| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
8.12 pm
Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Mr. Legg), and I look forward to doing business, as it were, with him in the Committee which considers the Finance Bill. I congratulate him in particular on the early, in-depth reading of the Finance Bill which has enabled him to discover the particular clause which covers the inhumation of pets. As some of Opposition Members' favourite pets are Tory Members of Parliament, we look forward to examining that part of the Bill in some detail.
I was touched by the references made by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West to Will Hutton, whom I count as a friend and whose book I remember reviewing last year, with some enthusiasm. I must say, however, that when the hon. Gentleman was describing Mr. Hutton's enthusiasm for Europe--not for economic and monetary union, but for the exchange rate mechanism--for a moment I thought that he was describing the short, medium and long-term goals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which will lead to private
agonies for the modern Conservative party as it dances on the Titanic in a deadly waltz between fanatical anti-Europeans and those who still see Britain playing a useful part in Europe.
This Budget--which is a serious piece of legislation-- has been the most uncommented-on legislation to have been brought before the House since I was first elected a Member of Parliament. That may dismay my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Labour Front Bench, who must of course do doughty battle over the Budget with their opposite numbers. When I return to my constituency, however, and talk to the people of Rotherham-- to business people, to people with houses and hopes, to people who look for a good education for their children and for some guarantee of health care, and, in particular, to the older members of the community who have paid national insurance and other contributions for many years, if not decades--I find that none of them have any confidence in either this Budget or in the Government's economic policies. It is easy enough to see why.
The only aspect of the Budget statement which seemed to excite the commitment or interest of Conservative Members was the removal of tax on Bugattis and Bentleys. As the debate proceeded, we suddenly saw that the spin doctors had come into action, and every Conservative Member told us that this was a holding Budget and not real--steady as she goes until the big tax giveaway next year.
The hon. Member for Coventry, South-West (Mr. Butcher) made a thoughtful and, if I may say so, typical speech as a solid, Birmingham, business-centred, fair to manufacturing, former Minister. I know that because I was the chairman of the local Labour party in Mosely, Birmingham, where he was once a councillor, and where the Chancellor of the Exchequer once lived.
The hon. Member for Coventry, South-West seemed to feel some relief that for the past two or three years there was a sense of economic guidance in the country that was not based on boom or bust and not based on giveaway Budgets, not there simply there to titillate groups of potential Conservative supporters but had some coherence to it. I invite him to join me in the debate on the November Budget next year, if the Government are still in office in 10 months' time. I think he will find that the prudence, honesty and sense of coherence that he discovered in the Budget is thrown to the winds because, whenever the choice comes between party or national advantage, the Conservative party in Government consistently opts for the former. So I was grateful to hear the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West and I shall read it with extra care if, as certainly I and the country hope that they will not, the Government reach the stage of presenting another Budget later this year.
I am particularly concerned not only about the regressive nature of the Budget--the taxes levied weigh most heavily on the poorer members of the community-- but about its lack of excitement. It does not seek to grapple with the new challenges that a global economy presents. These challenges can be dealt with in many different ways. We see in the United States from the Republicans and from Mr. Newt Gingrich when he is taking time off from padding his own coffers with election expenses, a novel and challenging approach to national finances. I happen not to agree with it, but at least one may argue that it has a certain coherence.
Let us consider other economies throughout the world. Let us take as an example, as it was cited by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West, the country where my right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party recently gave a speech--Singapore. It has a novel approach to public finance. A compulsory 25 per cent. is deducted from all employees' salaries and a compulsory 15 per cent.--nearly twice the percentage deducted in the United Kingdom--is deducted from every employer's payroll, to pay for a national health, pension and housing scheme.
Only my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) sits on the Front Bench as I speak. Were his senior colleagues on the Front Bench to stand at that Dispatch Box and say, "Here is Labour's policy. In addition to income tax, 25 per cent. will be taken off people's income to pay for national health and pensions and 15 per cent. off every employer", the Conservative Benches would be in uproar, with cries of
"Socialism! Communism!"
I can imagine the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West delving into back numbers of The Daily Telegraph to describe such a system, yet such is the way in which things are done in Singapore--not in a socialist state, not a communist state, not in the United States of America, but a massive 25 per cent. deduction from all employees' pay in Singapore. Had the Budget offered that as a proposal, one might have been interested.
I do not know, with the new configuration of the Government Front Bench team, exactly which of the two wings of the Conservative party all the Ministers come from. Let us say that the guiding spirit was that of the Chancellor, who I am happy to recognise as someone who believes that Britain should be part of Europe, unlike his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence.
Let us suppose that the European example had been followed--that of Germany. For all its current faults, I wish that British short-term interest rates were as low as those of Germany. I wish that our country had giant car-producing companies that belonged to British firms. I wish that we had regions of our country, such as the Germans have in the new Bundeslaender, where state of the art factories are being created with many fewer workers than previously, with high technology investment, in a way that we do not dream of in Britain as we proclaim our pride in taking the cast-off screwdriver assembly plants from Taiwan and Korea.
I acknowledge that there are some temporary difficulties in that immense economic drive forward, but I am prepared to take a bet with any hon. Member that when I leave the House or die, whichever is the sooner, the per capita gross domestic product of Germany will be greater than that of this country. I am ashamed of that fact.
If the Budget had embraced Mr. Hutton's stakeholder economy ideas, that would have had something to commend itself, but it is a Budget shorn of ideas, with no sense of direction--a Budget that treads water, that marks time.
Even Samuel Brittan--I have been a devoted reader of Mr. Brittan for many decades but he is not, it is safe to say, regarded as a socialist, social democrat or stakeholding commentator--asks in today's Financial Times whether we might consider hypothecation, at least for the national health service, arguing that the time has come for fresh consideration of the way in which we raise taxes.
I find that intellectual emptiness, that vacuous hollowness, at the heart of the Budget, a reflection of the emptiness at the heart of the present Government. The hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin), whose contributions to our financial debates we all enjoy, may agree that, at the time when his father was in the Cabinet and the former right hon. Member for Blaby was Chancellor, there was some vim and viz of excitement to fiscal policy in this country.
Mr. George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent, South):
The poll tax.
Mr. MacShane:
No; that was the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker).
Mr. MacShane:
Mr. Lawson, it must be said, fought tooth and nail against the poll tax. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer recognised the poll tax for the stupidity that it was, but, with the typical courage of a Conservative Minister, he did what he was told.
That is the challenge for the nation. To a certain extent, that challenge has been met by Labour Front Bench Members, especially by the proposal, which I found exciting, by my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor to reduce the basic rate of income tax to 10p in the pound, and the concept of the windfall levy on the disgraceful, scandalous and affronting profits that utility companies have made. Those are two modest suggestions, yet in them ideas were at work, but ideas there are none in the Budget.
Mr. Legg:
The hon. Gentleman has praised Labour Front Bench Members' idea of introducing a 10p tax rate. Will he try to persuade them to table an amendment of that sort?
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |