GOVERNMENT DITHERING ON LOW CARBON GROWTH MEANS INVESTORS ARE GOING ELSEWHERE

The Tory-led Government is throwing away the massive jobs and growth opportunities presented by the new low carbon energy and technology, not to mention betraying their promises on the environment.  That’s why this week Ed Miliband has called on David Cameron to make a commitment to the 2030 de-carbonisation target so investors all over the world know we are open for low carbon business.

The Confederation of British Industry believes low carbon business could halve our trade deficit by 2014-15. And yet, despite David Cameron’s promises that this Government would be the greenest government ever we have a government that has delayed crucial decisions on the Green Investment Bank and de-carbonisation targets.

This short sightedness is damaging the green economy. The short-sightedness of the Government means billions of pounds in investment is going elsewhere or being put on hold. Since this Government came to power, investment in renewable energy hasn’t gone up, it hasn’t even stagnated - it has halved.

Thanks to this Government, the investors who want to invest in our low carbon sector are shutting their wallets or going elsewhere.

INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY FAILS TO MATERIALISE

The continuing failure of BIS to deliver and its failure to be the “Department for Growth”, which Business Secretary Vince Cable promised is a national scandal.

Despite giving 16 speeches on the need for an industrial strategy, Vince Cable has not delivered one. BIS has failed to adopt the strategic approach that the UK needs to give businesses certainty. Instead of leadership, all we have seen since this rotten Tory-Lib Dem Government came to power is chaos, confusion and uncertainty.

As Vince Cable has said, the government lacks a “compelling vision” of how Britain can succeed in the future, and where new jobs are going to come from. Just as the Government has choked off demand by making the wrong decisions on the economy in the short-term, they have also failed to offer a credible plan of how Britain will pay its way in the world in the future.

The Government’s rag bag of measures are small in scale and limited in impact - they fail to meet the size of the challenges - all the while they are pursuing an economy based on people facing low wages and insecurity.

Even Lord Heseltine said in his recent report that the message he keeps hearing is that the UK does not have a strategy for growth and wealth creation. The fact that a former Conservative Cabinet Minister is still calling on the Government to come up with a growth strategy halfway through the lifetime of this Parliament is a damning indictment of the Government’s failure.

Business leaders have been unimpressed with the Government’s business policy and lack of industrial strategy. John Cridland, the Director General of the CBI, said “Where’s the beef?” in response to David Cameron’s speech to the CBI conference last Monday.

In the CBI’s, ‘Playing our strongest hand: maximising the UK’s industrial opportunites’, report this month says “the current hands-off approach to growth is failing to provide the confidence necessary for businesses to compete for the biggest opportunities out there. Rebalancing the UK economy must consist of boosting our productive potential, which means reviving business investment and trade as key drivers of growth. The debate is no longer over whether the UK needs an industrial strategy, but about what form it should take.”

According to the Chartered Management Institute almost two thirds of managers (63%) have little or no confidence in the Government’s current economic policy. Furthermore, 19% of managers give the Government a vote of no confidence. Business optimism is lower than it was six months ago, dropping from a net +11 to -2 since April.

This is clear evidence that the country is crying out for Labour’s One Nation Industrial Strategy. One Nation politics has to have at its very heart an economy in which everybody has a stake and in which wealth and prosperity is fairly shared.

An economy which encourages huge levels of inequality, or which relies on one sector or a small number of regions above over all others, resulting in huge distortions and vulnerabilities, cannot be an effective or fair way of doing things.

Growth must become more balanced across regions and sectors, so that more in our country benefit from growth and our economy is more resilient in the face of global shocks.

WE NEED AN INDEPENDENT ENQUIRY INTO THE DYSFUNCTIONAL DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT

I WAS surely not the only Derbeian who was optimistic that Patrick McLoughlin’s appointment as Transport Secretary might offer a glimmer of hope to Bombardier.

