Tony Baldry
Main Page: Tony Baldry (Conservative - Banbury)Department Debates - View all Tony Baldry's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years ago)
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Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to those who have died in Afghanistan since we last met: Guardsman Michael Roland of 1st Battalion the Grenadier Guards, and Corporal Andrew Roberts and Private Ratu Silibaravi of 23 Pioneer Regiment, the Royal Logistics Corps. They all showed the utmost bravery, and our thoughts are with their family and friends. Let me also say from this House that we support our mission in Afghanistan and will also support the Prime Minister in the important efforts that he is making to secure a political settlement there for when our troops have left.
As is customary, I would also like to pay tribute to those Members who have died since the last Queen’s Speech. First, Alan Keen was hugely popular with Members of all parties. A football scout turned MP, he had faith in the power of sport and politics to change lives. He is missed sorely by his wife, Ann, and his family and friends.
I also pay tribute to David Cairns, who was able to enter the House only because the law was changed to allow a former Catholic priest to sit in Parliament. He was funny, warm and principled, and his death one year ago today was a tragedy particularly for his partner, Dermot, and his many, many friends.
In her diamond jubilee year, I would also like to pay tribute to Her Majesty the Queen. We are reminded yet again today of her tireless service to the people of this country, and we are all looking forward to the national celebrations later this year.
My understanding is that, by tradition, the Loyal Address is proposed by a rising star of the governing party, who is thrusting his way forward on to the rungs of the ministerial ladder. Hon. Members of all parties can therefore agree that there could be no better choice than the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi). He spoke eloquently, movingly and with confidence, and I congratulate him on his remarks.
I believe that the hon. Gentleman is the first Member of the House to have been born in Iraqi Kurdistan. He spoke about the people of Stratford-on-Avon and said that his background was not the issue. However, he said in an interview that I read:
“What Britain gave my family was freedom and opportunity…to my family they weren’t just words, they changed our whole life.”
He brings to the House a perspective that enriches us all.
The hon. Gentleman also has the distinction of being the founder of the polling company YouGov. Let me say that I have spent much of the past 18 months thinking that he has a lot to answer for. No doubt, after recent weeks, the Prime Minister feels the same.
I am used to seeing the hon. Gentleman as an enthusiastic Back Bencher—if I can put it like that—braying at me with particular vigour from a sedentary position during Prime Minister’s questions, so I am very happy to give him the endorsement he no doubt craves and recommend unequivocally that the Prime Minister give him ministerial preferment whenever the reshuffle comes. It would be his gain and mine.
I also congratulate the seconder of the Loyal Address, the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce). He brought his years of distinguished service and wisdom to the job. He brings great skill and experience to the House, including, as he said, as an assiduous and enthusiastic Chairman of the International Development Committee. In doing research on his background, I got extremely excited when someone in my office turned up a biography from the internet, which stated:
“Malcolm Bruce also worked early in his career with Ozzy Osbourne and recently performed a Jimi Hendrix Birthday tribute.”
Sadly for me and for him, it turned out to be a different Malcolm Bruce.
However, the right hon. Gentleman continues to serve the Liberal Democrats in important ways, not least as their president in Scotland—I am sure he is very proud of that just now. No doubt he will play a crucial role in the inquest into that local election result in Edinburgh, where the Liberal Democrat candidate was beaten by a penguin. [Laughter.] Tory Members should not laugh too much because there are more pandas than Tory MPs in Scotland. I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that he will have to do better than the explanation offered locally in Edinburgh that
“it wasn’t a target ward”.
The right hon. Gentleman has had a long and distinguished parliamentary career, which, under normal circumstances, would end up with service in the House of Lords, if it was not for his leader’s determination to abolish it. However, I pay tribute to him for his excellent speech.
On the Gracious Speech, first, let me say that we will work with the Government on the green investment bank, the defamation Bill and flexible parental leave, all of which sound remarkably like Labour ideas—because they are Labour ideas.
This is the speech that was supposed to be the Government’s answer to the clear message from the electorate last week, but on today’s evidence, they still do not get it. For a young person looking for work, this speech offers nothing; for a family whose living standards are being squeezed, this speech offers nothing; for the millions of people who think the Government are not on their side, this speech offers nothing. “No change, no hope” is the real message of this Queen’s Speech.
