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cent. At a time of rising unemployment--it has increased by more than 40 per cent. in the past 12 months--this Government, alone in western Europe, have cut back on their training budget. That is criminal. It is criminal in terms of investment for the future, for the young 19-year-old and for my constituents who have been waiting for a future.This is a Budget in which the Government have tried to deceive. It is very much like last year's Budget. The Government cry crocodile tears about those on low incomes. I can tell the Financial Secretary that when the poll tax was introduced--every Conservative Member sitting on those Benches now voted for it--more than 70 per cent. of my constituents were losers. The Tories in Leeds voted for the poll tax regularly. We did not hear then about concern for those on low incomes. The hardship and injustice of the poll tax in my constituency has to be seen to be believed. Conservative Members should see the elderly constituents who come to my surgeries because they cannot pay their poll tax bills. They are in fear. For the first time in their lives, elderly ladies are in debt and running against the law. They are not law breakers. They want to pay their poll tax, but they simply cannot afford to pay it. They lose sleep over it. I do not want to hear from the Government about their concern for those on low incomes. After the introduction of the poll tax every Conservative Member is guilty of inflicting a great deal of hardship on my constituents.
The Government have missed political, social and economic opportunities in the Budget. It should have been a Budget for investment in our future. It should have been a Budget for investment in skills and education. It should have been a Budget that would have given us the work force for the 21st century. What have we got? We have an education system in which one in four children in primary schools is taught in classes with more than 31 pupils. Conservative Members who buy private education for their children would not be satisfied with a class of 31. In many schools there is a shortage of books, teachers and scientific equipment. Many of our science and technology classes are taught with yoghurt pot Blue Peter technology. The youngsters do not have the resources to enable them to carry out real learning and real work.
That is the reality. We have crumbling schools with a backlog of repairs worth £4,000 million. The Budget simply does not address those problems. It is criminal for the Government to put their own skins before the skills and knowledge of our children and the future of this country. The Government will be damned for that on 9 April and for a long time after. In their 13 years in office, the Government have shown they they are cheap fixers who are not concerned about Britain or its future. Labour Members are concerned about Britain's future--that is why we shall win on 9 April. 8 pm
Mr. Roger King (Birmingham, Northfield) : While listening to the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett), I reflected upon the fact that we all share the challenge of providing employment for our constituencies. We all try to create a system that will provide jobs, wealth and health to our communities.
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My community is the centre of a substantial portion of our car manufacturing industry, with Rover's Longbridge plant dominating the local economy. We like to think, justifiably, that after the death throes of socialism 12 years ago, when Red Robbo was finally sent packing, we have produced at that factory some of the finest products, to the highest standards of productivity and quality.We are justifiably proud of the Metro car, which ranks as probably the best small car that one can currently buy. Among the various car magazines that are on offer, What Car ? named it as its small car of the year for 1990. The Rover 200 and 400 series continue to break new records in productivity, quality and market acceptance. We are proud of the fact that we make cars that are saleable and that are wanted by the public, because that brings jobs to the community and to our young people.
I watched Labour party members cavort about Birmingham in early January with their "Buy British" campaign. They visited the factory in my constituency and spoke to the workers on the shop floor. The Labour party said it was not in the business of helping that factory and it said that it was not going to abolish the special car tax. No future Labour Government would give any help to the car industry. It would not revise all the company car taxation problems that have built up over the years. No--to the Labour party, the company car is a bad thing which must be destroyed. We all have to travel by public transport, courtesy of the transport unions.
After the Labour party visit to the factory, some of us did some investigating, but we did not have to do much, because the newspapers did it for us. At the same time as the Labour party was advocating its "Buy British" policy, we discovered that the deputy leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), drives a Citroen. I have no objection to that. They are outstandingly good cars. I have no objection to anybody buying a car from whatever country in the world--the world is full of wonderful products--but I maintain that our local products are as good as any others. If people think differently, they are entitled to buy other goods.
Where I part company from the Labour party is that anyone who insists that we should buy British should emulate that policy. It was with great shock that I saw the other weekend, in the News of the World, a report that the Leader of the Opposition no less had slunk away quietly last May to buy a Fiat car. He said, "No news, please. Don't you dare tell the rest of the world." The salesman said "Mr. Kinnock, we have not got a red car for you, but we have got a blue one." The Leader of the Opposition refused to sit in that. He ordered a red car instead.
