Budget Responsibility Bill

Darren Jones Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Commons Chamber

It is an extraordinary privilege to represent Northampton North in this place. I will continually endeavour to live up to that honour for as long as I am here.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Darren Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. May I start by congratulating hon. Friends and others on delivering their maiden speeches? It has been a pleasure to be in the Chamber to hear them this afternoon. They will clearly be great champions for their constituencies.

I will take a few moments to remind the House of why we are taking forward the important clauses in the Bill, and to set out the Government’s views on the proposed amendments. At the general election, the Government received a mandate for economic growth. That is the only route to improving prosperity, and it is now our national mission. A crucial first step to achieving it is to deliver economic stability. We have seen what happens without stability: at the 2022 Conservative mini-Budget, huge unfunded fiscal commitments were made without proper scrutiny, and key economic institutions such as the Office for Budget Responsibility were sidelined. That is why we have made a commitment in our manifesto to a fiscal lock that will strengthen the role of the OBR, and why we have taken quick action to deliver on that commitment. That will reinforce credibility and trust by preventing large-scale unfunded commitments that are not subject to an independent fiscal assessment, and proves that we are a responsible Government who will not play fast and loose with the public finances as the previous Government did.

The Bill sets out the legal framework for the operation of the fiscal lock, and builds on the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011. In line with that established legal framework, some of the technical detail underpinning the fiscal lock will be set out via an upcoming update to the charter for budget responsibility, a draft of which the Treasury has published to support scrutiny of the Bill today.

I will now talk through the Bill’s two clauses. The first is the main substantive clause, setting out the operation of the fiscal lock. It introduces a new section 4A into part 1 of the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011, which relates to budget responsibility and was used to legally establish the OBR.

Clause 1 makes five key changes. First, new subsection (1) of section 4A guarantees in law that from now on, every fiscally significant change to tax and spending will be subject to scrutiny by the independent OBR. It will require that before a Government Minister makes any fiscally significant announcement to Parliament, the Treasury always requests that the OBR prepare an economic and fiscal forecast. This builds on existing legal frameworks requiring the OBR to produce at least two forecasts per year. Importantly, the OBR’s assessment should include the extent to which the Government are meeting their fiscal mandate. That requirement applies when two or more announcements are made and the combination of measures is fiscally significant, irrespective of whether the measures are announced at the same time. It will also apply separately to costs and savings, so that those cannot be offset against each other.

New subsection (2) strengthens the role of the OBR by requiring it to produce an independent assessment if it judges that the fiscal lock has been triggered. If a fiscally significant announcement is made without the Treasury having previously requested a forecast, the OBR is required to inform the Treasury Committee of this House of its opinion, and then prepare an assessment as soon as is practicable.

New subsection (3) defines a measure or combination of measures as “fiscally significant” if they exceed a specified percentage of GDP. In line with the existing legal framework, the precise threshold will be set via an update to the charter for budget responsibility, a draft of which will be published on gov.uk. The threshold level itself will be set at announcements of at least 1% of nominal GDP in the latest forecast—as an example, this year, that 1% threshold would be £28 billion.

New subsection (4) ensures proper scrutiny of the Government’s fiscal plans without preventing them from responding to emergencies such as the covid-19 pandemic. It sets out that the fiscal lock does not apply in respect of measures that are intended to have a temporary effect and are in response to an emergency. The charter will define “temporary” as any measure that is intended to end within two years. To safeguard against this subsection being used to avoid proper scrutiny, as set out in the updated charter, the OBR will have the discretion to trigger the fiscal lock and prepare a report if it reasonably disagrees.

Finally, new subsection (6) prevents any future Government from choosing to ignore the fiscal lock by simply updating the charter for budget responsibility alongside a fiscally significant announcement. It achieves this by requiring the Government to publish any updates to the detail of the fiscal lock, such as the threshold level at which it is triggered, at least 28 days before the updated charter is laid before Parliament.

Clause 2 sets out when the Bill will come into force and to whom it applies. Subsection (1) confirms that it deals with reserved or excepted matters, and that its provisions extend and therefore apply to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Subsections (2) and (3) allow for the commencement of the legislation to occur at the appropriate time, as is usual practice. We expect this will take place ahead of the upcoming Budget on 30 October.

I will now turn to the amendments that right hon. and hon. Members have tabled.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Before my right hon. Friend does so, will he give way?

[Darren Jones]

Briefly, yes.