The Prime Minister and the Chancellor appear to believe that people are turning against them because they have not understood the Government’s economic policy, but the truth is that people have turned against them because they have understood it only too well. What did the Government promise two years ago? The Chancellor could not have been clearer in his emergency Budget, when he said there would be
“a steady and sustained economic recovery, with low inflation and falling unemployment…a new model of economic growth”.—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 168.]
What has he delivered? He has delivered the worst unemployment in 16 years, 1 million young people out of work and the first double-dip recession for 37 years. They promised recovery, but they delivered recession—a recession made in Downing street. They have failed.
As if a failing plan was not bad enough, the Government added insult to injury in the Budget, by making millions pay more so that millionaires could pay less. There is no change on that in the Queen’s Speech either. I say to the Prime Minister that he should listen to people such as Linda Pailing, the deputy chair of Harlow Conservative party, who said of her constituents:
“They don’t like the fact that he didn’t keep the 50p tax…people feel here that he is not working for them, he is working for his friends”.
She said these elections are
“to do with what Cameron and his cronies are doing”.
It comes to something when even lifelong Tories do not believe that this Prime Minister is on their side. Last Thursday, the British people delivered a damning verdict on the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and their economic strategy. The Prime Minister says he gets it, but if he really does, the first thing—[Interruption.] Government Members say, “What about London?”, which is interesting. What did the Mayor of London say? He said he had “survived” the wind,
“the rain, the BBC, the Budget and the endorsement of David Cameron”—[Laughter.]
I think they walked into that one.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman talks about the 50p tax, but I am slightly confused as to why he did not vote against the change when he had the opportunity to do so.
Mr Davis
No, I am about to finish that part of my speech. The prior warrant process would ensure that we stop the great overuse of the new powers, which has happened dozens of times in the past decade. If we do not, the public reaction will be one of outrage, because the measure will affect not just a few people, but tens of millions of people, and they will not take it quietly.
My last point is on a justice measure, but it is not a measure like the snooper’s charter, which will create a tsunami of reaction as it goes through the House—I am confident of that, because we already have 137,000 signatures on the online petition. Secret courts affect only tens and perhaps hundreds of people, but they bring against those people a serious injustice. I take the view—a very unfashionable one in modern politics, with too many polls and focus groups—that an injustice against one is an injustice against all, and the secret court proposals undoubtedly propose an injustice.
I say that with complete confidence, but for a rather obscure reason. A secret court procedure is proposed, but we already have such procedures. They are called special immigration appeal courts—SIAC—and they have existed since 1997, when the Labour Government introduced them to deal with people they thought they could not deal with in open court. Of course, no hon. Member has ever been in one or seen one in operation. No hon. Member knows how they work, including all Ministers of this Government and the previous one.
One group alone understands how those courts work: special advocates. There are 69 special advocates, of whom 32 have had detailed exposure to the proposed closed material procedure. The procedure involves the Executive—a Minister—saying to a court: “This information can be heard only in very close camera.” It cannot be heard in court as a whole in secret: the judge and the Government advocate of the argument can hear the evidence, but only the special advocate—a lawyer who cannot talk to the defendant or litigant in the case—can challenge it.
Tony Baldry
We had a system of special advocates in courts in Northern Ireland for a very long time—a number of members of my chambers were special advocates in such circumstances—and I do not recall my right hon. Friend when we were in government ever complaining about those procedures, which we had to use in Northern Ireland given the particular circumstances there.
Mr Davis
I am sorry to correct my hon. Friend’s memory, but I did complain. I actually appeared in a Diplock court as a witness, so I know exactly how they work from that point of view.
The simple truth is not my view, but the view of the 32 special advocates who have had such experience. Virtually all of them signed a document that challenged the Government’s Green Paper, in quite robust terms. The special advocates said that closed material procedures
“represent a departure both from the principle of natural justice and from the principle of open justice. They may leave a litigant having little clear idea of the case deployed against him, and ultimately they may prevent some litigants from knowing why they have won or lost. Furthermore, and crucially, because the SA appointed on his behalf is unable to take instructions in relation to that case, they may leave the SA with little realistic opportunity of responding effectively to that case. They also systematically exclude public, press and Parliamentary scrutiny of parts of our justice system…Our experience as SAs involved in statutory and non-statutory closed material procedures leaves us in no doubt that CMPs are inherently unfair; they do not ‘work effectively’, nor do they deliver real procedural fairness. The fact that such procedures may be operated so as to meet the minimum standards required by Article 6 of the ECHR, with such modification as has been required by the courts so as to reduce that inherent unfairness, does not and cannot make them objectively fair.”
