John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the HM Treasury
(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
Today is the day when Britain steps back from the brink and when we confront the bills from a decade of debt; a day of rebuilding, when we set out a four-year plan to put our public services and welfare state on a sustainable footing for the long term, so that they can do their job of providing for families, protecting the vulnerable and underpinning a competitive economy. It is a hard road, but it leads to a better future.
We are going to bring the years of ever-rising borrowing to an end. We are going to ensure, like every solvent household in the country, that what we buy we can afford, that the bills we incur we have the income to meet and that we do not saddle our children with the interest on the interest on the interest on the debts that we were not prepared ourselves to pay.
Tackling this budget deficit is unavoidable. The decisions about how we do it are not. There are choices, and today we make them. Investment in the future, rather than the bills of past failure: that is our choice. We have chosen to spend on the country’s most important priorities: the health care of our people; the education of our young; our nation’s security; and the infrastructure that supports our economic growth. We have chosen to cut the waste and reform the welfare system that our country can no longer afford.
This is the context of this spending review. We have, at £109 billion, the largest structural budget deficit in Europe—this at a time when the whole world is concerned about high deficits and our economic stability depends on allaying those concerns. We are paying at the rate of £120 million a day, £43 billion a year in debt interest—this at a time when we all know that the money would far better serve the needs of our own citizens than those of the foreign creditors we borrow from. We have inherited from the previous Government plans—if one can call them that—that envisaged our national debt ratio still rising in the year 2014. Not a single penny of savings had been identified. Indeed, they were plans that envisaged the Chancellor of the Exchequer standing here in 2014, presenting a spending review that still had years of cutting public spending ahead of it. That is why, last year, the International Monetary Fund warned this country that it had to accelerate the reduction in the deficit. That is why the OECD, the Governor of the Bank of England and the CBI all agreed with the IMF.
The action we have taken since May has taken Britain out of the financial danger zone. The immediate reductions to in-year spending have bought us a breathing space in the sovereign debt storm. The creation of an independent Office for Budget Responsibility has brought honesty back to official forecasts. I can confirm to the House that the OBR and its new chair, Robert Chote, have audited all the annually managed expenditure savings in today’s statement.
The emergency Budget in June was the moment when fiscal credibility was restored. Our market interest rates fell to near-record lows, our country’s credit rating was reaffirmed and the IMF went from issuing warnings to calling our Budget essential. Now we must implement some of the key decisions required by that Budget. To back down now and abandon our plans would be the road to economic ruin. We will stick to the course, we will secure our country’s stability and we will not take Britain back to the brink of bankruptcy.
In the Budget, I set out the tax increases we were prepared to make, including on capital gains at the higher rate, pensions relief on the largest contributions and, for the first time, a permanent levy on banks. We also had to increase value added tax, where, fortunately, we were able to benefit from the preparatory work in the Treasury of the previous Government. I made it clear that spending reductions rather than tax rises needed to make up the bulk of the consolidation. That is what the leading international evidence suggests works best. So I set out spending totals for the coming years and announced some £11 billion of welfare savings that would help to achieve them. I also set out a new fiscal mandate for the public finances to eliminate the structural deficit by balancing the cyclically adjusted current Budget over five years by 2015-16. We set a target of national debt falling as a proportion of national income by that same year. We explained how, for reasons of caution, we will achieve both these objectives a year earlier, in 2014-15.
I can confirm that the spending plans I set out today achieve a balanced structural current Budget and falling national debt on the same timetable. I can further confirm that the current spending totals I set out in the Budget for each of the next four years are the same as the current spending totals I set out today. They have not changed. Next year, current expenditure will be £651 billion, then £665 billion the year after and £679 billion the year after that, before reaching £693 billion in 2014-15. The House will note that current spending is rising, not falling, over that period. That is partly because, even with the measures we take today, debt interest payments continue to grow in these years. Debt interest payments will reach £63 billion in 2014-15—it takes time to turn around the debt supertanker—but I can now report to the House that against the plans we inherited, one of the departments which suffers the greatest cut today, and at the steepest rate, is the department for debt interest. Debt interest payments will be lowered by £1 billion in 2012, then by £1.8 billion in 2013 and by £3 billion in 2014—a total of £5 billion over the course of the spending review, which is equivalent to 16 new hospitals or the annual salaries of 100,000 teachers.
At the Budget, I also set out my plans for capital spending over the next four years. I can tell the House that capital spending will be at £51 billion next year, then £49 billion, then £46 billion and at £47 billion in 2014-15. This is about £2 billion a year higher than I set out in the Budget. Given the contractual obligations we inherited from the last Government, doing anything else would have meant cutting projects that would clearly enhance the economic infrastructure of this country. This has no direct impact on whether we meet the fiscal mandate or the year in which the debt ratio starts falling. So, total public expenditure—capital and current—over the coming years will be £702 billion next year, then £713 billion, then £724 billion and £740 billion in 2014-15. In real terms, public spending will be at the same level as in 2008. Our public services and our welfare system will be put on a sustainable long-term footing and we will make sure that the financial catastrophe that happened under the previous Government never, ever happens again.
Let me now turn to the spending decisions and the three principles that we propose to apply to the choices that we have made. First, on reform, in every area where we make savings, we must leave no stone unturned in our search for waste, and we must deliver the changes necessary to make our public services fit for the modern age.
Secondly, on fairness, we are all in this together and all must make a contribution. Fairness means creating a welfare system that helps the vulnerable, supports people into work and is affordable for the working families who pay for it from their taxes. Fairness also means that, across the entire deficit reduction plan, those with the broadest shoulders will bear the greatest burden; those with the most should pay the most, and that includes our banks.
Thirdly, on growth, when money is short, we should ruthlessly prioritise those areas of public spending that are the most likely to support economic growth, including investments in our transport and green energy infrastructure, our science base and the skills and education of our citizens.
Let me explain now how those principles have guided our specific decisions. First, on reform, I believe that the public sector needs to change to support the aspirations and expectations of today’s population, rather than the aspirations and expectations of the 1950s, so the spending review is underpinned by a far-reaching programme of public service reform. We saw over the last decade that more money without reform was a recipe for failure; less money without reform would be worse, and we are not prepared to accept that, so we have begun by squeezing every last penny that we can find out of waste and administration costs.
Our ambition in this review was to find £3 billion of savings from the administrative budgets of central Government Departments. With the help of the Green review and the work done by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, I can tell the House that we have gone further than we thought possible in cutting back-office costs. Quangos will be abolished; services will be integrated; assets will be sold; and the administrative budget of every main Government Department will be cut by a third. The result is this: we promised £3 billion of Whitehall savings; we will deliver £6 billion.