I repeat that I have no objection to people buying what they like, but when the hon. Member for Leeds, Central talks about the morality of providing jobs for young people, he should ask the Leader of the Opposition why he supports the working people of Turin and denies the people of Birmingham the opportunity to supply his needs. That is the question that the hon. Gentleman should consider. I hope that he does so because, on 9 April, my constituents will want to know why they were betrayed by the Leader of the Opposition.
I have written to the Leader of the Opposition to ask why he chose to buy a foreign car and what was wrong with our home products. Was it discount? I could have arranged a good discount and helped him out. Was the colour a problem? Do we not do a bright enough red? We
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could have had a car sprayed especially for him ; I am certain of that. I have had no answer, and my constituents do not know why the Leader of the Opposition, who hopes to be the future Prime Minister--of course, that will not happen--bought an Italian car and denied the working people in my constituency the opportunity to provide that product for him.Mr. O'Hara : Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to pursue the logic of his argument? Will he state his opposition to the freedom from exchange controls which allows capital from this country to be invested in millions of jobs abroad--in any country but this?
Mr. King : That has come as a bolt out of the blue. The hon. Gentleman is advocating capital control, a siege economy and the raising of tariff barriers. That would deny the Japanese the opportunity to bring businesses to this country, because we could not export businesses and opportunities there. We are a trading nation and, if we put up such barriers, no wonder that Liverpool is happy to be in its current state, given that kind of advice. One will never get the foreign investment wanted in Liverpool if one denies the opportunities to two-way trade.
Mr. O'Hara : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. King : No, I will not. I have saved the hon. Gentleman from certain defeat by not allowing him to intervene again.
Mr. O'Hara : That is the logic of the hon. Gentleman's argument, not mine.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : Order.
Mr. King : I am sorry if the truth causes some conflict of opinion.
We heard the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) give a tour de force or something or other. He certainly did not give any suggestions about what the Opposition would do in the unlikely event of them winning the majority at the election. He made lots of comments about the Government and about the possible level to which unemployment might rise, but he gave no suggestion about how to create jobs. The hon. Gentleman's speech contained plenty of criticism of the Government's decision to reduce taxes to give working people on lower incomes more disposable income. What was central to the hon. Gentleman's speech was his belief that, somehow or other, it was immoral to make those reductions, and that there were plenty of other things on which the money could be spent. The sum involved is £1.8 billion, and the hon. Gentleman suggested that that money should be spent on hospitals, schools, manufacturing investment and the railways. One would not get very much for £1.8 billion if one threw all those spending commitments in, but that was just for starters. Presumably the Opposition have an endless list of expenditure promises which are supposed to be met from that relatively small sum, in terms of Exchequer levels, of £1.8 billion. The Opposition ignore the fact that they have to find the extra money for all those commitments--which have been made on top of the commitments already given by the Government.
We will provide new hospitals, new opportunities in our schools and systems for industry whereby it can invest using its own money. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor
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and his colleagues on the Treasury team launched an important initiative by containing the level of the uniform business rate. That decision will put a significant amount of money in the pockets of the manufacturing and retailing sectors, which undoubtedly will be used for investment.Mr. Battle : The Government invented the uniform business rate.
Mr. King : Indeed, and the uniform business rate has been uniformly welcomed in the manufacturing sector. Some of the reductions in the business rate have a transitional element, but they will filter through quickly to much of the manufacturing sector in the west midlands, which is delighted and grateful.
The Government have certainly helped industry by their decision in the Budget to reduce the special car tax by 50 per cent. In the January visit to which I referred earlier, the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer went to the Rover plant at Longbridge, and was asked on the shop floor about the special car tax. He said that Labour had no plans to abolish it. I pressed the right hon. and learned Gentleman about that yesterday. I must say, he is fleet of foot and agile of mind. He said that what he had said was that Labour would not abolish the special car tax but that that did not imply that it would not reduce it.
