Budget Statement

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, welcome my noble friend Lord Khan, and the noble Lords, Lord Cruddas and Lord Benyon. I am sure we will all benefit greatly from their experience and expertise.

Last week, the Chancellor announced that, over the past year, 700,000 people have lost their jobs, our economy shrunk by 10% and our borrowing reached the highest it has been outside of wartime. He blamed Covid—a fair enough alibi you may think, but it stops at half the truth. What he did not mention is that, while all our international competitors have also suffered from Covid, we have had the worst economic crisis of any major economy. Future reviews will reveal that the failure to prepare, and the dither, delay and denial of the scientific evidence, especially in timeously implementing lockdowns, contributed significantly to the economic damage—as, too, did Brexit, another unmentionable.

But so much for the past. As for the future, the Budget represented a missed opportunity to respond to the magnitude of the economic damage that has been done. The Budget could have introduced a radical plan to sponsor productivity, innovation and wealth creation. It could have included a major green stimulus or provided a transformative change for the decades to come. It could have provided a credible plan to ease the £70 million burden of debt hanging over so many businesses, or avoided the £2 billion council tax rise affecting households across the country. Of course, it could have protected NHS workers against inflation—the least we could have done, given the efforts, risks and courage involved in their work over the past year. Sadly, it did none of these. Therefore, I believe that it fell far short of what the times and the circumstances demand.