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Mr. Forman: I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman's argument as well as I can. If he is so concerned about the overall burden of taxation and national insurance taken together, and if he intends to be taken seriously as a potential member of a future Labour
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Government, will he give his pledge to the House of Commons tonight that his Government would not seek to raise the overall level of tax and national insurance as a proportion of GDP?
Mr. Darling: As we have made repeatedly clear, before the election we will make clear what we intend to do. That is an important point, because it touches on the matter raised by the right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor), who made the same point 12 months ago. Unlike the Tories, we will not promise anything unless we know that we can deliver it, whether on spending, borrowing or levels of taxation. The Conservative party must now rue the day when such reckless promises were made on tax, borrowing and spending, because they were not sustainable. One of the reasons why people do not trust the Conservatives is that they made promises at the last election which they could not keep.
Mr. MacGregor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Darling: Perhaps in a minute. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the ludicrous claims made by the Conservatives about alleged promises made by us. Despite his many commitments, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has time to read the newspapers and to look at the television. He must know that every one of the 89 allegations made against us about spending commitments was proved to be false. The allegations were not true, and they have no more substance than did the same allegations made about us in 1992.
The Conservatives must know that, no matter what they say on tax, spending, borrowing or our promises, no one believes them. The evidence is there--no one believes the Tories any more, and it does them no good to keep repeating the same things. Repeating them does not make them any better.
Mr. MacGregor:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Darling:
If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not, because I think that I have answered his point. I know that the Chancellor will be keen to reply to the Budget debate.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke
indicated dissent.
Mr. Darling:
The Chancellor shakes his head--he does not want to reply to the debate. No wonder, because he has a lot of explaining to do not just on tax, but on spending.
On the Government's spending proposals, looking at what has happened since 1979, there are one or two interesting points. First, the Government promised to cut the share of national income taken by the state. In fact, it is virtually the same now in percentage terms as it was in 1979. It is interesting that the burden of public spending has moved from those services that invest in the country, such as education, to those elements that are concerned with rescuing the damage done by economic failure. For example, the social security budget has increased
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We are asked to believe that tax is coming down and spending is going up this year, but let us look at some of the areas concerned. On transport, I refer to a document produced by the Department of Transport on spending plans, some of which have been referred to tonight. The civil servant who wrote the document was candid and said that they had had to cut many of the proposals. Much of the discussion, it seems, was not on what roads were to be built but on how to manage the bad news. The writer said that the proposal
We have been promised that, despite this tough spending round, more money would be spent on health. But, a year after the general election, we find that spending on health is set to be reduced in real terms. [Hon. Members: "No."] It is abundantly clear in the Red Book that public spending on the health service is due to be reduced in real terms. Let me be helpful to Conservative Members. The Government have said that the money is to be transferred in respect of care in the community to the Department of the Environment, but the budget for that Department is to be cut as well. If more money is to be spent in that area, it must come as a result of cuts in other services or an increase in council taxes.
In education, we find the same thing. Again, the Chief Secretary was illuminating on this matter on Sunday, because he was asked where the extra money was coming from and whether it was a real increase. As we have pointed out, the Government are simply increasing the authority of local authorities to spend on education--in fact, it is £73 million less than they are currently spending. The Chief Secretary was illuminating--he will probably get another row from the Prime Minister--because he said that the Government were allowing local authorities to spend more, not that there would be more money. He said:
It comes as no surprise that council taxes are set to rise this year. The Government may claim that they are reducing the basic rate of income tax, but everybody knows that taxes are going up elsewhere. Last year, the Chief Secretary was again helpful. He told the Treasury Select Committee that council taxes would rise by 8 per cent. When asked on Sunday by Mr. Dimbleby what he was going to say this year, he replied
On tax, spending and borrowing, the Conservatives' record does not bear scrutiny; their promises cannot be kept because they have not been able to run the economy so as to create the sustainable growth that will generate the wealth we need.
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Let us consider the Government's record on growth, investment, tax and spending. The truth is that we cannot trust the Tories. Never mind what is said or believed in the House, the public know what is happening with schools and with hospital waiting lists; they know that one in five households have no one in work, and they can see the second generation growing up without any experience of work. That is why they have had enough of the Conservatives.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Kenneth Clarke):
This is the last speech of the debate on the Budget, but at times in the speech of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling), as in those of many Opposition Members, one could almost have forgotten that we were talking about that Budget.
The Budget was delivered against a background of growth and of economic prospects that the country has not seen for many years. It will help to make Britain and the people of Britain better off, and it will secure our prosperity for many years to come.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central had the nerve to suggest that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition had devoted the minority of his speech to the Budget--[Laughter.]--I meant to say, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. He spent a greater proportion of his speech talking about the Budget than did the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central. I have never heard a more desperate high-speed rant, going through all the slogans, cliches and statistics with which the Opposition have tried to obscure their approach to the Budget and to distract the public from the good news that it contains.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) and my hon. Friends the Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman), for Worcester (Mr. Luff), for Bridlington (Mr. Townend) and for Fulham (Mr. Carrington) all dealt with the Budget, and reinforced the good message that we are sending to the country.
Even the hon. Members for North Durham (Mr. Radice) and for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) had something to say about the Budget in their thoughtful speeches, which included grudging praise, perhaps not entirely unconnected with the fact that I occasionally appear on the same platform as the hon. Member for North Durham, and that I bought the book written by the hon. Member for Huddersfield--and read it.
Those speeches were far more to the point than the evasions, slogans and downright misleading statistics that we heard from the Opposition Front Bench. One statistic that Opposition Members have not been able to escape throughout the debate has been our assertion that, since the equivalent year before the previous election, the effect
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That is why we hear all this nonsense and all the peculiar extracts from the Red Book.
"would inevitably be perceived as 'bad news'"
and added that, last year,
"we took great pains to issue the results on Budget Day, and with considerable success: the Department . . . was not blamed for the very substantial cut-back."
That is an interesting insight into how the Government regard public spending, with the main effort being directed into covering up the Government proposal.
"what we talk about is spending power . . . horrible jargon . . . but the capacity to spend."
It is not new money, but simply "the capacity to spend".
"I'm not going to say it."
No wonder he does not want to say. [Interruption.] That is what he said, and I recommend that every member of the Cabinet reads a transcript of the programme, because they might find it illuminating.
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