Kit Malthouse
Main Page: Kit Malthouse (Conservative - North West Hampshire)Department Debates - View all Kit Malthouse's debates with the HM Treasury
(8 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
John McDonnell
I will come back to the hon. Gentleman, but I must press on for a while.
It is important to recognise that economic decline and regional inequality, and the deep-rooted alienation and despair that they have produced, contributed to the fact that so many people voted to leave the EU. Some fear that a shock to business investment spending would help to push the entire economy into another recession. Again, I call for a fresh programme of Government investment to produce shovel-ready projects, especially in the areas that have been hardest hit by long-term economic decline.
John McDonnell
I have to give my hon. Friend his due; he chances his arm. I am sure that there is a need for investment—selective investment—in aviation.
John McDonnell
We are short of time and a lot of Members wish to speak.
Whenever aviation expansion takes place, it will be judged on the criteria that the Labour party has set, which include the environmental impact and the impact on the wider economy. We await the proposals from the Government and we will then take our decision.
The referendum vote has forced a debate on the best course for our economy and for economic policy. It is unlikely that a simple return to business as usual will be possible or even desirable, but there are immediate steps that can be taken to calm market volatility and to limit the shock to demand. It is incumbent on the Government to take those necessary measures and Labour, in the national interest, will support measures intended to stabilise the economy when they protect households and businesses.
On monetary policy, of course authority rests with the Bank of England to intervene to preserve the stability of banks and the wider economy. Governor Mark Carney’s Friday morning statement was important in helping to stabilise the immediate situation. However, some interventions by the Bank will require authorisation from the Government. To ensure the success of those interventions, it will be helpful if the House is kept as fully informed as practicable of those authorisations, with regular updates.
On fiscal policy, with the expected slump in demand, the Government’s present fiscal charter is, to say the least, increasingly anachronistic. With the Chancellor having missed two of his three targets—on debt and on the welfare cap—he will now have to suspend the deficit target. The charter’s restriction on investment spending in particular is impossible to defend. For the regions, a squeeze on Government investment could be especially damaging.
Last year—this was raised earlier at Question Time— over £10 billion was provided in regional development funding by the EU. That was concentrated on our most deprived regions and places that needed it the most. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that that essential funding will now be made good? What structures are being put in place to liaise with elected mayors, local government leaders and regional bodies to address the loss of EU funds?
The UK currently holds a 16% stake in the European Investment Bank, which last year disbursed a record £6 billion in investment for the UK. That includes £l billion for social housing. What steps are the Government taking to maintain current programme funding? What plans do the Government have for the UK’s stake in the European Investment Bank?
Mr Osborne
The stability of our financial institutions is there for people to see. It has been assured by our regulators. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that the market is making new assessments about the future earnings of banks, yes, that is so, and it is quite striking that it is banks that face the UK economy that have seen the sharp falls in their share prices, not banks that face the European and international economy. We have to be realistic: markets—free markets—are going to make those kinds of adjustments. We have seen those—the shadow Chancellor noted them—but it is striking that there has been the largest one-day fall against the dollar on record for our pound sterling. Equity markets, particularly the FTSE 250—which largely comprises companies that, again, face the UK domestic market—fell by 14%, and they are now 9% below their level. The particular sectors that have been affected are British retail banking, house building and short-haul airlines, some of which have seen their share price fall by more than 40%.
Kit Malthouse
Notwithstanding what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, will he acknowledge the benefits of a weaker exchange rate? For a country that is running a large trade deficit, having a significantly weaker exchange rate will make a large difference, particularly to exporters, and it means that we are more likely now to avoid deflation in the economy, which not a few months ago people were forecasting was likely to hit us.
Mr Osborne
I agree with my hon. Friend that a free-floating currency is a shock-absorber that we have the benefit of. We do not have a fixed exchange rate, and of course we are not part of a single currency, so the currency can take some of the strain, and that is reflected in the currency market.
The only thing I would caution my hon. Friend on is this: in 2008 we saw a sharp fall in sterling, and that was sustained, but it did not lead to the boost in exports that people expected at that point. That was partly because other markets, including European markets, were depressed, but, as we came to discover, it was also the case that integrated supply chains these days are more international. For example, car exporters might benefit from the fall in the currency in terms of the price they sell their cars for, but they will have imported parts and will have seen import prices go up. Unfortunately retailers are also warning us that prices in supermarkets, for example, may well now rise because of the fall in the currency, but we will wait and see.
Of course the other challenge we face is from the credit rating agencies—not that everything they say is gospel. Unfortunately, we lost our triple-A rating with Standard & Poor’s and were downgraded two notches a few days ago.
Stewart Hosie
That is absolutely correct. The FTSE 250 is far more exposed to the domestic market. Whether the index moves up or down slightly at any given time, the key point is that the exposure to the UK market and the lack of confidence at the moment are precisely what is driving that uncertainty.
Stewart Hosie
No, I will not give way at the moment.