I do not want to use the expression "weasel words", but in that context we must examine closely what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said in January. When asked whether he would abolish the special car tax and after he had replied that Labour had no plans to abolish it, he did not add that Labour would reduce it. Therefore, we deduce that, because the Government have done something that has been warmly welcomed by the country's largest manufacturing sector, the Labour party would not reverse it. That means that it will have to find another £700 million for its expenditure programme if it is to keep that element of tax reduction.
The changes that the Government have introduced in company car taxation have also been warmly welcomed. The Chancellor has answered many of the criticisms that I and others made for more years than I care to remember. For example, the scale charge reform based on price--as opposed to the arbitrary cut-off point of engine cubic capacity--seems to be a commitment and must be a more sensible and economically viable way of working out the benefit charges for business car use.
At long last, the Government have considered fuel scale charges in relation to diesel. Diesel is a more environmentally responsible fuel and is acknowledged to emit less carbon dioxide and far fewer noxious gases. The Government have considered diesel in a far more favourable light. If most of Britain's company cars were exchanged for diesel cars, we could fulfil the Government's commitment to maintain carbon dioxide levels in 2000 at last year's levels. That is a tall order, but the encouragement given in the Budget is a clear sign that industry can and should examine closely the idea of providing company car users with diesel vehicles.
I was delighted to learn that, from 1 August, value added tax will be recoverable on certain elements of business car purchase for car hire firms --not black cabs because they can get back their VAT, but for the new and burgeoning growth sector of community life. The private hire taxi firms will now have the opportunity to recover VAT on new car purchases. That represents a sizeable
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saving on their investment in vehicles, because they will be able to recover the 17.5 per cent. in addition to benefiting from the 5 per cent. cut in special car tax which is available to everyone as of midnight on Tuesday. The cars of private hire companies which ply their trade in the streets of our cities are generally fairly dilapidated. The saving will provide those companies and their drivers with the opportunity to buy new, environmentally acceptable cars. I look forward to that.It is also a step forward that VAT can be recovered by car hire firms, the self-drive organisations. That will be a tremendous fillip to the car industry and to driving schools. No one could understand why a driving school that must have a car in which to teach someone to drive could not get back VAT on the car that it employed in its everyday work.
The capital allowance limit has been increased from £8,000 to £12, 000. That is long overdue ; it has been campaigned for for a long time. At long last the Government have seen fit to introduce the change, which has been well received.
What will be the end results in our economy of all those changes? I am convinced that our car industry is the element of our manufacturing base which will power the economy forward. The indicators are extremely encouraging. We have had massive inward investment from the Japanese and from the French--Peugeot at Ryton in Coventry--and from multinationals such as Ford and General Motors, which are building new factories, new plant and new equipment to produce new models and engines in this country.
We are beginning to see the fruits of that after the debacle of the 1970s, when hardly any factories operated on a 24-hour basis without a stoppage. We now have almost wholly strike-free conditions in the motor industry, in the component and car plants. That has been translated into a superb export performance in the past 13 months. Exports have increased by 50 per cent. so the deficit in motor vehicles, which was around £6 billion, has been closed dramatically to no more than £1.5 billion. In turn, that will become a surplus as Toyota's production gets under way later this year, as Nissan starts to produce a new small car for sale throughout Europe and as Honda's production gets under way in Swindon.
The indicators are very encouraging. Within a few years, our car and component exports will be in surplus. I cannot envisage a time when we shall move into deficit, because of the tremendous investment that has taken place, and this is only the beginning.
The Japanese, with their British management and British partners, will realise the quality of the product that we can make in this country. The Nissan Primera made in Sunderland is exported to Japan because it is of a higher quality than those which the Japanese are making.
The Japanese will realise the excellence of the highly trained British working people. Training to achieve the right results on our shop floors is exceptionally good, because British industry on its own spends well over £20 billion on training schemes, without Government interference. As people realise the quality of the products that can be made in this country, they will not only maintain production here but seek to double and treble it,
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so that the United Kingdom will become the supplier of cars to the rest of the European Community and eastern Europe.That is the opportunity before us, and it is an opportunity that this Government alone will grasp. The Opposition do not like Japanese investment : they have said as much, and have continued to criticise it. Can anyone seriously believe that, under a Labour Government, we would continue to get the same level of Japanese investment? The Japanese would no doubt be driven out by import tariffs, by the lack of movement of capital which has just been advocated by the Opposition, and by penal rates of taxation.
