Jobs and Growth

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

rose—

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

rose—

[Ed Balls]

I will give way first to the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller). We have nothing in the file for him, because unfortunately we were unable to find anything interesting that he had said during the last two years.

[Ed Balls]

The right course is to take a balanced approach that combines medium-term deficit reduction with getting jobs and growth moving. The problem with austerity is that it chokes off jobs and growth and ends up costing more in spending, more in unemployment and more in borrowing. We have set out a clear alternative. We have said “Repeat the bank bonus tax, and use the money to create jobs.” We have said “Rip up the failed national insurance cut introduced by the Chancellor, and use the money for a tax cut for small businesses.” We have said “Yes, cut VAT by £12 billion for a year to get the economy moving.” We have not said how many shovel-ready infrastructure projects can be launched, because we do not have the details.

The Prime Minister says that you cannot borrow your way out of a debt crisis, but unless you grow, your debts get bigger and your deficits get worse. That is what the Chancellor has proved over the last two years. It is not only the Labour party that is advancing that argument. Only last week, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said:

“We know that fiscal austerity holds back growth and the effects are worse in downturns... so the right pace is essential”.

Even the head of the European Central Bank is now pressing for a jobs and growth plan.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor must wake up to the fact that our economy has not grown on their watch for a year and a half. Instead of trying to divert the blame for their failure and using the eurozone as an excuse for Britain's problems, they must admit that they got it wrong—that they gave the eurozone the wrong advice—and start pushing for the right solution to the eurozone crisis. I agree that there should be a proper role for the European Central Bank and a greater emphasis on fiscal burden-sharing, but there should also be a change of course on austerity, because only a balanced plan that puts jobs and growth first will succeed in getting the deficit down. When the International Monetary Fund, the OECD, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and even the United States are urging policies for jobs and growth, this Chancellor and this Prime Minister are looking increasingly isolated and out on a limb.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Since April 2010, in my constituency the number of job vacancies has risen by 316%, the number of apprenticeships has doubled, the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants has fallen by 12%, and the number of claimants aged between 18 and 24 has fallen by 15%. Those are the facts. I understand why the right hon. Gentleman does not want to give Ministers any credit for that, but will he stop talking down the businesses and entrepreneurs in Portsmouth who have made it possible?

[Ed Balls]

I am sure that the hon. Lady and I can agree on one thing. There has been a 130% rise in long-term youth unemployment—unemployment lasting more than six months—in her constituency over the last year. [Interruption.] It is up by 129% in her constituency, and that is really worrying. Constituencies of Members on both sides of the House saw the damage done by long-term youth unemployment in the 1980s, and we should act to prevent a repeat of that rather than being complacent.