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Mr. O'Brien : Under this system there is a roof tax because the standard rate of tax is on property, not on the individual. The Financial Secretary should realise that when the Government say that no property tax is attached to the system that they are introducing they are again misleading people. The standard rate of poll tax is nothing more than a property tax.
Earlier I said that the hon. Member for Colne Valley had made no reference to housing or to the high interest charges on mortgage repayments that people in west Yorkshire must face. The Chancellor informed the House yesterday that interest rates would remain high for some time. He could give no assurance that they would be reduced either in the near future or at some later stage. All that he said was that interest charges would have to remain high for as long as was necessary and that he would decide when it was necessary to reduce them.
This is cold comfort for businesses and for people with mortgages. Using high interest rates to control expenditure and reduce inflation hurts not only those who run businesses, particularly small operators, but the middle -aged or elderly people who have mortgages. It also hurts younger people who are starting to buy their own homes. They too have to face high mortgage charges plus high interest rates. There is no comfort whatsoever in what the Chancellor said yesterday and what the Chief Secretary has said today for people who are trying to meet their commitments in buying their homes. They must dread the thought of interest charges being increased again. The Chancellor made it clear that in the coming months it may be necessary to raise interest rates again. Tory Members have shown that they are worried that there may be further increases in mortgage charges. What comfort is that for people who have a mortgage and have to meet the extra increase each month?
Young couples with gaunt looks on their faces attend my advice meetings, asking what they can do to obtain council houses because they can no longer afford to pay the increased mortgage payments. They thought that the increases could last three or four months, or perhaps six months at the outside, but they have been going on for so long with no hope of a reduction that it is impossible to meet the repayments. They hope that the local authority will give them council houses.
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Because of the Government's policy, council dwellings that used to be available for rent no longer exist. In addition, local authorities have no opportunity to replace the houses that they have lost from the rented sector. Conservative Members are reconciled to the fact that further increases in mortgage charges are inevitable. If that is the case, business people and home buyers, particularly in my constituency and generally throughout the country, must be horrified that the Chancellor has given no hope of a reduction in interest rates but has mentioned the possibility of an increase in mortgage charges.After 11 years of Tory rule, we have record interest rates, the highest mortgage charges, the longest waiting lists for rented accommodation, including council houses, the highest number of homeless people and the lowest number of houses for rent in the past 30 years, yet the Chancellor does nothing whatever about it. That is Tory Britain of the 1990s.
I join Tory Back-Bench Members who have the courage to say what they think is wrong with the economy. They ask the Chancellor to reconsider how the Government are tackling inflation. Not only interest rates should be used to control inflation ; taxation should be considered. Even the hon. Member for Colne Valley, who is no longer in his place, said that the Government should consider taxation as a further means of solving our economic problems. The Government should not rely completely on high interest rates to get the Tory party out of the mess that it has created.
Many constituents have made representations to me that since the Tories came to power prescription charges have increased by over 1, 000 per cent. In 1979 the charge was 20p whereas now it is £3.05. That is Tory Britain in the 1990s. That is the direction in which the Government are leading the country.
I could have challenged the hon. Member for Colne Valley about the way in which Yorkshire water authority is charging for water services. It has doubled the standing charge. The Prime Minister's reason for a change in the rating system now applies to water charges. Often at the Dispatch Box she has defended that dear old lady living alone yet paying the same rates as a family of four adults living next door. She made it clear how unfair that was. That same dear old lady is paying the same standing charge for her water services as the family of four adults next door. What justice is there in that? Yet Ministers do not comment on that injustice. Let us analyse the unit costs. That dear old lady is paying much more per gallon of water than the four adults next door. What justice is there in that? Yet neither the Chancellor nor the Chief Secretary to the Treasury mentioned that unfairness.
Council house rents are being increased in line with Government policy. Under the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 local authorities must increase rents until they reach what is termed market rent level. What does the Budget provide to ensure that market rents are fair and reasonable? We often hear the Secretary of State for the Environment say that it is Government policy to encourage affordable rents so that people on low incomes, particularly those in rural areas, can meet the charge for rented accommodation. Yet the Budget provides no help for people who will face massive rent increases.
A great deal has been said about the poll tax and the increase in the savings ceiling to £16,000. It is hoped that that will bring more people into the rebate scheme.
