Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I agree, and during an earlier part of my speech I listed all those people as being among those who had things to apologise for, as the hon. Gentleman will see if he reads the record.

In the prelude to the Budget, other preposterous myths have been peddled, designed to justify an austerity programme so severe that it is positively, even gleefully, sadistic. I will just mention one of them in passing. The myth says, “It’s all much worse than we thought.” We have heard the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor all singing that refrain in recent days. They had prepared the ground, they had the newspapers all going along with it, and they had briefed their Back Benchers, who are even now loyally parroting the line. How irritating for them, then, that the facts have failed to conform to their prearranged narrative, and how positively annoying that the Chancellor’s new forecasting quango—the pejoratively named Office for Budget Responsibility—should so comprehensively give the game away just before the main show. It quickly became clear that, far from all this being much worse than we thought, it was actually better:

“embarrassingly, the economy is just not playing along. Things just keep getting better.”

I was quoting Fraser Nelson—that well known socialist writer—from the Telegraph.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman has not been here all day, so I will not give way to him.

In the pre-Budget report, Sir Alan Budd was obliged to point out that my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor was being too pessimistic—those who know him are not always surprised by that—and that on almost every measure, the public finances are in better, not worse, shape than we expected at the time of the March Budget. Unemployment, Sir Alan revealed, would be 200,000 lower than expected, and tax revenues would be much stronger than forecast. Thus the borrowing forecast was £8.4 billion lower this year than predicted in March, and £22 billion lower by 2014-15.