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not to direct such a charge at us. The motion also states that the Labour party would create unemployment. Our goal is exactly the opposite.I intend to set out the Labour party's taxation policies and to deal with the matters of substance that have been referred to in the debate. Our taxation policies are set within the context of our overall economic and social programme. It would be bizarre if they were not. In the overall management of the economy, our objective is to achieve steady and balanced growth, to control inflation, to restore a reasonable equilibrium in the balance of payments and at the same time to sustain the highest possible levels of employment. Our taxation policies are designed to serve those ends. As well as being compatible with those overall economic objectives, our taxation policy is also compatible with the Labour party's social objectives. Our overriding social objective is fairness ; by that we mean the redistribution of the tax burden from those least able to bear it to those most able to.
So it was fair of the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford to say that some taxes will go up : so they will. For others, they will go down. The Labour party does not intend to divorce its taxation policy from its public spending programme, nor do we intend to undermine the role that taxation, direct and indirect, plays in the overall management of the British economy. Taxation will play its part in the achievement of the Labour party's overall economic objectives. Before going on to give Conservative Back Benchers the details that they claim to crave, it would be helpful if I reiterated the statement on public spending made by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) in the debate on public expenditure on 13 February :
"First, the Opposition reject the simplistic view that there is always, and in every circumstance, merit in reducing public spending as a percentage of national income We are determined to make only the most limited of firm spending commitments--those that we must and can afford. Beyond that, we shall set out the direction of public investment and the priorities and choices of a Labour Government, emphasising throughout that we will not spend more than the country is earning or can prudently afford Our priorities are clear : immediate relief for those who have suffered most-- the pensioners and families with children--and the fostering of much-needed investment in our future".--[ Official Report, 13 February 1990 ; Vol. 167, c. 178.]
Conservative Back Benchers ask what this is going to cost. In a special focus on meeting the challenge--Labour's economic policy--Goldman Sachs produced an analysis as follows :
"Thus the Labour Party has already committed itself to spending at least an additional £3.3 billion on improved pensions and child benefit in its first year of office."
I would not quarrel with those figures, which show the commitment implied in the two spending priorities.
Mr. Gow : I think I heard the hon. Gentleman say that a future Labour Government would not spend more than the country was earning. May we take it from that that it would not be the policy of a future Labour Government to have a public sector borrowing requirement?
Mr. Brown : The hon. Gentleman implies that we should not borrow to pay for revenue expenditure. If, on the other hand, he suggests that we should not borrow for much-needed investment in the economy, with a clear return over time, I cannot give him the assurance that he seeks. If he is saying that we should not borrow to meet
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revenue commitments, he is following what I am saying most realistically. I hope that that is a good enough answer for him. What I have said does not mean that the Labour party has no other spending priorities ; Conservative Members have pointed out some of them. Of course we have--they are set out in our policy review documents and in statements by the relevant Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen for the shadow spending Ministries ; but, as the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) pointed out, the real issue is how far an Opposition can go when making detailed public spending decisions and detailed decisions on taxation rates given that the economic circumstances that we shall have to face are not those that prevail now but will be those that prevail at the time of the next election.The Labour party has set out its public spending priorities, beyond the two firm and clear commitments that my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South has given. Those priorities will take their place in the public spending round after the next Labour Government come to power. As long as our commitments are carefully costed and tightly controlled, there does not seem much point in conducting a hypothetical shadow public spending round at this stage. Our objectives are clearly stated and our timetable depends on the overall strength of the economy that we shall inherit from this Government after the next election.
If Conservative Members are reluctant to acquiesce in this approach, I have searched the archives to find information that will help me to convince them. I looked for an authority whom Conservative Back Benchers might respect, and failed, but I found some quotations from speeches made by the shadow Chancellor in 1979, before the last election. The right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), now deputy Prime Minister, made a number of specific commitments on behalf of the Conservative Opposition at that time, and I am sure that it would interest the whole House if I reviewed them. After all, this debate is about the taxation policies of the Opposition, and it seems unnaturally restrictive to concentrate on the policies of the present Opposition--we ought to have a look at what the Conservatives were saying when they were in our position. They have no right to complain about that, because they are always harking back to the era of the previous Labour Government when they attack us. So we should review what the then shadow Chancellor said, if only as an awful warning to us all.
