Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

Perhaps the hon. Lady should also study the book. The interesting thing is that the OBR is also forecasting that unemployment will rise, not fall. More jobs, unemployment rising—maybe there are more people in the country. Does she know what the OBR forecasts net migration to be in the next few years? Tens of thousands? No. Net migration of 140,000 every year. That is what is going on.

It is groundhog day too because, as a result of the present stagnation, the Chancellor’s fiscal plans are even more wildly out of control than they were a year ago. No wonder his fiscal credibility is in tatters. The Chancellor used to claim that the national debt would start to fall in 2015 from a peak of 69.7% of GDP. He now expects it to rise in 2015, to rise in 2016, to rise in 2017 and to hit a staggering not 69.7%, but 85.6% of GDP. And the reason the national debt is rising is that, as the OBR said yesterday, the Chancellor’s deficit reduction plan has stalled. The deficit is now expected to be the same next year as it is this year and as it was last year. It is not a deficit reduction plan anymore. That is why the Chancellor is now set to borrow—[Interruption.] The Chancellor should listen to this. He is now set to borrow £245 billion more than he planned, vastly more than the borrowing he inherited from the Labour Government.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

While the vast army of PAs behind the shadow Chancellor search for a bullet point on Bedford, let me say that his criticisms are not falling very strongly, in part because his hands are dipped in red—the red ink of years of borrowing and debt. Does he not think that the arguments would be stronger if he moved to one side and gave his seat to the fresh-faced young man sitting next to him, the shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills?

[Ed Balls]

The voters of Bedford might be disappointed to find out the truth: compared with a year ago, the Chancellor will borrow £29 billion more than he planned this year, £59 billion more next year, £73 billion more the year after and £77 billion more the year after that. Mr Deputy Speaker, if you want to know who the borrowing Chancellor is, it is him. Do you know what he managed to do yesterday in his Budget documentation? He fiddled around and managed to say that borrowing this year is lower than it was last year by £0.1 billion. We know why: as the OBR confirms, the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, when one would think they would be working on a plan for jobs and growth or reform of the banking system, have been scrabbling around and hacking away at spending in this year in a desperate attempt to try to get the borrowing down.

The detail is set out on page 13 of the OBR document. It shows that, compared even with the autumn statement, tax revenues are down this year by £5 billion but that since December the Chancellor has found a further so-called underspend of £3.4 billion, which he says is not like normal underspends. What does the OBR tell us about that so-called underspend. It states:

“It is very rare for the government to under-spend the departmental plans it has set out less than a year ago by such a wide margin...Our overall forecast of under-spending has a number of elements: money that the Treasury has agreed to allow departments to move into future years;…money that departments thought they would spend this year, but which they do not now expect to spend either this year or in the future; and payments (for example to some international institutions) that were due to be made late in the current financial year, but which are being delayed into 2013-14.”

The cheque is in the post, but it will not arrive until after 1 April in order to massage the figures. Who does the OBR say has been hardest hit? The answer is the national health service, which has been cut by over £2 billion this year. At the same time the NHS is losing more than 5,000 nurses, the Treasury scrabbles around to try to save the Chancellor’s face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

A CCS competition is taking place. As the Chancellor pointed out in his Budget, there is a recognition of the problems of energy-intensive industries in the north-east, Scunthorpe and south Wales. They will be given an extra year of support as a result of yesterday’s announcement.

[Richard Fuller]

I commend my right hon. Friend’s comments on exports—I have seen for myself UK exports to the Nigerian market. Does he agree that getting traditionally reluctant small and medium-sized business to export is key? Does he also agree that the employment allowance will enable some of our small businesses to take on those additional employees to attack those new markets?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is right on both counts. I was recently in Nigeria supporting that effort. If we are to have momentum, it must come through small and medium-sized companies. Frankly, the export effort in many emerging markets was neglected for most of the past decade—the relationships are not there and must be built up. He is also right that the employment allowance, which will help 400,000 micro-companies, is a big step forward and a big incentive to them to take on that extra member of staff.

In my concluding section, I shall address some of the big strategic choices made in the Budget. We can argue about temporary changes, but it is important that the country has a sense of direction. First, the industrial strategy gives a sense of direction; secondly, the changes in money and banking policy are fundamental after the crisis; and thirdly, the tax agenda creates a greater level of fairness.

On the industrial strategy, I was teased earlier about the “compelling vision” for the British economy, but we clearly need a vision of the economy that goes beyond one Parliament and Government, and that stretches decades ahead. That is why we have made the commitment to long-term planning and working in partnership with business in those sectors of the economy that need such a framework. We have produced agreements with the aerospace industry, and will do so with the automotive and biological sciences industries, and with the supply chains in renewable and non-renewable energy, which were desperately hollowed out in the years when manufacturing was neglected under the previous Government. We are trying to rebuild those supply chains.

