Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no doubt that the lessons of history are completely clear. Those countries that grip their problems and deal with them do so in their own time and their own way and in a proactive manner. Those countries that fail to do so end up like Greece and Spain—with socialist Governments—grappling with measures that will be far more severe than anything that we have introduced in this House. I simply remind the right hon. Member for Doncaster North that Lord Keynes, the great Liberal economist who continues to be an economic hero to me, was once famously accused of changing his mind. He splendidly replied, “When the facts change, sir, I change my mind. What do you do?” The right hon. Gentleman’s principal problem today is that the facts have changed and he has not changed his mind. That is precisely the argument.

I would merely remind the right hon. Gentleman of another dictum from a rather great economist—also something of a hero of mine; I should probably be looking towards the Liberal Democrats here—J. K. Galbraith. He served a number of American Presidents, including J. F. Kennedy, and I should point out to the right hon. Gentleman that it was J. K. Galbraith who said that the essence of leadership was for a leader to confront the greatest dangers of the people they aspire to lead. The right hon. Gentleman is not doing that.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I can fully understand why the Secretary of State feels the need to justify his change of position; he has a lot of voters to try to explain himself away to. I can also understand why he makes the argument that some elements of the economic situation in Europe have changed over the past few months. [Interruption.] No, I can see why he might make that argument, but I do not see why that means he has got to change his principles, because I thought one of his principles was that progressive taxation was better than regressive taxation, and that that was why he had a great big poster about a VAT tax bombshell. It is his principles that we are worried about.

[Chris Huhne]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, but I would merely commend to him the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis published today, which looks in particular at the distributional consequences of value added tax. From the tables the IFS has usefully produced—at this point I rather agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills that it would be helpful if we had a PowerPoint presentation pack in the Chamber for the edification of those who seem to be unaware of the evidence—and in particular from the analysis of the impact by decile of expenditure, it is very clear that VAT is not in fact the regressive tax that the Opposition have said. [Interruption.] Please, just look at the IFS distributional impact analysis, as it is made clear there. The reason for that—

[Chris Bryant]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. “Erskine May” makes it very clear that hon. Members should be able to explain themselves without requiring documents that they then want to present to the House. The right hon. Gentleman has just said that Members should look at some document that he is referring to, but we are not able to do so. Should we not get back to the facts?

[Mr Speaker]

It is true that the use of visual aids in the Chamber is disorderly. I am going to be charitable and generous, and interpret the Secretary of State as suggesting that these are matters that people might like to take forward at another time outside the Chamber, but they clearly do not aid the debate in the Chamber now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Huhne]

Quite properly, the hon. Gentleman wants me to anticipate announcements that will be made by the Government in the normal course of events. I understand that game, as I have played it myself on many occasions. At this stage, however, I can merely tell him that I visited Aberdeen recently for the All Energy conference, where I had interesting and fruitful talks with the marine energy specialists currently testing equipment off Orkney. I am deeply committed, as I believe the Government are, to making sure that what is a genuinely interesting source of potential future prosperity and jobs continues to get the support that it needs to get off the ground.

Obviously, we are in very tough times and have had to cut our cloth to fit our straitened circumstances, but I believe that marine energy offers real opportunities. We have made a number of proposals in that regard, and we will continue to support the sector.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Huhne]

No. I said that the previous intervention would be the final time that I would give way before winding up, and I have given way to the hon. Gentleman before.

By the way, I should add to my response to the previous intervention by saying that we have confirmed some of the grants and soft loans made available, for example, for wind energy.