Spring Statement

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I welcome the very large fall in youth unemployment in his constituency, but that will be from a base that was very much lower than what has come to be considered normal by many of our European neighbours. As he rightly says, this is not just an economic factor, but a societal factor. Persistent high levels of youth unemployment have a hugely damaging effect, as we have discovered in the past in this country to our cost. If someone is unemployed during their formative years, they are far more likely to remain unemployed and unemployable for the rest of their working lives.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is astonishing that Brexit, the single biggest risk to the economy, merited only two sentences in the Chancellor’s otherwise uneventful spring statement. If the economy and economic outlook are so rosy, perhaps he can explain why almost every school in my constituency is facing budget cuts, why my local NHS trust is in special measures, and why, when my constituents are crying out in the face of one of the worst waves of burglaries we have ever seen, the police are not responding because the Metropolitan police is subject to real-terms budget cuts. Is that not the grim reality facing our country, and is it not set to get worse because of the hard Brexit course his Government are following?

[Mr Hammond]

No. The Government are pursuing a Brexit that protects British jobs, British businesses and British prosperity, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. We have protected school funding so that it will rise in real terms per pupil over the next two years, and as we move to the fair funding formula for schools, every school will receive a cash increase. The police settlement on which the House recently voted provides £450 million of additional resource for police forces across the country. We have protected police budgets since 2015.[Official Report, 24 April 2018, Vol. 639, c. 8MC.]