Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [Lords]

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman keeps talking about the deficit as though it was something that descended upon us. The bottom line is that the UK had a structural deficit. That means that his Government were spending more money on public services than was being generated in taxation, even in the good years, so we were never going to be in a position to start paying off any of our debts, which is why the markets got so concerned about continuing to lend to us. That is a structural deficit, and it is a fact, even if the shadow Chancellor will not accept it, and that is why we have to have a deficit reduction plan in place.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. This is a fascinating debate, but not for today. If we could get back to the specifics of the amendments before us, perhaps we could make some progress.

[Geraint Davies]

I am grateful for your advice, Mr Deputy Speaker, and for the Minister’s intervention. In a way, her intervention makes the case for having growth at the centre of the OBR. I am sure that when she reads her words, which I appreciate were spoken with some emotion and anger, she will wish that she had picked them more carefully.

When we look at the facts and strip out the impact of the international financial crisis, which is about £84 billion in terms of our structural deficit, there was a residual deficit, to which the hon. Lady refers. There was an excess of expenditure over income, but that was taken into account in future planning. There was a savings plan from the previous Chancellor, as she knows, to cut the deficit in half in four years. That was not exclusively reliant on cutting public services and jobs. Rather, it relied on stimulating growth.

The OBR’s estimates of growth have been downgraded. Those higher levels—2.6%—would have provided more fuel to get the deficit down. I recall that the projected deficit in the pre-Budget report was £30 billion less than had been predicted previously. In other words, growth had been occurring faster than was thought. Now it is growing less fast—in fact, it is growing negatively.

[Justine Greening]

Just on the off-chance, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would be able to set out what the £14 billion of cuts were that his party was planning to start in April.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. We are going much wider than the amendments. Could we please confine our comments from now on to the amendments before us?

[Geraint Davies]

The point I was making before I was distracted was why there should be growth in the OBR. What were the previous Government’s plans to get the deficit down? That is what the hon. Lady asked. It is important to recognise that the plans that we had were largely growth plans, which will now not be taken up. I shall give one simple example.

The Government said, “We’ll cut some expenditure. We’ll cut the regional development agencies.” So there I was, going to speak to UK Trade and Industry which, as Members know, is the marketing operation for Britain abroad, about encouraging inward investment and trade with foreign countries. I was talking to UKTI in Germany, as it happens—

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[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. We seem to be skiing off-piste every time there is an intervention and trying to tempt Mr Davies on to territory that is not relevant to the amendment.

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[Chris Evans]

If I was in the hon. Gentleman’s position, I would be more worried about whether I will have a job in four or five years’ time. That is what most people are concerned about, but they are concerned about what will happen in six month’s time—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I will tell Members what I am concerned about: no one is talking to the specific amendments before us. If it is at all possible for you, Mr Evans, to mention the amendments now and again, that really would be very useful.

[Chris Evans]

Thank you for your advice, Mr Deputy Speaker—I have not been here very long.

Getting back to the amendment, it is important that we have the rationale for growth and know how the Government reach their decisions. We cannot talk about this in the microcosm of a dry subject of forecasts. We cannot debate forecasts in this House; we can only debate judgments on how the Government arrive at those policies.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 6, in clause 8, page 3, line 29, at end insert ‘subsequently’.

May I remind the House that by contrast with the amendments in the previous group, which were very narrow, these amendments are very, very, very narrow? I do not want Members to consider that a challenge to see how long they can make a speech on the amendments. May I also remind the House that we have several days ahead of us when we will be able to talk about the economy, growth, jobs, taxation—and they start tomorrow?

[Chris Leslie]

It is early, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I understand your point about the ticking clock.

Amendment 2 seeks to require the Treasury to place in the Library the costing methods, models and assumptions that underpin all the revenue projections, implications, yield estimates and so forth from each Budget announcement. Hon. Members will know that the Red Book produced at each Budget contains a number of costing projections, and there is always a fantastic table somewhere towards the end of the document which gives a sense of the revenue gains or losses, depending on each tax or public spending measure in the Budget.

In Committee, it became clear that the Office for Budget Responsibility will have the right to gain some insight into the detailed methodologies that the Treasury uses to underpin the assumptions and costings. The methodologies are therefore publishable, because they can be transferred to the OBR, and all that amendment 2 seeks to do is to share them with the wider world, and in particular with Parliament, because if hon. Members are to scrutinise effectively the assumptions on which the Chancellor makes various decisions, the methodologies and costings used to underpin those calculations should be transparent.

In order to support full and proper scrutiny, and to ensure that we can debate those Budget decisions effectively, we think it a reasonable request that the Treasury should place those costings and methodologies in the Library. It would be inconsistent, given the Prime Minister’s protestations about

“a new generation that understands and believes in openness, transparency, accountability”,

for those models not to be in the public domain. We should not have to rely on freedom of information requests to elicit such information from the Treasury; if the OBR has it, so should Parliament. The amendment is very simple, and we should not simply have to have faith to trust the Chancellor’s judgments. If we are to have such transparency, we should all be able to see right through to the methodologies, and perhaps to challenge and test them.

Amendment 6, on a different matter, seeks to ensure that the OBR, when it does publish its reports, gives those changes to Parliament first. If hon. Members look in the Bill, they will see a simple clause that states:

“The Office must—

publish the report,

lay it before Parliament, and

send a copy of it”—

I am not sure whether it is to be sent first class—

“to the Treasury.”

All our amendment seeks to do is to place the word “subsequently” after the words “Parliament, and”. In other words, Parliament should have those reports first and the Treasury should get them subsequently—although I do not particularly mind if it gets them at the same time.