Home Affairs

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. It is interesting that we should hear the Government’s plans so soon after so many of us had the opportunity to listen to the voice of the people in the county council elections in the shire counties of England.

I spent almost all of the previous four weeks home in the beautiful shire county of Derbyshire, specifically in my home town of Chesterfield. For those few short weeks we Derbyshire people seemed to be very popular among the political class. The Prime Minister came to Derbyshire twice during the campaign, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), to whom we were grateful for also visiting us after the campaign to join our celebrations. The Chancellor also came to see us, as did the Home Secretary, who took in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner). I believe she saw the beautiful Crooked Spire church, which, I am sure she was told—I do not know whether a plaque has been put up there yet—is where I got married. If that information has escaped her, I am glad to be able to remind her of it.

It is hardly surprising that Derbyshire was the focus of so much attention. No Government have lost in Derbyshire and won the country since the war. The verdict of the people of Derbyshire was pretty clear: a huge win for Labour, with 43 Labour councillors compared with 18 Conservatives, just three Lib Dems and not a UKIP councillor in sight. UKIP if you want to, but the people of Derbyshire certainly did not. It was a triumph for Labour leader Anne Western and the Labour team at county hall.

In electoral terms it was a decisive win, with Labour majorities in many seats that we hope to win in 2015. Despite the victory, however, those of us who spent considerable time on the doorsteps could not escape the sense of despair among voters—the sense that politics should be capable of offering so much more, that our Government are running out of ideas and that our great country, which fought off the massed forces of fascism from 1939 onwards, had the vision to create the national health service, has been present at the birth of so many of the world’s great inventions and is home to some of the greatest educational establishments in the world, should be capable of so much more.

The Queen’s Speech had Crosby’s fingerprints are all over it. They left quite a mark—besmirched it, we might say—but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North said yesterday, the speech failed completely to grasp the magnitude of the moment. It is ironic that the person in charge of the Government’s xenophobia strategy is himself an immigrant. I am from a family of immigrants: my family have only been in the UK since about 1066. In fact, Her Majesty, who gave the Gracious Speech, has Germanic roots herself. We should embrace our country’s history and the fact that it is made up of so many different people.

Is this really it? Is this all the Government have to offer? The response to the drubbing that the Conservatives took is a dog whistle here, a hint at red meat there, more divide and rule, and no overarching vision for the kind of country that this Government aim to create before leaving power.

What is this Government’s vision? They have lost the triple A status and there has been no reduction in the deficit in the past year. What do they want the last two years of their cruel, divisive, incompetent and directionless reign to be about? The Home Secretary seems to think it is funny, but the people of Derbyshire were not laughing when they reflected on her and her party’s record last week. Austerity has failed, so what is the alternative vision for which this Government will be remembered? Will they now simply indulge in the most pernicious kind of blame game? If the Government have no vision or cannot agree on what they want to do, let us have a general election and give the people of this country some real alternatives.

All we have seen on immigration is incompetence and confusion. Only one in 1,000 students suspected of abusing the immigration system have been deported. Some 106,000 cases reported by universities have led to just 153 deportations. More worryingly, only 658 cases were even investigated.

At the very same time that the Government are doing so little to investigate potential abuses of the system, we have seen a big drop-off in the entirely legitimate and indeed vital numbers of foreign students, who offer revenue for our universities. At recent meetings with representatives from Sheffield, Leeds and the university of London, they have all highlighted problems resulting from the reduction in foreign student numbers.

We get the benefit of highly qualified workers when some of these students stay on. Often they return to their countries as the greatest advocates of life in Britain and are vital to our ability to trade. We all want to see an increase in exports and foreign students are an important means by which that can be achieved.

The Government’s immigration fiasco does not end there. When I speak to businesses across the country in my capacity as a shadow business Minister, I am constantly upbraided by businesses—technological and manufacturing firms in particular—about how much of an obstacle to success the confusion on immigration is.

People are concerned that UK workers are undercut in the jobs market and that the Government turn a blind eye to abuses of the minimum wage. Indeed, with their workfare policy, they seem as keen as ever to send out the message that people should be grateful for what they get and to push more workers into poverty. People are concerned that foreign workers, legal and illegal, are working for less than the minimum wage. The fuzzy line between the cost of housing and work is enabling unscrupulous firms to exploit workers’ desire to put money on the table. I am talking not about those who do not contribute, but about the very people who are fighting day and night to earn enough money so that their family can eat. Where was the Government’s acknowledgement of their failure to enforce the national minimum wage? Where was the Bill to tighten up the rules to ensure that those loopholes are closed?

People are concerned about recruitment agencies that recruit only migrant and foreign labour. That is why Labour proposes that the system be toughened up to ensure that firms that act in that way are stopped and that British workers get a fair crack of the whip when they are trying to get into the jobs market. Where was the Government’s commitment to do something about that? Is it any wonder that the voters in Derbyshire rejected the governing parties so wholeheartedly last week?

Let me touch on other reasons why Derbyshire’s voters rejected the Government. On banking, we needed to see real reform. Government net lending has fallen in 18 of the last 24 months as more and more of the Government’s money has been given to the same big four banks. That was a problem when the Government came to power, and yet it has got worse in month after month. Failed Government strategy follows failed Government strategy. In the three months to February 2013, there was an additional £4.8 billion fall in lending to small businesses.

Labour proposes something bigger. We propose a local banking network to put banks back at the heart of their communities. There must be a fundamental change in decision making to ensure that decisions about businesses are taken by people who understand those businesses, not by somebody 70 miles away. Bank lending should no longer focus more and more on London; there must be proper regional and local banking that sees money lent to small businesses within local communities.

The people cannot be fooled. They know that they are worse off under this Government than before 2010. They will be £891 worse off by 2015. They know that there is a cost-of-living crisis, but they have seen no action on train fares, payday loans or fuel costs. They have seen no action on the construction industry at a time when it is struggling. Labour has proposed a reduction in the VAT on home improvements to 5%, which is supported by the Federation of Small Businesses. Young people face a jobs crisis. Let us end the debate on whether they want work or not. Let us expose those who do not by having a jobs guarantee that ensures that all young people know that they will have an opportunity to get into work.

There is no serious growth strategy. The only growth strategy seems to be, “Let’s see if we can get kids to buy fags or get people to drink themselves stupid on cheap supermarket booze.” The Government have dropped the plans for plain cigarette packaging and minimum alcohol pricing that the Prime Minister promised. Where was the promised legislation on pub companies that we expected to hear about in the Queen’s Speech? We must support our pubs. We must ensure that more people drink in them and that less people drink at home, where much more problem drinking occurs.

As colleagues have said, the Queen’s Speech was an opportunity for the Government to show that they had listened to the message that came from people across the country last week and to show that they have a strategy to do something about the problems that face us. We now know that the Government will not take the serious action that is required, but will limp on with the Liberals and Conservatives unsure about what they can agree on. The Queen’s Speech has demonstrated that this is a mongrel Government without a proper agenda. The country is ready for something better.