That is the view of the only people who understand this system.
The secret courts measure is being held up as a proposal to improve our security. It would undermine and corrode our justice system, and it would not improve our security, because the other point made by special advocates is that the public interest immunity system as it now stands—again this is not properly understood by Ministers—works perfectly well, and much better than what is proposed. Indeed, one special advocate has pointed out that this proposal is less good than that available to the terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay. That is how poor this procedure is. In fact, there are many other procedures abroad that would work better than this one. Sadly, this is not a measure that I will support in the coming months.
The Government came in with a grand, important and liberal—both small “l” and big “l”—tradition to uphold. That tradition supported both freedom and justice in this country. These two measures—putting the Lords to one side, as that is a matter for argument—would, if we are not very careful, undermine that tradition and our reputation, and do nothing to improve the protection of Britain against terrorism. Indeed, just the reverse—they would make it worse.
Simon Hughes
Absolutely. If we can have a real rise of shareholder power over the next few years—individuals and pension funds—it will be a really good thing.
There are two more things I want to say. The first is about constitutional reform, in part to answer the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). We are right not to forget constitutional reform. The Liberal Democrat party is a party of reform. We have agreed fixed-term Parliaments—a good thing. We have agreed that there should be no transfer of powers to the European Union without a referendum, which is an absolutely reasonable thing. We have agreed that whatever the number of constituencies, they should at least have the same size electorate—a good thing. We have agreed to look at devolution to England, which I have argued for a long time, because there is unequal devolution. Since I have been in this place we have had fantastically successful devolution in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and I welcome it. England needs a bit of the same.
We have agreed that Back Benchers should be more powerful in determining the agenda in this place—a good thing. We have agreed that there will be a change in the laws of succession to the Crown—absolutely a good thing. I hope it will soon be part of the legislative programme. We have more work to do, to make sure we scrutinise legislation better in this place. We do not do it well enough in either place; often we do not have enough time here and we leave it to the other end of the building. That is not a plea for more legislation. In every Parliament I have sat in, we have asked for less legislation and I am glad that we are not trying to jam in all sorts of things that the public do not want. We want fewer regulations and less legislation, but we want to do it better.
Tony Baldry
Does my right hon. Friend think that the Opposition have suddenly started mischief-making over Lords reform, by asking for a referendum? Is it because they hope that in so doing they will cause Liberal Democrat Members to go slow on the equalisation of constituency boundaries? As Labour Members do not want equalisation of constituency boundaries, they hope that by frustrating Lords reform they can frustrate that idea. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that he and his colleagues are committed to ensuring that a vote in Southwark is worth the same as a vote in Banbury, or in Wales or Scotland?
Simon Hughes
I am keen that we have a system whereby votes in all parts of the country are fair. Of course I would like a proportional system, but I accept that I shall not have that in this Parliament. Friends on the Plaid and other Benches know of my Welsh background. The Welsh have the most advantageous position at the moment, because many constituencies have far fewer electors. We need a fair system.
I do not know what the motives of Labour Members are, but if they try to play silly games and prevent the other place from changing from an entirely nominated or hereditary Chamber to a democratic one, it will be to their eternal discredit. This is the best opportunity they have ever had—especially as they did not do it—to change our Parliament. Why? There are only 15 countries in the world that still have a predominantly appointed second Chamber; I am sure Labour Members would think that Belize and Burkina Faso are good examples. In only one other country is heredity a determinant for membership of the legislature—Lesotho. It is a lovely country, but I am not sure that it is the best model for democratic, 21st-century politics.
There are more Members down the other end of the corridor who are over 90 than under 40. There are 818 Members there already—92 hereditary—and the balance between men and women is 638 to 180. The Chamber is not representative by gender, ethnicity or age. It is not representative in any way. Why not? Because it exists by patronage and heredity. We just have to move on. It has been on the agenda for 100 years and we have to finish the business.