A Back-Bench colleague made the point that we have an extra 70,000 jobs in manufacturing after 1 million were lost in the decade of the Labour Government. Of course, the industrial strategy is not just about manufacturing; it is about key service sectors such as education and higher education, and professional and financial services, which are equally important in driving exports.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman]

I will develop my argument a little further, if I may, as time is limited.

We need a credible programme for deficit reduction, a fair burden of taxation and a long-term vision for the British economy, and that is what the Budget delivered. Simon Walker of the Institute of Directors said yesterday:

“We applaud this Budget. The Chancellor has stuck to his guns and held his nerve—which is exactly what we wanted to see. Deficit reduction is not an optional policy, it is an absolute necessity, and he is right to reject the siren calls to abandon it.”

Plan A is right for three central reasons. First, it tackles the appalling structural debt legacy that we were bequeathed by the Opposition. Secondly, it does so in a way that is fair in allocating the burden of taxation that must be paid. Thirdly, it is bold in setting out the platform at the base of an industrial policy for a sustainable economic recovery in which future generations—particularly the current young generation, who will have to deal with the debt crisis—can have confidence.

Let me remind the House, particularly Opposition Front Benchers, of the nature of the debt legacy we inherited. We started with the worst debt to GDP ratio of any country in the western world, worse than that of Greece and other economies that have been put into special measures by the IMF. The annual deficit when we started was running at 11% of GDP and is now 7%—that, for the benefit of Opposition Front Benchers, is a reduction.

In the situation we inherited, the interest on our debts was set to rise, if we had not acted, to £76 billion a year. We were spending £1 on interest for every £4 the Government were spending on public services. The national debt was just short of £1 trillion—roughly £15,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. As 1 trillion is a big number and people are baffled by big numbers, let me try to break it down. If it took 11 days to pay off £1 million, how long would it take to pay off £1 billion? Thirty-two years—[Interruption.] Opposition Members might think that it is funny, but I can assure them I do not, my constituents do not and the young people who will have to claw their way out of the crisis do not. If it takes 11 days to pay off £1 million and 32 years to pay off £1 billion, it takes 32,000 years to pay off £1 trillion at the same rate.

The truth is that we inherited not just an annual deficit but a structural deficit. For the benefit of Opposition Members who are not aware of the difference, the structural deficit is that bit of the Budget which, even when the economy is growing, continues to haemorrhage money. The biggest drivers of our structural deficit are pensions, benefits and the NHS. The IFS pre-Budget briefing yesterday, which was made available to all parties, makes it clear that the structural deficit continues to put a black hole at the heart of our public finances. The IFS forecasts that between 2011 and 2018 we will be spending an extra £5 billion on pensions, £20 billion on benefits and £15 billion on the NHS. That is after the sensible and pragmatic reforms we have introduced. It is a legacy the Opposition should be ashamed of.

Plan A sets out three key ways of dealing with that—tackling the deficit, a fair burden of tax and a sustainable long-term platform for growth. We have cut the deficit by 30%, from 11% of GDP to 7%, although the shadow Chancellor seemed unable this morning to accept that that is indeed a reduction. The IFS has made it clear that under the Labour party’s plan B we would incur £201 billion more debt by 2016-17. Who on earth could think that borrowing another £200 billion, given that legacy, is the answer?

On the second part of plan A, the fairness of the burden of taxation, the Opposition have been scaremongering about it and need to understand it. First, the Chancellor has decided, rightly, to pay off 80% of the debt through public spending reductions and 20% through taxation. The burden of taxation is powerfully shifted towards those with the broadest shoulders. I remind the House that 1% of taxpayers in this country pay 25% of all tax, and 50% of our income tax is paid by the top 20%. We have taken 2 million people out of tax altogether. The £130 billion funding to help new homeowners is the largest package of support—far larger than anything the Opposition were asking for. The £6 billion relief on fuel duty is a massive support for hard-working families, and coming from a rural constituency I particularly welcome its effect on the rural economy. The beer duty measure, too, is a substantial one for rural communities where pubs are at the very heart of rural life; substantial help is also being provided with child care.

This is a Budget to help the working poor. Taken alongside the universal credit and the welfare reforms, it will have a substantial impact on those who are striving to get on. In the remaining seconds, I want to pay tribute to the Government’s work in laying the foundations for a sustainable economic recovery. We cannot borrow our way out of this crisis. We will have to trade our way out.

[Richard Fuller]

I would be interested to hear what my hon. Friend thinks should be the foundations of that strategy.

