Peter Bone
Main Page: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)Department Debates - View all Peter Bone's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Gauke
The hon. Lady says that the Government were desperate for money-making measures. Why does she think we needed such measures? She might have noticed that her party left the biggest peacetime deficit we have ever faced. The extraordinary thing about the Labour party is that it always believes that there is a magic money tree that we can get money from. I am afraid, however, that we have to take steps to reduce the deficit. Even with these changes, we remain on the course that we set out. This was a fiscally neutral Budget, and we are not taking risks with the public finances, which is the U-turn that the Opposition want us to take.
The hon. Lady asked how a Budget could be changed and why we had departed from what it set out to do. I should like to remind the House what happened four years ago. In 2007, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the doubling of the 10p rate. A year later, his successor had to come to the House—not in a Budget, but weeks later—and set out additional tax cuts of over £3 billion. They had got their policy wrong and they had destroyed their credibility by doubling the income tax rate for the poorest earners in this country. That is an example of a Budget shambles.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The Government should not apologise for making these U-turns. This is parliamentary democracy at work. It is because Members of this House argued strongly for changes in the Budget that such changes have occurred. Let us contrast that with what happened under the last Government. When their own Back Benchers asked for changes, the Government would not agree to them. This Government should be proud of these changes; they should not apologise.