In his speech at Oxford on 7 April 1979, the then shadow Chancellor said :
"Every Labour Government puts taxes up every Conservative Government gets taxes down. The next Conservative Government will be equally true to our record."
Of course, that was not true. Taxation as a share of gross domestic product has risen substantially under this Government. They inherited a rate of about 34 per cent.; since 1981 the gross tax take from the economy has been between 38 and 39 per cent.
Again in April of 1979, refuting charges made by the then Labour Government, the shadow Chancellor condemned what he called Labour's dishonesty. He said that there were
"a number of inexcusable errors in Labour's televised party election broadcast on Friday, which I would like to correct."
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He went on to say that the Conservatives had"absolutely no intention of doubling VAT."
Granted, he held out for just over a year, but that was not quite the same as disclaiming any intention. I suppose that the lawyers might have got him out of that, but I doubt whether the electorate would have.
The shadow Chancellor also said :
"We do not claim to be able to work a miracle cure to solve all the problems of the economy We want to raise living standards without stoking inflation."
That brings to mind the later objective of zero inflation, to which the Government of course said that they were committed. They did not add that they were going to put a 1 in front of the zero for the foreseeable future.
At his press conference on 18 April 1979 the shadow Chancellor said :
"The next Conservative Government will cut, and cut substantially, the basic and higher rates of income tax. We shall raise, and raise substantially, the level at which people start paying income tax." It took nine years for him to honour that pledge to higher rate taxpayers ; for lower rate taxpayers no mention was made of the 2.5 per cent. national insurance increase, which came much earlier than the tax cuts.
By 1982-83, the total tax burden had risen, not fallen. In Pentlands, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said :
"Creating secure jobs : the Conservative way it's high time for a fresh approach, in Scotland as well as in the rest of the United Kingdom. The next Conservative Government will give Scotland that new approach. We must make sure the next five years are not as bad as the last."
The electorate in Scotland have delivered their own verdict on that.
Dealing with the pace of change and the pace at which commitments would be honoured, in an article in The Times of 13 August 1978, the shadow Chancellor said :
"I am very anxious to avoid the impression of the instant arrival with the instant decision and the instant solution. I know where I want to go and I am determined that we should go there at a steady pace."
The House will recognise that as authentic stuff. He continued : "Of course we should want to alter the whole climate as soon as possible, not least because the benefits will be some time a-coming. That is why we are talking about three to four years."
When Labour hon. Members talk about the pace, Conservative hon. Members say that that is not allowable ; however, they made precisely the same points when they were in opposition.
My right hon. and hon. Friends will no doubt ask, "Where did that policy all end? Where did the former shadow Chancellor's pledges get him?" By December 1980, Ian Aitken was writing under the headline "Sir Geoffrey complains of being hampered by election pledges." That report--in The Guardian in December 1980--said :
"The Chancellor of the Exchequer claimed last night that his mini-Budget was the direct result of pledges and commitments made by the Conservative party before and after the general election. He told sceptical Tory backbenchers that he now found himself, surrounded by road blocks created by these undertakings he is understood to have told the private meeting that the Government was now pushed out against the frontiers of our pledges'."
It all ended in tears. By 1983, the financial section in The Guardian was saying in a leader article :
"how the Tories failed to keep their tax promises".
The article pointed out that wealth had not been redistributed in the way in which the Conservatives had said that they intended. That is an awful warning to those
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who make promises before general elections and cannot keep them afterwards. The Labour party has been careful about its detailed pledges--careful to ensure that it does not make any more promises than it can sustain. It is setting out a broader programme, which we hope to achieve if circumstances allow. It is right for us to do that.The article in The Independent on Labour tax policies, to which reference has been made, sets out a number of charges under the headline
"Labour's half-baked conversion on tax".