The United Kingdom's success has been caused by the Government creating the right framework--the right personal tax policies and the incentive to put in a decent week's work for a decent week's salary which enables people to buy the home that they hitherto rented from the local authority and gives them a stake in society through privatisation measures. These incentives have filtered through society, so that our manufacturing units, especially in the car industry, are the most efficient and effective we have.
However, we have to go much further merely to stand still in comparison with the competition. The Germans and French are trying to compete with us, and the Japanese continue to forge ahead with more examples of higher and higher productivity, so we must be very efficient. To load our factories with extra taxes, to abolish the uniform business rate and then to allow authorities to get what they can from businesses within their communities to bankroll their expansionist programmes, would act as a major brake on the investment that we need and are getting as a result of the Government's policies.
Yesterday, 24 hours after the Budget, The Birmingham Post , which is probably the most influential regional newspaper and the second city's major morning paper, had as its headline "Car firms celebrate £80m sales bonanza" thanks to my right hon. Friend's decision to reduce car tax. That is the way forward. We should cut taxes and provide incentives to invest in business. We should allow people a little more take-home pay as evidence that Britain is a great place in which to work and earn money, and in which to live. It will continue to be a better place under a Conservative Government after 9 April.
8.19 pm
Mr. John Battle (Leeds, West) : I suspect that the Budget may be remembered for the contrast between the period of Budget purdah and the reception that it has justifiably been receiving.
At the beginning, the air was heavy with expectation. There was a fanfare of flyers about what the Government would offer to the people. I should like to compare it to a firework--brightly coloured paper, lighting the touch paper and the rocket going up. What do we get? After Government press releases and one morning's headlines, within days we find the remainder, rather like the remains the day after fireworks : we are left with a burnt stick in a bottle. That is what the Budget will prove to be as the people of Britain start to examine it in detail. There has been something of a contrast between its muted reception and the hype it was given before it was presented.
The Budget will be noted for its silence and absences : the absence of measures to tackle the economic crises and
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the needs of our people ; and the silences about the decline in manufacturing industry, about mass unemployment which is experienced by 3 million people and about the shift of 10 million people into low-paid jobs in the past 13 years. Even Tory Members have mentioned the silence on science, the silence on the seedcorn for the future. The Budget will not be praised for tackling unemployment. Nor will it be praised for finding real pathways out of poverty. There was a time in the past 13 long years when the Conservative party proclaimed that the decline in manufacturing was good. I recall the attitude of Lord Young when he was Secretary of State for Employment. He advised people that his strategy to reduce unemployment was to encourage people to eat out more. He suggested that, if only more people would eat out, unemployment would sink. It was as if the service sector only, the McDonalds and Burger King economy, would be Britain's future. We all know, as it is practical common sense, that a land of rent-out car parks and fast-food outlets is not a sustainable means of running an economy.I say that as a Member who represents a city with a proud manufacturing base and history. Leeds was based on the traditional manufacturing industries of engineering, textiles and printing. What has happened in the past 13 years? The decline in manufacturing in Leeds is absolutely typical of the decline in manufacturing in the country as a whole. Between 1981 and 1987, the number of full-time jobs fell by 8,600, and the total number in manufacturing fell by 13, 900.
What was happening? Yes, there was a shift from manufacturing to the service sector, but there was also a shift from full-time to part-time work. When Tory Members tell us of all the new jobs that they have created, they should also tell the House and the country that many, if not the majority, of those jobs are part-time. They should also tell us that they are not jobs for men, because there has been a shift towards jobs for women. They should also tell us that there has been a shift from well-paid to low-paid work. There has been a shift to a part-time, low-wage economy.
In my area, redundancies in manufacturing have risen
dramatically--to 1,229 in 1989 and to 1,708 in 1990. That is an annual rate of increase of 30 per cent. What comments do we hear about the outlook under this Government? Textiles face tougher times because of high interest rates depressing demand. The outlook for engineering has been described as decidedly patchy because of the present regime of higher interest rates leading to cuts in orders. Where is the strategy for manufacturing investment? The CBI projects that, between 1989 and 1992, manufacturing investment under this Government will fall by 25 per cent. That is the reality. Manufacturing in Britain dropped by 33 per cent. between 1979 and June 1991. It is continuing to fall by 6 per cent. a year.