Of course, there is a very understandable concern about the reduction in the total public sector head count that will result from the measures in the spending review. We believe that the best estimate remains the one set out by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. It has forecast a reduction in the head count of 490,000 over the spending review period. Now let us be clear: that is over four years, not overnight, and much of it will be achieved through natural turnover, by leaving posts unfilled as they become vacant. Estimates suggest a turnover rate of over 8% in the public sector; but, yes, there will be some redundancies, and that is up to the decisions of individual employers in the public sector. That is unavoidable when the country has run out of money.
We feel responsible for every individual who works for the Government, and we will always do everything that we can to help them to find alternative work. In fact, in the last three months alone, this economy created 178,000 jobs. So we should remember that, unless we deal with this record budget deficit decisively, many more jobs will be in danger in both the private and the public sector.
The Cabinet Office and the Treasury will oversee the programme of Whitehall savings. Both Departments will lead by example. The core Cabinet Office budget will be reduced by £55 million by 2014-15. Additional allocations will be provided to fund electoral reform, support the big society projects, establish community organisers and launch the pilots for the national citizen service, which will give young people for the first time a right of passage to citizenship. In recognition of the challenges faced by the voluntary and community sector, I am establishing a one-year £100 million transition fund to help those facing real hardship. The Treasury will see its overall budget reduce by 33%, and we will share the Department’s enormously expensive private finance initiative building, which my predecessor but one signed up to, by moving part of the Cabinet Office into the same premises.
The Chancellor is also a royal trustee, and I want to say something briefly about the civil list. As I outlined in the Budget, the 10-year settlement expired this year, and no provision for a new settlement had been made when we entered office.
Her Majesty has graciously agreed to a one-year cash freeze in the civil list for next year. Going forward, she has also agreed that total royal household spending will fall by 14% in 2012-13, while grants to the household will be frozen in cash terms. In order to support the costs of the historic diamond jubilee, which the whole country is looking forward to celebrating, there will be a temporary additional facility of £1 million. After that, the royal household will receive a new sovereign support grant linked to a portion of the revenue of the Crown estate, so that my successors do not have to return to this issue as I often as I have had to.
Central to this review—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. All this noise makes progress slower and saps time that would otherwise be available for Back Benchers to question the Chancellor. Apart from anything else, it is unfair and discourteous.
Mr Osborne
Central to this review is the reshaping of our public services. First, there needs to be a dramatic shift in the balance of power from the centre to the locality. A policy of rising burdens, regulations, targets, assessments and guidance has undermined local democracy and stifled innovation. We will completely reverse that. We will give GPs powers to buy local services, schools the freedom to reward good teachers, and communities the right to elect their police and crime commissioners.
Secondly, we should understand that all services paid for by the Government do not have to be delivered by the Government, so we will expand the use of personal budgets for special education needs, children with disabilities and long-term health conditions. We will use new payment mechanisms for prisons, probation and community health services, and we will encourage new providers in adult social care, early years and road management.
For local government, the deficit that we have inherited means an unavoidably challenging settlement. There will be overall savings of funding to councils of 7.1% a year for four years, but to help councils we propose a massive devolution of financial control. Today I confirm that the ring-fencing of all local government revenue grants will end from April next year. The only exception will be simplified schools grants and a public health grant. Outside of schools, police and the fire service, the number of separate core grants that go to local authorities will be reduced from over 90 to fewer than 10. Councils and their leaders will remain accountable, but they will no longer have to report on 4,700 local area agreement targets.
The local government settlement includes funding for next year’s council tax freeze to help families when their budgets are tight. We are also introducing tax increment finance powers, allowing councils to fund key projects by borrowing against future increases in locally collected business rates.
Some in local government have concerns about the financing of social care. I can announce that grant funding for social care will be increased by an additional £1 billion by the fourth year of the spending review, and a further £1 billion for social care will be provided through the NHS to support joint working with councils, so that elderly people do not continue to fall between the cracks of two different systems. That is a total of £2 billion of additional funding for social care to protect the most vulnerable.
We will also reform our social housing system, for it is currently failing to address the needs of the country. Over 10 years, more than 500,000 social rented properties were lost. Waiting lists have shot up, families have been unable to move, and, although a generation ago only one in 10 families in social housing had no one working, this had risen to one in three by 2008-09.
We will ensure that in future social housing is more flexible. The terms for existing social tenants and their rent levels will remain unchanged. New tenants will be offered intermediate rents at about 80% of the market rent. Alongside £4.4 billion of capital resources, this will enable us to build up to 150,000 new affordable homes over the next four years. We will continue to improve the existing housing stock through the decent homes programme, and we will reform the planning system so that we put local people in charge, reduce the burdens on house builders and encourage more homes to be built, with a new homes bonus.
Within an overall resource budget for the Department for Communities and Local Government which is being reduced to £1.1 billion over the period, priority will be given to protecting the disabled facilities grant. This will go alongside a £6 billion commitment over the four years to the supporting people programme, which provides help with housing costs for thousands of the most vulnerable people in our communities. In recognition of the important service provided by the fire and rescue service, we have decided to limit its budget reductions in return for substantial operational reform.
Let me turn now to reforms in our security and defence. Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out the conclusions of the strategic and defence review. He explained in detail how we will protect the British people, deliver on our international obligations and secure British influence around the world. This spending review provides the resources to do just that. The budget for the Ministry of Defence will reach £33.5 billion in 2014-15, a saving of 8% over the period. On top of this settlement, we will continue to provide out of the reserve the resources that our forces in Afghanistan require. As the Chancellor, I believe strongly that if we ask our brave servicemen and women to risk their lives on our behalf in active combat, then we will give them all the tools they need to finish the job.
Our international influence and commitment to the world are not determined only by our military capabilities; our diplomacy and development policy matter too. Savings of 24% in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget will be achieved over the review period by a sharp reduction in the number of Whitehall-based diplomats and back-office functions. There will be a focus on helping British companies win exports and secure jobs at home, and with the help of UKTI we will attract significant overseas investment to our shores.
I can also confirm that this coalition Government will be the first British Government in history, and we will be the first major country in the world, to honour the United Nations commitment on international aid. The Department for International Development’s budget will rise to £11.5 billion over the next four years. Overseas development will reach 0.7% of national income in 2013; this will halve the number of deaths caused by malaria and save the lives of 50,000 women in pregnancy and of 250,000 newborn babies.
Whether working behind the counter of a charity shop, volunteering abroad or contributing taxes to our aid budget, Britons can hold their heads up high and say, “Even in these difficult times, we will honour the promise that we made to some of the poorest people in our world.”
