Economy and Jobs — House of Commons, 2017-06-29
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stephen William Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) on his maiden speech and his gracious tribute to his predecessor. When I read the Queen’s Speech, I see the essence of the Government’s economic policy—to continue to improve the public finances. Government is about taking the right and the hard decisions for this country. Improving the public finances, often disingenuously called "austerity", is not a political decision, but the key to prosperity. There is nothing intrinsically economically sound about a nation with a budget deficit of 11% spending £1 of every £4 it borrows on interest payments—money that should be spent on investing in public services and the future of this country. I therefore support the continuation of the commitment to apprenticeships and T-levels As we have seen the deficit fall over the past seven years, we have been able to use the money to make sure that we take the lowest paid out of tax and to create the national living wage and an environment in which 2.9 million more jobs have been created. Investment and extra taxation are coming in and being reinvested in the public sector The opportunity to govern is nothing unless it is used as an instrument for good. In closing the deficit—and not only through the measures in the Queen’s Speech—the Government will have the opportunity to do good. We have all stood on the doorsteps in the past few weeks during the general election, which exposed intergenerational tendencies that we have not seen in decades. The normal pact that a new generation will be wealthier than the one preceding it has broken down Given the Government’s sound economic policy, we now have chances to create Conservative solutions to some of the problems. We do not need to follow the snake-oil politics of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), but we do need to consider why it is acceptable for interest payments on student loans to be 6.1% when the market rate is something less than 1%. A Conservative solution is to say, "That’s a market distortion—let’s attack it." Let us do that in several ways. One way is surely to allow new entrants into the student loan market, to ensure that the level of loan payment is brought down It is the instinct of everybody in the country to own a home or rent one in the area they choose. In the 1950s, Supermac built homes for all; in 2020, the challenge for the Prime Minister is to become "Supermay", to ensure that this Government build a million homes in the next five years. We can do that with Conservative policies. I see the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the Front Bench; I hope he will continue to espouse changes to planning laws, to free things up. I hope that the public sector and private sector become involved. Let us have tenure-free building from housing associations and let them free up some of the rent provision so that they can build more Anyone who has read anything about the first industrial revolution will understand that it was local capital that built homes, that built industries. Let us use local institutions, the local enterprise partnerships, to fund infrastructure bonds and project bonds to build those houses and build the infrastructure this country needs so that at the next general election, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) said, it will be the Conservative party that offers that vision of hope and aspiration and that yet again offers the ladder of opportunity for all.