverty. Given her role on the shadow Front Bench, she will be aware of the failure to include in the Queen’s Speech the Government’s promise of a law on the 0.7% commitment of gross national income. All three parties agreed to that before the general election, but the Government have failed to deliver it.
Rushanara Ali
The Government’s record in tackling poverty domestically is risible, and their inability to stick to the commitment to enshrine in law the commitment of 0.7% of GNI is deeply disappointing. I hope they will act on that. It is disappointing that the commitment was not in the Queen’s Speech, and that it was not in previous Queen’s Speeches.
I want to return to the Government’s failure to take child poverty seriously. In my constituency we also have some of the highest rates of youth and graduate unemployment. If the Government were serious about lifting families out of poverty, they would increase the number of training opportunities to help graduates into work and increase the number of apprenticeships. We have 10 young people chasing every single apprenticeship opportunity—that is completely unacceptable. The money spent on the millionaires’ tax break could have been used to create more apprenticeship opportunities. We cannot go on like this, with 1 million young people out of work.
Rushanara Ali
I am interested in hearing the Minister, if he would like to say anything.
Mark Hendrick
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given that we are debating the coalition Government’s Queen’s Speech, is it in order that only a Minister, a Parliamentary Private Secretary and a Whip are present? Not one Government Back Bencher is present for this very important debate.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Mr Hendrick, that is not a matter for the Chair. Who is in the Chamber or who answers for the Government is a matter for the Government and Government Members. You have got your point on the record, but perhaps we can now return to the debate on the Gracious Speech.
Rushanara Ali
No, I will not give way until I have finished my sentence. I will give way when I am done; then I will listen to the Secretary of State’s response.
The Secretary of State is damaging public trust in statistics—there is that old phrase about “damned lies and statistics”. That will lead to further distrust, not just of politicians such as him, but of important institutions that are there to provide independent, credible statistics. He should not be meddling with his figures. The fact that only 2% of participants in my constituency managed to get jobs through his Work programme is an absolutely appalling indictment of his performance in his role and shows his failure to get people into work. I find it deeply disappointing, because I happen to have admired his work with the Centre for Social Justice, which he set up before he got into government. Although I was a sceptic about his conversion to understanding poverty and deprivation and wanting to reform and improve society, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but no longer, because he has returned to the approach that the Conservatives have always taken and failed to do anything to give people genuine opportunities. That is summed up by his Department’s failure to get people into work in constituencies such as mine. The facts speak for themselves. I am afraid that he does not have much to offer, other than trying to rewrite statistics.
Unless the Secretary of State has something else to add, I will move on.
Rushanara Ali
The Secretary of State has forgotten, but I am happy to give way.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
As many Opposition Members have said over the last few days, in this Queen’s Speech the Government have comprehensively failed to address the real issues and the scale of the challenge facing this country. They have missed a good opportunity to set out an economic programme that can rebuild our failing economy and address the rocketing cost of living.
That is not talked about enough, because the problem is not just the fact that people cannot get jobs and are struggling to find work; it is also that even for those in work, the cost of living, with rising fuel bills, food prices and rail and bus fares, alongside what is happening in the private rented sector—I could give many more examples—is having a major impact on people’s lives, yet the Government do not seem able to act.
There is a paucity of imagination and a dearth of ideas in the Queen’s Speech. As many have said, there is a very thin legislative programme. The Queen’s Speech could have contained several measures that were floated in advance of it, such as minimum alcohol pricing, plain cigarette packaging and the lobbyist register. I am sure the reasons why they have been dropped will be revealed in time, but there does not seem to me to be any good reason.
It was also disappointing that the Queen’s Speech did not include the legislation to enshrine in law the promise made in the coalition agreement to spend 0.7% of gross national income on the aid budget. As the head of advocacy at ActionAid said:
“The aid budget is a tiny proportion of Britain’s national income. Having it enshrined in law would provide poor countries with the certainty they need to plan their development and deliver the best value for money from UK aid. A constant debate about volumes of aid is not in the interests of either donor or recipient nations and the Government should have recognised this.”
Mark Hendrick
My hon. Friend will recall that I introduced a private Member’s Bill that would have put that 0.7% of GNI commitment into statute. It was scuppered by the Government twice, which was an absolute disgrace.
