Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Douglas Carswell and Kwasi Kwarteng

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

I, too, will vote for this Budget. Tomorrow’s vote is a binary choice and although I have reservations about some of the Chancellor’s proposals, on balance I support the measures. We must never return to Ed Balls economics.

I support a number of measures. I unequivocally back the idea of having a fiscal charter, to echo the point made by the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng). It is a commitment to run a budget surplus by 2019-20 and to retain that approach in subsequent years unless growth is less than 1%. The principle behind that idea is exceptionally good; as a country, we cannot go on living beyond our means. I believe I am right in saying that we have only had budget surpluses in six of the past 40 years. That is unsustainable and also deeply unfair on the next generation. If we keep on running up these debts, someone will have to pay them, and it is deeply unfair and irresponsible of us to pass them on to the next generation. I only hope that the Chancellor manages to meet his own fiscal charter objectives. He has introduced, I think, five Budgets and in each one he has pushed back the date by which he hopes to balance the books.

I also support the proposal to remove the climate change levy exemptions for providers of renewably sourced electricity.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am particularly gratified to hear the hon. Gentleman espousing the cause of sound finance. I just wonder how he feels being surrounded by people who deny that there is any need to reduce the deficit.

[Mr Carswell]

I will come on to say a little about my views on the unreformed Opposition. In fact, I will make them a proposal at the end of my short speech.

My party loves new energy technology. However, there is something we find objectionable: if the technology is so wonderful, why does it need to be subsidised? Removing some of those subsidies is a good thing, particularly when they push up the cost of energy, but the Government lack a fully coherent free market energy policy that allows real choice and competition.

I also cheer Government changes to vehicle excise duty. The new tariff will reflect changes in technology. Given that most new cars’ carbon dioxide output is below the old CO₂ low threshold variable, vehicle excise duty is fast becoming a subsidy from poor people, who cannot afford new cars, to rich people, who can. VED will also be used for the creation of a road fund in 2020-21. That is a very sensible move, as it means that taxpayers will see directly where their VED goes and the tangible benefits that come from it.

I also support raising the personal allowance to £11,000 by 2015-16 and to £12,500 by 2019-20. That should be welcomed as a tax break for everyone who works. Indeed, I hope that at some point we will be able to raise the threshold even higher, to £13,000.

I also support welfare reform. When the tax credit system was put in place, I do not think that we ever expected that it would allow big corporate interests to rely on the taxpayer to subsidise their payrolls, and yet in effect that is what has happened. I fear that tax credits may have contributed to wage compression. Welfare reform is possible and necessary, but it is also very important that, as the Chancellor has said, we are prepared to raise the minimum wage to try to offset some of the impact of that reform.

Having outlined where I support the Government, I am afraid to say that there are one or two measures about which I have some concerns. I am particularly concerned about limiting public sector pay increases to 1%. I fear that that may not be politically sustainable over the next four years. There was a pay freeze in the public sector between 2010 and 2013. Since 2013, pay rises have been limited to 1% and, given that inflation is often above 1%, that has, in effect, amounted to a pay cut. If the economy grows in the way that the Chancellor expects it to, I am not sure that four more years of 1% is sustainable.

I also have some doubts about the Chancellor’s fiscal projections; I fear that there is a degree of fiscal complacency. In its manifesto, my old party told us that it would run a budget surplus from 2019, which is only four years later than promised five years ago. In fact, that target has now been pushed back to 2020.

This year, we will still manage to accumulate a deficit of £70 billion and we still have a bigger primary budget deficit than Greece. The budget deficit last year was 5.7% of GDP, which was higher than that of any country in the eurozone apart from, I think, Spain and Cyprus. UK national debt stands at £1,600 billion, which is £950 billion higher than when the Chancellor first took office. That is not an impressive record. Servicing that debt costs £40 billion a year. Think of what we could do with £40 billion—that is more than the entire defence budget. Think of the tax breaks we could give people and, more to the point, think of how much greater that sum will be when interest rates go up.

I will support this Budget, and I look forward to the Finance Bill that follows. If Her Majesty’s Opposition will repudiate Ed Balls economics and table sensible amendments, I will be delighted to support them, bearing in mind that the Government have a rather slender majority. However, there must never be a return to the recklessness of the Parliaments between 2001 and 2015.

As the UK Independence party’s sole Member of Parliament, I will support classical free market liberal economics. From that point of view, this Budget is not perfect, but it is infinitely preferable to the alternatives.