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6.31 pm
Mr. Shaun Woodward (Witney): I congratulate the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy) on his maiden speech. I feel for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I too am about to engage on that task. I am grateful to you for calling me to speak, but even more grateful to the electors of Witney who gave me the opportunity to do so.
I am aware that my remarks must be in the spirit and practice of the House in being uncontroversial. I must confess that, looking back on speeches not only by hon. Members in this Parliament but by Labour Members on previous occasions, the definition of uncontroversial seems to be increasingly relaxed.
I am fortunate to be able to pay tribute to two of my predecessors. Colonel Dodds-Parker is still very much with us, and I am extremely grateful to him for his kindness and encouragement. He was both a distinguished politician and a man of enormous courage and conviction, not least in the way he served his country for special operations during the war.
It is an especial pleasure for me to pay tribute to Douglas Hurd, who represented Witney for 23 years before standing down at the general election. Lloyd George said:
It is difficult to praise too highly a man who has been a notable servant not only of the House but of the country. Tested in the highest offices--Northern Ireland Secretary, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary--Douglas Hurd relentlessly demonstrated the skills of a diplomat, reformer and cunning negotiator. To paraphrase some remarks made recently about Colin Cowdrey, he has style and elegance at the crease and humility and concern for others off the field.
Douglas Hurd's crease has been not only the Dispatch Box but the forum of international negotiation. We are all aware of his humility off the field, and it is a considerable tribute to him that his concern and care for constituency responsibilities have played centre stage throughout his life. At a time when politics and politicians are not always held in the highest regard, he gives renewed definition to the concept of public service. It is not by chance that he has been a mentor to so many in the House.
Speaking of public service, I want to pay a special tribute to Chris Patten, the former Governor of Hong Kong. His determination to do not what was easy or expedient but what was right has ensured that Britain has discharged its responsibilities to the people of Hong Kong with honour, not obloquy. I am sure that all hon. Members will have been moved by the enormously high regard in which he was clearly held when he left Hong Kong on Monday. If hon. Members are able to offer a fraction of the public service that he has given, we will all be doing extremely well.
It is a tradition of the House to offer hon. Members a Cook's tour of one's constituency. I will not disappoint, but hon. Members may want to be spared an account of every one of its 82 villages and towns. The town of Witney nestles in the heart of West Oxfordshire. It is a seat marked by history, tradition and commitment to innovation: fitting themes when we consider the implications of today's Budget statement.
Many hon. Members will be familiar with the towns in my constituency, not least Burford and Woodstock. I trust that many will have visited the area; tourism is one of the most important industries in West Oxfordshire. Indeed, it was from the borough of Woodstock and Burford that the electors of 1640 returned Speaker Lenthall, who was of course a keen defender of the rights of Parliament and would surely have had strong views about the Budget leaks to the press.
Tradition and evolution, two watchwords of Conservatism, are a way of life in West Oxfordshire. The importance of the rural economy, of farming, and of those who are the stewards of our countryside, is of equal value today as it was when Speaker Lenthall was elected more than 350 years ago. The landscape has evolved as a product of a vital partnership between the land and those who care for it.
My constituents regard themselves as living in a rural community and are wary of those who would seek to impose on their way of life a set of urban values. It was Disraeli who warned of political parties that:
The enormous environmental, economic and employment consequences, about which the Chancellor has had so much to say today, that will, none the less, result from a ban on hunting, concern many in my constituency. I do not hunt, but I have become aware of the role that hunting plays in the life of the people of West Oxfordshire.
Our hunt keeps bridleways open, maintains hedges and fences, and plants and manages woodland. For example, on one farm alone in the Heythrop hunting country of Oxfordshire, 12 acres of covets and three miles of hedgerows have been established around arable fields. That would not have happened without hunting.
Those developments have led directly to the development of important new wildlife habitats that enhance and benefit native species. It is hard to predict how the landscape would change under the absence of hunting interests, but the risks are all too clear. Taking risks, many of them not properly calculated, is something that the Government have been prepared to do at every opportunity. I urge them to think hard before taking risks that will destroy our natural heritage.
Witney is a spirited example of the importance to our economy of innovation and enterprise. It is therefore fitting that I am able to address the House on the day of the Budget. Witney enjoys one of the lowest unemployment records in the country, at about 1½ per cent. It need not have been such a success story, but enterprise and the determination to succeed have led to an extraordinary transformation in the employment prospects for my constituents.
Amid its idyllic countryside, Witney sports some of the most advanced industries in the United Kingdom today: firms such as Oxford Instruments and Objex Electronics. Business parks abound, and scores of small and medium-sized enterprises are set up every month. It is a legitimate exercise for my constituents to ask what the Budget will do for them.
I have said that I will try to keep my remarks uncontroversial, but as the Prime Minister said in his maiden speech:
As for the Budget leaks today, if it is proven that they came from Treasury officials, hon. Members will undoubtedly look forward to what action the Government will take. Will they, like Dalton, recognise that they
Today's Budget undoubtedly falls into the category of precipitate haste. I do not know whether Labour Members have had the opportunity to read the excellent play by David Hare, "The Absence of War". The would-be Prime Minister tells his spin doctor
The Chancellor may have come to the House with a brand spanking new Budget box, but it was still red, and it was a box of old Labour tricks, albeit with a hint of new Labour characteristics.
Of course, we welcome the cuts in corporation tax, which the Chancellor said were made to ensure that the United Kingdom was the number one destination for foreign investment. I am awfully sorry to tell him that it already is the number one destination.
