Huw Irranca-Davies
Main Page: Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour - Ogmore)Department Debates - View all Huw Irranca-Davies's debates with the HM Treasury
Capital Gains Tax (Rates)
Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Darling
It is largely because we have a very large financial sector that contributed about 25% of all our corporation tax receipts. When the banking crisis hit, those receipts fell. There is something in the argument that has been advanced on both sides of the House in recent years—although, perhaps in retrospect, sadly not as much as it might have been over the past 30 years —that our economy has become dependent on the financial services sector, particularly on tax receipts. I think we would all like to see that rebalanced. Of course, there is a big question about how we do that, and I cannot for the life of me see how cancelling the help to Sheffield Forgemasters, for example, will go anywhere towards helping that rebalancing. However, I shall come on to that in just a moment.
At the moment, our recovery is fragile. What makes matters worse is that the position in our main export market, Europe, is extremely worrying. I am far less optimistic than I was in March about what is likely to happen in the European Union economies over the next year. Growth in France has fallen back; in Germany, it is pretty flat—just positive; other countries have tipped into recession; and Spain has unemployment over 20% and other well-understood problems. On top of that, whereas the predominant view certainly until the beginning of this year was that we had to support our economies to ensure that we established growth, the Chancellor is right that he can pray in aid the change of view among some of his counterparts, such as in Germany, which is now pursuing policies to reduce the deficit that will impact on demand, not just in that country but within other parts of Europe as well. Germany is our major trading partner. If demand there is suppressed, and if taking large sums of money out of our economy here has the effect I suspect it will have, the result will be reduced demand, which will affect business confidence, its propensity to invest and, therefore, our ability to grow and generate the receipts we need to get our borrowing down. That is a real concern.
There is no doubt that, over the past few months, the balance in the approach has moved away from what one might characterise as the Keynesian towards the more orthodox. I, for one, think that that is a profound mistake.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend share my worry about the much-cited examples of the quite savage cuts agendas in Canada, Sweden and elsewhere? They were done against the backdrop of growing export markets, monetary policy and currency devaluations. His analysis of what is happening in the eurozone at the moment should fill us with caution, if not dread, because if the Chancellor’s judgment is wrong, this country is going to hell in a handcart.
Mr Darling
My hon. Friend’s point about Canada is an important one. Yes, Canada reduced its deficit quite dramatically. As a result of that country’s provincial set-up, a lot of the action was taken by the provincial governments rather than the national Government. It was taken, however, an the back of a growing US economy. Given the relative size of the Canadian economy compared with the US economy—it is much smaller than the Californian economy alone, for example—there is no doubt that the Canadians could do things on the back of their next-door neighbour’s rising prosperity. Our problem is that our next-door neighbours, the EU, are not in the same position at all—indeed, quite the reverse. Equally, when Sweden was going through a similar exercise, it was helped by the fact that the economy of much of Europe was growing at the time.
Vince Cable
The hon. Gentleman says that a gamble is being made. Certainly there is a risk. There are risks in tightening fiscal policy too quickly, but there are also risks in doing nothing, or in doing less. We have had to balance those risks, and we have concluded that we must act.
Since the questions are coming from Labour Members, let me now give the other reason why I feel strongly about the need to act decisively in the way in which the Chancellor acted yesterday. Thirty years ago, as an adviser, I occupied the office that I now occupy as a Minister. It was the end of a Labour Government who had chosen to ignore the build-up to a major financial crisis. As some people will remember, the painful measures—the taxes, welfare cuts and spending cuts—were not taken by choice. They were imposed from outside by the International Monetary Fund. Because I was there at the tail-end of that Government, I saw the consequences, not the least of which were the massive divisions that opened up. People in the Government such as Denis Healey, Roy Jenkins and my boss, John Smith, believed that the Government had to be responsible, but there were a lot of others—I sense a growing echo of this feeling on the Opposition Back Benches today—who said, “We don’t need to do anything, we can fight the gnomes of Zurich and drive them underground, we can ignore the rest of the world and we do not need to act.” It was a disastrous alternative strategy, and the Labour party is in great danger of returning to that territory.
That is why I have come to the same position as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We come from different political traditions; I do not try to hide that. As it happens, my role models as Chancellor of the Exchequer include Sir Stafford Cripps and Roy Jenkins, because they understood the need for sound public finance and they combined tough action on budgets with fairness. That is the tradition that we have continued.
Let me list some of the measures in this Budget with which I am proud to be associated. There is the lifting of the tax threshold by £1,000, towards the £10,000 mark. There is the action on capital gains tax, which is not just a tax-avoidance measure, but is about fairness. We have acted on public sector pay not just by freezing some salaries but by giving special help to people on low pay in the public sector. We have introduced the bank levy. We have done what the Labour Government failed to do in 12 years and introduced a triple-lock to protect pensioners—the shadow Deputy Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), could not quite get her head around what the triple-lock is—and in addition supported pensioners through improved pension credit, which is a major cost on the budget going forward. We took action to head off any increase in child benefit, too.
Let me read a comment on child poverty made not by a politician, but by Barnardo’s, one of the leading charities. Yesterday it said:
“There’s some pain in this Budget for the poorest families, but we recognise the government has done what it can to protect the most vulnerable.
Our calls for child tax credits to be redirected away from more wealthy families to the poorest have been heard—an action we highly commend.”