Kerry McCarthy
I share my hon. Friend’s disappointment that that Bill was not supported, and I was present in the Chamber during some of the debates on it. Although the Prime Minister has said publicly that he is determined to stick to the 0.7% target, the fact that he promised legislation and has now reneged on that sends out a signal that he is not absolutely committed to it. I have heard many calls from his Back Benchers saying it is wrong to have that 0.7% target and that the money should, for example, be moved over to the Ministry of Defence and be spent on defence instead. Given those ripples of discontent emanating from the Conservative Back Benches, the Prime Minister should have nailed his colours to the mast and made it very clear that the Government were not for turning on that target.
Just before Prorogation, the Government published a draft Bill on wild animals in circuses, but that, too, was not specifically mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. Animals in circuses might sound like a trivial issue compared with big topics such as jobs and employment and getting economic growth going again. However, this omission sends out a signal about the Government’s lack of will or nerve to introduce legislation. My view is that we could deal in just a day or two with legislation to outlaw wild animals in circuses. Almost 95% of the public back a ban, and when the House debated a motion on this on 23 June 2011, the Government made concessions to a Conservative Back Bencher who was pushing the issue, and said, “Yes, we’ll bring legislation forward.” That was almost two years ago, and now we have a half-hearted measure saying, in effect, “We’re going to bring forward draft legislation because this is such a complicated issue.” There are only 20 animals left in circuses in this country, but apparently this is so complex it has to be put out in the form of draft legislation and then examined by Committee, and the Government will not be able to bring in a ban until the end of 2015. That seems absolutely laughable given that there has already been a two-year delay. Basically, we should just get on with it.
One of the Bills that I was pleased to see in the Queen’s Speech was the Mesothelioma Bill, although I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) that it is not comprehensive enough and does not deal with all the details. When I was a junior lawyer—I think that it was 25 years ago, which is quite a scary thought—I acted on one of the very first mesothelioma cases. It took us six years to get resolution. One problem was that the deceased man in question—we were acting on behalf of his widow—had worked for some very small companies. He was a central heating engineer and it was absolutely impossible to trace those companies, because they were almost one-man bands and were no longer in business. However, for a period he worked for Vauxhall Motors. The breakthrough moment came. We could not find any living witnesses who could prove that the deceased man in question had worked with asbestos at that time. Then I happened to talk to my grandfather and it turned out that my grandfather had worked with him and knew him quite well, so we came up with a witness almost by chance.
Nevertheless, it was a struggle to get that case through. At the end of the process, the man’s widow received a settlement of about £80,000, which in the late 1980s was a considerable sum. However, she said, “If I had known the pain and hassle that I’d have to go through, and the endless meetings with solicitors, I really would not have done it.” We want to ensure that other widows and other people who are suffering from mesothelioma do not have to go through that process.
The consumer rights Bill has the potential to be a very interesting and useful piece of legislation. However, it will be quite difficult to pull together all the measures needed to tackle the problems. I am very supportive of the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on secondary ticketing. I hope that the Government will listen to them and take them forward. I have talked to my hon. Friend in some detail about the research that she has done on the problem, which affects many fans and musicians alike.
We have not seen the text of the consumer rights Bill yet, but I was interested that the commentary on it says that it will help people who want to switch suppliers or make purchases via the internet or the phone. In my surgeries, many people come to me who are just banging their heads on the desk because they cannot get a company to respond. I think I spent the best part of yesterday and the day before on the phone to a particular mobile phone supplier. I am very tempted to name and shame it, given the number of times that I was told I would be called back and was not. I was then sent a text message saying, “What’s your experience of the service we’ve provided?” I could give a 10 for “excellent” and a zero for “dismal”. Every time I tried to text zero, the message would not go through. Perhaps if I had tried to text 10, the message would have gone through and the company would have said, “Thank you very much, we are happy to have been of service.”
It is so frustrating for people when they have to go through such minefields, and a lot of people end up stuck with services they do not want. There is another company I could mention on whose website it is almost impossible to find out how to go about cancelling a contract. When a caller phones up, the options are, “Press this if you want to pay your bill, press number two if you want to spend lots more money with us and number three if you want to change your address.” There is never a button with a message saying, “If you want to tell us to get lost, press this” or whatever. I am not saying that it should be compulsory for companies to have a “We want nothing more to do with you” button on their automated phone systems, but it should be made much more apparent to consumers how they can get out of such contracts. Otherwise, they are tied in for a very long time at considerable expense.
On the question of carry-over Bills, the Government have confirmed that they will carry over the Energy Bill. However, that Bill needs extensive changes to address not only the reality of rocketing fuel bills, which I have mentioned, but the issue of climate change. Again, anything on that issue is lacking in the Queen’s Speech. There is nothing to suggest that the Government want to be the greenest Government ever. There is little that will do anything to promote green investment and green jobs. That is a real missed opportunity.
