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Mr. David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire): The proceeds of taking 1p off income tax are about £1.8 or £1.9 billion. Would the hon. Gentleman care to indicate how he would spread that money effectively to start to reverse the very bleak picture that he paints of a health service that costs about £45 billion a year and an education service that costs a similar amount in the current year?
Mr. Hancock: The hon. Gentleman asks an interesting and fair question. I am sure that he will be convinced of the merits of our alternative budget when it is announced in two and a half weeks' time. Indeed, I think that there is a good possibility that he will be so convinced that he might want to vote for it as an alternative to what the Chancellor will produce. I am sure that secretly, even the hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) will have a nagging twinge in his heart come Budget day, suggesting that he might have voted for the wrong Budget.
The proceeds of taking 1p off income tax are not what the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) suggested. Taking 1p off income tax takes away resources. We need those resources. We have so much money in the kitty that we can give more and we
can also give money back to the public, but the public want us to spend more on the issues that they care about. Taking 1p off comes to more than £2 billion. There is a major difference in valuation here.
Mr. Matthew Taylor:
£2.6 billion.
Mr. Hancock:
£2.6 billion is the realistic figure. I am sure that when Labour was in opposition, that figure was closer to £4 billion, but it is now down to less than £2 billion. However, realistically, it is £2.6 billion.
I have lost count of the number of pensioners who have written to me in the past two months, unable to believe the announcement that they would get only 70p or so in their pensions. They thought that the press was downing the Government. They did not believe it until it happened and now they are in turmoil. It is an absolute disgrace that pensioners have had such a shabby deal from a party that pleaded with them to vote Labour for a better deal. Instead, the Government have stabbed them in the back, kicked them when they are down and are rubbing their noses in it. That is what 70p means to pensioners who do not have the ability to decide that their rent will not go up by more than the cost of inflation.
Dawn Primarolo:
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm to the House that the manifesto on which he stood for election made a commitment to continue to raise pensions in line with prices, and that any resources were to be directed at the poorest pensioners? Is not that precisely what the Government are doing? Are not his comments a little disingenuous?
Mr. Hancock:
Unlike the Minister, we have moved on from our manifesto. We realise that we have to do more. [Interruption.] We have to do one thing or the other. We cannot stand still. We cannot stop at the point on which we fought the election three years ago--that would be absurd. The Minister has her hand over her face--even she is embarrassed by her question. She must surely realise that Labour got it wrong.
The Chancellor and the Prime Minister would never have made a commitment to stick to Tory spending limits if they had known how much was in the kitty. They must be kicking each other around Downing Street.
Mr. Webb:
My hon. Friend may not realise that the Minister and I share a local newspaper, the Bristol Evening Post. Is he aware that this week, night after night, that paper has published letters from Bristol pensioners who are angry at Bristol's Labour MPs for backing the 75p? Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister should accept that Bristol pensioners are right to be angry about that? Is the Minister saying that the pensioners are wrong to be angry?
Mr. Hancock:
Bristol pensioners are right and Portsmouth pensioners are right but, even more important, the nation's pensioners are right to be ashamed of and disgraced by a Government who offer them such a pittance. Pensioners' outgoings are going up, and are more than the amount they receive from the Government. The overwhelming majority of them have no control over that.
I have discussed three matters--the NHS, schools and further education, and pensions. The fourth is transport. Over the years, going back to 1984 when I was first
elected to the House, I have lost count of the arguments about how we could solve transport problems. We all dream that an integrated transport system is up there somewhere, but Judy Garland would have had more chance of finding it by going over the rainbow with the Tin Man and the Lion than we do with the Deputy Prime Minister and his transport team.
During the past three years, everything that has been done on transport has made matters worse. The Government have tinkered with the problems. I live in a wonderful part of the country--south Hampshire--with Portsmouth as the focal point for 500,000 people. During the course of a week, most of them travel to and from that city--for work, leisure, shopping or just for the sheer pleasure of being in such a great city--but our roads are a nightmare.
