Income tax (charge)
Debate between Alex Ballinger and Bernard Jenkin(3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Bernard Jenkin
Yes, I do not think we did enough to dynamise the British economy. We did not do enough, but I was very grateful for the support of the Liberal Democrats for the first five years of the Conservative Government. That helped us to keep public expenditure under better control so we could begin that process.
GDP per head has really been flatlining. We are falling significantly further behind the United States, but what are the trends? On these trends, we will be overtaken by Poland by 2030 in terms of GDP per head. What are this Government doing to address the real long-term trends? Let us look to 2050. What is the shape of public expenditure going to look like in 2050? This Budget does not begin to address that. What will be our national debt on a long-term basis? What is happening to our demographic, including the ageing population and the ratio of people in work and out of work? What are this Government doing to address that trend and to address the immigration trend, because that is adding to the cost of our economy?
How will we be able to increase defence spending? The Chief of the General Staff has recently said that this country could well be directly involved in a war within the lifetime of this Parliament. We will have to spend more on defence, as well as controlling the rest of the public sector. It is many decades since health, education and welfare started swamping out every other kind of expenditure in the Government. If we are to survive as a country, we will have to address these very damaging long-term trends.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am just drawing to a close.
What is the true cost of decarbonisation? That is something that the Government are hopelessly naive about. It is as though investing in decarbonisation is somehow a get-out-of-jail-free card, and everybody’s bills will start to come down, but anyone involved in the industry will say that that is not the case. The need to dynamise our zombie economy is still there and being made worse by the burdens that this Government have inflicted on us. How will we re-industrialise our economy when deglobalisation has taken away the opportunity to import all the cheap things that we used to make, but no longer do? Those are the real strategic challenges, and the Budget does not begin to address them.