Mr Dorrell
I have much sympathy for that point of view. I have been here for perhaps rather more years than I should, but I remember long debates when parliamentary scrutiny was more effective than it often is now. Before the last general election, there were repeated occasions on which complex legislation passed through on a timetable that suited the Government rather than provided for proper parliamentary scrutiny.
There will be those—I am certainly among them—who will look for ways to strengthen the voice of the House of Commons, as we should. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), who referred to the strengthening during this Parliament of the Back-Bench voice, which has been a step forward and a good thing. However, those who look for effective checks within the legislature on Executive enthusiasms do well to look at another place as part of the answer to that, in addition to reform of House of Commons procedure.
Therefore, to those in the Conservative party who ask, “Where is the Conservative provenance for House of Lords reform?” I say, “Read the history books.” I will certainly be uncomfortable if we are manoeuvred into a position in which we appear to defend what I regard as a wholly unacceptable Blairite compromise, which we opposed vigorously at the time of the legislative proposals at the beginning of the Labour Government.
Having said all that, it is clearly true that such reform is an important internal process within the Westminster village, but not the key issue that our constituents look to the Government, the Queen’s Speech and the House to address. To again pick up a theme developed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, we should remind ourselves that the Government are a coalition. Because they are a coalition, they have a large working majority in the House of Commons, which is a good thing in terms of the stability and strategic purpose it provides. However, the majority is more important in another respect: the two parties that make up the coalition have a broader electoral base in the community outside Westminster than has been the case for any recent Government. We have a stable Government with a clear purpose, which was redefined and re-emphasised in the Queen’s Speech and in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and not just a Government cobbled together in the immediate aftermath of the last general election.
At the very heart of the purpose of the coalition Government is the intention to create a stable economic base not merely to address the deficit, but to move on from that to create the environment in which growth begins to re-emerge, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool said. The purpose of economic policy is not to make the books balance—as the Prime Minister said over the weekend, it is not an exercise in accountancy—but to create the environment in which interest rates are low, confidence returns, and growth starts the process of creating jobs in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and elsewhere.
I find the argument of the shadow Chancellor wholly unpersuasive. He appears to believe that we lack a Government appetite to borrow. How a British Government deliver stability in the Europe of 2012 by building on their already excessive borrowing rate and building more borrowing into our public finances is simply beyond me. I believe that that is unrealistic, but more seriously, I also believe that the shadow Chancellor knows it is unrealistic. If he does, it is not only unrealistic, but dishonest.
The purpose that brought the Government together, which enlists the support of every Conservative and Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, is the prime objective of recreating economic stability to create growth, so that we can deliver the wealth required to deliver improving standards of living and improving public services. How do we do that? The hon. Member for Hartlepool argued that what we need is a state bank that would make better investment decisions than the private banking sector. I do not agree with that.
What I do agree with are the two key Bills in the Queen’s Speech, one of which is the Bill on banking reform, to address some of the failings that have been identified, not just by politicians but by the Governor of the Bank of England last week and by many commentators. One of the learning experiences of the events of 2005-09 was that the banking system did not have proper risk assurance to reduce the risks that the taxpayer ended up picking up. The process of banking reform is important and I welcome the fact that the Government are pressing forward with it.
I also welcome the fact that the Government are pressing forward with the reform and accentuation of competition policy, because I strongly believe that, once the Government’s finances are under control, the real answer to the question of how to recreate growth, confidence and prosperity in the economy is through a banking system that works and a competitive, free-enterprise economy. That is at the heart of the Queen’s Speech. It has obvious provenance in the Conservative tradition, and it has equally obvious provenance in the Liberal Democrat tradition, and that is why this stream of ideas comes together to create a strong coalition Government.
The Government are not, I am pleased to say, just about economics. They also have a broad-based programme for the reform of public service delivery—in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education in particular is carrying forward a programme of reform that will deliver strong improvements in our school system and our wider education system as a result of the ideas that we share across the coalition. We also have a shared commitment to the promotion of environmental policies through the Green investment bank. That such ideas are shared across the coalition is the key point that I want to draw out of the Queen’s Speech.
