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Finance Bill

My point is to draw attention to the scenario—not to wish that it would occur, but to suggest that it would be sensible if we thought that it might, and planned for it, given the horrors that would confront the country if there were nothing in the cupboard at that time. We are in a different position from when we were raising similar sums of money to fight the second world war. Then, some of our allies, particularly Canada, gave us huge sums of money, and others lent us huge sums; they all had surpluses and were keen to lend to us. But now, all of the Group of Eight countries are hoovering the markets to raise money to cover their debts. We are not the only country doing this, and lending to us may not be seen as the most favourable option by people who have money to lend. It is wrong to assume that because we have done this before in wartime, we will somehow be able to do it now. We have to take the view that several major economies are now in the same boat, and it seems reasonable to assume that over time it will get more difficult, not less difficult, to cover that debt. Let us suppose that it all goes wrong—pray God that it does not, but let us suppose that it does—and the Debt Management Office reports to the Prime Minister that money is not forthcoming. What would happen to sterling on the markets the next day? It would collapse, and then what would happen to the well-being and the living standards of our constituents? That is too terrible to contemplate. That is why I tabled an amendment, supported by the Liberal Democrats—I assume, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that we will not get a chance to vote for it—proposing that, given the paralysis on the part of those on the Treasury Bench and on the official Opposition Front Bench, this House should play some part in seriously discussing how we can bring our tax revenue and our expenditure into balance. Let us assume for a moment that the figures that the Government gave us in the tables in the Red Book are right. They assume that by 2012-13 we will all be singing and dancing, and the economy will be back in growth again. Even in those circumstances—again, let us hope that the assumptions are correct—we expect to raise, as a proportion of GDP, a little less than 38 per cent. in tax, but we will still be spending 41 per cent. Today the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has suggested that those figures will not hold—they will crumble—and that in 2012 expenditure will be 48 per cent. of GDP. That means that in each week of that year we will try to offload on to the debt market shed-loads of debt the like of which we have never tried to get buyers for before. We can put our heads in the sand and pretend that we might get through with a bit of luck, or we could, as a House, decide that given the failure of those on the Treasury Bench and of the official Opposition, we should take some hand in planning how we are to try to achieve a greater balance between tax revenue and expenditure. I shall conclude by referring to a matter that I have raised in the House before—the size of the lost revenue for pension savings. In introducing the debate, the Chief Secretary said, I think, that that figure would be £30 billion. If we started to discuss options rationally, not in a crisis where we have to slash and burn the night before the markets open the next day, we could seriously consider what this country does in supporting pensions. We could have a reform that says that we will put ourselves on track to abolish pensioner poverty. In the past, I have made proposals describing how we could achieve that through a funded scheme that would wrap around the state pay-as-you-go scheme. If we did that we would know that, over a 15-year period, the cost of the failure to have serious pension reform, which is currently £15 billion and rising, would be on a downward course. We could say to savers, "Because we are putting in place a guarantee which will take every decent citizen out of poverty in old age, over time—15 or 20 years, maybe longer—we are going to phase out the subsidies that we give through the tax system to try to get you to save in a particular way to get a pension at the end of the day. That won't be our concern, as a Government." That would also provide a civilised way of saying to the public sector, which includes us, "We are closing all public sector schemes to new members." If things do not change, we will, on today's terms, be paying out £90 billon a year to public sector pensioners like me—more than most of the Government's major departmental budgets. Does anybody think that even if we did not have this sort of crisis, we would have the revenue to pay that?