Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

It is not often that those of us privileged enough to gain membership of this House witness a political statement that destroys a political philosophy. Last week, however, the Chancellor’s Budget statement did precisely that when it destroyed the philosophy of compassionate conservatism. Compassionate conservatism has been killed stone-dead and, at a stroke, the Chancellor has re-toxified the Conservative party. The nasty party is back.

We have a Chancellor who introduced a Budget last week that was morally wrong, politically stupid and economically incompetent. The Chancellor has missed every target that he has set for himself. He sets his own tests, he marks his own tests, and he then proceeds to fail every single test. This vainglorious Budget contains a clear national vision, a vision that the Government have been rolling out at speed in every policy area. It is a national vision that balances the books on the backs of the poorest and most in need. It is a vision built upon mortgage debt, hollowed-out public services, collapsing councils, decrepit adult social care, rising child poverty and defunded children’s services. It seeks as a matter of principle to strip the national health service of the funding it needs while actively misleading the public at every turn.

It is remarkable that it has taken the resignation of the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) to illustrate this flawed, nasty national vision, because we have been told for years that the right hon. Gentleman is on the right of his party, but he has outflanked his Chancellor on his left in recent days. The Chancellor has disappeared. He was unable to make his sums add up or to defend himself or explain his own incompetence. The Chancellor is in the bunker, sat in the ashes of his incinerated ambitions. He is a man who has placed his personal ambitions and the electoral calculations of the Conservative party above every single consideration for the national good.

I was a boy when the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was described by Prime Minister John Major as one of the “bastards” outside his Cabinet. Thatcherism was entering its final days back then, but it is back, making sure that austerity works for the rich while punishing the poor. Millions of people all over the country now see this Prime Minister and this Chancellor in precisely the same way as John Major saw his Maastricht rebels. The Budget fails our country, it fails my constituents and it fails every community in west Cumbria.

Before the Budget I wrote to the Chancellor setting out again what my community required from him on infrastructure, on our local NHS, on the second phase of the West Cumberland Hospital and on NHS recruitment, yet only a deafening silence followed. Thanks to our locally produced, real, long-term economic plan, established by me over 10 years ago, west Cumbria now stands on the verge of a truly transformative era. We have the opportunity to become one of the fastest growing sub-regional economies in the whole country. The single biggest private sector investment Cumbria has ever seen, in the shape of new nuclear reactors at Moorside, presents west Cumbria with remarkable opportunities. The project has taken over 10 years to reach this point and meaningful Government assistance could expedite progress.

The A595 is the main road artery in my constituency and the industrial Cumbrian coast. The road cannot cope as it is, but the increased population and works traffic resulting from Moorside will put even more pressure on it. The case for improving the road is overwhelming.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

West Cumbria is part of the north, so is there any sign of the great northern powerhouse over there? We are yet to see it over in the north-east.

[Mr Reed]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The fact is that the north will succeed despite this Government, not because of them, but we could have a whip-round to buy the Chancellor a map to explain to him where the north actually begins and ends.

My local health economy is currently engaged in the success regime process, which is already being undermined by Ministers in the Department of Health. A necessary body of work—working out how we adapt the Cumbrian health economy to best meet the needs of such a challenging geography and a dispersed population with specific needs—is becoming fatally compromised by the refusal of Ministers to listen to those who have been tasked with undertaking the success regime. To secure the outcomes and achieve the improvements that the clinicians and other experts within this process want, the system requires more resource. This is simple and obvious, and the request is being made, but the response from the Government so far has been a resounding no. Without additional resources, the success regime will fail, yet this Budget offers no help for our effort to recruit more health professionals; to finish the redevelopment of West Cumberland hospital; and to finally achieve the ambitions of everyone in Millom for our local hospital services or of the public and patients concerned about future services at Keswick, Maryport, Cockermouth and Workington hospitals.

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[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

In the time allotted, I cannot cover all the items that make up this ultra-shambles of a Budget, but I will set out a few.

The Government believe that the complete academisation of our schools by 2020 will help to address the widening gap in educational outcomes for the most disadvantaged in our schools. Yet there are many concerns about what that will mean in reality, especially for children with special educational needs and disability.

Since the publication of the Department for Education White Paper, many parents and organisations have contacted me regarding their concerns about what the proposals will mean for children with autism, dyslexia or other special educational needs or disabilities. Evidence has shown that academies have higher rates of exclusion of children with SEND, who are then pushed into local authority maintained schools. Once all schools are academies, who will take the excluded children with SEND? Those children are as worthy as any others of receiving a high-quality education, and I hope the Government will ensure that we continue to have an inclusive education system and that children with SEND are not sidelined or excluded in the fully academised school system they are creating.

Other announcements by the Chancellor failed to recognise the need for further investment in the north-east. That was seen clearly when he announced £80 million for Crossrail 2 in London and the next phase of high-speed rail—High Speed 3—which will go only as far as Leeds. Some of us live more than 100 miles further north, in the north-east, and I wait with bated breath for the day when HS4 or HS5—or will it be HS 67?—reaches us in the north-east.

The Chancellor obviously sees himself as the King in the North, with his northern powerhouse project, but he needs to realise that there is a lot more of the north before he gets to the wall—that is Hadrian’s wall, not the one in “Game of Thrones”. If he truly wants to be the King in the North, and we all know he has—or should I now say had?—ambitions for higher office, he needs to realise that there is a large section of the north between Yorkshire and Scotland called the north-east and to ensure that investment is directed to our region too.

However, there is still something the Chancellor can do now—invest in the future of the Tyne and Wear Metro. The rolling stock has not been updated in its 36-year history. However, for an estimated £400 million, a much-needed completely new fleet could be built, which would future-proof the network into the 21st century, with options for dual voltage giving it the ability to procure vehicles suitable to support future route extensions, such as the expansion into Washington via the Leamside line, for which I have campaigned for more than 10 years. That would help not only to drive economic growth, with improved connectivity to other parts of the region, but to provide the vital jobs we need through the building of the new fleet.