Huw Irranca-Davies
I do not doubt the right hon. Gentleman’s motives during his journey over the years and the past few weeks, but does he give credence to the fact that there is an alternative that could minimise the risk to his communities and mine? It is not to do with rejecting an agenda of cuts, efficiencies or reprioritisation; it is to do with timing. It is not just me saying that, or the “dupes” on the Labour Benches. Paul Krugman, “Danny” Blanchflower, Will Hutton and many other economists are saying, “Minimise the risk; just delay, and make the decisions at the right time.”
Vince Cable
I think that the gentlemen to whom the hon. Gentleman refers are mostly talking about competitive deflation in the world economy, which is, of course, absolutely disastrous. The Chancellor referred in his speech yesterday to the fact that other countries that are in surplus have to do the opposite of what we are doing in terms of fiscal consolidation. The Chancellor made that very clear in relation to action to be taken by the Chinese and action that should be taken by countries such as Germany. Of course we understand the wider context.
Let me return to the criticisms about value added tax. The shadow Chancellor put the question in a personal way when he asked why I was supporting the increase in value added tax. The three of us—the shadow Chancellor, the Chancellor and myself—went around the television studios during the election campaign; we were the three Chancellors, a bit like “The Three Tenors”. We had our several encounters and each of us was asked time and again, “What do you think about value added tax?” As I recall, all three of us gave an identical answer: “We have no plans to increase value added tax, but we have not ruled it out.” The reason why we are now having to confront the matter is that there is a bigger structural deficit than was appreciated and action had to be taken. That could have been a tax measure, or it could have been a spending cut. Is that what Labour Members are saying? Do they want more cuts in spending? Do they want another tax? What do they want?
John Thurso
As a matter of fact, given my experience on the Treasury Committee, I was extremely careful about what I said. I stated my preferences, but I also stated the principles underlying them; I shall come on to that in a moment. First, however, let me answer my second rhetorical question, which requires a little more consideration. The first thing that I would look at—this pertains to what the hon. Lady was asking—would be whether the deficit needs to be dealt with now in depth. I shall draw guidance from my experience as a member of the Treasury Committee and from my own experience of rescuing nearly bankrupt companies in the past.
In past three years or so on the Select Committee, I observed how often Members in all parts of the House were behind the curve in estimating the scale of the problem. When we looked at Northern Rock in our report “The run on the Rock”, it took time to perceive not only the scale of what happened at that institution but the fact that it was a precursor or early symptom of what was to come later in 2008. I remember the Governor telling us quite late in 2008 how this was a financial crisis that he hoped would not get into the real economy. Looking back, one has to say that that was a false hope.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I share the hon. Gentleman’s frustration, as many people were behind the curve, but one person who was not is “Danny” Blanchflower, the economist, who spotted it coming, identified it and sent out the warning signals. We, collectively, were not listening. He is now warning, “Cut hard and deep and you’ll send the recession backwards.” Should we listen to him?
John Thurso
We should certainly listen to “Danny” Blanchflower, for whom I have great respect. He gave evidence to the Select Committee on several occasions, and he is one of a number of voices that we should—[Interruption.] Absolutely—it was David Blanchflower’s nickname at the time. We should certainly listen to him, but we should also listen to all the evidence. He was, on that occasion, more right. I am not persuaded, having heard other voices, that he is entirely right now—but he does highlight a danger, and we should certainly not disregard that. Across the piece, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, we did not appreciate the scale of what was coming.
When I look at what was happening in the early part of this year, my instinct would be to cut the least possible, and to stimulate growth as much as possible. However, there comes a point at which we have to deal with what is before us, rather than what we hoped might be before us. It became clear during the election—and I remember making this point at an all-party hustings—that throughout Europe it was a very different ball game from the one with which we had all been dealing just three, four, or five weeks before, and that we needed to take that into account.
I am therefore predisposed to assume the worst, and to look hard at the core problem. The next piece of guidance derives from my experience of running companies in the hospitality industry. I am not for a moment saying that the relatively small companies that I ran bear comparison to a country, but some of the principles do. I remember taking over two companies that were essentially bankrupt. If the owning shareholders had not guaranteed the finance, they would have gone into administration. In both cases, my job was to turn them round, and I heard arguments about how I should get hold of money and invest it on the one hand, or how I should redress the costs of the company on the other.
When people do not have money—the piggybank is empty, and it is difficult to get money from the banks—they have no choice but to live within their means. I learned that by stabilising company expenditure, and forgoing some investment for the future, I could produce a more stable enterprise. It is the same with this country and the balance of risk. The risk, on the one hand, of failing to take action is that we seriously run out of money, our credit rating is reduced, our borrowing costs go up, and we end up spending far more on debt interest than on health, education or defence. Something would then be imposed on us, as happened with the Labour Government in the 1970s. The risk on the other side is that if we cut too quickly, growth will be stifled and we will take longer to come out of our current situation. Balancing those two risks, I believe that the risk is greater if we do not deal with the deficit, so it needs to be dealt with.
Secondly, is the Budget fair? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills made an extremely good case for demonstrating that it is—in as much as any pain can be fair. I would far rather be standing here supporting a Budget that gave people lots of money. That would be lovely, but, as the Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, there is no money. So we have to be prudent, and that means that we have to share the pain. The whole point is that everybody will suffer, but we have to ensure that the suffering falls least on the most vulnerable, and most on those who can afford it. Charts A1, A2 and A3 in the Red Book set out exactly how the suffering will fall, and it is perfectly clear from them that those at the bottom will bear the least pain and those at the top bear most.
