The Economy

Nicholas Dakin Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), who enriched us by deploying such a rich lexicon in dissecting the motion. Indeed, this debate is, in part, about language. I began my working life as a teacher of English, and although I have moved on from that, I can still identify a good yarn when I read or hear one, and that is what the Conservatives have been spinning since the general election. They have been spinning a good yarn—a seductive fable—but in truth it is a Tory tale of woe, with brief Lib Dem notes in the appendices. Regardless of how seductive and engaging people have at times found this yarn, it is not an accurate account, because the reality is very different.

The truth is that the country is facing difficult times because there has been a global banking crisis that required strong and decisive action to avoid a global catastrophe. That action was partly led by the then Prime Minister of this country. The situation is still challenging for our economy and others across the western world, as we have heard in the debate, but we must tackle the challenge in a sensible way.

In the general election campaign, the people of this country had every opportunity to hear the different arguments about how best to tackle that challenge, and they mostly supported candidates who proposed addressing the deficit in a serious and sensible way by halving it over the lifetime of a Parliament. The electorate voted for more candidates who supported that than Conservative candidates who, quite fairly, proposed a different approach. This is in part a sorry tale, therefore, because there is no mandate for the Government position.

When Labour left office a year or so ago, the economy was starting to grow strongly: inflation had fallen, and unemployment was falling month by month. As a result, in 2009-10 the Government borrowed more than £21 billion less than had been expected. Yet a year ago today, the Chancellor announced in his Budget speech that instead of following Labour’s plan to halve the deficit over four years—the plan that had been backed by the British people through votes cast in ballot boxes only a month earlier—he would eliminate the structural deficit by the end of this Parliament. That was a reckless decision; it was a choice to go too far, too fast, and the country is now facing great difficulties as a result.

In our debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) has highlighted that figures for construction and retail sales have been falling, that the consumer prices index target rate is higher than hoped, and that VAT has stimulated inflationary pressures. We have also heard that we have flat growth and that seasonally adjusted trade figures also remain flat.

The European Commission has just published the full results of a survey that shows a high level of dissatisfaction with the Government’s laissez-faire approach to tackling unemployment. The survey’s 22,560 respondents were asked whether they agreed that the economic crisis means that we should increase public deficits to create jobs. Two third’s of the UK respondents agreed with the statement, which is a much higher proportion than in any other major western country. They agreed that there should be investment in infrastructure. The Government have pulled Building Schools for the Future and various other infrastructure programmes, which has had a devastating impact on the construction industry.

In the community I represent, which is still quite dependent on steel jobs, the collapse in demand for construction has led to Tata Steel’s announcement of 1,500 job losses in its long products business. It is not surprising that Karl-Ulrich Köhler, when he came to Scunthorpe to make that announcement, gave two reasons for the decision: the fall in demand for section steel, both globally and domestically; and the threat of carbon taxes rising in 2013.

The Government’s decisions are having an impact today and for tomorrow on British manufacturing. We need to get behind projects such as the high-speed rail endeavour, which we hope, if it goes ahead, will be built with British steel. The Government have failed to deliver on their promises to invest in the British people. They have brought severe medicine to the country, much severer than was needed. There is real danger that the country will be left in a very difficult situation, after the legacy of an improving economic situation that they were left, which should have been—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I call Dr Thérèse Coffey.