When the Chancellor of the Exchequer implies in the Budget that a further 200,000 jobs will go in manufacturing, we should work out the impact on regions traditionally dependent on manufacturing as the source of wealth creation, such as Yorkshire. In practice, at 1989 prices there will be a loss of £329 million of manufacturing investment in Yorkshire between 1989 and 1992. The reality for millions of people whose families have relied on manufacturing industry will be insecurity and fear for the future.
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Millions already feel that they are a single wage packet away from the dole queue. Unemployment is 150 per cent. higher than when the Government came to power in 1979. It is continuing to rise, yet the Government throw up their hands and declare that that is a price worth paying to get inflation down. There are now 1,426,000 more unemployed people, on the Government's own figures, than when Labour left office in May 1979. Under this Government, unemployment has never been lower than it was under Labour. During the past 13 years, the Conservative party has proved itself to be the party of high unemployment. As we all know, unemployment is a personal disaster and a social evil that the Government simply try to brush under the carpet.Every year, the unemployed have been rubbed out, as if by Noddy's magic rubber in Enid Blyton books, by 30 changes to the unemployment benefit figures, just as the poor have been subjected to statistical elimination under this Government. When we look at the figures in practice, who are the unemployed? They are the generation of 16 to 25-year-olds. A generation of our young people is being written off by the Government.
In my constituency, unemployment rose by 51 per cent. between December 1990 and December 1991. In reality, it is now standing at 15 per cent., yet the number of jobs advertised locally has fallen in the past two years : by 60 per cent. in 1990-91 and by 44 per cent. in 1991-92. There has been a 50 per cent. drop in textile vacancies. In December, I looked in the jobcentre to see what was on offer. These were the vacancies : one managerial and professional job, seven clerical jobs, one secretarial job, 11 non-manual jobs, one fitter/machinist job, one catering and domestic job, seven road- sweeping jobs, three processing jobs, one assembly-packing job and one transport-operating job. I read out the list to show that, significantly, there was not one single skilled manufacturing job. That is the reality in our constituencies.
It is all very well for Ministers to go round the country and make stupid remarks about people who are made redundant being "liberated" from work. Fine--but the problem is that those without work get very little income. It is surprising that the very Minister who declares that those people are liberating themselves from work is a Minister responsible for social security, who does not even guarantee them a decent income to live on when they are out of work.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer claimed that this was a Budget for the low- paid--a noise echoed by Tory Members. The Chancellor said that he had given
"proportionately greater benefit to those on low incomes."--[ Official Report, 10 March 1992 ; Vol. 205, c. 760.]
Yet the unemployed gain absolutely nothing. They do not get a penny from a tax reduction, because they are not paying any tax because they are not working. How will they gain from the Budget? When the Conservative Government's Budget details are put under close scrutiny and analysis, they reveal, as usual, that, despite all the instant claims, it is not the poor or the poorest, but the rich, and the richest, who gain. Members of Parliament get more from the tax cuts through the 20 per cent. reduction than do the unemployed. The 10 million workers--46 per cent. of the work force--who now earn below the Council of Europe's decency threshold for wages will get little. The tax changes
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do not help the low-paid in any great measure, because those caught in the poverty trap of taxes and means-tested benefit will gain even less.I give the example of family credit. In my constituency, with high unemployment, 1,124 families claim family credit. My area is a low-wage area, and Yorkshire generally is one of the lowest-wage areas in Great Britain, second only to Northern Ireland. Those people will lose 70p for every pound they may gain under the Budget. Many families are too poor to pay tax, and will not benefit at all. An answer to a parliamentary question on 5 March shows that, because of the Government's decision to change the definition of full-time work from 24 hours to 16 hours for family credit, 15,000 families will have their family credit topped up by income support. They have now been pushed towards having to apply for two means-tested benefits. That is the reality for the poor under this Government.