Our aid budget allows Britain to lead in the world. It may be protected from cuts, but it is not from scrutiny. I have agreed with my right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary a plan of reform that reduces administration costs to half the global donor average, ends the aid programmes that we inherited in China and Russia, focuses on conflict resolution and creates an independent commission to assess the impact of the money that we commit.
Let me now turn to security at home. Protecting the citizen is a primary duty of the Government. Our police put themselves in harm’s way to make the rest of us safe, and we owe them our gratitude. But no public service can be immune from reform. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary found in his recent report that significant savings could be made to police budgets without affecting the quality of front-line policing. Tom Winsor is leading a review of terms and conditions that will report on how the police service can manage its resources to serve the public even more cost-effectively.
Using independent forecasts for the precept, the settlement that I am proposing today will see police spending falling by 4% each year. By cutting costs and scrapping bureaucracy, we are saving hundreds of thousands of police man hours. Our aim is to avoid any reduction in the visibility and availability of police in our streets. Our new national security strategy judges terrorism to be one of the highest risks facing this country. Therefore I am prioritising counter-terrorism over the review period, both in the Home Office budget and the single intelligence account. We have been assured that this will maintain our operational capabilities against both al-Qaeda and its affiliates and against Northern Irish terrorist threats. This will enable us to meet the terrorist threat and to protect the Olympic games in 2012.
Overall, the Home Office budget will find savings of an average of 6% a year. The Ministry of Justice’s budget will reach £7 billion by the end of the four-year period, with an average saving of 6% a year. A Green Paper will set out proposals to reform sentencing, intervene earlier to give treatment to mentally ill offenders and use voluntary and private providers to reduce reoffending. Some £1.3 billion of capital will also be provided over the period to maintain the existing prison estate and fund essential new-build projects, but plans for a new 1,500-place prison will be deferred.
The Law Officers’ Department will reduce its budget by a total of 24% over the period, with the Crown Prosecution Service greatly reducing its inflated cost base. Reforms will also be required to streamline the criminal justice system, close underused courts and reduce the legal aid bill. We do need fair access to justice but provided at a fair cost for the taxpayer.
All the reform that I have spoken of—to Whitehall and the way services are provided, to local government and to our defence, security and justice system—will improve both value for money for taxpayers and the service provided to the public. Next month, each Government Department will publish a business plan setting out its reform plans for the next four years, so that their priorities are clear and the public can hold them to account.
Reform is one of the guiding principles of this spending review—and so, too, is fairness. Let us be clear: there is nothing fair about running huge budget deficits and burdening future generations with the debts that we ourselves are not prepared to pay. How ironic that it was the last Labour Prime Minister himself who once observed that
“Public finances must be sustainable over the long term. If they are not then it is the poor…that will suffer most.”—[Official Report, 2 July 1997; Vol. 297, c. 304.]—
not that he is here in the Chamber today. That is why we are restoring order to our public finances before that is allowed to happen.
A fair Government deal with the deficit decisively, and that is what we are going to do. A fair Government make sure that those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden. The distributional analysis published today shows that those on the highest incomes will contribute more towards this entire fiscal consolidation, not just in cash terms but also as a proportion of their income and consumption of public services combined.
I completely understand the public’s anger that the banks, which were so appallingly regulated over the last decade, and whose near-collapse wrought such damage to our economy, should now be contemplating paying high bonuses. We are overhauling the system of regulation that we inherited, so that the Bank of England, with its clout and reputation, is put in charge. We have set up the Independent Commission on Banking to look at the structure of the industry, and next year we will receive its report.
Today we set out very clearly, for all to take note of, our objective in taxing the banking industry going forward. We neither want to let banks off making their fair contribution, nor do we want to drive them abroad. Many hundreds of thousands of jobs across the whole United Kingdom depend on Britain being a competitive place for financial services.
Our aim will be to extract the maximum sustainable tax revenues from financial services. We will assess what those maximum revenues could be—not just in one year, but over a period of years. We have already decided, in the face of opposition from the previous Government, to introduce a permanent levy on banks. The legislation will be published tomorrow. Once fully effective, the permanent levy will raise more net each year and every year for the Exchequer than the one-year bonus tax did last year. I note that the previous Chancellor now admits that that failed to curb behaviour and was not sustainable.
However, that is not enough. We want the banks to pay not just by the letter of the tax law, but by its spirit. A year ago, the previous Government announced in a fanfare that they would require banks to sign up to the code of practice on taxation. I have asked the Revenue how many of our leading 15 banks actually signed up. The answer is four—four out of 15. That is what happened when they were in office—all talk and no action.
I have instructed the Revenue to work with the banking sector to ensure that the remaining banks have implemented the code of practice by the end of next month. We will also address the situation under the last Government where the gap between the taxes owed and the taxes paid grew considerably. So in this spending review, while the HMRC budget will be expected to find resource savings of 15% through the better use of new technology, greater efficiency and better IT contracts, we will be spending £900 million more on targeting tax evasion and fraud. This additional £900 million is expected to help us collect a missing £7 billion in tax revenues. Nor will fraud in the welfare system be tolerated any more. We estimate that £5 billion a year is being lost in this way—£5 billion that others have to work long hours to pay in their taxes. This week we published our plans to step up the fight to catch benefit cheats and deploy uncompromising penalties when they are caught.
That brings me to the wider welfare budget. A civilised country provides for families, protects the most vulnerable, helps those who look for work, and supports those in retirement. That is why one of the first acts of this coalition Government was to re-link the basic state pension to earnings and guarantee a rise each year by earnings, inflation or 2.5%. Never again will those who worked hard all their lives be insulted with a state pension increase of just 75p. But this guarantee of a decent income in retirement has to be paid for at a time when people are living much longer than anyone predicted. We should celebrate that fact, but also confront it. Lord Turner’s report on pensions, commissioned by the last Government, acknowledged that a more generous state pension had to be funded by an increase in the pension age. Even since its publication, life expectancy has risen further than it predicted.
Before the summer, we launched a review on increasing the state pension age, and that review has now concluded. As a result, I can announce today that the state pension age for men and women will reach 66 by 2020. This will involve a gradual increase in the state pension age from 65 to 66, starting in 2018, and it will mean an acceleration of the increase in the female pension age already under way since this April. From 2016, the rate of increase will be three months in every four rather than the current plan of one month in every two. Raising the state pension age is what many, many countries are now doing, and will by the end of the next Parliament save over £5 billion a year—money that will be used to provide a more generous basic state pension as we manage demographic pressures.
