Amendment of the Law

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:12 pm on 26 March 2012.

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Photo of Alun Cairns Alun Cairns Conservative, Vale of Glamorgan 7:12, 26 March 2012

I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman asks that question, bearing in mind the scale of the debt that was left, which is the reason for the borrowing. When this Government came into office, a quarter of all spending—a quarter of every teacher’s, doctor’s and nurse’s salary—was being borrowed. Any individual, business or family knows that one cannot continue to spend and spend when the income is not coming in.

There are also economic uncertainties on the European scale, as Mr Darling underlined, as well as global uncertainties. I fail to understand the logic of any Labour Members who have called for tax cuts without saying from where they should be funded. We cannot spend our way out of a debt crisis. Doing so would risk the triple A rating that the Government have managed to maintain and increase the interest rates not only paid by individuals and home owners with mortgages, but that the Government have to pay on the scale of the debt that was inherited. In the next five years, almost £700 billion has to be rescheduled, so the risk to the triple A rating cannot be overstated given the cost that could be added to the nation’s inherited borrowing. Those are the parameters within which the Chancellor has had to work.

Let me turn to some of the specifics in the Budget. Initially, Labour Members focused on the reduction of the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p, and one could ask why they have now changed tack to focus on the age-related allowance. Some might say that they missed it previously, or that they know about their record in that regard. Labour Members are the masters of freezing allowances. The personal allowance was frozen in 2000-01, in 2003-04 and in 2010-11, so the arguments they made last week about the age allowance being frozen would apply to taxation for all workers when the rates were frozen at those times.

Labour Members are showing rank inconsistency. I appreciate that it would be wrong of me to call them hypocritical—I would not be able to do that under the rules of this House—but people outside may well draw their own conclusions. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West did not mention the age-related allowance because when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the last Budget of the previous Administration, he froze the age-related allowance. All Labour Members’ criticisms of the Budget could equally be made against themselves and the right hon. Gentleman. [ Interruption. ] I will happily take an intervention if any Labour Member wants to make a point about the freezing of the age-related allowance at that time. I think the silence speaks for itself.

In the time remaining to me, I underline and welcome the pro-growth Budget, the pro-growth approach to the creative industries and the allowances that have been introduced. I only wish that there was more time to underline the strong message that has been sent out to the whole world: "Britain is open for business. Britain is a place to invest and to work, and you will be rewarded.”