Finance (No. 3) Bill

Lord Barnett Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Barnett]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, for his personal apology to me for saying that I was wrong when I quoted the Chancellor as saying that flexibility was built into his plan. I am bound to tell the noble Lord, for whom I have a lot of respect, that it was wrong not to make a personal statement at an early time, apologising to the House for misleading the House, quite clearly, in his reply to me. I know what happened. He took personal advice from a leading source—I think I know the source—who must have told him that this was a major political difference of opinion so he did not need to give a personal apology. I can only advise the noble Lord that in future he should not take any advice from that particular noble friend.

I readily admit that there was a political difference between us because clearly a major political difference was at the heart of my question and there needed to be some flexibility of a kind that was not enumerated by the noble Lord. Indeed, when I asked him whether the flexibility related to the Treasury’s special reserve, he said, “Definitely not”. On the other hand, could he tell us, as he did not tell me at the time, how much of the Treasury special reserve has already been used for the MoD, for unexpected expenditure in Libya, and for other departmental budgets that have been overstepped? Could he tell us what is left in that reserve to allow any flexibility to decide what should happen to the Chancellor’s plan? There cannot be any doubt that it was misleading. To say to the House, “What I was telling them was wrong”, is misleading the House. It was a major matter, and he refused to make a personal statement, and he was wrong in that. But I leave that alone.

My question had at its centre this political disagreement, a crucial disagreement between us. I do not for a moment regret having gone into that political difference, because political difference does not mean you cannot mislead the House. What it does mean is that the Government are ignoring this central problem of whether there should be some flexibility that could amount to a plan B. I have always said that no Chancellor could ever announce that he is introducing a plan B, because it immediately kills plan A. However, there may be other means of slowing down the cuts, which would help to introduce a sort of secret plan B. But the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, denied all of that, and said that he was not misleading the House. Indeed, he nearly went as far as maligning that distinguished business editor of the BBC, Robert Peston, the son of my even more distinguished noble friend Lord Peston, by suggesting that it might have been in his mind or in that of the interviewer that there were some special flexibility built into the plan.

While I have had to read some difficult briefs in my time, listening to the noble Lord this evening and his degree of optimism about everything in the Finance Bill and the economic situation, I cannot believe that he could have believed what was in his brief. He should have deleted it. How can there be any degree of optimism about the economy and economic prospects at the moment? I would not propose to quote many of the numerous comments from truly independent forecasters about what is likely to happen to the economy in the next few months, let alone years. However, I would not mind just quoting one, before the noble Lord encounters what my dear old friend Denis Healey—the noble Lords, Lord Healy always said: the advice that, “If you’re in a hole, stop digging”. The noble Lord—Lord Sassoon, is digging deeper and deeper. If he is not careful, he will have to apologise not only to me—which I do not mind—but also to Robert Peston and many others for pretending that one can have any degree of optimism at the present time.

The flexibility that should exist is not there. I will refer to one particular statement from an authority that may not be as independent as some, but it is certainly independent of the Labour Party. I refer to Deloitte, the well known, major accountancy firm, which audits many large companies. It stated that finance directors in Britain’s largest companies say that business optimism has fallen at a faster rate since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, and that one in three thinks there is a chance of a double-dip recession. I do not believe there is a chance of a double-dip recession; it seems unlikely, but certainly there are no grounds for optimism about what is happening in the economy. It is pretty clear that we can look forward, as my noble friend Lord Myners said, to many periods yet to come of low levels of economic growth, if not an actual downturn.

I do not doubt that there would have been some flexibility, but to compare it with the automatic stabilisers I find incredible. Surely the noble Lord, who is a very clever fellow, must have checked the Oxford English Dictionary and found that “stabilise” is somewhat different from “flexibility”, to put it mildly. I will not read the summary of the long points made about the two words in that dictionary that I received from the Library, but to say that there is no difference and that he was therefore answering my question is ludicrous.

Answering my question is not important. What is important is that the economy should truly move forward, and that we should be a little more optimistic about the likely outcome for the economy in the coming year, let alone in the coming years. If this means that the Chancellor has in mind in his plan to slow down the cuts, I am very glad to hear it. If he does not want to call it a plan B, I do not mind that either. He can call it anything he likes, as long as he has it in mind to do it, because that is the one way that he can truly make us all a little more optimistic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, we have had an interesting debate this evening, and I thank all the noble Lords for their contributions. In particular, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Magan of Castletown on what was—to echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham—a masterly tour d’horizon of the economic scene. I have to say that it was about the one thing on which I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but let me come back to that.

