Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to be called to speak on the first day of the Budget. Every Budget debate in which I have spoken since 2010 has had one overriding theme, which is that the Chancellor has turned up to tell us that he has failed to meet his own targets. He has then had to mask that failure as best he can. This Budget is a particularly vivid example of that. Growth has been downgraded this year, next year and every year. That is the top-line message from this Budget.

Much is always made of the claim from the Chancellor, which is repeated by Conservative Back Benchers, that the UK has the fastest growing economy in western Europe. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) said, however, the International Monetary Fund tells us that economies of the USA, Spain and Ireland are all forecast to grow faster than ours this year. I know that we are all worried about Donald Trump, but we still have to consider the US a major western economy, at least for now.

Our deficit is just below 4%, or £74 billion a year, and debt is not falling as a percentage of GDP; it is rising. So the Chancellor has broken his fiscal rule on debt almost immediately after we had the row about it. He has done that after already breaking his rule on welfare spending just after we had the row about that. The obvious conclusion is: so what? This surely proves that those rules are fairly absurd. At the very least, it proves that they are all about politics and not much about economics—which, to be honest, is a fairly apt description of the Chancellor himself. From the figures that we have had so far, the Budget appears to add up as a result of a £3.5 billion cut being made to Government Departments by 2020. However, as no details have been given, that is a purely illusory budgeting cut.

The remaining fiscal rule—that we must hit a surplus by 2019-20—seems fairly ludicrous. Indeed, it seems already to have unravelled. The Chancellor appears to be saying that he will borrow £40 billion more until 2018-19 and then, as if by magic, he will borrow £30 billion less the following year. Already it appears that most of that is a result of messing around with the accounting figures relating to the receipts of corporation tax. Frankly, if a Labour Chancellor had made such a claim in a Budget, they would have been destroyed in the papers the following day. This Chancellor deserves no less.

When we are discussing debt and the deficit, I always like to remind Conservative Members—or at least the ones who turn up on the first day of the Budget—that Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and many other Conservative Prime Ministers all ran deficits. It is a fallacy that the Conservatives run surpluses while in office. In fact, the surpluses that we have had since the war have usually been under Labour Governments —although frankly that was by chance. There is nothing wrong with the principle of running a deficit so long as our creditworthiness is such that our interest payments are manageable and that the return on our investment is greater than the cost of borrowing.

That brings me to the set of sensible fiscal rules proposed by the shadow Chancellor, which are to balance day-to-day spending over a period of time while retaining the freedom to invest in our economy to make it more prosperous. They do seem like the same fiscal rules we had at the election, but let us pass over that. Considering all aspects of our economy, transport and energy in particular, the need for substantial investment in order to sharpen our competitiveness is undeniable. From what I see in my constituency surgeries, the situation regarding funding for social care is as dire as it could be. The cut in employment and support allowance to fund this Budget’s giveaways is unconscionable, even for Conservative Members, to tolerate. My local council’s budget has essentially halved since 2010, and I cannot believe that the declining percentage of GDP that we are spending on the NHS is sustainable with an ageing population.

It is, however, not all bad. I welcome the Chancellor’s pro-EU tone. Looking at the challenges he set out, who on earth would add greater uncertainty in these conditions? The sugar tax is interesting, but it feels like a distraction when compared with the top-line economic news. Small business assistance is also welcome, but, as the income from business rates has already been devolved to local authorities, is that not a further cut in funding for public services? We need more detail on that.

Returning to investment, the Government really do not have an energy policy. They have a project in Hinkley Point C that will never be brought online in time. Nuclear power is essential, but the project will not do us much good because of the incredible underlying economics. The Government have undermined renewables and abolished carbon capture and storage for UK, which is incredibly short-sighted. They should be looking to cut UK energy consumption radically through energy efficiency measures, which are readily available and do not need to be invented and which, frankly, just need Government funding. We could then further protect energy prices for industry to ensure that manufacturing is still strong and to reduce our emissions. We could also reduce bills. It would require a much less burdensome amount of new capacity to be brought online. All that requires investment, which could strengthen our economy and help to reduce debt.

On transport, I like many of the things that the Conservative Government have tried to bring online, but such infrastructure clearly requires funding and fiscal rules to proceed. Under this Government’s tenure, infrastructure spending as a proportion of GDP has declined starkly, but I want the projects to go ahead and if the Government are serious too, they must provide the necessary fiscal framework. I am particularly pleased about the money that will allow the trans-Pennine tunnel scoping study to go ahead, because the project would not only massively reduce congestion in my area, but bring about enormous economic benefits by linking greater Manchester with south Yorkshire in a way that is mutually beneficial for both economies.

To conclude, I want a Government who not only believe in public services and public infrastructure and honestly and genuinely care about inequality, poverty and life chances, but understand markets and how to foster innovation and appreciate the contribution that business can make. That would be a real long-term economic plan, but it is clear that it is not available from this Government. I hope that the Opposition will be able to offer the alternative that the country sorely needs.