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Mr. Ruffley: It is all very depressing.
Ms Moran: As we hear, the Conservatives have learned nothing. As we have heard in this debate, they would not only return Luton families to the misery that they endured during the Tory decades, but scrap the new deal, the working families tax credit and the national minimum wage, which have benefited Luton. The Conservatives believe that our public spending is reckless and irresponsible, and would instead substitute their nonsensical tax guarantee and attempt to privatise our health service.
I am proud of this Government's record on public spending, and of the further spending that will be forthcoming. I warn Luton families that the Tories have learned nothing from their decades in power. Families in my constituency should look to this Government to increase their opportunities.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next hon. Member, I should say to the House that I understand that the winding-up speeches will start at 6.20 pm. I have no powers to instruct anyone, but there are 11 Back-Bench Members who wish to speak. As this is the last debate of the year, it would be nice if everyone could get in, but I am in the hands of the House.
4.40 pm
Mr. David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds): In support of the amendment tabled by my right hon. and hon. Friends, I draw the attention of the House to the lamentable and discourteous performance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Select Committee on the Treasury last Tuesday. He did not do very well, particularly from Mr. Alastair Campbell's point of view. He managed to elicit from the Daily Mail the next day a headline to the effect that the "Tax burden is going up".
We all know that that is the case, but we had the unedifying sight of spin doctors from Millbank scuttling around, trying to tell various newspapers that taxes had not gone up at all and that they were falling. They were trying to say that black was white.
When I heard of all that nonsense going on, I was reminded of the words of Charles Henry Grosvenor, the well-known Republican Congressman of the 19th century, who said:
- "Figures won't lie, but liars figure."
Mr. Ruffley: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, with a due sense of dread and anticipation.
Mr. Love: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The amendment that he supports calls for increases in public expenditure and, at the same time, reductions in taxation. Is that credible?
Mr. Ruffley: I am sorry that I gave way. The hon. Gentleman should have listened to the excellent speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), who made it perfectly clear--not a difficult point to grasp--that one can cut non-essential and, indeed, wasteful public expenditure at the same time as increasing real-terms spending on the things that we care about, such as schools and hospitals. If the hon. Gentleman had been listening properly, he would know that, for many months and even years, we have been saying that that can easily be achieved--more expenditure on the things that we care about and less on the things that are wasteful.
Let me continue my odyssey on Labour tax policy. We must examine what the Chancellor said in the Select Committee. He was economical with the actualite. I must keep within the bounds of parliamentary language, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as you would expect me to do.
I wonder whether hon. Members can guess how many times the Chancellor of the Exchequer last Tuesday refused to answer a simple question about the difference between the share of gross domestic product taken by tax in 1996-97--in other words, the tax burden that he inherited in his first year--and his projection for 2001-02, the last year of this Parliament. He refused to answer that simple question not once, twice or 10 times, but on no fewer than 19 occasions. It was a lamentable performance.
I shall take the liberty of reading out for the record the figures that the Chancellor was too coy to acknowledge last Tuesday. They are his own figures, not Conservative central office figures or House of Commons Library figures. I quote from the Green Book, as Labour Members know it, or the pre-Budget report, PBR, from November. In it, we can discover the key information.
The tax burden that Labour inherited in 1996-97 was 35.3 per cent. On the Chancellor's own figures, the outturn for 1998-99, the next year, was 37.4 per cent, the year after that 37 per cent, then rising to 36.8 per cent.--[Hon. Members: "Falling."] and 37.2 per cent.
The illiteracy, economic and otherwise, of Labour Members is astonishing. If they cannot tell the difference between the 35.3 per cent. that they inherited, and the tax burden in the last year of this Parliament, 37.2 per cent,
they should not hold the office that they hold. They should start reading the material that their own Ministers produce. [Interruption.]I thought it important to get that on the record. The maundering and muttering from Labour Members discloses that they do not know the truth when it stares them in the face. We should look at a further set of figures, produced by the Office for National Statistics. On the key tax burden test of net taxes and social security contributions as a share of GDP, we see that, for every quarter since the Government came into office, the tax burden has been higher than that which they inherited from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke).
That needs to be emphasised, because we believe in having an honest debate about taxation. Judging from my mailbag, my constituents also want an honest debate. The real mistake that the Chancellor made--he made quite a few last Tuesday--was to answer in the following terms, when he was, for the 17th or 18th time, asked whether the tax burden had gone up since 1996-97. He said:
- "We made only a number of promises on tax when we came into power and one . . . of them was not in relation to the tax burden."
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman goes beyond the conventions of the House. The Chancellor does not utter lies. No hon. Member utters lies.
Mr. Ruffley: With the greatest respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I said "line". I think that the record will show "line".
Mr. Deputy Speaker: My apologies for picking the hon. Gentleman up.
Mr. Ruffley: The Chancellor is guilty of many things, and being economical with the actualite is but one of them. [Interruption.] If hon. Members want to make interventions, I am happy to take them, pathetic and dismal as they are likely to be. However, I repeat that the Chancellor said that the Government had not made a promise about the tax burden. Why would he say that if the tax burden had decreased or been stable? The press rightly deduced that the Chancellor uttered those words because the tax burden had become heavier, as the PBR shows beyond doubt or peradventure.
Mr. Letwin: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is another reason for the Chancellor's defensive line? In 1996, the Prime Minister told the Financial Times that there would be
- "no increase in taxation at all."
Our astonishment at the Chancellor's refusal to acknowledge that the tax burden had increased when his figures demonstrated otherwise was highlighted by The Guardian among the many other newspapers that gave him a bad write-up the next day. The Guardian reported that the Chancellor had
- "conveniently left out Labour's first year in office, the year when the tax burden went up sharply as a result of Mr. Brown's early fiscal tightening.
It was all a fairly unedifying spectacle."
- "half hour of wriggling and squirming"
We do not have to look far for the reasons for the Chancellor's obfuscation. Tax is a potent issue for voters. The Chancellor understands that he cannot admit--in public or otherwise--that the tax burden has increased because he knows the damage that the Government will sustain when that is widely accepted. Conservative Members will pursue that between now and the next general election, and beyond.
Dr. Palmer: I am confused by the hon. Gentleman's comments. He tells us that the public are aware of what he alleges are tax increases; he also tells us that the public do not know about them. Which view is correct?
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