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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

I remind the House of my entry in the register of Member’s interests. It is, as always, a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart), who spoke with his customary passion, especially about the lack of detail in the Chancellor’s statement about the NHS. Indeed, he hardly mentioned it. I intend to talk mostly about small business and to echo some of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley), and I shall finish on the environment. However, I wish to introduce my remarks by commenting on the tone of the Chancellor’s speech. It was an undeniably political speech, which is no surprise to anyone on this side of the House and probably not to anyone on his own side, given his ambitions, which he obviously hopes will be realised sooner rather than later. The initial reaction from Labour Back Benchers was positive and the Budget was well received in the Chamber. However, as hon. Members have had more time to reflect on what was said—and, perhaps more importantly, what was not said, but appeared in the detail of the Red Book and the supporting documents—the reaction has been markedly less positive. Indeed, the glee of many Labour Members has started to dissipate. It was the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) who pointed out the logical difficulty for the Chancellor in criticising, in future, the policy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and the shadow Chancellor in relation to sharing the proceeds of growth—a point to which I shall return. This evening, we heard from the Chancellor’s great friend and former Paymaster General, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson), in a devastating speech that damned the Chancellor with faint praise. The hon. Gentleman called the Chancellor ““fundamentally sane””—as opposed to completely sane—which suggests that a large part of him may not be sane. The hon. Gentleman went on to criticise two flagship policies. He criticised the scrapping of the 10p starting rate of income tax—I suspect that he introduced that himself, although I am not familiar with the history of his involvement with the Government—as an inappropriate move for a Labour Chancellor. He also highlighted the problems that will be caused for small businesses by the increase in the rates of corporation tax. It was not exactly a ringing endorsement from one of the Chancellor’s closest political friends. I would characterise the Chancellor’s speech as one in which he blew smoke in order to hide—or to use the colloquial term, to bury—bad news. He put up a mirror in an attempt to reflect the policies of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney and steal his clothes.