Budget Statement

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to the Budget, although I think that he will have a more exacting job to do in summing up this extensive, and indeed intensive, debate. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Palumbo and Lord Taverne, and my noble friend Lord Hanworth, who all sought to put this Budget in the context of government policy over the past five years and the challenges which the Chancellor has been obliged to face.

The Chancellor constantly emphasises the success that he enjoys, but what success? At one stage, of course, the deficit was going to be cleared by 2015, and he fell hopelessly short of that objective. Now, he promises that we will be in surplus by 2020, just before the next general election—the same quality of promise that we had last time. But what has not been specified is how he gets there in real terms. We still do not have a clear definition of the £12 billion of welfare cuts outlined some time ago as a generalisation before the general election—nothing specific, of course. What we do appreciate is that the pace of the introduction of these cuts may be somewhat reduced.

All these cuts were concealed from the electorate before the general election and what is concealed now is the level of spending cuts being contemplated. We all know that departments have been identified as not being protected, and we also have some indication of the cuts they are likely to face. I can give one area of cuts as far as education is concerned. The cuts in further education are reaching staggering proportions. There has already been a 30% cut and a further one is promised. Yet further education, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham indicated, has a part to play in increasing the skill levels of some of the more deprived sections of the population. If we want to move towards full employment, we have to see that the spread of skills goes well beyond apprentices. I welcome the proposal on apprentices, but I am somewhat doubtful about how the costs will be met. As my noble friend Lord Bhattacharyya indicated, they are a crucial part of the development of skills at a certain level, but we need basic skill levels too. That means a relationship with the colleges, but the colleges are effectively being decimated by government policy.

The Government can only conceivably believe that they will reach a surplus in 2020 if they cut public expenditure to the bone, and that will certainly include public investment. We will see a reduction in public investment in the very areas where we need it to increase productivity. The Minister will be able to wax strong on the issue of productivity because we all know his excellent record and experience before coming to this House, but even he may be stretched to identify how productivity over the next four years is going to do anything but fall, as the OBR has indicated. The imbalance that obtains between London and most of the rest of the country will show no significant signs of changing. We all know that we need to improve our productivity because, as has been said in this debate, we compare woefully with Germany, France and the United States. The average productivity of our workers is some 30% below theirs.

The departmental cuts already presaged are putting this policy of investment in productivity at risk. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, return to his old patch of transport, but he will know that one of the most recently identified areas for cutbacks is rail electrification in the north—and not only the north: we will have a Question tomorrow on electrification to Swansea in south Wales. Cutbacks are bound to have an impact. This investment is meant to improve productivity; it is already being postponed by the Government.

As my noble friend Lord Soley said, aviation is of course an important driver of growth and improved productivity, but we all recognise that the Government have dithered over the additional runway in the south-east. First, they set up the commission and then they made sure that it did not respond until after the general election. There was no particular rationale for that except that my namesake, Sir Howard Davies, needed some time for adequate deliberation. However, he does not need time for deliberation once he has reported to the Government, but the delays go on while they subject the report to the necessary scrutiny within the department. That scarcely shows a commitment to urgency on the projects which are meant to improve our productivity. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, identified another area in which there are cutbacks: investment in renewable energy, where we would hope to see improvements in productivity.

So far, the Government’s productivity document is a patchwork of largely existing schemes. We welcome the commitment to expand areas such as apprenticeships, as the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, but we have to recognise that the skills we require are such that some areas are bound to need public investment and support to achieve success. However, all we get is bleakness on that front.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, introduced an optimistic note with regard to the Budget. He said that the possibility of wage improvements through the living wage have brought some joy to him. It would bring joy to all of us if that represented a significant increase for working people over the next four years, but it is clear that the levels being set by the Government are really just modest increases—and not in the national living wage but in the minimum wage. That will certainly ensure that working people will receive such modest increases that they will be savaged by the reduction in the tax credits they would otherwise have received, but those are part of the Government’s necessary austerity measures. Working people—and I mean working people, some 3 million of them—will actually see very little improvement in their living standards at all on this basis. We are all in it together, but it is clear that the poor are meant to suffer more. As my noble friend Lord McFall said early in the debate, this is a truly regressive Budget.

If the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, wants to know my personal view, yes, I find the withdrawal of benefits to a family if they have more than two children extraordinarily regressive and unacceptable, and I am glad that my friends at the other end of the building are voting against it. I accept that there must be some restriction on the amount of benefit paid, but the Government have gone about it in a most unfair and doctrinaire fashion in the policies they are pursuing. As my noble friend Lord McFall said, this will increase child poverty—if we are able to measure it. The Government are removing the criteria by which some elements of child poverty can be measured. It is not surprising that we on this side of the House are somewhat cynical about the measure.

Finally, we hear about deficit reduction in government expenditure, but we do not hear much about deficit reduction when it comes to our trading deficit. As my noble friend Lord Hanworth indicated, it is essential that we pay attention to the fact that Britain is not paying its way. The Chancellor had the nerve to suggest that he will increase exports to £1 trillion by 2020. The OBR said that he will be lucky if he gets to two-thirds of that target. That is a mark of the unrealistic nature of this Budget.

I apologise to noble Lords if I have not given sufficient attention to certain issues in these limited remarks. The House will recognise that we admire the Chancellor’s courage and chutzpah, but as for the reality of the Budget, we condemn it.