Simon Hughes
Main Page: Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)Department Debates - View all Simon Hughes's debates with the Cabinet Office
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I am grateful to be able to contribute to the debate on the Queen’s Speech, and I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright). He is always good and robust in arguing the corner for his well-respected constituency. He always makes a passionate case for the north-east, which deserves to be made. However, some of the things that he has said are unfair critiques of a Government who are trying very hard to ensure that we do not just concentrate development in the south-east, where I am an MP, and that we take out the resurrection of manufacturing to all the regions of England and to all parts of the UK.
It is absolutely right that we should ensure that places such as the north-east, which have been heavily and principally dependent on the public sector, continue to see private sector growth and development as well. There have been very good examples in the motor manufacturing industry, and in the chemicals industry in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales).
The hon. Member for Hartlepool made a plea for engineering, and I join him in making that plea, as well as echoing the comments of the proposer of the Loyal Address, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff). I have the Brunel museum in my constituency and I have always argued in this place—in your part of the world, Mr Deputy Speaker, people understand this argument very well—that unless we continue to get people in this country to make things of the highest quality, both for our own infrastructure and to sell abroad, we will not pay our way in the world. Engineering has a hugely important part to play in that process.
The contribution of the hon. Member for Hartlepool also highlighted a short but important Bill, which is the mesothelioma Bill. I have been on Committees and I have participated in debates in this House in which we have argued that people who have suffered from that particularly dangerous form of cancer, which is caused by asbestos in the workplace, should be assisted. I hope that there can be consensus across the House that we should legislate in the right way to deal with those who so far have not received the appropriate compensation. Some of them are not with us anymore, which is a tragedy, but a small group of people deserve our support and respect.
Today is the eve of VE day, and I will join others tomorrow at ceremonies in my constituency at the war memorial just beside the Imperial War museum for the annual commemoration of that important event. So it is right that, across the House today, there have also been tributes at the beginning of people’s speeches to our armed services and our armed forces. Since we met last, more people have died on active service.
I have a constituent whose company, F.A. Albin and Sons, has the contract with the Ministry of Defence to do the important but sad and difficult work of bringing home those who have lost their lives on military service around the world. I was with the head of that firm, Barry Albin-Dyer, when the message came through that three more people had lost their lives last week in Afghanistan. On behalf of my party, I want to join in the tribute that has been paid across the House to those who have continued to risk their lives in the name of our country, thank them for their service and send our commiserations, consolations and condolences to their families, comrades and friends.
There is one other group of people to whom I hope we will send our support and condolences, but also our promise of support. I have a significant Bangladeshi community in my constituency. Since we last met, there has been a terrible event in Bangladesh that has seen hundreds of people killed, thousands injured, many still missing and thousands of families affected. I hope that our country’s strong ties with Bangladesh will mean that we continue to give them all the support they need in Dhaka and beyond. I also hope that we will learn the lessons of what appear to be exploitative practices, not only by the builders in that country, but by companies who make their money out of exploiting workers in that country to sell clothes to us and other countries worldwide. I hope that we shall put the tragedy in Dhaka in the last couple of weeks to good use.
Three years ago today, on the second Wednesday of May, the coalition Government was formed. On behalf of my Liberal Democrat colleagues in Parliament, I am clear that we made the right decision to enter a coalition Government on that day and in those circumstances. We are determined, in this third Session of this fixed-term Parliament, to make the right decisions over the next year, as we have tried to make the right decisions over the first two Sessions.
It is a tribute to my colleagues, and to our coalition partners, that two parties that contest elections against each other regularly and have never regarded themselves as close mates decided, in the national interest, to work together; and with only one exception over the three years, we have both honoured the coalition agreement that we entered into and held to the terms of the agreement. I believe that is good for politics and has been good for the country. Despite all the economic and political difficulties, the coalition has held firm.
I was reminded why it was the right decision last Friday night, when I went across the river to a production in the National Theatre of “Our House”, which, for those who have not yet been—I gather some colleagues are there tonight—is a play about the Governments of the 1970s, and specifically the working of the Labour and Conservative Whips Offices during those times, with the character of my predecessor Bob Mellish, then Labour Chief Whip, playing a starring role. Anybody who has forgotten the history of how difficult it is to run a Government with a small majority or no majority should see the play before it finishes its run.
