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Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cameron: Certainly, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give me another example of these new regulatory agencies in his intervention.
Andy Burnham: The hon. Gentleman used to work in broadcasting. How many bodies were merged to form Ofcom?
Mr. Cameron: A number of bodies were merged to form Ofcom, but what is interesting is the salaries paid to the people who work there. The new regulatory body industry is growing in size and scale all the time. Staff numbers and salary levels at all the agencies are on the increase, as is the incidence of "mission creep", yet none of the mother Departments—the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department of Health or the Department of Trade and Industry, and so on—has ever seemed to get any smaller.
Most important of all is the fact that Labour's reforms have included no significant element of consumer choice. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) is fond of making the point—and it is a good one—that introducing an element of consumer choice into the public services means that the people who work in those services will tend to look downwards at the customer, rather than upwards at the bureaucracy. That point is wholly lost on the members of the Treasury Bench.
Mr. Webb: I thought that the Conservatives had proposed that Ofcom's scope should be increased to take on the BBC as well.
Mr. Cameron: Certainly, and that would mean that the BBC would no longer regulate itself, which would be an improvement. My point is straightforward. All those Departments have spawned new agencies. The Department for Transport is the best example, with all the different regulatory bodies and now the Strategic Rail Authority, which does what the Department used to do. Is the Department for Transport now smaller? I bet it is not.
We have all read reports about the Labour party's support for freedom of choice, but virtually nothing has been done to introduce or extend it in the public sector. That is the real reason for the Government's failure to reform the public services adequately and for the waste of money that we have seen. That last part of the explanation for Labour's failure leads most clearly to our own prescription of choice and decentralisation. However, I urge my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset not to ignore the other parts. It may be a rather complex chain of interlocking arguments about changes in direction, waste, bureaucracy, unionisation, targets and central control, but it is the truth. In any event, it leads to a relatively simple conclusion that anyone can grasp: the Government have taken taxpayers' money and wasted it, and they have failed to tell the truth about that.
6.1 pm
Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South) (Lab): I was interested in the analysis made by the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) of the past six or seven years, but he did not say how he would solve some of the problems that he outlined. It is worth recalling what happened when his party was in power. He talked about money being wasted on the public services, but I remember hospital closures. I remember people having to lie on trolleys because they could not get a bed. That is the Conservative legacy, and the hon. Gentleman seems to want to take us back to those days. We do not want to go back.
People still remember school closures under the previous Administration and cuts in teacher numbers. No new schools were built. The hon. Gentleman wants to take us back to those days, in the name of what he calls waste, but there will always be an element of waste, as he well knows. To use that to justify taking the country back six or seven years is disgraceful. The hon. Gentleman should be honest and open and say that that is what he intends.
I remember the years when waiting lists were long. We have reduced them. I remember when few new doctors were trained, but we are producing thousands of new doctors. In the Tory years, the number of nurses fell, but under us, it has increased. That is what we should be talking about, and I am glad that the Budget will continue those trends. The hon. Gentleman said that 1 million people are on the waiting list, but under this Government the number is falling. Under the Conservatives' policies, there would be 2 million, 3 million or 4 million people on the waiting list, and we would have hospital closures.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the PFI, but the benefits of that initiative are debatable. It is like the Bible: everyone has a different view of it. I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was his party that introduced the PFI, and that was when the problems started, not in 1997. The Conservatives did not even manage to build a new hospital under the PFI, but they want to take the credit for the good aspects and none of the blame for the bad. They cannot rewrite history, no matter how often they try.
I welcome the Pensions Bill. I am not ashamed to say that I have been a trade unionist for many years, and we have campaigned for the Bill, which is now in Committee. It will be amended, but it is a good Bill. In Coventry, we have suffered the closure of Massey Ferguson, which saw people put on the scrapheap, and they did not get a decent occupational pension. The issue is going to the House of Lords, so we cannot say too much about it, but it is worth reminding the Opposition that they introduced the Pensions Act 1995, which created many of the present problems with occupational schemes. We do not need any lessons from them.