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However, it is the basis of the rebate scheme that is at fault. Whether or not a person has savings of £16,000 or less, if his income is less than £46 a week, he will qualify for a rebate. A widow in receipt of state pension plus a small occupational pension, in her own right or that of her husband, could lose under the rebate scheme because she has an income of £46 or £47 a week. It is little comfort to people constantly to hear about the rebate scheme when many of them will not qualify. In any event, as a result of the taper, more people will lose out.Under the existing rating system, people whose property is not coupled to the main sewer can qualify for a rate reduction because they are not receiving that service. Also, because they have a cesspool and must bear a charge for its being emptied and the sewage being treated by the water authority, they can qualify for a reduction in their gross rateable value and hence pay less rates. But they must pay the same poll tax as those whose property is attached to the main sewer. In addition to paying the same, they must continue to pay for the cesspool to be emptied and for the sewage to be treated by the water authority. How inhuman and unjust that is. It means that people are not only not receiving a service but must pay twice for the privilege of being in that position. That is Toryism in the 1990s.
The same can be said of properties that are not on a made-up road. Under the present rating system, the occupiers can apply for a reduction in gross rateable value because they are not receiving the service of a properly made-up road. Under the Government's poll tax system, they must pay the same as people who live on a made-up road. Indeed, they will be charged extra if the local authority decides to make the road serviceable.
Mr. Malcolm Moss (Cambridgeshire, North-East) : As I have listened to the hon. Gentleman I have become angrier and angrier because what he is saying is just not true. Will he name one local authority in Britain that is not responsible for water services?
Mr. O'Brien : The hon. Gentleman is not aware of the facts of life. If a property is not coupled to the main sewer, the water authority informs the occupier that an order must be obtained from the local authority for the necessary work to be done, as the local authority must make a contribution to the cost of that work. I am happy to educate the hon. Gentleman. The practice that I have described was introduced by a Conservative Administration. If the hon. Gentleman agrees, as he must, that it is an injustice, I trust that he will join Opposition Members in the Lobby on Monday and vote against the anomalies that we are exposing.
I was recently a member of a Standing Committee which considered a statutory instrument concerned with the amount of money being made available to the Housing Corporation so that housing associations may finance the building of additional rented accommodation throughout the country. As we looked into the matter, we discovered that less was being made available in 1990 than in 1985. In 1985, £3,500 million was made available to the Housing Corporation. In 1990 the sum had fallen to £3,300 million. In other words, the Government are ignoring the need to provide homes for the people at a time when we have record homelessnes, with huge numbers of people looking
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for rented accommodation. The Government in general, and the Chancellor in particular, are doing nothing to ameliorate that. Tory councillors all over the country are leaving their party because of the problems they face over the poll tax. In Beverley, 10 Tory councillors resigned ; in Cornwall, a number of Tories quit the party because of the poll tax ; in West Devon, 19 Conservative councillors left the party for the same reason ; and I draw the attention of the House to early-day motion No. 743, which says that Boothstown Conservative club members have decided to opt out of the Tory party and have taken down the portrait of the Prime Minister, their president, because of the poll tax provisions.Conservative Members must accept that so hated is the poll tax that even their supporters in local government are leaving the party in droves. Whatever happened when the Labour party was in office, the party was strong. Today the Tory party is weak. Conservative Members who are sincere in wishing to represent their electors will make sure that the Budget provisions which injure their constituents are not allowed to go through. Accordingly, next Monday they should vote with my hon. Friends and me against those provisions.
8.56 pm
Mr. Alan Meale (Mansfield) : I am surprised to have this opportunity to speak in the debate. About an hour ago I was in the Lobby and was told that, if I came into the Chamber, I might be called to speak.
In the Tea Room, the Library and elsewhere in the Palace of Westminster I have been listening to hon. Members of all parties discussing the Budget. I have heard it described as a poor Budget, as a bad first performance by the Chancellor, as a juggler's Budget--not surprising, in view of the activities of his parents--and as a cigarette card Budget, meaning that it would be of interest to smokers but of no interest to non-smokers.
The most apt description is that it is a sad Budget, because it is a Budget of lost opportunities. It contains only short-term solutions to the problems facing the nation. It deals purely with the electoral strategies of a Government in severe danger of defeat at any election that they face, whether in Mid-Staffordshire tomorrow, a local election or an election in a Conservative club in Yorkshire or Oxfordshire. Everything that is happening at present seems to be bad for the Conservative party.
The Budget gives little hope to the people of the nation, particularly those who need a lot of help as a result of the Government's strategies over the past 10 or 11 years. It will be remembered as much for what it did not do as for what it attempted to do. The parliamentary agenda provides a day in which a Budget must be set. The Budget tries to spend nothing and tackle nothing so that it can get away with doing nothing at a time when the Government are in severe trouble.
