Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tyrie]

If anybody wants to produce one, we will certainly take a look at it.

The Chancellor has not fundamentally altered the macro-economic stance in this Budget. The big shift in direction of Britain’s fiscal policy in response to the crisis came not from this Chancellor but from his predecessor. More than two thirds of the fiscal adjustment announced by the Chancellor in the 2010 Budget had already been signalled by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling). In 2010, the OBR estimated that the economy would grow about 4% more than it has and the key question for the Chancellor has been how much policy should be altered to take account of that—what he should announce this afternoon and what adjustments he should make in response.

It is important to be clear that policy has already been altered a great deal, something that seems to be lost in the brouhaha in this place. Both the Government and the Bank of England have implemented massive policy changes to stimulate the economy. Fiscal policy has been loosened a great deal. The so-called automatic stabilisers—the falls in tax receipts and rises in public expenditure that come with lower growth—have been allowed to kick in. No one knows their full value, but I note that the Institute for Fiscal Studies used to think that they were worth about £100 billion and said yesterday that they were worth £140 billion. No one knows the full effects of QE—quantitative easing—either, but we know that since 2010 £175 billion of QE has been pumped in, bringing the total to £375 billion in all.

Both QE and automatic stabilisers are delivering colossal extra sums to the economy—they are massive policy changes—and the Chancellor has exercised great flexibility in response to the downturn. He does not always seem happy to acknowledge the fact that there has been that huge adjustment, so I thought I would put the points myself after his speech.

I want to say a few words about growth and the supply side, but before I do I want to refer to the greatest single blight on the prospects for the economy, which is the eurozone. Eurozone demand has remained very weak, as the Chancellor pointed out. There could not be a more vivid illustration of the eurozone’s capacity for self-harm than its chronic mishandling of the Cypriot financial crisis over the past few days. What on earth possessed policy makers to play with fire by doing the very things most likely to trigger a run on the banks? I just do not know, but it beggars belief. We cannot influence policy in the eurozone directly, but we can—and should—speak truth to incompetence. That is in Britain’s interest, as well as that of the eurozone, and I urge the Government to do that and ignore what will undoubtedly be bleatings from the Foreign Office asking them to desist.

On the supply side we cannot, of course, do much about the eurozone, but we can do something to improve the micro-economy. For nearly three years, the Treasury Committee has been calling for more coherent and tougher supply-side reforms. The Chancellor has had such an agenda for at least 18 months, but implementing it in a consistent way is proving difficult. The Chancellor has done what he can on tax reform and simplification—a big ask given the lack of fiscal room—and I pay tribute to him today because he has managed a substantial cut in corporation tax and its simplification in one go. That is both simplification and reduction, despite the lack of fiscal room.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Tyrie]

I will give way one last time.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that simplification makes it much easier for the Chancellor to generate tax and ensure that people pay it so that we do not get the fiddling about at the margins that we saw in the past under the previous Government’s policies?

[Mr Tyrie]

I will not add any comments because I do not get any more injury time after a couple of interventions, but I agree with my hon. Friend.

Reforms are going ahead in the labour market, and quite big reforms are being pushed through on the planning side. That is controversial but, I think, necessary. However, I have been arguing for some time that we must concentrate on those areas where policy is pulling in conflicting directions. The agenda might be right, but the execution is not always right:

“There has to be a drive to make the UK competitive in motorcars and engineering...we are saddled by a high cost of energy”

compared with our counterparts in Europe, and certainly in Asia. UK environmental policies are causing “dangerous distortions” to energy prices. Those are not my words but those of Tata Steel’s head of European business operations.

According to Government figures, energy prices for the average business consumer have more than doubled since 2004. Those figures also show that in 2011, almost one fifth of a medium-sized business user’s bills were due to climate change policies. Britain is going it alone with many of those policies, for example by introducing a carbon floor. That unilateralism is rendering parts of our manufacturing industry increasingly uncompetitive, and we are exporting jobs in manufacturing right now.

The Chancellor is well aware of that and has announced an important tax allowance to support the development of indigenous shale deposits. That will certainly help to level the playing field. We really need, however—this is difficult for the Government, not least a coalition Government—to address the contradiction caused by the current high subsidies to renewables. Those subsidies are so high that today the Chancellor has been forced to introduce subsidies for shale gas, just to get it going. As the American experience has shown, shale gas can be highly competitive given a balanced renewables policy. American natural gas prices have dropped by more than two thirds since 2008, which must be a reason—perhaps a major reason—why US manufacturing is doing much better than in recent years.