Mr. Letwin: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with us that unclaimed assets should be available to help to resolve those problems?
Mr. Cunningham: Before I agreed with the right hon. Gentleman, I would want to know the value of the unclaimed assets and how long it would take to realise
them because we could be buying a pig in a poke if we listened to him. I would want to know the answer to that, what sums are involved and a bit more about what he is proposing.
Rob Marris: On the sums involved, some schemes, notably that proposed by Professor Ros Altmann, have been touted as costing £100 million a year. I have corresponded with her by e-mail, and the total package that she proposes involves, on average, £100 million a year over 60 years—£6 billion of Government money.
Mr. Cunningham: I am glad that my hon. Friend has reminded me of that, and I am equally glad that I did not answer the right hon. Gentleman's question in the way that he wanted me to.
The increase in the minimum wage is another part of the Budget that I obviously welcome. Lots of my hon. Friends would like it to be a little higher, but any increase is bound to be welcome.
Mr. Letwin: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again, as we seem to be having an interesting trilateral discussion. To handle the point made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), if there were £6 billion of proved, unclaimed assets, would the hon. Gentleman agree to using that money for this purpose?
Mr. Cunningham: I am not going to answer hypothetical questions; I repeat that I have not seen the figures, so it is pointless trying to push that argument.
The business rate change is something else that I certainly welcome in the Budget. For the first time in many years, local authorities will be able to share out the rate, and they are bound to see that as being just. We must remember that the Conservative Government used the business rate to justify introducing the poll tax in the first place, but the business rate accounted for only 1.5 per cent. of any company's turnover.
Mr. James Plaskitt (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab): My hon. Friend mentions the minimum wage. Does he recall the Conservative party's forecasts that the minimum wage would destroy jobs? Can he confirm that many jobs have been created in his constituency, as in mine, since the introduction of the minimum wage?
Mr. Cunningham: I can certainly confirm that. If my memory serves me correctly—I am sure that my hon. Friend would put me right if not—the Conservative party forecast that about 1 million jobs would be lost.
Mr. David Borrow (South Ribble) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend agree that the advantages of the minimum wage and good wages for workers are that they encourage employers to invest in their work force, so we get away from a low-wage, low-skill economy, which is the last place that Britain needs to be in the 21st century?
Mr. Cunningham: I am glad that my hon. Friend raises that issue. I work in industry, and from time to time the House debates the lack of skills and, in some instances, people's lack of ability to acquire skills. Decent wages encourage people to take jobs in, for
example, manufacturing. In the past, young people have not always seen manufacturing as a way forward and a secure future because of upturns and downturns in the economy. Decent wages always act as an incentive, and we are looking for incentives to get young people back into industry and to acquire the necessary skills. Again, they can use decent wages, with further education and ultimately university, as a stepping stone, so that their knowledge and quality of life are increased. It is welcome that the Government have introduced the minimum wage.Opposition Members have talked about homelessness. I do not know the current homelessness figures, but I certainly remember that, under the Conservative Government, hon. Members did not have to walk very far from the House to find a lot of homeless people living in cardboard boxes. We do not see so much of that today. However, we must be concerned if a homeless problem is building up. It is worth reminding ourselves that councils were not allowed to build council houses under the previous Government. Opposition spokesmen say that that problem could be solved by allowing more council house sales and using the proceeds, but I seem to remember that local authorities were not allowed to use the proceeds. Once again, the Conservative party is back to the policies that it had when it was in government, and we know where that took us. Unemployment is now the lowest in our country's history, which says a lot about how to tackle poverty. High unemployment makes more demands on the National Health Service, benefits and other public services.
Once again, the Chancellor's forecasts of growth have been correct. All the pundits admitted that they got it wrong and that my right hon. Friend got it right, but then they said he might be proved wrong nine month down the road. Anyone who can forecast growth nine months ahead must be good. I am sure that most companies would agree.
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