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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Yes, he will lose his seat at the election. However, he is right: we have a record tax burden, higher than at any time in our history. It is higher than the last time we had a Labour Government, when half the country was on strike. Instead of following the advice of the right hon. Member for Darlington and reducing taxes, the Budget increases taxes still further. Some £4 billion of taxes on businesses and North sea oil were pre-announced in the pre-Budget report, the zero per cent. corporation tax rate that the Chancellor himself trumpeted in his 2002 Budget has been abolished, and there are iniquitous retrospective changes to inheritance tax. All those tax changes, and 25 others, were absent from the Budget speech, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire pointed out, but they will all add to the complexity of the tax system. Despite that considerable tightening, to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe drew our attention, the Chancellor is still running a budget deficit. It is an extraordinary achievement to have record taxes but still run a budget deficit—and it is getting worse. In the Budget, the Chancellor doubled his estimate for next year’s budget deficit from the one that he made just three months ago. He confirmed that he is set to borrow £175 billion over the next six years. He has mortgaged not just today’s taxpayers but tomorrow’s, too.