Yet after all that action, this Chancellor and this Government have given with one hand and taken away a hell of a lot more with the other. The hon. Gentleman knows that is true. He also knows that people will be worse off in 2015 than they were in 2010, which says everything we need to know about this Government’s priorities.
What is there for young people? Long-term youth unemployment has doubled under this Government, and 900,000 young people are out of work. What is there in the here and now, in this Bill, to help them? Not much. The Chancellor spoke yesterday of full employment, but where are the policies that would make that happen? The number of young people out of work for one year or more has almost doubled under this Chancellor, and what this Government have delivered—the Work programme—has returned more people to the jobcentre than have been found new work, while only 5% of disabled people have been helped to find a job.
The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who is not in his place, cited the welcome decrease in long-term youth unemployment in Birmingham, Ladywood. He is not aware, though, that Birmingham’s Labour-run council administration has introduced a scheme called the Birmingham jobs fund, based on the Labour Government’s future jobs fund, specifically to tackle youth unemployment. That is why we have seen a decrease in long-term youth unemployment in my constituency and in other Birmingham constituencies. Although he might not have meant to congratulate my colleagues at Birmingham city council, I shall certainly pass his congratulations on to them.
Where was the help for small businesses—the backbone of economic growth in this country—who are crying out for extra support? We have said that instead of going ahead with the additional 1% cut in corporation tax, the Government should use that money to cut and then freeze business rates so that small and medium-sized enterprises can get some real help now. During last week’s debate on the Charter for Budget Responsibility, the Government tried to portray Labour’s policy as an anti-business proposal that would increase business taxes, but when it was pointed out to them that that argument flies only if one considers small businesses not to be real businesses, they seemed to change tack. Today, the Secretary of State for Education tried to posit it as setting one set of businesses against the other, but that totally and utterly misses the point.
Our proposal would use all the money saved by not going ahead with the corporation tax cut for the largest companies to support small businesses. At 21%, the
corporation tax rate would remain competitive, but that switch in spending would strike a better and fairer balance. Business rates have already gone up by an average of £1,500 under this Government, and many businesses, including more than one in 10 small businesses, are now paying more in business rates than in rent. Unless things change, business rates will have risen by an average of nearly £2,000 by the end of this Parliament.
This Government have failed to help small businesses, and so the next Labour Government would cut business rates in 2015 and freeze them in 2016.