Finance (No. 2) Bill

Michael McCann Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)]

I welcome the new shadow Treasury team to their roles. Obviously, I have had experience of debating with the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the new shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I look forward to continuing those debates, and to debating with the new members of the team.

We have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate. I pay tribute to the maiden speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), who follows in the footsteps of a fantastic predecessor. He described a constituency that I know, and he is right to say that it is absolutely beautiful. He is very lucky to represent it, and I am sure that he will do a great job in his new role.

Let me turn to the Finance (No. 2) Bill. Obviously, its clauses have a lower profile than many of the measures announced in the emergency Budget, but they are nevertheless important for the smooth running of the tax system. That is why the previous Government were also keen to see many of the measures put on to the statute book.

Let us be clear about why we are debating the Bill in the autumn, and not earlier in the year. As we have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) and for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), and from many others, when the coalition Government came to power, we faced an economic challenge of an unprecedented scale. In fact, urgent action was needed, and we responded with the emergency Budget. The shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), who responded to the debate, seem to have developed some form of amnesia when it comes to the content of the emergency Budget and why it was required. It is impossible to exaggerate the seriousness of the situation that we inherited, or the risks to Britain if we had continued on the course that they proposed. There were almost 2.5 million people unemployed; yet again, a Labour Government left office with unemployment higher than when they came in. We inherited the largest budget deficit in the G20, and a fiscal legacy that had us spending £4 for every £3 that we raised in taxation.

We had to take action to restore the credibility of the UK economy, to allow the recovery to take hold, and to ensure that future growth was sustainable and not driven by an ever-growing burden of debt. That is why we introduced a short Finance Bill in the summer—to maintain economic stability, calm market fears and put in place a credible plan to deal with the record deficit. That plan is supported by the International Monetary Fund, the OECD, the CBI, the Bank of England and countless other organisations that clearly have a greater grasp of the deep dangers that face our economy than the Labour party does.

There was an opportunity today for the Opposition to start participating in the debate on the most important challenge facing our country—how to get our economy back on track. I was interested to hear whether they have a plan, now that they have a new leader. The answer is that they do not. The debate touched briefly on the subject of tax avoidance, but the Opposition have developed a brand new form of tax avoidance. They try to avoid talking about tax and spend altogether or having any plan to deal with it.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

In my constituency over the past 13 years 17 new high schools and more than 50 new primary schools have been built. Does the hon. Lady condemn that investment?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman should direct his question at his colleagues, who had planned the capital cuts that he no doubt hates so much. If he comes and looks at other schools, he will see that his Government left schools such as my own Elliott school in Putney in an appalling state. I do not think he has an answer to that.

We heard a number of contributions from Opposition Members. The hon. Member for Wallasey offered no alternative to the plan set out by the Government. The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) spoke about scrapping the package that we presented in the emergency Budget to support business. We heard from the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who apparently welcomed the Bill and wanted investment, but was against the cuts in corporation tax that we introduced. We heard from the hon. Members for Islwyn (Chris Evans), for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), and for Bassetlaw (John Mann) who were all against taking action to sort out the economy. At least the hon. Member for Bassetlaw acknowledged that his party has a gaping chasm in its economic policy. Until the Opposition fill that, they will have no credibility.