The alternative, in 2010, was either a coalition with Labour, had they been willing to make one, which would not have had a majority; a coalition with Labour and others, which still probably would not have had a majority; or a minority Conservative Government, which by definition would not have had a majority. Given the dire economic circumstances that Britain faced—the worst since the second world war—I am clear that we needed a Government with a clear majority, in order to see out a full term to seek to implement a set of policies to try to give us growth and rescue us from the dire economic situation we were in.
The 1970s were dire economically and “Our House” reminded me, and everyone else in the audience, of them. They were equally difficult in 2010, and very slowly and gradually, but surely and in the right direction, we are moving ahead. I absolutely understand and share, as a south-east London MP, the views of people such as the hon. Member for Hartlepool that the test of the Government’s success, fundamentally, is the economy and whether we get jobs and growth going in a sustained and committed way. I and my colleagues are committed to delivering that, and to delivering it over five years.
Over the past year, many of the things that matter to people like me, in an old working docks constituency, and my colleagues, have been delivered. Jobs are up. I looked at the Library’s figures as the hon. Member for Hartlepool was speaking. There are 29.7 million people aged 16 or over in employment in the last quarter for which we have figures—about the same as in the previous quarter, and up 488,000 on the previous year. That is nearly half a million. The employment rate for people aged 16 to 64 is now 71.4%—not far off the pre-recession level of 73% in March to May 2008.
Although public sector employment fell by 20,000 in the three months to December last year, to 5.72 million, or 19.2% of total employment, the number of people working in the private sector was 24 million, up 151,000 on the previous quarter—81% of total employment. We knew that there would be a contraction in public sector employment, but from the beginning the Government said we were determined to have net growth in jobs and the economy. There has been such growth; the jobs are predominantly in the private sector. That will lead the way out of the recession, and we must continue to do things such as reducing national insurance on small businesses—a measure in the Queen’s Speech to ensure that business grows and takes more people into work.
Simon Hughes
There are all sorts of reasons. The hon. Gentleman must know that the last quarter has just been on the right side of zero. Growth has been small but positive. We avoided the triple-dip recession that people were saying was likely, given the terrible winter and the dreadful weather we had. The answer is that there has been a combination of failure.
The banks failed the economy at the end of the last Labour Administration. They were not sufficiently dealt with or regulated by that Administration, and they still have not got into a position where they are lending our constituents and small businesses in the right places the money to enable them to invest. Every single colleague around the House tells tales, rightly, of how difficult it is; people come to see us and tell us that they do not get the investment.
We have not been selling enough around the world, which is one of the avenues by which we must earn our way. That is why the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Business Secretary and others have been out and about, going not just to our traditional trading partners but to the large, developing partners—Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, India, China—to develop our trade. That is why we are working very hard to get an EU-USA free trade agreement, to deliver growth.
The answer to the question is that the economy has been faulty as a result of a combination of historic and more recent factors, but the Government are seeking to do as many things as they can. Last year, the green investment bank was another initiative to get growth going in an economy in which the Energy Bill this year is likely to assist in the creation of up to 250,000 new jobs in green energy. That is really valuable and important. The hon. Member for Hartlepool called for a Bill to set up another form of investment bank. The Government have, as he knows, a plan for further investment lending to companies as well as the green investment bank, and that is welcome.
So jobs are up; apprenticeships are hugely up. The state pension is significantly up—higher than at any stage since Lloyd George introduced it. The income tax threshold is significantly up, from £6,500 more or less when we started, to nearly £9,500 this year, and next year to £10,000 before anyone pays any tax. Inflation is still low. Interest rates are very low, and that is hugely important for people with mortgages and businesses borrowing. Crime is at its lowest level for many years. Those are significant achievements, and I think we should be proud of that. It shows that many of the things that the Government have done over three years are working.
Mr Iain Wright
Given what the right hon. Gentleman has said about those “significant achievements”, do people in his constituency think they are better off now than three years ago? Does he think that living standards are rising?
Simon Hughes
No; many people’s living standards are not better than they were three years ago, but we have been dealing with what my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary calls the greatest economic heart attack we have had in his lifetime and mine. My constituents have seen, over several months, unemployment come down—not consistently, but there have been months when it has come down and youth unemployment has come down. They have seen an economy that is picking up. The construction industry in my patch is powering ahead; although I appreciate that it is not the same around the country.
