In view of what was said yesterday by the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell), I do not know whether it is by set purpose, Sir, that you have called two successive bachelors, both of whom sit for the City of Birmingham. To the best of my knowledge, neither of us has a private income approaching six figures and, as far as our eligibility is concerned, as we both have reasonably large majorities, the Committee will have a means of judging that in the years ahead. I will not follow the hon. Member for Northfield (Mr. Chapman) on the question of exports, but I am sure that the President of the Board of Trade will deal with that subject when he intervenes later in the debate.

I am very pleased to see the hon. Member for Small Heath (Mr. Wheeldon) with us in the Chamber. I think I am the first Conservative Member for Birmingham to take part in this debate since he spoke, and I should like to say how very interesting I found his contribution to our proceedings yesterday afternoon. He comes here with a very great reputation for work in connection with local government in Birmingham, and I am sure we shall not only have the benefit of his advice in this Committee, but we shall frequently have his assistance in other parts of the Palace of Westminster, also, where the publicity given to our proceedings is much less, but where very much valuable work is often done.

The Opposition have been faced with a very difficult task in this debate because, with one solitary exception which I shall mention, all their usual lines of attack have been closed to them. In the first place, they cannot claim that this Budget puts up prices. I notice that the Ministry of Labour have already announced that as a result of the Budget there will be a slight fall in the Retail Price Index. I am quite sure that the public will judge the Budget by its effect on prices more than by any other single factor.

Secondly, the Opposition cannot claim that this Budget attacks the social services. My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Barber), in his admirable speech last night, made a very valuable point when he reminded the Committee that the Chancellor has not only reduced taxation and lowered the total of civil expenditure by £60 million, but in addition he has actually increased expenditure on the social services by as much as £80 million, including £18 million on the Health Service, and £27 million on education. It was only just before Easter that the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) was accusing my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health of wishing to mutilate the National Health Service. The more encounters that take place between those two right hon. Gentlemen, the better pleased are we on this side of the Committee.

Thirdly, I do not think hon. Members opposite can claim that this Budget will lead to an increase in unemployment, because, as the Chancellor said in his Budget speech, the whole aim of the Budget is to bring out the full production of which we are capable."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th April. 1953; Vol. 514. c. 50.] It really is rather absurd to say, as the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) said yesterday, the Conservative Government in this country, prefers an economy that is not operating in conditions of full employment. He went on to say, on the authority of a certain Professor Galbraith, that these businessmen dislike Government measures to maintain economic activity, because they destroy their own sense of power." —[OFFICIAL REPORT. 15th April, 1953; Vol. 514, c. 291.] I do not know who is the Professor Galbraith referred to. The only Professor Galbraith I know of is the present Regius Professor at Oxford and he is not much interested in public affairs after the reign of King Richard II. When it comes to a question of a sense of power, I do not think any class of the community has a greater lust for power than certain academic economists. In this connection, I hope hon. Members will read—or re-read—a book called "The Dollar Crisis," by Mr. Thomas Balogh, especially the chapter on Britain and the Problem of European Planning, because a book more absolutely steeped in the spirit of a lust for power I have never read.

Fourthly, I do not think anyone can claim that this is a Budget which will only benefit Conservative supporters. If anyone does make such a claim, the electoral prospects of the Conservative Party are even better than I dared hope. Really, the only argument which hon. Members opposite have been able to deploy is the very threadbare argument in favour of penalties on success. I think the attitude of hon. Members opposite was exemplified perfectly yesterday by the reference of the right hon. Member for Leeds, South to the Excess Profits Levy.

I thought we should hear some wisecrack at the expense of the Prime Minister and none of us felt in any way evilly disposed to the right hon. Member because of that. I was even afraid we might have one or two of the staler jokes about the overlords and I was a little surprised that the right hon. Member made no reference to Lord Cherwell. But the main concern of the right hon. Member for Leeds, South was to find out what new burden the Chancellor intended to impose on industry when the Excess Profits Levy had been removed.

That attitude comes very strangely from the right hon. Member, because he once said, in a Budget speech in 1951, that profits should be a reward for efficiency. I cannot therefore understand how he can urge the Chancellor to take a step which must reduce the difference between the respective rewards earned by efficient and inefficient producers. My right hon. Friend believes in lowering the burden of taxation on industry and we on this side of the Committee firmly believe that new wealth has to be created before it can be distributed to anyone.

Passing to the question of Income Tax, I am very glad that yesterday the Financial Secretary reminded the Committee that the lower rates of tax are being reduced as well as the standard rate of tax. This reduction of the lower rates of tax will help many people living on small fixed incomes, and many who have suffered particularly severely from the rise in prices since the war. A second point is that far too many Opposition speakers have tended to speak as though the bulk of the tax relief represented by the reduction in the standard rate will go to individual persons, whereas the Chancellor pointed out in his Budget speech that more than half the reduction in the standard rate will go to corporate industry. He said, in his speech: At current levels of profits and of distributions—and this is why] am impressed by its value for industry—the reduction of 6d. would represent £45 million relief on the undistributed profits of companies—a very potent augmentation of the company reserves available for maintenance, innovation, and development, upon which, I trust, it should be spent."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th April, 1953; Vol. 514. c. 60.] To those who complain that my right hon. Friend did not stress sufficiently that this money should be put to the renovation of industry rather than be distributed in dividends, I say that I do not think he could have gone further in making his views on that subject perfectly clear.

I wish to turn to two points in the speech of the right hon. Member for Leeds, South yesterday. I have listened to every speech he has made in a major debate since I have been a Member of the House. I find him, as a rule, lucid and easy to follow, but there were times during his speech yesterday when I felt a little like the small boy who said "I think I could understand if only you would not try to explain." It rather worried me that every criticism he made, and every argument he advanced, seemed to lead unerringly to the conclusion that the present Budget was just about the one that the nation required.

The first of the two points of his speech to which I wish to draw the attention of the Committee was that he took credit for the fact that 1951 was a year in which we stockpiled at a very rapid rate. It has always puzzled me that the right hon. Gentleman and the Government of which he was a Member should want to take any credit for the fact that they ran down stocks in 1950 and had to build them up again in 1951, just at the time when the terms of trade were turning sharply against us. I never felt that episode to be a happy example of Socialist planning.