I also have reservations about aspects of the infrastructure policy. I strongly welcome the extra money being put in, but I wonder whether we are right to put what will amount to at least £34 billion into HS2—which, at best, is carrying a doubtful economic return—but not building much-needed extra capacity for a London airport. We must get to the point where airport capacity in London can be allowed to grow.

I will conclude by discussing briefly the other big obstacle to growth: the dysfunctionality of the banking sector. Again, that is something we can control—unlike the eurozone—although it is difficult for the Government to get to grips with. Britain’s economic recovery will depend to a large extent on a return to growth in the small business sector, and I strongly welcome the crucial measures announced today by the Chancellor to help the small business sector, but the plain fact remains that small and medium-sized businesses in our constituencies cannot get the funding they need from the banks. Banks lack the confidence to lend to them, and businesses lack the confidence to borrow from banks on the terms offered. The SME sector cannot fully recover until the partly state-owned banks return to more normal lending behaviour, and until we introduce greater competition into an over-concentrated market.

The Banking Commission, which I chair, has heard a good deal of evidence in recent months to suggest that until more of the impairments on bank balance sheets are cleaned up—in other words, until those balance sheets are in much better order—banks simply will not return to normal lending. Without that normal lending, SMEs will not recover. How to address that issue during this crisis has been one of the abiding concerns for policy makers, and a matter that the Banking Commission has considered carefully over the past few months. We have given a great deal of thought to the issue, and will be making some proposals in May.

I began by talking about SMEs, and I will end my contribution with that thought. When small businesses have the confidence to borrow and invest, and when banks have the financial strength and competitive need to do so, that is when our economy will recover and that recovery will take root.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sammy Wilson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, which leads me to a point that I wanted to make. We have a Budget that, as the Chancellor has admitted—in fact, boasted—is fiscally neutral. Although it contains good things—I have highlighted some of the impacts of the decisions—it moves the existing money around and does not mean an increase in the total level of demand. If that is not coming from exports, from consumers or from industry, because of a lack of confidence, it has to come as a result of properly targeted Government initiatives.

Although I sit on the Opposition Benches, I do not have a vested interest in Government failure and a failure of economic policy, and nor does my party. I want the Government’s policy to succeed, as it means more jobs for people in Northern Ireland and a better standard of living for them. It means that we can balance our economy. However, it is not a policy that is designed for success; it simply tries to continue the fiscal position that the Government are in at the moment. Indeed, if we look at all the targets that the Chancellor has set himself, we see that he wanted to increase confidence in the economy, yet we have seen low demand from consumers, and firms have not taken up loans—the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) mentioned that—either because they cannot get money from the banks or do not believe that there is any point in investing at the moment. Firms are running down their stock levels, because they see no prospect of additional sales in future.

The Chancellor also set himself the objective of keeping Britain’s credit rating, but that is slipping because the people who make the assessments are looking at the state of the British economy and asking when we are going to get out of the downward spiral of debt. If there is no growth, we cannot pay off the debt.

[Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

[Sammy Wilson]

I do not have any additional time, but as I have not yet accepted an intervention from a Government Member, I give way to the hon. Lady.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Does he accept that the ratings agency said that if we did not stick to our fiscal deficit plans, it would downgrade us still further, so the reduction in the triple A rating is an incentive to do more to cut our deficit, not less?

[Sammy Wilson]

Indeed. I am glad that the hon. Lady has raised the matter, because I want to come on to that.

The Chancellor set himself the objective of reducing debt, yet the Red Book shows—this is since the autumn forecast in 2012, so a period of six months—that by 2015, or the end of this Parliament, Government debt will increase from 80% to 85% of gross domestic product. The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) gave us the reason for that: the automatic stabilisers are kicking in. We are spending the money on benefits, or paying people to be on the dole, instead of spending it—this is the point I want to come on to—on the things that would stimulate growth, increase the capacity of the economy and enable us to pay our way out of our debt, while at the same time giving people the dignity of having a job and making a positive contribution to the economy.

That is why I think the Chancellor has got this wrong. There has never been a better time for him to borrow. The 10-year price of bonds is down 2%, and it is now cheaper to borrow than it has ever been. Borrowing for those things that will stimulate growth and increase infrastructure in the economy can be very useful.