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Policy for Growth

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak briefly in this debate. For the past six months, Labour Members have had to endure speeches from Government Members based on the Andy Coulson script. I am allowed to criticise the No. 10 scripts because I used to write them, which is probably just one of the reasons we lost the election. The script basically says that the deficit is the only thing that matters, and that the deficit was caused entirely by the profligacy, over a decade, of the Labour Government. [Hon. Members: ““Hear, hear!””] My version was beautifully delivered, one might say. Let me trouble the House with a couple of facts that run slightly counter to that script. Figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that in the period from 1997 to 2007, public sector net debt fell from 42.5% of national income to 36.5%. That was caused—I know that this will come as a tremendous shock and disappointment to Government Members—by the economy growing and revenues increasing. Before the financial crisis hit this country—the biggest economic shock that we have had for nearly a century—our debt was down to the second lowest in the G7, despite our increasing public spending by the second largest amount among all the OECD countries. The size of the budget deficit was caused by the decisions that Labour Members took in response to that global financial crisis. I know that Government Members will disagree, but the truth is that there are people in my constituency who are in work, have managed to keep their home, and still have world-class public services because of the decisions that we took. We should not apologise for that. The deficit does need to be reduced, but one of the ways of doing that is through economic growth—the subject of this debate. When I watched the Budget several months ago, I found it perverse when the Chancellor said in effect, almost as a matter of pride, ““Because of the decisions we are taking as a Government, growth will be less than it was going to be, unemployment will be higher, tax revenues will be lower, and the payments we will make in benefits will be higher.”” About 490,000 public sector jobs will go over the spending review period according to the Chancellor, and PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that another 500,000 jobs are at risk in the private sector because of the measures that the Government are taking.