Earlier this month, we also received the interim report from John Hutton’s public service pensions commission. I am sure that the whole House will want to thank John Hutton for his excellent and independent piece of work. I welcome his findings. I hope that it will form the basis of a new deal that balances the legitimate expectations of hard-working public servants for a decent income in retirement with the equally legitimate demands of hard-working taxpayers that they do not pay unfairly for it.
I think that the elements of this new pension deal are clear. We should accept that public service pensions continue to provide a form of defined benefit and that there is no race to the bottom of pension provision. We want public service pensions to be a gold standard. At the same time, we should accept that they must be affordable. When these public service pension schemes were established in the 1950s, taxpayers made half the contributions; today, they make up two thirds of the contributions, and the unfunded bill is set to rise to £33 billion by 2015-16.
We should accept, as John Hutton does, that there has to be an increase in employee contributions, although I also agree with him that this should be staggered and progressive. That means that the lower-paid—and those in the armed forces—are protected, and the highest-paid public servants, who get the largest benefits, pay the highest contributions. We will await the full commission report next spring before coming to any conclusions on the exact nature of the defined benefit and the progressive contribution rise. We will also launch a consultation on the fair deal policy, as he recommends, but we will now carry out, as the interim report suggests, a full public consultation on the appropriate discount rate used to set contributions to these pensions. From the perspective of filling the hole in the public finances, we will seek changes that deliver an additional £1.8 billion of savings per year in the cost of public service pensions by 2014-15, over and above the plans left to us by the last Government.
It is also clear that the current final salary pension terms for MPs are not sustainable, and we anticipate that the current scheme will have to end. We will make a further statement following the publication of Lord Hutton’s findings.
The welfare system is also there to help people of working age when they lose their job, have a disability, start a family and need help with low pay. But the truth, as everyone knows, is that the welfare system is failing many millions of our fellow citizens. People find themselves trapped in an incomprehensible out-of-work benefit system for their entire lifetime because it simply does not pay to work. This robs them of their aspirations and opportunities, and it costs the rest of the country a fortune. Welfare spending now accounts for one third of all public spending. Benefit bills soared by 45% under the previous Government. In some cases, the benefit bill of a single out-of-work family has amounted to the tax bills of 16 working families put together. This is totally unsustainable and unfair. The last Government promised reform and flunked it: we will deliver.
My right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary is setting out proposals, with my support, to replace all working-age benefits and tax credits with a single, simple universal credit. The guiding rule will be this: it will always pay to work. Those who get work will be better off than those who do not. This represents the greatest reform to our welfare state for a generation. It will be introduced over the next two Parliaments at a pace that ensures that we get this right. I have set aside over this spending review more than £2 billion of resources to make this happen, and it will go alongside our new Work programme, which we are also funding today. Drawing on the skills of the voluntary sector and private providers, the Work programme will provide intensive help for those looking for work and support for those who could look for work but currently lack the confidence or the skills to try.
The Department for Work and Pensions will make savings to help to deliver these schemes by increasing the use of digital applications and reducing overheads. But we will also be seeking substantial savings from the rest of the £200 billion benefit bill, on top of those already identified in the Budget. As I said in June, the more we could save on welfare costs, the more we could continue other, more productive areas of Government spending. And in the massive public consultation we conducted over the summer, the overwhelming message we received was that the British people think it is fair to reform and reduce welfare bills in order to protect important public services.
So today I announce these further welfare savings. We will time limit contributory employment and support allowance for those in the work-related activity group to one year. This is double the length of time that applies to contributory jobseeker’s allowance. We will increase the age threshold for the shared-room rate in housing benefit from 25 to 35, so that housing benefit rules reflect the housing expectations of people of a similar age not on benefits. We will give local authorities greater flexibility to manage council tax, together with direct control over council tax benefit, within an overall budget that will be reduced by 10% from April 2013.
We will align the rules for the mobility and care elements of disability living allowance paid to people in residential care, generating savings but enabling us to continue with this important benefit. We will freeze the maximum savings credit award in pension credit for four years, thereby limiting the spread of means-testing up the income distribution.
We will further control the cost of tax credits by freezing the basic and 30-hour elements for three years; we will change the working tax credit eligibility rules so that couples with children must work 24 hours per week between them; and we will return the child care element of the working tax credit to its previous 70% level. We will also introduce a new cap on benefits. No family that does not work will receive more in benefits than the average family that does go out to work. That is tough, but fair. Of course, those in receipt of disability living allowance, working tax credit or the war widow’s pension will be excluded.
Taken together, all these welfare measures I have outlined will save the country £7 billion a year. But we want to ensure that low-income families with children are protected from the adverse effects of these essential savings—because this Government are committed to ending child poverty. I can announce today that I am increasing the child element of the child tax credit by a further £30 in 2011-12 and £50 in 2012-13 above indexation. This will mean annual increases of £180 and then £110 above the level promised by the last Government, and it will provide support to 4 million lower-income families. And I can confirm that using the same model we inherited, the spending review will have no measurable impact on child poverty over the next two years, while we await the conclusions of the report by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field).
Let me now turn to the universal benefits. I have taken the difficult decision to remove child benefit from families with a higher rate taxpayer. I wish it were otherwise, but I simply cannot ask those watching this earning just £15,000 or £30,000 a year to go on paying the child benefit of those earning £50,000 or £100,000 a year. The debts of the last Labour Government, and the need to ensure that the better-off in society also make a fair contribution, make this choice unavoidable. It also means that no further changes to child benefit are required. Child benefit will continue to be paid in the normal way to the great majority of the population from birth until a child leaves full-time education at the age of 18 or even 19. We can afford to do that because, according to the latest independent estimates we have received from the Office for Budget Responsibility, removing child benefit from higher rate taxpayers will actually save Britain £2.5 billion a year.
We will also keep the universal benefits for pensioners, in recognition of the fact that many have worked hard and saved hard all their lives. Free eye tests, free prescription charges, free bus passes, free TV licences for the over-75s and winter fuel payments will remain exactly as budgeted for by the previous Government, as promised. I am also turning the temporary increase in the cold weather payments introduced by the last Government into a permanent increase. In my view, higher cold weather payments should be for life, not just for general elections.
So, too, are the promises that we make on the national health service. The NHS is an intrinsic part of the fabric of our country. It is the embodiment of a fair society. This coalition Government made a commitment to protect the NHS and increase health spending every year. Today we honour that commitment in full. Total health spending will rise each year over and above inflation. This year we are spending £104 billion on health care, capital and current combined. By the end of four years we will be spending £114 billion. We can afford that, in part because of the decisions on welfare that I have just announced, and also because we have made tough decisions in other parts of the Government budget. But to govern is to choose, and we have chosen the national health service.