As a fellow Derbyshire MP, I presumed that Mr McLoughlin would better understand how damaging the Government’s appalling decision not to award the £1.4bn Thameslink contract to the Derby trainmaker was.

That is why Norman Baker’s response to my speech in today’s debate on the Thameslink and Crossrail contracts, that he still expects the contract with German firm Siemens to be signed early next year, was so desperately disappointing.

I made the point that serious doubts remain over the validity of the decision that was originally made 18 months ago. And, crucially, there is now an even greater justification for Mr McLoughlin to revisit the decision - if he really wants to. But it seems my words continue to fall on deaf ears.

At the outset of the procurement process, it was envisaged that Thameslink would operate as an independent franchise. But the goalposts have moved since then. It is now anticipated that a “super-franchise” will be created, also involving some of the Southern and South Eastern services.

This is a fundamental shift. Even Mr McLoughlin’s predecessor, Justine Greening, accepted that termination of the Thameslink contract could take place if there were significant changes to “external factors”. I have written to Mr McLoughlin to highlight this point and await a reply.

He told a Transport Select Committee summoned to investigate that other farce within his department - the suspended West Coast procurement process - that he accepted the public had a right to expect better. So why won’t he deliver it?

My great fear is that the Government is continuing with this process now for all the wrong reasons. The weight of evidence against its original decision is overwhelming. Industry experts and economists alike concur that there was no logic to it. And the West Coast issue has merely served to confirm that the DfE’s procurement processes are far from polished.

I worry that it is sheer stubbornness which now prevents the Government from accepting the public was right all along. But even if ministers in Westminster are prepared to threaten Derby’s wellbeing to save their blushes, local MPs should not be.

I certainly will not let this issue lie until the ink on the contract is dry and all hope is lost. I just wish Mr McLoughlin, who owes his position not to David Cameron and his Cabinet colleagues but to the people of Derbyshire who elected him, shared that loyalty.

In the meantime I used today’s debate to call for an independent enquiry to look at the way the dysfunctional Department for Transport procures trains. Unless the DfT starts acting in the national interest, we could witnessing the end of the British train making industry.

DEATH PENALTY CAN NEVER BE JUSTIFIED

SOMETIMES in politics you are given the opportunity to work on a cause for which you feel a true personal passion and commitment.

That is precisely the situation I have found myself in after being appointed secretary to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Abolition of the Death Penalty.

It is a group unlike many others based in Westminster. To start with, its ultimate aim is something that was achieved in the UK many decades ago - the last execution on these shores took place in 1964.

In addition, it is a group where political differences truly can be put aside. In a period when the two main political parties are poles apart on social values and economic policies, such collaboration is something worth celebrating.

My own view is that the death penalty can never be right. And I don’t propose to offer a host of reasons to justify this view.

We are not talking about taxation levels, welfare support, unemployment or housing policy. We’re talking about whether it is acceptable for a society to kill human beings as a form of punishment.

I don’t see how that can ever be tolerated.

That is why I find it so incredible that some developed nations, including 34 states in the USA, continue to use the death penalty.

So what can a cross-party group do about it? What influence does a group of MPs in the UK have on the policies of overseas states?

Well to start with there are the changes we can make to our own legislation.

The shocking truth is that there are UK nationals all over the world who have spent years on death row awaiting the most awful fate.

Some of the more high profile cases make the news and on those occasions we hear about state interventions.

Personally, I would like to see the state intervening as a matter of course where a UK national faces the death penalty. I would be thrilled if the all-party group could help secure that legislative change.

But there is also the work we can do in assisting the many charities and organisations set-up to campaign against capital punishment and support those facing it.

One such organisation is Reprieve. Thanks to work by this charity, more than 300 people once consigned to the death penalty no longer face that fate.

Reprieve identifies instances where there is evidence of flawed prosecution cases against people on Death Row and leads the legal fight to help them.

I have already met with the organisation and will continue to work with its representatives to see how else the all-party group can offer its support.

But aside from all of that, our other main role is to simply raise awareness.