The headline bears no relationship to the content of the article. One charge is that
"The threshold for high-rate tax will no longer be raised in line with inflation, so that in real terms the starting point for higher tax will be lowered."
That is what the Government did in the previous Budget, and it is precisely what we have not said that we will do. In fact, we have not said where the tax bands will be placed.
We have set out our parameters carefully. We have said that the top rate of tax will be 50 per cent. It is right for Conservative Members to say that we have pledged to eliminate the national insurance threshold for people earning more than £30,000--or whatever the national insurance ceiling is. That will mean that some people are paying more. That change will take some people up to 59 per cent. That is the top rate of taxation that endured for the entirety of the chancellorship of the deputy leader of the Conservative party, and for most of the chancellorship of the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson). If is is such an iniquity to return to a rate that is only slightly less than that which endured for all that time, why did the Conservative party not rise up and insist that for most of the 1980s such a rate was reduced rather than sustained?
The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford had a chance to move a motion on economic affairs. It is a poor and desperate attack that does not tell us anything, except about the people who launched it. Why do Conservative Members find it necessary to attack the Labour party for something that it is not going to do? After 10 years of Conservative government, why do they not try to show the party's economic achievements? Why do they not table a motion about the inflation rate, at 10 per cent.; about the growth rate forecast by the Government, at 1 per cent., which will put us bottom of the growth league ; about the Government's forecast for negative growth in investment in the 1990s ; about interest rates, praising the Government for the highest interest rates in Europe ; about another Government record--the record trade deficit, which was £21 billion last year and last month the second highest ever, at £2.2 billion ; about unemployment, which is now signposted for an upturn ; about social justice, which is something not to be found in the Conservative party's tax policies ; and, to top it all, why do we not have a motion about the electoral success of the poll tax and its widespread popularity?
Those are the real issues that are involved in the management of the economy. The Conservatives dare not have a debate in their own time about any of them, so they must attack us. They cannot even attack us fairly ; they must do so unfairly, and on spurious grounds.
6.55 pm
Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest) : I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) for giving us this opportunity to examine the vague
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and vacuous taxation policies of Her Majesty's Opposition. My hon. Friend quoted Lewis Carroll, and I shall quote Edmund Burke, who said :"It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare."
It is interesting to note that members of the Labour party dress up their taxation policy in terms of social justice and fairness. High-tax high- spending policies have had precisely the opposite effect. Most people would agree that high-tax, high-spending policies reduce incentives, enterprise and growth, and therefore reduce the chance of jobs in many constituencies. They prevent growth, and therefore the additional finance that the Government have made available for public services. Most important of all, those policies damage the interests of the people in the lower-paid groups whom the Labour party purports to represent.
Not only did the previous Labour Government increase tax rates to 83 per cent.--and 98 per cent. for investment income--for the wealthiest in society, but, because they did not uprate tax allowances in line with the inflation that they had created, 1.8 million more lower-paid people were paying tax when they left office than when they came into office. If we compare that with the Conservative Government's record, we find that 1.2 million lower-paid people are now not paying tax who were paying it under the previous Labour Government.
When we examine the Labour party's proposed tax policies, we must bear two things in mind. First, in the three years between 1974 and 1977, the Labour Government increased the amount of tax payable by an average household with an average income from £389 a year to £876 a year. Secondly, if we compare the share of income tax paid by the top 5 per cent. of earners in 1976--when the Labour Government were in power, with their high-tax and high-spending policies--with 1989, with the Conservative party's low- taxation policies, we find that that top 5 per cent. have increased their proportion of total tax from 25 to 29 per cent. The top 10 per cent. of earners now pay 40 per cent. as opposed to 35 per cent. of the total tax take, whereas the lowest 50 per cent. of wage earners pay only 16 per cent. of the total tax take. That is hardly unfair.
