Future Government Spending

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Adam Afriyie

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

First, may I thank the Opposition very much indeed for securing this debate? This is one of the most important issues that we need to discuss between now and 7 May. I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury team on controlling public expenditure and making progress on reducing the deficit. I do that not only as a Member of Parliament but principally as a taxpayer. I do not particularly want to see my mortgages go up because we have a Labour Government.

I first raised this issue during the 2001 general election campaign, the first of the three times that I have fought my Plymouth seat. At a meeting of the Plymouth chamber of commerce, I pointed out to then Labour MP that the then Chancellor’s Red Book clearly stipulated that the Government would be creating a structural budget deficit. My predecessor looked somewhat blankly at me and did not appear to be familiar with the Treasury’s Red Book. At the 2005 election when I talked about this again, she seemed to have become a little more familiar with the Red Book. I was told that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) always got his sums right and that I was just scaremongering. Well, I just have to ask one question: “Oh, really?”

I would like to pay tribute to Warwick Lightfoot, a very good friend of mine and a former special adviser at the Treasury. He has provided me with the intelligence and ammunition in the past 15 years to deal with these issues. Soon after my election in 2010, with his help, I submitted a paper on my thoughts about the strategic defence and security review. I made it quite clear that while I recognised the need to control the public expenditure envelope, I named my spending priorities as defence and long-term care for the elderly. Representing a naval garrison city, I have in the past five years consistently called on the Government to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. This could be achieved by taking the renewal of the nuclear deterrent out of the defence budget and returning it to the Treasury.

I am grateful that the seven Type 23 frigates that the previous Labour Government had proposed to send to Portsmouth have been returned to Plymouth, and I am delighted that HMS Protector has been sent from Portsmouth to Devonport. It is good to have another ship there.

[Adam Afriyie]

My hon. Friend is a powerful advocate for his constituents and has won some great concessions on their behalf in his time here. Does he share my concern—in a way, it is a sadness—that Labour does not seem to have learned anything in the past four or five years? It calls for more spending regardless of whether there is a budget surplus or deficit. If it continued spending as it would like, this country would be back on its knees in the blink of an eye.

[Oliver Colvile]

My hon. Friend talks the truth about the importance of our controlling public expenditure.

Over the past five years, I have worked closely with Plymouth university’s Ian Sherriff on long-term care for the elderly and combating dementia, which is something I know my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister takes very seriously. For those in our mid-50s and facing old age, the worry is that we will get dementia, so I pay tribute to the Government for implementing the vast majority of the Dilnot report. We have much further to go, but it is a start. Unfortunately, the previous Labour Government did not do much about implementing their royal commission.

Another incredibly important issue in my constituency is the rebalancing of Plymouth’s low-waged, low-skilled economy. More than 38% of people working in the city are employed by the public sector, and when I was first elected, people believed that Plymouth would be badly hit by, and vulnerable to, the cuts to public expenditure, and there was the threat of the claimant count in the city going through the roof, but I am delighted to say that under this Government the count has fallen by 42%.

The city council has criticised me for voting to control public expenditure, claiming that the Government have not invested in the south-west, but it fails to recognise that they have given Plymouth and the peninsula a city deal that, in return for £10 million, will create 10,000 new jobs. It fails to acknowledge that releasing land in South Yard will deliver a marine industry campus and create 1,200 new jobs—this would be helped significantly by an enterprise zone in South Yard as well. It fails to acknowledge that they have given us the Mayflower 2020 commemorations, which will boost the local tourist industry, and the council has disregarded the £2.6 billion investment in our dockyard, which will safeguard 4,000 new jobs, and dismissed the dualling of the A303 after the next election.

The biggest threat to my city over the next few weeks would be the return of a Labour Government, because, unfortunately, a Labour Government would never think about Plymouth—they would be much more interested in looking after Scotland at Plymouth’s expense. Following the 1997 election, when Tony Blair won his landslide, Labour had only four seats in the whole of Devon and Cornwall, meaning they did not invest in transport or skills there. I fear that Labour would put this investment into Scotland at our expense and would not deliver on Mayflower 400.

We need a stronger Navy. We need to put pressure on the Government for more funds to fix our potholes, in addition to the £9.6 million the council has been given over the past five years, and we need to restore our maritime built heritage, particularly Devonport’s north corner pontoon and sea wall. If we want to ensure that Drake’s drum does not sound, we need the Prime Minister back in No. 10 and a Conservative Chancellor making the right decisions.