David Gauke
Main Page: David Gauke (Independent - South West Hertfordshire)Department Debates - View all David Gauke's debates with the HM Treasury
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
Well, here is another opportunity to tell the House about the successes of our long-term economic plan. I must say that I am impressed by the Labour party’s courage in selecting the economic recovery for the last Opposition day debate of this Parliament, but not by its judgment. Given the catastrophic situation in which Labour left the country after 13 years in charge, Members might have thought that it would have the good grace to accept that our economic plan is putting Britain back on track, delivering growth, jobs and prosperity for hard-working households up and down the country.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
It is right that we focus on spending totals, but there is an even better argument. A careful academic study of National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee reports over Labour’s time in government recently found that a staggering £230 billion was wasted on incompetence, inefficiency and undelivered programmes. That is a real legacy of 13 years of wasted Labour government.
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, as a distinguished Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, he was heavily involved in identifying that wasteful spending. One of this Government’s achievements is the measures we have introduced to reduce such wasteful spending. In particular, the efforts of the Minister for the Cabinet Office in pushing forward reform and identifying efficiency savings have reduced the cost of Whitehall strikingly.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Is not it disingenuous—some might even say slightly dishonest—to pray in aid references to 35.2% of public expenditure, as opposed to GDP, as ideological extremism when we need look back only 12 years to the Blair-Brown Government to find a time when the percentage was 35.9%, which is almost indistinguishable? Is not that trying to hoodwink and fool the voters, and is not that pretty dishonest?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The statistics he uses are absolutely right. With regard to public spending on services—I will turn to the detail in a moment—we are talking about returning to the levels of 2002-03, before the previous Government lost control of public spending.
Charlie Elphicke
The tenor of the Opposition’s argument is that public spending ought to be higher. Given that they are disagreeing with our plans, should they not specify how much higher they would want it to be?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was struck that when it came to the substance of the shadow Chief Secretary’s speech, he rather rushed through that process. He tells us that he does not like our spending plans—I will come to the details of that in a few moments—but he does not tell us how much extra he would spend, or, if he is going to spend extra, how he is going to pay for it. Will it be through higher taxes or through more borrowing? We did not get any indication.
Chris Leslie
If the Minister wants to clear all these things up and make sure that we have an independent appraisal, does he back the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) in supporting the idea that the Office for Budget Responsibility should be allowed to report on the proposals of all the parties? What is so wrong with that?
Mr Gauke
I am afraid that that is a bit of a red herring. If the shadow Chief Secretary wants to set out what his plans are, and if he believes that spending needs to be higher than it would be under a Conservative Government, he can tell us how much higher—he does not need the OBR to look at his numbers. Does he believe that spending should be financed through more borrowing or more tax? What is it to be—a tax bombshell, a borrowing bombshell, or both? I will happily give way to him. He does not want to answer.
Mark Hendrick
The Minister will recall that prior to the 2010 general election, the then Conservative Opposition promised to get rid of the deficit by the end of this Parliament. We have already seen that the Government are planning to borrow £200 billion more than was originally estimated, which is clearly way off track. If they could not get their promises right before the last election, why should we believe them, in government, about what they will do after the next election?
Mr Gauke
So there we have it—that is the complaint from the Opposition. Their big problem is that we have not cleared up their mess fast enough. That is the essence of their argument. They have opposed every difficult decision we took on the path towards recovery—every spending cut and every welfare change. As for the deficit, they usually forget to mention it. All the rhetoric we are hearing from them is about how they would reverse the decisions that we have taken and presumably turn the clock back to 2010—the time when we had the worst deficit in peacetime history, when we were borrowing £1 for every £4 spent, when we had an economy whose ability to pay its way was questioned internationally, and when the outlook of the Labour Government could be summed up by the note left by the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne):
“I’m afraid there is no money.”
This Government have made great steps forward to get us out of that mess. In 2014, our growth rate was 2.6%—the highest of any major advanced economy. Our deficit is down by half as a percentage of GDP. Thanks to the stability that we have put in place, businesses have created 2.16 million private sector jobs since the first quarter of 2010, each and every one representing someone in the UK who is now standing on their own two feet. Some 2.1 million more entrepreneurships have been set up, with over 750,000 more businesses than in 2010. That has all happened under this Government.
Helen Goodman
Can the Minister explain why the real Chief Secretary is not responding to this debate? Is it because when the OBR finally audited the Government’s future plans and found that they would take us back to the 1930s, the other coalition partner peeled off and left the Tories isolated?