[Karl Turner]

Is this Bill not designed to prevent the recklessness of the previous Tory Government, who effectively crashed the economy, leaving this new Labour Government with the responsibility of putting things right?

[Darren Jones]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. Indeed, I might go so far as to say that that was one of the reasons we achieved such a large mandate at the last general election, with so many hon. Friends on the Government Benches. We will never play fast and loose with the economy, as Members on the Conservative Benches did, and this Bill will prevent that from happening again in the future.

I start with amendments 9 and 10, tabled by the shadow Chancellor. They would require the OBR to publish a report whenever His Majesty’s Treasury announces new fiscal rules. The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that no Government can make large-scale announcements of tax and spending without being subject to independent assessment. The Government’s robust fiscal rules will support economic stability, but do not change tax and spending. It is those decisions that matter, as we saw when the previous Conservative Government announced £45 billion of unfunded commitments in the 2022 mini-Budget.

[Andrew Griffith]

Will the Minister give way?

[Darren Jones]

Briefly.

[Andrew Griffith]

The Minister can answer this briefly as well. Could he confirm that he has no plans to change the fiscal rules?

[Darren Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is enjoying himself, but he knows the answer: wait for the Budget.

The amendments from the official Opposition are therefore not necessary. To answer the question from the shadow Financial Secretary, the hon. Member for Droitwich and Evesham (Nigel Huddleston), as I have been invited to do so, the Chancellor has already confirmed that the Government will set out the precise details of our fiscal rules at the Budget on 30 October, alongside an updated OBR forecast.

amendments 6 and 7, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), focus on the definition of “fiscally significant” measures to which the fiscal lock will apply. They would extend the definition to include measures that have a cumulative effect on public sector net debt or contingent liabilities. I welcome my hon. Friend highlighting this issue, on which I know she has worked for many years. The draft charter text states that measures will trigger the lock when the combined costing is at least 1% of GDP in any year, and specifically:

“The costing of a measure is the direct impact of a policy decision on the public finances”.

It is difficult to set and interpret a threshold consistently for contingent liabilities as they can often be large in maximum exposure, but low in expected or reasonable worst-case losses. Effective management of contingent liabilities is important, and transparency is key to good fiscal management. The Government plan to announce new significant contingent liabilities at fiscal events to make sure there is transparency with Parliament. We will of course continue to notify Parliament of new contingent liabilities, as set out in “Managing Public Money”.

The amendments would also place a condition on policies with a cumulative impact on public sector net debt, and my hon. Friend noted public-private partnerships as an example. She was referring to PFI and PF2 models, which the previous Government had no longer proceeded with, and there has been no change to this policy. As the Chancellor said in her Mais lecture earlier this year, we will also report on wider measures of public sector assets and liabilities at fiscal events to ensure transparency across the whole balance sheet, which includes non-debt liabilities. Reporting transparently on the Government’s stock of contingent liabilities is key to ensuring we do not take excessive risk. I can therefore confirm today that the Government will publish a report on our contingent liabilities. I expect the contingent liability central capability to do this in early 2025. Having said all that, I recognise the issues my hon. Friend raises, and I will arrange to meet her to discuss them further.

Moving on to the Liberal Democrat amendments, amendment 2 was tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). As she said, it would enable the OBR to notify the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests if the fiscal lock was triggered. I remind hon. Members that the purpose of this Bill is to ensure that never again do we find ourselves in a situation, like at the 2022 Liz Truss mini-Budget, in which fiscally significant measures are announced without accompanying OBR analysis. If a future Government were to act in this way, the Bill provides a clear remedy. The OBR is empowered to independently notify the Treasury Committee and to produce its own report. This would be available for full scrutiny by stakeholders and Parliament, which would be able to hold Ministers to account in the normal way. We therefore do not consider the amendment necessary.

Amendment 1, also tabled by the Liberal Democrats, would broaden the definition of fiscally significant measures to cover anything that is likely to have an impact on the cost of Government borrowing, interest rates or economic growth. The Bill is focused on preventing irresponsible large-scale fiscal announcements that could undermine macroeconomic stability, such as at the mini-Budget. To support that, we need clear and robust legal frameworks that ensure the provisions are triggered only when appropriate. This requires precise definitions that everyone, including the OBR in particular, can understand clearly and work with practically. It would therefore not be helpful, in the Government’s view, to have a broader, vaguer definition that might repeatedly trigger the fiscal lock under many different circumstances.

