European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

The city of Liverpool has been hit hard by austerity since 2010, with massive cuts in central Government funding hitting Liverpool City Council and its services and hitting the police service and the fire service, while benefit changes have hit the poorest hardest. Liverpool has also benefited enormously from membership of the European Union. Merseyside had objective 1 status, which helped to bring significant investment to our communities. It is an outward-looking city, reflected in the heavy vote across the city two years ago to remain in the European Union—58% to 42%.

However, the divisions that we have discussed today nationally were reflected locally. My constituency saw a much narrower vote—the vote was not conducted by constituency, but my estimate is that it was probably about 52% remain and 48% leave. As we have heard rightly from both sides in this debate, some of the communities that have been hit hardest by poverty and austerity are those that had the highest leave votes. That was certainly the case in my constituency and that reflected many concerns—some about immigration and others about a sense of being left behind.

Those divisions clearly continue. They are reflected in my inbox, as I am sure they are in those of other Members. I have had constituents urging me in the last three weeks to vote for no deal because that would be better than this deal. Some want a people’s vote. Some people are coming to see me to support the deal, but a very clear majority view from my constituents is that we should reject this deal because it is bad for jobs, bad for rights and bad for living standards.

I voted remain and I campaigned hard for remain in my constituency, elsewhere in Liverpool, and in other parts of the north-west, but I accepted the result despite my great personal sense of disappointment. I voted in favour of triggering article 50 and I really wanted to see a serious negotiation to deliver on the referendum. I agree very strongly with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who said on the opening day of this debate that

“history will record the Prime Minister’s red lines to have been an absolutely catastrophic mistake”.—[Official Report, 4 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 800.]

It would have been perfectly feasible to take a pragmatic, inclusive and flexible approach and reach out across the Chamber to all parties. The Government’s failure to do that has resulted in a political declaration that is vague and uncertain and that, crucially, tells us very little about the key issues of frictionless trade. As a result, it is almost certain not only that this deal will be defeated next Tuesday, but that it will defeated by a substantial margin.

After that vote, we shall have an historic responsibility and opportunity to forge a new way forward. I have signed both amendment (a), in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, and amendment (i), in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central. Taken together, they could provide the basis for a way forward: rejecting the disastrous option of no deal, seeking instead a permanent customs union and a strong single market deal, and resolving to pursue every option to prevent no deal from happening.

It seems to me that there are two potential ways forward after the vote next Tuesday. Either we come together in the House, across party divides, and agree a position that can protect jobs, protect the rights of workers and standards in the environment and for consumers, and protect living standards. I believe we could achieve that with the good will of Government and Parliament working together. Otherwise, there will be no alternative but for us to take this back to the people, either in the form of an early general election or in the form of another referendum—a people’s vote.

The economic consequences of leaving without a deal could be disastrous. As others have said, they would hit the poorest areas hardest. I look at those areas of Liverpool’s economy, such as the car industry, health and life sciences, universities and the port. Those are the industries that would suffer most if we left without a deal, and regions such as the north-west would be hit hardest by a no-deal Brexit. Yes, this deal is not the right deal, but let us come together and deliver the deal that really can protect jobs and rights across our country.

Spring Statement

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

When she was Education Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) announced that the fair funding formula would be introduced in a way that would protect per capita spending per pupil, and we would guarantee that every school would receive a cash-terms increase. That guarantee stands today.[Official Report, 24 April 2018, Vol. 639, c. 8MC.]

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor talked about the increasing number of children being taken into care. In Liverpool, there has been an 11% increase in the past 12 months alone. Local authorities in the north-west wrote to the Chancellor last month calling for additional funds to address the growing crisis in children’s social care. May I ask him to address that growing crisis, and to do so as a matter of urgency?

