The Economy and Living Standards

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

The answer is no, of course we will not rule that out, because we have a clear commitment that if there is any proposal to transfer powers, we will have an in-out referendum in the next Parliament. That is our position. I gave the Chancellor the answer once, he did not listen and I gave it to him again.

Is not the reality that the Prime Minister’s attempt to appease Tory Back Benchers has failed and that it has not worked very well with the Front Benchers either? Just a few months ago, just after the Budget, the last time we had such a debate, we had read stories in the newspapers about the Education Secretary trying to undermine the leadership ambitions of the Mayor of London—it was briefed, I believe, to The Mail on Sunday at a lunch. Last week, it was the Home Secretary who was targeted by the Education Secretary, this time to The Times over lunch. The first time, the Education Secretary explained that he was tipsy. He has obviously been on the sauce again. There is a pattern here: a rival to the Chancellor tops the “ConservativeHome” leadership poll and the Education Secretary is sent out to try to stop them at all costs. Now we know that when the Chancellor and the Education Secretary have a late-night chat about the Prevent strategy, they are talking about a rather different prevent strategy from the one that we are talking about. It is pretty clear who the Chancellor has tried to prevent through all his interventions.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ed Balls]

I want to come to the Queen’s Speech, but I will give way.

[Robert Halfon]

I am grateful. If the right hon. Gentleman’s economic message is being listened to, why did the Labour vote in Harlow decline by 20% over the past two years, and why did Labour lose three council seats in safe Labour wards? Is it not because Labour betrayed the working classes and voted against our tax cuts for lower earners, our fuel duty freeze and our council tax freeze?

[Ed Balls]

I respect the hon. Gentleman and his views, but the main message of my speech so far has been a warning against complacency, and I suggest that he heeds that warning. [Interruption.] As should the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham).

As I said, the challenge that this Queen’s Speech should have risen to, but did not, is how we can ensure that we generate a secure recovery that delivers more good jobs for our country. The huge disappointment was that that was not the subject of this Queen’s Speech. We know that there is no quick fix and that we have to earn our way to rising prosperity. We cannot turn our face against change, Europe and the world, but nor can we succeed with a race to the bottom whereby British companies simply try to compete on cost and the Government see their role as simply removing regulation, undermining job security and hoping it will work. That will not generate the low and middle-income jobs that we need in the future. Our view is that we can succeed only through a race to the top, by backing innovation and investing in skills, making our economy more competitive and dynamic and earning our way to higher living standards for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Osborne]

That is what is so revealing about the Labour party’s performance in the past half hour. The shadow Chancellor started by reading out the article in the New Statesman this morning and trying his piece on new politics, but within about 10 minutes it all descended into Bullingdon club jokes, and the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) having to withdraw his comment. The shadow Chancellor then descended into the normal slapdash that we have got used to in the House. Incidentally, there is a striking echo of what went wrong with the Leader of the Opposition’s speech at the beginning of the Queen’s Speech debate. That is because he is unable to engage in the serious economic argument about what needs to happen in this country.

[Robert Halfon]

When a hard-working person in Harlow considers the economy, he will leave his house in the morning on the way to work probably knowing that his mortgage is low and fuel duty is frozen. When he gets to work he will see more people in work and more apprentices, and when he looks at his pay packet, he will see that his tax bill has been cut by hundreds of pounds.

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right. By reducing income tax and increasing the personal allowance, by freezing fuel duty—something he campaigned on powerfully in this Parliament—and above all by having an economy that creates rather than destroys jobs, we are holding out the prospect of economic security and better prosperity for our country in the decade ahead. That is what we all want to secure.