I was pointing out that the fall in the pound was twice that in 1992. By Monday the 27th, it fell another 2%, to $1.32—a three-decade low. [Interruption.] There are mutterings from people who want everything to be fine. We have had a near three decade low in the pound because of the actions taken by the Brexit campaign, which failed to have a plan to deal with this eventuality—that is the crux of the matter. The value of the pound against the euro fell almost 6% on Friday the 24th, and it fell again on Monday the 27th.
Most alarming, given the stock placed on it, was that the UK lost its triple A credit rating from Standard & Poor’s following the Brexit vote. Standard & Poor’s said the referendum result could lead to a
“deterioration of the UK’s economic performance, including its large financial services sector”.
It was the first time that Standard & Poor’s had downgraded a triple A-rated sovereign by two notches in one go. On Friday the 24th, Moody’s cut the credit outlook from stable to negative, saying the result could lead to a prolonged period of uncertainty. By changing its outlook to negative, it has warned that the UK’s Aa1 rating is also at risk of being lowered, and with that, obviously, comes the risk of higher borrowing costs.
And that is before we get to the real world and job security. The Institute of Directors surveyed 1,000 of its members. It found that a quarter plan to freeze recruitment. Two thirds said the vote was negative for their business. The BBC has reported that HSBC plans to move up to 1,000 staff who process payments in euros from London to Paris. Others are deeply concerned about the loss of passporting arrangements, which mean that firms do not have to have different authorisations for individuals in individual countries. These are very real concerns, but they are being whitewashed and brushed over by those who are desperate to leave, because of the absence of a plan to deal with issues that should have been considered in advance.
Stewart Hosie
If the pound falls by twice as much as its record fall ever, I suppose that no one sensible should describe that as minor, normal or run of the mill. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
With regard to the indices, it is true, as I said, that the FTSE 100 has pretty much bounced back to its pre-referendum level, as of earlier today. The FTSE 250 is not yet back to the position it was in on Monday 27 June. The pound versus dollar is unchanged since its collapse and is bouncing along the bottom. The pound versus the euro is unchanged since the fall and is bouncing along the bottom. The real concern—
Stewart Hosie
No, no.
The real concern is that this uncertainty will last for a very long time, not least because of the preposterous decision by those advocating Brexit not even to try to invoke the article 50 negotiations immediately—not so much a man without a plan as a campaign without a clue.
Stewart Hosie
No, I am not going to give way.
We do know, though, that many of the underlying problems are deep rooted and long term. One of the arguments posited by the out campaign was that money currently going to the EU could be spent here at home. We do not need to leave the EU to reverse the decision to convert innovation funding from grants to loans in order to support new product development. We do not need to leave the EU to reverse the cuts to export support in order to help businesses sell more overseas. We do not need to leave the EU to abandon an economic plan to cut £40 billion more than is necessary to run a balanced current account. We do not need to end our membership of the EU to do these things; we do need an end to austerity.
The other argument that the Brexit campaigners posited was that we need to “take back control”, in their words, in order to achieve improvements in all the economic metrics. The problem with that is that countries within the EU are doing better on every single measure. Malta and the Czech Republic have lower unemployment. Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have higher employment. Ireland has higher GDP growth. Estonia and Bulgaria have lower debt-to-GDP ratios. In terms of the key issue of productivity—
James Cartlidge
The hon. Gentleman has a fantastic sense of humour himself, as does his party.
If we had boarded that tube train and gone down that route, our Prime Minister would have been in post for years to come, and our stock market, our economic confidence and our currency would have strengthened. We would not have put permanently to bed but would have very strongly put to one side the two big constitutional issues of Europe and Scotland that have bedevilled our politics for so long. Instead, we have instability again.
We have to recognise that if we had remained, we would have had a very strong position, rather than all this uncertainty and weakness. For me, whatever arrangements are negotiated for the future, they must compensate for that and restore the strengths and assets that we had, not least the fact that British has historically been seen as a beacon of trust. It has been seen as a country into which people would put their life savings, and there is a profound sense around the world that we have respect for the rule of law, and that we are stable, sound and all the rest of it. At the moment, one could forgive the world for thinking that that was not the case, as certainly seems to be true in other European countries.
How do we restore those strengths? First and foremost, when we enter into negotiations, we have to decide on the principles—just as with a Bill, we have a Second Reading debate about its principles—and we need to decide on the principles of the negotiations we will have with our European partners and on the fundamentals about how we go forwards. I want to focus on three key points.
The first point is openness, to which I referred earlier. To me, one of the most extraordinary comments during the referendum was when, after concerns were raised about steel, a key figure in the leave campaign said that if we left the EU, we could unilaterally impose tariffs on Chinese steel. There may be a strong case for doing so, but that betrayed the fact that when the argument becomes nationalistic, particularly economically nationalistic, there is inevitably a threat of protectionism. We have heard many times about how Britain would negotiate good trade arrangements, and about how, since we have deficits with the EU, its members will want to trade with us—after all, look at how many cars we buy from them. Implicitly, the point was therefore that if they did not want to trade with us, we would consider protectionism.
Kit Malthouse
I realise that my hon. Friend and I were on different sides of the argument, but does he recognise that the EU is a protectionist bloc? The EU is a common tariff area whose members collectively impose significant tariffs on other parts of the world, some of which are impoverished third world nations.