[Mr Hammond]

As I said earlier, spending on support for the most vulnerable children has increased by £500 million since 2010. There is a distinction to be drawn between services provided for the most vulnerable children—children in care, children in the adoption and fostering process, and children at risk—and the wider children’s services budgets. The shadow Chancellor has made that point several times over the past week or so. Let me repeat, however, that we are giving local authorities £225 billion of spending power over a five-year period, and it is for them to decide how they allocate those funds.

The Economy and Work

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) who made a thoughtful speech. I concur with him on the importance of an industrial strategy.

The Chancellor spoke today about the Government’s plans for devolution. I want to focus on that and, in particular, on the importance of devolution for the economy and jobs in the Liverpool city region. The number of young people in the Liverpool city region who are not in education, employment or training is significantly above the national average. Among 16 to 18-year-olds, the national figure is disturbing at 4.7%, but the Liverpool figure is 6.3%—one in 16 of those young people—which is far too high and a key challenge.

The agreement between the combined authorities and the Government does several things. It devolves the adult skills budget; it moves the responsibility to work on employment support for harder-to-help claimants, so that the city region will work with the DWP; it devolves the apprenticeship grant for employers; and it institutes an area-based review of post-16 education and training. There is huge potential to provide more quality and employment apprenticeship opportunities, and I hope that the combined authority and, next year, the newly elected Mayor will work with the Government both to use these powers and to explore what further devolution is needed.

The challenge of youth unemployment is enormous. I welcome the fact that it has fallen in recent years, although I share concerns about the quality of some of the jobs that have been created, particularly for the large number of young people on zero-hours contracts. Even with that fall in youth unemployment, our rate is double that of Germany. Part of the reason for this is the quality of the technical and vocational education that we provide in contrast to Germany’s.

I welcome the fact that we will have an area-based review in Liverpool, and I recognise that the failure fully to address the issue of vocational education is a long-standing failure by Governments of both parties. However, I seek assurances from Ministers that the Liverpool city region will have the powers it needs to reshape and restructure local skills to meet the demands of a changing economy. I welcome the powers that are being devolved, but I would like us to go further. It is not sufficient for the city region to lead on skills at 19-plus; I want it to lead on skills at 16-plus and, in fact, I want it to lead on skills at 14-plus and to address the issue of 14-to-19 education.

Last week, I urged the Education Secretary to look at the potential for the devolution of powers held by her Department. There is a very strong case for the powers of the regional schools commissioner to be devolved. Liverpool city region could then take the lead in the planning and commissioning of school and other education places. It would be an opportunity for local communities, employers, young people and others to shape the education and skills programmes that we need.

Devolution is not just about power, but about funding. Liverpool city region has been hit hard by cuts in central Government funding since 2010. I support and welcome devolution, but this must not be an exercise in devolving the blame for cuts. I urge the Government to look again at the scale of the cuts taking place in cities such as Liverpool. The Chancellor spoke about localisation and I recognise its strong advantages, which my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) set out so eloquently, but for the poorest parts of the country, such as the city of Liverpool, there is a big downside. We stand to lose substantial resources, and I ask the Government to think very carefully about how they implement this change. If we get it right, devolution can make a real and lasting difference, creating the properly paid, high-quality jobs for the future that Liverpool city region needs.

Individual Electoral Registration

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for what I think is the first time as well, Mr Davies. Thank you for guiding us safely through the debate.

Perhaps I will surprise the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) by saying that there is a great deal on which we can agree. In fact, there is a great deal on which all the speakers can agree. For example, I agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) that the existing processes for sorting out registration and chasing after people in the under-represented groups leaves a great deal to be desired. Often, those processes are set in stone in an analogue age, and we are now in a digital world. They are long overdue for some updating and modernising.

If the hon. Member for Edinburgh East, or anyone else present, would like to come along to Policy Exchange on Thursday, I will be giving a speech on how we need to update and modernise our approach to registration, because I agree with the underlying tone of many of the remarks made today: we have a major problem with not all but some groups in society that are under-represented. We have heard a list of some of them today. People in the private rental sector are difficult to keep track of, as are young black males in particular but many ethnic minorities—it is difficult to persuade them to register, even if we can find them. Students have also been mentioned.

