Charter for Budget Responsibility

Stephen Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

When this Government came to office in 2010, they faced immediate and terrifying problems. Listening to some of the contributions from Opposition Members, that seems to have been forgotten. The prudence of the policies that have been pursued by the Government over the past four years has done much to make us forget what we knew at the time—that this country had been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by a Labour Government who, in their 13 years in office, borrowed more money than all their predecessors put together since the foundation of the Bank of England.

If we are never again to repeat the mistakes of the past, we must not forget where this country found itself in 2010, as we should not forget that the authors of the crisis that this country faced are now sitting on the Opposition Front Bench and who would again be king, notwithstanding their clear demonstration in their handling of the British economy in their time in office, that they are unfit to hold it.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Given that the Opposition have opposed every budgetary and welfare cut throughout this Parliament thus far, why should we ask the public to believe them now, particularly given what the shadow team say in private?

[Stephen Phillips]

I do not know what the shadow Chancellor and his Treasury shadow team say in private. I do know that when I talk to people in my constituency, they have not forgotten that the authors of the troubles that we found ourselves in and that we are still recovering from and will be for a considerable time are those who again want to hold the reins of power.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

In the hon. and learned Gentleman’s historical and economic analysis, when is he going to factor in a little thing such as an international financial crisis that did not start in Britain?

[Stephen Phillips]

He is going to factor it in right now, and he is going to tell the right hon. Lady the truth. The truth is that this country was in a much worse place to weather that financial crisis because of the fact that we had borrowed more money than any other developed economy. Indeed, we had borrowed just about as far as we could possibly go. The truth of the matter is that we would have weathered the financial crisis, which I quite accept was an international crisis, if the last Government had done their job properly, fixed the roof while the sun was shining and had not over-borrowed—if they had not done all the things that led to the difficulties that this coalition Government have had to pick up.

It is quite apparent that the hubris of Opposition Members knows no bounds. There is no plan. They have no plan for the British economy other than the plan that they had during their time in office: spend, spend, spend. That is one reason why it is important that this measure comes before the House today.

Let us recall precisely what we are talking about. This is a prudent measure from this Government, and it updates the charter that was previously laid before the House, and which the House approved. When history comes to look at the record of this Government and the things that they have done, it will see not just that the Government have taken steps to cure the British economy of the malaise from which it was suffering in 2010; they have in addition taken the necessary measures to address the structural changes that were required so that we can go forward. The establishment of the Office for Budget Responsibility—obviously, four years ago—means that we can never again see economic and fiscal forecasts of the type that enabled the previous Government to spend so foolishly the money that we simply did not have.

The charter comes before us again today, and in part it does so because of the announcement, quite correctly, by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that we need to take action. We need to take action to stop benefits running out of control as they ran out of control under the previous Government. The figures have been quite startling, and they have been given in this debate. The simple fact of the matter is that this charter, with its cap on benefits, is something that the House should support. I am pleased that the Opposition are going to support it; they should all be supporting it, because it is the right thing to do.