John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the HM Treasury
(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Laws
I am grateful to the shadow Chancellor for the points that he has raised and I shall seek to address as many as I possibly can. Before I engage in those arguments with him, this is the first opportunity that I have had to address him in his new role as shadow Chancellor and I want to say to him that many people on both sides of the House respect him and respect the work that he sought to do as Chancellor. We appreciate that he took over the economic position and the Treasury at a difficult time and also had to deal with the difficult circumstances of having a Prime Minister of the type that the last Prime Minister was. I pay tribute to the work that he did.
I was very interested in the points that the shadow Chancellor made in response to my statement, but the only thing missing from all the questions that he asked was any acknowledgment of what his colleague, the former Chief Secretary, was able to acknowledge to me in the letter that he left on my desk—the former Government left a situation in which there was no money left. I say to the shadow Chancellor gently that the only thing missing from his statement was a single serious proposal about how to deal with the huge financial deficit, with £156 billion-worth of borrowing and £3 billion-worth of borrowing each week. He is an intelligent enough man to know that there are only three ways of tackling the structural deficit—we can cut spending, cut welfare payments or raise taxes. There was not a single clue in the statement that we just heard from him about how he would address those challenges.
May I also respond to the shadow Chancellor’s point about making statements in the House? Of course, Mr Speaker, we want, wherever possible, to make these statements first and to be held to account for them, but if he is so passionate about this, can he explain why it was the case—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. [Interruption.] Let the Chief Secretary resume his seat. These discussions are already becoming far too inflamed. I am trying to help the House by enabling these matters to be the subject of scrutiny. Members do not help me or the House or themselves if they shout from a sedentary position. If they think they are going to do that and still get called to ask a question, they have another think coming.
Mr Laws
I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker. I gently point out to the shadow Chancellor that in 1997, the Labour party announced its policy of Bank of England independence not to this place but outside it. That was not even a policy that the Labour party had stood on in its manifesto, so there is a very considerable difference with the proposals that we brought.
Let me also say to the shadow Chancellor that it should be clear, in relation to his questions on schools, that we have protected the schools budget. I would have thought that he would welcome that. The definition that we have used on the schools budget is exactly consistent with the definition that was used by the last Government.
In relation to the changes that there have been over the past couple of months, I also point out gently to the shadow Chancellor that anyone, including someone with his expertise and experience, would know just how much the international situation has worsened in the past couple of months and just how much the sovereign debt risk means that countries that are seen not to be taking action on their public finances are at risk of having an adverse reaction in the international markets. Had we had that, the consequence, inevitably, of that loss of confidence would have been difficulty in auctioning the gilts that we have to sell to fund this deficit, higher costs of auctioning those gilts and therefore higher costs in the public finances. Money that could have been spent on schools, the national health service and defence would have had to go on debt interest rather than on investment in front-line public services.
Finally, may I say that I am very disappointed that the shadow Chancellor has failed to acknowledge the additional package of measures that we announced, which will nurture recovery? Measures such as the 50,000 additional starts for apprenticeships and our dealing with the problems of the colleges capital programme that was left to us by the previous Government will help with investment in skills and will help to ensure that we can bring down the deficit and protect economic recovery at the same time.
Mr Speaker
Order. Understandably, there is intense interest in this subject, with a very large number of Members wishing to contribute. If I am to have any chance of accommodating even a significant proportion of those who are standing, I require from each Back-Bench Member a single, short, supplementary question. I know that there will be an appropriately economical reply from the Chief Secretary.
Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend accept that although there were, obviously, extenuating circumstances on Monday, it is always best if these announcements can be made to Parliament first? Will he also confirm that the economic recovery is unlikely to be jeopardised by cuts to the cost and bureaucracy of quangos? It is far more likely to be put in danger by a Government who would simply sit on their hands for the next 12 months.
Mr Speaker
Order. I would like more colleagues to get in, but we do need shorter questions and indeed shorter answers.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary will know, as we all do, that these cuts are the easiest ones—they are the first tranche—yet they are still very hurtful in constituencies such as mine. Addressing the structural nature of the deficit will be even harder. He is a member of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on early intervention, so will he seek to address some of the problems of the structural deficit by ensuring that we invest in babies, children and young people, so that they do not later require billions of pounds of remedial treatment for drug addiction, teenage pregnancy and a lack of aspiration in education and work, and so that we can build the type of society that most of us in the Chamber want to see?
Mr Speaker
Order. There is heavy pressure on time today, and I am sorry to say that we must now move on.