Budget Statement

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I welcome our tranche of maiden speakers and start with three other welcomes.

First, my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb addressed what she called the pathetic layer of greenwash that covers this budget, and I welcome the words of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who said that every fiscal event has to be directed towards achieving our climate objectives and made it clear that this Budget does not.

Secondly, I welcome the opening words from the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, attacking the disastrous impacts of austerity and the fallacy of the thinking behind it in a way that Labour was singularly failing to do in 2015, when I was taking part in general election debates.

Thirdly, I welcome the modest increase in corporation tax in the Budget—a reversal, if a delayed one, of the encouragement of the increasing parasitism of giant multinational companies sucking wealth out of our communities and failing to contribute to the infrastructure and services that make those profits possible.

Some ideas, however, have yet to move on. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, while opposing pay rises for our NHS workers, spoke of “living within our means”. He is, I say respectfully, talking economic tosh. The fallacy that a national budget is like a household one has clung on in the UK, when it has long been a historical artefact elsewhere. Of the £485 billion being borrowed in the financial year 2020-21, £450 billion will be owed to the Bank of England, which is not going to send in the repo man.

However, while the rhetoric of austerity has at least changed, the reality has not for many areas of government, particularly local government. Having dealt with the brunt of the Covid crisis, councils are being forced to raise council tax to fill the holes in their social care budgets. The National Audit Office tells us that at least 25 local councils are on the brink of bankruptcy. Local government provides the services that people use and rely on every day: libraries, bin collections, bus services and social care. The austerity will be seen and suffered. That is the choice made in this Budget by the Government.