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Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow): There is another exception. If the right hon. Gentleman reads today's press, he will see that Eddie Stobart, the boss of one of Britain's biggest road haulage firms, says that he could save his company £2 million a year by moving his transport fleet overseas and basing it abroad. Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware of the huge damage that is done to the road haulage industry? Does he not recognise its effect on British industry?
Mr. Byers: I have not seen that quote from Mr. Stobart, but I will read it. He should look at the tax regime in the round. He will find that we offer a far more friendly tax regime in the United Kingdom than he would find in France, for example. It is for Mr. Stobart to make those decisions, but, if he looks at the tax regime in the round, he will see that it is supportive of his industry.
I was examining the comments that have been made about the Budget. There were some interesting comments from one person who does come at it from a party
political perspective, the former chief executive of Asda, now the vice-chairman of the Conservative party, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells. On radio yesterday, he said:
Mr. Bercow:
Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the president of the Confederation of British Industry, Sir Clive Thompson, has said that the Government are responsible for a creeping paralysis of regulation, and that, unless action is taken to reverse the trend, that regulation will be the principal growth industry in the United Kingdom?
Mr. Byers:
The hon. Gentleman should see what Sir Clive said about the Budget. I think that he will find that Sir Clive is not critical. Adair Turner is broadly supportive of the measures in the Budget. I was at a meeting with him this morning, with my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, at which Mr. Turner clearly said that the tax burden on business was reduced as a result of the Budget introduced by the Chancellor yesterday.
Let us debate the Budget. I urge hon. Members to take the opportunity to debate it. Let us have a debate about the ideas, the initiatives and the promotion of enterprise and fairness.
Mr. Redwood:
Will the Secretary of State confirm, as does the Red Book, that business will face a tax increase as a result of this Budget in 1999-2000, the immediate relevant year? We cannot be sure what will happen in two years, because there will be more Budgets. For the year that we can be sure about--the coming year,1999-2000--the figures show an increase in business taxation, do they not?
Mr. Byers:
The overall Budget delivers £4 billion of tax cuts. The right hon. Gentleman should consider carefully the measures that he supported when he was a member of the Cabinet. They would have meant an increased tax burden, compared to the measures that we are discussing. Business would have faced a greater tax burden, had the proposals that he supported continued. We do not agree with imposing such burdens on business. We are reducing the burden, compared to that which would have been imposed by the right hon. Gentleman.
The Chancellor was able to present that Budget yesterday because, early on in office, he took the tough and difficult decisions necessary to ensure that we have economic stability. By ensuring that, he could announce the initiatives proposed yesterday.
It is particularly significant that my right hon. Friend was able to do that, given the situation that we inherited when we took office in May 1997. Conservative Members do not like to be reminded of the economic mess that they left behind, but I shall remind them, and I might even mention not just boom and bust, but Tory boom and bust. I certainly shall not be referring to a golden economic legacy, because it clearly was not.
We inherited an economy in which output was rising at a rate that simply could not be sustained, inflationary pressures were building, with inflation set to rise sharply above its target level, and there was a large deficit in public finances--£28 billion, to be precise. Contrast that with the £4 billion surplus this year. Moreover, for the coming five years, we estimate that there will be a Budget surplus totalling £34 billion.
Look at what happened under the Conservative Government. Their deficit over the last economic cycle was not £50 billion, not £100 billion, but £1 billion short of £150 billion. Even with my poor mathematical skills, I know that that is £149 billion. That is the legacy created by the right hon. Member for Wokingham and his Government.
Mr. David Prior (North Norfolk):
Why does the Minister believe that so many foreign companies decided to invest in Britain during that time?
Mr. Byers:
There were two reasons. First, they saw the UK as a means of entry into the European market, something which will be put at risk by the policies promoted by the right hon. Member for Wokingham. Secondly, the figures show that last year was one of the best in terms of inward investment decisions. That was 1998, the year of a Labour Government.
Sir Raymond Whitney (Wycombe):
On the question of the golden legacy, which the right hon. Gentleman seeks to dispute, what does he think of the view expressed by Mr. Anatole Kaletsky, who says:
We have economic stability because we took the difficult decision to take politics out of the setting of interest rates. We will not hear the Tory policy on that from the right hon. Gentleman. The Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen have taken a Trappist vow of silence on that. I think that I know the view of the right hon. Member for Wokingham. It is a shame that he cannot discuss it openly. He smiles because he knows that he would not have given independence to the Bank of England. It is a shame that he cannot speak his mind on the issue. Unfortunately, he cannot say what he truly believes.
We took the necessary steps to put public finances back on a sound footing. They were not in that condition when we took office. We have created a new framework for
stability in monetary and fiscal policies. It is because we have taken those steps that, for the past seven months, inflation has been at or around the target level of 2.5 per cent., and short-term interest rates have peaked at half what they were in the early 1990s, and have fallen by 2 per cent. in the past two months alone. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said yesterday, that reduction in interest rates will save the typical home owner around £900 a year on his mortgage. Britain now has the lowest mortgage rates in 33 years. Long-term interest rates are now at their lowest level since the mid-1960s.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham talks about jobs being lost. I understand the pain felt by people who have lost their jobs. I know my constituency well, and I share my constituents' pain, frustration and anger when jobs are lost. But my constituency now has more people in work than on 1 May 1997. Throughout the north-east, which has been affected by the global downturn, more people are in work. Nationally, 400,000 more people are in work than in May 1997. Those are the facts. The right hon. Gentleman likes his own prejudices to get in the way of the facts, but on this occasion he should look carefully at the true position.
Mr. Redwood:
What does the Secretary of State think will happen to manufacturing jobs, industrial jobs, during the next year? Does he agree with the union forecasts, or is he saying that there will be no overall job losses?
Mr. Byers:
I am trying to ensure that factories such as Siemens have a new owner so that people can get back into jobs. I want to see more positive announcements, such as the one this morning from Peugeot in Coventry announcing 900 new jobs. Why does the right hon. Gentleman not applaud that fact? He says not a word about it. He ignores it. I welcome that announcement. It came about as a result of initiatives taken by the Government and by my Department. We shall continue with such work. There are now 400,000 more people in work than when we took office. Unemployment in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency is dropping. In the constituency of the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), there is a 22 per cent. reduction in unemployment. The Labour Government are prepared to work even for those constituencies represented by Conservative Members.
"We welcome the help for small business. I think that's good. We welcome the reduction in corporation tax and lower corporation tax for smaller businesses. That's good. As I said, we particularly welcome it in Asda. We are very keen on employee share ownership. I think everybody in the country is dead keen on it and that's good."
He concluded by saying:
"Overall, not a bad business budget."
That is a vice-chairman of the Conservative party, going on the record publicly and endorsing our approach, in conflict with the views of the right hon. Member for Wokingham, who speaks for the Opposition on these matters.
"Mr. Brown's apparent generosity has been greatly assisted by the long-term tax increases that were bravely introduced by Tory Chancellors"?
Mr. Byers:
The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. That conflicts with the approach of the right hon. Member for Wokingham. That is one reason why we were not prepared to endorse that raft of tax increases proposed by the Conservative Government, and why the tax burden is reduced as a result of the Budget. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing that to my attention.
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