I hope that all those Conservative Members who truly disagree with what is happening will go into the Lobby with us on Monday. I know that they talk to their party members and their constituents on the high streets and market squares in their constituencies.
The Budget offers the unemployed nothing. The stark reality of the Budget is that it makes no attempt to discuss the needs of the millions of people who are unemployed. Instead, it says that economic growth has gone out of the
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window for the next few years. In the foreseeable future the economy will be in a worse state than it is now. Even some Conservative Members, admit that ; some of them may be more daring than others on such things as economic strategies or the poll tax. They trip the light fantastic and vote against the Government, although usually on an amendment, and they go missing for the vote on the main Question. They have crossed the Floor into our Lobby, but they stay around for only a short time.The Chancellor and his Back Benchers have been offering a great hope to the people of Britain that next year will be the big give year. Between £16 billion and £17 billion will be thrown about by the Government before the election. However, they have missed a real opportunity this year to do something for the millions of electors who are pensioners and who, for the past 11 years, have had a bad deal from the Government. [Interruption.]
It is no good the Minister smiling and telling us to look at what the Government are doing for the pensioners--the investment plans that are available to them and the raising of the threshold from £8,000 to £16,000 for relief on housing benefit and so on. I am talking about the millions of pensioners who have not got £8,000 or £16,000 and who rely on state benefit to get by day after day. A 0.37 p tax increase would have enabled the Chancellor to give every pensioner and severely disabled pensioner in Britain a free television licence. That is a small amount of money.
Mr. Moss : Is the hon. Gentleman telling the House that that is what the Labour party will do if they are elected?
Mr. Allen McKay (Barnsley, West and Penistone) : Yes.
Mr. Meale : That question has been answered for me. We are committed to increasing pensions and we shall give winter allowances before the winter sets in. Pensioners are a major part of our strategy, as are the National Health Service and the unemployed. The Government talk about helping pensioners, but they are not willing to increase taxes by 0.37 p to give pensioners and disabled people a free television licence. I welcome the increase from £8,000 to £16,000. That is better than nothing, but that will affect only a few people. The vast majority of pensioners, particularly those who rely on the basic state pension, will still have to pay at least 20 per cent. of the poll tax. There is nothing in the Budget to give them hope. The Chancellor should have remembered that, in this great nation of ours, the fathers and grandfathers of the adults of today took part in two world wars, but they are on the lowest pensions in Europe. That is disgraceful ; financially, we treat our pensioners worse than any other European country. Why did the Chancellor not take the opportunity to do something for our pensioners?
Another major group that the Chancellor missed were the homeless. We have discussed their problems week after week in the Chamber. We toss around ideas occasionally about what is being done in the inner-city areas for the homeless. I must say to Conservative Members that, at the moment, that is very little. Much has been said before the Budget and since about what the Government should do for building societies to help those with mortgage problems. They should act, but that should not be the only major thrust of a Budget. One million or so people are supposed to be registered as homeless in Britain--that figure has been quoted by many organisations.
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Instead of considering building societies, why did not the Chancellor go to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and say that he would create more money for the market to help with the problem of homelessness by allowing local authorities to spend the millions of pounds that they have acquired through the sale of council houses--but which they are not allowed to use--to build council houses again? If the Government want to sling around a few hundred million pounds or £1 billion--about £2 million to each district authority--50,000 council houses could be built, which would take at least 100,000 people off the homeless list immediately. There are many things wrong with this Budget. It is not only a poor Budget, but a Budget of missed opportunity. It is a juggler's Budget--the Budget of the son of a juggler--and nothing useful will come out of it. All that will happen is that some of the juggling balls that the Chancellor chucked into the air will be remembered in the next 12 months when many of them hit the ground. The people will remember the lost opportunity of this Budget. I am sure that at the next general election, in a year or less, they will prove that they remember by removing the Government from office.Mr. Riddick : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe that the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) criticised me for leaving the Chamber after about 10 minutes of his speech. I do not know whether there is a convention that says that I should have stayed for the entire speech ; if so, I apologise. However, the hon. Member for Normanton did not stay for more than 10 seconds of the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale). That is gross hyprocrisy.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am sure that, on reflection, the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) will wish to withdraw his last remark and rephrase it.
Mr. Riddick : Is that unparliamentary, Mr. Deputy Speaker? If so, I say instead that it was a clear case of double standards.
