The Economy

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) rightly set much of his speech in the international context. I want to start by doing much the same, by comparing the UK’s record with that of our fellow EU member states, particularly the unfortunately named PIGS—Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain—around the Mediterranean periphery. We have all seen or read about the extraordinary scenes in Greece in recent weeks and hours. The Greek Government debt currently has a triple C rating from Standard and Poor’s, which is as low as it can go without it effectively being a recommendation that no one should buy, whereas the UK has a triple A rating. That might surprise hon. Members given the underlying economic data on our budget deficit. Even after the difficult decisions that the coalition Government took in their first year in office, our budget deficit is currently 9% of GDP for 2011, as compared with the eurozone, where the figure is 4.3%, and Greece, whose budget deficit is lower than the United Kingdom’s, at 8.4% this year. That surprising difference in bond ratings is accounted for by the fact that people who want to lend to countries are just the same as those who want to lend to companies and individuals. They are looking for the confidence and certainty that comes when an institution that is in trouble realises that it is in trouble and takes the necessary measures to get to grips with it. That is what this coalition Government are doing.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman concerned that Ireland and Greece, the two countries with the greatest difficulties, have both gone through austerity programmes that were not enough, both had to have further bail-outs and implement more austerity programmes, and both still have difficulties? Does that not give him pause for thought about whether austerity programmes will lead to recovery?

[Stephen Williams]

I specifically mentioned Greece, and those who have been following events in Greece from afar will know that the reason why the international community is so concerned about Greece is that it has felt until recently that the Greek Government have simply not got to grips with the plan, or have announced a plan but not adhered to it. That is the key difference. This Government have announced plans—difficult plans—to deal with deficit reduction and we are sticking with them, no matter how painful they might be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I am very proud of my home city, but I hope that she will also credit Lord Heseltine. We started back in the ’80s, we saw the Albert dock and other aspects of the city transformed, and some of that continued under the previous Government, but investor confidence in the city was knocked by that legacy of the ’80s which was referred to earlier.

The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood also seemed to use marine terms, trying to suggest something about fancy yachts and the similar. The previous Government, in marine terms, were possibly the equivalent of the Titanic. People took their eye off the ball—holed by an unseen disaster, perhaps—with unintended, tragic consequences. That is the state of the economy which has been left behind, however, with tens of thousands of pounds of debt being loaded on to every child born and on to children not yet born.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) referred to the impact of the Budget last year on mothers and families, but every mother and family I know has to cope with a household budget which means that they have to try to balance the books every month. That is absolutely key.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Coffey]

No, I have already given way a couple of times to Opposition Members.

It is absolutely key to ensure that when one has already maxed out the credit card, one cannot not keep spending but has to stop and start paying it back.

Staying with the nautical terms, I recognise that it is not going to be plain sailing ahead, but I can assure members of the British public that Conservative Members will be firmly on watch. We may need to tack and jibe to reach our final destination, but that destination is fiscal sanity, a growing economy, and a prosperous working Britain. That is why I will support the amendment to the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I want to start by putting an end to the myth that the Government have no mandate for the action they have taken. [Interruption.] Already I can hear somebody saying from a sedentary position that there is no mandate. Let us look at the figures. I do not think anybody in the House would deny how unpopular the Conservative Government of 1997 were. That led to the Labour landslide. I therefore wonder how the Labour party managed to take an even lower share of the vote in 2010 than the Conservative party took in 1997.

We went into the last general election saying that we would get the budget and the deficit under control, and that we would introduce welfare reform. Everybody heard that message, not least because the Labour party kept delivering leaflets to everybody’s houses saying that we were going to do those things.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I do not dispute that the Conservative party went into the election with those things in its manifesto. The point is that the Conservative party did not secure a majority and its coalition partner went to the electorate with a completely different prospectus.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am not sure that I quite understand the hon. Lady’s point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlie Elphicke]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the U-turn she has announced.

When I intervened on the shadow Chancellor, he attacked me for opposing the weakening of our border controls. The previous Government were not well known for being strong on border security or on immigration controls, yet he criticised me for standing up and defending my constituency. Just as the motion before the House is fantasy economics, it was the shadow Chancellor’s fantasy that this Government cut our border controls. It was the previous Government who cut our border controls, such was the commitment of the previous Prime Minister to keeping our borders safe. He had the grand plan of selling off our English borders at Dover in a privatisation, so much did he care about England. In many ways, I wish that he were in the Chamber more often, rather than hidden away in Portcullis House, so that we could set forth to him our concerns about the policies he pursued. The recession and misery that have been brought upon people up and down the land by his serial mismanagement of the nation’s finances are nothing short of a disgrace.

The Labour party has gone from government to opposition, but has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. It has proposed a £13 billion unfunded VAT cut—populist but unrealistic. It has made £10 billion of welfare reform spending commitments—nice for the base of people in dependency culture, but unrealistic and unaffordable. We need to ensure that work pays.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Charlie Elphicke]

No.

We already have a situation in which our debt interest costs us £49 billion a year. We cannot afford to carry on like this. We need to get the nation’s books back into balance, and the country back under control. The Government are doing exactly that.

Let us look at the detail of the Opposition’s motion. It refers to 25,000 new affordable homes, but the reality is that in the five years of the previous Conservative Government, 34,786 affordable housing units were built on average each year, compared with 24,560 under the last Labour Government. That is a 30% fall in the amount of affordable housing built. The Labour party should not be proud of such a record, and no one reading the motion before the House can have any trust in the Labour party on the issue. The motion refers to jobs, which Labour destroyed during the latter part of their period in office.