Charter for Budget Responsibility

Julian Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

I will give way in a moment. I want the House to know what is in this document first.

The Chancellor pledged to get the national debt falling. Page 7 of the charter says that

“the Treasury’s mandate for fiscal policy is supplemented by: a target for public sector net debt as a percentage of GDP to be falling at a fixed date of 2015-16”.

So the charter says that the national debt should be falling in 2015-16, but the OBR said in respect of last week’s Budget that it expects the national debt to be rising next year. The national debt is not falling according to this charter, and it is rising according to the OBR. I want the House to understand what is before us. I have to ask the Chancellor this: how on earth did he end up putting before the House a week after his Budget a motion that puts up in lights the fact that he is failing his own target to reduce the national debt? What an own goal! Is he going to blame the chair of the Conservative party for that one, too?

It gets worse for the Chancellor. The charter goes on to say—[Interruption.] Government Members should listen—[Interruption.] They should listen to this:

“The Treasury’s mandate for fiscal policy lapses at the dissolution of this Parliament.”

Lapses! It has already collapsed. It has expired; it has ceased to be; it is an ex-mandate. The charter goes on to say:

“The duty to set out a fiscal mandate will require the Treasury to set out a revised mandate for fiscal policy as soon as possible in the life of the new Parliament”.

That is what we will do: we will balance the current budget and deliver a surplus in the next Parliament. We will get the national debt falling. We will do those things as soon as we can in the next Parliament, but we will do so in a different way, starting by reversing the Chancellor’s £3 billion tax cut for people earning more than £150,000. That is what we mean by doing things in a different and fairer way.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm his announcement earlier that Labour will be raising taxes on British business?

[Ed Balls]

I have said to the Chancellor that that statement is a direct misleading of the House and, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that statement now.