That does not mean that we are letting the Department of Health off the need to drive real reform and savings from waste and inefficiency. Productivity in the health service fell steadily over the past 10 years, and that must not continue. By 2014 we are aiming to save up to £20 billion a year by demanding better value for money—but the money we save will be reinvested in our nation’s health care.
As the independent forecasts we published in the Budget show, we need to make those savings to deal with our ageing population and the rising costs of new medical treatments, but there are also new services we can offer. A new cancer drug fund will be provided, spending on health research will be protected, and we will prioritise work on the treatment of dementia. We will expand access to psychological therapies for the young, the elderly and those with mental illness. We will fund new hospital schemes, including the St Helier, the Royal Oldham and the West Cumberland.
For health spending, as for other spending announcements, there will be consequential allocations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Barnett formula will be applied in the usual way, which means that the increase in health spending and the relative protection of education spending will feed through to the devolved resource budget. It means that all three nations will actually see cash rises in their budget, although rises below the rate of inflation. For Scotland the resource budget will rise to £25.4 billion in 2014-15. For Wales it will rise to £13.5 billion, and for Northern Ireland to £9.5 billion. In Scotland we are proceeding with the implementation of the Calman reforms. In Wales we will consider with the Assembly Government the proposals in the final Holtham report, consistent with the Calman work being undertaken in Scotland.
In Northern Ireland, the collapse of the Presbyterian Mutual Society has caused great hardship, and people have been left without their money for far too long. I confirm today that we will provide the Northern Ireland Executive with £25 million in cash and a £175 million loan to help those who have lost their life savings.
We will also help those across the United Kingdom who have lost money as a result of the collapse of Equitable Life. For 10 years the Equitable Life policyholders have fought for justice. For 10 years the last Government dithered, delayed and denied them that justice. It is time to right the wrong done to many thousands of people who did the right thing, saved for their future and tried not to depend on the state, and then were the innocent victims of a terrible failure of regulation.
So let me make it clear: I accept the findings of the parliamentary ombudsman in full. I have read the advice of Sir John Chadwick and I thank him for it, but I do not agree with the level of compensation that his analysis suggested. I agree with the ombudsman that the relative loss suffered is the difference between what policyholders actually received from their policies and what they would have received elsewhere. The parliamentary ombudsman herself recognised that a balance had to be struck between being fair to policyholders and being fair to taxpayers, particularly when many budgets and benefits are being cut. But money that we pay out has to come from general public expenditure. I have decided that the fair amount to pay out in total is in the region of £1.5 billion, two thirds of which will be found in this spending review period. Those who had with-profits annuities were particularly hard hit, as they were retired and were unable to move their savings elsewhere. As a result, the Government will cover the cost of the total relative loss suffered by those deserving people. The scheme will start making payments next year.
Those measures, and our welfare reforms, mean that it will always pay to work; the benefits savings will help us protect key public services such as the national health service; and there is help for those who have saved and lost everything. These are fair decisions, consistent with the second principle of this spending review.
The third and final principle centres on growth and promoting a private sector recovery. By restoring macro-economic stability we have brought certainty to business, and by cutting business taxes we are giving businesses the freedom to compete. Today’s review builds on those steps, because even when money is short we should prioritise the areas of public spending that are most likely to support economic growth. That is what we are doing with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Administration will be cut by £400 million, 24 quangos will go, lower-priority programmes such as Train to Gain will be abolished, and adult learners and employers will to have contribute more to further education. But that means that today I can announce the largest ever financial investment in adult apprenticeships—an increase of more than 50% on the previous Government’s provision, helping 75,000 new apprentices a year by the end of this spending review period.
We will maintain and invest in the post office network and protect community post offices. We will come forward with our detailed response to Lord Browne’s report on higher education funding and student finance, including our plans to provide financial support to encourage those from the poorest households to stay in education. Our universities are the jewels in our economic crown, and it is clear that if we want to keep our place near the top of the world league tables, we need to reform our system of funding and reject—as, to be fair, many Opposition Members do—the unworkable idea of a pure graduate tax. Clearly, better-off graduates will have to pay more, which will enable us to reduce considerably the contribution that general taxpayers have to make to the education of those who will probably end up earning much more than them.
Overall, annual savings of 7.1% will be found from the budget of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills—the minimum it was asked to find. Within those savings, however, the Secretary of State and I have decided to protect the science budget. Britain is a world leader in scientific research, and that is vital to our future economic success. That is why I am proposing that we do not cut the cash going to the science budget. It will be protected at £4.6 billion a year. Building on the Wakeham review of science spending, we have found that within the science budget, significant savings of £324 million can be found through efficiency. If they are implemented, with this relatively protected settlement I am confident that our country’s scientific output can increase over the next four years.
We will also invest £220 million in the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation at St Pancras, and fund the molecular biology lab in Cambridge, the Institute for Animal Health in Pirbright and the diamond synchrotron in Oxford.
Research and technological innovation will help us with one of the greatest scientific challenges of our times—climate change—and support new jobs in low- carbon industries. So today, even in these straitened times, we commit public capital funding of up to £1 billion to one of the world’s first commercial-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects. We will also invest more than £200 million in developing offshore wind technology at port sites.
Yesterday protesters scaled the Treasury, urging us to proceed with their idea for a green investment bank. That is the first time anyone has protested in favour of a bank—but we will go ahead. I have set aside in the spending review £1 billion of funding for that bank, but I hope that much more will be raised from the private sector and the proceeds of future Government asset sales.
The aim of all those investments is for Britain to be a leader of the new green economy, creating jobs, saving energy costs and reducing carbon emissions. We will also introduce incentives to help families reduce their bills. We will introduce a funded renewable heat incentive, and our green deal will encourage home energy efficiency at no up-front cost to homeowners, allowing us to phase out the Warm Front programme.
Overall, the total resource settlement for the Department of Energy and Climate Change will fall by an average 5% a year, but there will be a large increase in capital spending, partly to meet the unavoidable commitments that we have been left on nuclear decommissioning.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will deliver resource savings of an average 8% a year, but we will fund a major improvement in our flood defences and coastal erosion management that will provide better protection for 145,000 homes.
Britain’s arts, heritage and sport all have enormous value in their own right, but our rich and varied cultural life is also one of our country’s greatest economic assets. The resource budget for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will come down to £1.1 billion by 2014-15. Administrative costs are being reduced by 41% and 19 quangos will be abolished or reformed. All that is being done so that we can limit four-year reductions to 15% in core programmes such as our national museums, the front-line funding provided to our arts and Sport England’s whole sport plans. We will complete the new world-class building extensions for the Tate Gallery and the British Museum. The Secretary of State will provide details of further projects shortly. I can also announce today that, in order for our nation’s culture and heritage to remain available to all, we will continue to fund free entry to museums and galleries. There is also ongoing provision of the £9.3 billion of public funding for a safe and successful Olympic and Paralympic games in London in 2012.
