Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
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Budget Statement
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]
My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Khan, and my noble friends Lord Cruddas and Lord Benyon, on their maiden speeches.
I hope that the usual channels are hanging their heads in shame this morning. The country is facing its worst ever economic shock in peacetime, and we are asked to debate these two Motions in two minutes. Not even the late Nicholas Parsons would have expected the profound questions facing our country to be dealt with in “Just a Minute”, although our new imposed procedures ensure that ministerial replies are delivered without interruption.
We are sleepwalking into an unemployment crisis. Public sector borrowing is at astronomical levels. Productivity is almost stagnant. Quantitative easing is on an industrial scale. The independence of the Bank of England is being questioned, as the noble Lord, Lord King, indicated earlier in the debate. We need a strategy that shifts public spending from job protection to job creation. The youngest and lowest paid in our country have suffered the most damage to their livelihoods, with folk under 25 more than two and a half times more likely to work in a shut-down sector. Businesses and families are saddled with crippling debt, and the Budget does not provide for inevitable future demands in areas such as social care, local government and transport.
Higher taxes are not the answer now. We need an economy that is growing again, with supply side measures and encouragement and support for the self-employed and small business, for technology, for the seed corn of recovery. To reduce all of these and other questions for consideration to speeches of two minutes makes a mockery of this House. Why we could not have had two days’ debate or started at 9am and finished in the evening escapes me. If this House cannot hold the Executive to account, it has no purpose, and there are an increasing number of critics outside who will relish spectacles such as today’s.