I wish to focus on one specific policy—social care. This is a more techy point than a political ideas point, but it is an extremely important point from the perspective of the people who rely on our health and social care system. There was, of course, an expectation of legislation on social care reform in this Session. What we now have is a commitment in the Queen’s Speech to a draft Bill reflecting a continuing thinking process within the Government—I am pleased to see that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), the Minister with responsibility for social care, is in his place. I shall not seek his comments on what I am about to say, but I am glad that he will hear it.
Tony Baldry
In the briefing that hon. Members were sent before this debate by organisations including Carers UK, they actually asked for a draft Bill so that it could be properly considered before final legislation was eventually brought forward.
Mr Dorrell
My hon. Friend leads me neatly to my next point. It seems to me to be an odd argument to suggest that if the Government have not yet clearly made up their mind precisely how they propose to deliver the important issue of social care reform, it then becomes a source of criticism that there is not a Bill with a commitment to legislate. I am old-fashioned enough—as my hon. Friend suggests most of us interested in this issue are—to think that the most important issue is to deliver a clear policy and then to legislate. I do not criticise the insistence that we have a clear policy before we have a Bill and a commitment to legislate.
I welcome the fact that the process of clarification of policy is continuing, provided that it takes us beyond discussion about funding. While Dilnot made some important points about the need for a fairer system of distributing the cost burden among those who pay for social care—some of those ideas will be part of the eventual conclusion on health and social care—the problem is that he was asked to answer the wrong question, and that is becoming increasingly obvious as the public discussion continues. The question put to Dilnot was how to restructure the payment arrangements for the existing structure of social care. But if we step back from the question of funding and look at how care is actually delivered in each locality—between the social care system, the primary health care system and the community health care system—the inescapable conclusion is that the structure is no longer fit for purpose. It was designed primarily to deliver health care to people who had a burden of disease that was the pattern 30, 40 or 50 years ago, whereas today’s health and care system needs to meet the needs of a very different group of patients. It is a difficult thing to measure, but depending on how one chooses to do so, between two thirds and three quarters of the resources employed in the health and care system are devoted to people with long-term, complex needs. Their requirement is for joined-up care that supports them and enables them to lead lives that are as full as possible during the period of their longer life expectancy.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
I think that Members of all parties would endorse the support of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) for the Queen’s Speech proposal to introduce legislation to establish an independent adjudicator to ensure that supermarkets deal fairly and lawfully with suppliers. That is clearly one of many proposals that will have all-party support.
In reflecting on the Queen’s Speech, it is probably sensible to consider where we are and where we have been. In recalling where we are, it is important to remember that the Prime Minister’s party does not have a parliamentary majority. After the general election, it was clearly in the nation’s interest to form a coalition. A coalition, however, requires compromise every day. To govern, the Prime Minister has to agree policy initiatives with a political party very different from his own. In practice, the coalition is working a lot better than many would have imagined. The fact is that the Conservative party did not win enough seats or votes to enable us to deliver all our manifesto pledges. The solution is not to blame the coalition, but to seek to win more votes next time.
Notwithstanding the challenges of the coalition, the Government have, since the general election, embarked on a vast reforming programme unprecedented in modern times to reduce the structural deficit and to put through reforms of the NHS that will enable GPs better to design local NHS services for their patients. The Government have reformed primary and secondary education, introduced a new system of university tuition fees and completely overhauled the welfare system to ensure that as many people as possible can live responsible and worthwhile lives free of state dependency. The Government have capped housing benefit and passed the European Union Act 2011 so that in future any EU treaty that transfers powers to the European Union will be subject to a referendum, and never again will a Government be able to surrender sovereignty to Brussels without the full consent of the British people. On Europe, too, the Prime Minister and the Government have vetoed the fiscal pact. Ministers have swept away pages and pages of planning regulations, but in so doing have still managed to protect the green belt, while providing local councillors and local communities with the opportunity to design and develop their own local plans free of top-down Whitehall directives such as regional spatial strategies.
The Government are introducing elected police commissioners and reforming public sector pensions that would otherwise become unaffordable and unsustainable. Importantly, the Government have taken millions of the low-paid out of income tax and have cut corporation tax. We inherited corporation tax at 28% , but by 2014, it will be reduced to 22%. As a result, the UK will have the lowest main corporation tax rate in the G7 and the fourth lowest in the G20. To help businesses further, the Government have introduced a £20 billion national loan guarantee scheme to get cheaper loans to businesses. These have been bold reforms and they have all been achieved without a Conservative majority.
