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Mr. William Ross (East Londonderry): This has been an interesting day--not just the speech by the Chancellor on the first Labour Budget for 18 years, but four maiden speeches, too. I have enjoyed all of them. Each new Member has shown a commitment not just to constituents but to serving the House.
I came here first in February 1974. I looked around me at the time and wondered how long I would be here for. I am rather surprised to find myself still in possession of a seat in 1997. They seem to keep altering the boundaries in a serious effort to ensure that I always win. In any case, I hope that the maiden speakers will enjoy their time here
as much as I have. It is a wonderful place to be, not just a great honour but a great burden. Anyone who comes here as a Member of Parliament must speak up for constituents and seek their welfare. Each and every one of us came here because we believed in something, and we do not fulfil our role if we do not pursue the belief which brought us here in the first place.
Those who have been here for some time will know exactly what my views are. Whether or not they are popular, they are always enunciated in the House to any hon. Member who cares to listen.
I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) talking about child care. I was rather surprised that she neglected to draw attention to the 16-hour rule relaxation, and even more surprised that she did not draw attention to the real problems experienced by nursery teachers, whose contracts of employment with schools mean that they are employed only in term time. Many other workers, mainly women, are similarly affected. Once the term is over, they find themselves denied social security benefits.
I understand that the social security commissioners have looked into the matter, and some cases are under consideration at the moment. Although the previous Government were not prepared to deal with the problem, I hope that this Administration will try to reach a resolution that takes into account the needs of these women, many of whom are qualified in child care. When summer comes round, they find themselves turfed out the door and they do not get a penny until school resumes. I hope that the woman Minister whom I see on the Front Bench, the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo), will take note of what I have said.
I also listened with considerable interest to the Chancellor's speech. It was interesting and wide ranging, and it was designed to endear him to some of his Back Benchers. I am sure that he will be aware that economics is the dismal science, and that if a Chancellor is popular with his own lot when he sits down, he is almost certain to have done something wrong.
I well recall sitting on this Bench--Ulster Unionist Members do not cross the Floor when Governments change, so we are a permanent fixture on the Opposition side--the last time that the House echoed with cheers after a Chancellor delivered a Budget. I hope that the present Chancellor recalls that. I believe that it was the 1986 or 1987 Budget--that Budget in which income tax was cut by 2p and cohabiting couples were allowed to buy their houses and obtain the full benefit of the tax relief until August. The result was not quite what the cheers suggested on the day.
I hope, therefore, that the present Chancellor keeps a fairly dismal eye on the economy as his policy develops, taking a properly sceptical view of the cheers and doing in time what he feels needs to be done. It would be in the interests of no hon. Member or constituent if the economy went wrong.
I have listened with interest to the debate on the windfall tax--a tax which seems to find so much favour in some quarters. We are told that the windfall tax is a one-off, but it seems to me to be spread over a few years. Therefore, like most taxes, it will have downstream consequences and an ever-growing tail of expenditure, which will cause considerable difficulties for the Chancellor and other Ministers in future years.
I believe that the only honest way to raise tax to tackle a difficult situation is by means of income tax. It is immediate, quick and effective. I am not sure that to grab a windfall tax just because it is handy is the best way to proceed and I fear that, in the long term, it will be proven not to have been a wise way to proceed.
However, I do welcome the policy that the Chancellor set out today on the public sector borrowing requirement. He pointed out a problem that for many years has worried those who take an interest in these matters--that the interest on the public debt is now the enormous sum of £25 billion a year. The idea that we are paying out that money year after year and getting nothing back has always horrified me.
The Chancellor seemed, almost for the first time I think, to hint that he intended so to control expenditure and raise revenues that he would be able to repay national debt, and that the interest charges would eventually disappear. Whether he is doing that just to keep within the Maastricht criteria is of no great importance to me. That debate is under way and is bound to lead to ferocious arguments in the House.
If the Chancellor can do what he is setting out to do--keep inflation low--there is merit in that in itself. We should keep all our financial affairs under firm control because, when those controls are removed, we always find it much easier to open Pandora's box than to get it closed again. In my time in the House, I have been through two major recessions. I do not believe that any hon. Member wants another--I certainly do not.
I confess that I have a very real problem whenever I hear a Chancellor say that he wants to borrow only to invest. I find it difficult to grasp the concept of borrowing or tax revenues being targeted at a particular element, given the global nature of our taxation system, tied in with borrowing and the way in which we spend revenues. The Chancellor will find it very difficult to convince anyone that if he raises £10 billion, £15 billion or £20 billion a year, that money will go into investment, which will pay for itself in a few years. He is going down a road that could lead to inflation, and I hope that he will carefully reconsider the words that he used.