Conservative Members may tell us that the change will affect few people. Let them do their homework and let them see how the tax benefits disintegrate under the pressure of the social security system. Even if people earn enough to pay tax, and even if they benefit fully from the 20 per cent. band, many will gain only £1.64 a week. The problem is that bringing in the lower rate band as a means of making tax fairer and more progressive is, in this Budget, at the expense of the failure to maintain the value of the personal allowances for married couples. In practice, its effect is limited and many families on low pay will be drawn into paying tax as a result of the Budget. The Government hope that people will not realise that point until they get their wage packets some time at the end of May when the election is over. People will have to take advice to find out why they have been short-changed.
There was an article in The Independent yesterday by Holly Sutherland, a research fellow on social policy at the London School of Economics. The article was entitled "Poor without work stand to gain least". She pointed out :
"the top 50 per cent. of families will on average be better off by some 0.95 per cent. of their incomes. The bottom half will be better off by only 0.55 per cent. of their incomes. They gain less absolutely--as would be expected--but they also gain less proportionately".
That wholly contradicts what the Chancellor told the House in his Budget statement. The Chancellor claims that he is unable to reach those on the lowest incomes through the tax system. The reason is clearly that people's incomes are too low for them to pay tax in the first place.
Conservative Members refer to pensioners. It would have been a far better and more progressive method of increasing the incomes of poorer pensioners to have raised the rate of the non-means-tested state national insurance pension. That is the key. People should not be pushed further into means- testing or into losing their access to housing benefits or assistance with the poll tax.
This is not a Budget for the low-paid, for the poorer pensioners or for those in work in the lower income brackets. It is not a Budget to tackle the decline in manufacturing investment. I hope that the fact that the election has been declared means that the Budget will be firmly behind us and that new opportunities will open up. I look forward to a Budget that puts investment in manufacturing as a priority, which would reinvigorate the
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base of manufacturing industry in Britain, and which provides real work opportunities. I look forward to a Budget that tackles unemployment as a priority with a Government who are committed to active intervention in the labour market, and who invest in the infrastructure and who invest sensitively in the regions. I look forward to a Budget which will provide real value for one's work and which provides a real means of taking the low-paid in work out of poverty.We heard nothing in the Budget statement about increasing child benefit which still has not caught up after the freeze that was imposed by the Government some years ago. That is an announcement in the Conservative manifesto to which I look forward. I look for a Budget that will establish a skills fund to boost the skills of those in work. I look forward to a Budget that introduces a statutory minimum wage to ensure that people do not degenerate further into a European cheap-labour economy, which some Conservative Members seem to want to inflict on us.
This is a burnt-out Government. They are a spent force, whose time is up. The Government are well past their sell-by date. It is time for a Labour Government, with a vision of social justice and with new hope for the future of the people of our country.
8.35 pm
Mr. Alistair Burt (Bury, North) : It is a pleasure and a privilege to speak at the end of a Parliament. It is also a pleasure and a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle), who speaks with knowledge and passion on these matters. The hon. Gentleman and I share one of my most pleasant memories of this Parliament. Some two years ago we both went on a visit to the United Nations. I enjoyed his company then, and I enjoyed his speech today even though I do not always agree with the way he wishes to achieve his ends. He knows enough about me to know that I share some of the aims of which he speaks, although we differ in our methods in terms of how to get there. I do not detract from the knowledge and passion with which he put his case.
The interesting point about the Budget is that it has themes which link this old Parliament with a new Parliament in which I confidently expect that there will be a Conservative Government. I welcome the Budget, the themes of which underline some of those which separate the Government and the Opposition.
The right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) has the reputation of being bold and clever. I was rather disappointed that he chose not to deliver his budget at the same time, or immediately after, the Budget presented by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. I see no reason why he should not have done so. He knew as much about the economy as my right hon. Friend did and he knew enough about the economy to prepare his budget for next week, yet he chose not to make his statement at the same time. That does not show a great deal of bravery and it enables him to pick and choose among the items introduced by my right hon. Friend, to mull over the Sunday papers and to cobble something together. It would have been braver to produce something the day before, or at the same time, but he has not done so. The other reason why the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East did not present his budget statement at the same time as my right hon. Friend's was that he was
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wrong-footed. He was afraid that if his budget had been ready immediately after my right hon. Friend the Chancellor sat down, he would have been exposed as being wrong-footed--as, indeed, he would have been.The themes which make a difference between the Government and the Opposition, and which are captured in the Budget, are these : freedom, choice and responsibility are watchwords of the Conservative party and are important in a Budget context, although they are sometimes derided by the Opposition. Freedom to choose is important because choice brings responsibility and responsibility builds a decent society. One does not build a just or proper society by taking responsibility away from people.
