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Mr. Letwin: Will the hon. Gentleman read out what happened in cash terms under the Conservative Administration?
Mr. Leslie: I shall read out the fair terms, which are the real-terms figures. For example, in 1994-95, the figure was £15,000 million compared with £14,186 million for the financial year of 2001-02. That represents a reduction in real terms. It does Conservative Members no good at all to scrabble around to try to find ways to pay for their ridiculous tax guarantee, or spending cuts guarantee as it should be called. They suggest that somehow they can stretch expenditure to cover myriad issues. The hon. Gentleman suggested that they would not only spend on health and education, but that he wanted additional expenditure on defence and to prevent crime. Those areas make up 40 per cent. of public expenditure, yet he believes that we could see a real growth in expenditure on them above the rate of increase in the GDP. He believes that he can sustain such increases in expenditure while simultaneously reducing taxation. That is not feasible unless there are swingeing cuts in other services.
Mr. Letwin: Has the hon. Gentleman had the opportunity to look at the Red Book? If he has, has he noticed that that he has described precisely the oddity that the Chancellor of the Exchequer predicts?
Mr. Leslie: If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is working in line with the Conservative party's distorted policy of a tax--or public service cuts--guarantee, he cannot have been paying too much attention. Given his suggestion that public expenditure should increase significantly in real terms and that tax should be reduced by enormous amounts, what would he cut? As he has said that he does not agree with borrowing, there would have to be cuts in international development aid, the transport budget, pensions, child benefits, disabled benefits and myriad other services.
Mr. Letwin: Is the hon. Gentleman now denying the proposition that the Chief Secretary has repeatedly made in the House: that, in the Chancellor's plans in the Red Book, tax will fall as a percentage of GDP for several years?
Mr. Leslie: The hon. Gentleman should realise that his proposal is for the lifetime of a Parliament, but I know that there is a rumour that the shadow Chancellor is considering changing that proposal so that it falls into line with the economic cycle. The hon. Gentleman is right in so far as the Government will reduce the burden of taxation, but we correctly consider such matters over cycles and by examining the needs and the demands of the public sector and what we need to spend. We are not driven by the ridiculous dogmatic guarantee that would set in concrete a notional level of revenue reduction regardless of economic circumstances. That would continually force enormous cuts in the public services that the Conservatives say are not crucial. However, many of my constituents would say that public expenditure on
matters such as international development, agriculture and trade and industry is important. We all know that the Conservatives would cut that enormously.When I examined other statements on expenditure made by the Conservative party, I noticed that it had made significant new spending--and not just tax reduction--commitments. For example, the Conservative Front- Bench spokesman on education wants to reinstate the assisted places scheme, albeit in a new form, which would cost many millions of pounds. The Conservatives want to restore the married couples allowance. Their home affairs spokesman wants to increase the police fund grant by about 6.1 per cent. They want to increase funding for ambulance services: the Conservative Whip here now, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Cran), has said in the past that he wants greater expenditure on ambulance services in his area. The shadow transport team wants higher spending on train station car parks, and has even spoken of free shares for all who live in London under the privatisation of London Underground.
All those commitments have implications for public expenditure. People will not believe that the Conservatives could deliver their promises while simultaneously reducing taxation, without resorting to borrowing and adding to the national debt. That was their strategy during the 1980s, and we experienced the consequences of that.
Mr. Edward Davey: Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen do not appear to know whether their tax guarantee is a guarantee to reduce taxes over the lifetime of a Parliament, or over an economic cycle? Would he care to comment on that?
Mr. Leslie: For once, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Conservatives' confusion is somewhat disturbing, even though it is also quite hilarious from our point of view. It demonstrates how there is no chance that the Conservatives will be trusted by the electorate, who will not have the wool pulled over their eyes. The electorate know about the balance of public finances and they know the difference between a realistic pledge and an unrealistic one. It is all very well for the Conservatives to give guarantees, but it is a sorry sight for voters to see the Conservatives trying to wriggle out of those guarantees only months later.