In my constituency average earnings are £21,000, and table A1 on page 64 shows that after the Budget somebody on £20,000 will be £170 better off, given the amount of income tax and national insurance that they pay. They will pay £170 less than they would have done. Table A2 shows that they will receive £145 less in family tax credit, but when we put the two amounts together we see that they will still be £25 better off. That is not a large amount of money, but it makes the point that if we take the Budget in the round, including VAT, which nobody can deny is regressive on its own, we clearly find that the pain is shared, and felt less by those at the bottom than by those at the top. So I conclude that the Budget is fair.
I welcome the Budget. It is not one that I would have liked to have to support. I would have liked to see the coffers full, and to be able to be nice to people—but in the circumstance this is the right Budget, and it is fair.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I welcome you to your place, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is 20 minutes past 3, so I am surprised—but glad—to see you in your seat, because the England game against Slovenia has now started. I know that you have been to Slovenia many times, and it is great to see you here.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on his passionate and balanced speech. I served in Northern Ireland and am aware not only of many of the challenges that hon. Members face over there, but of the opportunities. It is a pleasure to follow him, and I agree very much about the opportunities in the development and working of the cadets in bringing communities closer together. It is wonderful to see that initiative moving forward.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana R. Johnson), who has just walked out the Chamber, made an entirely negative speech. Yes, whichever party won the election would have faced challenges, but how can she stand there and simply demand more money for certain projects in certain parts of the country, without saying where it should come from? Labour Members have failed to understand the consequences of the election result. It was clear that nobody won, so why continue to look back at the manifestos of individual parties and ask, “Why are you now not doing this, or that?” We had to rise to the occasion and ask, “What is needed for the country?” We have to put aside our party differences and meet the challenge, which is to bring about stable government and leadership. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives were able to do that, but of course it meant a certain amount of compromise. So it is wrong to harp on about aspects of the manifesto and say, “Why haven’t you included this? Why haven’t you done that? You’ve gone against the people who voted for you.”
Huw Irranca-Davies
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that in the election there was a fundamental divide over the approach to the economic recovery, which was encapsulated in the manifestos of the two main parties that lost—the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats? The Tories did not win outright either, but those two significant parties both, at the time, agreed with Nick and Vince that we had to delay making the cuts until the recovery was ensured.
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful for that intervention because it gives me licence to underline the fact that, if we are to move into a coalition, there needs to be agreement, and it is a tribute to the parties and the leaders that in a short period they achieved something that, in countries such as Belgium, takes 100 days—forming a coalition grouping while all the horse-trading takes place. Yes, there are compromises and changes that were not expected during the election. However, according to the polls the country supports what we are doing.
Mr Ellwood
Here we go again. I give way to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies).
Huw Irranca-Davies
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point, because I heard his party on many occasions in opposition deride winter fuel payments, child tax credits and child trust funds as a waste of money. Therefore, it was reasonable for us to scare the horses, and it was right that the Prime Minister was forced to do a dramatic U-turn.
Mr Ellwood
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. We all understand that things are said in the Chamber that perhaps cannot be said outside. During the election, however, the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), made it very clear that we had no truck with the idea of getting rid of the winter fuel allowance or free bus passes. He even said that in the debate with the then Prime Minister, and yet Labour still put out scaremongering leaflets. When we get into election mode, let us have a bit more honesty. Does the hon. Gentleman wish to intervene again or has he given up?
I also welcome the freeze on council tax, and I am pleased that Bournemouth borough council has met the rules on that. It is important that there is a relationship to encourage local councils to take more responsibility for their own matters, but to get rewarded for that by Government.
I am pleased with the initiatives on small businesses. They make up 90% of our economy, and we need to look after them. In places such as the south-west and Bournemouth, tourism is important—it is our fifth biggest industry—and we do not do enough to support it. Benefit will come from the lowest ever corporation tax—the main rate has been cut from 28% to 24%—and the cut in the tax rate for small companies from 21% to 20%. There has also been an expansion of the loans guarantee system, without which many good companies were frustrated in getting money from the banks. I am pleased that the Treasury Front-Bench team has realised that.
Fat government will also be reduced. A 25% reduction over the next four years will be very difficult, but government became bloated and far too centralised under Labour. I look forward to a much simpler set-up that gives more power to communities.
This Budget is the most dramatic and far-reaching since the war. Balancing the books must be a priority, but even in these tough times the Budget promotes a cultural shift in Britain, encouraging the individual, the family, the community and the country to take responsibility. Ensuring that the banking sector and financial services are better regulated to avoid a repeat of the economic downturn is long overdue. This Budget is an ambitious effort to reduce the nation’s borrowing and repair the damage created by the last Labour Government. Labour will no doubt claim that many of these radical measures can be avoided, while secretly knowing that, had they miraculously won the election, they would have had to implement the very same changes themselves.
Let me end by congratulating the Chancellor and his team on producing such a comprehensive and robust Budget. While recognising the difficulties that it will impose on the entire country, I believe that it is appropriate and overdue medicine to expedite Britain’s way to recovery.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
I have enjoyed the debate very much so far. It has exposed a fundamental division between our approaches to the question of how to emerge from the recession. Although it has been said that ideologies are dead, I think that it has exposed a fundamental division between our ideologies as well. What those ideologies and those approaches mean to me are the impact on a single mother on a council estate in my constituency or a pensioner who has put a bit away in a house at the top of Maesteg, and it is the same across the country.