Mr. Meale : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. Of course I will take points of order, but a phrase has been withdrawn. The House always accepts that, and I hope that the matter will not be pursued.
Mr. Allen McKay : It will not be pursued, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but if the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) had asked me why my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) had left, I would have told him.
9.9 pm
Mr. Paul Boateng (Brent, South) : I begin by adding my congratulations to those of my right hon. and hon. Friends to the Chancellor for the manner in which he presented his Budget. His presentation was pleasant. It was in marked contrast to, indeed free from, the bullying and bombast that characterised the presentations of his predecessor. The problem was that his speech was free of much else, too : free of any content capable of effectively altering the current dismal state of the economy ; free of anything that addressed the issue of interest rates or inflation, which is nudging 9 per cent. and will soon be 10 per cent ; free of
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anything that sought to deal with the current crisis of an all-time low level of manufacturing investment ; free also of anything that sought adequately to tackle what the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour) described as the horrendous deficit that currently afflicts our balance of payments.The political circumstances in which this debate takes place, and in which the Budget was delivered, demanded a Budget for Back Benchers. That is precisely what we got. The City analysts cried out for a Budget for the City. They did not get that. The nation cried out, in its need, for a Budget for the country. That was not forthcoming. There was no relief for home owners, no relief for those who, day in day out, have to face the reality of high interest rates. There was no relief for those in manufacturing industry who seek at this time the means, the wherewithal, to promote the investment that they know is so vital if we are to be competitive in the international marketplace. They found little, if anything, of comfort to them. There was no immediate prospect of a fall in the rate of inflation. This was not a Budget for the country.
It was to a very large extent a damnable budget. I see that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is a little perturbed by my use of the word "damnable". I use it advisedly. The Chancellor was in this dilemma : he was damned if he did, he was damned if he did not, and he was damned if he knew what to do. That shone through his Budget. The consequences are to be seen in this evening's newspapers. Opposition Members take no joy in this headline :
"Budget Blues Savage the £
Defiant Major"--
defiant already, after less than 48 hours--
"insists : It was tough enough".
As I have said, we take no joy in that headline. We do, however, take considerable interest in what the chief economist of Union Discount, Mr. Nicholas Parsons, has to say.
The Chief Secretary ought to pay a little attention to what people in the City say. Not long ago he and his colleagues were telling us that the market was the depository of all wisdom. Do hon. Members remember that? Do they remember Ministers coming to this House and, day in day out, thrusting down our throats that we ought to listen more to the market? Well, let them now listen to the market. Let them listen to what the market says about the Chancellor's Budget : "He hopes inflation will come down but he hasn't got a plan." That, I fear, says it all--he is damned if he knows what to do. Throughout the past decade the Government have made obeisance before two altars : the altar of dogma--I see that that brings a look of recognition into the eye of the Chief Secretary--and the altar of expediency. I see that that brings a look of recognition into the eye of the Financial Secretary. Over the years, he has had to learn about expediency. He will have to learn still more about expediency before the next 24 months are out.
We must not be too hard on the Government. There has been some progress and we must celebrate it : the hard passage from making a fetish of monetarism to a fixation on interest rates. One only has to look at the Red Book to chart that progress. It makes fascinating bedtime reading,
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which I commend to both hon. Members and the nation. This year, interestingly, it begins with a little homily about the medium-term financial strategy and it seeks to explain to those poor souls who are mystified by the subject the significance and importance of monetarism.It is worth looking at the individual letters and words in the Red Book and at what the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to say. Let us use the one to lead us on to the other. The Chancellor's words are interesting and worthy of note. To those of us who pay attention to these matters they suggest a distinct shift. The Chancellor said yesterday :
"although monetary policy remains the key"--
note the word "key"--
"to controlling inflation, it is not realistic to suppose that we can take decisions solely by reference to the way any one particular measure of money is growing. In"--
wait for it--
"a more sophisticated world, we must apply judgment and take into account the evidence about monetary conditions that may be available."
Is it not wonderful how, during the past 24 months, the world has suddenly become more sophisticated? I wonder whether it has anything to do with the Chancellor's brief sojourn in the Foreign Office? Suddenly he has discovered that the world is a more sophisticated place than he thought it was when he was Chief Secretary. He went on :
"I have looked afresh at the role of monetary targets. Having done so, I am clear that it is sensible to retain a target for narrow money, and that this is best measured by the familiar aggregate M0. Since this is essentially notes and coin,"--[ Official Report , 20 March 1990 ; Vol. 169, c. 1013.]
blah, blah--we have heard it all before.
