The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and he is absolutely correct. Without people, the economy will falter. That is the economic reality.
The Resolution Foundation has said that the income tax take is up 8% so far this year, but that that is coming from the very highest earners. The wages at the bottom continue to stagnate. If the OBR cannot openly predict the short-term economic performance, it is unreasonable to ask the House to sign off on its guidance. It is more difficult now for families to survive on the money they have. Since the vote, the cost of bread is up 11%, the cost of butter is up 23% and the cost of milk is up 11%—and we still have not left the EU. If people cannot afford to put bread and butter on the table, this economy is heading for the drain.
It is a well-established fact that Scotland did not vote for or particularly want to leave the EU. I checked just before I stood up to speak, and 13,920 of my constituents have now signed the petition to revoke article 50. The Prime Minister has consistently ignored attempts by the Scottish Parliament to find any kind of compromise solution, such as staying in the customs union and the single market, which would limit the damage of this hard Tory Brexit. If she wants to drag Scotland out of the EU against its will, she should have the bottle to come to this House and present the analysis that she says exists. She should have the courage to tell people that it will cost jobs and businesses, and that she cannot make guarantees about the future.
If the Prime Minister does not believe that her Brexit deal can stand up to scrutiny in this House, the UK Government need to face up to reality and ditch Brexit altogether by revoking article 50. They are throwing good money after bad on no-deal planning, on fridges, on staged traffic jams and on botched ferry contracts, when they could be spending that money on lifting the awful austerity cuts that we have seen over the past nine years. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury talks about going round the country and listening to people’s public spending priorities, but I bet none of them talked about spending £33 million on Eurotunnel due to the shambles created by the Secretary of State for Transport, or about the £1 billion to bribe the Democratic Unionist party in an attempt to keep the Government in power.
Day after day in my constituency I see the impact of this Government’s callous approach to cost-cutting. I see the benefits freeze, which is expected to cost families £800 a year, on top of the £900 a year that the Bank of England says Brexit is already costing every family. I see the two-child policy, which leaves families nearly £3,000 a year worse off if they have a third child and which makes a woman with three children on a 16-hour contract work the equivalent of 45 hours to make up the difference. I also see the thousands of pounds a year being lost by the WASPI women who are no longer entitled to their side of the pension bargain, having had their pensions cruelly stolen by previous Governments and by this one as well. How can any Minister look the population in the eye and say, “There is no money for you,” when the Government are asking us to sign a blank cheque for a hard Brexit?
I am a lifelong campaigner for Scottish independence and scarcely have I seen a clearer case for it than the shambles of the Conservatives and the incompetence of the Labour party in opposing them. The UK Government’s incompetence is changing hearts and minds all over Scotland on the merits of independence, and I hope that there will soon be an opportunity for the people of Scotland to take matters into their own hands.
5.55 pm