Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): in reality for public sector workers in Bromsgrove? How many will lose their jobs?
Sajid Javid: What it will mean for all workers in Bromsgrove, including public sector and private sector workers, is that there will be more jobs. They are essential to restore economic credibility. As a result of the announcement of the Government's credible plan, interest rates are lower in Britain than they were before. Importantly, despite the deficit still being at 10% of GDP, which is higher than in Spain and many other European countries that are facing problems, our interest rates are almost on a par with Germany's.
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Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): Is it not the case that, like me, my hon. Friend has been here before, when the Conservative party did exactly the same thing not just in our lifetime, but our fathers' lifetimes? We know that the actions that the Conservative party takes will result in ordinary people paying the price for its failures.
Mr Wright: My hon. Friend represents a seat in the North-East, as I do, and he knows full well that our region has borne the brunt of this recession, like we bore the brunt of the 1980s recession. It does not have to be like this. We have got enormous economic potential in our region that can really contribute to wealth creation in our country, but that is simply not happening.
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Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): Will the hon. Lady give way?
Priti Patel: I have said that I will take only one intervention, because of pressure of time; other Members want to speak.
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5.45 p.m.
Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): The past 13 months have been framed by Conservative Members talking about deficit denial, but the truth is that what we have gone through is deficit deceit. They have spun a tale that ignores the fact that what we went through when we saw the failure of the big banks was a failure of capitalism in this country. They never mentioned the fact that Lehman Brothers, HSBC, Lloyds and Northern Rock had collapsed. They ignored the fact that we had light-touch regulation, which they had criticised for not being light enough. The situation that we got into was not just about what our party had done - it was supported by the Tories and by the capitalist system.
When the collapse happened, we took tough decisions not to repeat Tory mistakes - not only those of the '80s and '90s, but of the 1930s. We refused to accept, and we still do, that unemployment was a price worth paying. The reality is that the Conservatives still believe that and always have believed it. They ignored the fact that the Labour Government were praised at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh and by the OECD for the work that we did. In fact, the OECD said that the Labour Government had led the world and prevented a recession from becoming a depression.
The Tories must have been happy, because all they wanted to do was stand back and let the market take the course. We have seen them do that in the past. They did it in the 1930s when my father was 14 years old and was sent to work in the coal mines - one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. One thousand men a year were being killed in British coal mines - one every six hours - and someone was injured every two minutes. They went home to houses that were not fit to live in. They had poverty wages, desperate living conditions at home and at work, and no respite. It took a world war and a Labour Government to address those appalling conditions.
The Tories have a long memory, and when they got back into power in the 1980s they went back to the same programme that they had in the 1930s. Under the banner they are flying today - "There is no alternative" - they attacked working people and closed mines, steelworks and shipyards. They used the same language when they outsourced hundreds of thousands of workers from councils, hospitals and universities. They cut their terms and conditions, undermined their security and decimated the services they delivered. Does that sound familiar? Yes, because they are doing it again today, and the Liberal Democrats - those who are here - are backing them up.
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): The hon. Gentleman's party's solution is to borrow more money. From whom is it going to borrow it and how much interest is it going to pay?
Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): My party's policy is not to borrow more money - it is to increase taxes on bankers and make those people pay.
John Hemming rose -
Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): Sit down and shut up.
The Tories have made deliberate decisions and claimed that there are no alternatives. When my party came back into government in 1997, the people from where I came from said they wanted us to put right the attacks that had happened in the 1980s. They said, "We're sick of living in second-class conditions." That is why I am proud, and my party is proud, of what we did.
Mr Hanson: May I remind my hon. Friend that at the last election the Liberal Democrats wanted to spend more than the Labour party?
Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): I was not going to discuss the Liberal Democrats because they are obviously not relevant to this country any more. I thought that perhaps they were outside unveiling a new placard about the bombshell or signing a few pledges; obviously, they are too busy to come in here.
John Hemming rose -
Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): I am not going any further.
I am proud of what we did. We put record investment into the national health service. We had the Decent Homes programme, which, in my local council area, provided £360 million to put right homes that were desperately in need of it. There was a huge improvement in school results. We had more doctors, nurses and police on the beat. We had the national minimum wage, peace in Northern Ireland, new schools and hospitals, better health outcomes, and record numbers at university and in work. We also had - Conservative Members have not mentioned this while attacking the economic progress of our Government - a record period of growth over more than 11 years before we were hit by the global crisis.
What is certain is that the Conservatives and their yellow human shields, the Liberal Democrats, will never learn from history. They want to ignore the history of ordinary men and women. Indeed, when the Chancellor was asked in 2007 about his memories of the miners' strike, he said:
"I'm trying to see if I can honestly remember."
What we have is a party that selectively forgets the past, including the suffering and misery of a generation of people whose only crime was to want to live in security, bring their kids up well, have a good life and go to work. The Conservatives refuse to remember those things. They are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, and ordinary people will pay for those mistakes.
5.50 p.m.
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