Budget Resolutions

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I think the hon. Gentleman should speak to the leader of his own party, who stood at the Dispatch Box yesterday claiming that it was his policy from his manifesto. The hon. Gentleman needs to go and do some homework.

When Labour came to power in 1997, the average home cost three and a half times the average wage. By the time it slunk out of office in 2010, it was nearly seven times the average wage. As for the neediest in society, Labour cut the number of social homes for rent by more than 420,000 units. That is its track record.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says that we need 300,000 new homes a year to address the housing crisis, so presumably he has just committed to making sure that that many homes are built. Until he addresses the supply side of the housing crisis, he must stop fuelling demand-side pressures, which is what he has done. As the Office for Budget Responsibility has said, the elimination of stamp duty will fuel demand at a time when he is not meeting the supply pressures.

[Sajid Javid]

Where the hon. Gentleman is right is on the need for further planning reform. That is why the Budget follows on from the housing White Paper earlier this year with further reforms, some of which I will come to in a moment. Where he is completely wrong, like the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), is on stamp duty. He should have a conversation with young people buying their first house, who can save up to £5,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers).

The Chancellor set low expectations ahead of this Budget, and he certainly lived up to them. What was most interesting and telling about yesterday’s statement was not any particular measure but what the Chancellor and the independent Office for Budget Responsibility said about the state of our economy. Real wages are lower today than they were when the Tories came to power seven years ago, with disposable income set to fall further. Once we led Europe on economic growth; we are now lagging behind and it is the lowest it has been since the Tories came to office, and has been revised down in every year of the Treasury’s forecast. Productivity has also been revised down every year, as has our business investment next year and in every following year in the forecast.

Even on the Tories’ central test, the whole driver behind the seven years of austerity—the need to deal with the deficit—they have failed on their own terms. They promised to eradicate the deficit by 2015, then by 2016, then 2017, then 2020. Now they cannot even tell us when it is set to be eliminated. Seven years of pain, with absolutely no gain for the public who are paying the price through cuts to our public services. In our constituencies and in our casework, we are seeing the consequences of the Tories’ bad economic management.

Headteachers are grappling with the consequences, and they tell me that they are cutting back on the curriculum, increasing class sizes and increasingly struggling to support their pupils, particularly those with special educational needs. In the national health service, my constituents are waiting longer to get an appointment with their GP and waiting longer to have their operations. And just the other week, a teaching assistant came to see me because two primary schoolchildren in the two schools where she works had thought about taking their own lives. She said that when she referred them to the local child and adolescent mental health services, she was told that they could not see the children because they were full up. These are primary schoolchildren in desperate need of attention, but the resources and the capacity to help them are simply not there.

On policing, we see the extraordinary spectacle of London Tories—led by the Foreign Secretary, the former Mayor of London—crying crocodile tears about police station closures even though they know that the policing cuts that we are facing in London are the direct consequence of the disproportionate cuts that we are being clobbered with by central Government. Since 2010, £600 million has been lost from the Metropolitan police budget, with a further £400 million set to go by 2020-21. As those of us who are still in local government know, the Tories are remarkable anti-cuts campaigners locally, but when it comes to standing up for local government and local services in this place, we do not hear a peep out of Tory Members. Voters should remember that when they go to the polls in the London elections next year.

What was also extraordinary about this Budget was what it said about Brexit. The referendum campaign is over. We do not have to deal with hypotheticals; we are now grappling with the reality. Does it not say everything that there was more money in this Budget to deal with the cost of Brexit than to deal with meeting the needs of our public services? Thank goodness the Chancellor survived yesterday and is still in his post, because we know that the people lining up to replace him—using those “long economicky words” in Cabinet—are the same people who brought us the bus that promised £350 million a week for the NHS. Thank goodness we have Spreadsheet Phil still in place at the Treasury, because the alternatives are far worse.

I say to those on the Treasury Bench today that they have a critical job to do before Christmas if they are to give businesses the certainty that they need about what will happen on exit day in 2019 when we leave the European Union. Jobs are already being lost, and decisions about where to locate jobs and economic activity will be taken in the first quarter of next year, but the Government can currently give those businesses no certainty whatever, even about a deal on transition, let alone about a long-term deal. Members on both sides of the House have a responsibility to ensure that the minority of headbangers in this minority Government do not steer this country on a course that will make us poorer, less well-off and less prepared to weather the economic storms that lie ahead. That responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Chancellor, but it also rests on the shoulders of every Member of this House. The course that we are on at the moment will drive a coach and horses through the future prosperity of this country, and we should not let that happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr). He described Scotland as being at the heart of the Budget, so if one travels as far away as possible from the heart of the Budget, the destination would be the far south-west. Why was the far south-west so ignored in this Budget?

