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AMENDMENT OF THE LAW

I do. Perhaps I am not being very clear, but that is what I am trying to say. When the Chancellor becomes Prime Minister, perhaps he will be bold enough to go down the route of developing a fairer and simpler system that people can understand. My problem with tax credits is that while we will always need to give help to low-income families, especially those with a large number of children, any system that is so complicated that people cannot understand it is not sustainable. It would be easy for future Governments to allow the largesse that we are seeing to wither on the vine. If we want a long-term legacy, we need a robust tax system that is fair and that people understand. When people receive benefits, they should understand what they are getting so that they can defend themselves against any attempts to cut them. For children, the bedrock of such a proposal would be a high-value child benefit system. I know that that would reach better-off families, but if we had a progressive tax system, it would be clawed back from their other income. The advantage of child benefit is that it is reliable and understood, so people know what to expect. Although I welcome the Chancellor’s proposed increase in child benefit for the first child to £20 by 2010, I do not think that it goes far enough. The same amount of benefit should be received for second and other children. However, the Budget is good for families. I especially welcome the commitment to the continued expansion of the Sure Start scheme. I also welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to invest in our science base, which is crucial if we are to compete against the tiger economies. We will have to compete on value-added and innovation. The investment that we put into our higher education and research institutes pays for itself and encourages private investment in research and development. If I have had criticisms of the Chancellor over the past 10 years—I suppose that I have just mentioned some of them—my biggest has been the lack of investment in our physical infrastructure, especially in our transport and housing infrastructure. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster seemed concerned about levels of debt. The Chancellor has a prudential rule—I do not think that it is a golden rule—under which a total debt of more than 40 per cent. of gross domestic product is unacceptable. I have asked many questions to try to elucidate the reasons for that arbitrary 40 per cent. figure, but I still cannot get a logical explanation. As hon. Members may recall, the Maastricht criterion for total Government debt was 60 per cent. of GDP. That is rather too high, and it is good that we are well within that. However, if we are keeping our debt artificially low by allowing our public infrastructure to decay, and if we are not investing at least the amount that is necessary to enable us to compete with other countries, not borrowing is imprudent, and borrowing is the prudent thing to do.