The significance of that passage becomes all too clear when it is related to the Red Book, where one can see that a number of hands have been at work. The Chief Secretary had a bit of a nerve to chastise us with the words of Mr. Samuel Brittan. He always makes a good read, and occasionally one agrees with one or two of the things that he says. Before the Chief Secretary quotes Mr. Brittan to us, perhaps he should read a little more carefully what he has to say about the Chancellor's speech and the Red Book.
He defines two sets of hands at work in writing that homily. Mr. Brittan has done rather a good job. First, he finds the hand of someone who he describes as "Author A" who gives
"a straightforward textbook account of the virtues of monetary policy, arising from the ability to move interest rates quickly in either direction in response to"
the needs of the time. He then finds the hand of "Author B" who "reads much more like" the Chancellor
"and even more his next-door neighbour".
So there are now three sets of hands at work, two of them indistinguishable, one from the other, and the other some wretched Treasury mandarin given the hapless task of stating an authorised line.
Mr. Brittan goes on to point out a problem that Ministers face : "Ministers are happy to explain why they cannot reduce interest rates very soon. But they shy away from the prospect that they may have to move them upwards."
Mr. Boateng : I hear the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South (Mr. Budgen) say, "Hear, hear." His voice is always welcome in these debates and I shall refer briefly to what he had to say. I know that the Chief Secretary dreads to hear the familiar voice of the hon.
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Gentleman. He leads what I would describe as the disaffected monetarist tendency of the Conservative party. He can be found at every committee meeting and, no doubt, at every Back-Bench meeting, grumbling away at the laxity of successive Chancellors. Who can blame him? He must be living an absolute nightmare as one of the last few remaining committed monetarists to be found anywhere, let alone on the Conservative Back Benches. There are certainly none to be found on the Government Front Bench, where, if any existed, they have long since been silenced, although Ministers continue to pay the ritual obeisance to the gods of montarism.It must be heartbreaking for the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West to be obliged to endure the Chancellor's speech, but he was very gracious and it is fair to him to say that he partially pardons the Chancellor for the excesses of the period when he was Chief Secretary. The Chief Secretary and the Financial Secretary are in a real dilemma from which they will not find an easy escape.
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury) : The hon. Gentleman started with a most interesting hellfire homily and is now steadily working through in some detail one or two of the minutiae of Mr. Brittain's and other views of Government policy. Is he planning at any time in his speech to touch on Labour economic policy, as the House is anxious to hear about that?
Mr. Boateng : I am glad to find such eager anticipation on the part of the hon. Gentleman for what will be the heart of my speech. So let us get to it now.
Let us move from the ju-ju economics of the monetary system--the Chancellor knows as much about ju-ju as I do--to another difficulty for the Government, which causes us no difficulty--our entry into the exchange rate mechanism. [Hon. Members :-- "Ah."] That is welcomed by Conservative Members, but not so much by some Ministers. The Chancellor's hands are tied on our entry into the ERM, but it causes us no problem because we believe that, following negotiations to preserve Britain's best interests, it is vital to preserve and to develop--
Mr. Boateng : As soon as possible after the election of a Labour Government, so anything between 18 to 24 months. I know that that will be of some comfort-- [Interruption.] I said "after appropriate negotiations". [Hon. Members :-- "Ah."] That is no secret. We believe in negotiating for Britain, in sticking up for British manufacturing and in creating a climate to promote investment in manufacturing industry to provide the stability that will be vital. The Chancellor failed to tackle that in his Budget.
Mr. Riddick : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Boateng : No, not at the moment. I am coming to the heart of Labour party policy.
We do not believe that entry into the ERM is an easy panacea, a magic potion or an elixir. We see it as part and parcel of the context in which we shall carry out our economic policy, which will be based on recognition of the importance of training and of research and development. The Budget has tinkered with training in such a way as to produce a bribe to make employers co-operate with a
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training scheme that is not satisfactory and is grossly underfunded. We do not believe that that is the way forward. We believe that we should place emphasis on training and on research and development. Our industrial policy will create a firm and sound infrastructure for British industry, which will be vital if we are to go forward and to reverse the disastrous decline in British industry in recent years. The right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham gave the figures earlier, and they were an indictment. Manufacturing output in France increased by 19.5 per cent. between 1973 and 1989, by 21 per cent. in Germany, but by 8.9 per cent. in Britain. We believe that we can and will do better under our industrial policy, which was outlined by our chief economic spokesman, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith).Even the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) recognises the importance of an industrial policy. Conservative Members should begin to recognise its importance, too, or they will find themselves in much difficulty.
