Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Oral Answers to Questions — Electoral Commission Committee
4:40 pm
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby, Labour)
We are doing something to resolve it, and that is to get growth. The only way to bring down borrowing and get the economy moving so that it can bear a heavier burden of debt repayment is through economic growth-all the rest is simple piggy-banking and economic ignorance. If I am going to have to face a chorus of that kind of piggy-banking attitude for the rest of my speech, it will be very unfunny, and I had intended it be as humorous as I could make it.
We have to accept that borrowing is important, and that borrowing by a Government is not the same as borrowing by a household. That is because Government borrowing stimulates the economy, growth and jobs. Borrowing in a recession is a virtue. Indeed, it is absolutely essential, because if the private sector is contracting and credit is tight, and if people are not spending, borrowing is the only way that purchasing power can be kept up, so that the economy can be stimulated. It is simple Keynesianism, and I am surprised that the Tory party seems to have forgotten Keynes.