Autumn Statement 2022

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, it is difficult to imagine a more difficult set of circumstances in which any Chancellor has had to frame a financial Statement to Parliament. Whatever the decisions, inevitably there will be predictable criticism from all sides: taxes are too high, borrowing could be a bit more, spending greater or less, according to taste. The Chancellor could not escape the shadow of the mini-Budget. It meant that, above all, he had to satisfy the markets that the national finances were sustainable.

Much public reaction to the Statement concentrated on the fall in living standards, which is indeed alarming and unprecedented, but it has been obvious, alas, for some time that a fall in living standards was absolutely inevitable because of the rise in imported energy relative to the price of exports. Sadly, no Government can protect all their citizens in circumstances such as these. I would argue that the Government have done a huge amount, spending over £100 billion supporting families and raising disposable income above where it would otherwise have been, but, alas, there is still a drop in living standards.

The Chancellor had to choose how much consolidation came from taxation and how much from cuts and expenditure, and he chose a balanced approach of 50:50. Given that many departmental budgets are under pressure because of inflation at this time, it seems improbable that he could have gone further, like cutting spending more. With inflation at 11%, protecting programmes in money terms, which the Chancellor has said he will do, means real cuts for certain departments.

The Chancellor was advised from many sources that you cannot raise taxes going into a recession. That, one might point out, flies in the face of historical evidence, such as the Budget of 1981, but leave that aside—that is in fact not what the Chancellor is doing. We are not tightening fiscal policy going into a recession. Most of the fiscal tightening falls in the latter part of the survey period, by which time, I hope, the recession will be over.

In the short term, borrowing actually increases, up by more than £64 billion this year and more than £40 billion the following year. The Chancellor raised taxes as a percentage of GDP by just over 1% during the survey period to their highest level since the war. Understandably, this leaves many of my noble friends very unhappy but the reason that tax as a proportion of GDP is at its highest level since the war is that spending as a proportion of GDP is at its highest level since the Second World War. Borrowing as a proportion of GDP is also approaching the same level, its highest since the war. All three are because of Covid, the secondary consequences of the Covid and the war in Ukraine.

Much of the increase in expenditure as a percentage of GDP—the measure of the so-called size of the state—over the survey period has come from indexation. The increases in both benefits and the triple lock increase spending-to-GDP ratios as indexation itself outstrips nominal GDP growth. Those who argued that we should take advantage of our second-lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7 should look at what has happened to debt interest and why our previous financial position was, in many people’s opinion, an accident waiting to happen.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, referred to debt interest but rather understated the problem. Debt interest has doubled from £56.4 billion last year to £120 billion this year, just slightly less than what we spend on the NHS. Much of this surge in debt was caused by indexed debt, which has nearly quadrupled from 6% of the stock of debt in 2001 to 22% this year. That process is part of the reason why, earlier this year, we saw some alarming predictions of how, in a few years’ time, debt in this country might begin to approach the levels in Italy or Japan.

Some people argue that the answer to all these problems is to go all out for growth through tax cuts, and that growth will float all these problems away. Unfortunately, however, we have another problem: severe inflation threatening to become embedded. At this moment, going for growth at all costs is likely to exacerbate inflation and probably end up exactly as the Barber boom did.

We use the phrase “cost of living” and realise the huge problems that there are for people, but we do not talk enough about the process of inflation itself. We need not just to protect people now but to prevent the situation becoming embedded and getting worse year after year. We need not just to stun the snake of inflation but to kill it. There is a real danger, as gas prices may come down, that we will end up living permanently—or for a long time—with a relatively high rate of inflation that does not go back to the 2% target where it ought to be.

Getting inflation down must be a top priority. We are in danger of forgetting, because it has been so long, the poison that inflation can inject. Getting on top of inflation is a job primarily for the Bank of England, which has not distinguished itself in recent years, but Governments also have a role to play. It is important that fiscal policy and monetary policy point in the same direction. Of course we also need growth, but we will not have growth if we do not get inflation down first. As Jim Callaghan reminded us,

“inflation is the mother and father of unemployment.”

Growth is not something that happens abracadabra because Governments will it or snap their fingers. Governments do not create growth but they can prevent it. What we need is a strategy to remove the obstacles to growth—a battery of non-inflationary supply-side measures, including training, infrastructure, deregulation and, most importantly, planning reform in the field of housing.

This Autumn Statement, against the background of a massive world crisis, makes some unavoidably tough decisions that are bound to be unpopular. However, in a very difficult situation, I believe that the Chancellor’s decisions are realistic and sensible. I commend them to the House.