So established is it in the UK psyche that the death penalty is immoral, it is easy to forget that capital punishment still hangs over other societies like the darkest of clouds.

I am not naive enough to believe for a moment that the death penalty will be globally condemned in my lifetime.

But I am privileged to be in a position to help inch the world towards a more civilised and compassionate future.

LABOUR’S INNOVATION IN DERBY LEADS THE WAY

WE have heard much talk over the last two-and-a-half years of the unprecedented level of cuts in funding for public services.

For anyone who believes in public services, as I passionately do, that has been hard to take.

But an unprecedented situation forces a choice: shall I do something innovative to put myself in a better situation, or do I sit back and see how this unfolds?

That has been a choice facing local authorities up and down the country.

Faced with funding settlements from the Government far lower than anybody could have anticipated, the chain reaction is that passing on the cuts means that services fall and support is reduced.

So what are councils to do? Do they simply shrug their shoulders and accept that is their lot, or do they try to do something different to support their residents?

Since the local elections in May, we’ve seen much less of the former and much more of the latter in Derby.

It is a depressing inevitability in Derby as much as anywhere else that the cuts must be passed on and, increasingly, the public understand that.

But I’ve been thrilled to see that Labour-led Derby City Council is countering that with some innovative steps that will help to build the city’s economy from the bottom up.

To begin with, there is the plan to introduce supported council mortgages to help first time buyers onto the property ladder. As well as helping the individuals and couples who will benefit from the scheme, this will crucially get Derby’s housing market moving again.

In fact, this very scheme was dismissed when Labour was in opposition three years ago when I included it as part of Labour’s alternative budget strategy for the city. It is par for the course that the current council leadership has the courage of their convictions that their Lib Dem and Tory predecessors clearly lacked then and still lack now.

Then there is the recent announcement that the council is to become a Living Wage employer, guaranteeing its lowest paid workers a salary in line with the cost of living.

Again, this decision is about helping far more than the people who directly benefit. It is about boosting the city’s economy by creating the disposable income that will be reinvested in local businesses.

In making these choices, the council is proving that when Labour says “there is another way”, it actually means it.

It is this kind of investment which we have been talking about for months. It grows the economy by giving it the opportunity to flourish, as opposed to strangling it by making it insular and stagnant through cut after cut after cut.

Not just that, but it shows the central role that public services play in that recovery. That is why public services are so crucial. It is not just about the front-facing role they play, but also about how public bodies can be the catalysts to spark recovery.

The reality is that Labour needed to win back the trust of the British people - the 2010 General Election results showed that.

But I believe the tide of public opinion is turning. I believe more and more people are recognising that any decent society relies on solid public services to glue it together.

And it is by taking these sorts of steps that Labour can prove that its approach is the right way.

REGIONAL PAY IN NHS WOULD EXACERBATE NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE

PROPOSALS by the Tory-Lib Dem Government to abandon a national pay structure in the NHS would be disastrous for terms and conditions of health service employees.

As fears grow that regional pay structures will be brought in to replace the existing arrangements, there is a danger of the North-South divide being exacerbated. The impact of Governments cuts since the last General Election will grow further if the national deal is abandoned.

A group of NHS trusts in the South West have already committed to forming a regional deal, while others around the country are now thought to be considering the move.

But the national pay structure has underpinned and stabilised the NHS since it was introduced. It has removed the inequity that previously existed where some nurses earned as little as £12,000 per year.

To remove it would be a retrograde step. In all parts of the country it would threaten the terms and conditions of employees, particularly in the North and Midlands where it would be a huge concern.

We’ve seen how Government cuts have had a disproportionate impact in the North and Midlands in terms of local authority funding, unemployment, homelessness and poverty. There’s every reason to expect this trend to be continued if national pay structures are replaced.

CRIMINAL INJURIES COMPENSATION SCHEME SLASHED

Earlier this evening, Labour voted to stop the Tory-Lib Dem Government’s cuts to compensation for over 90% of seriously injured victims of violent crime and for the dependants of murder victims.

