Amendment of the Law

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Lord Darling of Roulanish

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Darling]

My right hon. Friend is right. Our debt levels were the second highest of the G7 group of economies in 1997, but 10 years later they were the second lowest. On public spending, last week the Chancellor blamed all our woes on our alleged overspending. How was it that the Conservatives were supporting our public spending plans right up until December 2008? As for the Liberal Democrats, they were in a different stratosphere from the rest of us when it came to calling for more public spending.

At the last election five years ago the essential argument between us was whether we could halve the deficit in a five-year period, which was my judgment of what we could safely and realistically do. The Chancellor—the shadow Chancellor at that time—said that that was woefully inadequate. But what was woefully inadequate five years ago was announced as a personal triumph last week. He has managed to do what I said we could do, but he somehow says it is a great triumph on his part and something we should be grateful to him for.

Let us look at what the Chancellor has actually done in relation to borrowing. He announced last week that at long last borrowing was on a downward curve. Every Budget he has ever presented shows borrowing on a downward curve. The difference between this Budget in 2015 and the Budget in 2010 is that it is on a downward curve all right, but he is borrowing three times more than he expected to borrow in 2010 because the economy slowed down so badly in 2011-12.

As for debt, we all expected that it would be shown that we were not going to hit the Chancellor’s original target of debt reducing as a share of national income by 2015, and that was what was expected from his autumn statement in December, yet, lo and behold, last week suddenly he was meeting his target, by a minuscule amount—coming from 80.4% to 80.2% of GDP. Why was that? It was not because of some economic miracle. It was because he looked around the Treasury cellars and found assets he could sell, one of them being a thing called Granite, which is an absolute monster of financial alchemy. Northern Rock produced it, into which it fed sub-prime mortgages, and the more sub-prime they became, the more mortgages had to be fed into this thing to keep it going. After five years it is, of course, possible to manage these things and get them to come right, and that is why the debt is coming down—because he is selling off this asset—yet even the OBR says it is highly uncertain whether or not this target will actually be met. So when we look at what the Chancellor said on the causes of where we are now and what he has done over the last five years, I have to say his credibility and track record are not as great as he would have us believe.

On the public expenditure figures of last week, the OBR has described the Chancellor’s spending profile as a rollercoaster. If we want to go on a rollercoaster, we go to Disneyland, not the British economy. Anybody else whose plans had been described as a rollercoaster would have hung their head in shame. What sort of planning can people put in place when they have no idea what is going to be spent? We have the absurd situation where the Ministry of Defence may have to lay off armed services personnel in 2016-17 because of the steep decline in public spending, only to say, “It’s all right. We’ll be able to re-engage you in two years’ time.” How can universities plan for research and development when we have such a steep decrease in public spending now, with the promise of perhaps something in the next few years?

The former Chancellor the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe knows as well as I do that when we look at spending profiles for four or five years, the last two years are pretty doubtful.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

indicated assent.

[Mr Darling]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman nods. They are pretty doubtful for one of two reasons: one is that a lot can change in that time, and the other is that the person presenting them has every intention of changing them as and when we get to that time. I do not believe for one moment that the Chancellor has changed his philosophy or beliefs from when he told the House last year that he wanted to reduce public spending to the lowest share in modern times—certainly since the welfare state and the national health service were introduced. All that has changed is that that was a political embarrassment last year, so he has simply shoved up the numbers at the end of the spending profile to be able to say, “Look, I’m not going to cause you any difficulties; public spending is going to rise, not decrease.” That is nonsense; the Tory view of public spending has not changed one jot.

Where I part company with many Government Members is that I do not think public spending is almost de facto a bad thing. It is extremely helpful to an economy in education and research and development, never mind the things an advanced economy demands in relation to the welfare state and pensions. So when we look at that profile, it is not credible, and I think it also conceals what the Conservatives would really like to do.

I want to say one thing about oil. I welcome what has been proposed. It is very sensible, because the oil taxation regime had to change, but I just remark in passing—and I am sorry only one nationalist has turned up to the debate—that the OBR forecasts are 47% below what it proposed just a year ago. North sea oil revenues are a 10th of what the nationalists told us they would have if they had an independent Scotland. This is another example of where pooling and sharing resources across the United Kingdom makes a massive difference. If Scotland had been independent today, it would have been faced with cuts that would make the austerity that is now being visited on the economy look like a Sunday afternoon tea party. They would have been substantial and damaging to the people of Scotland. That is why the nationalists have nothing to say about this; they have no one to blame for this problem but themselves.