Cost of Living

Stephen Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

It is an enormous privilege to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Queen’s Speech, and in particular to speak today about the cost of living, which I think is the subject that touches the constituents of every Member most closely. It is a subject that resonates especially in rural areas such as the one that I represent, because for us the cost of living differs in so many respects from the cost of living for those who live in urban areas. One of the reasons for that is associated with the cost of fuel, and the cost of filling our cars at the pumps.

For those who live in my constituency and in other rural parts of England and the rest of the United Kingdom, having a car is not a luxury but an absolute necessity. The car is the thing in which people drive their kids to school in the morning, it is the thing that they need in order to get to work, it is the thing that they must have in order to do their shopping, and it is the thing that gets them to the doctor and the dentist. For my constituents, journeys that can be made on public transport in London and other metropolitan areas must be made by car, and are quite often lengthy.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Phillips]

I am only just beginning my speech, but I will be kind and give way to the hon. Lady.

[Angela Smith]

When the hon. Gentleman talks of metropolitan areas, he should recognise that they include areas such as South Yorkshire. Two thirds of Barnsley is rural, but it is also a metropolitan area. The issues to which the hon. Gentleman refers apply in many metropolitan as well as rural areas.

[Stephen Phillips]

They certainly apply in such areas to some extent. I do not dissent from that proposition. However, the hon. Lady needs to know the direction in which I am going. Because our constituents—including hers—are so affected by this issue, it is an issue on which the Government should take what action they can take. We are debating the cost of living, and one of the principal costs for those who live in the rural areas in her constituency and in rural areas such as the ones that I represent is the cost of fuel. The Government have tackled that. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has scrapped £4 billion in duty increases that were planned by the last Government. The Opposition do not like to hear this, but the truth is that the price of petrol at the pumps is 10p a litre cheaper than it would have been if the Labour party had won the last election.

Is there more that could be done to deal with the cost of living? Of course, but Opposition Members also need to remember the huge debt bill—£120 million a day—with which the country has been left. If we were not paying that bill, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and the other Treasury Ministers would have far more scope to tackle this and other aspects of the cost of living. We have heard Opposition Members criticise the Government today, but they need to remember who was responsible for getting this country into the mess in which we find ourselves.

[Phil Wilson]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are in a double-dip recession, and that when we left power, growth was increasing and unemployment was coming down. Until 2008, before the crisis, the Tories were supporting our public expenditure plans pound for pound.

[Stephen Phillips]

The hon. Gentleman and his Opposition colleagues are very keen on saying that this double-dip recession is a recession made in Downing street, and they are absolutely right—it was made in No. 11 Downing street under the last Government, and then made in No. 10 when the previous Prime Minister finally made his transition from No. 11. The truth of the matter is that we need not only an apology but a bit of humility from the Opposition. It is they who got us into this mess.

I would desperately like to see more action on the cost of living, and specifically fuel pricing, from this Government, but I know, as I have had to tell many of my constituents, that it is simply not possible because of the mess with which we have been left.

That is the first aspect of the cost of living that principally affects my constituents, but there are of course others, including the other great cost associated with ordinary living: energy. The Government have taken action on this through their agreement with the suppliers, as we know, but again there is more that can be done. I am enormously heartened by not only the measures the Government have taken, but those in the Queen’s Speech that will be brought before the House in due course. The truth is that we face a great problem with energy security and the cost of energy as the developing countries across the world become richer. We need to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels that we have had for the last 50 years.

However, there is a related issue that affects constituencies such as mine and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), who spoke earlier: the impact of onshore wind power on rural areas. He may have 30 planning applications outstanding for wind turbines in his constituency; I suspect I have a similar number. The great problem with onshore wind, which the Government will have to grapple with, is that it seems universally to attract no support whatsoever from the communities where the siting of such wind farms is proposed. Some of these very large structures—including in my own constituency—over-top the spire of Lincoln cathedral to a considerable degree. These things are generally not wanted and are uneconomic, to the extent that the subsidy is removed.

The Government will have to look at this issue. Yes, man-made climate change is important, and this generation will have to grapple with it if we are going to live responsibly and hand a decent United Kingdom to our children. However, the problem the Government face—notwithstanding the Localism Act 2011 and everything that was done in the last Session—is that there is no national framework within which wind power is planned. I want to hear from Ministers that that will shift, either in this Session or in other Sessions during the remainder of this Parliament.

The third issue I want to talk about is the cost of food. Government and Opposition Members have spoken about the Government’s plans for a grocery adjudicator. Those who farm in my constituency have too often seen the power of the supermarkets bearing down to such a degree that they have effectively been unable to make a living. That is certainly true of dairy farmers in my constituency, many of whom went out of business long before I became the Member of Parliament. Many farmers in my constituency and other areas of the United Kingdom have been struggling for a number of years. That is why the grocery adjudicator is so important. It is important that we sustain our farming industry in this country, so that we can ensure not only a decent living for our farmers, but future food security. That form of food security will, ultimately, feed through the supply chain and ensure reasonable prices for our constituents. So that is another important aspect of this Queen’s Speech. It is not, as one Opposition Member said, a ragtag Queen’s Speech or a Queen’s Speech full of a ragtag of Bills; it is a Queen’s Speech full of measures that are important to take during this Session and this Parliament to try to rectify some of the damage done to our country between 1997 and 2010.

In today’s debate on the Queen’s Speech we are principally concerned with the cost of living, and I had wished to make contributions on other days on other of the topics that have been debated. I would not wish to find myself ruled out of order, so I shall confine myself to saying that the Government took some brave decisions in the previous Session on foreign policy, and the manner in which the United Kingdom has conducted itself overseas and sought to ensure that democracy is fostered and grows throughout not only the middle east, but the remainder of the world. However, other conflicts that do not find their way into the newspapers and in which civilians are dying are taking place all over the world today. One such conflict is occurring on the borders of South Sudan. I hope that the Minister answering for the Government in this debate will convey my concerns about that and about what is happening in the other areas where humanitarian disasters are occurring, which I know other Government Members and doubtless some Opposition Members share, to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, notwithstanding the fact that I failed to find my place in yesterday’s debate.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—