I thank the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) for reminding me just how vast the gap is between the ways in which we approach and understand the task of resolving the present situation. He began by asking us again to be “all in this together”. I hope I shall be able to go some way towards explaining why I cannot join him in that mission.
I knew before the election that if we were unsuccessful and were not returned to government, we could expect this approach. I must say in fairness to the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues—including the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), who leads his party—that they were frank and upfront. We were not given the detail, but they said that this was what they would do. However, while I have a great deal of genuine respect for Members on the other side of the House—I am not trying to embarrass them—I did not expect that they would end up on this side of the fence when the moment came, and their action has disappointed me. It has exposed a division that will last in the Liberal Democrat party for a generation, which, from my perspective, is greatly to be regretted. I should have thought that we would still have some allies, as we did before the election, along with all the economists who are still saying that this is the wrong action to take.
I must apologise for confusing David Blanchflower and Danny Blanchflower, especially as there is, I understand, a football match going on somewhere at the moment. I am not a great football fan, although I wish England all the best. Unfortunately, Wales has not been in a major competition for about 54 years.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I just want to announce that the score is one-nil, and it is nearly half-time.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Well done England. Keep it going. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in wishing the Welsh team all the best in the repeat match against the All Blacks at the weekend.
I do not often get depressed in this place, but I was utterly depressed yesterday as the Budget statement approached, and not for the obvious reasons. First, I was depressed because we were sitting on the Opposition Benches. We will say what we can, and we will do our best to articulate a different vision of the best way forward and the practical measures that should be taken, but the truth is that we are now in opposition. Secondly, I was depressed because the members of the coalition appear to have closed their minds to any alternative argument. If they are right, and if in a year or two I see that my communities have not been damaged disproportionately by the measures that they are proposing, I will acknowledge that. However, I was surprised to note that—as has already been pointed out—the poverty commitment in the Budget extends for only two years.
Huw Irranca-Davies
In a moment.
The previous Government had a long-standing commitment to tackling poverty, and, although they were not succeeding in everything, they were doing a great deal to lift people out of it. That commitment could have been one of the fundamental principles in the Budget even in a time of austerity—a time of “We’re all in it together”—and not just for two years, but for the five years guaranteed by the 55% breakaway option. I hope that the hon. Lady will join me in saying to her Front Benchers, “Come forward with the figures that show that poverty is not going to increase for the five-year life of this Parliament.”
Claire Perry
Thank you very much for giving way, and I am looking forward to hearing what else you have to say. What you have said so far would, however, have much more credibility if you had not represented a Government who tried a different approach for 13 years, with high-falutin’ goals to reduce poverty to help your constituents, and who failed miserably in that. Is the hon. Gentleman truly saying that in his view there should be no cuts—that the broken economic model should roll on as before and that that is the way to repair the economy—or does he have some idea of where the cuts should have fallen?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before the hon. Gentleman replies, may I just say to the hon. Lady, first, that interventions are supposed to be brief—I hope that all Members will take note of that? Secondly, on the use of “you”, may I remind the hon. Lady that her comments are not addressed to me in the Chair? Given that we have been back in the Chamber for quite some time now, I think Members need to come back to addressing each other correctly when putting questions.
Huw Irranca-Davies
My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker, for not welcoming you to the Chair.
My answer to the hon. Lady’s second question is: absolutely not. None of us can resile from the fact that there will need to be not just efficiencies, but cuts and prioritisation of projects and spending, and that will hurt. My fundamental point, which I shall return to in some detail shortly, is about how we do it and when we do it; the timing of it.
I have to say that I could not disagree more with the hon. Lady’s earlier point, and neither could most of the child charities or the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. [Interruption.] Yes, we have had criticism for not going far enough, but I return to the remarks of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about child tax credits. They can sometimes be complicated. I sometimes have constituents in my office who say, “Can you help me sort this out, because we have letters going back and forth?” I tell the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) this, however: none of my constituents would do without them because of the material difference they have made to them.
When I send my children to school, I know that if they come home and say they have a trip to go on and it will cost a fiver, a tenner or £20, I can say to them, “Don’t you worry. I’m on an MP’s salary; it’ll be okay.” I also know, however, that there are constituents of every Member in this House who will have to make the choice between putting groceries on the table and putting that money towards things such as school trips. So when the hon. Lady says this makes no difference, I can honestly say to her, “Go and look at the statistics. Go and look at the numbers of those who have been lifted out of absolute poverty under the previous Government.” If she shares this commitment—as I am sure she does—I tell her to put the pressure on the coalition Government to make it clear before the summer what their poverty targets are, and not for two years, but for five years.
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Huw Irranca-Davies
I will make a little progress first, and then give way.
The question that we should be asking is: how does this country get itself out of the recession more quickly and in better shape, rebuilding manufacturing and the private sector, with minimum damage to society—to front-line services and vulnerable people and communities —and also while minimising job losses, because we have been there before? I have not always been an MP. I used to work in the private sector, and I went into lecturing. When I was a lecturer, three types of essay were put in front of me. There were the poor ones, and I would offer constructive advice and say, “You need to do this to get better.” There were the essays that were done very well, and even then I said, “You need to tweak and adjust and do better.” There were also the ones that had misunderstood the question. I noticed in the Budget statement yesterday that the headline issue was dealing with the sovereign debt crisis. That was repeated by the hon. Member for Bournemouth East today when he said that the priority is to ensure our financial status to ensure our credit status. Those things are vital, but surely it is at least equally important to avoid the situations that we had in the 80s and at other times. Measures such as the current proposals lead unnecessarily —this is a judgment issue—to greater unemployment than that mentioned in the Red Book. Such levels of unemployment would lead to greater damage to individuals and communities. I really hope that the Chancellor is correct in his approach and that the Liberal Democrats are supporting the right way forward, but I worry that we have seen this all before.
