Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2018-10-30
Topic: Macroeconomics
Edward Jonathon Davey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, especially with respect to renewable energy This might not be a Halloween Budget, but it is yet another attempt to scare Members about Brexit and to frame the Brexit question as deal or no deal. Although the Chancellor hardly mentioned Brexit, the underlying message is that there is something for us if we back this Budget—tax cuts and something for the NHS—and more in store if we get a soft Brexit. The other message is that if we do not vote for a deal, there will be a disastrous hard Brexit Certainly a hard Brexit would be a disaster, but so would this soft Brexit. It is just wrong of the Government, day after day, to propose a choice between the Brexit deal that the Government come back with and a hard Brexit with no deal. The truth is that there are alternatives. When we get there, this House must debate those alternatives, not just the two that the Government keep scaring us about. It is almost like the Noel Edmonds TV game show, "Deal or No Deal". I switched over to another channel when it came on my TV, and this Parliament could switch over and have a third choice—that choice should be a people’s vote and an exit from Brexit The Budget forecasts show why a third option is so important. People should look at the growth forecasts, which are seriously scary. We are going to be trapped in a Brexit low-growth economy. We have had 10 years of financial crisis austerity and, with these growth figures, we are going to have 10 years of Brexit austerity. The figures should be really scary. Our economy had near to the highest growth rate of any G7 country in the four years before the referendum, and since then we have had the lowest growth in the G7. That should worry us, and that is even before we add in the risks and uncertainties. The OBR’s economic forecast could not factor in all the risks and uncertainties; it had to assume that there would be a soft Brexit So even these low growth figures may well not be as bad as things turn out to be. That feeds in to the spending figures. Ministers have made much of the health figures, but when one strips out the health increase, one sees that all the rest of the Departments will, on average, see 0% growth for the next few years. That is austerity continuing—it is really scary and completely not needed. According to the OBR, Brexit has already cost £15 billion in lost tax revenue, and we hear in the Budget that even Brexit preparation is going to cost more. That is why we have to escape this Brexit trap; whether it is a no-growth Brexit or a deal Brexit, we have to have a people’s vote This Brexit Budget was shaped to try to buy off the Back Benchers and the Democratic Unionist party, not to try to get a proper forward strategy for this country. There were deals in there for Belfast. It may deserve that money, but the timing for it is funny, and we know what the talks have been to try to get there. We know that the Government could not put forward the tax rise needed to get the Budget into surplus and to invest in public services because they could not get that tax rise through their Back Benchers. The Brexiteer Tories on the Back Benches would not have voted for a tax rise. The hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) was right: we need to get a surplus, we need to invest in our schools, hospitals and police, and we need to undo some of the damage from universal credit. We need that, but we can only do it if we have some honesty on the public finances. The reality is that this Chancellor and this Government are so weak that they cannot put through the tax measures needed to get the right economic balance in this country and the right investment in our public services When we look at individual public services, we see that they are crying out for investment. For example, since 2015 we have lost 4,789 full-time police officers, 2,231 community support officers and 4,334 special officers. That is more than 9,400 officers lost, at a time when crime has been going up. Knife crime has increased by 62% since 2015, firearm crime has increased by 30% and homicides have increased by 33%. The Conservatives should be ashamed of themselves for not having been prepared to invest in the security of our people and safety on the streets when violent crime is going up by so much I have a question for those on the Treasury Bench. We have been looking in the Red Book. The Government have announced £164 million for counter-terrorism police, which is welcome, but it does not score anywhere in the Red Book. We have been making inquiries and asking the Treasury about this, and it says that it is from the reserves. I have never heard an explanation like that. The Chancellor announces £160 million for counter-terrorism policing yet it is not in the Red Book or said to be in the Red Book. That is an insult to this House, and I hope that Ministers will have an answer by the end of the day My constituency is seeing school funding cut, and headteachers have been marching. They do not normally do that in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, but they were doing so recently because they are fed up with having to lose staff, cut the curriculum and cut opportunities for young people in their charge. They do not stand for it, and this House should not stand for it. It was an insult to offer less money to schools than the Government are spending on potholes. What sort of priorities do this Government have when they put potholes before our children and their futures Not only did the Government get the short-term spending decisions wrong but they got the long-term spending decisions and strategy wrong. Where was the investment to tackle climate change? What about the opportunity in green growth—in our renewable energy? There are huge opportunities there, but there was nothing on that in the Budget. As for social justice, it was good to see some recognition that universal credit is causing pain out there, but the Budget did not go anywhere near enough. We are going to have to revisit this as a House if we are going to make sure that the poorest people in our country share in any future prosperity.