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I am glad that my hon. Friend has brought this back to jobs and what that means for our constituents. In Crawley, we now see record employment levels. That is not an accident; it is a direct result of the long-term economic plan.
Chris Bryant
May I ask the Minister about cuts to the Arts Council budget? So far, this Govt have cut it by 30%, but on 5 January, the Tory party produced a report saying that £83 million more would be cut from Arts Council, and that this
“cost is based on the real terms decrease in the Grant in Aid for the Arts Council from 2014/15 to 2015/16”.
Does he stand by the figure that the Arts Council will be cut by £83 million this year?
Mr Gauke
I recall the debate on arts spending at the beginning of the year. If I remember correctly, the note that was published showing the Labour party’s areas of spending commitments included a commitment on the arts, but the shadow Chancellor very quickly ruled it out. He said it was not correct, and the deputy leader of the Labour party had to withdraw what she had previously said on that subject. That is my memory of it.
Chris Bryant
This is a serious matter, and if the Minister cannot give a precise answer now, I would be very grateful if he wrote to me. Does he think that the Arts Council budget will or will not be cut from this year to next year by £83 million?
Mr Gauke
If we have any future announcements about the Arts Council budget, we will make them in the usual way.
As we have seen only today from the report of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, average household incomes are back to the levels they were at before the recession began and they are expected to grow by well above inflation this year, while income inequality is down and pensioner poverty is at record lows under this Government: our plan is working.
The Labour party claims that we are taking public spending back to the level of the 1930s, but let us look at the facts. Even on the assumption that 100% of our future consolidation comes from cuts to departmental expenditure, which is not the Conservative party’s approach, the Government’s plans will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) has pointed out, put spending on public services at their lowest real-terms level since 2002-03, so instead of the late 1930s, we are talking about the early 2000s—only 65 years out.
Andrew Bridgen
Throughout the debate, the Opposition have attacked our long-term economic plan, which is delivering the highest economic growth of any developed economy, and has created more jobs in this country than in the whole of Europe added together. Will the Minister remind the House whose economic policies the Labour party was exalting? I seem to remember something about “What Hollande is doing in France I want to do in Britain.”
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, to which I will return in a moment.
Although we have made considerable progress, the reality is that we face further difficult decisions. On that basis, the House signed up to the “Charter for Budget Responsibility” last month. It enshrines in law that the Government elected in May, whatever their colour, must have a plan to tackle the deficit and to bring our national debt under control. Pretty well all of us, with one or two exceptions, committed to achieving falling national debt as a share of GDP by 2016-17, and to balance the cyclically adjusted current budget by the end of the third year of the rolling forecast period, which is 2017-18.
On the latest forecasts, the charter requires about £30 billion of consolidation in the first two years of the next Parliament. Under the plans set out by the Chancellor, it will be achieved by bearing down on spending, the welfare budget, and tax avoidance and evasion. To break the figure down, that is at least £13 billion of savings from Departments’ spending, at least £12 billion from welfare and more than £5 billion from tax avoidance and evasion.
The Labour party agreed to the charter: the motion was passed by 515 votes to 18. Perhaps it believes that a fiscal consolidation of £30 billion is too much. After all, that is the position of the Greens and the nationalist parties, who have explicitly said that they would borrow more over the next three years. That position is irresponsible, but I accept that it is coherent with everything else that those parties are saying. Labour, however, has voted to accept that a fiscal consolidation of £30 billion is necessary, so where is it coming from?
Mr Gauke
In a moment. If the Labour party does not believe in making savings from departmental budgets or welfare, where is the money coming from? To quote its leader,
“if we just try and cut our way to getting rid of this deficit, it won’t work.”
That is the Labour party’s position. Out come the old answers, but where is the money coming from?
Chris Leslie
The Minister must have the charter for budget responsibility with him. I will give him a moment if he wants to pick it out of his file. Where does it say in the charter for budget responsibility—perhaps he could give us a page or line reference—that the figure is £30 billion? Can he quote the OBR on that figure either? Is it not the case that the charter for budget responsibility was about agreeing to focus on current budget plans, and not about the absolute budget surplus that his party was apparently committed to? What on earth was going on?
Mr Gauke
That position is supported by the IFS. The figure is £30 billion. Where is it coming from? The Labour party simply does not have an answer. If it is not prepared to accept the £30 billion figure, it will be borrowing more. If it does accept the £30 billion figure, where is it coming from? If it is not coming from spending, it must be coming from tax.
