Jobs and Growth
Debate between Duncan Hames and Ed Balls(13 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ed Balls
Our constituents are seeing growth in VAT and in unemployment as well. The only thing that they are not seeing is growth in growth.
The markets are not the real reason why the Chancellor is determined to cling on to his failing economic policy. There are two obstacles in his way. The first is the coalition agreement. We know how desperate the Chief Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister are for the Chancellor to stick to the deficit reduction plan, because they steamrollered their colleagues into signing up to a manifesto that explicitly rejected it. The Liberal Democrats’ manifesto stated:
“If spending is cut too soon, it would undermine the much-needed recovery and cost jobs.”
They were right, which is why there are so few of them here for this debate. They all know that their leaders graphically predicted before the election the very calamity that has happened after the election. The fact is, any successful coalition has to have the flexibility to change course when things go wrong.
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?”
Wise words from Lord Keynes, and he was a Liberal. He must listen to the current incoherent, confused and contradictory ramblings of the Business Secretary and turn in his grave.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
The shadow Chancellor is certainly showing flexibility in concluding that in time, it would be acceptable for VAT to reach 20%. When did he reach that decision, and will he be able to persuade his colleagues, whom we know are so adamantly against VAT at 20%?
Ed Balls
When I became shadow Chancellor six months ago, I said that I could not responsibly come along here and make commitments on what would be in our manifesto in four years’ time. What I can do is give the Chancellor good advice, and a temporary cut now is the right thing for growth and jobs in our economy.
It is not just Labour Members who support me on this. Listen to the former Liberal Democrat leader, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy), who said on “Question Time” last Thursday that he was
“more at the Ed Balls end of the argument than the George Osborne end of the argument.”
In saying that—Superman will like this—he joined me and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in urging a change of course. Charles Kennedy, Boris Johnson and me—now that would be a coalition.
It is clear that the plan is not working. The markets know it, and so, increasingly, do the Chancellor’s coalition colleagues, but there is a second reason why this very political Chancellor will not budge. The clue was in the Prime Minister’s speech last week in Manchester. What did he say of the Chancellor? How did he describe his closest political friend? As “the man who would be king”. It was a very strange choice of book, because it is the story of two fantasists who end up stripped, beaten, tortured and forced to beg for their lives. That is some people’s idea of a good night out, but the idea that the Prime Minister should say that of the Chancellor is somewhat odd.
Anyway, there we are—“the man who would be king”. It was not in the printed text of the Prime Minister’s speech but was another slip from him. However, it is so revealing, because those words show why the Chancellor just cannot admit that he has got it wrong, even at a time when, at the weekend, The Sunday Times doubted his judgment. To change course now would be to admit that the Chancellor has got the key economic judgment of this Parliament wrong, and that would be a terrible blow to his ambitions. We therefore see him putting politics before the national economic interest.
Ploughing on with a failing policy is not leadership; it is the antithesis of leadership. It is not the making of King George; it is the madness of King George. A Chancellor without the strength to change his mind is a King Canute Chancellor, who says that he will stay the waves even as the tide turns before him. A man who would be king? He is a Chancellor exposed naked before the crowd, an emperor with no clothes, a Chancellor heading for a fall. I give him some good advice. For his sake, for his party’s sake and in the national interest, he needs to change course and do so quickly. It could be the making of the man.
In the face of the new global slowdown, we desperately need the Chancellor to rise above the here and now and see the need to change course, have a plan for growth and jobs, kick-start our economy and get us out of the slow lane. We need a balanced and credible plan on jobs, growth and the deficit, and action now before it is too late—Labour’s five-point plan for jobs and growth. I commend the motion to the House.
Amendment of the Law
Debate between Duncan Hames and Ed Balls(13 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ed Balls
The hon. Gentleman needs to look at what is actually happening to the yield curve, the term structure and long-term interest rates. He will know that before the election, when the previous Government had a plan to halve the deficit over four years, the long-term interest rate level was pretty much identical to the rate now. That is the fact. Our debt maturity is long, our long-term interest rates are low, and there has been no problem getting our gilt auctions away at any point in the last two or three years. The idea that there was some big impending crisis is a myth invented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the leader of the Liberal Democrats to justify the biggest and most unfair U-turn on a manifesto that we have seen in the last 100 years of British political history.
Duncan Hames
The shadow Chancellor wants to slow the pace of spending cuts, so will he tell us what spending cuts he wants in the coming year?
Ed Balls
I think the rise in VAT was a mistake, and I think the hon. Gentleman used to agree. I think that spending cuts this year are a mistake, and I think he used to agree with that too. I would halve the deficit over four years, and borrowing would have come in £20 billion lower—[Interruption.] I will answer the question. I set out more detailed spending cuts—in schools—than any other Cabinet Minister at that time. We said we would cut £1 billion from policing, and, for example, that we would go ahead with the disability living allowance gateway reforms. However, the scale and pace of the Government’s cuts are too deep and too fast, which is destabilising our economy. We were right to say, “Don’t make the cuts until the recovery is secure. If you make cuts on this scale before the recovery is secure, what do you end up with? No recovery at all.” That is the situation today.