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme currently supports over 30,000 injured victims each year with relatively small payments. These payments help to make up for lost wages whilst victims of crime are unable to work due to their injuries.

The Government’s proposed cuts would mean that compensation would not be available to victims who sustain injuries such as facial disfigurement, permanent speech impediment or multiple fractured ribs. The victims of dog attacks would no longer receive any compensation, no matter how serious their injuries.

Even those most seriously injured would have their payments slashed, as compensation for loss of earnings will be limited to the rate of Statutory Sick Pay – just £85 a week. And any victim who has had a period out of work in the previous three years (around a third of the UK workforce) will not receive any compensation for loss of earnings.

These same cuts and conditions will apply to the dependants of murder victims, drastically reducing their compensation and financial security following the death of a loved one.

The Government have sought to make these huge cuts to compensation for victims of crime by the back door, with no discussion by the full House of Commons. Labour MPs called this debate as a final opportunity for MPs to demonstrate to Government Ministers the fundamental flaws in their program of cuts to Criminal Injuries Compensation.

It was also a chance for MPs to stand up for the victims of crime and demonstrate to the Government that there must be a better way to make cuts than to 90% of seriously injured victims of violent crime and to the dependants of murder victims – who have no other means of redress.

I will continue to put the interests of victims first, unlike the Tory and Lib Dem MPs who voted in favour of these cruel and unnecessary cuts.

FIRST STEP IN LABOUR’S FIVE-POINT PLAN WOULD CREATE 10,000 EAST MIDLANDS JOBS

ALMOST ten thousand construction jobs could be created in the East Midlands if the Government agrees to Labour plans to use a £3-4bn windfall to kickstart house building.

The National Housing Federation estimates that another 40,000 jobs would be created in the supply chain and around 6,500 new homes would be built in the region under the plans.

Labour is calling on the Tory-led Government to use the cash - expected to be generated from the forthcoming auction of the 4G mobile phone spectrum - to lift Britain out of its housing crisis.

Our economy is struggling and unemployment is at unnecessarily high levels. In one fell swoop the Government could take huge strides towards rectifying both of these problems by taking this step.

The funds raised from the 4G auction should be used to put something back into the economy. Much needed affordable homes would be created, first-time buyers would find it easier to get on the property ladder and thousands of new jobs and apprenticeships would be created.

The proposal is part of Labour’s five point plan for jobs and growth – which includes a temporary VAT cut and bringing forward infrastructure investment.

It is in addition to the 25,000 homes for social rent Labour has already said should be funded by part of the funds raised from a tax on bank bonuses.

PESSIMISM GRIPS CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

The latest Construction Trade Survey published on Monday this week showed that construction activity fell sharply in Q3, despite a return to growth for the UK economy as a whole. Of greater concern, however, is the forward looking indicators of orders and enquiries, were also negative, reinforcing concerns that the sector is unlikely to experience growth until at least 2014.

This is the first time there has been a decline in all construction sectors. Whilst the public sector construction activity has been falling for some time as a result of the government’s cuts, private sector activity is also now falling sharply. On top of this bad news, infrastructure work also declined in Q3. Given all the government’s rhetoric about stimulating infrastructure activity, these figures provide further evidence of the Tory-Lib Dem Government’s utter incompetence.

Speaking about the survey, Stephen Ratcliffe, Director of the UK Construction Group, said: “These figures show how difficult trading conditions continue to be. With declining public sector spend and a lack of confidence amongst private investors, action is urgently needed to kick-start the construction sector.”