Let us look at some of the detail. The Government are going to adopt the consumer price index for the uprating of benefits and tax credits from April 2011. The effect will be that benefits and tax credits will diminish and wither year after year. On disability living allowance, the Government will introduce the use of objective medical assessments for all DLA claimants from 2013-14. I am waiting to see the detail on that, because extensive work had already been done by the previous Government on welfare reform, medical assessments and the test. The lack of detail is what worries me. Is this approach about using the stick or the carrot? If it is entirely about using the stick, I guarantee that we will be punishing people who are very vulnerable and who do not have a voice to object. If it is about using the carrot as well—our Government were focused on that and I think that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who was looking into social mobility for the Government, suggested that measures should be more about using the carrot—where are those resources to come from? The worrying thing about this Budget is that we have no detail, and I should like to see that detail as rapidly as possible.
On tax credits, from April 2011, the second income threshold for the family element of child tax credit will reduce from £50,000 to £40,000, and from April 2012, the family element of child tax credit will be withdrawn immediately after the child element. Therefore, it is not just higher-rate taxpayers who will be hit by the measures; working couples could also be hit. The combined salaries of two people on low to middle incomes will take them out of that.
Let me touch on one other aspect of detail—the cost of housing benefit. Yesterday, the Chancellor used one example to illustrate how the system is broken. Various pieces of research could have shown another 100 examples similar to the Chancellor’s, but they would be examples of the extremes. Let me put a concern to the House. What will happen if the policy makes families homeless? What will happen when children are dislocated from their schools or their friends, or when vulnerable families are removed from social care packages and support as they flee to cheaper rent areas? Has any thought whatever been given to the effect of the policy on ghettoisation? Was there any discussion in the run-up to the Budget with organisations that represent the homeless, vulnerable families or children in poverty? I would really like to know that.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I happen to have worked personally with the Centre for Social Justice in the past couple of years, and I know that colleagues there have put enormous effort into all the areas that the hon. Gentleman has just listed. Of course the CSJ is independent, but the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is now in the Cabinet. The hon. Gentleman should rest assured that the Conservative party has put enormous effort into all those things.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his reassurance, but I will be reassured when I see the detail. I will be reassured when I see that this policy will not have the impacts that I have just laid out. We are privileged to be here and to be able to speak up for people. Let us speak up, as I am sure he would want to do, for those who could be disadvantaged by the unforeseen consequences of this response to Daily Mail headlines.
“Ending payments like the health and pregnancy grant and slashing child tax credits at a £40,000 joint income threshold is going to put pressure on families already struggling.”
Those are not my words, but those of Bob Reitemeier, the chief executive of the Children’s Society. He added:
“We are also concerned about the amount to be clawed back from the welfare bill over the next five years as the chancellor aims to find savings of £40 billion.”
Gingerbread, the charity for single parents, has said that families having a second child could be worse off by up to £1,200 a year. Chief executive Fiona Weir said:
“Having a baby puts the family finances under pressure. These cuts will really hit families with young children hard.”
The concerns are not mine alone, therefore, and I am genuinely not indulging in party politics. I will say well done to the Government if their proposals are right and they work, but my real fear is that they are acting prematurely and going in too hard, when there are alternatives that are not being considered and which I shall turn to now.
The Chancellor and the Business Secretary regularly cite the examples of Canada and Sweden when it comes to cutting deficits. However, I shall repeat until I am blue in the face that both countries acted against a backdrop of strong economic growth in their export markets. Unless I have missed something, that is not available to countries in Europe, or the eurozone.
Other positive elements in the case of Canada and Sweden were currency devaluation and the active use of monetary policy. However, in the first case we have been there and done that already with sterling and, in the second, hon. Members will know that our base rate is already low.
Without those three little helpers—those three legs of the stool—we do not get the economic support or growth that, under the plans being put forward by the coalition Government, are essential if we are to mitigate the worst excesses of the proposed cuts, beyond the Red Book. What we do get is all the pain of savage cuts, and absolutely none of the gain. That will go on for years.
In fact—I hate to say this, but I am not alone in doing so—we could well go backwards. If, in a year, we are slipping backwards or limping along like some invalid at the bottom of an economic cycle, it will not be because people such as me failed to stand up and make the opposing case. It is important that someone does that, alongside the economists outside the House.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I do not quite understand his logic. Two of the three legs of the stool to which he refers—the loose monetary policy and the devaluation—remain in place, to the benefit of British industry. It is only the third leg that is absent.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Indeed. Those two legs have been put in place already, but Sweden and Canada actively used both of them during the period of the cuts in order to make the cuts work. We can no longer do that, and we certainly do not have economic growth.
I put that to the Chancellor in this Chamber on two occasions last week. On the first, he dealt with what I said as a purely party-political matter, and swatted me down. I understand: we do that in this place. On the second occasion, however, he did not have an answer, saying merely that this was a matter of judgment—and that is what I am worried about.
