Orders of the Day — Budget Proposals and Economic Situation

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 7 April 1960.

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Photo of Viscount  Hinchingbrooke Viscount Hinchingbrooke , South Dorset 12:00, 7 April 1960

If the British are true to their political genius, there will be a Parliamentary crisis before long when the issue is ripe. All external events point to it, and I hope and trust that it will be of the healthy sort such as occurred in the period between 1900 and 1906. Meanwhile, we all go on in the grooves of our gramophone records mouthing the same things without much effect, without great Parliamentary enthusiasm, and without a very notable gallery of listeners.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) is a very good gob-stopper, if that is a proper phrase. My children tell me that it is a delectable sweet, so I do not think that there can be anything very un-Parliamentary about it. He has been put in by the party Whips, as have other hon. Gentlemen, except the leaders at the beginning and end of the debate, at short notice to fill in the time, and to claim a certain amount of attention for the Labour Party, which has nothing to say in this Budget debate because it is not in the least bit roused by it, either positively or negatively.

The speeches that we have heard this afternoon have, on the whole, been extremely sombre, as befits a half-empty Committee. Indeed, the only speech which was scintillating in this debate was the only one delivered to an absolutely packed Committee—except when the Chancellor himself spoke—by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Wilson).

The Evening Standard said of the right hon. Gentleman. Mr. Harold Wilson's speeches on the Budget from the Opposition Front Bench are now established as one of the most attractive events in the Parliamentary calendar. Yesterday, he gave another sparkling performance, assailing the Tories with wit and verve.During the absence of Mr. Bevan, Wilson has added opportunities to secure a dominating position in Parliament. There is every sign that he is doing so.Advancement in politics depends on the skilful playing of all the cards available. Wilson has one particularly powerful ace—his birth certificate. He is only 44. I have often thought that there was a marked resemblance between the right hon. Member for Huyton and Walpole, that famous Parliamentary Whiggish figure. I think that Walpole, when he was 44, was making money speculating on his own account and on account of Queen Caroline in South Sea Bubble activities. The South Sea Bubble exploded the following year, and it is not reported what happened to the fortunes of Mr. Walpole or Queen Caroline.

When he was 45 Walpole became Prime Minister and Leader of the House. If the right hon. Member for Huyton thinks that he has any such opportunity, it is unlikely to be achieved, in spite of some of the shortcomings of the Government to which I will refer in a moment or two. At any rate, I think that Macaulay, whom the right hon. Gentleman quoted against me the other night, probably got him right, as well as Walpole, when he said that he loved power so much that he could not endure a rival.

The right hon. Gentleman's speech was fascinating and agreeable, as has been reported in the Press, and as we all know. It was about the only one that was. From our side of the Committee there have come speeches of marked distaste for this Budget, and from hon. Gentlemen opposite there have been produced speeches of no intellectual content whatever, no excitement, and no enthusiasm. I should like to know how it comes about that that situation is created. It is not very long ago—indeed, it is within living memory of us all—that Chancellors of the Exchequer from both parties in the House produced Budgets that received tremendous acclaim and support from their supporters, and roused elements of direst fury and resentment on the other side of the Committee.

I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, I understand, cannot be here just now—he has been very assiduous in his attendance and one cannot expect to have the most notable political figure on the Front Bench present when one speaks—how it is possible to arrange a Conservative Budget, a national Budget, that does not satisfy the basic political requirements of the House of Commons and does not satisfy tradition.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) regarded the Budget as a fiddling one which gave no lead to the nation. I agree with every word that he used in that connection. What has happened in the higher reaches of the Cabinet? What has happened in the Treasury that a very marked and notable political figure, who, not long ago, came from the back benches of this party with universal acclaim, with great enthusiasm, as a man of the future, has been able to make the sort of Budget speech he made to the country in the last few days? Why is it that there is so little enthusiasm on the benches behind him and no marked discontent on the benches opposite?

Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorney-croft) made an excellent speech, the burden of which was that it was essential, now that expenditure had been sanctioned, passed and was in the process of being embarked upon, to produce a Budget which equated expenditure with revenue and satisfied the requirements of the Exchequer. My right hon. Friend complained that the expenditure was too high. He drew attention, in a way that has not been done previously, to the very strong stand he took two years ago. He helped us to understand that it is necessary to economise in the interests of the nation. I can see the point of view which my right hon. Friend takes—the view that expenditure comes first; that if it is high we must face the unpleasant consequences and produce a Budget to match it—although I shall have something to say on that shortly. But I ask myself whether that is a fundamentally true picture of our finances.

We can put the question in the time-honoured way: which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Can anybody put his hand on his heart and say that the depletion of funds must precede their replenishment, or vice versa? I go to church on Sunday. I do not know whether I go to church to shrive the sins of the previous week, or to give myself grace against the dangers of the succeeding week, and it seems to me just as true to say that the Budget proposals initiate expenditure as it is to say that the expenditure initiates the Budget proposals.

We can stop sinning when we like. I hope that I stopped sinning last October, when I left out of my election address half the Tory manifesto because I thought that it was intolerably inflationary, and would operate against the higher ideals of the British people. I fought my election on something much more moderate, and it apparently worked the trick, because here I am. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) did not start quite so soon. He started not many weeks ago, in connection with the absurd proposal for Government lending to the iron and steel industry. I am not saying that he has never ventured to put forward views on economics before, because he has, and we all know them very well, but on this school of argument he did not start at quite the same moment that I did.