Debate on the Address

Mel Stride Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wright]

I use the phrase “getting into bed with the Tories” not because it is of my own making, but after speaking to my constituents and people elsewhere who were thinking about voting Liberal Democrat, who might have fallen out of love with Labour following the 2005 general election and who wanted to consider something else in 2010, but who now feel let down and betrayed. That is the scale of the challenge that the hon. Gentleman’s party faces with regard to reinvigorating the trust of the people.

Almost the first words that Her Majesty said in her speech today were:

“My Ministers’ first priority will be to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability.”

Those words were almost identical to the ones that the Queen uttered in the first Session of this Parliament, two years ago, when she stated:

“The first priority is to reduce the deficit and restore economic growth.”

In the intervening two years, the Government have done little that they set themselves on both counts. They have had to borrow about £150 billion more than they originally forecast back in 2010, and they have failed to deal effectively with the deficit and to restore economic growth, because they have focused exclusively—some might say almost obsessively—on the former, reducing the deficit, instead of giving sufficient priority to the latter, economic growth. It should not be an either/or game. Tax revenues are lower because of weak demand and reduced consumer spending, while expenditure is rising because of the need to pay out more in unemployment benefits. The British economy is now in a more perilous state than when the Government took office two years ago.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor will trot out the excuse of the difficulties experienced in the eurozone, and there is some truth in that, but they cannot escape the fact that the retreat into recession has been caused almost directly by their actions and policies. We are experiencing this country’s longest downturn since the 1920s. Britain is emerging from the deep global recession of 2008-09 more slowly than from previous recessions and, crucially, more slowly than our main economic competitors, meaning that our rivals in the global marketplace are stealing a march on us. The actions of this Government today are compromising our competitiveness in the global economy of tomorrow.

The US economy grew by 3% in the last quarter of 2011 and by 2.2% in the first quarter of this year. Alongside Greece and Italy, Spain is generally—almost universally—acknowledged to be one of the economic basket cases of the eurozone, but even the Spanish economy grew more in 2011 than Britain’s. Today’s publication of UK retail figures, which show a 3.3% fall year on year—the largest fall in more than a year—demonstrates the general weakness of the economy, the lack of demand and the fragility of consumer confidence.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman congratulate the Government on maintaining our triple A credit rating status and acknowledge the fact that we have among the lowest long-term interest rates in the world at the moment? That is a major achievement.

[Mr Wright]

We do have those things, but we have no growth. I fear that the rehashing of phrases in the Gracious Speech today—often word-for-word repeats of what was said in 2010—will mean that the Government will continue to insist on economic policies that consign the country to a decade of stagnation, anaemic growth, mass unemployment and rising social division.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

What I am suggesting is that if the Government were serious about economic growth and promoting the conditions for competitiveness and enterprise, they would be doing a lot more to stimulate growth and job creation. For example, they could have announced a British investment bank Bill, which would have provided a clear and welcome acknowledgement that active partnership between Government and productive businesses will allow the state to ensure that growth capital is provided to the small and medium-sized businesses that need it, for which the market has failed.

Active partnership between Government and businesses can work. Successful modern economies such as Singapore and Germany do it, and their economies will see long-term, sustainable business success and economic growth as a result. Even the US, supposedly the most free market economy on earth, does it; we saw the likes of fast-growing young companies such as Apple and Intel receive growth funding through the US Government’s small business investment company programme. On the subject of active government in the US, why did not the Gracious Speech include the British equivalent of President Obama’s Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which is designed to increase the number of jobs and to kick-start initial public offerings for companies and ensure that they have access to finance for growth? We should be doing the same here.

[Mel Stride]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that according to Companies House there were more new business start-ups in the last quarter than at any time since this Government came to office?

[Mr Wright]

You will never hear from me, Mr Deputy Speaker, any criticism of trying to get as many start-ups as possible. I would welcome a culture of enterprise and allowing businesses to grow, but firms that are starting up are being penalised by not being given access to finance and capital to allow them to do so.

The Gracious Speech referred to the introduction of

“legislation to reform competition law to promote enterprise and fair markets.”

I hope that the Government will confirm that that Bill will contain measures to curb excessive executive remuneration and encourage increased shareholder activism, as that was not specifically mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. I also hope that they will legislate to implement all—I emphasise all—the sensible and widely accepted recommendations of the High Pay Commission earlier this year on matters such as simplification of executive remuneration, standardisation of reporting to ensure that meaningful comparisons can take place, and, importantly, the inclusion of employee representation on remuneration committees. Recent events at the likes of UBS, Trinity Mirror, Barclays, AstraZeneca and Aviva have shown that there is shareholder appetite for ensuring that poor performance is not rewarded through excessive pay. I hope that the High Pay Commission’s recommendations will be implemented in full.

I hope that the reference in the Queen’s Speech to “repealing unnecessary legislation” will not mean stripping away workers’ rights. Making it easier to fire people does not create jobs, employment or economic growth; instead, such an environment creates a Victorian-mill-owner culture of bad bosses being accepted and enshrined in legislation. It will do nothing to stimulate consumer confidence or growth in demand, which are so very vital. It is also wrong to suggest that the level of employment protection and rises in unemployment are closely correlated, as David Blanchflower points out in his article in The Independent today. He argues that Germany and the Netherlands have much higher levels of employment protection than the UK but experienced a much smaller rise in unemployment during the recession and its aftermath.