Let us extend that argument to the amount of wealth held by various proportions of the population. In 1971, again under a high-tax regime--just after the Labour government of 1966-70 has left office--the top 1 per cent. of wealth owners, including pensioners, had 21 per cent. of the total wealth. By 1987, the figure had dropped to only 11 per cent. The top 5 per cent. earned 37 per cent. in 1971 and now earn only 24 per cent. The top 10 per cent. earned 49 per cent. in 1971 and now earn 35 per cent.
Because a low-taxation, high-incentive society gives more people more opportunities to climb the ladder and create wealth, it creates a more even distribution of wealth. That is why a high-incentive-- It being Seven o'clock, proceedings on the motion lapsed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13 (Arrangement of public business). 7 pm
Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wish to raise a point of order, notice of which I gave to the Chair earlier this evening and to the Home Office an hour or more ago. I
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understand that immigration officers and police officers are at this moment searching for 33 young Chinese people, including a girl who is eight and a half months pregnant, who arrived in the United Kingdom 10 days ago. I understand that they were in possession of visas to enter Canada and, for reasons which are not known, the airline refused to take them to Canada, and they were left in Britain.Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker) : Order. What is the point of order for me?
Mr. Madden : My point of order is that the British Government professed their outrage at the massacre in Tiananmen square last June. These young people fled China because of that massacre and are now being--
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. What is the point of order?
Mr. Madden : They are now threatened with deportation from Britain to Panama, which I do not think is well known as a place of haven and stability. My point of order is that I would urge that no action be taken to arrest, detain or deport these young people until we have
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I understand the hon. Member's concern, but, that has nothing to do with my responsibilities to the House and the Chair.
Mr. Madden : Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like a statement from the Home Secretary to the House later tonight--
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. It has taken the hon. Member a long time to get to that matter. I have not received a request for a statement to be made. No doubt the hon. Member's comments will have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench.
Mr. Madden : When I contacted the Home Office earlier tonight, I asked for a Home Office Minister to be present when I raised my point of order at 7 o'clock. I was assured that efforts would be made to have such a Minister present
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Member must recognise that these are not matters for me. I have no responsibility for them.
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Clyde Port Authority Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
7.2 pm
Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance on a serious matter concerning the Bill. In respect of my constituency, clause 4(3) and (4) of the Bill are, at best, incompetent and, as worst, ultra vires.
The Clyde port authority, despite its claims, does not own any property on the Greenock waterfront. On 6 July 1772, in Edinburgh, Sir John Shaw Stewart gave the people of Greenock by way of a feu contract the whole of the waterfront between the Kirk burn, Westburn street and the Royal close, Bogle street. The port and harbours were given in trust in perpetuity to the magistrates, treasurer, town council of Greenock and their successors. That generous decision was incorporated in section 26 of the Greenock Port and Harbours Act 1867 and further codified in section 212 of the Greenock Port and Harbours Consolidated Act 1913, which states :
"Nothing herein contained shall hurt or prejudice the charter granted to the town of Greenock in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-one by the deceased Sir John Shaw of Greenock Baronet nor the feu contract betwixt John Shaw Stewart Esquire and the magistrates and council of Greenock dated in the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-two or any rights privileges or dues thereby conferred or thence arising so far as consistent with the provisions of this Act."
Given the CPA's commercial banditry in this matter, I urgently request that the Bill be refused a Second Reading, for the reasons that I have outlined.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : I am grateful to the hon. Member for having given me notice of his intention to raise these matters. I have had them looked into carefully, and there is nothing out of order about the Bill being down for Second Reading. Any aspects of the Bill that call into question its competence or details in the clause are matters for the Committee to discuss and decide in its examination of the Bill, should it be given a Second Reading by the House. Of course, there is nothing to stop the hon. Member, should he be fortunate in catching my eye, to refer to these matters again during the debate.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is a growing custom, which is very unsatisfactory in terms of parliamentary procedure, whereby Ministers make important statements by references in written answers.