I have real concerns about where the Government are going on green jobs. There was a complete shambles over feed-in tariffs, and I know from speaking to people in Bristol, where there are many companies that are involved in green technology, including research, that they do not believe that the Government are supportive enough of their efforts to make the UK, and Bristol, a real hub for that sort of work.
I have real concern about the policy on fracking. There are again suggestions in the paper today that the Government may be too close to people who have a very personal vested interest in making money out of it. In the forthcoming parliamentary Session, we need to have real scrutiny of whether fracking is the right way forward for our energy policy, taking into consideration environmental consequences such as disruption to local water supplies. There are a lot of unanswered questions about fracking, which the Government should answer before they pursue that path.
Energy bills are one of the biggest costs that families now face. A typical dual-fuel bill is now £1,420—up more than £300 since the Government came to power. The number of households living in fuel poverty is predicted to rise to 8.5 million in 2016—up from 4.75 million in 2010. The big six energy companies have rightly been accused of “cold-blooded profiteering” after figures emerged showing that they have more than doubled their retail margins over the past 18 months and are now earning a staggering average of £95 profit per household on dual-fuel bills.
In a recent debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) highlighted the case of a large supplier in south Wales, which has now increased its standing charge to £200 for both gas and electricity. That is hitting the poorest households hardest. They have to pay £200 before they use even 1 W of electricity. I hope that problem will be addressed, if not in the Energy Bill, then in the consumer rights Bill.
The thing most notably missing from the Energy Bill is a target for decarbonising electricity by 2030. By putting off the decision about decarbonisation until 2016, after the next general election, the Government are locking our economy into increasingly expensive gas, which is bad for carbon emissions and for energy bills. The Committee on Climate Change has said that the gas strategy set out by the Chancellor in December is “completely incompatible” with the UK’s legally binding carbon emissions targets, and should be “plan Z”. I wonder whether the Government have any intention of decarbonising our power sector by 2030. I also increasingly doubt their commitment to meet our legally binding carbon target of reducing our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Again, there was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to help us move towards that.
As I mentioned, the one thing that the renewable energy sector needs to enable it to create more jobs and encourage investment is confidence that the Government are committed to renewable energy and will support it over the long term. The lack of a target also puts the sector in a difficult position in that regard. It is deeply disappointing that the Government do not capitalise on a golden opportunity to drive economic growth and create jobs. A CBI report published in July showed that the UK could become a global front-runner in low carbon, adding £20 billion to annual GDP by 2015, and that a third of the UK’s economic growth from 2012 to 2013 came from green businesses. As the former Energy Minister, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), has said, extending uncertainty about that until 2016 will lead to higher capital costs and higher energy bills. That is backed by the Committee on Climate Change, which has said that
“continued reliance on unabated gas-fired generation carries the risk of electricity bills for the typical household being up to £600 higher than under a low-carbon power system over the next decades”.
In the remaining two minutes, I want to flag up what has become a topic of particular interest to me during the past year—food waste. There was an opportunity for the Government to bring forward in this Queen’ Speech measures that would tackle the issue. I was very disappointed yesterday when phase 3 of the Courtauld agreement, a Government-led commitment to reducing food and packaging waste, was announced. There is a target for retailers and manufacturers to work to reduce household food waste by just 5% by 2015, and to reduce their own waste—the waste that they create in the supply chain—by just 3%. Given rising food prices, and as people become better educated about the things that they buy, it is estimated that we will meet such targets anyway. So the target is meaningless. The Government had a real chance to push forward with measures to prevent food waste. Between 30% and 50% of edible and healthy food is wasted in this country, and half that waste is generated by the food industry. In Westminster Hall recently we heard the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), telling people how they could reduce food waste and stop throwing away food that was in their fridges. He told them not to keep bread in the fridge and offered other helpful little tips, but we need to tackle what the food industry is doing. It is the industry that should drive the level of change that is needed. If the industry will not do so and if the Courtauld commitment does not contain the targets that will make the industry act, there should be a mandatory obligation on large retailers and manufacturers to take steps to reduce their food and packaging waste. The Government could have introduced that in the Queen’s Speech but they did not.
Mr Byrne
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Looking at the Queen’s Speech, perhaps it is not a surprise that so few people in the Government party are prepared to defend it.