We have approached the BBC to ensure that it, too, makes its contribution, as a publicly funded organisation, to savings during the spending review. I am pleased to confirm that this week we have struck a deal. The BBC will take from the Government the responsibility for funding the BBC World Service and BBC Monitor, as well as part-funding S4C. That amounts to some £340 million of savings a year for the Exchequer by 2014-15.
To ensure that the cost of those new obligations is not passed on to the licence fee payer, the BBC has agreed a funding deal for the full duration of its charter review. The licence fee will be frozen for the next six years. That deal helps almost every family, and is equivalent to a 16% saving in the BBC budget over the period, similar to the savings in other major cultural institutions.
The BBC has also agreed to reduce its online spend and make no further encroachments into local media markets in order to protect local newspapers and independent local radio and TV. It will contribute to the £530 million that we will spend over the next four years in bringing superfast broadband to rural parts of our country that the private sector will take longer to reach. Pilots will go ahead in the Highlands and Islands, North Yorkshire, Cumbria and Herefordshire. All that will help encourage the growth of our creative industries as a key part of the new economy that we are seeking to build.
After our defence requirements are met, the Department for Transport will receive the largest capital settlement. Over the next four years we will invest more than £30 billion in transport projects—more than was invested during the past four years. Of that, £14 billion will fund maintenance and investment in our railways. Direct bus subsidies will be reduced, but statutory concessionary fares will remain.
The cap on regulated rail fares will rise to RPI plus 3% for the three years from 2012, but that will help this country afford new rolling stock as well as improve passenger conditions. The Secretary of State will set out how more of the transport money will be allocated next week.
However, I want to tell the House today about some of the projects that will go ahead. For let us remember that, even after the tough spending settlements, the country will still be spending more than £700 billion a year. In Yorkshire and Humber, capacity on the M62 will be expanded, £90 million will be spent on improving rail platforms across various towns and cities, and we will also improve line speeds across the Pennines. In the north-east £500 million will be spent on refurbishing the Tyne and Wear metro and the Tees valley bus network. In the north-west we will invest in rail electrification between Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and Blackpool, and we will provide funding for a new suspension bridge over the Mersey at Runcorn.
Rail and roads in Scotland are devolved to the Scottish Executive, and roads in Wales are also devolved, but I can tell the House that major rail investments around Cardiff, Barry and Newport will go ahead.
In the east midlands the M1 and the A46 will be improved. In the west midlands we will extend the Midland metro and completely redevelop Birmingham New Street station. In the south-west we will fund improvements on the M5 and the M4, and the new transport scheme for Weymouth. In the east of England, colleagues will be delighted to know, the A11 to Norwich will be upgraded. Around London, we will widen the M25 between 10 different junctions and complete improvements to the A3 at Hindhead.
In London, on top of the Olympics, a major investment in our capital city’s transport infrastructure will take place. Crossrail will go ahead and key tube lines will be upgraded for the 21st century.
That is nothing like the complete list, because next week, we will set out more details. So, yes, we are saving money and putting the state on a more sustainable footing, but even then, we will spend tens of billions of pounds on Britain’s future infrastructure. Next week the Secretary of State will also set out our national infrastructure plan, so that private money is put to work in building for this country the economic infrastructure that our businesses need. Our regional growth fund will also help us do that. As promised, £1 billion has been found for the fund over the next two years—money designed to lever in private investment in areas of our country where it has been too absent over the past decade. I can announce today that I am providing close to half a billion pounds extra in the third year for the regional growth fund.
Long-term investment in the capacity of our transport, our science and our green energy will all help move Britain from its decade-long dependence on one sector of the economy in one part of the country, and the ruin to which that has led.
The most important ingredient of a 21st-century economy is well-educated children, who believe in themselves and aspire to a better life, whatever their background or disadvantages. In June, after the Budget, when the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I turned our attention to how to allocate spending between Departments, we set ourselves a goal. We wanted to see if it was possible, even when spending was being cut, to find more resources for our schools and for the early years education of our children. I can tell the House that we have succeeded. It has meant other Departments taking bigger cuts, but I believe strongly that that is the right choice for our country’s future.
There will be a real increase in the money for schools, not just next year or the year after, as the previous Government once promised, but for each of the next four years. The schools budget will rise from £35 billion to £39 billion. Even as pupil numbers greatly increase, we will ensure that the cash funding per pupil does not fall. We will also sweep away all the different ways in which money is ring-fenced so that schools can decide how to spend their money as they think best.
We will also introduce a new £2.5 billion pupil premium, which supports the education of disadvantaged children and will provide a real incentive for good schools to take pupils from poorer backgrounds. That pupil premium is at the heart of the coalition agreement, and at the heart of our commitment to reform, fairness and economic growth.
Parents, teachers and community groups will be supported if they wish to establish free schools. We will fund an increase in places for 16 to 19-year-olds, and raise the participation age to 18 by the end of the Parliament. That enables us to replace education maintenance allowances with more targeted support.
We will also provide support for the early years of our children. The increased entitlement to 15 hours a week free education for all three and four-year-olds that was introduced under this Government will continue. Sure Start services will be protected in cash terms and the programme will be focused on its original purpose. We will help them further by introducing for the very first time 15 free hours of early education and care for all disadvantaged two-year-olds, so that those children have a chance in life and are ready like the rest of their classmates for school.
Overall, the Department for Education will be required to find resource savings of only 1% a year. Central administration will be cut by a third and five quangos will go. The capital budget will, as we know, have to bear its share of the reductions, but as the House knows, we have had to phase out the hopelessly inefficient and over-committed Building Schools for the Future programme. However, £15.8 billion will be spent to maintain the school estate and to rebuild and refurbish 600 schools. I repeat: the resource money for schools—the money that goes into the classroom—on the broadest definition, including all the main grants, will go up in real terms every year. That is a real investment in the future of our children and in the future growth of our economy too.
Let me conclude. The decisions we have taken today bring sanity to our public finances and stability to our economy. We have dealt decisively with the largest budget deficit this House of Commons has ever had to face outside of wartime. We have had to make choices—choices about the things we support—and today I have announced real increases in the NHS budget and the resources of schools, as well as new investment in the infrastructure of our economy. I have announced real reductions in waste and reforms to welfare and although that will reshape public services to meet the challenges of this time, I think it is the right choice.
