Economic Affairs and Work and Pensions

Debate between Ian C. Lucas and Lord Darling of Roulanish

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Darling]

I shall not give way. I want to make some progress, because I know that many hon. Members want to make their maiden speeches, and I do not want to be blamed for not allowing them to do so. I might give way before I finish, but not just now.

As I was saying, borrowing has clearly increased, but that has to be put into perspective. Our deficit for this year is broadly similar to that of the US. All other major countries have had the same problem.

We went into the recession with the second-lowest level of debt of any of the G7 countries, but IMF projections for this year show that our debt is lower than that of France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Yes, we have to get our borrowing down and make sure that we start to bear down on debt, and I agree with everyone who says that it is far better to spend money on things other than debt interest. However, it is worth making the point—because it is one that the present Government never do make—that this problem does not affect our country alone. It has affected all countries, and certainly all the developed countries.

It is not a surprise that borrowing and debt went up, because our tax revenues fell dramatically in 2007 and 2008. Our spending on unemployment and social security went up because tax credits were there to help people who lost their jobs. Yes, that was increased expenditure but, if we had cut then, the risk was that we would turn a recession into a depression. That was a cost that I was certainly not willing to contemplate.

We made an active choice to allow borrowing to rise to support the economy. As I said, that policy was supported by the then Conservative Opposition right up until 2008. It was not as though they were saying anything different immediately before that, but I fundamentally disagree with the analysis that the Chancellor made when he was shadow Chancellor. He said:

“Even a modest dose of Keynesian spending”

was

“a cruise missile aimed at the heart of a recovery.”

He said that in 2008, when the banking system and the world economies were close to collapse. That seems to me to be complete nonsense. Of course we will have our arguments about how and at what rate we reduce our deficit, but I simply do not accept the argument that by implication he seems to be advancing—that somehow the previous Government should have been cutting spending just as we were going into a recession. I know of no other Government who were doing that.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

The construction sector is one of the most important barometers of the national economy, and I was privileged to serve as construction Minister. If that spending by Government had not taken place in the last two years, would we not have had a massive increase in the level of unemployment in the construction industry? That would have opened up the horrific prospect of having 3.5 million people unemployed—a level that we reached twice under the Conservative party.

[Mr Darling]

That is indeed right, and many people in the construction industry say that an already difficult situation would have become much worse if we had not done what we did in 2008-09. Not many Conservatives or Liberals—we must include the two together—now stand up and say, “Actually, in retrospect, we shouldn’t have been supporting the construction industry.” I rather get the impression that they are telling local industries in their constituencies something entirely different.