Philip Davies and Imran Hussain in wrangle over economy

Imran Hussain, Labour MP for Bradford East, hit out at the Government for what he slammed as a “failure to ensure that our country thrives”.

But Shipley MP Philip Davies said Mr Hussain should apologise for supporting Covid lockdowns and said he and Labour wanted harsher lockdowns that would have made the problems worse.

Bradford city centre pictured during the first Covid lockdown in March 2020

The wrangle broke out after Labour Party analysis of Office for National Statistics data found real-term wages for people across Yorkshire and the Humber have fallen by five per cent since the Conservative Government took office in 2010, equating to a £1,500 drop in income.

Mr Hussain said: “For the last 12 years, this Tory Government has failed to build an economy that actually works for ordinary people, and we are now feeling the cruel consequences of this with stagnating wages and squeezed household incomes as families are having to make smaller wage packets go further than they have done before.”

“As a result, we are seeing more and more families finding themselves trapped in poverty as wages simply don’t keep up with the cost of living, whilst good, secure and well-paid jobs also become scarcer and scarcer as the Government pursues a race of the bottom on employment standards and protections instead of growing the economy in a balanced way for everyone, not just those at the very top.

“Given their failure to ensure that our country thrives, it could not be clearer that this Tory Government is out of ideas, out of momentum, and needs to be out of office.”

But Mr Davies accused the Bradford East MP of “seeking to pass the blame elsewhere” and took a swipe at the lockdowns implemented by his own party.

He said: “The biggest damage which was done to the economy in recent times which affected living standards and has caused sky-high inflation was the idiotic decision to lockdown the economy during Covid.

"The idea that you could lock down the economy for two years, pay people to do nothing, borrow and print money as if it was going out of fashion to pay people to do nothing and it wouldn’t have a devastating impact was for the birds.

“Unfortunately for Imran, not only did he support all those lockdowns, he and his party wanted the country locked down for even longer and even deeper, so not only did he help to create the problems he highlights by voting for the lockdowns, he would have made them worse if he had got his way.

“Apologising for his role in the decision to lock down the country might have been more appropriate rather than highlighting the inevitable consequence of the lockdowns he supported and voted for, and seeking to pass the blame elsewhere."

In response, Mr Hussain said: “Since 2010, the Office for National Statistics has shown time and time again, even before the coronavirus pandemic, that the pay which people have been taking home has stagnated and fallen in real terms because of the failure of this Government over the last 12 and a half years to build an economy that actually works for everyone, not just those at the very top.”

He added: “Blaming a global pandemic for people’s falling wages when pay was falling well before 2019 is wrong, and people across Bradford, Yorkshire and the rest of the country deserve better than a party that wakes up every day pretending that they haven’t been in power for over a decade and are responsible for the mess we’re in.”

The Telegraph & Argus contacted HM Treasury, but it did not wish to provide a comment. 

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