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12 Feb 2003 : Column 896—continued
2.11 pm
Phil Hope (Corby): This is supposed to be an Opposition day debate, but I am struck by the absence of the Opposition—only four Conservative Members are in the Chamber. Still, that is up to them, I suppose. I had to check the date on the Order Paper because the motion has a lot more in common with the circumstances in which we found ourselves in the 1980s, rather than 2003. In the 1980s, the inflation rate was 10 per cent. for more than four years and the interest rate was at 15 per cent. for a year. Millions of people were unemployed, and millions more were on poverty wages. That was the state of the economy and public services then, not now.
The Conservatives have not learned the lessons, as we heard earlier from the shadow Chancellor. Their sole economic policy now appears to be to slash—to use a one-syllable word, as he said—public spending by 20 per
cent. That is interesting, so let us just think about the figures. The statistics do not give the real picture of what life would have been like under the Tories if that kind of policy had been put into practice. The shadow Chancellor talked about being in a parallel universe. Let us imagine a day in the life of a Corby pensioner if the Tories had been in power and put in place their 20 per cent. slash in public spending.Let us imagine that pensioner as she gets up in the morning and switches on her television. She will probably have to get rid of her telly because there is no free television licence under the Tories, as there is with the Labour Government. She leaves her cold flat because there is no £200 winter fuel payment a year, as is provided by the Labour Government. She goes out to catch a bus to visit her grandchildren, but she has to stand at a vandalised bus stop in the cold, waiting for a dilapidated bus that is probably running late because, unlike now, the Tories would not have put £1 million into Corby's urban bus challenge, which repairs bus stops, puts new buses on the roads and ensure that fares are affordable.
When the pensioner gets on the bus she now has a bus pass, provided by the Labour Government. However, 20 per cent. public spending cuts would have removed that pass from that pensioner if she had been living under a Tory Government. She would not have had a minimum income guarantee of £98.50. Her pension credit would not have been topped up from her late husband's steel pension because the Tories oppose the pension credit, and it would be cut by their 20 per cent. public spending cuts.
The pensioner arrives at her daughter's house to look after her grandchildren, but she has to do so because there is no £3 million sure start programme, as there is in Corby at the moment, providing help for parents with young children, and there are no nursery places for three and four-year-olds because the Tories would not match our pledge on that if they imposed their 20 per cent. public spending cuts.
While mum is at work, the pensioner decides to give her children some lunch when they come home from school, but, unfortunately, there is not enough money in the house. Child benefit was frozen under the Tories. She would not have the child care tax credit, the working families tax credit or the child tax credit, which is being introduced this April and which will put money directly into the pockets of poor families with children. Those families in Corby would have to live with the 20 per cent. public spending cuts.
So the children come home from primary school for lunch with my Corby pensioner who looks after the grandchildren at home. They are not doing too well because the school classroom is terribly draughty, as there has been no upkeep and maintenance because of the 20 per cent. cut in public spending under the Tories. There are no books. There are no computers to learn on, and there is certainly no literacy or numeracy hour, which the Tories oppose and which has dramatically raised educational standards for primary school children during the past six years.
The children have to keep their jackets and coats on because the council houses are incredibly draughty because they have not received the £3 million major
repairs allowance that came to Corby council homes under the Labour Government. That money could not be spent with 20 per cent. public spending cuts under the Tories. So the pensioner says, "I'd better take the children out. I'll take them for a walk to the post office." Of course, under the Tories, £120 million would not be going into the post office network to support it, so the local post office would have been closed. Rural post offices, in particular, were closing hand over fist when the Tories were in power, and more would close if they were able to make their 20 per cent. cut in public spending.On the way, the pensioner has to walk the children past the burnt out cars that litter the streets of Tory Corby. They would have to experience that because the measures and funding to deal with abandoned vehicles would not have been put in place or have been affordable under a Tory Government with 20 per cent. cuts in public spending. The new multi-agency team—we call it Caspar in Corby—which is successfully reducing antisocial behaviour would be swept aside because no one could afford to put the people on the streets to tackle that problem in Corby.
The council would have had another round of cuts. In the last four years of the Tory Government, we experienced a 7 per cent. cut in grants to local government. With the Labour Government, we have had a 25 per cent. real-terms increase in support for local councils—not a 20 per cent. cut in public spending, which the Tories would impose if they came to power.
Of course when the pensioner gets back home, she meets her son-in-law who has just finished his temporary job on poverty pay because, under a Tory Government, there is no minimum wage. At least, there would not be one for small firms because that is the little trick that the Tories would pull if they ever got back into power. There would be no protection for agency workers because the Tories do not support any of the new regulations. There would certainly be no new deal for that young chap, who got his job under the new deal for the unemployed. The Tories opposed the new deal for unemployed young people every time that it was considered in the House.
My Corby pensioner has toothache, and she would like to go to the new dental surgery. In fact, four new dental surgeries are being built in Corby to provide better dental care. With 20 per cent. public spending cuts, there would not be a single new dentist in Corby if the Tories were in power. Her day ends in misery, of course, when she gets a letter from her private health insurance company saying that she will have to find a little bit extra on the upfront excess to pay for her hip replacement. Under the Tories, there would be no hip replacements on the national health service; those operations would have to be done through private health insurance.
Thankfully, that nightmare life of a Corby pensioner under the Tories has not happened, but it could happen if they got back into power and introduced 20 per cent. cuts in public spending. Instead, we have the most successful economic performance in Britain's history. We are seeing step-by-step improvements to public services, and all hon. Members can see the tangible benefits in our constituencies.
Mr. Ivan Henderson (Harwich): The chief executive and chairman of my local health trust have just released
its annual report, which states that the Government have put unprecedented investment into my local health service. They cannot understand the remarks of the shadow Chancellor when he says that the NHS is failing. He is accusing every person working in the NHS of being a failure. Does my hon. Friend share my view that that is disgraceful?
Phil Hope: My hon. Friend is right. The worst thing is that, to make a political point, the Opposition run down civil servants and public sector workers who are doing such a huge amount to bring about change. We gave the public sector a real challenge. We put in investment, but asked for reform to go with it. The police, teachers and nurses have risen to that challenge and are now providing better services with real outcomes. There have been cuts in waiting times and waiting lists, and better hospital procedures. When I go to my local hospital, I usually have to wear a hard hat because there is so much building work as new departments and services are put in. I am sure that that is true in my hon. Friend's constituency as well.
Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman talks about "real outcomes". Will he tell the House why the Government have abolished their own 1998 target for the reduction of truancy and presided over a quadrupling in the level of assaults on staff in schools? Why?
Phil Hope: The difficulty that the hon. Gentleman faces is his failure to grasp—
Phil Hope: I shall answer the question in a second. The hon. Gentleman fails to grasp the consequences of his party's policies in schools in my constituency and, I dare say, in every constituency in the country. Teachers are now achieving results that they were never able to achieve before. They are achieving those results because of the investment that we have put into schools. We have backed head teachers with that investment and by giving them new powers and delegated authority, allowing them to control and run their schools to greater effect. As a result, less children are truanting—
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