Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Adrian Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

Before Opposition Members start chortling away, let me say that my hon. Friend makes a very good point. I would merely remind Opposition Members which Government raised council tax so steeply—the most regressive tax in the entire toolkit. Year after year under a Labour Government it was pushed up and up and up.

Let me now turn to the issue of growth and jobs. At this stage in every business cycle that I have followed, going all the way back to the recovery from the bust that followed the Barber boom in the early ’70s, the cry always goes up, “But where will the jobs come from?” That cry is particularly urgent whenever, as has too frequently happened, Governments are trying to deal with the legacy of past fiscal misdeeds. However, the forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility is a reasonable central assessment and is similar to independent forecasts. It shows that the biggest impetus to growth this year comes, as is usual at this point in the cycle, from the inventory cycle. Recessions inevitably put businesses under enormous financial pressure. Businesses try to raise cash by cutting output and by meeting the demand for their goods from stocks, but that process has to exhaust itself as those stocks of finished goods run down. More of the demand for those goods then has to be met from output, and businesses once again gear up production. That is where we are today. The inventory cycle is a powerful stimulus. The OBR forecast has it contributing 1.2% of gross domestic product this year.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me take the right hon. Gentleman back to his defence of his party’s volte-face on VAT. He explained that VAT was not a regressive tax because of the range of exemptions from it. Will he tell us what exemptions there are now under the coalition Government that were not there before that make it less regressive than it was before?