Autumn Statement 2022

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Chancellor who warned of a black hole has indeed consigned us to a dungeon. If the main drivers of inflation—the energy crisis, the pandemic and its effect on supply chains—are global, and we face recession, it is the wrong response to weaken our economy with a planned fiscal tightening of 2% of GDP. Falling real incomes and interest rate increases will amply reduce domestic inflationary pressures. There are pay demands, of course, but no wage-price spiral. We are now on track to 19 years of no real growth in average wages and household income. We know the enormous damage that excessive austerity in Britain did to investment and productivity, public services and living standards following the global financial crisis. Once we have brought inflation down, do we then need austerity 2.0 to satisfy newly contrived fiscal rules on the ratio of debt to GDP? While markets will not tolerate unfunded tax cuts, they might well take a benign view of investment in public services that will strengthen our economy.

If there is a black hole in the British economic cosmos, it is that which sucks resources away from low-income families and public services and piles them up in the bank accounts of the wealthy. The Chancellor’s reductions in capital gains tax and dividend allowances twinkle only faintly in that murk. With his decision to allow the average energy bills faced by households to rise in the spring, we shall see how far his measures to support people on low incomes will go. The prognostications are worrying. An indexing of benefits that have previously been severely cut and capped, with disregards and capital limits frozen, hardly justifies his claims that this is a compassionate Government. His reliance on dragging low earners into the tax net through freezing the income tax and national insurance thresholds equally belies that claim.

Important for people struggling in poverty is the maintenance of law and order and the good functioning of the justice system—but once again, and scandalously, these have been neglected. The plight of renters in the private sector was unaddressed. If he sincerely wants to help more disadvantaged communities, why has he made a real-terms cut in the Budget for levelling up? How much control of resources will the Treasury really allow for mayors and local authorities?

The Chancellor offered no vision of how we are to meet certain great economic challenges. On climate change, infinitely the most important, he reaffirmed the 2030 target for emissions reduction, but gave no indication of what the Government will invest overall, with numbers and waymarks, along the journey to net zero. What are the Government’s projections for overall spending on averting climate change, adapting to climate change and repairing the damage of climate change? Confirmation that Sizewell C is to go ahead, plans to build some small modular nuclear reactors, and the investment announced in energy efficiency, welcome and significant as they are, do not amount to a full strategy. The Prime Minister is being blown hither and thither by onshore wind and his own MPs.

The Chancellor said nothing about the Treasury’s view on biodiversity loss. Nor did he tell us how our country will be enabled to support an ageing population or to develop the resilience to protect itself against another pandemic. The additional money that he announced for the NHS will not be sufficient to fund the pay increases needed to prevent the system buckling, tackle the backlog, and meet rising demand for healthcare in the recession. He offered no vision for a model of health- care that will be economically sustainable for the future. The Autumn Statement had nothing to say about resources for preventive strategies to lessen demands on the NHS and enable us to become a healthier society. A long-term workforce plan, rightly, is being commissioned, but he said nothing about its funding.

Equally, the additional funds for social care will not stabilise the system, enable the release of enough hospital beds, and provide decently for the vulnerable and frail in the community. By putting the onus on local authorities to fund much of the increase in care funding through council tax—a regressive tax—the Chancellor ensured that the cost and benefit will not fall equitably. He did not foreshadow any plan to integrate the health and social care systems in order to get rid of the vast inefficiencies of their separation.

The root cause of the threadbare state of our public services is our poor productivity. The Chancellor announced constructive policies on regulation, competition, tariffs, clusters, and R&D spend. I hope that his policy on Solvency II is prudent. More is needed to forge a comprehensive strategy covering availability of labour and capital, childcare, skills, taxation, regulation, planning, infrastructure, housing, personal and business mobility, and obstacles to trade. Plans for infrastructure investment were cut back. He said not a word about immigration. Why did he not have the candour to say that immigration is good for the economy? Will he make sure that the Home Secretary does not wreck our universities? The additional funding for schools will do no more than restore the level in 2010. The Barber review is still to come, but there was no indication of an uplift in funding for post-16 education and apprenticeships. The Chancellor should challenge convention and classify spending on education and training, which is investment in human capital, as capital expenditure.

By reducing R&D reliefs for small and medium enterprises, which the noble Lord, Lord Fox, spoke about, instead of improving the policing of abuse, the Chancellor removed incentives for enterprise and innovation in science-based industries. The tax changes that he announced, on stamp duty and business rates, were not part of a programme of tax reform to drive improved productivity. Corporation tax will rise from April, and the super-deduction capital allowance will expire. We are going to live with higher taxes under any Government. That need not impair economic performance, but it makes it all the more urgent that we have a rational tax system. The Chancellor has shown no interest in this crucial part of his responsibilities.

The Chancellor has appeased the markets for now. On the tests of strategic vision, investment, growth, the future of our public services, and fairness, his Autumn Statement is wanting.