Josh Simons

No, I will not. Labour Members are proud that, alongside the Make Work Pay package, the Government are delivering a generational shift in wealth and power towards workers—a shift that is long overdue. We know that eroding worker power and pay is bad for productivity and growth. More importantly, how can any worker in Britain trust their Government and have faith in their country when for so long the Government have failed to deliver for them? This Government will stand beside working people no matter what. Lastly, the Chancellor chose to move Britain confidently into the future by being an activist Government, embracing a new era of technological change, investing billions in data storage and processing, and transforming how we deliver healthcare to shift towards prevention and community health provision. I hope that she and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will visit my local trust in Wigan, which is pioneering such healthcare in the towns I represent in Makerfield. For weeks now, Conservative Members—disinterested in big arguments about the future—have reverted to type. They have sought to sow discord and division, at times telling outright lies, and as ever wholly lacking the humility to reflect on why they are in opposition and we are in government. I have spoken to hundreds of constituents in the last month who have heard some of their nonsense, and to them I say this: I promised that this Government would not remove free bus passes for pensioners. We kept that promise. I promised that this Government would not levy income tax on pensions, and we kept that promise. I promised that income tax rates would not go up, and we kept that promise. We chose to back workers and tax wealth and assets; we chose to invest in our NHS; we chose to take Britain into the future rather than wallowing in the past; and, above all else, we chose to keep our promises, because that is what Labour does. I wonder whether Conservative Members will own up to their choices and show some leadership in an age when it is so badly needed. If they oppose our investment rule, which hospital and data centre would they cut? If they oppose our tax rises, which struggling public service would they sacrifice? If they cannot answer those questions, as they have not done today, the public will not take them seriously and will see them for what they are: the same old Tories, always navel-gazing, and always lacking hope and the imagination to see how things could be better and different, and what a stronger and more confident country might look like. Their party no longer measures up to the age in which we live. I, for one, am mighty glad that we have a Chancellor and a Government who do.