Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Andrew Love

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a good start to his speech by setting out the background. Not long ago, when the Chancellor was promoting his Budget and introducing the measures that my hon. Friend is talking about, he did so on the basis that it was a Budget for growth. However, do not the OBR’s forecasts show that even with the measures in the Budget, growth is predicted to be lower than it would have been had Labour’s plans remained in place?

[Mr Love]

Absolutely. One has to question, as I am doing, the Government’s whole strategy, which they call a growth strategy but which does not appear to be delivering what we would expect from a proper growth strategy. Indeed, the previous Government’s growth strategy produced a far better result, as I shall discuss in a moment.

I want to cover two other issues that have caused quite a lot of surprise and concern in relation to the Government’s policies. First, on construction, the first quarter growth figures for this year show one glaring and prominent inadequacy is in construction activity, which is going down rapidly. If we add to that the incoherent policies that the Government are pursuing on house building, planning consents and oiling the wheels of the construction industry’s infrastructure, one can only be very gloomy about the prospects for the next year or two.

Secondly, I will mention manufacturing because it would be part of the report that we are suggesting the Government should produce. Manufacturing did rather better than I had suspected it would in the first quarter. Internationally, it seems to be delivering some of the changes in net exports that all the economic forecasters suggested, but we need a much more growth-oriented manufacturing sector if we are to bring about the changes that will be necessary if the changes in capital allowances are to go forward.

Those considerations lead me to conclude that the Budget proposals before us—the reduction in the headline rate and the compensatory measures widening the tax base to pay for that—are the main thrust of the Government’s growth strategy in real terms. The Government suggest that those measures will help to rebalance the economy. I look at all issues as objectively as I can and I have to say that, given the measures being undertaken in the comprehensive spending review in relation to the public sector, we certainly need to do something to boost the private sector. We are told that the measures will do that, but will they? That is the question being addressed in the amendment.

The Minister and the Chancellor have told us that a lower rate of corporation tax should act as a signal that we are open for business. There is some evidence that that approach has worked previously to a limited extent, but the question is whether it will work in the current economy. I am not a sceptic but, like the shadow Minister, I would like to see some Government projections about the number of businesses they expect to come from other countries either to expand existing operations or to start new ones here as a result of that signal.

In his Budget statement, the Chancellor proclaimed from the Treasury Bench that we have

“the lowest corporation tax in the G7”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 955.]

but we already had the lowest rate of corporation tax in the G7. If all we are trying to do is send a signal, surely we could have proclaimed that. There is also the wider Group of Twenty to consider. Looking at countries such as Ireland we must ask whether it is feasible and rational for our strategy to be to compete with that in Ireland. As we know, there is debate in Northern Ireland about whether corporation tax should come down to the level in the rest of the island. There is genuine debate about that, but I do not think it is being suggested that we want to compete with Ireland. We compete with the major G7 economies and our rate is already below theirs. The cut in corporation tax will re-emphasise that, but what we would like to know from the Minister is what benefit that will deliver to the British economy.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Is it not a fact that for the international companies seeking to invest inwardly in the United Kingdom, corporation tax is only one small part of the overall picture? They are looking at much more than just the headline tax rate.

[Mr Love]

Yes, absolutely. If we look at business investment, which in some senses reflects how optimistic employers, manufacturers and other parts of the economy are about the future, we will see that we have not had the increase in business investment that all the forecasters, economists and coalition politicians have been telling us we should have. That reflects the wider issues in the economy that should be of such major concern. We cannot expect a cut in corporation tax to solve all the problems, but the merit of the amendment is that it proposes that the Government try to indicate how much additional growth and employment will be created as a result. In the previous debate, the Minister suggested that a cut in corporation tax would boost investment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend has been incredibly generous in accepting interventions. I am not sure of the extent of the manufacturing base in his constituency, but I imagine that it is pretty similar to mine. Small manufacturing industries tend, as he said, to be a remnant of the larger-scale manufacturing that once operated in our constituencies. Does he not regard the capital allowances scheme as a mechanism for manufacturing industries, however small, to diversify into the new sector?

[Mr Love]

I agree. If we take the coalition at face value, it has suggested that we need a vibrant small business and manufacturing sector, much of it consisting of small businesses. I would think that it would want to promote that by incentivising it through the taxation system. One wonders whether the measure would achieve that. I do not want to suggest, without any concrete figures, that that will in fact happen. We urge the Government to produce those figures, so that we can all make a judgment. Indeed, they can make a judgment about whether their policy has achieved their objectives.