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Mr. Hayes: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about haulage. His point has been made by hon. Members on
both sides of the House. The Government knew about this before the Budget. The hon. Gentleman described the Budget as marvellous and wonderful, but why did the Government not do something about this? They have exacerbated the problem.
Mr. Wyatt: I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman says, but I am trying to mark the Chancellor's card for the next Budget.
In the same way, it is ironic that the £6.50 bottle of Chapel Down wine that I bought in Tenterden on Saturday costs £1.90 in Calais. There is no logic in that. People will go to Calais to buy it. It is the same with beer. Shepherd Neame, a family company, is in a neighbouring constituency but has 60 pubs in mine. It has gone on and on about a level playing field for beer tax. It is ironic that its beer is cheaper in Calais than in Sittingbourne or Sheppey. It has tried hard with its lobbying and may get permission to go to the House of Lords to appeal.
The business of Britain is with family companies. In Germany, they do not go to the market; it is the middle stratum companies that make the wealth in communities. We must enable middle order companies. It is important to reconsider on haulage and on the beer and wine trade. Despite what the hon. Member for South Holland and the Deepings (Mr. Hayes) said, this was an otherwise cracking Budget.
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury):
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Have you had notice from the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that he will make a statement to the House about the important announcement that has been made on European Union farm reform?
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
That is not strictly a point of order. The answer is no, but the hon. Gentleman might have regard to the usual practice in these matters, and it is possible that a statement may be volunteered in due course.
Mr. Donald Gorrie (Edinburgh, West):
I apologise to the House for not having been unable to attend the whole debate, but I have heard many speeches. I will not follow the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) in his eulogy of the Budget. It is good in parts. I take the position of the curate rather than the enthusiast.
My first point is perhaps naive. Can we have practical action to put into effect all the rhetoric about transparency in Budgets and clarity about figures? The habit of recycling figures and confusing the public, whether deliberate or not, does not help people. It creates such confusion that the Secretary of State had to intervene in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) to satisfy him that some of the money involved was new money. It would be helpful if we could have some arrangement such as a letter N beside a figure so that we knew what money was new and what was recycled.
Surely the essence of civilised debate is that we agree on the facts and then argue about what they mean and how we achieve what we want. If we are confused about
the figures, we will not have a civilised debate. I urge the Government to set out the figures in a consistent way so that we know whether we are working on one or three years, what baseline we are working from and whether the money is new.
Members of the Government do not yet accept that, despite the welcome improvements in some areas of funding, there is a big black hole at the centre of local government expenditure, not only on education but on many other services. There were fairly persistent cuts for the many years of Conservative Government and they have continued in most cases in the first two years of Labour government. To take one example, the welcome increased expenditure on books, as far as I can find out from the figures, which I am still exploring--getting accurate figures is very difficult--does not fill the gap in expenditure on books caused by cuts year on year. The increased expenditure helps a bit, but it does not recover the many losses of the past. In many areas, there is still a major reduction in education and associated services.By funding attractive individual programmes, the Government have still left a big black hole in the core funding of councils.
For example, the Government do not adequately fund pay increases. It is a shibboleth--if that is the right word; it is a false notion, in any case--to say that pay increases can be funded out of productivity or improved efficiency. If pay increases are not adequately funded, it merely means that councils sack some staff or are compelled to fight fiercely to keep pay increases down. So the pay of teachers and those in further education, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Bath mentioned, has been held down. Welcome improvements are being made in some public services based on the slave labour of those employed therein. That is not a civilised and acceptable practice. The Government should adequately fund pay increases. If the resulting Budget means that there must be a cut, it should be a clear and open cut. The failure to fund pay increases adequately is, to use a Conservative word, a sneaky or stealthy cut.
There are ways in which the Government could achieve good value for money. The Scottish Accounts Commission has said that if both human and computer administrative support was better in schools, we could save the equivalent of 1,500 full-time teachers. So ifthe Government invested--it would be a substantial investment--in more administrative staff and more computers, it would cost less than the salaries of 1,500 new teachers, but they would get the equivalent. Surely such well-targeted investment would be profitable.
The Treasury should set up a bumf-busting committee, or anti-bureaucratic paperwork committee. Wherever one goes--schools, colleges, local authorities or enterprise companies--one hears complaints of too much paperwork. I am sure that other hon. Members have heard such complaints.
Mr. Hayes:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that paperwork has increased because of the initiatives, particularly in schools, that the Government have taken in their two years in office? Teachers tell me--as I am sure they have told him--that they have initiative fatigue. So
Mr. Gorrie:
I partly agree. However, the Tories seem to think that all evil things started with the election of the current Government. The Conservative Government, too, produced masses of paperwork. Nevertheless, setting aside any party points, paperwork is an issue. If the Government could have a task force--if that is the language that they prefer--to reduce paperwork, they would receive huge financial benefit, and we would get more bangs for our buck.
As my better-informed hon. Friends tell me, even with the new computers, over 90 per cent. of teachers will still not have a computer. It is also most important that the Government should fund the charges for computer access to the internet. That issue has not yet been properly addressed. Although we welcome the Government's interest in computers, and obviously everything cannot be put right in a year, help with funding computer access charges would be very helpful.
The cuts in local authority funding made by both the previous Government and the current Government have reduced expenditure in the community on services such as community education and social work, and especially on the services provided by voluntary organisations that provide the type of support and help needed by families who live in deprived areas and suffer from social exclusion. If we could put more money into supporting the community and supporting those people in the community, we should do a great amount to improve pupils' attitude when in school, and thereby achieve much better results in schools. Most education happens outwith, not within the school. The cuts have had a very serious effect on youth clubs and other excellent activities that help to create the right frame of mind in pupils.
On a technical point, the Government persist in treating local authority self-financed expenditure as within the control total. The Government are therefore preventing councils from developing enterprise in spending their money sensibly.
The Budget has also neglected the issue of student finances. Many students are experiencing a real crisis in their finances. The Government have to address the issue, either by putting more money into altering the student fees regime or by putting more into helping students with living costs, which could be done simply by giving universities and colleges more for hardship and access funds.
Mr. Tony McNulty (Harrow, East):
It is a great pleasure to follow the usual Liberal Democrat whinge of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie). I have not heard the hon. Gentleman--either when I was watching the debate on television, or since I have been in 5.24 pm
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