Health and Social Care Levy Bill — House of Commons, 2021-09-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): That is another excellent idea. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the suggestion, but I fear that the Government are so focused on spending money that they have lost any incentive to try to control expenditure, which I thought was the Treasury’s job. It takes me back to Geoffrey Howe’s first Budget. The Conservatives had become a national Government on the back of very high socialist spending and a popular rebellion against socialist waste and high taxation. In his first Budget, Geoffrey Howe emphasised: "Finance must determine expenditure". That message has now been lost by the Government, who are saying that expenditure must determine finance. Our Government—I say "our Government" advisedly—have reverted to the old socialist tax and spend philosophy in which expenditure determines finance. I hope that my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench will explain why he thinks that to change our philosophy fundamentally is consistent with Conservative values My final point is about the Barnett formula. The Bill recites a restatement of the fact that the Barnett formula is there and says, "Isn’t it fair?" My constituents are incensed at the unfairness of the Barnett formula, which results in their paying higher taxes so that the people of Scotland can receive higher public services, with much more spent on those services in Scotland than is spent in England, financed by our constituents in England. Why, when we should be looking at issues that relate to expenditure, are we just saying that the Barnett formula is going to apply? Will my right hon. Friend the Minister say what will happen when the Barnett formula is reviewed or abolished, as surely it must be because it has outlived its usefulness? The House of Lords did a comprehensive demolition job on the Barnett formula, which was brought in years ago as a stopgap—a plastering over of some cracks—and has now almost reached the status of some religious doctrine My right hon. Friend the Minister will not be able to persuade me to do other than vote against this Bill’s Third Reading, because introducing it is a chronic mistake by the Government, and it is even worse that we should be imposing taxes without explaining how we are to spend them. But let me leave that on one side. I hope that my right hon. Friend, wearing his Treasury hat, will be able to explain exactly what the Government are doing to help to constrain and reduce waste in public expenditure, whether it be by getting rid of leases on surplus buildings; by sacking staff who are not productive; by introducing the long-promised cap on exit payments; by stopping the obscene salaries that are paid in much of the public service; or by addressing the problem of all these bureaucrats in the health service who seem to squeeze out productive activity, for whom we are having to pay dearly and are going to have to pay the highest taxes in our lifetimes. Those are the challenges that the Government must face up to if they are to be able to recover not just my support, but the support of so many Conservative activists up and down the country.