Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

I pay tribute to those hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today. My hon. Friends the Members for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), for Hendon (Mr Offord) and for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), all made excellent maiden speeches.

After 13 years of Budgets that were predicated on the mistaken notion that boom and bust had ended, it is hugely reassuring to see a Budget that restores some fiscal sanity. This Budget puts at the heart of our economic policy the restoration of our nation’s finances and the laying of foundations for stronger economic growth. In response to the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), however, I must add that we do not know what the previous Government’s legacy is, because some costs of the past two or three years’ actions have yet to be borne—but will be unless this Government take preventive steps.

I shall not dwell on what has been bequeathed to us, but I must mention a few statistics that speak for themselves. The budget deficit is more than 11% of GDP, and the largest of all advanced nations; the visible national debt is 68% of GDP; and a record 28% of the adult working population—8 million people—are currently described as “economically inactive”. Despite all Labour’s efforts, no amount of spin can hide the truth of the abysmal inheritance that we have been given. Once again, it has been left to a Conservative-led Administration to clean up the mess of a former Labour Administration. As it says in the Budget, we have to start doing that by addressing this record peace-time deficit.

I am somewhat surprised that Labour Members continue to act as though we can keep living beyond our means, when only £3 in every £4 of Government spending is raised through general taxation. Only eight weeks or so ago, even the Labour leadership admitted during the election campaign that if they won the election they would have to carry out severe cuts as well. There were various estimates, but they averaged about 20% of real cuts in unprotected Departments over the course of the next Parliament. Notably, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer said in an interview that if he were re-elected he would have to make bigger and deeper cuts than Margaret Thatcher did in her time. Now, however, Labour Members act as though those cuts are not necessary and we are able to make a choice.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is not the reduction of the deficit that is the point of conflict between us but the scale and the speed of doing it. Doing it in the way that has been proposed risks pushing the economy back away from growth and into recession. In that situation, the deficit will increase, not decrease. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that point?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman’s own party said before the election that it expected to make very large, severe cuts, in the order of about 20% in real terms. Our Budget proposes cuts of about 25% in real terms in unprotected Departments. Is he really saying that the only thing bothering him is a difference of 5%? I have not heard anything from Labour Members in the past two or three days that remotely suggests how they would achieve the 20% cut that they have talked about.

James Carville, who was President Clinton’s political adviser, once famously said:

“I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the President or the Pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everyone.”

Soon after that, President Clinton abandoned his plans to increase borrowing, recognising instead that, even at that time, he had no choice but to balance the budget. I have traded in the international bond markets for many years, and working on a trading floor I saw for myself just how severe the financial crisis was. There is no question but that we would have faced economic problems regardless of the actions that were taken by the previous Government, but their actions made things worse, and that is the key. The situation has been made worse by the huge amount of borrowing that we have taken on since that time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins]

Please accept my apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker. I shall make sure that I address you and hon. Members correctly in future.

It is right to talk about the choice that Labour made, which was to protect the jobs that people relied on and to prevent an extra 500,000 going on the dole. Labour’s choice was to protect the homes that people had saved up over their whole lives to be able to buy. Labour’s choice was to support industry and bring forward public spending projects to keep the construction industry working when the private sector was sitting on its hands. Labour knew that the price of salvaging those jobs, those homes and those businesses would be an increase in our deficit. We delivered a plan for the recovery, which is working, and a plan for reducing the deficit after the recovery had been secured in the following year. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove told us that we could not keep living beyond our means, but of course we already knew that; that is exactly what the shadow Chancellor was referring to in the previously attributed quote. He made it absolutely clear what our strategy was.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is something deeply disingenuous about the fact that the Conservative party supported our Government spending plans until 2008—before the economic crisis hit home? They believe that we are living beyond our means, but they supported our spending at the time.