Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker); we have heard each other speak many times over the past few weeks.

When I was asked what I wanted to see in the Budget, my general response was “Not a lot.” The key thing is to keep a steady course and not scare the horses with a sharp change of direction, and that, as we can see from the Red Book, is the Chancellor’s main strategy. In the current financial year, the deficit is still about £126 billion, so there is no real scope for the Chancellor to take major expensive action. Looking forward to next year, we still see a deficit of about £90 billion, with public spending of £683 billion, which is nearly £2 billion a day. The most significant Budget measure for the coming financial year is the corporation tax cut, which is highly welcome. It is worth just under £400 million, which is about four hours’ worth of public spending. There has not been scope, and there is no scope, for major changes in that situation.

What most investors want from the British tax regime is stability and predictability. That is the strategy the Government set out at the start of this Parliament, and I am glad they have stuck to it, and that when we hit the start of the new financial year in a couple of weeks’ time, there will be no major changes for everyone to understand over the next fortnight. Most of what will apply was well signalled and we all knew about it months ago. There has been detailed consultation on many of the major measures; others are to do with anti-avoidance, which clearly we cannot consult on, but they are more than welcome.

As the debate today was opened by the Secretary of State for Transport, it would be rude not to touch on a few transport issues. Like other Members, I welcome the investment in transport infrastructure. One thing that has not had much attention in this debate is the decision to set up the transport innovation centre. I am sure the Government will recognise the overwhelming case for it to be based in Derby, where we have Rolls-Royce, Toyota and Bombardier. I can think of nowhere else in the country where transport plays a greater role in the economy and where there are more people with the skills to make the centre work effectively.

In all the Government’s recent announcements about the electrification of rail lines, it is a pity that they missed out the east midlands main line. It serves a large part of the country and a number of deprived areas. We suffer from a much slower train service than the east coast or the west coast, which must have an effect on economic activity. In fact, to get to London for 9.30 this morning, it was quicker for me to catch a train to Tamworth and change to the west coast main line than to stay on the east midlands line. There is an overwhelming economic case for electrifying the line and I hope that that will be brought forward.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) said, after three days of Budget debates most of the good points have been made. Obviously, I warmly welcome the increase in personal tax allowance for the lowest paid; it will affect 23 million people, which is a strong signal of where we think our values should be. Of all the money the Chancellor has at his disposal, the £3.3 billion annual cost when that measure takes effect shows where his focus and priorities lie.

I welcome the measures announced previously to try to get more finance to small and medium-sized businesses—the loan guarantee and credit-easing schemes. We hope the banks will take them on so that businesses around the country have access to the finance they need to grow and create jobs.

I shall spend the last few minutes of my speech talking about the importance of tax simplification, which was front and centre in the Budget. I especially commend the valuable work of the Office of Tax Simplification on this Budget and the previous one. I only hope that the Government, having seen the value of the work of the OTS, will commission it to do something more ambitious and look at how we can radically reform business taxation and corporation tax to make them simpler and to make the country even more attractive to investors.

The OTS recently produced a report on the taxation of the smallest businesses. I welcome the fact that the Chancellor went further than it recommended, in effect allowing businesses with turnover of up to £77,000 not to prepare detailed accounts, but just to pay tax on their cash surplus each year. If that coincides with VAT thresholds, businesses will know that if their turnover is less than about £77,000 they will not have to prepare detailed accounts for tax purposes or deal with VAT. That is a powerful message to send to the smallest businesses. I look forward to the consultation to see how that measure can be made to work. However, there is just one issue I want to raise. We all want the guy who is making a nice living for himself—perhaps a successful plumber—to be able to grow his business, and to take on someone to train. The risk is that if he does so, and takes his turnover beyond £77,000, he will suddenly be clobbered by having to register for VAT and going through the accounts process. We need to think about how we transition successful people who take on extra staff, which would tackle unemployment, and bring down the compliance level for them, but that is not to take away from what is a welcome measure.

A slightly less welcome review from the Office of Tax Simplification was the review on taxation of pensioners, which is where the Budget measure that has been most controversial—the changes to the personal allowances for people over a certain age—may have originated. Those of us that have argued for tax simplification have had to accept that whatever we try to change there will be some winners, who will be very grateful but probably very quiet, and some losers, who will be somewhat less grateful and no doubt quite a lot louder. Understandably, that is what has happened. When there is no fiscal room, there is no way of easing the burden on those that lose in the short term or of trying to spread that pain, although the increase in the state pension tackles some of that. But the change is a year away and there is scope to have a look at it.

I welcome the Budget. It sticks to the course that we need and takes our finances in the right direction, heading back towards stability. I think it will be a successful Budget for growth in this country.