Autumn Statement

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Of course, what is very striking, if one looks at the receipts revenue forecasts from the OBR, is that they are wildly different from those produced by the Scottish Government before the recent referendum. As he will see tomorrow, when his colleague the Chief Secretary to the Treasury sets out in Aberdeen what we are doing, the tax cuts we announced today, which will come into effect in the coming weeks, will have an immediate effect, but we are also going to try to set out a longer road map for the direction we want to head in. As he well knows, industry investment decisions are made over long cycles and people need predictability about the future of the British oil and gas tax regimes so that we get the maximum amount of oil out of the basin.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

With average wages still suffering the longest and biggest fall since Victorian times, productivity still one of the lowest in the OECD, business investment still flat and below pre-crisis levels, the deficit on traded goods now the biggest in British history and, to cap it all, the budget deficit is clearly beginning to rise because of the fall in tax receipts, how can the Chancellor, against that background, continue with austerity when its consequences are clearly now causing the deficit to rise?

[Mr Osborne]

I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman is just wrong. Business investment is not flat; it is up 27% and is rising faster in the UK than in any other major advanced economy in the world. The deficit, according to the OBR document, was 10.2% under the previous Labour Government; it is now 5%. The idea that that is an increase is obviously nonsense. Indeed, it falls in every future year, just as it has fallen this year.