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AMENDMENT OF THE LAW

It is not difficult to see what is wrong with the Budget. It is not just that it was, on the whole, a dire list of reviews and re-announcements delivered with all the excitement of someone reading out a telephone directory, although that did not help. But people watching this Budget for the last hour will conclude that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister live in an entirely different world from everybody else. Every time people refinance their mortgage, it is costing them more. Every time they fill up their car, they are paying more. Every time they shop, food bills are higher. Yet every time they get a tax bill, they are paying more. There was no recognition of that in the Budget. The cost of living is going up and Labour is making it worse. Everybody has now learned the cost of living under Labour. Everybody listening to the Budget will have noticed something else. This Government and the Prime Minister took all of the credit when the global economy was growing, but now there are difficulties, they will not take any of the blame. Here are some of the things that they would not tell us in the Budget. The Chancellor boasted about trade, but he did not tell us that the current account deficit is set to rise to a record £72 billion. That was on page 165 of the Red Book. He told us about investment, but he did not tell us that the rate of growth of business investment is slumping by two thirds. That is on page 163 of the Red Book. He talked about debt as a share of GDP and boasted about his rules, but if we include Northern Rock, debt as a share of GDP is 43.8 per cent., busting his fiscal rule. The Chancellor made one central claim at the heart of his Budget: he told us that Britain is well prepared for economic slowdown. I have to tell him that he is absolutely wrong. As this country enters troubled times, it could hardly be worse prepared. We have the highest tax burden in our history.