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Concessionary Television Licence (Amendment)
Mr. John Swinney accordingly presented a Bill to create greater flexibility in the definition of sheltered housing that is eligible for concessionary television licences, to reflect developments within the structure and management of sheltered housing: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24 April, and to be printed [Bill 155].
Orders of the Day
WAYS AND MEANS
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [17 March].
Motion made, and Question proposed,
The President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mrs. Margaret Beckett):
It is both a great pleasure and an honour to open the final day of debate on this, the first full Budget of the new Labour Government: a Budget that starts to shape our future; a Budget that is radical and reforming. It begins to heal the divisions in our society and to tackle the weaknesses in our economy--a bold Budget from a Government who, I remind the House, have held office for less than a year.
We came to office pledged to promote economic stability and sound economic management, to restore our public finances and to repair our damaged and divided country. This Budget makes further progress on all those aims. The announcement of a long-term framework for business taxation, following the steps last July to place interest rates in the hands of the Bank of England, contributes to the economic and policy stability that helps British business to plan ahead and which business called on us, when we were in opposition, to promote should we become the Government.
As we have been in office for less than a year, we must remind ourselves and the country of what led the business community to make that universal and heartfelt plea. I refer of course to the economic legacy of the Tory party. Business failures reached all-time highs; more than 24,000 businesses went bust in 1992 alone. Manufacturing investment was at an all-time low. For the first time ever,
we had a manufacturing trade deficit. Interest rates soared to a peak of 15 per cent., and inflation was in double figures. Hundreds of thousands of homes were repossessed, and millions were condemned to a lifetime of hopeless unemployment.
What about the public finances? National debt doubled under the Government led by the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), with interest alone costing income tax payers about £1,000 a year. This was the burden that we were all forced to carry because of the sheer incompetence of that Tory Administration. When we came to power, the Tories were spending far more repaying the interest on their debts--the cost of their failure--than they were investing in our schools.
All week, the Conservatives have been boasting of what they claim is our golden legacy--but what about their golden dowry? They ran up all these debts despite having the full benefit of the biggest windfall gain in our long history. To them and them alone fell the full bounty of North sea oil--£139 billion at today's prices. That was on top of income from privatisations that yielded further billions for the Exchequer. From those two sources alone, the Conservative party had well in excess of £200 billion at today's prices--approaching £30 million every single day for 18 years. What should have been a great opportunity to invest in all our futures and prepare for the next century was instead frittered away on incompetence and dogma.
So much for the idea that the Tories are the party that knows how to run a tight ship. One would think that they would learn from their mistakes--to say nothing of the verdict of the British people on those mistakes--butthe same blithe indifference and ignorance still apply. The same rhetoric is deployed about the wickedness of the minimum wage or the social chapter, as if the British people had rejected, not endorsed, those policies.
The same sleight of hand is displayed in the Tory pretence that we are breaching policy promises which in fact exist only in the fevered imaginations of Conservative Members. In this vein, the Leader of the Opposition claimed to be quoting me when I was attacking certain Tory proposals in 1988 as being the same as the measures in this Budget--when almost the only thing they have in common is the use of the word "credit".
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham):
Does the right hon. Lady think that DM3.06 to the pound is a good rate for British industry? Does she fear that it will mean big reductions in exports, a big surge in imports and a lot of factory closures?
Mrs. Beckett:
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman raised that matter. I shall come to interest rates and the exchange rate later on. I am looking forward today to hearing from the right hon. Gentleman what the Conservative party proposes that the Government should do--
Mrs. Beckett:
I am very pleased to see that. We hope to hear a great deal from the right hon. Gentleman about the policies that his party now supports--because there have been some abrupt and rather surprising changes. When we introduced the competition and spectrum
Then there was the debacle over Chancellor Kohl, which would be almost hysterical were it not so serious. A senior member of Her Majesty's Opposition managed to insult both the City of London and the Chancellor of Germany, one of Britain's most important trading partners, in one fell swoop. This time, the Leader of the Opposition had had enough and hauled the right hon. Gentleman publicly over the coals--sorry about the pun. Now there seems to be a public tug of war about economic and monetary union, and whether policy on it will or will not be softened.
Today, in a fascinating article in The Times--it reads a little as if written by Conservative central office, as if preparing the ground for a policy U-turn--the right hon. Gentleman does at last observe that there will be a cost to staying out of EMU. He says that, when dealing with continental companies,
The article says:
While the Opposition are ditching many of the policies on which they fought the most recent general election, we in government are working to deliver on our proposals, despite, not with the benefit of, their legacy. Make no mistake: whatever they say now, and however glowingly they paint the picture, we inherited what was, in many ways, a shambles. We inherited a health service burdened by bureaucracy while struggling to care for the sick, an education system that was failing our children, and an economy with fresh inflationary pressures after years of opportunistic manipulation for short-term political advantage.
When one inherits a mess, it takes time to sort it out, especially after 18 years; but from day one, the Government have been delivering on our promises. We are delivering a new deal for young people, funded by the tax on the windfall gains of the privatised utilities, opposed by both the largest Opposition parties. That new deal is up and running already in pathfinder projects, and will go nationwide before our first year in office is over.
A Low Pay Commission was established, and had its first meeting within 100 days of our taking office. The National Minimum Wage Bill is already through the House of Commons, and the wage should be in place next year.
We are providing more resources for health and education; we have provided £3.8 billion already.
That it is expedient to amend the law with respect to the National Debt and the public revenue and to make further provision in connection with finance; but this Resolution does not extend to the making of any amendment with respect to value added tax so as to provide--
(a) for zero-rating or exempting a supply, acquisition or importation;
(b) for refunding an amount of tax;
(c) for varying any rate at which that tax is at any time chargeable; or
(d) for any relief, other than a relief which--
(i) so far as it is applicable to goods, applies to goods of every description, and
(ii) so far as it is applicable to services, applies to services of every description.--[Mr. Gordon Brown.]
"The British company has to take the exchange rate risk as the pound will continue to fluctuate against the euro".
As I understand it, the right hon. Gentleman will have our companies facing that type of cost for ever, on principle, which does not seem to be in the interests of British business.
"The compulsory introduction of the euro in some European countries may change some business views of the balance of advantages and disadvantages of a European currency".
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman intends during his remarks to explain whether, as it appears, his position on that is changing.
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