Key survey findings include:

• Public new housing and public non-housing were the worst hit sectors for building contractors, with a balance of 38% and 34% respectively, reporting falls in output

• 29% and 27% of building contractors reported that, on balance, output fell in the private industrial and private commercial sectors respectively

• 20% of heavy side product manufacturers and 41% of light side manufacturers reported that, on balance, sales fell in Q3

• 26% of contractors reported that, on balance, orders fell in the third quarter

• 17% of civil engineers reported a fall in workload, on balance, during Q3

• 50% of large and medium sized building contractors, on balance, suggested that tender prices reduced in 2012 Q3

• 32% of building contractors, on balance, reported rises in costs, marginally higher than the 30% in Q2

• The proportion of contractors, on balance, reporting falls in profit margins remained unchanged at 49%

LIVING WAGE WEEK

In a speech today at Islington Town Hall to mark the start of Living Wage Week, Ed Miliband said:

I want to thank everyone gathered here, councillors, representatives of Citizens UK, Labour Party supporters, businesses, trade unions and people who are just passionate about the living wage.

As we start Living Wage Week, there are almost five million people in Britain who aren’t earning the living wage.

People who got up early this morning, spent hours getting to work - who are putting in all the effort they can - but who often don’t get paid enough to look after their families, to heat their homes, feed their kids, care for their elderly relatives and plan for the future.

I heard from some of them in Manchester on Friday.

Five million people in Britain who are doing the right thing and doing their bit.

People helping to build the prosperity on which our country depends.

But people who aren’t sharing fairly in the rewards.

That’s not how it should be in Britain today.

That’s not how we will succeed as a country in the years ahead.

We must turn that around.

We must rebuild our country as One Nation.

And that’s why I am delighted to join with you in reaffirming my commitment to the campaign for the living wage.

The living wage isn’t an idea that came from politicians.

Or from academics in think tanks.

It came from working people themselves.

People who recognised that they were giving their all for organisations

that could afford to pay just a little bit more to give dignity to them.

But who weren’t doing so.

People who recognised that their firms might be more likely to succeed if they did.

And this campaign was the result.

A campaign that is doing so much to change attitudes to our economy.

Bringing together politicians, with businesses, trade unions, councils, and voluntary groups to insist that the living wage is an idea whose time has come.

And recent evidence tells us more clearly than ever how necessary the living wage is for our country.

The Resolution Foundation report published last week, showed the way in which our economy is not working for working people.

But just for a few at the top.

A few taking ever-more of a share of the national cake.

While other people struggle more and more to make ends meet.

And the prospect into the future of stagnating living standards for millions of people.

Therefore one of the big questions for our country is who will answer this living standards crisis?

Who will just say it is business as usual and who will be bold enough to change things?

The Labour Party I lead is determined to bring about change.

Just as in the 1990s, the minimum wage was a signature achievement of the last Labour government.

So in the coming years, the living wage will be central to our work.

I want to tell you today why I became so passionate about the living wage.

Just before the General Election, Citizens UK came to see me with a cleaner from the Treasury who wasn’t being paid the living wage.

I thought then that if our common life was to mean anything, it should mean that this hard-working woman, who cleaned the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, should be paid at least the living wage.

So our last manifesto committed, as a small but important step, to pay the living wage in Whitehall departments.

And it was this experience that inspired me to put the living wage at the centre of my Labour leadership campaign.

Then after I became leader, about a year ago, Citizens UK came to see and said only a couple of councils, both Labour, were recognised as living wage employers.

And we needed to move beyond that.

I am proud to say that since then, Islington and Lewisham have been joined by Labour councils in Birmingham, Hounslow, Lambeth, Camden, Oxford, Preston, Southwark and Hackney, all living wage employers.

And soon by other Labour councils in Ealing, Enfield, Brent, Cardiff and Norwich.

With Glasgow, Newcastle, York and Leeds starting along that path as well.

That’s 19 Labour councils across the country moving to pay their employees and their directly contracted staff at least the living wage.

I congratulate all the councils here on what they are doing.

This is an important step for workers across the country.

But we know it is not enough because the vast majority of those being paid less than the living wage are in the private sector.

Some people will say that in a harshly competitive world, nothing can be done.

I don’t agree with that.

And nor do many of our leading British businesses.

At least one hundred have now joined the living wage campaign led by Citizens UK.

