We will continue to fight the austerity agenda of this ghostly government

The people’s business must still be done. The early stages of the Finance Bill slid almost unnoticed through Parliament, like a ghost sliding past this dying government. It raises important questions about the taxation of derivatives and securitisation vehicles, about tax avoidance and about the taxation of banks. The Labour Party continues to oppose this government’s austerity programme.

At times it is a little like opposing the Marie Celeste. While the Press likes to talk about the shadow cabinet, it is Theresa May’s new cabinet which has been invisible these last three months. Now that the Conservative’s unnecessary referendum has caused so many challenges for our future, they have slipped away into silence.

Politics has become more complicated in recent years. It became particularly complicated when financial institutions needed to be bailed out after the crash in 2008. It has fallen to politicians to deal with the aftermath of that crisis. Meanwhile financial markets were able to clamber back to their feet. Millions of ordinary people continue to suffer needless hardship under the heel of austerity.

The ongoing crisis in the eurozone was precipitated by the financial crisis. It led to the austerity measures which neo-liberal economists considered essential to repair the damage caused by paying for the bail-out. The result of those austerity measures in the UK was the disaffection in some parts of the country which led to the ‘leave’ vote.

The Finance Bill deals with things as wide-ranging as securitisation, derivatives and raw tobacco. There is still no government strategy for dealing with ‘leave’. There was never a contingency plan. And yet the Finance Bill contains several measures which are linked explicitly to EU legislation. There is no government strategy for dealing with any of these problems. Like the Marie Celeste, the ship of state sails on without a hand on the tiller.

John McDonnell has recently set out the principles which a Labour government will use to negotiate the UK’s exit from the EU. During the committee stages of the Finance Bill it was the Labour Party which connected the tax changes to securitisation vehicles and derivatives to the financial crisis and to the need to control tax avoidance. The government still has no strategy.

The Bank of England Act earlier in the year showed how the Cameron government had failed to deal properly with financial markets. That Act reduced the Prudential Regulation Authority to a mere committee of the Bank of England. There is now no separate body overseeing the solvency of our banks. George Osborne made this change while banks like the Co-operative and the Britannia were in trouble. Since the ‘leave’ vote, all of our banks are in difficulties as their share prices have crashed. It was a poor time for the Tories to downgrade the status of that regulatory authority.

This is just one example of a government asleep at the wheel. It was George Osborne who created the PRA in 2013. It was George Osborne who scrapped it in 2016. His reforms to banking regulation were a failure. Even he has been forced to acknowledge this by reversing his own reforms. These reforms were opposed tooth and nail by John McDonnell and the Labour Opposition in Parliament. It is Labour that will remember the failures of 2008 and which will repair them in government.

At this time, the people’s business needs our attention.. The Labour Opposition is challenging this ghostly government on its failure to deal with the challenges facing our nation.

Rebecca Long-Bailey is Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury