19:27 Nicholas Dakin (Labour)

I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden speech just 23 years to the day after my predecessor, Elliot Morley, made his. What is more, 6 July appears to be a popular day for novice MPs from Scunthorpe—it was the day on which Michael Brown, who now scribbles so ably for The Independent , made his maiden speech. Elliot Morley served the constituency for nearly a quarter of a century as a respected, hard-working MP. He rightly gained a national and international reputation for his steadfast work on animal welfare and climate change. His record in helping to create a better world should not be lost in the wake of recent events.

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21:06 Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)

Ministers increasingly raise the spectre of Greece. For example, last week the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change said that the Chancellor had said that the Budget was necessary because otherwise Britain would be in danger of not being able to pay its way in the world. Public debt in Greece is the highest in the euro area at about 120% of GDP. It also has one of the highest fiscal deficits in the OECD, with 14% of GDP. I do not seek to minimise the UK’s debt—it needs to be dealt with, and we set out a clear plan to tackle it—but it rose 20% in the last couple of years for a very good reason. We faced a massive economic downturn, and investing the money was the correct thing to do to ensure that we did not go into not only a recession, but a long-term depression. I remind new Conservative Members that when those who are now in government were in opposition, they got it wrong on Northern Rock and wrong on how to deal with the banking crisis. Did they ever oppose anything that we did on that? No, they did not; they supported our measures. Their approach would have got us into a complete mess.

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23:20 Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)

What of job creation? In oral questions last week, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change compared the previous Government’s target of 1.2 million new green jobs to the sector targets that Gosplan set in the Soviet Union. The Opposition might have had plans and targets for job creation, but the Government have targets for the destruction of jobs. That is what we learned from the Treasury leak last week, and that is where an obsession with public debt leaves us.

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23:58 Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)

The Conservative-Liberal coalition cannot agree on its environmental policy either, which is presumably why, rather than acting on environmental taxes, we now have yet another commission to look into the climate change levy. Once again, therefore, a potentially progressive measure is being put on the backburner. We do not know when it will happen. We do not know when we will see progress on it.

The other thing that Members on the Government Benches simply do not seem to understand is the impact of the changes on work incentives. The Government say that they want to promote a climate for growth. One would think that if they were trying to promote a climate for growth, they would improve work incentives. The Government are about to test to destruction the theory that simply cutting benefits will improve work incentives. That is illustrated in another table in the Red Book—the Red Book is, I have to say, a rather useful document—which shows the changes in the marginal deduction rates. That table shows that almost 100,000 people will see increases in their marginal deduction rates as a result of the Budget—that is, a worsening of their incentives.

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