[George Freeman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I believe that this country has every reason to be optimistic about our ability to trade our way out of the present crisis. Around the world the emerging nations are growing at a phenomenal rate—7% to 8% for the BRIC nations and the 11+ nations following them. They have extraordinary needs, and in the next 30 years they will go through a revolution in medicine, food, energy, professional services, IT and leisure that we took nearly 200 years to go through. In all the areas where we have a strong and mature offering, these countries will drive phenomenal demand in the years ahead.

I applaud the work the Government have done to lay the foundations in science and research funding, skills and the industrial strategy, on which we heard from colleagues earlier. In my own sector—life sciences, food, medicine and energy, three of the largest markets in the world—today, Astra Zeneca has made a major commitment to this country, investing £300 million in Cambridge and making us its global head of research and development. With this vision, people can be confident that we are tackling the debt crisis in a way that is fair and that will allow their children to be optimistic for a better future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

This is a Government whose central argument rests on the spurious claim that the economic crisis was national and all Labour’s fault up until 2010, and magically internationalised only after they came to power. With every passing day, the extent of that basic deception and the false conclusions drawn from it are exposed. We were told the pain would be worth it because the Chancellor would have the debt and the deficit under control by 2015. Now it will be 2017-18 and, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the current debt overshoot is likely to be £8 billion higher than predicted just three months ago.

This was the tomorrow budget for a tomorrow that never comes—almost anything of any value is put off until 2015 or beyond. With a Chancellor whose forecasts have proved worthless so far, just what kind of certainty does that provide? The Government’s claim is that the deficit is down by a third but the OBR’s figures show that it is down by less than a quarter, and there is no prospect of further cuts in the deficit in the next two years.

[Richard Fuller]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that the answer is to borrow more money?

[Steve McCabe]

The answer can be to borrow some money for investment, but not to squander it on rising unemployment and wasteful expenditure, which is what the Chancellor is doing. All the pain will simply be to stand still. The OBR has also pointed out that the public debt in 2015, rather than being the £37 billion the Chancellor originally promised, will actually be a staggering £108.4 billion. Just when are this lot going to learn that they have lost all right to lecture anybody about debt?

I welcome the cut in the duty on beer, although the VAT rise added 5p to a pint of beer, and the likely benefit of the measure will be offset by the loss of jobs and sales in the whisky industry, so it is not quite the achievement that some people might think. I am also pleased that the Chancellor has offered some certainty by scrapping, rather than postponing for the umpteenth time, the planned rise in petrol. The £3 billion lift in capital spending is welcome, but we need it now, not in 2015. His own fiscal rules allow him to borrow to invest: why does he not do so?

We can all welcome the cut in national insurance for small employers as probably the one genuinely growth-stimulating measure in the Budget. Perhaps that is not surprising, as it was our idea.

The Chancellor has once again promised a cut in corporation tax in 2015. Just like the now-forgotten triple A rating, stimulating inward investment by cuts to corporation tax is a Government mantra. It is not working, however. Foreign direct investment inflows to the UK fell between 2010 and 2011, and are now about a third of what they were before the crash. Meanwhile our total investment rate is 15% of GDP—the lowest in the G7—and our current account deficit is now at its highest since the 1980s. We are stifling opportunities for investment.

Legitimate foreign students are worth approximately £8 billion a year to the British economy, and that is being lost in pursuit of the Home Secretary’s immigration target. Simultaneously, she is letting in 30,000 people a year on temporary student visas that require no entry qualifications, no evidence of income and no guarantee of qualification. As usual, it is the wrong target at the wrong time. Similarly, the lack of Chinese tourists means that the very people we need to attract and to encourage to trade with us are now four times more likely to take their spending to France.

As usual, this was a Budget of missed opportunities. Where is the plan for a properly capitalised British investment bank of the kind operated by every other G7 country? There is nothing in the Budget about a target to decarbonise by 2030, but that is exactly the message that would provide certainty for the renewables supply chain and create jobs. Only one in 10 wind farm components are directly sourced in the UK. Why is it that the Chancellor is unable to see what everybody else can see?

The Chancellor called this a budget for an aspiration nation; it sounds more like alienation to me. He is presiding over what Professor Arnold Blumberg calls a zombie economy where rising inflation and no growth eats away at savings, strangles enterprise and innovation, and deprives small businesses of the capital and opportunities they need to grow. We have yet to see who the real beneficiaries of the abolition of stamp duty on share trading will be, but we know who it will not be. This is an alienation budget because the vast majority of our people are into their third year of pay cuts and falling livings standards, and the only ones doing okay are the millionaires in line for a tax cut. There is alienation as it emerges that the mortgage assistance scheme is actually a second home subsidy at the very time when the bedroom tax threatens to throw others out on to the street.

I invite the Chancellor to try listening to real people, like I do. Of those I surveyed in Selly Oak, 50% said that creating jobs and the conditions for jobs should be his top priority, 39% were worried about the rise in domestic gas and electricity prices, and 29% cannot make ends meet and will be forced into debt by his policies. The people of Selly Oak are a good barometer and they know what needs to be done. When will this Chancellor start to listen to real people and do the things that the country desperately needs?

