Fiscal Responsibility and Fairness

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

Given that the hon. Gentleman speaks on behalf of a party that wants to break up and bankrupt the United Kingdom and that has set out plans to have the national debt higher at the end of the next Parliament than at the beginning, he has a cheek. The Scottish National party’s plans would do nothing to sort out this country’s economy. They would damage the recovery and cause jobs to be lost in Scotland. I think that the people of Scotland can make up their own minds about that.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the work that he has done to ensure that the wealthiest pay a much higher contribution in taxes than they did under the last Government, who created more loopholes for the rich to avoid taxes than there are holes in a sieve. Surely it is perfectly legitimate for a coalition that has secured recovery and growth for five years to set out how that can be taken forward in the next five years. May I suggest that if coalitions are to become the norm, we need to find better ways of handling them, so that the two coalition parties can present their cases to the House? This statement is a perfectly reasonable way of doing that.

[Danny Alexander]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. I thank him for his support on the measures to support tax avoidance and evasion and on the package of measures that we announced yesterday to support the oil and gas industry, which has been widely welcomed in his constituency and elsewhere. He is absolutely right that although the Labour party might not like the fact that we have a coalition Government, it needs to get used to the idea that that may well be the norm for many years to come. Innovation will be needed in parliamentary procedures and other things to accommodate that.