The hon. Member for Luton, South (Mr. Bright) received a reply from the Ministry of Defence referring to a report in the Library about the case of Colin Wallace and misinformation. If Governments put substantial, far- reaching statements in the Library, they should offer to give the information, if not in answer to a private notice question arranged through the usual channels, at least by a parliamentary statement. May I ask whether you have had any request Mr. Deputy Speaker, from any Defence Ministers to make an oral report to Parliament on an extremely significant report about Government misdeeds?
Mr. Deputy Speaker : I am not aware of any request from any Minister to make a statement to the House on this or any other matter.
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On the hon. Member's general point, Mr. Speaker has found it necessary in the past to make some critical comments, and no doubt he will read the hon. Member's points with interest.Mr. Tony Worthington (Clydebank and Milngavie) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My point concerns the way in which the procedures of the House are used. The Bill is clearly a Government measure. The device of private Bill time has been used to consider a Government measure. If this were a Government measure, we would have been able to get much better information and much better explanations about the Bill's purpose than is possible with a private Bill. I wonder whether it is causing you some torment to have the procedures of the House and your stewardship of private Bills abused by the Government.
Mr. Frank Haynes (Ashfield) : Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Is it on the same point?
Mr. Haynes : I said, further to that point of order.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Mr. Frank Haynes, then.
Mr. Haynes : Okay, now we are right.
I watched your face, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when the point of order was made about the Bill : If you had been on the Back Benches, as you were in the past, you would have been playing hell.
Mr. Richard Holt (Langbaurgh) : Withdraw.
Mr. Haynes : The hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) is not in the Chair ; you are. I am saying that, had you been on the Back Benches, you would have been making some representations somewhere. A representation has been made, no progress has been made, so the matter has rightly and properly been raised here. Now you find yourself in the Chair, so I suggest that you have some responsibility, bearing in mind what you would have done on the Back Benches, as you did many years ago.
Mr. Holt : That is out of order.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr Haynes) must not use such language when I am on my feet--or even when I am sitting down. The hon. Member cannot remember when I was a Back Bencher--I can hardly remember it. I hope, given what recollection I have, that no right hon. or hon. Member would take my behaviour as a Back Bencher as a role model for him to follow.
The hon. Member will know, as does the House, that private Bills are carefully examined by the examiners before they are put before the House. The examiners must be satisfied that the Bills are correct in all respects for presentation in the House. That has been done in this case, as in every other.
A similar point was raised fairly recently when we had before us a similar Bill--the Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority Bill--and it was dealt with by the occupant of the Chair. I doubt whether I can add anything useful to what was said on that occasion.
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Dr. Godman : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Let me ask you a technical question. Given that no petitions of objection have been laid against the Bill, am I right in supposing, that if it is successful, it will go from this place to the Committee on Unopposed Bills? Am I also right in thinking that that Committee cannot consider amendments to the Bill?
Mr. Deputy Speaker : The hon. Gentleman is right that, in the absence of petitions, the Bill will go to the Committee on Unopposed Bills, but I think that in that Committee, appropriate amendments that satisfy the rules of order can be tabled, discussed and made. These matters may fall within the scope of what the Chairman of the Committee will permit, and the Committee could, if necessary, refer to the points that the hon. Gentleman has made this evening.
Mr. Haynes : Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I listened to what you said a little earlier. You did not really listen to what my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) said.
Mr. Haynes : I wish you would do something about him, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The Bill should be Government business. That is what we are saying. You know that yourself, Sir, without our having to tell you. Government business follows our consideration of this private Bill. That is how the Government are keeping the payroll vote here. That is what is going on.
Can I pick you up on a point that you made earlier, Mr. Deputy Speaker? I remember you coming to this place. I followed your election in Doncaster and I know exactly who you kicked out. You can laugh, but I remember it well and I shall not forget it.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : I do not think that I can usefully add to what I have already said.
7.11 pm
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