Pensions Bill [Lords]

Debate between Nick Boles and Sheila Gilmore

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

No, I will not give way for the moment; I am in the middle of replying to the previous intervention. The Opposition are perpetrating the grand deceit that there is anything fair about pretending to the British people that this country is not poorer than it was; that it is not permanently poorer than we thought we would be in each of the next 20 years.

The point about what happened in the past three years is that the economy suffered a permanent drop. We can grow again from that drop—we can again achieve higher living standards—but we will never have back the growth that we lost in the past 10 years, and it is not fair to anyone to argue that this or any Government can proceed as if no sacrifices need to be made, no losses need to be felt and there can be an entirely victimless process of recovering from the terrible economic situation that the Government of the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) helped to create.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Is the hon. Gentleman not perpetrating the debating technique of erecting a straw man in order to knock him down? Perhaps he would like to consider the terms of the Bill that we are discussing.

[Nick Boles]

I thank the hon. Lady, but I fear that this man is a lot more substantial than just straw—even if the Leader of the Opposition sometimes appears to be exactly the straw man she refers to. The entire membership of the Labour party is signed up to the deceitful argument that we can correct this budget deficit, restore sustainability to our public finances and rescue this country from decline without taking painful decisions that cause people loss. That very same argument has been made in every single one of these debates—in the debates about education maintenance allowance, about tuition fees and about all the other benefit changes. We are hearing that argument here again tonight. This is not really an argument about pensions, but one about the future of this country, and the argument used by the Opposition is always exactly the same.