I have one final observation. During the process of this spending review, I have received many submissions, including one from the Labour party. It said that the average cut for unprotected Departments should be set at 20% over the coming four years, rather than the 25% that I anticipated in my June Budget. I have examined that proposal carefully and consulted the published documents of my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), and because of our tough but fair decisions to reform welfare and the savings that we have made on debt interest, I am pleased to tell the House that that has been possible. The average savings in departmental budgets will be lower than the previous Government implied in their March Budget. Instead of cuts of 20%, there will be cuts of 19% over the four years, so I thank the Opposition for their support and input and look forward to their votes.
This coalition Government faced the worst economic inheritance in modern history. The debts we were left with threatened every job and public service in the country, but we have put the national interest first. We have made the tough choices. We have protected health and schools and investment in growth, and we have reformed welfare and cut waste. We have made sure that we are all in this together, and we have taken our country back from the brink of bankruptcy. A stronger Britain starts here, and I commend this statement to the House. [Interruption.]
Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Mr Speaker—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The House needs to calm down. It is getting a little over-excited and there is a long way to go.
Alan Johnson
Mr Speaker, we remember well the cheers at the end of the emergency Budget in June, when the Chancellor finished on a peroration about his Budget being progressive and fair. It took the Institute for Fiscal Studies only 48 hours to show that it was totally unfair, and that the burden of the emergency Budget fell two and half times more on the poorest than on the richest. We have seen today hon. Members cheering the deepest cuts to public spending in living memory. For some Government Members, that is their ideological objective—[Interruption.] Not all of them, but for many, that is what they came into politics for—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Ms Bray, you are getting quite over-excited. You must calm yourself—and remain calm. It is in your interest and the House’s interest.
Alan Johnson
Today is the day that abstract figures and spreadsheets turn into people’s futures, people’s jobs, people’s pensions, people’s services and their prospects for the future, and the day when the statistics that were nestling comfortably in the lap of the Chief Secretary yesterday actually become the uncomfortable truth for many people and families throughout this country.
We hear the chant on every occasion, but Government Members are deficit deceivers. They have peddled a whole series of myths to the British public. The most incredible myth of all is that the biggest global economic crisis since the great depression is the fault of the previous Government—[Interruption.] You see? The strings are pulled and away they go.
The Chancellor said that the Government have brought Britain back from the brink of bankruptcy. Perhaps he will confirm three facts. Fact No. 1: when the global crisis hit, the UK had the second-lowest debt of any G7 country. Fact No. 2: the previous Government inherited a debt interest level of 10p in every £1 of tax received, and even after a world recession, we bequeathed a figure that was 15% lower. Fact No. 3: the interest rates that the UK pays on its debt have been falling since the beginning of the year. Perhaps the Chancellor, in the interests of accuracy, can confirm those statistics.
When the last comprehensive spending review took place in 2007, the Chancellor was the shadow Chancellor. Was he calling for reduced public spending? Read the Hansard. Was he calling for regulation of the banking industry? I have two things to say about 2007. I have read his contribution to the debate. First, instead of arguing for reduced public spending, he argued that we were spending too little. He complained that we were slowing the growth in health and education expenditure. Indeed, the Conservative party supported every penny of our spending plans until well after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in America, which set off the disastrous chain reaction that caused the global recession.
In 2007, far from calling for regulation of the banks, the Conservatives were calling for deregulation of the banks. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) produced a report on behalf of the then Leader of the Opposition who had called for greater regulation of the banking industry. We need to get the facts right.
The Chancellor described his emergency Budget in June as being unavoidable and fair. We know that it was unfair, because the IFS produced the statistics with devastating and forensic accuracy a few hours later, and we also know that it was avoidable. The deficit has to be paid down—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Here they go again. The Chief Whip’s spreadsheet tells them when to stand up and what to say. Where is he? He does not need to move to have influence on his Back Benchers. So we do need to bring the deficit down.
Today’s reckless gamble with people’s livelihoods runs the risk of stifling the fragile recovery. The ridiculous analogy with credit card debts insults the intelligence of the British public. If countries around the world had not run up debts—that is what the fiscal deficit is, by the way—to sustain their economies, people would have lost not their credit cards, but lost their jobs, lost their houses and lost their savings. The Liberal Democrats know that, and they argued that when seeking the support of the electorate. The Deputy Prime Minister argued that, and then he discovered Greece. In the period between the ballot box closing and his ministerial car door opening, the Deputy Prime Minister discovered a different approach.
Like us, the Liberal Democrats—every single one of them—were elected to this House on a platform that said, in the context of reducing the deficit, that speed kills. The Chancellor repeats a long list of those who support his swift cuts; he mentions it all the time. Curiously, he failed to mention the other countries in the United Kingdom—Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—which do not support these measures. Perhaps that is why he calls himself a one-nation Tory. Here is another supportive quotation that he missed out, and he can take this down and use it in future briefings:
“The measures we have taken have been commended by international bodies such as the European Central Bank, the European Commission, the IMF and the OECD. They have also won the approval of the international markets.”
That was the Irish Minister of Finance last December, when he told the Irish Parliament that his austerity plan meant that they had turned the corner. Four months later, they slid back into recession.
The concerns of those watching this announcement today went beyond the misrepresentation of figures and the clever Punch and Judy stuff in which we all engage—including myself at times. They will be interested in whether they will stay in work, whether they will stay in their homes and whether they will stay safe on the streets. We are told that the expected job losses from this spending review—and the Chancellor confirmed it—will be some 490,000. PricewaterhouseCoopers reported last week that 1 million jobs were at stake because the impact on the private sector is just as severe. Is it not the case that at the same time as the Government are throwing people out of work, they are reducing the support to help people return to the workplace?
I applaud the ideas and the efforts of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to do what we were seeking to do and make work pay—[Interruption.] He often gives credit to what we did when we were in government. The fact is, however, that today’s proposals will make it harder for people to return to work because of the changes to working tax credit; because of the changes to support for working parents; and because of the huge increase in fares for those who have to travel to get the jobs. The Secretary of State has had his job made harder by today’s announcement.
On housing, the Chancellor has announced the retreat of central Government from any role in building new affordable homes. Can he tell the House how many jobs will be lost in the construction sector as a result of his decision to all but end capital funding for house building? Crime has fallen dramatically in the last 13 years. I heard what the Chancellor said about the report from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, but the Home Office is not a protected Department. As it deals with counter-terrorism and policing, the public will be worried that they will lose more police on the streets.
