Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Stephen Hepburn (Labour, Centre-left): We were told that this Budget was going to be a game-changer. We were informed that it would lead to a bright future. I would just like to know, for who? This Budget should have been about tackling the emergency crisis in our public services such as the NHS, where dissatisfaction is up, waiting lists are up and waiting times are up. In fact, the only thing that is down is staff morale, which is at rock bottom When we look at what is going in areas like mine, we find that, since 2010, we have had closures of successful NHS walk-in centres used by 26,000-plus people a year and closures of wards, with more to come, under an NHS plan called the "The Path to Excellence". Local people, having come through cuts and closures throughout the years, call this NHS plan, which was brought up by local NHS management, "the road to ruin" because they have experienced the bogus consultation exercises, only for the result at the end to be that their valued local service was closed On pay, there might be a pay increase in the future if NHS staff increase productivity. What a disgrace! It is NHS staff who have kept the NHS going—whether the porters, the nurses or the ambulance drivers—during all the years since 2010 and during these Tory party cuts. Let me go on to employment issues and social issues. The Chancellor said at the weekend that unemployment did not exist. Well, he wants to come to Jarrow, where unemployment is nearly 2,000—real people and individuals. Everybody on the Government Benches is talking about the jobs boost, but two out of three of those jobs in the north-east are on temporary contracts and that sort of thing. They are insecure jobs—they are not proper jobs Somebody should have tackled the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) when he criticised Labour for creating the crash. In the 1970s, the crash was caused by the tripling of the oil price by OPEC in the middle east. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that Labour caused the crash in the 2000s, but it was an American crash, which George Osborne now acknowledges, caused by the banks The right hon. and learned Gentleman talked about the decades of skills we have lost, but that predominantly started in the ’80s, when he was a member of the Government and Thatcher was closing the shipyards, the pits and the steelworks. They were privatising all the utilities and taking out of Britain the skills that we need now. People would not have to be employing Polish plumbers now—they would have a plumber trained in England—if we had the services we had in the past As for what we have heard about housing, I laugh—I mean no disrespect—because the 2,000 people on the waiting list in my area cannot afford that sort of thing. They need council housing; they want housing that they can afford—that is what they need. They cannot afford stamp duty and these gimmicks such as Help to Buy, which are absolute rubbish. If that is an example for the northern powerhouse, heaven help us with where we are going To sum up, there is lots I would like to say on universal credit, the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign, social care and education, all of which are so important to the productivity of this country. All I will say is that the Budget was a whitewash, and we cannot wait for a Labour Government to bring in our programme.