Mr Raab
Does the Minister recognise the figure given by Paul Johnson of the IFS in The Times on 13 January, when he said that Labour’s plans amounted to £170 billion more on the national debt by 2020, which is about a third higher than the entire NHS budget? That is what we are talking about.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
Small businesses across north Yorkshire are really worried about the fact that Labour has not yet ruled out a jobs tax, should it be elected. Are they missing something?
Mr Gauke
That is the key to the matter. The truth is that there will be either a tax bombshell or a borrowing bombshell if the Labour party is in office. It fought the last general election campaigning for an increase in the jobs tax. I have a strong suspicion that a future Labour Government will look at precisely that to fill the gap.
Simon Kirby
Perhaps I can help Labour Members. Has not the shadow Chancellor outlined £3.3 billion of cuts to local councils up and down the country? Today there is total chaos, contradiction and confusion. Where is their policy? What is their plan?
Mr Anderson
In the unlikely event that the Minister is in charge after 7 May, is he as confident that he will reach the target in 2017 as he was in 2010 that he would get rid of the deficit in four years, at which he completely and utterly failed?
Mr Gauke
We stand by the OBR’s projections. We have made considerable progress at a time when other economies have struggled and when there has been a eurozone crisis. But for the steps that we have taken, our debts would have risen much more quickly.
Let us return to the position of the Labour party. Where are its answers on deficit reduction? We get the old answers, which are that it would squeeze the rich and reintroduce the 50p top rate of tax. It conveniently forgets that the previous Government had a top rate of 40p for all but 36 of their 4,758 days in office.
The House will want to be aware that our move to the 45p rate cost only around £100 million—a small price to pay for making the international message loud and clear that we are open for business. How much does Labour think that reversing that policy would raise? I am happy to give way to the shadow Minister on that. To say that a return to the 50p rate would bring in an extra £3 billion a year, which is what he implied, is frankly ludicrous, and I challenge him to identify one reputable economist between now and 7 May who will support such a position.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
The Minister has probably forgotten that when it came to the millionaires’ tax cut, the Labour party abstained and did not vote against it. More importantly, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said that if it were not for austerity, UK GDP would be 5% higher. The tax take with 5% more GDP is about £32 billion, or equivalent to 30% of the current deficit. Does the Minister accept that austerity has been a mistake and that we should have gone for growth through investment?
Mr Gauke
I am not persuaded by the argument that if we borrow more we ultimately borrow less—I am afraid that is far too easy an answer.
The Government believe that those with the broadest shoulders should bear the biggest burden, and as the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed today, that is exactly what is happening. That is why the richest in our society now pay more in tax than at any point under the previous Government. The Labour party can lecture us all it likes about taxing the rich, but it was not on our watch that private equity managers paid a lower rate of tax than their cleaners. It was not on our watch that the wealthy could sidestep stamp duty, or that higher earners could disguise their remuneration as loans that were never repaid. Under our watch, however, every single Budget that we introduced raised revenues from the most well off in society.
Mr Raab
Will the Minister confirm that, although the motion talks about reversing our changes to income tax, the latest HMRC data show that someone who earns £10,000 to £15,000 a year will pay 54% less income tax than they did under Labour, while someone who earns £1 million to £2 million pays 14% more?
Stephen Hammond
The Minister is right to point out those things, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) pointed out, we have taken many people out of tax altogether. On Labour’s watch, if it were ever to be in government, the deputy leader of the Labour party has already said:
“Yes I think people on middle incomes should contribute more through their taxes”.
Therefore anyone earning more than £26,000 will have a tax rise under the next Labour Government. That is what the deputy leader of the Labour party has committed to.
Mr Gauke
As I said, the money has to come from somewhere, and middle-income earners are probably pretty high up the list. To be fair, it is not just the 50p rate, although that is the only policy mentioned in the motion. In television interviews, the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury has proclaimed one other policy to reduce the deficit. This is the key to deficit reduction and the policy that will restore public finances to health: a future Labour Government will put up fees for gun licences. How much will that raise? A whopping £17 million—except, to be fair, the shadow Home Secretary has already pledged to spend that money elsewhere.
Chris Leslie
The hon. Gentleman urged me to give the Minister both barrels, but I will try to resist. It is all very good banter trying to claim that that is the only way we would deal with the deficit, but of course that is absolute nonsense—when asked for examples, we give examples. The Minister raises an important point about gun licences. It is a small amount of money but it is still worth doing. Is he saying that we should not raise gun licence fees? Is he ruling that out because he thinks it is the wrong idea?
