Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Robert Syms Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I welcome the Budget. The Treasury has had a particularly difficult time trying to do what it can to assist in this crisis, and I think it, and the British system of government, has done extremely well. Universal credit has worked well. Furlough has worked well. The self-employment income support scheme has worked well. There is some argument about where the boundaries are drawn, but from the point of view of the IT and getting the cheques out to people, it has worked pretty well. It is amazing that we have got through the crisis without the levels of unemployment that were once feared. One of the most pleasing things about the OBR forecast is that it looks as though although unemployment will go up in the next few months, it will peak at a lower rate and, towards the end of this Parliament, start to get back to where we were in the first place.

I am an optimist, and I am rather more optimistic than the OBR. I do not think we will have a budget deficit this year of £355 billion, which would require about £70 billion in the last two months. I do not think we will have a deficit of 10.4% next year and spend £250 billion. I think the economy, when the restrictions are lifted, will grow very rapidly indeed, because there is an awful lot of money sloshing around the economy. A lot of people I know want to go out to spend—to go to restaurants, buy a car or go on holiday. Once the restrictions are lifted and the degree of confidence from the vaccine goes through our country, things will move very rapidly. If there is a problem, it may be that there is so much money flowing through the system that it is chasing too few goods and we start to have inflation. Inflation has not been banished and we have to keep our eye on it. I think the deficits will be a little lower and the growth rates will be a little higher, and business will get back to growing rapidly when we lift all the restrictions.

My main plea to the Government is this: the data is going in the right direction more rapidly than people expected, and we have a pathway out of lockdown, so do not be afraid to bring it forward, as well as put it back if the data starts to turn bad. A lot of this debate has been about bailing people out, but what most people want is to get back to business, get back to work and get things running again. That has to be the key. We need to get back to normal as soon as possible, and vaccines and Government policy should do that.