There have been all kinds of pretext for the changes that have been made today. Under the pretext of stability, progress, and in the name of reform, the Budget has at its centrepiece, like all Labour Budgets before it, the desire to raise taxes. It has introduced at least 10 new taxes--if we count the windfall tax as a single tax.
At best, Labour has breached the spirit of its general election pledge not to increase the tax burden on the middle classes. The urgency, the emergency today, is one manufactured at No. 11 Downing street. There is no emergency. Such a state exists only because the Chancellor has told us that he must have an emergency Budget. There are times when one is necessary; we needed one in 1979 because the country was broke. Then, tax rates were at 83 per cent. and 33 per cent. and inflation was out of control.
Those are not the circumstances of today, so how does Labour deal with its inheritance? It deals with it by raising taxes in the name of welfare to work, which is a perfectly laudable and proper aim, but how does it plan to achieve that end? By tax--an indiscriminate and unfair tax since almost none of it will be paid by the corporate sector, because one way or another the windfall tax will be passed on to consumers, ordinary people. It will hit pensioners extremely hard. In fact, 24 million households will find themselves paying an extra £200 a year for that new tax. That will, of course, hit pensioner households harder than anyone else because their incomes tend to be lower. Many of the shares of the companies that have been taxed today are held in some form by pensioners. The logic of the tax disguises the focus of its attack--the most vulnerable in our society. It is misguided, unfair and it is ordinary people who will suffer the most. Like all tax, it will hurt.
The changes announced to advance corporation tax represent yet another step by which everyone who was led to believe that Labour would not raise taxes will now realise that he was misled. Labour's plans will create
instability in the pension market and see the transfer of investment out of the United Kingdom. It will undoubtedly lead to individuals picking up the bill.
Far from the Chancellor's claim that the Budget concentrates on laying the foundations of tomorrow's wealth, it lays the foundations for dismantling Britain's wealth creation. That tax change, far from encouraging a long-term perspective in business investment, as Labour maintains, will simply increase the cost of capital for investment financed by new equity and will increase the overall level of taxation. The tax, ironically, reduces the investment that the Chancellor said that he was so keen to increase.
Other new taxes were also announced. Taxes will be imposed on those who would own their own homes. People will be taxed when they buy a home, through increased stamp duty. They will be taxed when they try to pay for their home because the level of mortgage interest relief at source will also be reduced. Tax on petrol will be a particular blow to the people of Witney and all those who live in rural communities.
This political Budget is not justified by a squandered inheritance, such as we found in 1979. This Budget was, however, utterly predictable--even if it had not been leaked--and its spirit runs according to the true vein of old Labour. The public were led to believe that there would be no new taxes. Small businesses were led to believe that Labour would understand their needs. Large companies were led to believe that Labour was a safe option and would not interfere. Yet in every pore and sinew of the Budget, Labour has shown its basic instinct: to tax and tax again. Ten new taxes will raise £10 billion. That has not been done because the Government are trying to protect the country in a recession. We raised taxes to protect public services, but the Budget reveals good old Labour policies of tax and spend. If the Labour Government will put up taxes now, when the economy is doing this well, what the heck will they do when the economy meets a downturn?
The Labour party, this new Labour party, may have abandoned the heady aspirations it had when it last enjoyed such a substantial majority in 1945. It may be extremely arrogant and smug at the moment. Collectivism has been banished, but new Labour is no longer the intellectual powerhouse for socialist beliefs. Today is not the brave new world to which the electors looked forward or the new Jerusalem that they were led to expect; instead, we have witnessed the beginning of a return to the misery of tax, spend and subsidy. It is a Budget for deferred misery.
I am a Conservative because I believe that, at its best, Conservatism is the most effective way in which to create real opportunity, real jobs and a better way of life for our country. In practice, socialism, despite its virtuous ideals, has always resulted in a levelling down. In the name of reform, it undermines stability. In the name of progress, it undermines achievement.
"A politician is a person with whose politics you don't agree. If you agree with him, he is a statesman."
I am sure that no one in the House would have difficulty in recognising my predecessor, now Lord Hurd of Westwell, as a statesman.
"attack the institutions of the country under the name of reform, and make war on the manners and customs of the people of this country under the pretext of progress."
There is a view that recent moves in the name of progress and reform to prohibit the legitimate pursuit of country sports are not only ill considered but a reflection of those who do not understand why our countryside takes the shape and form that it does.
"You may wonder, Mr. Speaker, why, contrary to tradition, some maiden speeches have been controversial. Perhaps it is pertinent to ask in what sense they can be controversial . . . What impels us to speak our minds is the sense of urgency."--[Official Report, 6 July 1983; Vol. 45, c. 315.]
It is a sense of urgency that impels me to speak. This Government have three modes of procedure. The first is that of precipitate haste, demonstrated by the manner in which operational control of interest rates was gifted to the Bank of England without consultation in the House. The second is that of recurring reference to working parties and reviews. The third mode, as we have seen strikingly illustrated today, is by leaking to the press before coming to the House. It is a shame that the high moral tone adopted by Labour Members in opposition was not carried forward when they moved into government.
"must make full and frank admission"--
of their responsibility--
"and express . . . apologies to the House."?
I fear that they will not.
"A politician can only deal with his inheritance. With the situation as it arrives."
The constituents of Witney are at a loss to understand why the Labour Government need an emergency Budget when, according to just about every economic indicator available, their inheritance demonstrates that in the past 40 years Britain has never had it so good. Unemployment is falling, taxes are down, interest rates are down, mortgage levels are down, and growth rates are being continually revised upwards.
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