Economy and Jobs

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I know that I am against the clock, so I will be as quick as possible, but I want first to thank all Members who have taken part today. In particular, I thank those who have given their maiden speeches: my hon. Friends the Members for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) and for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Gerard Killen), and the hon. Members for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) and for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). I know that they will make their mark on this place over the years to come.

The Queen’s Speech was sadly threadbare, evading all substantial questions of policy and doing nothing to undo the failed economic policies of the past. Lest we forget, this was the Government who told us seven years ago that we were all in this together—that unleashing excruciating financial pain upon people, public services and businesses, and allowing our once proud industrial communities to be sent into managed decline, while slashing taxes for the wealthiest, was a necessary evil and that we would all be better off in the end. However, we now live in a Britain where the top fifth receive 40% of total income, while the poorest fifth earn only 8%—a Britain reliant on foodbanks and, as the Bank of England cites, with “worrying levels of rapid consumer credit growth” among those borrowing simply to make ends meet, and it is set to get worse. As we have heard from the IFS,

“earnings will be no higher in 2022 than they were in 2007”,

based on current forecasts.

The UK has one of the highest levels of regional inequality in Europe. Fifty-four per cent of future transport spending is due to take place in London, by comparison with the north-east, which will receive only 1.8%, and the picture is no better when we look at income inequality. For example, people in London earn £134 more a week than those in Yorkshire. So what have the Government set out to rebuild our fractured economy? Their industrial strategy Green Paper was criticised by the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy this year, which stated that it lacked clarity and political will. Sadly, the Government compounded such criticism by simply inserting the abstract words “industrial strategy” in the Queen’s Speech, like some sort of game of rhetoric bingo.

The Queen’s Speech went on to state that the Government

“will work to attract investment in infrastructure”.

Again, there were no details. I am afraid that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy might be in for a shock, as the Governor of the Bank of England stated yesterday that Britain has experienced the

“weakest…business investment in half a century”.

Frankly, it is not surprising, when the Government have done little to foster a fertile business environment. Simply slashing the headline rate of corporation tax alone does not constitute creating a good business environment. Businesses need high-quality infrastructure, both physical and digital, but public investment has been woeful.

Businesses also need a highly skilled workforce, but the Government have cut real-terms school funding, scrapped the education maintenance allowance and imposed huge cuts to further education funding over the past seven years. Businesses also need long-term stability, not huge hikes in business rates—relief for which has still not materialised, months after the event—or what is, quite frankly, a reckless and dangerous approach to leaving the EU. It is perhaps no surprise, therefore, that the letter of support for the Conservative party from business that usually materialises a few days before polling day did not materialise this year.

Vaguer still was the notion that ministers will

“seek to enhance rights…in the…workplace.”

This Government have eroded workers’ rights over the last seven years, with the TUC stating that the number of those in insecure work has risen by 27% in the last five years. If the Government were really serious about improving workers’ rights, they would ban zero-hours contracts, repeal the Trade Union Act 2016 and abolish employment tribunal fees.

Even more vague is the position on energy prices, as illustrated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). Staggeringly, in one of the richest nations in the world, we have over 4 million people living in fuel poverty, so I was pleasantly surprised when the Prime Minister called for Labour’s energy price cap to be implemented. This was from a party that scoffed in 2015 that the policy was from a “Marxist universe”, so even I was flabbergasted by this apparent damascene conversion. The Queen’s Speech, however, was completely silent on that commitment, amid reports that senior Cabinet members and the big six energy companies were lobbying for the price cap to be dropped.

Britain stands at a crossroads, and Members of this House have a grave choice to make. Do they choose the Government’s path, which leads to more economic stagnation, falling wages, deindustrialisation and people being held back by economic insecurity at work and at home, or do they choose Labour’s amendment, which sets out the change that Britain needs? That is a path that would rebuild and transform the British economy with an industrial strategy that would invest in regions and nations, and would provide the support that businesses desperately crave. It is a path that recognises that redistribution is not enough, and that job quality and work satisfaction also matter. However, it is a path that the Government refuse to take, and, as they hang on to office precariously by the tips of their fingernails, they are quite simply standing in the way of a fairer, richer Britain.