Laurence Turner

I associate myself with the comments of Labour colleagues in this debate, but I want to speak about the particular issue of public sector pay and the attempts made in this debate and the preceding one to turn pensioners and public sector workers against each other, including the public sector workers who have been driven to rely on food banks and payday loans, who I was proud to represent as a trade union official. The 6,000 public sector workers in my constituency must wonder what the Opposition have against them in this debate. A strong economy needs strong public services, but the problem for the last Government—and the public sector workers who worked for them—was that their public finance strategy rested on “imposing the biggest real wage cuts in living memory.” Those are not my words but those of the former permanent secretary to the Treasury, Nicholas Macpherson. The consequences for the services that we all depend on are clear: teaching vacancies have doubled over the past three years, there is an 8% vacancy rate in the NHS and one in 10 999 call handler posts is vacant. We all know the consequences of ambulance delays for pensioners and of cancelled operations and appointments. [Interruption.] Does the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) wish to make an intervention?