Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Stella Creasy

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an important point. That leads me to the problem, which I had not intended to mention, of how indebted the nation was personally. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) made the point that a total private sector debt that is 450% of GDP is something to fear and shake at.

One reason I believe we did not see the increase in the public’s spending in certain areas despite the historically low interest rates—the Bank of England brought interest rates down and I think we understand why—was because people saw the opportunity to use the extra money they had in their pockets from the reduction in their mortgage payments to start paying off credit card debts, although many were on fixed-rate mortgages. That money was not poured back into the economy as was originally envisaged because people saw the writing on the wall and started to reduce their personal debt, and the Government should take a big lesson from that. We need to get debt down if we are to sustain future growth. We talk about interest of £50 billion a year on £1 trillion-worth of debt, but that does not mean anything to people because those numbers are huge. However, when we tell them that £120 million is being given to foreign nations every day because of the money we have borrowed, they start to realise the situation we face.

We all face such situations in our constituencies, where certain services are being cut—there is some politics involved, but that is not my point—and local councils need more money, which they cannot have because of the situation we are in. People realise that rather than going to foreign nations, that £120 million could be used to go some way towards addressing, for example, the closure of a leisure centre in my constituency that is losing £100,000 in a year.

That is why we needed to rebalance the economy. We became far too reliant on public debt and public money—public money that comes from private money—and we cannot keep magicking public money out of the air, because in the end it leads to hyperinflation. Indeed, the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), made some link, which I could not follow, between our policies and the rise of the far right in the 1930s, which in turn led to the second world war. Hyperinflation certainly played a big role in nationalism among Governments, however, and it came about precisely because of the economic circumstances that we were moving towards recently.

I take issue with the hon. Lady when she says that we are attacking ordinary hard-working people. That is, quite frankly, a disgraceful comment to make. There is not a person on either side of the House who deliberately wants to attack the ordinary hard-working person, so let us just put down a few facts. We have just brought in an income tax cut for 23 million people and taken almost 1 million people out of income tax altogether. Let us compare that with doubling income tax for the lowest paid in society.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

indicated dissent.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

But you cannot deny that your Government doubled income tax for the lowest paid in society and destroyed pensions—not you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the previous Government. The previous Government destroyed pensions, leaving many people whom we would class as the most vulnerable in society to take their pensions with fear and trepidation. At least we have brought in the triple lock on pensions, meaning that people should never again get the 75p rise in their pension.