This is a very important issue. All our funding for health, education, social services, local authorities, transport, and the attack on poverty is entirely dependent on one big macro-decision about how we go forward from this recession. If the coalition Government are right, I say good luck to them: they will get my praise in one, two, or five years. However, if they are wrong—and no one on the coalition Benches is willing to accept that there is even a scintilla of a possibility that they could be wrong—they must recognise that some people told them so in advance, and with good reason.
The scenario may have been different in the 1980s, but we saw the effect that the approach adopted by the Government had then. We saw it in a very personal way, as friends who used to have jobs became unemployed. They would knock on our doors asking to clean windows or do other odd jobs just to make ends meet. We knew what was happening, because our children went to the same schools, and that is why I ask the Government please to accept that there is an alternative.
What do others say? Economic commentators such as Will Hutton, Paul Krugman and David Blanchflower have all pointed out that the proposed cuts are about twice as extreme as those undertaken in Canada and threaten the recovery. The cuts seem to be motivated not by a good examination of the alternatives, but by ideology.
I return to my opening comments to the hon. Member for Bournemouth East. The Financial Times suggests that the emergency Budget will affect Wales—my home patch—disproportionately. I know that. As many as 50,000 to 60,000 jobs could be lost in the public sector, but that is not all. The knock-on effect of the loss of between 50,000 and 60,000 public sector jobs, in my constituency or in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), will be the loss of jobs in the private sector and the loss of retail confidence. High street shops will go and the bottom will be knocked out of our communities. Unemployment, and regional inequality, will grow and grow.
Will Hutton points out:
“No country has ever volunteered such austerity. It is as tough a package of retrenchment as the IMF imposed on Greece, a country on the brink of bankruptcy.”
He noted that it took Sweden three times as long to carry out the same level of cuts as the UK coalition Government want to impose.
The economist David Blanchflower noted that the effects of the Budget will hit young people disproportionately, and that a double-dip recession is almost inevitable. A double-dip recession is the spectre in the room—a Government Member urged us not to use that phrase but it would be remiss of me not to mention it. Of the forthcoming comprehensive spending review, David Blanchflower says:
“If the young are first, I fully expect the disabled, the old and the weak to be the next target.”
There is an alternative way forward and I genuinely ask the Government to consider it. Will they also consider a new version of the Tobin tax, or Robin Hood tax—much derided for many years? It is good to see a bank levy, but it could have been more ambitious. An open letter to the Chancellor was signed by many Members, including our Green party representative, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), Welsh MPs, cross-party civic organisations, Save the Children Wales, Christian Aid Wales, the secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union Wales, the National Association of Probation Officers Wales and GMB Wales. It states:
“We are pleased that you support a bank tax, but a truly ambitious bank tax would mean those with the broadest shoulders bear the brunt of the cost of the economic recovery, whereas a rise in Value Added Tax or premature cuts to public services would hit the poorest hardest.”
That letter was genuinely cross-party. Some of the greatest advocates of that approach sat in the Liberal Democrat camp on the Opposition Benches, and we tried very hard to get a signature from a Welsh Liberal Democrat. It seems that the lines about premature cuts are now out of date.
I say to the Government, please be right. We often pull at the emotional heartstrings about the 1980s, but if the Budget damages my communities as I think it will, when there is an alternative, I shall certainly never forget or forgive, and nor will my communities, because we have seen it all before. I hope we are not seeing old-style 1980s Tory cuts. I hope that the measures that the coalition Government say will mitigate the worst excesses for the lowest deciles and quintiles are well judged, but I fear they are not. Why are the coalition Government not even considering an alternative way forward that minimises the risks to communities such as mine?
Mary Macleod
The hon. Gentleman clearly has a very short memory of what the present Opposition did to the country. What we, as the Government, need to do now is address the present situation and, as we have done in the emergency Budget, come up with measures to turn it around.
Far from being reckless, as was suggested yesterday by the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), this Budget has shown that the Government are prepared to take on their responsibilities and make the tough decisions required. That is something that the previous Government neglected to do. We are putting the country first, and doing the right thing. What would be reckless would be to continue to allow debt interest payments to increase as they have been doing. The cuts that are coming are actually Labour cuts. We have inherited a mess far worse than we were told we would inherit before the election, and we are paying the bills for the last Government’s irresponsible actions. That is their legacy to Britain. If we carry on as we are, we may be paying about £70 billion in interest on our debt in five years’ time.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I said in my speech that no one could avoid cuts, efficiencies, choices, priorities and projects, but there is a choice to be made in terms of both timing and speed. I ask the hon. Lady to hesitate before saying that the proposals from the coalition Government are the only way forward. There are plenty of voices out there saying that there are other ways of doing this.
Mary Macleod
The hon. Gentleman spoke very movingly about the impact on his constituents. Let me reassure him that I believe that this is the right Budget for the future, and that his constituents will recognise that over the next five years. If we retain our current debt in five years’ time, however, we could be paying more in debt interest than on educating our children, policing our streets and defending our country, and that would be a disgrace.
The United Kingdom remained in recession for longer than the other G7 countries. Output declined for six consecutive quarters, and we now have the highest inflation in Europe. Continuing with business as usual simply is not an option, so we are faced with the task of making the unavoidable, and in some cases unpalatable, decisions that have been called for by the Governor of the Bank of England, the G20, and many in industry. Mervyn King has described the Government’s deficit reduction as “strong and powerful”. He said:
“I am very pleased that there is a very clear and binding commitment to accelerate the reduction in the deficit over the lifetime of the Parliament”.