The group that is probably worst represented of all and has not been mentioned so far is expatriate voters. Even of those who are legally allowed to vote and are enfranchised—those who have been abroad for less than 15 years—only between 3% and 5% are registered to vote. That is after the previous Government threw quite a lot of money at the problem in the run-up to the general election and raised the proportion from a paltry 1% to a relatively risible 3% or 5%—that is all. That is a good, if extreme, example of a fundamental problem. We need to update and modernise what we are doing on voter registration.

Nevertheless, it is important that if, when and as we do that—I completely agree with the sentiments expressed: we need to do so—in the vast majority of cases we are going to find people who are not registered at all. A large number of people are missing from the registers entirely, either pre or post-IER. What we do to end the transition to IER will not affect the people who are not currently on the register. We need to update and modernise because it is right and democratic, but let us not fool ourselves that it will have a great deal of impact on the decision about when we end the process of individual electoral registration, because these people are overwhelmingly not on the register as it stands.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

On that point, the Minister will know from previous exchanges on this subject that last year the University of Sheffield used flexibilities that his Department gave it significantly to improve the number of students registered. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) that that is not being repeated by other universities this year. If we had a further year—if the Minister had not brought this scheme forward by a year—we could have a much more complete register of students in a year’s time.

[John Penrose]

I invite the hon. Gentleman to come along and hear my speech on Thursday at Policy Exchange, where we will talk about not just that but other initiatives, which I will mention briefly in a minute. Even if we were able to extend what has been done successfully the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam to many other universities, given that the people we are talking about are not on the register, either before or after individual electoral registration, the date at which we end the transition to IER would make no difference to whether they are registered. This is something worth doing, regardless of whether we are doing IER and the transition. It is worth doing at all times, in all places, in any case. The transition date will make no difference to those people.

I completely agree that it is important that we roll out some of the exciting innovations that are being tried in places such as the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam for students. There are all sorts of other things we could do with the online registration process. It is now possible to register to vote online in less than three minutes—less time than it takes to boil an egg. It is an incredibly convenient and simple process.

However, we make it more difficult for people to renew their registration after they have been registered for a year. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East said, and I am sure we all agree, that there is a natural seasonality to electoral registration: registration rates tend to dip after a major electoral event, such as a general election or the Scottish referendum, because people are less interested and registration is less relevant to them if there is no poll in which they can vote in the next 12 months. Some of those people re-register nearer the time, but we should ask ourselves why we ask all those people to re-register every single year once they have made their individual decision to register to vote. We do not ask them to re-register for their tax credits, their TV licence or their benefit claims every single year.

Everybody in this room, except perhaps the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—I am not sure whether she is in favour of this principle as a fundamental—accepts the noble cause of individual electoral registration and ensuring that people make an individual decision to register to vote. However, we need to ask ourselves whether it is necessary to ask people to renew that vow every year. Are we still being true to individual electoral registration if we relax it and make a decision on it every couple of years? That would allow us to deal with some of the natural electoral seasonality that the hon. Member for Edinburgh East mentioned.

There is a huge amount we can do, and there is a huge amount that I believe should be done. I hope, based on hon. Members’ comments today, that there can be some sort of cross-party agreement on some of these things, which could then be introduced. There may not be cross-party agreement on everything. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) gave a couple of examples, and we do not necessarily agree on all the detail.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

Look at the number of reminders we get about everything else in our lives. We do not remind people nine times about their TV licence or anything else, and we certainly do not take 18 months. With this process, we have gone not just the extra mile, but the extra 10 miles. Once the point has been reached at which the remaining register entries can only be people who have moved away or died or were fraudulently there—those who are not real voters—it seems pointless to wait.