It is not only that the Prime Minister has had to govern with a party that does not have a parliamentary majority, as the second reality is that the Government have no money—and it is not unreasonable to think that a Government with no majority and no money will have problems. We should never forget that the Labour Government left Britain with a deficit that, at £160 billion, was bigger than Greece’s. The Labour Government gave us the longest and deepest recession on record, so that we were one of the first countries into recession and one of the last countries coming out of recession. We should never forget the telling letter left to his successor by the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne):
“Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money. Kind regards—and good luck!”
That pithy 13-word message—whether it was tongue in cheek or not—well summed up the 13 years of the Labour Government.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend think it important to remind the House and the country that we are only two years into this historic coalition Government, and considering the economic mess that we were left, it is remarkable how many positive things are in this Queen’s Speech?
Tony Baldry
Yes, this Government have probably achieved more in two years than the Blair Government achieved in the whole of their first term.
Gavin Shuker
Why does the hon. Gentleman believe that we are in the first double-dip recession for 37 years?
Tony Baldry
The hon. Gentleman has just heard me comment on the legacy of his Government, so I find it extraordinary that he has the cheek and audacity to ask such a question. The Labour Government left the country with no money and the biggest debt crisis of our lifetime. Indeed, over many years, this country built up massive debts, which we have to pay off. Of course, it is much more difficult to do that when so much of the rest of Europe is in recession. As I suspect France will soon demonstrate, trying to pile debt upon debt is what got Britain and Europe into such difficulties in the first place. It did not work for Britain over 13 years of a Labour Government and would not work now. The eurozone’s troubles are caused by too much debt, the burden of excessive public spending and the burden of excessive public borrowing. It is not surprising that Government are seeking the approval of Parliament relating to the agreed financial stability mechanism within the euro area.
It is no mean task recovering from the deepest recession in living memory, accompanied as it was by a debt crisis. Our banks had too much debt; our households had too much debt; and the Government had too much debt. As Sir Mervyn King, commenting on the performance of the last Government, observed in “The Today Lecture” that he gave last week while the House was in recess:
“Bailing out the banks came too late though to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy. The realisation of the true state of the banking system led to a collapse of confidence around the world...unemployment in Britain rose by over a million....to many this will seem deeply unfair and it is. I can understand why so many people are angry.”
One can speculate only that perhaps more than a million people may have lost their jobs unnecessarily because the previous Government failed to act on warnings from the Bank of England.
Notwithstanding the challenge, Britain has so far hung on to our triple A credit rating. We have kept a lid on borrowing costs and, compared with other countries in the eurozone, many of which are in the process of changing leaders or just starting to tackle their debts, we are thriving.
John Cryer
I thank the hon. Gentleman—or is it right hon. Gentleman? [Interruption.] Well, I am sure he should be right hon., and I shall put down an early-day motion tomorrow to achieve it! Returning to the last election, is the hon. Gentleman aware that at that time both unemployment and the deficit were falling, yet they are both now rising? The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that the deficit is going to be a lot higher at the end of this Parliament than was predicted two years ago.
Tony Baldry
I think we need a bumper book of excuses from the Labour party, explaining why it was not responsible for getting us into the difficulties we face. Let us develop a bumper book of excuses and put all these various contributions into it, saying “Nothing to do with us, guv”! That would be impressive. We must not be complacent. The UK has to rebalance its economy. We need a bigger private sector; we need more exports; and we need more investment. In short, we need to do everything possible to boost growth, competitiveness and jobs.
Geraint Davies
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the big debate is the balance between the need for growth and the need for cuts to lower the deficit? Does he accept that, as we entered 2010, two thirds of the deficit was caused by the banks and the remaining third by the then Labour Government—who had invested more than they were earning, but who had done so with good reason to project a positive growth trajectory? With hindsight, does he accept that the balance between growth and cuts is wrong, and that we should act on the mandate in Europe and invest more in growth and less in cuts?