Mr. Riddick : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Boateng : Not at the moment.
It is important to recognise the pool of skills and the commitment to enterprise among women workers. The Budget contained grossly unsatisfactory measures for women. That was clearly shown by the useful and important speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe). If the Government want to help women, they must do something about a system in which only 1 per cent. of our children have the opportunity of education for the under-fives. We fall behind our competitors in France and Germany with nursery provision. We should be spending the money on that.
Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Boateng : The hon. Lady has not been here at all during this debate and I do not intend to give way to her now. She will know the importance of ensuring that child benefit is available to mothers whether they work or not.
If the Government cared about alleviating poverty, closing the employment gap and tackling the issues that make women and children disadvantaged, they would upgrade child benefit. They have consistently failed to do so. The Government could pay for that and restore cuts in research and development and training out of the £800 million that the abolition of stamp duty on share trading has cost the Exchequer. The Government did not introduce environmental measures which are essential to sustainable economic growth. We must care for our climate and create the context in which it is possible for the nation to grow and for the industrial sector to expand without disadvantage to the environment.
There should have been proposals in the Budget for negotiations with our EEC partners on a more satisfactory use of VAT as a mechanism. We should have heard about capital allowances for clean technology, but we heard nothing. We heard nothing about capital allowances, for which the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry have called, to assist manufacturing industry. The Budget was not about sustaining and developing the economy. It was not geared to those ends.
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That is our vision of the economy. It empowers and enables the worker, the consumer and the industrialist to build up our economy. That is the way forward. We are not talking about something that is opposed to enterprise. Our vision of enterprise Socialism puts enterprise at the forefront. We believe that it is important to grow, that we must increase the size of the cake and that we must welcome a system in which the economy grows and in which there is enterprise and initiative, because that is the way to improve the lot of all. I realise that that is heresy to the Government. They find it difficult to grasp, but they find the needs of these times difficult to grasp. The Budget misses every opportunity. It is not a Budget for the times or the nation. We will give the nation just such a budget, and soon.9.33 pm
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peter Lilley) : We warmly welcome the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng). We enjoyed his speech, which I believe was his first contribution in winding up in a Budget debate. That is not to say that we do not miss the billed performance of the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), who we understood would wind up the debate for the Opposition. We understand why he has not done so. He would have been reluctant to defend the budget of his constituency in Islington--
Mr. Boateng : The hon. Gentleman has the wrong speech.
Mr. Lilley : It is not. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury would have been reluctant to defend a budget that, we are told, involves £68 of poll tax for every citizen of Islington, which was spent on a list of 300 dole-outs.
I was asked to raise this matter by an inhabitant of Islington whom, being Irish, is particularly insulted that Irishmen are to get a grant of £100,000 and Irishwomen a grant of £45,000. I also want to inquire about the Anglo-Akanthou Aid Society, which is to receive £46,788. Who are the Akanthou, we ask ourselves?
Mr. Chris Smith (Islington, South and Finsbury) : Perhaps the Financial Secretary would like to reflect on the fact that every organisation listed in the article in The Sun from which he is quoting is funded by the London borough of Islington under partnership arrangements, in which 75 per cent. of the funding comes from the Department of the Environment. They are agreed and approved by the Department and presumably by the Treasury.
Mr. Lilley : Nevertheless, the total of £8 million still represents a huge increase in the average poll tax of every citizen in Islington. The hon. Gentleman is clearly ashamed and would dissociate himself from the large sums being squandered in his borough in this deplorable manner.
I shall respond to a number of the queries that were raised during the debate before going on to the main measures that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor introduced in his Budget. The hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) asked whether the capital
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disregard measures announced in the Budget would apply in Northern Ireland and to Northern Ireland ratepayers. I can assure him that they will.The hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) asked why the latest figures for those affected by the community charge differ from those that he has received in reply to an earlier question. The answer is that the level of overspending--as illustrated by the London borough of Islington-- has increased considerably since the earlier estimates were made. As a result, larger sums are being made available to those who benefit and more people come within the range of potential benefits-- [Interruption.] Opposition Members are clearly extremely nervous of associating themselves with Islington borough council, and I can well understand it. Not one of those items of expenditure did they seek to justify. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker : Order. The House should settle down.
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