One of the mistakes that we made over the past few years, until perhaps 18 months ago, was not to emphasise sufficiently how the building of individual responsibility contributes to society. That is why we have always fallen prey to the argument that individual choice and responsibility are about selfish gain rather than gain to the community. It is easy to argue that social responsibility builds through individual responsibility. I hope that that theme will be developed by the next Conservative Government.
Because freedom to choose is important, our attitude to taxation is different. Labour says, "It all belongs to the state--we will let you have back what we think you deserve." We say, "What you earn is yours--we will ask for what we need for society." There is a world of difference between the two, and the £250 million that is coming into the pockets of people in the north-west through the tax changes announced by the Chancellor is important because I trust those people to use the money sensibly. They will use it to look after their homes and families, to make a proper choice of purchases and to contribute to society. We must trust people, and in our tax policy, as in many of our other policies, we do just that.
As well as being important from the point of view of freedom, a low-tax-low -inflation economy works. I fail to appreciate how the hon. Member for Leeds, West can argue that more taxation would help us get out of recession. He and his hon. Friends would have a stronger economic case if they could point to much in their economic background in the way of success. We know what happens when their economics run the country and things go wrong.
We in Bury still cherish a circular presented to the local authority in 1976 by the then Labour Government when they announced savage cuts because of the mess the economy was in, prior to its being rescued by the IMF. We recall how unemployment increased under the Labour Government. The hon. Member for Leeds, West speaks with passion about the unemployed, but he fails to appreciate that every Labour Government have left office with unemployment higher than when they began. The failure of the last Labour Government properly to look after the economy cost my constituents dear in terms of the national health service. It was the only time in the history of the NHS that expenditure on health care in my constituency fell. That happened between 1974 and 1979.
Today and previously, we have remarked with distaste certain cases being used in advertising by Labour Members in an effort to make charges against the Government in relation to the NHS. How would they feel if I asked my constituents to calculate how many people were killed in my constituency because spending on health
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care fell under the last Labour Government? Why should we not challenge them with similar cases? We do not do it because we do not believe in operating in that way. It is immoral for Labour politicians to claim that their running of the economy would provide more cash and resources for the NHS. They did not do it when they were last in office and they would not do it in the future. The bottom line is that, if the economy is bankrupt, the Government cannot deliver, whatever promises they make. Such promises were made to the people of Bury by the last Labour Government. They promised, but they did not deliver.That is why low taxation and a low-interest economy is right, not only for freedom of choice but because it works better. People do not trust the Labour party to run the economy properly. I assure Opposition Members that the electorate have longer memories than they think, and that fact will be decisive on polling day.
Bury will enjoy other benefits as a result of the Budget. I welcome the changes for industry and business--for example, in the uniform business rate. Heavy industry has enjoyed a drop in local taxation. Businesses that have witnessed increases, as a result of changes in the rates, will be assisted by the measures announced in the Budget in the sense that the rises that they have suffered will be easier to cope with. The Labour party cannot disclaim responsibility in relation to the UBR because at the heart of it was the revaluation policy that it supported.
An important aspect of the Budget is the bringing together of spending and the raising of revenue, and I welcome the change that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is making in that respect. The Budget is only one part of the equation. The other part is the autumn statement, which details the spending policy of the Government. Many comments about the Budget, made by hon. Members who should know better and by people outside Parliament, fail to differentiate between the autumn statement--the spending part of the equation--and the Budget.
We saw in the last autumn statement the aspects on which the Government were spending. That included the NHS, education and extra resources for capital investment in transport. The money that was asked for has been put into those items and I am proud of the Government's record. But there must be a balance, and in future that balance will be seen because the two parts of the equation will appear together. That makes good sense.