Tony Baldry
Since the general election the Labour party has engaged in a wonderful exercise in propounding the motif that cuts are being made too far and too fast. In his autobiography, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer responsibly acknowledges the mistakes made by the last Labour Government. Opposition Members, however, have tried to develop a line that will enable them simultaneously to go around the City of London saying “We are being sensible and responsible about the deficit and about the need to reduce public spending” and, when campaigning, to present the impression privately, on the doorstep of every household in the country, that, given their own way, they would not reduce any individual item of public expenditure. That is a circle that the Opposition cannot square, and until they get real in explaining to the country and the markets how they will actually tackle the budget deficit, they will not be taken seriously as an Opposition, let alone as a Government in waiting.
We must never forget that the present Government inherited a budget deficit of 11%—bigger than Greece’s, bigger than Spain’s, and bigger than Portugal’s. We all know that if we do not deal properly with our debts and with the nation’s deficit it will be impossible to keep interest rates low, and that, quite apart from the benefit that low interest rates provide for businesses and those paying mortgages, they offer us the best prospects of getting out of our present difficult economic situation.
The Government and the Chancellor inherited a deeply dysfunctional economy in which, all too often, the taxes generated by the financial and property sectors in the south paid for higher public spending in the north. As Sir Mervyn King so tellingly testified in his speech last week, it was an economy in which the City had been poorly policed, and in which growth was too dependent on debt. Making clear that we intended to have a credible fiscal plan has helped us in Britain to maintain our top international credit rating and has brought interest rates to record lows, making family mortgages and business loans cheaper. Sticking to the deficit plan means that, having inherited a deficit larger than those of Spain or Greece, we have interest rates similar to those in Germany. Indeed, the IMF’s latest forecast for the UK expects it to grow faster than France or Germany. In considering where we are now, we should not forget that the recent Budget cut taxes for 24 million working people.
Tony Baldry
I love the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)! He left the Chamber for a considerable period, has been back for two seconds, and now wants to intervene. However, because he is very supportive on Church matters, I am happy to give way to him.
Chris Bryant
So much excitement was being engendered by the hon. Gentleman that I felt the need to return to the Chamber. Then I started to listen, which is where I made my mistake. I think the hon. Gentleman said that the present Government had cut interest rates. Can he tell us when they did so? My understanding is that they have been entirely flat since they changed under a Labour rather than a Conservative Government.
Tony Baldry
The hon. Gentleman was so excited by my speech that he misheard me. I made no reference to the Government’s cutting interest rates. What I said was that the Government’s financial and economic policies had enabled us, and were still enabling us, to keep interest rates low, while also ensuring that our interest rates compared with those of Germany. I have absolutely no doubt that if we followed the economic policies advocated by Opposition Front Benchers, we would soon see interest rates, including mortgage interest rates, soaring as a consequence.
The Government have taken 2 million people out of tax, they have continued to freeze council tax, and—as I have already observed—they have cut corporation tax so that we can compete with the rest of the world. Moreover, notwithstanding the challenges at home, Britain is meeting its commitments overseas. We are behaving as one would expect of a permanent member of the UN Security Council, honouring our obligations in Afghanistan, seeking to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation—particularly with Iran—and helping to bring greater stability to the horn of Africa. We are supporting democrats in Libya, and, through the Department for International Development, we are helping to tackle poverty around the world.
We should be proud that Britain is sticking to its aid promises. We are a friend to the world’s poorest, and giving aid represents the best of British values. Some 40 years after they first promised to give 0.7% of their national income in aid, rich countries are less than halfway there. Among the major economies, only we in the UK are on target to meet our commitments. Some of the more Poujadist elements of the press claim that public support for aid is diminishing. I suspect that that is because some two thirds of the public think that we spend up to 20 times more on foreign aid than we actually do. Once people know that our aid budget is just over a single penny in every pound spent by the Government, they are much more supportive.
Understandably, the Session of Parliament since the general election has been unusually long, but it is still impressive that the Government have passed more than 30 main programme Bills since the election to help to reduce the UK’s budget deficit and reform our public services. Their programme has been guided by the three core values of responsibility, fairness and freedom. The new Session will be shorter, so it will provide scope for fewer Bills. I do not think that there was any doubt on the doorsteps about what our constituents want us to focus on. They want us to continue to get the economy going, continue to improve the NHS, and continue to sort out welfare and education; and, importantly, they want us to demonstrate that we are on the side of those who are working hard and doing the best they can for their families.