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who represents a very different part of the United Kingdom from the one I represent. It is always informative to listen to his contributions, and I always learn something from them.

There are some very good points in the Budget for the people of Bedford and Kempston. The cuts in national insurance rates—Labour’s job tax—are a welcome change, meaning that the people of Bedford are more likely to have a job. When they travel to work in their cars, they can look at the petrol pump and see that fuel duty has been frozen. When they arrive at work, they will know that at the end of the day, thanks to the increase in the personal allowance, they will keep more of the money they have earned. When they get home in the evening and go out to the pub with their mates, they can raise a pint to the Chancellor and say, “Thank you very much for scrapping that other iniquity of our tax system left by the last Labour Government—the beer duty escalator.” Those are all very welcome measures. On fuel duty, it is particularly important for everyone to realise that when they fill up their tank and look up at the price per litre, 13p of that is Labour’s price on fuel, which applies every time we fill up our cars.

Let me draw your attention, Mr Deputy Speaker, and that of Members to page 12 of the Red Book, which features an interesting chart—I see Members avidly reaching for it—showing the growth of debt in this country from the mid-1990s until 2010. It shows that the last Labour Government left this country as the most indebted nation on earth. They grew our debt—this does not include Government debt, which has to be added on top—from two times to five times the size of the economy. That is a massive debt that must be paid for by our children and grandchildren. I wonder whether the Economic Secretary would consider adding the Government debt to this chart and requiring to be displayed on a poster in every single school, so that our children know what they are going to have to pay back owing to the policies pursued by the last Labour Government. Their policies were an abject failure of economic management.

In the private sector, when companies have poorly performing management, we fire them and bring in other people. In the Labour party, they promote them.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

He’s pointing at me!

[Richard Fuller]

The Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor were promoted, yet their fingers are all over this increase in debt. I must say that the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) has it right. Those two are acting as bed blockers for more talented people on the Opposition Front Bench. Let us hope there will be a change in that regard some day.

Let me say more broadly, if I may—I sometimes get a little controversial—that the debates I have heard in this place since becoming a Member of Parliament have reinforced my view that the political class has let down the people of this country, regardless of political party. The debt is not just the fault of the last Labour Government but of the country as a whole, which had got itself into terrible levels of debt.

There are two ways of looking at the problem. The Government are borrowing £1 billion every three days, the interest on which amounts to £15 million. So, every three days, £15 million has to be taken out of the budget for our schools and our hospitals. That is a very considerable burden that places pressure on the Government, and I say to the Economic Secretary that I am not sure the Government have done enough to bring public expenditure under control. We have to go further. We need to look at the Heseltine review of the way the Government spend their money—not as an end-point, but as a starting-point for a much more radical reform of how we provide our cherished public services, so that we can deliver on the promise of providing more for less money.

In my remaining time, let me mention the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme. I have read the scheme outline and there are some interesting charts in it, but an important chart is missing—that for the loan-to-value ratio over time.

[Andrew Griffiths]

Does my hon. Friend share the joy of many first-time buyers in my constituency at the fact that this will give them a real chance to get on the housing ladder?

[Richard Fuller]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s intervention, but I am not sure that I can share his joy. The impetus behind this Treasury document is the notion that enhancing loan-to-value ratios of 95% is somehow a good policy, and I need some more reassurance about that.

Let us compare the average house bought in 1997 at the average loan-to-value ratio of 80% with the average house bought in 2007—after all that price inflation—at a 95% loan-to-value ratio. Over the 20 or 25 years of their mortgage, the people who bought the average house in 2007 will have to spend £234,000 more than those who bought the average house in 1997. Increasing loan-to-value ratios depresses people’s ability to spend money on other things, because they are spending more on their mortgages. I want some more reassurance from the Treasury that this scheme will not have unintended consequences for their ability to spend money appropriately in relation to their incomes.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Is not another possible unintended consequence of the measure the setting off of regionally based house price spirals, exacerbating some of the regional differences that other measures in the Budget are intended to address?

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but I do not see that that would be a problem in this instance. In fact, the scheme might counteract the problem. However, it is clear that the issue needs to be sorted out as what is currently an outline becomes a fully developed scheme.

Let me end by making a fundamental point. Every politician in the House must recognise that our debt burden presents us all with a challenge to do more with less. The answer is not to continue kicking the can down the road. We must face up to our responsibilities, and we owe it to the generations to come to do that quickly, while interest rates are low, rather than waiting to see what—as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins)—may happen if they suddenly start to spike, and we find ourselves in a much more difficult position in trying to bring Government spending back under control.