I am disappointed that the Budget did not help us with our key asks. Members may have seen that people were able to play Budget bingo on my Facebook page with Plymouth’s nine key asks. I was hoping to announce a winner for a line, or even for every single ask. On behalf of Plymouth, I was asking for help with social care and the NHS; for support for our armed forces; for a reversal of the cuts to HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark; and for £30 million for our vital upgrade in Plymouth. But I am afraid that there were no winners in the Plymouth Budget bingo this time round. The Government ignore the far south-west at their peril. Ministers have taken our region for granted for far too long. It is now a region full of marginal seats, and if Ministers want to keep drawing their ministerial salaries, they would be wise to listen to both Labour and Conservative MPs for the far south-west, who were so ignored in the preparations for the Budget.

There is widespread awareness in Plymouth that we get a raw deal from the Government. There were plenty of mentions in the Budget of the north, the midlands and Scotland, but very little about the far south-west, despite our having a very clear case for investment: the lowest per-head education spend in the country—£415 per head less than in London; just one third of the public health spending in London—£668 less per head; one third of the transport spending in London; an NHS in crisis and a hospital in a near-constant state of black alert; and a social care system in crisis. This is not because of the hard work of our public servants, who are working their socks off, but because of a lack of funding. The Government could have addressed that in the Budget but chose not to do so.

On transport, our case for investment was compelling, but there was no extra money for our precarious south-west rail link, despite the cross-party campaign. Labour has promised £2.5 billion for our investment fund to upgrade the far south-west train line. The Peninsula Rail Task Force, backed by Conservative councils and MPs, is supported by a Labour Opposition but not a Conservative Government. We asked for £30 million for track straightening so that we could improve our journey times between Plymouth, the far south-west and London. It was to be the start of the process of reducing journey times to London from Plymouth by an hour. There is £55.7 billion for HS2, but the Government could not even deliver the £600,000 we need to complete the study into the work or the £30 million it requires to complete the work next year.

People across the far south-west are asking what they have to do to be listened to by the Government. That is really important. Our transport network in the south-west is a totem for our region. The Minister might be aware that in the last couple of days CrossCountry trains has ended its service from the “heart” of the Budget, in Scotland, down to Exeter in the far south-west, because its trains cannot go through Dawlish when there are storms—they short-circuit, block the track and cut our region off. That is simply unacceptable. No other part of the country would accept this poor deal on transport, and neither should the far south-west.

Plymouth needs better road, rail and air connections. We need Government assistance to help us fund that fast and resilient train line and to back the campaign that I and the Conservative-run Plymouth City Council have announced to extend the M5 from Exeter to Plymouth. On air transport, the Government must be ready to support us in reopening Plymouth city airport.

On defence, there is a key ask as well. I know that Ministers were being lobbied by both Labour and Conservative MPs to stop the cuts to HMS Albion, HMS Bulwark and the Royal Marines. It is unthinkable in the 21st century, with Russia rising as a threat, that we should get rid of our amphibious assault capabilities and the ability to deliver humanitarian assistance.

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is speaking with characteristic passion and clarity, but is not the lesson of the defence cuts over the last seven years that once we have lost a capability it takes a huge amount of time, energy and investment to get it back, and this is a capability we cannot afford to lose?

[Luke Pollard]

I absolutely share that concern, and I know that Government Members do as well.

Many Tory Members were pinning their hopes on extra money in the Budget and on the Chancellor correcting the mistakes he made in his former role as Defence Secretary, but that money has not come. The current Defence Secretary is in Plymouth today learning about the Royal Navy. I wish him well in his endeavour and I hope that after his familiarisation with the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines he will not be supporting cuts to amphibious forces.

By next year’s Budget, I ask those on the Treasury Bench please to initiate the following campaigns and proposals: to fund our train line properly; to respect our armed forces and the threats they face by not cutting our amphibious capabilities; to address the school funding shortages in the far south-west, which have seen subjects lost, teaching assistants sacked and people with special educational needs suffer the most; to address our crisis in the NHS and fund social care properly—considering how big an issue social care was in Plymouth and across the country at the general election, its absence from the Budget is telling; to cut tuition fees; to raise the minimum wage; and, importantly, to give hope to the 8,000 WASPI women in Plymouth who are looking for support from this Government.

The Budget did not name-check the south-west; neither did it name-check south-west MPs and their successful campaigns—we need those name-checks. The far south-west needs to be taken seriously by the Government, and I encourage them to listen to the campaigns raised by Labour MPs and Conservative MPs to fund us properly. The message from the Budget is clear, and Plymouth deserves better.