Balancing the Public Finances

Debate between Mark Harper and Craig Tracey

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we let the public finances get out of control, interest rates would rise and hard-pressed families who are having to make difficult decisions would see the cost of their mortgages and other debts go up, which would not make their lives any easier at all.

Let us consider the impact of controlling the public finances on the real economy. If we look at growth, at how fast the economy has grown over the past seven years, we see that our economic performance among the G7 largest countries in the world has been second only to that of the United States. Interestingly, we have grown our economy at almost double the rate of our nearest neighbour, France. In 2014 and 2016 we were the fastest growing G7 country, and the joint fastest in 2015. That is an impressive record. I mention that because our political opponents often pretend that balancing the public finances has not worked, but in generating economic growth it absolutely has worked.

[Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. Will he join me in welcoming the fact that the reduction in corporation tax to 19% has brought in the highest yields ever, bringing another £11 billion into the economy? Does he have any thoughts on what increasing the rate to, say, 26% would have on jobs and, importantly, our ability to reduce the deficit?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend, who makes a good point, tempts me to leap forward to the end of my remarks, but I will say only this about taxes: there is a big difference between rates of tax and how much money is raised. As Conservatives, we believe that the purpose of taxes is to raise money to pay for our public services. The Chancellor made it clear in the debate on the Queen’s Speech that by reducing the tax rate, thereby encouraging businesses to locate here and be more successful, we raised more money to pay for those public finances—I think the Chancellor said £18 billion more.

Looking at that performance, it seems to me likely that if we were to raise corporation tax two things would happen: first, we probably would not raise the money, so although we might pat ourselves on the back and pretend that we were raising taxes, we would not raise the money to pay for public services; and secondly, it is fairly obvious to everyone, or to everyone on the Government side of the House, that those taxes do not fall on businesses at all. When we raise taxes on business, there is no mystical “business” to pay them; those taxes fall either on workers, who will receive smaller pay rises, or on customers, who will see higher prices. Taxes all feed through, so everyone in the economy would pay the price of any corporation tax rises, which probably would not raise any more money to pay for our public services, so we would be shooting ourselves in the foot. My hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) makes exactly the right point.

I also want to mention our record on jobs, which is what I am proudest of: 3 million more people are now in work than were when we first came into office. Let me give the specific example—I think this will be heartening—of the impact on young people. In 2010 the unemployment rate among young people in this country was about 20%, which is comparable with that of our neighbours in the European Union and in the eurozone. Since we came into office, to this point, in those countries the unemployment rate among young people has been broadly flat, up a little but still around 20%. In our country it is down six percentage points, to 13%. That is not just a statistic; it means that hundreds of thousands of young people have had the opportunity to get a job when they leave school, college or university.