But what my constituents have not yet seen, and what the Government are trying to deal with, is the inequitable opportunity and an inequitable distribution of the available wealth. One thing that the Liberal Democrats need to continue to argue for in the coalition, and which I hope the coalition will buy, is that we need to deal with the inequity in Britain whereby there are still people a mile and half from this building, in the City, and in Canary Wharf a bit further away, who have bonuses that are completely without justification, while there are many people on the minimum wage and struggling to get work. We need a redistribution of wealth—I am not ashamed to call for that—and a redistribution of the profits, and we need the banking industry to understand that it has to pay itself reasonable wages. The European Union has the right idea, in my view—not a view shared by the Chancellor—in seeking to make sure that we limit the bonuses given to people across the financial sector so that they do not, in effect, take far more than they deserve.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman talks about his passion for redistribution. It is one that I share, but can he explain why, in that case, he voted to abolish the 50p rate of tax for those who are paid £1 million and more? At the same time he voted for welfare reform and changes that are taking money from those on the very lowest incomes and from communities such as those that I represent, which are being utterly hammered, with millions of pounds being taken out of our local economy as a result. Does he consider that to be fair redistribution?
Simon Hughes
I voted for the income tax changes as a package that took many people on low and medium incomes out of tax altogether as a result of the raising of the tax threshold, and only when I was satisfied that people on very high earnings would pay more net. Yes, they had a reduction last month in their top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p in the pound, but with all the other changes that affect them they will make a bigger total contribution to the economy in tax. The hon. Lady knows what I am going to say next. I was here for all the time of the Labour Government, when for every single month apart from the last few weeks the top rate of tax was 40%—not 50%, not 45%, but 40%. The great socialist regime of Tony Blair and the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) did not deliver the great socialist nirvana, and that was the time when people in the banks were earning obscene amounts, the likes of which had never been earned before, and they were not dealt with.
On the welfare cuts, the Liberal Democrats argued strongly in the coalition that benefits should not be cut, but that with some inflation-lined exceptions there should be a limited increase this year of 1%. That is what the Government have tried to do. There are exemptions. Changes to housing benefit should not apply to any pensioner householder in the country. Some rates of increase of benefit for people with disabilities are higher than 1% to try to achieve equity. These are all attempts to deal with a welfare bill that is extremely high. It is not pleasant and I do not pretend that it is easy. We would all like to be able to give much more to people who are struggling, and I am very concerned that the bottom 20% should be the priority of this Government in their remaining two years. From the hon. Lady’s Front-Bench colleagues I have heard no answers as to how we pay our bills, deal with the fact that we are paying 120 million quid a day in interest on our debts, sustain the welfare state and encourage people back into work.
Bill Esterson
The Institute for Fiscal Studies is clear that the lowest 20% of income groups are being hammered by the Government’s various changes. How can the right hon. Gentleman justify disabled people being hit, as they have been, by a combination of the bedroom tax, the council tax localisation scheme, work capability assessments followed by their appeal, and having their benefit cut during that lengthy process?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We are now on 17 minutes. I was working on speeches lasting no longer than 16 minutes per Member.
Simon Hughes
I was conscious that I was giving way too much so I will answer that intervention very quickly and move on. Many people with disabilities have had their benefits protected. For everybody there is now a scheme that will make sure they are reassessed—fairly, we hope. The so-called bedroom tax does not apply to people who need a live-in carer and other categories have now been exempted, not least because of internal discussions in the coalition which delivered that outcome. But I am very conscious that we need to do better for the people in the bottom 20% of income. I have argued that within my own party and in the coalition and will go on arguing it. We need to end up with a much fairer society than the Conservative Government or the Labour Government left us. We are trying to make that fairer society, which for us is a priority.
The priority is to make sure that we have a strong economy and a fairer society and that everybody has the opportunity to get on as they wish. To do that, the priorities are very much the ones that the Government have enunciated. Further priorities are social and affordable housing. For many the cost of getting their own home is prohibitive and homes to rent are unavailable. We need to carry on dealing with tax avoidance and the inequalities of wealth at home, but we should not think that the solution to all our problems is to become little Englanders or little Britishers and not to see our future as being within the continent of which we are a part, where we can trade, work, gain and make progress, and within the world of which we are also part.
It is good that the Queen’s Speech makes it clear not only that we will defend people who have been loyal to us, such as Gibraltarians and Falklanders, but that at the G8 next month we will argue for a fairer world, transparency and accountability, conflict prevention and bigger efforts to bring peace to those parts of the world such as the middle east, which have suffered for too long. Abraham Lincoln said:
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other”.
The coalition is resolved to help Britain succeed and become a strong economy again, and Liberal Democrats will play their part in making sure we do that as well as possible.