When Budgets were moved from spring to autumn, some hon. Members drew attention to potential problems, and we are interested to note that the wheel has turned full circle. The present Chancellor has done what the Conservatives could not have brought themselves to do--he has admitted that it was a mistake, and we are now returning to a spring Budget. We were not told--I hope that we shall be told at the end of the debate--whether it is intended that there will also be a financial statement in the autumn, so that we may have a full-blown debate in the autumn, as used to be the case. That would give us not one, but two bites of the financial cherry a year, enabling us to hold the Government to account for the way in which they handle the revenues and expenditures of the nation during the year.
Interestingly, this time we shall have two Budgets within a year. In the 1970s, we had two, or even three, Budgets in a year. I hope that the change is not a precursor to returning to that mode of conducting our affairs.One Budget a year is quite sufficient. Although, understandably, this will be a short year, I hope that the Government will restrict themselves to one Budget a year for the remainder of this Parliament.
I welcome the expenditure on education, the national health service and housing, but I point out to the Minister that, in the present year's expenditure plans, planned housing expenditure for Northern Ireland--the part of the kingdom which I represent--has received a substantial reduction on last year's figure. Do the Government intend to reverse that trend? Great need exists, especially for the refurbishment and repair of dwellings, and for housing grants for those purposes.
Ulster Unionist Members welcome the help for small businesses on capital investment allowances and we welcome the reduction of VAT on fuel. However, I hope that the Government will examine the other burdens that are carried by retail businesses especially. In this case, I am referring to Northern Ireland, in that we have just had a complete rates revaluation, which is bearing very heavily on many businesses. There is a very short tapering-in period and it is limited to relatively low valuations.
The revaluation is bearing especially heavily on small businesses in town centres, for a variety of reasons. I hope that in future we shall have a longer tapering-in period and that rates revaluations will take place at intervals of five years, not 10 years, as previously. Ten years is far too long an interval.
I hope that valuation officers will remember that the increase in rental values that we are witnessing is very largely due not to the building or its situation, but to the capacity of the people who run the business. We all know of rundown businesses in small towns or villages that have improved when a sharp, capable business man has been brought in to run them. The quality of the shopping improves, but, five or 10 years later, they find themselves clobbered by the rates, whereas less able business men get away with a much smaller increase. That trend should be reversed.
In Northern Ireland, we have car parks controlled by the Department of the Environment. We are told that full-cost recovery is necessary. I have never been able to understand what elements the Department of the Environment was taking into account in calculating the full-cost recovery for the economic return, but there must be a scale laid down somewhere. A car park needs to be built only once and I cannot see why car park charges must increase.
The experience of retailers immediately adjacent to car parks is that even a relatively small increase in car parking charges can have an immense effect on those retailers' turnover because, within a week, people move to shopping centres outside towns. Very often, those customers do not return for a long time.
I hope that the Government will consider that problem, because we want to keep the commercial centres of many small towns, villages and, indeed, the larger towns in Northern Ireland as vibrant and thriving as they currently are. I have travelled through many towns in England, Wales and Scotland, and I know that, where there are out-of-town shopping malls, the town centre dies and the entire trade of the area passes into the hands of national multiples, which drain money away from the local area in large quantities. We want to preserve small local businesses and create an environment in which they can not only compete but grow and create real competition for the multiples.
My next point is more national in character. The Chancellor seems to be trying to increase the sum available for research and development, and for investment. I welcome the reduction in the tax burden in terms of investment, but there is another aspect of industrial regeneration--research and development in aerospace, defence and many other areas--where we invest insufficient money compared with our competitors in Europe, the far east and north America. We must act urgently to encourage our manufacturing base, especially those firms at the leading edges of technology, to invest more money in research and development.
Given the long lead times from when research and development take place until a product is sold, not only in this nation but across the world--it can take 10 or 15 years--people need tremendous encouragement if they are to invest so far ahead. The Government must keep a close eye on the matter so that the money apparently earmarked for research and development is not filched away and then given to shareholders under some pretext a year or two later. We must find a way to ensure that research and development becomes so acceptable to our major manufacturing industries that they go ahead and spend money on it. That is where the jobs will be created--not immediately, but for boys and girls who are now in their teens or at primary school. If they are to have high incomes and if this country is to have wealth-creating industries, we must look at that aspect of industrial regeneration.
There is supposed to be a two-way street with the United States in defence procurement. It might be a two-way street, but so far as I can see, five lanes seem to come from America while only half a lane goes there from the United Kingdom. The Government should exert a little more pressure to ensure that at least two lanes go back across the Atlantic so that we benefit from that.
The Chancellor spoke about the environment. In the current year, environmental services in Northern Ireland are booked for a 13.6 per cent. reduction. We shall not improve the environment by chopping off the money invested in it at that level; the Government should look at that matter again carefully.
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