Amendments 3 and 4 would require the Treasury to consult the OBR and the Treasury Committee before the charter can be updated for the purposes of the fiscal lock, and to publish a report on the outcome of any such consultations. It is of course important that the views of the OBR and of Parliament are taken into account when making changes to the charter. However, I hope the hon. Member will accept that it will not be necessary to set out this specific process in primary legislation, because the Bill already includes an important safeguard on the fiscal lock, which is the requirement that any changes to the charter for budget responsibility are published in draft at least 28 days before they are laid in the Commons. That will ensure that the OBR, the Treasury Committee, this Parliament and all stakeholders will have a clear opportunity to make representations to the Treasury and to publish their views, as they see fit.

Amendment 5, tabled by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns), would require the OBR to take net zero targets into account when preparing a report on fiscally significant announcements. Strong legal frameworks are already in place in the Climate Change Act 2008 to support the transition to net zero in 2050. The Act legislates for interim five-year carbon budgets, and requires the Government to report on those periodically. Parliament and its Select Committees already scrutinise that in great detail. The Green Book, the Treasury’s guidance on how to appraise policies, projects and programmes, requires Departments to assess the climate and environmental impacts of policy proposals, with major bids and proposals at fiscal events being assessed accordingly in that way. We therefore do not consider the amendment to be necessary.

[Ellie Chowns]

Does the Minister agree that having committed to give a net zero mandate to all relevant regulators, the OBR is indeed a highly relevant regulator?

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

And it is equipped to do the job it is supposed to do, alongside the other regulatory body that holds the Government to account, the Committee on Climate Change.

In conclusion, I hope I have been able to provide some assurances and that hon. Members will be content to retract their amendments. If not, I urge the House to reject them. I thank other Members for their contributions to the debate. I gently invite the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) to reflect on his own party’s record in crashing the economy through unfunded tax cuts, losing control of public spending and ruining family finances, before offering advice to this Government on fiscal responsibility. I say to the SNP spokesperson, who is not in his place, that I was surprised to see so many discredited Conservative party lines to take in his speech. Who knew that the SNP and the Tory party were one and the same thing?

With this Labour Government our commitment to fiscal discipline and sound money is the bedrock of all our plans. The Bill will guarantee in law that from now on every fiscally significant change to tax and spending will be subject to scrutiny by the independent OBR. That delivers on a key manifesto commitment to provide economic stability and sound public finances by strengthening the role of the independent OBR. That is a crucial first step to achieve sustained economic growth, and I commend the Bill to the House.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Caroline Nokes)]

I call shadow Minister Nigel Huddleston.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I will not detain the House long by repeating the arguments that I made in my opening comments, but I am disappointed by the Minister’s response, and in particular by his refusal to accept our amendments. It is alarming that he is refusing to do so because, as I outlined, I believe they are consistent with the goals of the Bill overall, and I think the credibility of the Bill will be seriously undermined if it does not include the fiscal rules. I like the Minister a lot. We go back a way and have always had civil conversations, but if he does not believe or consider the level, type and definition of debt to be “fiscally significant”, then with the greatest respect perhaps the Treasury is not the right home for him. They are transparently fiscally significant, and an important part of the consideration we are talking about today.

[Darren Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and for inviting me to suggest whether I should try to find a job in another Department. I just point out that, having arrived at the Treasury, I have seen the impact of fiscally significant levels of debt after 14 years of the Conservative Government. Has he got anything to say to the House on that matter?

[Nigel Huddleston]

Yes, I have indeed. As I outlined in my original statement, the arguments the right hon. Member is making do not stack up with the facts. The economic circumstances that Labour inherited are better in many areas than those we inherited from them back in 2010. The economy is the fastest growing in the G7. On unemployment, every Labour Government since the second world war has increased it while in power, for us to then clear up and reduce it when we take over. Inflation was lower when Labour took power then when we inherited it, and annual debt was higher when we took over in 2010.

Labour Members keep saying all those things, but the challenge is that it does not stack up with the facts. They make arguments about the level of debt, as I outlined earlier, but they have already announced £10 billion for inflation-busting salary increasing for their union mates, £8 billion on energy provisions, and £7 billion on the national wealth fund. That is £25 billion of additional money that they have spent. If there is a black hole in the finances, it is clearly one of their own making by the announcements they have made since coming into government. That £25 billion is a huge amount of money, but I will finish discussing those points, because we had this debate earlier.

