The Economy and Living Standards

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Chris Leslie

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

That is why we want to see the full detail of the advice and guidance that need to be put in place. The Government do not like hearing it, but these are the questions that have to be answered. Those answers were not in the Queen’s Speech.

It was not a long-term economic plan that we got in the Queen’s Speech, but a set of short-term obsessions focused on political calculations. The Queen took less than 10 minutes to read out the speech that she was given, yet for most of our constituents it offers zero progress on their concerns. The parties in government think that all is fine with the economy—everything is going perfectly well—but how detached from reality can they get?

The Financial Secretary will no doubt speak shortly and she can quote all the economic data she likes, but I have to tell her that for many people this is an economy that is about low pay, zero hours and, for those who are struggling, food banks. She can quote GDP statistics in recent months, but we are seeing an economy where the very wealthiest 1% in society are doing particularly well and seeing their share of the cake grow while the rest of the population are seeing their share shrink further and further. The Government may be satisfied with this state of affairs, but the Opposition are not.

In the remaining 11 months before the general election, we should have a substantial and meaningful legislative programme which tackles some of these problems, rather than the set of headlines and press releases that have been strung together for effect.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Leslie]

No. I have only a few more minutes.

I wanted also to focus on the Infrastructure Bill that the Chancellor has brought forward—the so-called Infrastructure Bill. Third time lucky. The last two infrastructure Bills certainly did not do the trick, nor did the 11 infrastructure plans and strategies that the Government have published since the last general election, or the 79 press releases that we have had on infrastructure since then. We know that this Chancellor is obsessed with presentation, not with getting diggers in the ground.

Let us look at the problems that this country is facing. There are 5 million people on low pay in our country today, yet there is nothing in the Queen’s Speech to incentivise the living wage, which would make a real difference. Bank lending to small businesses that need real help is falling, but banking reform has been inadequate and is not the action that we need. There is a cost of living crisis, with prices yet again exceeding wages, according to the latest economic data. Yet no action has been taken on the big six energy companies, which continue to fail to pass on to their customers even reductions in wholesale energy prices.

The state of affairs in housing is one in which demand goes higher and higher, but house building is at its lowest since the 1920s. I must say to the Chancellor that if he thinks that a new town in Ebbsfleet adds up to a housing strategy, he is sorely mistaken. Yes, we have Help to Buy, but we need “Help to Build” alongside it if we are to tackle that particular problem. Tenants in insecure accommodation are being ripped off by letting agents.

On child poverty, it is predicted that 3.5 million children will be in poverty over the next few years, which is five times the Government’s original estimate, but that does not even get a reference in the Queen’s Speech. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) pointed out, 20 million meals have been served in food banks in the past year, which is a badge of shame for the Government, but there is no reference to that in the Queen’s Speech. The national health service is, of course, under more strain than ever before, but there was not a single word about it in the Queen’s Speech.

With all those problems, what have the Government been doing for the past week? They have been feuding among themselves, with Cabinet Ministers briefing against one another and not just two parties in coalition but at least four factions vying for political control. Somebody somewhere has got to get a grip and to show some real leadership and good government, rather than allowing this appalling state of affairs and factionalisation to continue.

I must tell Government Members that, day by day, we are seeing a coalition that is less a coalition than a conspiracy for inaction. [Interruption.] I will give way to the Chancellor if he wants to talk about food banks, child poverty or housing strategy. They are not interested in those matters, however, because the Queen’s Speech is an artifice—it is all about presentation and the spin that they want to put on these issues.

Where is the Government’s ambition and sense of urgency about the problems in the country today? The legislative torpor in the Queen’s Speech is absolutely appalling. They have turned the House of Commons into the most expensive waiting room in history. In this Queen’s Speech, they are treading water for another year. We know that their legacy will be the slowest economic recovery for 100 years. This will not do, and our constituents will not stand for it. The fact that we have to wait a further year for the general election is a tragedy for the millions of people who need real help now. The Government are squandering the chance for change in this country and, with it, the potential that our country should have, which is why Opposition Members believe that Britain deserves much better than this.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Chris Leslie

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I know that Government Members like to expunge history from their memory banks, but there was a global banking crisis—I know this is a shock to some of them—which, from 2008 onwards, caused significant fiscal impact, which reduced revenues into the Exchequer and meant that tax rates had to be reappraised. It was at that point that the 50p rate was felt necessary, as one of the measures of fairness that we needed to put in place. I am proud that that Government took that step. It was not universally popular, as I know from Government Members, but necessary in order to help to reduce the deficit, whereas the Government chose to raise VAT and pull the rug from underneath growth that was beginning to come through in 2010.

I want to continue to scrutinise some of the details in the Finance Bill, because it contains a number of troubling changes. On capital allowances, my hon. Friends intervened on the Chief Secretary, and I also asked whether he thought it was a mistake that when taking office the Government reduced capital allowances—investment allowances—for businesses from £100,000 to £25,000. Yes, they are going back up again, but yet again we see more chopping and changing, more inconsistency; temporary measures, not giving the stability to business that it needs to plan for the long term. The Chief Secretary says that it was not a mistake that they should go down and now they are going up, but that, I am afraid, is typical of Liberal Democrats who like to face both ways on these matters.