The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso)—I went to Lairg primary school, so I am very fond of his constituency—talked about the risks and pain associated with the Budget, but he also said that this was something that we had to do. I agree wholeheartedly with that. However, we have tried to do it in a way that spreads the pain that is so inevitable, while protecting those most at risk and establishing the conditions required to ensure future growth.
First, let us look at the impact on business. Businesses large and small have much to be hopeful about following this Budget. As in other constituencies, there are many such businesses in Brentford and Isleworth. They need a stable economic environment in which to prosper, and this Budget will deliver that. The cuts in corporation tax will benefit them greatly and encourage them to continue to grow their staff and expand their operations in the UK, and smaller businesses will appreciate the cut in the small companies tax rate from 22% to 20%.
However, let me tell Members what some of my constituents said to me when I spoke to them today. The chief executive of West London Business, who represents more than 800 businesses in west London, said:
“Overall we feel that this is a pro-business Budget and we are pleased with it: a key element is the reduction in corporation tax which is positive for all businesses; 89% of businesses in our area have fewer than 10 employees so they will be happy with the relief on national insurance payments for small businesses. Whilst CGT has increased, these are welcome allowances for business.”
I also spoke to Andrew Doggwiler of the Hounslow chambers of commerce. He said:
“It was a tough Budget with a lot of pain being shared around, aimed at reducing the public sector deficit and restoring the confidence of the international markets in the British economy…There are positives for business in terms of reduction in corporation tax rates, extension of the enterprise finance guarantee scheme and increase in the entrepreneurs’ relief, which indicates that the Government are keen to promote business success. The Government must continue to find ways to support businesses, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, as their success is the best way of ensuring a sustainable economic recovery creating long-lasting jobs and wealth.”
That is what businesses in the hearts of our constituencies are saying.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
We have had a good debate about the impact of the emergency Budget on the growth of the British economy over the years to come. The contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr Evennett), for Reading West (Alok Sharma), for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) were passionate and well informed. There were contributions from the hon. Members for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana R. Johnson), for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), for Derby North (Chris Williamson), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). The debate was thoughtful and informative.
I am pleased to see the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) in the Chamber—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
Some maiden speeches were made. There were three in yesterday’s debate. My hon. Friends the Members for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell), for Bedford (Richard Fuller) and for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) made excellent speeches about the impact the Budget will have on their constituencies and the challenges it will address. Today, we heard maiden speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) and for Carlisle (John Stevenson).
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough spoke about the challenges in Harrogate. He brings to the House extensive experience in business. As someone who has contributed to the coffers of his former employers, I know that Betty’s is well known for selling fat rascals, but my hon. Friend does not appear to fit that description. I am sure that he will be a great champion for his community.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle talked about the border relationship. Having been born in Scotland but now representing an English constituency, it is heartening to see that not only the coalition Government but Members on both sides of the House who might not be automatic England supporters have supported the English team in its victory today. My hon. Friend spoke well about the need to rebalance the economy, which is one of the big themes of the Budget. I am sure it will be as effective in Carlisle as in the country as a whole. He will make a great advocate for his constituency in the House.
The emergency Budget addresses the most urgent task facing our country and our economy: to put in place a credible plan to reduce the record deficit we have inherited. As a result of the mess that the last Government left behind, the Government have to borrow £1 for every £4 we spend, which is increasing the national debt by £3 billion each week. We cannot afford to let that go on at a time when fear about the sustainability of sovereign debt is the greatest risk to the recovery of European economies.
Failure to deal with the deficit is the greatest threat to growth. Failure to act now would mean higher interest rates hitting businesses, hitting families and hitting the cost of repaying the Government’s debt. That would mean more business failures and sharper rises in unemployment, and would risk a catastrophic loss of confidence and the end of the recovery. The Budget takes action now to restore the confidence in the economy that is needed to underpin the recovery.
The hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) quoted from the IFS report. Let me quote from Moody’s commentary on the Budget:
“The UK budget is supportive of the country’s AAA rating and stable outlook because it is a key step towards reversing the significant deterioration in the government’s financial position that occurred over the past two years…Successful implementation would return the government’s finances to a more sustainable trend…the budget plan addresses the major concerns surrounding economic growth.”
Rating agencies endorse the message behind my right hon. Friend’s Budget—to tackle the deficit and ensure that there is a sound platform for economic growth in the future.
A number of Members on both sides of the House raised issues about the impact of the Budget on the most vulnerable in society. Yes, there have been some difficult decisions about taxes and benefits, but let us not forget the £2 billion extra that we have provided for poorer families in receipt of the child tax credit, the £2 billion extra that has gone into pension credit over the lifetime of this Parliament and the 800,000 people who have been taken out of the income tax bracket by the £1,000 increase in personal allowances. That is evidence in our Budget of the coalition’s commitment to fairness, but we must also ensure that the economy is open for business.
We will open up Britain for business by creating a more competitive system for corporation tax, reducing the rate from 28% today to just 24% over four years. That will give us the lowest corporation tax of any major western economy, one of the most competitive rates in the G20 and the lowest rate that this country has ever known. However, the Budget is about supporting not just big businesses, but small businesses, too. We will cut the small companies tax rate by reversing the previous Government’s plans to increase the rate next year to 22% and cutting it to 20% instead, thus benefiting some 850,000 companies. As well as supporting businesses with lower rates, we need to give businesses certainty about the future, so we have published alongside the Budget a five-year plan to fundamentally reform the corporation tax system, with lower rates, simpler rules and greater certainty. Even with our reforms to capital allowances, the manufacturing sector will still pay less corporation tax under the Budget proposals that we announced yesterday.