Spending has to be reduced—[Interruption.] Yes, spending has to be reduced, but the front-line services on which people rely must be protected. We support moves to ring-fence the health budget—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] The point about the health service is not that its budgets will be protected, it is the taking of £2 billion to £3 billion out of those budgets to pay for a top-down structural reorganisation that the Conservatives told the public in their manifesto would not happen. This is the top-down reorganisation to end all top-down reorganisations, and we are already seeing the loss of jobs in the NHS as a result.
On education, the Chancellor mentioned that the pupil premium would be funded. There are stories already about teachers and teaching assistants losing their jobs as a result of today’s announcement. We will have to look at the statistics carefully, including the small print, before we can see what is happening on education. The Chancellor said that they will keep a version of education maintenance allowance. That is good, because it has been the biggest single contributor to lifting the number of children from poorer homes who stay in education—and it was introduced by the Labour Government. He told us that it will be introduced in some form, but he did not say how. Nor did he say what effect the removal of ring fences will have on Sure Start, which is crucially important to ensuring that we have a more progressive society.
On the NHS, we believe that the real-terms increase will be more than swallowed by the cost of the reorganisation. It would be good if the Chancellor could confirm that the baseline for the NHS will exactly reflect its actual budget this year. It seems to us from the statistics that there may be some smoke and mirrors.
Without growth, the job of getting the deficit down becomes impossible. A rising dole queue means a bigger welfare bill and less tax coming in—a cost of at least half a billion pounds for every 100,000 people thrown out of work by the Government’s approach. To get the deficit down, the starting point must be jobs, jobs, jobs. That remains the core of the difference between us and the Government. We were told that the Ministry of Justice will see 14,000 jobs cut. Does the Chancellor agree with the Department’s assessment that the vast majority of those—11,000—will be from the front line? Can he confirm that £230 million of taxpayers’ funds have been earmarked for redundancy costs in that Department alone? What is the total scale of redundancies expected across the public sector? What will the total redundancy bill be? Thanks to the Chief Secretary’s gaffe yesterday, we know that the Treasury has provided the Chancellor with estimates: he should share them with the House. Can the Chancellor confirm that the poorest will still bear a greater burden than the richest, with the middle squeezed even further, and that women will shoulder three quarters of the cuts? Does he still claim that these measures are progressive and fair?
There is an alternative approach. The Chancellor finished by suggesting that their cuts were the same as ours—[Hon. Members: “Less.”] Less than ours? That is even more utter and complete nonsense, for two reasons. First, the Conservatives calculated the 20% figure by some very dodgy formulae that stretched the limit of credibility for the protected Departments. Secondly, the Chancellor has not caught up with the fact that we have listed a series of measures with which we agree—for instance, the increase in capital gains tax and the changes to welfare. The Chancellor has not caught up with the statements that we have made about the welfare bill. We will look at the further measures that the Chancellor has announced today, but if we take the statements that we have made into account, we came into this debate with departmental cuts half the level of those that the Government are proposing.
This spending review is not about economic necessity; it is about political choices. The Chancellor argues that Labour would have done nothing about the deficit; he goes on to say that his cuts are no worse than ours. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot be right in both arguments, although he does manage to be wrong on both counts. The difference between us is that the Government are removing almost twice as much from Department budgets, while we were looking for a much more gradual, much slower reduction, which would not stifle the very low levels of growth in our economy. It is our firm belief that the rush to cut the deficit endangers the recovery and reduces the prospects for employment in the short term and for prosperity in the longer term. We believe that we can and should sustain a more gradual reduction, securing growth. I do not believe that the Chancellor or the Prime Minister sufficiently understands the worries and concerns of families up and down this country. Those worries will have multiplied considerably as a result of the Chancellor’s statement today.
Mr Speaker
Order. A very large number of right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, and I would like to accommodate as many of them as possible. I therefore issue my usual exhortation to brevity with particular force. Single supplementary questions, please, and economical replies from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
In cutting the deficit, why did the Chancellor ignore the economic growth dividend, which could yield at least £60 billion in extra Government tax revenues over the next five years? Why did he not tax at all the 1% super-rich, whose wealth has quadrupled over the past decade? And why did he not introduce a major public sector, as well as private sector, jobs and growth programme, which could most effectively cut benefit payments and increase tax revenues?
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
The shadow Chancellor, although very good at the jokes, demonstrated in his response his confusion about the difference between fiscal and structural deficit. I wondered whether the Chancellor could help by explaining that difference to him.
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not think that we will go with that. With respect, Members must get into the habit of asking questions about the policy of the Government, not about advice to shadow Ministers. Let us get that straight.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer failed to answer the question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) about the extraordinary 11,000 reduction in the number of front-line probation and prison staff in the Ministry of Justice. Will the Chancellor confirm that this runs completely counter to what the Prime Minister said on 2 May about protecting front-line services, and that, even worse, it can only be a grave gamble with the security and safety of the British public and will eat away at the very successful fight against crime?
Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend share my joy at the shadow Chancellor’s admission that the deficit must be reduced, and my mystification that he is apparently so bereft of ideas that today he sent an e-mail asking for “Answers on a postcard, please”?
Mr Speaker
Order. I must ask for a very brief reply. I hope that the message will be received.
Mr Speaker
Order. This statement can run for only a few more minutes, so some people will be disappointed, but I reiterate the appeal for short questions. Help yourself and help others in the process.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
The Chancellor has announced a cut of 490,000 jobs in the public sector. Whichever way he slices it, that still means that even after four years and even if it is down to natural wastage there will be 490,000 jobs in the public sector that are lost to the economy. He also wants to move people off benefit and into work to save on the welfare budget. How does he make this add up? Where are the jobs coming from that the people who are now on welfare—
Mr Osborne
First, to put it in context, close to 200,000 jobs have been created in the last three months. Secondly, the Labour party’s plans involved a head-count reduction of more than 400,000. It was accepted by Labour politicians during the election that there would be a head-count reduction and that there would be redundancies. This is what happens when a country loses control of its public finances. If we had been better managed over recent years—if the people doing my job before me had managed to avoid this record budget deficit, which is the largest in the G20—[Interruption.] Opposition Members keep saying that this is all to do with the international situation. They have not yet managed to explain to me why we were the worst affected in that international situation. We have to take some difficult decisions, but it will help if private sector recovery helps to create jobs. The number that the hon. Lady keeps using is a number from an independent body—the Office for Budget Responsibility—that she presumably regards as credible, since she is quoting it, but the OBR also forecast falling unemployment over the period. She cannot really use one forecast from the body and not the other.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to disappoint colleagues, but we have had a marathon session. I am grateful to the Chancellor and colleagues for their co-operation, but we must move on.