Several comments were made about the Electoral Commission. Although that is an august body, I gently remind hon. Members that there is another body: the Association of Electoral Administrators. Its members are the people in charge of administering elections up and down the country and they are in favour of the change. This is not a one-way street. An awful lot of objective, independent non-politicians think that the idea is good because the transition is sensible and they are reminded of what happened in Northern Ireland, where the change was made in one day, not 18 months and let alone two and a half years. Northern Ireland has been using the system happily for several years.

[Stephen Twigg]

I am grateful to the Minister for his generosity in giving way. He referred to Donald Rumsfeld’s known unknowns, but are not the unknown unknowns the bigger problem? I refer to the students who were not living at a university address last year, but are this year. Due to the lack of the focus that universities had last year, as previously described, fewer such students will be on the register. The Northern Ireland example is particularly relevant here, because schools and colleges there have a duty to work with the electoral registration officer to get 17 and 18-year-olds registered. We argued for that in the previous Parliament, but the coalition Government sadly did not agree to it. Would the Minister agree to that, even at this late stage?

[John Penrose]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the hon. Gentleman makes an entirely valid point about the importance of getting attainers and students on the register. We have already discussed some of the good examples going on in Sheffield that bear examination and could be copied.

As I mentioned before, because such people are not on the register at the moment, getting them on the register is something that we should do and is a challenge that will recur every single year forever as long as there are students, universities and colleges. It makes not a jot of difference, however, to the timing of the ending of the transition to IER if such people are not on the register already, because they cannot be crossed off and potentially disfranchised. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that fundamental piece of logic.

[Stephen Twigg]

I understand the logic of the Minister’s argument, but universities have not had a lot of time to learn from the Sheffield experience. I know from talking to universities in Liverpool that they have not adopted the Sheffield system this year. With more time and a concerted effort from Universities UK, the Government and ourselves, we could get all universities doing it next year.

[John Penrose]

That is an interesting and intriguing idea on which I would welcome cross-party discussions if the Labour party is interested. It is just one example of a whole series of things that could be done. The hon. Member for Ashfield, the Opposition spokeswoman, mentioned letting agencies. I am unsure whether I agree with block registration, because it strays perilously away from the turf of individual electoral registration. Again, I am open to being convinced on that, but it is a potential danger that I might not want us to go near. There are many other such opportunities.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East referred to data cross-matching. A large number of local authorities say, “Look, we have all this data from a range of other sources that we are itching to use.” We could effectively do nine tenths of the annual canvass automatically in a trice just by running some cross-matching between existing databases and the electoral register. We could prove that 90% of people have not moved and are in the same situation. We could then focus our annual canvass efforts on the 10% who do not match up and who are causing the problem, on under-represented groups or on places that seem to have empty houses when we know that people are living there.

With those points, I hope that the debate has begun to unpick the two important parallel but distinct issues. One is the question of how to get more under-represented groups to register. The other is how to deal with data errors in respect of the 1.9 million people, as of last May, and how we distinguish between real voters, ensuring that they are confirmed and not disfranchised, and the errors that need removing to guarantee the strength of our democracy.

Voter Engagement

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I welcome the Minister to his place and wish him well with his new responsibilities in the Cabinet Office. I also join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) on bringing this extremely important matter to Westminster Hall so early in the new Parliament. We have had an excellent debate, with contributions from across the House. I will seek to address some of them before I focus on questions about the main two issues raised by my hon. Friend: individual voter registration and boundaries.

The theme running through every speech this afternoon has been how we can increase participation in our democracy. Frankly, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) has done sterling work on student representation and I will return to that in a moment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) spoke brilliantly today, reminding us about the loss of Chris Ruane, who did so much work in this House to promote voter registration, as well as about the work of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform in the previous Parliament on which he served under the able chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen).

Votes at 16 was raised by most speakers in the debate, and that issue will not go away. We have already heard about the hugely positive experience in Scotland; I think I am right in saying that surveys suggested that 75% of 16 and 17-year-olds participated in the Scottish referendum. The Minister should address this issue. I and the Labour party want 16 and 17-year-olds to be able to vote in the European Union referendum and in all future elections.