[Darren Jones]

rose—

[Nigel Huddleston]

I will not give way at the moment, because I want to move on to some more positive things.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I will not take up too much more time, but I will provide a final reminder of how important this legislation is. At the general election, the Government received a mandate for economic growth. Sustained growth is the only route to improve prosperity and to improve the living standards of the British people. It is now our national mission.

Economic stability is key to achieving this. We have seen what happens without it, when huge, unfunded fiscal commitments are made without proper scrutiny and when key economic institutions such as the OBR are sidelined. We cannot let ourselves get into that position again. Unfunded, unassessed spending commitments not only threaten the public finances, they can threaten people’s incomes and mortgages, as we saw under the previous Government.

I therefore encourage Conservative Members—who have told us today that, after 14 years of Conservative government, the economy has never been so good—to reflect, if only for a moment, on why they lost all credibility for economic competence and suffered the worst election result in their history.

Once again, I congratulate all my hon. Friends and other hon. Members on their excellent maiden speeches today. I thank hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House for their contributions, and I thank the Clerks and officials who have supported the Bill’s rapid passage.

The Budget Responsibly Bill forms a small but vital part of our plan to restore economic stability and deliver economic growth. For these reasons, I commend it to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

I thank everyone who has contributed to the debates on the Bill, both today and before the summer recess, especially new Members who have made their maiden speech: the hon. Members for Loughborough (Dr Sandher), for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin), for Swindon North (Will Stone), for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman), for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba), for Woking (Mr Forster), for Rother Valley (Jake Richards), for Wokingham (Clive Jones), for Dudley (Sonia Kumar), for Rochester and Strood (Lauren Edwards), for Plymouth Moor View (Fred Thomas) and for Northampton North (Lucy Rigby). They all spoke incredibly well, with passion and eloquence, and we wish them well for their time in the House.

We Conservatives believe that sound public finances, fiscal responsibility and independent forecasts are the foundation of economic stability, which is why it was a Conservative Government who created the OBR more than a decade ago, and it is why today we tabled our amendments to improve the Bill and stop Labour moving the goalposts on the fiscal rule. By voting against our sensible proposal, Labour Members have shown they are not serious about our public finances. What are they trying to hide? It is clear that the purpose of the Bill is to distract everyone from Labour’s economic record and pave the way for tax rises in the autumn Budget.

Let us examine Labour’s economic record. The party has been in government for just nine weeks and has already carried out nine acts of economic vandalism. It has removed the winter fuel allowance from 10 million pensioners despite promising not to; caved in to its union paymasters by agreeing inflation-busting pay rises; failed to commit to investing 2.5% of national income on defence; cancelled vital infrastructure upgrades on the A27 and A303; cut funding for a vaccine manufacturing plant that would protect our health; imposed Whitehall diktats to concrete over our green spaces; stopped Conservative plans to build 40 new hospitals; scrapped funding for a next-generation supercomputer, undermining our status as a tech superpower; and appointed Labour donors to senior civil service jobs without open competition. Nine weeks, nine acts of economic vandalism.

We know there is more harm to come, with Labour’s autumn Budget set to raise taxes. During the election campaign, Labour promised over 50 times not to raise people’s taxes, but the Labour Government are planning to do just that. It will be hard-working people, pensioners and businesses who will pay the price. May I invite the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to return to the Dispatch Box to rule out raising taxes on working people, such as drivers, savers and business owners? At the same time, will he rule out changing the fiscal rules to allow for more Government borrowing and debt?

[Darren Jones]

I always welcome the opportunity to return to the Dispatch Box, and I thank the shadow Minister for inviting me to do so. Opposition provides an opportunity for reflection. While he is offering his thoughts on our two months in office—two months of great relief for the British people—does he have anything to say about his 14 years in office before the election?

[Alan Mak]

I think the answer from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is no, which confirms everything we already knew. It means that the people can never trust Labour with our economy, that Labour will raise taxes and cut investment at every opportunity and that Labour’s honeymoon is well and truly over.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

House of Commons Commission

Resolved,

That

(1) in pursuance of section 1(2)(d) of the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978, Rachel Blake be appointed to the House of Commons Commission, and

(2) in pursuance of section 1(2B) of that Act, the appointment of Shrinivas Honap as an external member of the Commission be extended to 30 September 2026.—(Lucy Powell.)