A number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North, talked about the regional impact. A number of hon. Members whose constituencies are outside the greater south-east spoke in the debate, too. As the economy recovers, we must restore the balance not only between the public and private sectors, but across the different regions of Britain. As someone who was born and brought up in the north-east, I am acutely aware that the gap between the greater south-east and the rest of the country grew significantly under the last Government. Between 1998 and 2008, for every private sector job generated in the north and midlands, 10 were created in London and the south. The Budget sets out a new approach that empowers local leadership, generates local economic growth and promotes regional job creation. As well as creating a new regional growth fund worth £1 billion that will be focused on projects in the regions that will help to stimulate economic growth, we will shortly announce a new tax scheme to help to create new businesses in those regions where private sector growth is not strong enough.
For the next three years, anyone who sets up a new business outside London, the south-east and the eastern region will be exempt from up to £5,000 of employer national insurance contributions for each of their first 10 employees hired—up to £50,000 for new start-up businesses. That sends a tremendous signal to those businesses about the importance that they will play in reviving the economy and stimulating economic growth in the future. The Treasury estimates that some 400,000 businesses will benefit, thus ensuring all parts of our country benefit from a more balanced and sustainable economic future.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Will the hon. Gentleman assure us that one of the greatest drivers of economic prosperity over the next few years—high-speed rail electrification, which we have heard about in the Budget—will extend beyond Bristol? We are always told that investment in the railway from London to Bristol benefits south Wales, but we cannot expect the Welsh Assembly Government, who have no tax-raising powers, to fund an extension to Llanelli.
Mr Hoban
That is a matter for the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Transport, but the hon. Gentleman has made his plea for more Government spending. At the last general election, he stood on a platform of about £40 billion in cuts. However, what marks this Government out from our predecessor is, of course, that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that there will be no further cuts in capital expenditure beyond those announced by the previous Governments and the projects that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced last week. The major difference is that we are prepared to make the investment to sustain economic growth in the future, but the previous Labour Government were not prepared to make that decision and had announced before the election savage cuts in capital investment.
It is not just corporation tax reform that is needed to ensure that the economy continues to grow in future. There is widespread concern, as has been expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, about the importance of credit flowing to the business community. Several hon. Members expressed concern about the number of businesses in their constituencies that had been refused credit. That was why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced the £200 million extension of the enterprise finance guarantee scheme, which will support £700 million of additional lending to small and medium-sized enterprises until March 2011, benefiting at least 2,000 small businesses. However, he announced in yesterday’s Budget that we will also bring forward a Green Paper before the summer recess on alternative sources of funding for businesses so that they are not reliant only on bank finance. I believe that that will make a major contribution towards ensuring that growth continues in this country.
I have talked about the reforms to introduce a more competitive corporation tax model in this country. In the context of the regional package, I have also talked about the schemes that will be set up to enable start-ups in regions outside the greater south-east to benefit from a national insurance holiday. Of course, one of the big changes announced by my right hon. Friend was our reform to national insurance contributions. We made it clear that we thought that Labour’s jobs tax would be damaging to the economy. We want to support the growth of Britain’s businesses that will create jobs for British people.
The House will know that the previous Government planned a tax on jobs through a 1% increase in national insurance rates. The Budget reverses that negative effect by increasing the threshold by £21 a week above indexation. In one move, we are lifting 650,000 employees out of the tax altogether. Of course, the measure will have a significant benefit for regions, too. For example, there will be a £150 million benefit for businesses in the north-east, which will help to improve competitiveness. Taken together, the measures set out in the Budget offer a stable and consistent platform for a private sector recovery. They provide the element of growth that is needed alongside our necessary measures to cut spending and increase taxes to restore Britain’s fiscal position.
I referred earlier to the number of hon. Members who contributed to today’s debate, but one thing was missing from all the speeches made by Labour Members. Not one of them uttered a word of apology for the deficit. We saw not a single sign of humility for the mess in which they have left the country, and they did not give a single credible idea to tackle the legacy that they left the people of this country. At a time when Governments throughout the world are taking serious measures to restore public finances and economic confidence, it is remarkable that the Labour party is stuck in the past, refusing to accept responsibility for the problems that it left the country and that the coalition Government inherited. Labour Members are stuck in a world of their own. The mainstream political debate across the world has left them behind. They are stranded and in denial about the scale of the problems that they left this country. It has been left to the coalition to lead the debate on tackling those problems.
The Budget pays the bills of the past and plans for the future. It takes the tough decisions that Labour ducked. Labour Members say that £40 billion of cuts were outlined in their March 2010 Budget, but not one of them has been able to say where those cuts would fall. Our Budget brings spending under control and tackles the deficit. It takes difficult decisions on curbing our deficit, but at the same time, the cuts in corporation tax—reducing the headline rate for large businesses and cutting the small companies rate to 20%—the reforms to our tax system that make Britain more competitive and the reversing of Labour’s jobs tax send a clear signal that Britain is once again open for business.
The Budget tackles the toxic legacy left by Labour. It will remove uncertainty from businesses and boost confidence. It is about the values set out in our coalition agreement—values of fairness, freedom and responsibility. It marks a radical change from the economic policies of the past, offering transparency where before there was opacity. It offers a change—