In the run-up to the general election, I paid a number of visits to schools, colleges and youth organisations and discussed votes at 16. Frankly, there was a range of views—some 16 and 17-year-olds did not agree with the idea—but a common response was that it would have to be accompanied by better education on the matter in schools. I therefore warmly welcome the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sue Hayman). I am a long-standing campaigner for citizenship education in schools. Some schools do it well, but they are a minority. We need to emphasise the great importance of effective citizenship education.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry) made an incredibly powerful speech. I personally agree with her on electoral reform, although I am speaking from the Front Bench so should say that that is not Labour party policy; there is a range of views in the party and mine is, frankly, in the minority. I hope that politicians in all parties will consider the statistics she cited on the representation of different parties.

The hon. Lady rightly reminded us that turnout varies and that a major factor in determining turnout is relative poverty or affluence. As she said, there is a real risk of a “them and us” culture becoming entrenched in our politics. Her colleague, the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), spoke about the importance of women’s representation in this place. We have seen further improvement on that, but we are still a long way from achieving the 50% that we all aspire to.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury raised two main issues: voter registration and the linked issue of constituency boundaries. The scandal of under-registration is nothing new. As she reminded us, the Electoral Commission has provided a number of estimates on how many people are missing from the register; its most recent estimate, from last year, is 7.5 million eligible adults. That figure predates individual voter registration.

I echo what my hon. Friend said about the incredibly hard work put in by electoral registration officers and local authorities throughout the country to try to maximise registration over the past year, but, as has been said, there are a number of really important elections next year—for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, local government across the country and, in London, for the Mayor and the London Assembly—so it is vital that that work should be sustained and built on over the coming year.

I will discuss the three key groups—attainers, students and those who rent in the private sector. I echo those who paid tribute to the amazing work of organisations such as Bite the Ballot, Operation Black Vote, Operation Disabled Vote and the National Union of Students. Online registration is a welcome reform by the Government —one that we supported—that has undoubtedly enabled a lot of people to register who might not otherwise have done so.

I would like the Minister to consider the experience in Northern Ireland, where the schools initiative resulted in a higher number of attainers on the register after individual registration was brought in. Under that initiative, a duty was placed on schools and colleges to work with electoral registration officers to deliver high levels of registration. That is a good system and should be adopted across the rest of the country.

Secondly, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central spoke about what has been done in Sheffield. He made an important case. Will the Minister consider whether we can work closely, on a cross-party basis, with Universities UK, the NUS and others to see whether the system adopted in Sheffield could be adopted by universities across the country? Numbers of students on the register might then be higher even than under the old system.

Thirdly, we know that private renters, given the nature of their life, move around more. Will the Government work with large letting agencies and others to include reminders to register for new tenants, for example? I want the Minister to address those three specific points in his response.

My final point about individual voter registration is that we are awaiting a report from the Electoral Commission in which it will recommend whether the Government should bring forward full individual voter registration to this year or should stick with the legislative timetable and introduce it next year. If the commission advises the Government not to bring the transition forward, will they accept that advice? That is an important point, partly because we should ensure that we have the best possible register, with the maximum involvement for all the elections happening next year, and then for the EU referendum, and partly for the reason given by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury. As she said, the next boundary review will be conducted on the basis of the register put together this year; if that review is based on an incomplete register, our political boundaries will not be properly representative of the population as a whole.

My hon. Friend put a number of questions to the Minister about the boundaries that I will not repeat—we all have copies of them now—but I will say that the Opposition never supported the reduction in the number of MPs from 650 to 600. We did not think that a case had been made for it, and from the point of view of respect for natural communities and historic traditions, sticking with the number of MPs we have at the moment seems to us to make sense. If the Government are changing their position on that, they will have our full support.