My constituents will benefit significantly from the Budget and the Bill. We shall be able to deliver results locally. Progress will accelerate on a new road scheme worth £60 million in my constituency: the Bingley relief road. Thanks to the Government, there will be new school buildings at Cullingworth school, Beckfoot school, Bingley grammar school and Salt grammar school, paid for out of public funds. There will be new train rolling stock with extra carriages so that people are not crammed together at peak times. There will be a new accident and emergency wing at Bradford Royal infirmary. All those important local services will be delivered, thanks to the Government's careful and prudent management of the public finances.
The Government have focused on stability and on ensuring that we get the fiscal balance right, while targeting assistance through tax cuts. They have always borne in mind the fact that a responsible Government have to balance revenue against expenditure. That is what my constituents want. I hope that the Bill receives the support of the House.
8.58 pm
Mr. Andrew Tyrie (Chichester): Originally, I was going to say something about macro-economic policy and take only an oblique look at the fiscal measures. However, having had a good look at the Bill over the past 48 hours, I have decided to spend some time talking about the climate change levy.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the levy is the most astonishing measure that I have ever seen in a Finance Bill. Set out over the 83 pages of schedule 6, it is a most unusual provision. No clear explanation has been provided of why the measure has been introduced, nor of how it is to be applied. It is a poorly designed levy and poorly thought through. What was the ostensible reason for the levy, and what is it designed to achieve? I can only assume that it has been introduced because the Government have swallowed whole every assertion made by those who argue that we must act now to arrest climate change.
I have asked the Library whether, since the general election, the Government have produced a study setting out their view of the conclusions of the Kyoto summit, the extent to which they agree with them or the extent, perhaps, to which they feel that we should go further. The Government have published nothing on those lines. Nor have they called together a group of scientists to publish an independent report, as far as I know.
I do not know whether climate change is a serious problem. However, over the past 48 hours, I have started to read up about it again. With the Finance Bill, we could find ourselves at the start of what will amount to a fundamental alteration of the shape of the economy to take account of climate change without many of the basic questions about it being answered. I shall ask a few of those questions now.
My interest in these matters was first triggered 10 years ago when I went to a lecture by Sir John Mason, the head of the Meteorological Office, who more or less destroyed the argument that climate change was occurring as a consequence of carbon dioxide emissions. Since then, he has modified his views somewhat, but, apparently, he still holds to many of his basic points. As I have said, I do not know the answers to these matters, but as I think that they are pertinent to schedule 6, I shall ask six or seven basic questions and make some brief allusions to them. I urge the Government to produce a thorough study of these matters before putting the Bill on the statute book.
Let us try a really basic question. Is global warming occurring? That might be thought a most absurd question because the answer is so obvious. Over the past 20 years, statistics have shown that the surface temperature of the planet has risen between 0.3 and 0.8 points of a degree celsius. However, reading over the weekend, I discovered that satellite measures of the temperature of the earth show no rise. There are many scientists who think that such measurements are more accurate than terrestrial measures. Balloons called radiosonde are also used to measure temperature. They, too, have failed to find any increase in global temperature over the past 20 years. If I had to guess, I would say that the planet probably is increasing in temperature, but I really do not know.
I shall try another basic question. Has the planet been warmer than it is now? I quickly discovered that it has been much warmer. In the middle ages, grapes were apparently cultivated along the south coast to produce
wine. There is overwhelming evidence to suggest that this part of the world, and probably the whole world, has been warmer than it is now. It was probably warmer in Roman times. There was also a mini-ice age in the 17th century.Even if the earth is warming, is that necessarily bad? I have seen no convincing evidence to suggest that it is. It is clear that there will be a distributional effect from one region to another. However, it is not clear that, overall, the earth will be worse off if temperatures rise.
Will warming lead to more unstable weather? The Deputy Prime Minister has been unequivocal about that. He has stated that
- we can expect extreme weather events to become more frequent . . . as temperatures rise.
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