As I said in my opening remarks, the Government welcome the constructive comments of the Economic Affairs Committee, and we will take these into account as we entrench a more predictable, stable and simple tax system. This year’s Finance Bill, the third of the current Session, has come through an unprecedented degree of consultation and engagement, and implements many of the changes announced at the Budget.

As we said at the Budget, and as we said last year, we are committed to growth through investment, through private sector recovery, and not through unsustainable deficits. This Bill moves us forward on that path to stability and recovery. It promotes our international competitiveness by cutting corporation tax by a further 1 per cent and by reforming our controlled foreign company rules. These are key steps to creating the most competitive tax system in the G20.

The Bill encourages growth by supporting our entrepreneurs and SMEs, by doubling entrepreneurs’ relief, increasing R&D tax credits and cutting the small profits tax rate. It embodies fairness by lifting hundreds of thousands of people out of income tax, and by ensuring that other sectors of society make a fair contribution to cutting the deficit and restoring sustainable growth. It provides for a better environment by incentivising investment in cleaner sources of energy. I am pleased to say that these points were picked up in different ways by a number of noble Lords in this debate.

Let me first take what I might call the pessimist tendency. The debate did not get off to a cracking start given the tone set by the noble Lord, Lord Myners, and followed up by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, so let me talk to the pessimists for a moment. This is an economy in which the private sector has generated over 500,000 new jobs in the last year. Manufacturers are talking to me about shortages of skills; about the need for more engineers; about welcoming the Government’s apprenticeship schemes; and all the noble Lord, Lord Myners, does is talk down the prospects for the economy. To be fair to him, he recognises that the economy is in the difficulty it is in because his Government did not deal with the structural deficit when they could have done. I certainly applaud his frankness, but it is a frightening challenge; and a legacy which the previous Government left.

I am, however, encouraged. On Friday, I was in Manchester, the old stamping ground of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, an area where the rebalancing from the public to the private sector is as challenging as anywhere. The latest quarterly survey from the Greater Manchester chamber of commerce points out encouraging signs. I think that some noble Lords need to get out and about around the country more.

On the specific point which the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, raised about reserves, it is a little late at night to go into details about this. However, I know that it is a point that bothers the noble Lord considerably so I will write to him.

[Lord Barnett]

Don’t bother.

[Lord Sassoon]

The noble Lord says “Don’t bother” so I will not. I do not know whether other noble Lords heard; as he tells me not to write, I will not, but I have made the offer.

As to the extraordinary speech from the noble Lord, Lord Myners, which continually came back to praise the former Chancellor, Mr Darling, I can only think that he read in the Sunday newspapers, as I did, that Mr Darling is coming close to finalising his memoirs. I assume that this was a late play to make sure that Mr Darling looks favourably on the noble Lord, Lord Myners, and his part in the previous Government, but we shall see. We then got away from the pessimists but came back to one or two a bit towards the end. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, joined in by talking about the Government transferring debt to the citizens. The trouble is that the government debt is the debt of the citizens and that attitude, I fear, underlay so much of what the previous Government did. They completely failed to recognise that it is the citizens who, at the end of the day, have to pick up the debt.

In terms of unrealistic ways to go about getting us out of the challenge we are in, I have to say to the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, that one way in which we will absolutely kill growth is if we raise further the top rate of income tax from a level which is not one that this Government wish to see in the medium term. We desperately need to encourage entrepreneurship and growth and the one thing we should not think of doing is further raising the top rate of tax. I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Myners, nodding in approval.

I do not recognise the picture which the pessimists paint. However, I recognise that there are a lot of serious challenges out there, which noble Lords pointed to throughout the debate. I cannot deal with them in detail but my noble friend Lord Newby was the first—and virtually the last—speaker to refer to the European dimension, which is very difficult, while my noble friend Lord Higgins again pointed out the real challenges that there are in analysing the monetary situation and taking lessons from it.

The noble Lord, Lord Desai, raised the question of the savings rate and I completely agree with the challenge that that poses. I am delighted that the noble Lord appears to have lost none of his vigour even though it appears that Delilah may have got at Samson. It was a great reassurance that he is still on fine form. My noble friend Lord Ryder of Wensum was also on fine form. He raised a lot of points but, yes, regulation and employment are very challenging. I would point out to my noble friend that we are in the process of putting 21,000 regulations on the Red Tape Challenge website. We will indeed eliminate significant quantities of regulation while on employment law, another key area, we have already made moves on unfair dismissal to right the balance between employers and employees. My right honourable friend the Chancellor has identified five other areas where we are looking at employment regulation at the moment.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, talked about the protection that is important to lower-paid public sector workers. The Government have indeed made the £250 payment for all those within central government and are encouraging all other public sector bodies to abide by that.