UK Economy

Debate between Stephen Gethins and Rebecca Long Bailey

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be debating with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the first of what I hope will be many such debates. I thank the Chancellor, who is no longer in the Chamber, for his kind words.

There have been some fantastic speeches in this debate, and I want to run through some of the main issues that have been raised. The hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) highlighted concerns about the leave campaign’s lack of a plan. The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) stated that, sadly, some of the remain campaign’s predictions were coming true. I welcome the fact that he echoed the sentiments about a cross-party approach. He said that this is bigger than any leader, and it certainly is.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), whose comments I welcome, stated that he wanted to put decency back into democracy. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) feared for the international house of cards that Britain’s exit could cause to collapse. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who made a fantastic speech, echoed the risks that jobs would be moved, that communities in deprived areas would struggle to obtain investment, and that “Project Fear” would prove to be “Project Fact”. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) said:

“We are where we are and…we…have to lead from the front”.

I could not agree more.

The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) told us the terrible and harrowing story of his constituents who have left to go to France following the result of the European referendum—we hope that we can coax them back again—and he highlighted the problems faced by SMEs in trade. The hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) made a very passionate speech. He stated that we should not kick the legs from under stability and highlighted the fact that falling markets affect the pensions of everyone. Finally, the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) echoed the comments about how people from the EU have enriched his local economy. He wanted to state that their contribution was valued, a sentiment that is certainly shared by Members on both sides of the House.

As my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor outlined in opening the debate, the decision to leave the EU poses considerable risks to the UK economy. The financial markets are in turmoil, sterling remains volatile, the UK’s triple A credit rating has been lost, and employers in some sectors have already started to discuss moving jobs out of Britain. This is very worrying, but we can turn it around. To do so, we need political and economic stability. We now need all parties to put their political interests aside and work together in the interest of their nation’s economy. I have enjoyed the tone of today’s debate, which has been broadly in agreement with that sentiment.

[Stephen Gethins]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. Will she join me in welcoming the fact that the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party in Scotland have given the Scottish Government a mandate to negotiate with the European Union about Scotland’s continued membership of the EU, given the overwhelming vote?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I think that is really an issue for the Scottish Government. I am sure it will be the subject of many debates in the coming weeks, and I hope we will debate it further in this House.

On where we are now, I do not share the Chancellor’s assurances that our economy is now shockproof. He did not fix the roof while the sun was shining—quite the opposite: he sold it off. The growth we have heard about is largely built on a swelling bubble of household borrowing and an increase in poorly paid, insecure jobs. I was pleased to hear that his emergency Budget has been shelved for the time being. However, there remains a high probability that austerity measures will be introduced later in the year, imposed by a new Conservative Prime Minister who could be even more ideologically to the right than his or her predecessor. Such an approach, based on cuts and under-investment, has taken hold despite the fact that economists the world over agree that it is economic nonsense to cut Government spending when the economy may be heading towards recession. The most vulnerable will suffer, and our communities will snap under the strain of further public sector cuts. Quite frankly, people cannot take any more.

It is not hard to understand some of the reasons why vast swathes of people in this country voted so passionately in last week’s referendum—it is no wonder that people were angry with the political elite when their financial situations have worsened rather than improved. On doorsteps in my constituency, which has suffered from decades of industrial decline, I could feel the anger from those who have been left behind. They were right to be angry—angry that our hospitals and schools are in a state of crisis and starved of funding; angry that many people cannot get a home; and angry that our public services are being cut so that the safety net on which they rely is eroded. People rightly wanted something or someone to blame for that, but sadly that was confused in the rhetoric of some of the referendum campaigns. A hornets nest was stirred up with scaremongering about migration, rather than a debate on the core issue of why our economy was not working and how the EU affected that.

We must ensure that migrants living in Britain know that they are welcome, especially in the light of the racist attacks and abuse that have been reported since the referendum. I wholeheartedly echo the Chancellor’s comments that such behaviour is not British—that is not what makes Britain the great nation it is. Such disillusionment with the political establishment took root long before the EU referendum, and 1979—the year I was born—heralded the biggest change in economic thought that the country has ever seen. British manufacturing, and the secure well-paid jobs that came with it, was the envy of the world, but it had its heart and soul ripped out. In many cases manufacturing was moved overseas to cheaper labour markets, and the jobs lost were never really replaced. Communities around the country were destroyed, leaving future generations to pick up the pieces.

Following such decline there has been a failure to restructure our economy, to develop an industrial strategy to support key industries, and to make our country great. However, we are where we are, and whether people voted leave or remain, it falls on us in this House to build a country of which the British people can be proud and in which they feel safe. We need a plan to rebalance our economy and support our key industries—a proper industrial strategy to provide the secure jobs that we so desperately need, and Government investment in our economy so we can become the innovators of the world, with priority investment in those communities that have been economically neglected for years.

All Members of the House must fight for and support our economy and the people in it. The economic outlook for the UK is uncertain, and we are facing turbulent political times. As my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor emphasised earlier, there are strengths in our economy, but we must nurture and support them at this vital time. If we do not, the future looks bleak. Labour is willing to work across the House to ensure that the people of this country are protected from whatever is to come, and we are committed to delivering an economic agenda that promotes Britain and British industry. Let us be the envy of the world once again.