Of course, for some firms, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, it is not affordable in current circumstances to pay the living wage.

That’s why the minimum wage of £6.19, is an important national legal standard for wages.

But that should not the summit of our ambitions.

Either for our workforce, our employers or our country.

Or the limit of our responsibilities.

There are sectors of our economy, where some firms are choosing to pay the living wage and others are choosing not to.

And I believe we can learn from the best British businesses that are paying the living wage.

Businesses which have introduced it tell us that it saves them money.

In reduced turnover of staff.

And lower sickness absence.

Let’s congratulate Barclays that has been paying the London living wage since 2007 and rolled it out nationally this year.

In cleaning, they keep 92% of their workers against 35% across the industry.

So it makes business sense.

I urge businesses to examine whether they can afford to pay the living wage, and if they can to move to do so.

And as the Labour Party continues with its policy review, we need to see what the next Labour government can do to help as well.

It’s not about making spending commitments.

It’s about learning from our experience in local government.

It’s about listening to the best businesses in the country.

So these are some of the proposals we are looking at:

First, we should recognize that if firms pay the living wage, it has a saving for government.

In my leadership campaign, I worked with the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

Their evidence showed that for every £1 spent in the private sector on getting workers up to the living wage, around 50 pence of that would come back to government in savings on tax credits and benefits and in higher tax revenue.

We are looking at whether it is possible to encourage more firms to pay the living wage by sharing some of those savings that come back to government.

There are lots of ways it could be done.

But it should be locally led.

Focused on what you might call Living Wage Zones.

For example, local councils could come together with groups of firms that want to move from the minimum wage to the living wage.

And central government could offer up some of the savings from the taxpayer to be used as a financial incentive to make it happen.

That incentive could take many forms.

But it is a One Nation solution with local people, councils and business coming together.

Secondly, we should seek to learn from the local government experience with procurement to see whether central government can use its power to insist that large firms that get major government contracts commit to being living wage employers.

We know how some councils have done this for contracted out services.

Here in Islington, the company that delivered ground maintenance moved to pay the living wage, without extra cost to the local taxpayer or any job losses.

We will look at whether we can apply this lesson to central government procurement.

Thirdly, we will examine the case for greater transparency: large firms publishing the number of employees paid less than the living wage, as proposed by the Resolution Foundation.

This is not because we think every employer can pay the living wage but it will encourage, sector by sector, all to aspire to the ambitions of the best.

So these are some of the ideas we are examining.

I promise today that at the next election, we will present a manifesto that explains how we can help to make the living wage a part of our strategy to make Britain’s economy work for working people again.

Two and half years ago, David Cameron came into office promising to bring change to Britain.

Promising to care for the low paid.

He said there would be at least a £250 pay increase for the 1.7 million lowest paid workers in their first two years.

But it is a promise he has failed to keep.

And it’s not an accident.

It’s because the change we need goes far deeper than David Cameron and his Conservative Party is capable ever of admitting.

It is good that Boris Johnson is supporting the London living wage today, building on the work of Ken Livingstone.

But he is the only Conservative local authority leader to run an authority paying the living wage.

It is striking that while 19 Labour councils are already living wage employers, not a single Conservative council is yet accredited.

The problem is this Government is stuck in the old mindset: saying nothing can be done and making it worse with tax cuts for millionaires and tax rises for everyone else.

It is only a Labour government that will address the living standards crisis faced by so many.

We need to build an economy where everyone has a stake.

Not where millions of people feel they never have a chance for a decent life however hard they work.

An economy where prosperity is fairly shared.

Not where the rewards for success are passed to some who play their part and not to others.

And an economy where we all come together as a country to overcome the challenges we face.

We need an economy that would help us to rebuild Britain as One Nation.

Not where we live apart, in two nations.

Building that economy won’t be easy.

It will require us all to play our part.

Shareholders and workers.

Public sector and private sector.

Business, trade unions and government.

The campaign for a living wage is a central part of it.

That is why I am so pleased to be here today.