Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Pamela Nash and Andy Sawford

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Pamela Nash]

My hon. Friend may know that we had a similar problem in my area, north Lanarkshire, with our Tata Steel site and public sector projects, so the steel was bought from abroad.

[Andy Sawford]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The story of the decision to close the steelworks in Corby in 1980 has now come full circle and been shown to be short-sighted, given that the steel is now coming from Port Talbot. Some of Tata’s steel is now coming from abroad, because it is so difficult for it to compete in this country. I called for measures in the Budget—I spoke about this in a recent Adjournment debate—to support the steel industry in the UK in order to mitigate the impact of high energy prices around the world. The contrast between this country and others is stark and instructive of this Government’s approach. Germany, where the economy is growing—it now has more than 3% growth—has a £5 billion mitigation package for energy intensive companies, while this country has a £250 million mitigation package and we are not even clear about its details.

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[Andy Sawford]

If the hon. Gentleman is being honest, he knows that the figures that he is quoting reflect the impact of a huge global economic crash in 2008, which had a big impact on my constituency, not least because it is a manufacturing constituency. [Interruption.] The Economic Secretary is suggesting that because the figures go from 2005 to 2010, they reflect the Government’s record across the whole period. Government Members fail to say that the economy was growing for much of that time. We all acknowledge that a global crash happened in 2008 and that that caused unemployment. The critical thing is what we do about it.

[Pamela Nash]

Is the key point not that unemployment in this country is now higher than when the Government took office?

[Andy Sawford]

My hon. Friend is right. Of course, unemployment is also higher in Corby. My constituents will think that Government Members have a cheek to raise those figures in the way they have today.

My constituents will be appalled by the comments of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) and others, who have told them to stop whingeing and moaning. They are talking about people who are trying desperately to find work and whose situation has been made worse, not better, by this Government. The Tories do not understand the lives of those people. They do not understand the margins of the labour market or the margins that many of the poorest in our society live on. They understand the marginal impact of their millionaires’ tax cut, which is about £100,000—after all, many of them will get it—but they do not understand the marginal impact of their policies on people who have very little to live on. Fourteen pounds may be half a bottle of claret to the Chancellor, but for people in my constituency, it means choices about food, heating, fuel and new shoes for the kids.

The Government’s Budget was a chance to get back on track after three wasted years in which the UK went back into recession and lost its credit rating. The best that the Chancellor could do was to say that he hoped that we would not have another quarter of negative growth. He has his fingers crossed that he does not become the triple-dip Chancellor. Borrowing is going up not just this year, but next year and the year after. We are now told that there will be deeper cuts to services and the living standards of people in this country. While George and his friends get a tax cut, my constituents are told that things will get worse. Since the Chancellor’s spending review in 2010, the UK has been 18th out of the G20 countries in terms of growth. It is worse than the USA, Germany, France and Turkey, but the Government refuse to change course and recognise that we will get on track only if we get our economy growing.

I was incredibly disappointed that in the Finance Bill the Government rejected our proposals to use the 4G receipts to fund house building, for a proper tax on bankers’ bonuses to fund a jobs guarantee for young people and to bring forward infrastructure investment. Only 14% of the 576 projects in the Government’s national infrastructure plan have started.

In their first three years, the Government spent £12.8 billion less on infrastructure than the previous Government had planned to spend. The Chancellor has been told by the International Monetary Fund, the CBI, Sir John Armitt, some of his Back Benchers and Lord Heseltine that the Government should boost the economy with greater infrastructure spending. They make announcements such as that about the A14—part of which runs through my constituency—which is now not set to start until 2018. The electrification of east midlands trains to Corby was announced with great fanfare. What will fund it? It is the same amount of money in the next Parliament that the Government cut from what we would have spent on infrastructure in this Parliament to upgrade our railways.

In the previous Government’s plan for 2012-13, we were due to spend £48.4 billion this year on infrastructure. This Government say they will spend £41.7 billion on infrastructure. We were planning to halve the deficit during this Parliament, but this Government said that they wanted to go further and eliminate the structural deficit. What is the effect of that? They are spending £13 billion less on infrastructure—precisely what we need to get our economy growing—and £13 billion more on social security. It all sounds familiar to people in my constituency who remember that when Margaret Thatcher, the architect of this kind of trickle-down Reaganomics, came to office, 2 million people were on out-of-work benefits. When she left office, 6 million people were on out-of-work benefits and we see it all again. The rich are getting richer, the poor poorer, and many are paying the price of economic and social failure. Meanwhile, in countries such as America, which should be instructive to the Government if only they would raise their sights, the stimulus has been maintained and there has been growth of more than 4%.

What do I want now? If the Government will not listen to my hon. Friends as they present the way forward for our economy nationally, I want action locally. The south east midlands local enterprise partnership bid in my constituency is focused on housing, and at last money from the Government’s Get Britain Building fund has gone to meet some of the infrastructure gap, particularly as the council and others have had to renegotiate section 106 agreements, which became too expensive for developers to move forward. After three years, some of that money has just begun to trickle to my constituency. If the Government support the SEMLEP bid, there is a real opportunity to substantially reduce the gap in budgets for infrastructure, which we need now that we are renegotiating the section 106 agreements. We are not asking for additional money; we are asking for flexibility such as an increase in the borrowing cap.

I want help for local firms—I mentioned Tata Steel and I have invited the Minister to come and help—and I want targeted help for young unemployed people in my constituency. The City Minister, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), for whom I have a great deal of time, has shown that, relative to his colleagues across Government, he is willing to take action and listen to local areas. He has taken action in cities around the UK to help fund social innovation. I would like the Government to talk to people in Corby about how we can help young people in the most difficult place in the country in which to get back to work.

I hope that the Government will listen and stop telling my constituents to stop whingeing. They must stop stigmatising those most affected by their wasted three years, and stop trying to divide people at a time when we need the country to come together with a Government who are backing our workers and businesses to get Britain growing again.