Autumn Statement

Lord Hollick Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

I could spend the rest of the three minutes and a lot longer on this but I will be brief. Again, I am grateful to my noble friend for his remarks.

On how the infrastructure is funded, there is still a need for a large debt component in many of the projects, and the debt markets continue to be very difficult. My noble friend is completely right about the appetite of the sovereign wealth funds and I will be going to the Gulf again to visit a number of them next week. But the debt component remains difficult.

As to whether the investment is flowing through, total private and public investment in infrastructure is now running at £33 billion per year compared to an average of £29 billion per year under the previous Government—even with all the investment in social infrastructure that went on. While there is more to be done, that is an important number.

There are other areas, yes, where we need to make more progress. I draw my noble friend’s attention to the policy decisions on energy over the last week, which should now enable the energy markets and investors to invest in a broad sweep of nuclear, renewable and gas assets.

[Lord Hollick]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the Minister. Optimistic he may be, but what remarkable chutzpah he and the Chancellor have shown on a day when they have missed all their key targets.

I wonder if he could help me with just a couple of points in the blizzard of information that we have had today. Is there any increasing demand as a result of the measures announced? As the Minister knows, demand is absolutely essential if we are to have growth and it would appear that the OBR has taken into account all the measures but has still downgraded significantly the growth over the next five years.

Secondly, in Annex B.1 of the Treasury document, the suggestion is that the bottom three deciles of the population will bear about three-quarters of the burden of the fiscal consolidation. In 2015-16, 96% of the reduction will be borne by cuts in welfare and public spending; only 4% will come from tax increases. That is rather different from the 80:20 the Chancellor talked about.

Finally, on the question of interesting accounting, the Autumn Statement includes receipt in the current financial year of £3.5 billion from the auction of the 4G spectrum, which is yet to take place. This receipt is apparently used in the current year to reduce the debt, but appears then to be used in the following financial year to finance spending plans. How can that be?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, first, the test of increase in demand will ultimately be the growth numbers. The OBR has set out its forecast of growth numbers and—I can only repeat—it is forecasting higher growth next year for the UK compared to countries such as France and Germany.

On the question of the distribution, I draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, to the new chart on the overall level of benefit and public spending receipts in the supplementary document, which shows that, contrary to what the noble Lord is saying, the overall result is significantly progressive across the quintiles.

The deficit reduction plan will continue to be on a 80:20 basis; in other words, with 80% of the deficit consolidation coming from spending reductions and only 20% from tax—just as it was before today. That has not changed. As far as the spectrum auction is concerned, the £3.5 billion has been certified by the OBR as its central estimate of the money that will be coming in this tax year.