Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2022-05-10
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): It is an honour to be called in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, and a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale). Although I disagree with him about much in politics, I am sure his words about animal welfare will be welcomed by many in the House and agreed with wholeheartedly. I also associate myself with all the remarks made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition about the contribution of Her Majesty the Queen and about those colleagues we have lost in the past year. As you said, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is also wonderful to see the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Amy Callaghan) back in her place. We are all very glad about that, and she made an excellent speech. Again, although I disagree with many of the things she stands for in politics, we all are glad that she is here to say them Sometimes the House of Commons captures so well the emotions, worries and desires of the people we represent, and sometimes it feels as though Parliament is having a day on a whole different planet. Today has been a whole different planet kind of day. The glaring and burning injustice of children growing up in poverty and of far too many families simply not being able to make ends meet seems to have been ignored. Politics is not performance art; all the pomp and ceremony in the world will do no good at all for my constituents in Wirral South unless the laws we put forward and vote for in this place put money in their pockets When the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was Prime Minister, she spoke of "burning injustices", but if anything some of them have got worse since she was Prime Minister, and I want to speak about those today. The debate on the Queen’s Speech has many features. We have heard some self-deprecating humour, where we are not taking ourselves too seriously. It is important that in politics we do not take ourselves too seriously, but people do not want crappy jokes from us—they want action, particularly when it comes to making ends meet. So I am at a loss to understand why we are not having an emergency Budget; why there was no employment Bill in the Queen’s Speech, despite promise after promise; and why there is simply no credible plan in that Queen’s Speech to end the need for food banks in our country. We are letting the country down On an emergency Budget, it is universally accepted now, by everyone from the chairman of Tesco to most of this House, with the exception of Ministers, that we need a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, in order to put money into people’s pockets to deal with energy bills. On the other side of the equation, on people’s incomes, the Prime Minister claims that we are living through some sort of "jobs miracle". If he thinks it is miraculous that parents in this country can put food on the table while too many of them are still working on zero-hours contracts that pay the minimum wage and do not know whether they are going to get hours the following week, that women in this country are able to do full-time jobs while relying on the most minimal amount of paid-for childcare, and that families in this country are still able to feed and look after themselves while dealing with loved ones facing a social care system that is failing before our very eyes, I would agree with him. That is truly an employment miracle.