Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I want to talk about quite a few things. I might have given a somewhat different speech had there not been a general election looming. I might have kept my speech briefer, because I would have known that we would get the chance to discuss things in Committee of the whole House and Public Bill Committee. But just now, everything seems to be up for grabs and there is no clarity about what we will get to discuss. It is really important to lay out the SNP’s position on several matters so that the Government are absolutely clear about where we stand as they make decisions before prorogation. We are in quite uncharted territory I want to start by talking about the budgetary process and the issues around it. Earlier this year, the "Better Budgets" report was published by the Chartered Institute of Taxation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Institute for Government. They made several recommendations for making the budgetary process better and ensuring that better decisions are made. I have written to ask the Select Committee on Procedure to look at the procedural matters that could be changed to meet the recommendations. The Government have already done one thing; the report suggested that we should have only one fiscal event a year, and the Government have agreed to that. I am pleased that they have done so, and I think it makes much more sense for the planning process, consultation and scrutiny if everything happens in a single event rather than being split over two different events I would also like the Government to consider taking evidence in the Finance Bill Committee. It is a slightly bizarre quirk of the Finance Bill that we do not take evidence in the Committee, and I think it would be really sensible to do so. I know that the Treasury Committee takes evidence, but it is different from the Finance Bill Committee, so the members of the Bill Committee do not necessarily hear the things that are said. I would appreciate it if the Government considered that Generally, I have been fairly critical of the budgetary process, the lack of scrutiny around it and the lack of consultation about some of the measures. Things have been slightly better in the last couple of years and fewer rabbits have been brought out of hats, but that still happens and it still inspires U-turns, as we have seen. This Government and future Governments have a huge amount of work to do to secure better scrutiny of the budgetary process and enable better decisions to be made. Decisions are more likely to stick and to be adhered to if they are good decisions in the first place I want to talk about a few things, including a few things that are actually in the Finance Bill. The elephant in the room, which was not talked about enough at the Budget, is Brexit and its impacts. My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan) covered a lot of that One thing that must not be underestimated is the impact of inflation on households, particularly those that have less than £100 in savings. The statistics show us that nearly 50% of households are in that position. For a lot of people here, who have been relatively comfortably off for most of their lives, it is quite hard to understand that. But it is quite easy to end up without that much in savings. It is quite easy to be a broken-down washing machine and a new car battery away from financial disaster, or to be a couple of months without pay away from real financial problems. As my hon. Friend also mentioned, people in that position do not have the access to debt and credit that they used to have. That is a problem that we are storing up for the future, and things such as the changes around ISAs do not help a huge amount. People can save into ISAs only if they have money to save. Changes to wages and the living wage have been positive—