There are solutions. A rapid transport link has been proposed by the local authorities and the county council. It needs a large amount--millions of pounds--to give it a kick start. I have twice written to the Deputy Prime Minister begging him to support that scheme, if he is really serious about getting people out of their cars and into public transport. He has failed miserably: "Leave it to the private sector", he says.
What is happening with our railways? We are a ferry port. Every week, thousands of lorries come through our port, but instead of our having a railhead for freight, the rail yard is to be sold off. Railtrack cannot wait to dispose of it--probably for a shopping development. There will be no provision for a suitable railhead for freight. There will be no alternative to the lorries that come through the port from Spain and France.
As a Parliament, we have failed again over our commitment to people on transport. More important, the Government have failed.
Mr. Salter:
I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's contribution with the same care with which I am sure he listened to mine. I wish to ask him two questions. First, what is the difference between moving on from the manifesto and breaking one's promises or shooting from the hip? [Interruption.] Calm down.
Secondly, I would like the hon. Gentleman to consider a point that I raised. How should Liberal-controlled West Berkshire council treat its pensioners when it comes to concessionary travel? He has deliberately and disingenuously avoided that point.
Mr. Hancock:
The difference between moving on and breaking one's promises is that we have moved on and the Labour Government have broken their promises. That is why the hon. Gentleman looked so guilty when he asked the question. I am sure that what he really wanted me to do was to say what I have just said, so that he would not have to say it and be accused of being unfair to his colleagues.
On concessionary fares, if I were elected to West Berkshire council, I would advocate that it levied a rate that addressed the issues that the people of that area faced. We would try to find out whether concessionary fares were a big enough priority for the people. Unlike the Labour party, Liberal Democrat councillors listen and try to understand what the people are saying. We would prioritise our spending around what the people want and we might be pleasantly surprised. With my intervention
on the council--and possibly the support of the hon. Gentleman, who could encourage his constituents to vote for me--we might get a better deal on concessionary fares. That would be my ambition.
This debate gives the Government the opportunity to come off the fence. They should not sit there saying that they will give tax rebates and spend more. The majority of people cannot make that statement add up correctly and they do not believe it. That is why so many people are turning away from the Government. They feel that they have been let down.
Mr. Bill Rammell (Harlow):
I shall make a short speech. I believe in electoral reform and, therefore, in the politics of partnership in the appropriate post-electoral circumstances. With the greatest respect to Liberal Democrat Members, if such an approach is to come to fruition, they will have to grow up as a political party. They must start being honest and straight with people and justify where the money will come from.
Month in, month out and year in, year out, the Liberal Democrats have consistently made spending commitments that go way beyond anything that they have said that they would raise in taxation. Let us consider what has happened since the general election. In debates in the Chamber and in Standing Committee and in those that take place at local level, they have promised extra money for pensions, health, schools, public transport and housing. They have promised an end to tuition fees and to the parental contribution--and so it goes on. That is all to be paid for by 1p on the basic rate of income tax.
On a conservative estimate, the spending pledges that Liberal Democrats have made in the course of this Parliament would mean at least 5p on the basic rate of income tax. That would cost the typical family £600 a year. Do we ever hear Liberal Democrats referring to that as the cost of their proposals? Not for one moment. We see a complete lack of rigour and of basic arithmetic and they fail to square the circle. That is endemic in their politics.
Although I did not know that I was going to speak in the debate, I thought that I would try to seek out the Liberal Democrat alternative Budget from last year. I contacted the House of Commons Library, which contacted the Liberal Democrats' party headquarters and the office of the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce). The Library was wrong because it should have contacted the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell (Mr. Taylor). However, I should have thought that given that the Commons Library was seeking that information from a senior Liberal Democrat, he would have informed the
Library about which Member to contact, but he did not. The alternative Budget was not forthcoming, whether or not that was due to the Liberal Democrats' lack of willingness to make it available.
That suggests either that the Liberal Democrats do not think that their alternative Budget is significant in the conduct of their politics, or that they did not want to make it available because it would have revealed that the spending commitments that they have made this evening and throughout this Parliament were not included in the document. The truth is probably a combination of those two factors.
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