Geraint Davies Labour/Co-operative, Swansea West

It is a great pleasure to follow my colleague and friend, my hon.

Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris),
although I confess that I do not completely concur with his
economic analysis. I will come to that later.
I congratulate the hon. Members for Argyll and Bute (Brendan
O'Hara) and for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) on their
excellent speeches, which I greatly enjoyed. Moreover, I
compliment the SNP on being here in such large numbers. I feared
that no one would be listening to my speech, and now I have a
very large audience. I remember that when I made my maiden
speech, I had the great pleasure and privilege of following
the Speaker, who spoke only for a very short timeless than
Winston Churchill, who spoke for one and a half hours, I
think. [Interruption.] To be fair, it was a short speechless than
40 minutes, I seem to remember.
Moving swiftly on, the key tests for the Queens Speech are these.
Does it promote freedom? Does it promote equality? Does it bring
unity to Britain? Does it bring strength? I would sayI will run
through the argumentsthat on all those counts it fails. The
reality is that the Britain we are living in today is more divided
than it was five years ago. It is more divided economically. I
represent part of Wales. That is where the whole series of cuts has
taken effect, be it in welfare, be it in the public services that many
of our regions and nations depend on. Where has the investment
been? It has been in London and the south-east. So we have seen
imbalances. We have seen disproportionate attacks, with the
bedroom tax and other severe cuts. Now, as I mentioned earlier,
some Oxford University research is basically saying that, with 12
billion of welfare cuts in the pipeline, we will see another 1 million
people relying on food banks. Already 1 million people do so. That
is not the sort of country that many Opposition Members want to
live in.
Nationally, we are seeing division. We are seeing division over
Scotland. Scotland has risen and voted the way that it has for

reasons that we can understand and need to discuss and debate

and appreciate and respect.
There are also divisions over Europe. We are now talking about
severing ourselves from Europe, and even renouncing the human
rights and other great values that came from these proud islands.
I think the Queen,
in uttering her Speech today, will have thought that she has given
much better speeches in the past, if I may put it that way.
There has been some suggestion that the economy is in great
shape, but there are 800,000 fewer people earning over 20,000
now than there were five years ago, because
the Conservatives have chopped up full-time jobs into zero-hours
jobs, part-time jobs and low-paid jobs. They can say, Look, we
have created all these jobs, but when we look at the overall
amount of production, which is also indicated in productivity, we
see that they have dismally failed because they have not invested
in skills and they have flattened consumer demand. It is a
complete nightmare.
I do not agree with the analysis of my hon. Friend the Member for
Wolverhampton South West. I would point to the fact that, in the
10 years to 2008, the British economy grew by 40%. In 2008 we
had a banking crisis, not of our making[Hon. Members: No!]
Look at Iceland; look at Greece; look at the United Statesare
Conservatives Members blind or just plain stupid? We had a global
crisis. [Interruption.] Please be quiet. We had a global crisis, and
Obama and Brown intervened with the fiscal stimulus. They
stopped a world depression and they got Britain growing by 2010.
In 2010, the Tory Chancellor arrived and he announced that
500,000 people in the public services would be sacked. Those
people stopped spending and started saving. Consumer demand
flatlined and we have had a flatlining economy since. Debt, as a
share of the economy, has grown from 55% in 2010 to 80% now.
The Tories have borrowed more in five years than Labour did in 13
and we had to bail out the banks. Is that success? No, it is
absolute failure. So why did the Labour party do so badly in the

election? We should put our hands up: we did not explain the
economic narrative effectively enough, but that does not change
the fact that we are in an appalling mess thanks to what the
Tories have done.
What would be the prospects for future growth if we did not stay
in the EU? The EU is a platform for international companies from
India, China and elsewhere to enter the biggest economy in the
worldEurope. We will have a referendum. The Labour party has
now said that it wants a referendum, because the nation has
decided we should have one, but international businesses are
thinking, Hold on, all bets are off. We are not going to invest in
British production. We will go to France or Germany because we
do not know whether Britain will stay in the EU. Tata Steel, Airbus
and Fordin Bridgend in my constituencyare saying, Hold on,
we do not want to face tariffs of between 5% and 100%. The
Conservatives say that we will renegotiate and then we will have
a vote, but the reality is that the Prime Minister will support
staying in Europe without reform. To a certain extent, he is
dithering around to pacify right-wing Tories and UKIP, putting the
tactical interests of the Conservative party before the strategic
interests of Britain, and that is disgraceful.
We see the same pattern of disgraceful short-termist political
activity with human rights. We are part of the human rights
convention, and we have a proud record on human rights,
democracy and freedom as a beacon of hope in an uncertain
world. Now we are saying, We dont like those human rights, so
we will have our own. If we do not agree with universal human
rights, how do we think Vladimir Putin feels? He passed a law on
Saturday that stops people saying things that might undermine
the values of Russia. He is focusing on foreign-funded
organisations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch, and saying they are dodgy people saying unhelpful things.
Their workers could face imprisonment for up to six years. Putin is
looking at us and saying that Britain appears to think that human
rights are not universal, but culture-relative. We can have one set
of human rights, Putin can have another and China yet another. Is

that what we want? Of course not, and it is outrageous to suggest

it.
In any case, learned lawyers have pointed out that the human
rights changes will not happen because the Human Rights Act
underpins the constitutional settlement in the devolved nations. It
is also underpinned by international treaties, so the proposal is
ridiculous and has been kicked into the long grass. But it says a
lot about the Conservative party.
Other proposed Bills include the enterprise Bill. What does that
have to do with improving productivity and infrastructure, and
increasing skills? Nothing. All it says is that the Government will
cut red tape by 10 billion. What does that mean? Normally it
means that health and safety will be cut. The strike Bill is another
example. The Conservatives say, You have to have 40% of the
workforce to have a legitimate strike. In my constituency, the
turnout was 62% and my vote was 42%, so 25% of my
constituents voted for me

I know it is low by SNP standards. It certainly would not be enough

for a proper strike under these proposals. In reality, it is very
difficult to achieve 40% and it does not happen in local
government. It is an attempt to change the balance of power in
the workplace, another aspect of which is the creation of all those
zero-hours jobs without any rights.
The way forward for Britain is greater productivity, high-wage
jobs, high skills and a high-value, export-driven focus. It is not
through hobbling people, taking away their wealth and making
them work for a pittance.
The Queen has seen us through a world war and seen Britain
emerge from the fire of war to create a health service, a welfare
state and housing, out of a state of virtual bankruptcy. Now, we
have ended up with penny-pinching Tories hobbling Britain. I hope
that in our discussions we can think about growth instead of cuts
to get down the deficit, and that we can work together to build a
stronger, better, fairer Britain for all our children to share.