Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 — House of Commons, 2015-03-24
Topic: Macroeconomics
Cathy Jamieson (Labour, Centre-left): Under a Labour Government, there would be a new 10p starting rate for tax, and we would also reverse the tax cut for millionaires, which this Government gave and which by no stretch of the imagination can be seen to be fair. It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman did not mention VAT. I assume the Minister does not want to intervene at this point to give me an assurance that his Government would not raise VAT in the next Parliament It is worth looking back and considering that this is the first Parliament since the early 1920s in which the average person in work will be worse off at the end than they were at the beginning, and the poorest are worse off than the rest. Last week Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies spelt it out in language that I think everyone, including the Government, can understand: "Looking only at changes implemented by the coalition the poorest have seen the biggest proportionate losses." That sounds pretty conclusive to me: the poor have lost the most The Minister has given his account of what will happen, but I think that he has been pretty coy about what is really in store for the future. What about the £12 billion of welfare cuts that the Government have committed to? They have already overspent on their welfare plans by £25 billion over the course of this Parliament, while at the same time imposing the unfair and iniquitous bedroom tax, so it is difficult to see how that £12 billion squeeze will be achieved When interviewed by Andrew Neil a few days ago, the Minister gallantly held the Government line and steadfastly refused to say where the cuts will be made. While we can perhaps applaud his loyal and resolute nature, he really should be more forthcoming about just where the axe will fall next, because voters across the country will be wondering what the Government are keeping from us. What more can he tell us today? He appears still not to want to say anything about VAT, so I will move on and deal with the Government’s pretentions to fiscal credibility For most people, a Government who are fiscally credible are a Government who meet their own fiscal targets. The budget deficit will be around £90 billion this year, and next year’s budget, far from being balanced, as was promised in 2010, is projected to show a £75 billion deficit. Meanwhile, public sector net debt will be £217 billion higher in 2015-16 than was projected in 2010. How can the Government claim to be credible when they have missed their own targets by such wide margins? The end result of all that failure, all those missed targets and broken promises, is even bigger spending cuts As my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor pointed out last week, it really has come to something when a Government are forced to boast that spending as a proportion of GDP will fall only to 1964 levels—levels last seen over 50 years ago. It is not a pretty picture. Close scrutiny of the OBR tables shows that 2018 spending, on the historical comparative measure that the OBR uses for day-to-day spending on public services, will fall to its lowest level since 1938. Despite their best efforts, the Tories are still the party that wants to take us back to the 1930s The Red Book is trying to perform a delicate balancing act; it is trying to assure us that the worst is over and that stability has been restored while at the same time plotting deeper cuts than anything we have seen in this Parliament. I think that it is seeking simply to paper over the cracks of failure and evade the debris of broken promises. It is for that reason that we will be voting against the Government’s motion today.