Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between George Kerevan and Anne Main

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

I shall support the amendment, although that does not prevent me from believing that there are many interesting and good things in this draft Finance Bill. However, I find myself agreeing with my colleague on the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), in one respect. We will have two Finance Bills, because the current process has been truncated, and a much smaller Bill will be passed before the dissolution of Parliament. When a second Bill arrives later in the year, we shall have a chance to be more strategic and reforming, rather than continuing to add bits and pieces and ending up with the monstrosity—in terms of length—that we have at present. That said, I think that in the final few days, as we move towards a slimmed-down Finance Bill, there may be some room for an agreement between Government and Opposition on what can be achieved. In that context, I ask the Minister to deal with a couple of points when she responds to the debate.

Inevitably, in dealing with the financial period between 2015 and 2020—the year that would normally have marked the end of the current Parliament—the autumn statement and the March Budget made certain predictions about Government expenditure and taxation, along with certain promises about what would be achieved by 2020. One Parliament cannot bind another, and this Parliament, as it reaches its end, cannot bind the one that will arrive in the summer; nor can we predict who will govern following the general election. However, I think it would be helpful to Opposition Members if the Minister provided certain clarifications about the Government’s intentions, should they be returned in June, in respect of meeting the obligations that they set themselves for the period between now and 2020.

Let me give an example. The Government have guaranteed that they will meet their obligation to spend £1 billion derived from the sugar levy—the tax on the sugar industry—over the period ending in 2020. Normally that would fall, so I should like some indication of whether, should the Government be returned, that would continue to be their intention between now and the next Parliament It would be helpful for Opposition Members to know that. Although I think that the tax on the soft drinks industry is inadequate, and a bit quixotic in terms of what is and is not taxed, I also think that it is a step in the right direction. There are hypothecation issues, but, given that this is where we are, it would be useful if the Government guaranteed that, if re-elected, they would continue in the same direction.

City deals are another issue for Opposition Members. We were reaching an agreement with the Treasury on a number of city deals in, for instance, Edinburgh and East Lothian—some in the east of Scotland and some in the west—and I understand that the Treasury had intended to sign them off following the local government elections. Again, one Parliament cannot bind another, but I think it would be possible for the Treasury to provide some comfort on the subject of city deals before dissolution.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is presenting a marvellous argument for people to vote Conservative. He is presenting the positive argument that if the Minister assures him that the wonderful things that he expects us to do will indeed be done, they will definitely be delivered if the electorate vote Conservative. I look forward to the Minister’s assurances, given that the hon. Gentleman has basically asked everyone to vote Conservative.

[George Kerevan]

I was very careful to say that I was not anticipating who would actually be in government. I was giving the present incumbents in the Treasury a chance to say what they might do should they be re-elected.

Let me move on now, because I think it important to analyse the contents of the Bill. I think that it contains two sets of structural weaknesses. The first reflects what I consider to be a change in the pulse of the economy, which has occurred since the end of 2016 and is embedded in all the latest data that we have—data that have emerged in the last month, since the start of the Easter break. I fully accept that the Government have presided over a period of economic growth since 2010. I do not want to dismiss the figures—in a number of years, our growth rate has been higher than those in other large industrialised countries—but what has underpinned that growth? All the figures suggest that it has been underpinned by consumer spending, largely funded by the rise in consumer debt.

I do not gainsay the growth, but, in her opening remarks, the Minister placed a great deal of emphasis on the Government’s success in that regard. If economic growth is founded merely on consumer spending, and that consumer spending is based on borrowing, it is not sustainable, and I think it entirely legitimate to question how long the Government can go on relying on consumer debt to fund growth. In fact, we are now approaching the end of that period. What worries me is that the fiscal plan embedded in the autumn statement and the March Budget assumes the continuation of growth that is beginning to falter.

Let me make a point that I raised after the autumn statement, and also during the Budget debate. It seems to me that the Chancellor gave himself plenty of fiscal fire power in the autumn statement through increased borrowing—or, at least, the removal of some of the more over-optimistic projections of the previous Chancellor, and some of his more egregious games with time limits in relation to when income would arrive. The current Chancellor, in the autumn statement, clearly borrowed sufficient money in order to give himself some fire power should the economy slow. The trouble is that in the autumn statement all that spending power was delayed until post-2019, which is when we will see what the Brexit deal actually is. If the economy slows between now and 2019, it will be too late to use the fiscal fire power. That was the criticism of the autumn statement that was made by me, and by other Opposition Members.

The March Budget was fiscally neutral, by and large, but it has run into some headwinds. If the incoming Government, whoever they are, post-8 June, do not make up the projected shortfall from the proposed rise in national insurance contributions by the self-employed, there is a hole of a couple of billion pounds to fill. That aside, as I have said, the March Budget was fiscally neutral. If we put together the autumn statement and the March Budget, the Chancellor has a nest egg that he can bring to bear on a slowing economy, but it is pencilled in for 2019. For the next two years, he is relying on economic growth funded by consumer debt. However, all the latest numbers show that that is no longer happening.