On constituency size, we felt that the 5% variation requirement was simply too tight. My hon. Friend the Member for Workington made a good argument based on the example of Cumbria; others can be made. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury spoke about some of the odd constituencies that would have been created under the proposals the last Government put forward. In Merseyside, the Boundary Commission’s initial proposal contained a constituency, Mersey Banks, on two opposite sides of the River Mersey.

Professor Ron Johnston of Bristol University has done some brilliant work on this issue and recommended that the Government simply amend their own legislation so that the 5% variation became 8% or 10%, to avoid many of the difficulties that were created by the process that was aborted in the previous Parliament. I ask the Minister to consider that. Professor Johnston also suggests —although this is a matter more for the Boundary Commission than for the Government or Parliament—that the Boundary Commission for England should split wards, as happens in Scotland. It has been reluctant to do that previously; were it prepared to consider doing so, we might not have some of the manifest problems that arose during the boundary review in the previous Parliament. Will the Minister address that point?

[Emily Thornberry]

I understand my hon. Friend’s reasoning on numbers, but surely that would, again, simply lead to chaos. Within one ward, there would be two Members of Parliament, so people might not know who their MP was. Is that what he is suggesting?

[Stephen Twigg]

My preference—and the view that the Labour party has taken consistently—is to move away from a variation of 5% to one of either 8% or 10%. Were we to do so, we would avoid ward splitting on any serious scale. Professor Johnston’s argument is that we could perhaps do both and that an element of ward splitting might be required in certain communities. I am interested to hear the Minister’s response to those ideas.

These are important issues for hon. Members to address, and it is excellent that we have had an early opportunity to do so. We must all be driven—all Members who have contributed so far have said this—by a desire to increase the involvement in our political processes and the accountability of this place. If we get registration and boundaries right, we might be able to do that.

The Economy

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng). Reflecting on the lack of Labour representation in Spelthorne, I am reminded of the similar lack of Conservative representation in Liverpool. I am prepared to bet the hon. Gentleman that Spelthorne will get a Labour councillor before Liverpool gets a Conservative one.

We have seen some extraordinary complacency on the other side of the House today, given the economic circumstances that people are facing in communities up and down the country. Sometimes we forget the human cost of the decisions that are made in this House.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the human cost of economic mismanagement. Could he tell us more about the human cost of Labour mismanagement over the past 10 years?

[Stephen Twigg]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but it is the only one that I will take. I want to give other colleagues on both sides a chance to speak. We have heard a lot about Labour’s legacy, and about where Labour stands, and we get severely misrepresented by the Government parties opposite. We are not denying the deficit. We adopted a plan to halve it over the four years of a Parliament. We have been very clear that we would have made cuts in public spending, that we support some of the cuts that are now being made, and that certain tax increases would have happened under a Labour Government.

The real challenge in this debate is to address the questions of growth and employment. There is no value in cutting public spending as the Government are doing if it damages the prospects for growth. The impact on the economy is that tax revenues go down, unemployment goes up, benefit costs therefore rise and the deficit position gets even worse. My right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor reminded the House earlier about what both the parties that are now in government said when they were in opposition. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) has pointed out that the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, said in July 2008 that

“we are sticking to Labour’s spending totals.”

That was the view on the Conservative Front Bench in July 2008. In fact, my hon. Friend did not quote him in full; the right hon. Gentleman went on to describe those Labour spending totals as “tight”. The views that the current Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer are now expressing are not the ones that they held at that time.

A year ago, in the emergency Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:

“In this Budget, everyone will be asked to contribute…everyone will share in the rewards when we succeed. When we say that we are all in this together, we mean it.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 167.]

Our motion today welcomes the recent fall in unemployment, and I have heard hon. Members on the Government Benches talk about falls in unemployment in their constituencies, but are we really all in it together? Let us look at the figures.

[Ben Gummer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Twigg]

I will not take any more interventions, for reasons of time.