Mr Gauke
It was an attempt to show how ridiculous the Labour party’s economic policy is when the only example it puts forward, apart from the 50p rate, which is likely to cost money, is increasing the cost of gun licences. I did not really expect the shadow Chief Secretary to take it seriously that that was the big policy. Does he disagree that the shadow Home Secretary has already claimed that that money will be spent on policing? It is going to be spent on policing, is it not? There was a time in debating these matters when the big argument from Labour Members, their big macro-economic analysis, was that we were going too far, too fast. Now it has come down to this. What have they got a few days away from a general election? They have a policy on gun licences—that is it. What has the great Labour party come to? Gun licences!
Mr Stewart Jackson
Perhaps the Minister can help me out. The Labour party had a top tax rate of 40% for 155 of its 156 weeks in office, which apparently was the epitome of social justice. Why does he think Labour is attacking us for having a 45% rate, which brings in more money but is suddenly seen as feathering the nest for the rich?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problem with the 50p policy is that it is not an effective way to raise revenue. Our record is very clear: we have been very effective at getting more money out of the wealthy. As we see from the IFS analysis today, the wealthiest have made the biggest contribution. What we are left with is a symbolic gesture, not a tax policy.
Mark Garnier
Does my hon. Friend not agree that it is quite remarkable that the Labour party has not yet come out categorically and refused to raise taxes through a jobs tax? Is it not worth remembering while we are debating a possible jobs tax—or not, depending on what they want to do—that there has never been a Labour Government who have not failed to increase unemployment?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is right that we highlight that point. They do not like our spending plans, but what are they going to do? Are they willing to borrow more? Are they willing to tax more? It must be one or the other or both. Which is it to be: a borrowing bombshell or a tax bombshell?
Helen Goodman
I want to bring the Minister back to the point he was making about five minutes ago, when he said that there should be £12 billion of cuts to the welfare budget. Would he like to spell out for the House and the nation what those £12 billion of cuts will be?
Mr Gauke
We will set out the full details in due course, but we have already said that £3 billion of that will come from freezing benefits. If the Labour party is ruling out touching the welfare budget, which is a considerable part of public spending, where else is the money coming from?
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
One of the reasons the Opposition are focusing on the gun licence is that they have got it wrong on just about everything else. Will my hon. Friend remind us who said it was not possible to cut spending and create jobs?
Mr Bain
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way at last.
The “Charter for Budget Responsibility” states that the Treasury will balance the current budget
“by the end of the third year of the rolling, 5-year forecast period.”
Can the Minister point out the reference to 2017-18? If he cannot, his figure of £30 billion of cuts is entirely bogus.
Mr Gauke
It is by looking at where we are and then adding three years. It is really not that difficult.
In the motion, the Opposition attempt to evade the hard choice between more tax or more borrowing facing those who oppose spending cuts by saying they will grow the economy faster so that wages go up and the problem is solved, despite this being a structural issue. Every Government want the economy to grow faster. When François Hollande came to power, with a new economic model praised by the Leader of the Opposition, I have no doubt that he wanted the French economy to grow faster, but it did not, and I have no doubt that in 2008 the Labour Government also wanted the economy to grow faster, but that did not prevent it from shrinking by 6%. Wanting an economy to grow is not the same as achieving economic growth, and nor is it an excuse for not making the hard decisions necessary to reduce the deficit.
Where is Labour’s plan for growth? If we examine the motion, do we find a single policy that would help economic growth? One specific policy is mentioned, about punishing high earners, but that is hardly a policy for growth. After five years, where are these policies for growth? They could mention increasing the number of apprenticeships, reforming banking regulation and increasing infrastructure investment, except that those are policies delivered by this Government. Or they could set out how they would encourage business investment by putting in place competitive business taxes and reducing regulatory burdens, except those are policies they intend to reverse. Or they could mention improving education standards or securing the future of universities, except that they would abandon the progress we have made, not least with their shambolic policy on tuition fees.
Labour’s policies have three characteristics: they are not long term, they are not economic, and they do not constitute a plan. The motion reveals a vacuous Opposition horribly ill-prepared for government. The motion, like the Opposition, has little to say on macro-economic policy and nothing to say on supply-side policy. It is evasive on the deficit and incoherent on economic growth. The motion, like the Opposition, is destined for a heavy defeat.