I shall start where my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), the shadow Business Secretary, concluded. After three wasted years, we have this year had a wasted Queen’s Speech. The task on Wednesday was simple—to give us a legislative programme as big as the challenges that face our country. What we got instead was practically nothing. It seems that this Government are incapable of proposing any ideas that they can agree on. They are a weak Government who are out of ideas, and that is why the public want them out of office. They have chosen to fight the biggest economic battle confronting this country for decades by arming themselves only with pea-shooters.
We should be clear about the task that we confront. It was set out brilliantly by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham. We have an economy that is flatlining. We have growth of just 1.8%. That is a third of the level of growth seen in the United States. Living standards are falling. The wages of our constituents have fallen by £1,700 a year since the election. Our constituents are getting poorer. GDP per capita has fallen by £1,500 since the election. Unemployment is rising and is 90,000 higher than at the election. The consequence of all this is a catastrophe for the public finances. Borrowing is now £245 billion more than forecast. Worst of all, perhaps, is what is happening to the fundamentals of our economy.
The hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) expressed some confidence that the economy is beginning to rebalance. If only. Consumer demand is flat. Business investment is stalled. We had great hopes that economic growth would come from some kind of rebalancing towards exports. As the Business Secretary said in his lengthy but rather good essay in the New Statesman not long ago, there is not necessarily a problem with global demand. The problem is that we in these islands are not tapping into that demand.
Our exchange rate has fallen by roughly 20% since 2007, but exports have grown by 1% or 2%. Once upon a time the OBR forecast that net trade would add 1.2% to GDP. Now it admits that net trade is a drag on growth, not a boost. That is a huge contrast to what we saw in the 1990s, when sterling depreciated by about 20% and exports grew by a third. If our economy is to grow at the level that the OBR forecasts it should between now and 2016-17, we need to grow exports by 45% over and above the level we saw in 2009, but we are simply not on track to deliver that change.
Mark Hendrick
I am listening with interest to my right hon. Friend’s comments on growth. Does he think, as some Government Members do, that withdrawing from the European Union is likely to increase jobs and growth in this country?
Mr Byrne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that was outlined very well in today’s newspapers by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer. At a time when we are struggling to grow our export base, why on earth would we choose voluntarily to put in jeopardy our membership of the world’s largest free trade zone?
The challenge is not simply that global demand conditions are weak—the Business Secretary said as much in his New Statesman essay—but that our exporters are losing market share. The Prime Minister is fond of telling us that we are in a global race, but the problem is that we have stalled on the starting grid. He is instead locking us into a race to the bottom, with a policy that will deliver nothing better than low growth, low skills and a low-wage future.
Those are the challenges that the Queen’s Speech should have addressed—the investment crisis on the one hand and the jobs crisis on the other—but there were big holes where the Bills on promoting investment and growing jobs should have been. Let us start with the investment crisis. The Breedon review showed some time ago that SMEs in our country confront banks that are deleveraging on a scale unseen anywhere else in Europe. The country’s investment rate is now under 15%. It is flatlining and well below the levels seen elsewhere in Europe. Business investment is £11 billion lower than it was during the peak before the crash, and there is falling investment in the venture capital industry, which is £80 million down on the latest set of figures.
Meanwhile, in corporate bank accounts cash is piling up. It is what the incoming Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has criticised in Canada as the phenomenon of “dead money”. Dead money is piling up in bank accounts in this country because the business community does not have confidence in the Government’s economic plans, yet all we got in the Queen’s Speech was a carry-over Bill on bank reform. As the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) said, that will probably not unlock the kind of business and banking investment we need. The Chair of the Treasury Committee has criticised the Bill because he found the Government’s arguments insubstantial. We did not get answers to Britain’s investment crisis in the Queen’s Speech, which is why it is such a wasted opportunity.
The wasted opportunity on jobs is perhaps more serious. Unemployment today is 90,000 higher than it was at the general election. There is simply not enough work to go around. Once upon a time we were promised a welfare revolution, and no doubt it was well intentioned, but the Work programme is not delivering for those who need jobs or those on employment and support allowance. I look forward to some reassurance from the Secretary of State when he responds. Universal credit, again, was a good idea, but if its virtues are confined to 300 citizens in Tameside, I am afraid that it will not revolutionise the back-to-work business here in Britain.
Perhaps worst of all, the Secretary of State stands before us today as a man who has failed the test he set himself in Easterhouse. Unemployment on three quarters of our worst estates is going up, not coming down, and long-term unemployment is going up on two thirds of those estates. Three years into this Parliament, that is simply not good enough, and it is not good enough that there was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to fix it.