We have seen a small increase over the past year in the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants. I want to compare two different constituencies in the north-west: my own, and another one just down the road, called Tatton. In Liverpool, West Derby, we have seen the number of JSA claimants rise over the past year by almost 5%. In Tatton, the number has fallen by 4%. [Interruption.] Well, I would love to know who the MP is who can make that much difference in a year. Somehow I doubt that that is possible. There are 4,000 JSA claimants in my constituency, and 1,000 in that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I sometimes think that Government Members underestimate the scale of anger in constituencies such as mine, which went through the experience of living through a Tory Government in the 1980s and have a sense that they are going through exactly the same experience again now.

[Mrs Louise Mensch (Corby) (Con)]

rose—

[Stephen Twigg]

I am not taking any more interventions.

As I say, there are 33 JSA claimants chasing each vacancy in my constituency, but only two and a half in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s constituency not that far away.

If we are going to recover and see jobs and growth, we need capital investment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) spoke about the importance of housing investment and my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) spoke about high-speed rail, so let me say something about schools.

The decision to cancel the Building Schools for the Future programme has not only had an impact on educational opportunities for children and young people in constituencies like mine, as it has had a devastating effect on the construction industry. I urge the Government to look again—not at recreating the Building Schools for the Future programme, as we have moved on from that, but at the critical importance of investment in schools in our communities.

My hon. Friends have already mentioned the future jobs fund, from which more than 90,000 young people directly benefited—6,500 in the city of Liverpool alone. The Government’s own study from the Department for Work and Pensions this January described the fund as

“successful in preparing customers for work…The improvements to customer skills sets are likely to remain for the long term.”

I want to address a specific question to the Economic Secretary, who is responding to the debate. Last night, I tabled early-day motion 1960 on the issue of asset sales by regional development agencies. Nationally, these assets are valued at about £500 million, and the Treasury plans to have a fire sale of these assets throughout the country—except in Greater London, where the assets of the London Development Agency have been gifted to the Mayor. I have no quarrel with that decision. It is a good decision, and I do not disagree with what is being done in London, but I do not see why we cannot have the same decision for local authorities and local economic partnerships outside London. I asked that very question at Business, Innovation and Skills questions recently and I was told that the reason was that the London Development Agency had been merged with the Greater London Authority. Actually, that has not happened, as the legislation is still going through Parliament. I urge the Treasury to think again, because if assets can be gifted to Boris Johnson, why on earth cannot they be gifted to local authorities and local economic partnerships outside London?

Let me deal now with the issue of fairness. I have already drawn one contrast between my constituency and the Chancellor’s. Another contrast is on the scale of the cuts. Of course there have to be cuts to local government funding—we accept that—but Liverpool city council has seen its spending power cut by 8.8%, resulting in cuts of £91 million this year. Cheshire East, which is where the Chancellor’s constituency is based, has had a cut of 1.7%. That is why people are angry—not because they deny the deficit, but because they see the burden of deficit reduction falling far more on some of the most deprived communities in the country. The Government need to think again.

Even in these tough times, Labour’s Liverpool city council is working to improve things. It is working on a plan B for Building Schools for the Future. I urge the Government to engage with it. The council is working with the Government on the enterprise zone and it is creating 133 new apprenticeships to give opportunities to Liverpool’s young people.

Finally, on the cost of living, in the year to April, we saw average weekly earnings rising by 1.8% while inflation was at 4.5%. For a family on average earnings with both adults working, that is loss of £1,000 to the household income each year. The pain is not being shared. When the Government abolish the bankers’ bonus tax, yet go ahead with that cut in real earnings for average families, it is not about protecting low and middle-income Britain.

An economic gamble is being played by the two parties in the coalition. The speed and scale of deficit reduction could itself damage our ability to reduce the deficit, by damaging growth and increasing unemployment. Yes, we need cuts; yes, we need to reduce waste: but we need to protect the front line as far as we possibly can. If the Government continue down this path, there is a serious danger that they will both weaken the prospects for economic recovery and create an even more divided society in our country. I urge them to think again.