One of the best-kept secrets of the last Budget is that the Chancellor raised personal allowances—the amount that people can earn before being taxed—so that 24 million middle-earning taxpayers will keep more of their money, and, from next April, 2 million low-paid people will not pay income tax at all. I can tell those who call for tax cuts that this year we have already made the largest tax cuts for more than a decade. I think everyone would agree that we should be doing all that we can to help families who are trying to do the best for themselves.
Of course we need to focus on jobs and economic growth. I am very glad that the proposals in a report by my constituent Adrian Beecroft for streamlining of the rules that make it hard for businesses to hire and fire employees are to be taken up. Redundancy rules, employment tribunals and rules about unfair dismissal all need to be changed, as Adrian Beecroft’s well-researched and well-argued report clearly demonstrates. We should be doing everything possible to encourage employers to expand and employ more people.
It is good news that the Government will reduce burdens on businesses by repealing unnecessary legislation and legislating to limit the state inspection of businesses. It is also good news that they will reform competition law in order to promote enterprise and fair markets. I think that many businesses will welcome the news that there is to be strengthened regulation of the financial services sector, and that the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Banking are to be implemented.
I also welcome the proposals relating to pensions. I think everyone agrees on the need to modernise the pensions system and reform the state pension, and on the importance of creating a fair and sustainable foundation for private saving. Governments must always seek to be on the side of those who save for retirement. I do not think that anyone seriously believes that it is possible to avoid reforming public service pensions in line with the recommendations of the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission.
As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on carers, I particularly welcome the news that a draft Bill is to be published to modernise adult care and support in England. The health White Paper of July 2010 promised legislation on adult social care in a second session of the present Parliament. We have all had plenty of time in which to read and digest the Dilnot report, which recommended a system under which people would pay the first chunk of nursing care costs and the state would pay after that. Given our increasingly ageing population, we need clarity, and cross-party talks have been taking place for a long time.
I also welcome the news that it is to be a draft Bill. Given such a major overhaul of social care legislation that needs to stand the test of time, and given the number of Select Committee reports on the issue, it is vital that we have an opportunity to get it right by co-operating with the Government, the Opposition and, indeed, every party in the House to produce legislation that seeks to achieve the right outcomes for everyone concerned.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
I agree about the need for cross-party agreement on care for the elderly. We do not want a repeat of what the Conservatives did when they were in opposition, however; they played games over this issue to try to gain short-term political advantage. What we need is a long-term solution.
Tony Baldry
I think we all want a long-term solution, which is why it is sensible for a draft Bill to be published so that everyone can agree the way forward, and so that when a Bill is presented to the House it has all-party support.
May I say in my capacity as Second Church Estates Commissioner that I welcome the introduction of a Bill to reduce the burdens on charities by enabling them to claim additional payments on small donations? Many Members of Parliament are involved in charities, perhaps as trustees or patrons. Church groups often rely on Sunday collections and small giving by large numbers of people. This move will allow extra support for charities.
Like all Members of Parliament, a fair amount of my constituency casework involves helping families with disabled children and children with special educational needs, so I greatly welcome the proposals in the Queen’s Speech to introduce measures to improve provision for such children, and the arrangements for supporting children in family law cases and reforming court processes for children in care. That is important, painstaking and detailed work that should improve the lives of many children.
I do not think too much should be read into the fact that the Queen’s Speech does not contain a specific proposal for a hybrid Bill on High Speed 2. The matter is now before the High Court, which is having to consider several applications on judicial review involving points of law on both the process and substance of the HS2 project. Notwithstanding any judicial review proceedings, however, I continue to hope that the Government will reflect that the economic case for HS2 simply does not stack up.
It is clear that in this Session of Parliament the Government will continue to strive for smaller government, freer competition and greater international trade, and they will continue to pursue policies that have been proven to work in the past and that will also work in the future.
Chris Bryant
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On 25 April, I told the House that the Leveson inquiry had published certain information regarding meetings that had been held between Rupert Murdoch and the Prime Minister. I believed at the time that that was the case, but it has subsequently turned out not to be true. I have, of course, apologised to Lord Justice Leveson, but I thought I should take this opportunity to apologise to the House as well. I hope the apology will be accepted. I had no intention of misleading the House; that was purely inadvertent.