In chapter 2 we have the married couple’s tax allowance. The Chief Secretary is deep in conversation, but I want to give way to him in a moment specifically on the issue of the married couple’s tax allowance. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, he says that he will not intervene, but this is a critical point because I am not quite clear on his view of the married couple’s tax allowance. The Chancellor was apparently in a little bit of doubt about it, but the pressures from Conservative Back Benchers were such that they needed this transferrable allowance, which will help only about a third of married couples because it is available only to couples where one person is in work but the other does not use all their tax-free allowance. There are a number of other ways in which that amount of money could have been allocated. He could have decided to do it through the personal allowance—I know he is keen on that policy—perhaps a 10p starting rate of tax. Does the Chief Secretary agree with the implementation of the married couple’s tax allowance? This is his opportunity to set out the Liberal Democrat attitude to these things. I will give way to him. The record will have to show that, for whatever reason, the Chief Secretary does not want to stand up and sing the praises of the married couple’s tax allowance in this particular agenda. Yet again, he is stifled by his capture by the Conservative party, unwilling to speak his true mind on these issues.

On the employment measures in the Bill, such as they are, yesterday the Chancellor was full of rhetoric about full employment, yet the Government have come forward with no new policies to deliver this. The number of young people out of work for 12 months or more has nearly doubled since the Chancellor and Chief Secretary came to office, and we have a record number of people who want to work full time but are being forced to work part time, a Work programme that is so spectacularly unsuccessful that people are more likely to go back to the jobcentre than find work, and only 5% of disabled people on the Work programme have found work through that programme. We clearly need compulsory starter jobs for the long-term unemployed to help them to repair their CVs and to get back into work and on to the ladder to a long, sustainable career.

[Stephen Doughty]

I agree with my hon. Friend on the compulsory jobs guarantee, and it is a great shame that we do not see such a measure in the Bill. Does he agree that there is a massive contrast between this Government when they took office and cancelled the future jobs fund, and the Welsh Labour Government in Cardiff who introduced the Jobs Growth Wales scheme, which has now seen nearly 12,000 people across Wales benefiting, and one of the lower rates of unemployment in the UK because of that measure?

[Chris Leslie]

Conservative Members love to bash what is going on in Wales. They have an anti-Welsh attitude to these things, but it is one of the great success stories of devolution, making sure that they focus on a meaningful back-to-work scheme, particularly for those who have been out of work for a prolonged period. That is what we need to have, and I wish Ministers would learn from that.

Chapter 4 deals with annuities and pensions. Obviously, as we have said, in general those annuity changes are to be welcomed. Annuities are an outdated product and they failed too many pensioners, but it is important to reiterate the tests that we have. What sort of advice or comprehensive guidance will be put in place for those reaching retirement and potentially having to make calculations of income perhaps over a third of their lifetime to come, and what will happen to the annuities market for those who do wish to purchase such a product to have a steady stream of income in perpetuity?

Cost of Living

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Chris Leslie

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

There are only another 18 months during which there will be more Conservative Members than Labour ones in this Chamber. I hope that the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) is watching the clock, because they are running out of time.

The Prime Minister has broken not only that list of promises, but more records than most Prime Ministers over the decades, and not in a good way. How has he been a record breaker? Since entering No. 10 Downing street, he has delivered a record-breaking cost of living crisis, with wages failing to keep pace with prices for an unprecedented 40 out of his 41 months in office. That is the longest period of diminishing real wage values since records began.

A record-breaking number of people now rely on food banks just to get by—it has tripled in the past year alone—with more than 350,000 families requiring food parcels in the past six months.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

On the cost of living crisis that is driving people to food banks, does my hon. Friend share my shock at the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) saying that people use food banks because they are drug addicts and cannot manage their money, rather than because of the cost of living crisis?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

I will happily give way to my hon. Friend in a moment, so that he can relay the quote that he has to the House. Perhaps a journalist wrote it down incorrectly, but I am sure that there is an explanation.

The point about food banks is that the crisis is so bad that the Red Cross has launched an emergency food appeal right here in the United Kingdom, something that has not happened since the second world war.

The Prime Minister’s broken records include real-term wage levels plunging to a new low and average weekly earnings at their lowest level since the Office for National Statistics started to record the figures in 2001. Not only has he hit record lows on incomes, but he has delivered record fuel bills and average household energy costs—

[Stephen Doughty]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to raise another point of order, but the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan suggested that I may have misled the House—

Finance Bill

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Chris Leslie

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

Dare I say that my hon. Friend knows the answer to his question? I do not think it will make a blind bit of difference to the success—or otherwise—of the investment management community, and I have seen no evidence from the Government that this measure is the thing that will transform the economy at this time, or make a massive difference to jobs and growth in society at large.

Let me put this in context: £150 million is a lot of money. In fact, it is exactly the same amount that the Chancellor cut from young mothers when he abolished the health in pregnancy grant—hon. Members will remember from the Chancellor’s first Budget that the health in pregnancy grant was given to mums-to-be to ensure they ate healthily and had a little help at that time. That was slashed; that had to go because £150 million had to be saved, yet in next year’s Budget the Chancellor is introducing a £150 million tax cut for the investment management community. That is about the same amount of money as was cut from the child tax credit supplement for one and two-year-olds in that original Budget. In fact, it is about the same amount of money that the pasty tax and the caravan tax were supposed to save—I am sure the Minister will remember that from the ill-fated omnishambles 2012 Budget. All the hassle that fell on the Chancellor’s shoulders at that time was due to saving £150 million. In that context, this is a strange choice by a strange Chancellor.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend is making a strong point. Does he, like me, think that people will be bemused by this measure when the Government voted recently against a reasonable motion on an international financial transaction tax? When people see those two things, as well as the bedroom tax, what will they make of this Government?