It will be important for the next Conservative Government to address some of the social challenges that we face. There is no point in building an economy for its own sake. It must be built to be used, and the nation faces some of the social problems to which the hon. Member for Leeds, West referred. We have pockets of poverty and unemployment. Those problems cannot be dealt with in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggested because high taxation, with inevitable high inflation, would create the problems that had to be faced by the last Labour Government, when the economy collapsed and they could not deliver what they had promised to provide.
If we in the Conservative party build the economy that we want, we must have the courage to opt for a form of social conservatism which will deliver the conditions that our people need. I firmly believe that a Conservative Government can deliver social justice. Such justice cannot be built on a weak economy. A Labour Government would mean a weak economy. Only the Conservatives can
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deliver what they promise to deliver. I am confident that we shall be delivering what the nation needs from these Benches from 27 April onwards.8.46 pm
Mr. Edward O'Hara (Knowsley, South) : The Chancellor has received praise from a number of predictable quarters, including sections of the press and, of course, Conservative Members. Clearly, they were bound to heap praise on the right hon. Gentleman.
I wish at the outset to correct the wilful perversion of what I said by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King). I asked him to pursue his logic in criticising me for speaking of the investment in purchasing power resulting from the sale in this country of the products of foreign workers. I asked him to explain what difference there was between that and this country investing capital in the countries of origin of those workers. I was not advocating controls on capital exchange. I am left wondering, after such wilful misunderstanding--I put it no higher than that--of the views of my hon. Friends and I, how Conservative Members can heap praise on the Budget proposals.
After much trying, I have discovered an accolade that can be given to the Chancellor--for barefaced cheek, or, as we say in the part of the world from which I come, for brass. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) will appreciate what I mean. We also say in my area that where there is muck there is brass. It came to me in a blinding flash that this is a Budget of muck and brass.
We shall be asked later to support a series of instruments relating to the payment of VAT, penalties for misdeclaration and surcharges for default of payment. I marvel, as I watch the Chancellor clearing up the muck left by his predecessor, at the way in which he is claiming credit for it. For example, the right hon. Gentleman tries to claim credit for alterations to the uniform business rate. The Government claim credit for the mitigation of the worst effects of their actions. The uniform business rate is the ugly sister of the poll tax. The Government were responsible for driving many businesses to the wall because of the uniform business rate. They drove businesses over the edge in the teeth of the current recession and now claim credit for rescuing the victims that they had left buried up to the neck for two years in the face of the incoming tide. The uniform business rate is the muck and brass of this Budget, adding just one small extra cost to the £14.5 billion final account of the poll tax.
I doff my cap to two small fiscal changes that I came across in the small print of the Budget : the abolition of the requirement for small social clubs to pay bingo duty and the 50 per cent easing of car tax. My postbag will be much lighter, because the priest of my local parish church will no longer complain to me about the burden of bingo duty on his parish social club and the manager of Halewood labour club will no longer lament about the burden that he has suffered from the imposition of bingo duty. People were dancing in the streets of Halewood last night. I was there and I was not sure whether people were rejoicing because of the easing of bingo duty or the 50 per cent. easing of car tax, because Ford of Halewood is an important car manufacturing plant. I suspect, however, that it was part
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of a splendid celebration of the 25 years of life and work in St. Mary's church there, which I was delighted to attend. Halewood had several reasons to rejoice last night.If that 50 per cent. easing of the car tax is fine today, why was it not fine 18 months ago, when it was clear that the car industry was approaching a disastrous decline, in the face of which the Government have at last had to act? The same question must be asked about other measures in the Budget- -if they are so good for the economy now, why were they not taken earlier?
I have been in the House for about 18 months. I referred in my maiden speech to the fact that the recession was the "R" word that Conservative Members dare not mention. At first, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor denied that there was a recession. They then deliberately understated the depth of the recession, before rashly and prematurely predicting its end. Most recently, they blamed it all on "those foreigners". It was a remarkable repertoire of evasion, deceit and hiding from the truth. Throughout those 18 months, the Government did nothing to resolve the problems. We have now gone beyond recession and have the "S" word--slump.
My constituents in Knowsley, South have suffered. The unemployment statistics for my constituency show that, in the past 12 months alone, unemployment has risen by 25 per cent. I checked the figures yesterday and discovered that there were 101 vacancies in the jobcentres there.
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