---

Amendment of the law

Like the Secretary of State at the beginning of the debate, I was encouraged by the opening remarks by the shadow Chancellor, because I thought that we were at last going to get an inkling of the Conservative way forward in the current financial circumstances. The shadow Chancellor started quite well and indicated that he had five points. For the next 24 minutes of his speech, I was waiting to go through those five points to examine his solutions. First, he told us that we must analyse how we got here, which is fair enough—I probably disagree about how we got here, but such an analysis is a good place to start. He referred to some relatively minor movement of spending priorities that he said were fiscally neutral and would presumably make no overall difference, therefore, to the general strategy. I might have miscounted, but the shadow Chancellor seemed to get to only three of his five points. His final big point that I noted was that there should be a national debate about how we tackle an age of austerity. We all recognise that the economic situation is very serious: the Conservatives say that it is one of drastic seriousness yet, at a time when urgent action and policies are called for, the central point of the Conservative shadow Chancellor's policies is a call for a national debate about the age of austerity. That reflects the fact that Conservative Front-Bench Members are, to put it bluntly, too frightened to put forward any policies. They recognise that the public would not like what they would hear if the Opposition were to follow through the logic of positions such as that taken by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon). I give the hon. Gentleman credit for the honesty of his arguments today, but anyone who heard them could not but conclude that his recipe for recovery from the current crisis involves massive cuts in public expenditure that would affect large numbers of public services. We all heard what he said about the need for much more outsourcing in elements of the public sector such as housing, health and education, and I am sure that we will all eagerly enter into debate about those matters in the months to come. Conservative Front-Bench Members may not have put forward many ideas today about how we can get out of the current situation, but other people have done so. I am glad to say that the Chancellor has been listening, and that he has implemented many of the more constructive proposals. Many people, organisations and MPs—and I was certainly one of the latter—have urged him to establish a programme for green jobs, arguing that such a programme would allow us to link the need to tackle the challenges of climate change with the need to provide jobs here and now for people facing unemployment. We suggested that a fund be set up to help local authorities and voluntary organisations provide jobs with an emphasis on tackling environmental concerns. Therefore, I strongly welcome the plans announced yesterday for funds to provide 100,000 new jobs in socially useful activity, to be delivered through councils and voluntary groups. I welcome in particular the commitment that at least 10,000 of those jobs will be in the green-job sector. When the Government do something for which one has been calling for some time, it is right to recognise the fact. I am certainly glad that the Government have responded in the way that they have, as that will allow us to tackle some green issues and at the same time provide jobs here and now for people who need them. I look forward to finding out more about the proposals shortly, and believe that the concept can be built on and developed. The voluntary sector in particular can play a major role in delivering these jobs as quickly as possible. Even more than local authorities, voluntary organisations can move quickly and come up with sensible and practical schemes that will deliver lasting benefits to local communities.